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Post by travislerol on Jun 24, 2016 22:05:51 GMT -5
Alright, so Resler and I crunched out the remainder of the resources, taking into account comments on the google docs thus far...stuff like pulling out the Mantis was a good call for sure. We also put together a tentative building list of all the structures suggested so far.
Now, the downside. If we want individual players to be controlling resources, we need to keep things kind of tight. Stuff like tracking individual administrators for each building is likely to be fairly time intensive, and...I'd *really* like to get away from aspects like that. The current system, it's influence, which is cool in theory, but often not very player visible(save for color changes) and super time consuming. So, on a certain level, maint is abstracted out into tokens. It's assumed that the koku spent on upkeep includes hiring whatever administrators, peasants, etc are necessary, without tracking them on an individual level for each PC.
Basically, it'll work like this. 1. Player comes to game. 2. Player checks in, performs downtime actions and/or relevant check in skill rolls. Receives any benefits for that. 3. Pays maint listed on sheet, Receives any tokens due for structures(listed on sheet, with location, for easy finding) or whatever. 4. If a player stops keeping up a structure, it becomes damaged, and does not provide benefits. This can be fixed at check-in by paying any one token used to create it in addition to upkeep. 5. At game, players can visit the map room once to purchase units, move units, and purchase structures. This can be done individually, or with others of the clan. This should generally be quite brief. Any new things purchased are listed on character sheet for easy check-in.
In general, because of different scale, structures take the place of cities. Structures DO have mechanical effects, but they are not things that require updating a bunch of squares on a map, nor do we want to have the structures themselves be too detailed. Usually, the name of what it is and the owner/clan color should suffice. One structure per hex in most cases, to keep the map nice and simple, without large stacks of units to sort through.
Going with a player centric resource model also requires that unit counts be low. Simply put, if everyone is running daimyo levels of complexity as in EH, with 100+ units...the map room will not keep up. A couple of units should be more typical, and structures should usually require updating only for purchase.
The various resources take the form of physical tokens, similarly to now(save that they will have the numbers 1-10 printed on them with one of those circled, to avoid the current difficulty of large resource numbers). That way, we do not track basic resources on sheet. Players just trade them, or use them for things in play. We don't manage them, if they lose them, they lose them.
Generally, I see Resler managing the map/playing the Miya role or whatever IC that goes with that, and me managing tokens, resources, and any administrative stuff. With cross training in case someone can't make it of course, but I don't want all the map and resource stuff to fall on just one person. That ends up being a bottleneck.
Strictly speaking, we shouldn't actually need a check-out. There's really no requirement to have a check in and a check out, and we don't need players sheets at the end for anything. If money is collected for site, that can be part of check in, which effectively happens already for downtime resolution, so it can be all compiled into the same thing. Check-ins can also happen early if people show up early, which really cuts down on people waiting.
Thoughts?
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Post by Resler ST on Jun 25, 2016 6:37:06 GMT -5
I would still collect character sheets at the end. In DR if you obtain some permanent status effect or something changes about your character during game that is signed off by a staff member on your sheet they need your sheet at the end to update things. I would like to do the same because we have multiple staff members and we are human, humans forget things sometimes. I see this as being rare/uncommon, but it shouldn't be much work at all to flip through all the character sheets and see if any major changes happened to a character during game (lost limb, disease, disadvantage gain, skill gain, whatever). I also see the potential in updating skills doing this rather than dealing with 20-30 emails a month. Less work we have to do = more time we not only can devote to improving the game but for our own personal lives.
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Post by Charles ST on Jun 25, 2016 7:48:28 GMT -5
I think Koku spent to represent Administration is a good call, as it DOES simplify things to prevent red-tape clusterfucks from happening. Part of my reasoning for wanting Administrator type units is to encourage people to not just use influence for Military units, but also to encourage people to call on their influence to acquire Courtiers and Shugenja (for non-combat reasons as well).
Is there some way we can find middle ground? The idea of a Scorpion acquiring the service of Soshuro Actors to operate their theater is fascinating and seems very potent and appropriate to me.
- What happens if a player doesn't show up to game to pay the upkeep on their structure? Does the structure still get broken, or do we give them a pass because they didn't make it? Can people pay their maintenance fees in advance?
- If we're not going to bother with administrators, the cost and/or upkeep of some of the buildings def need adjustments. Temples, for example, should require not just Koku (for actual physical maintenance), but Influence because unlike a shrine, you'll need a Shugenja (of which a single one should be super-pricey in this system), or a Monk, who also aren't maintained with Koku, but with Influence (Tentatively, anyway). A shrine, however, can be maintained by anyone, so upkeep costs should be rather low.
- Honestly, I'd prefer to give player agency in what they want to build, rather than coming up with a defined list that can't be deviated from. While I understand the general need to have everything pre-designed, players can always surprise us in ways we can't anticipate. Let's limit it to very basic structures, and leave some room for that person who wants to build something outrageous (but cool and story appropriate).
- Part of keeping troop counts low will include a) minimizing resource output of buildings and individuals and/or b) increasing troop costs. Many of the buildings listed just shit out influence, which will most certainly become a problem.
- What happens when someone decides to fill what was the military district with Sake-Houses? We need to decide by what method constructions are going to be allowed. Do we just say no, or do we increase the influence costs? Rememeber, there's a different governer for EACH district, so a SINGLE building comissioner doesn't make sense. Perhaps give each district a type of favored building that has it's influence cost (and make ALL buildings in a district require influence to build - representing that you've earned the favor of that district's governer enough to build there.) That doesn't leave much in the way to have PC's be governors later though so... brainstorm?
- District control - rather than producing influence, some structures can produce control - similar to how the Shuiro-No-Toshi city influence works. Each clan has a percentage of their district they control that totals up to 100%. Controlling a district doesn't do anything other than grant you increased influence. Whether it's incremental or not can be discussed. (For example if the lion and the crane both control 50% of the Imperial District, do we grant influence for reaching a 50% threshold, or only offer it to the Majority?)
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Post by Jim ST on Jun 27, 2016 10:14:29 GMT -5
Some questions and suggestions:
1) How does a player get control of a Hex? Say a party of 8 PCs (one from each clan) jointly investigates a hex. Who gets to claim it? Say they all have Influence to spend on Debris Clearing, etc. Who gets to do so?
2) Regarding the "Sake-Houses in the Military District", I think we can set up some form of "approval" process (Zoning?) for new construction that varies from what was done historically. If you are rebuilding the Military District and want to build a Barracks or Dojo, you can just do so. If you want to put a Temple or Theater there, someone (the Miya? A panel of PCs?) needs to approve that.
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Post by travislerol on Jun 27, 2016 18:05:15 GMT -5
1. Collection at End: That's a possibility. Are you considering requiring that all training be selected at game, and thus, downtime emails are mostly relegated to Q&A type stuff?
2. Units. I'm perfectly okay with some of the units not being primarily, or entirely military in nature. Settlers and stuff will probably exist. What all we have probably depends on what all we want to have units do. In EH, units were primarily a mass combat thing. Here, it seems like we're agreed that mass combat should be significantly less frequent. That changes the unit role away from being stabby blocks of stats, some. I'd propose that each unit generally have both a combat value(some might be miserable) for if it does arise, and some sort of other use, if in an abstract "assisting a PC" role. Perhaps having a unit of magistrates would provide a bonus to appropriate skill draws? This makes them relevant for PCs, including the kinds of PCs that don't do mass combat, even in low unit numbers, without having a ton of map movement. I mean, if they're not moving stuff around on the map for combat, we can mostly ignore map movement of units, which helps a ton.
3. Building upkeep. There's a couple of them that at present have non-koku upkeep costs, for whatever reason. We'll probably have to revisit exact numbers as the rest of the system gets fleshed out, though, because it's likely that as we design everything else, relative balance will change. Just the nature of system building, I'm afraid. I'm not *super* worried about exact numbers on those right now, just about scribbling stuff down so we have stuff to explore. I am okay with a player simply paying upkeep when they show up to game. In general, I think if they get income/influence etc for missed games, they should also pay upkeep for those games, and if not, not. All things being equal, I'd lean towards not, simply because it's lower maint. Of course, if you want to make arrangements for your buddy to use your toys while you're gone, buddy has to pay upkeep to do that.
4. Player Agency. We can totally allow players to build things not on the list. However, having a list gives players some ideas, and gives a basis of comparison for STs, so wildly different values and rules systems are not being used for different PCs for the same thing(this did occur during EH). That sort of thing tends to result in player upset when it is discovered. I think having a good baseline encourages player agency by helping those with less setting knowledge get an idea of what their options even are. I heard, at last game in EH, players surprised to learn they could build a sake works, because they didn't realize it was a mechanical option. Others have literally had them for years. I think not listing out rules can dramatically reduce player agency, and potentially compromise fairness.
5. Yeah, exact numbers are...all kind of fuzzy at this point. That said, you need a housing/business level that does serve as base productivity to essentially take the role of the current settlements, which pay themselves off relatively rapidly, and serve as the basis of the economy. This will eventually result in a game where people have relatively more cash/influence to throw around. All in all, I don't think this was a huge problem in EH, and should be okay here, once we get all the math squared away. A lot of that will depend on other decisions made throughout the system, but it doesn't hurt to think about what kind of progression you wish to see over the course of the campaign.
6. Building appropriateness. I'm okay with this mostly being an IC thing. Districts are large things, and while Rokugon has various disticts, appropriateness can sometimes be fuzzy. Homes can exist nearly anywhere, shrines can exist basically anywhere, and there's a bunch of other examples. If one clan starts to intentionally do ludicrous things, like trying to replace all temples with MOAR BOOZE, I would expect this to draw ST attention, and for appropriately hilarious consequences to occur. Player disagreement over what is appropriate might be a fun source of plot. I can definitely imagine different clans having different priorities, and stuff springing out of that. In general, this seems awesome.
7. District control I'm not so worried about at present. Figuring out how hex control comes first I think. District control seems like a *mostly* prestige thing, and while it's obviously something players will compete for on a clan basis, figuring out hex control is necessary to figure out how that works, I think.
8. Hex Control. Perhaps some sort of influence bidding process? They go, they solve the problem via PC actions or whatever, and control is given to whoever spends the most influence specifically to govern it? This does bring up the ideas of ties, though. Wait, just had an idea. Maybe ties are broken by some kind of stat. Honor, or status, or whatever's most appropriate. It's a good way to give importance to a stat without making resource generation more complicated.
4.
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Post by Charles ST on Jun 27, 2016 19:56:44 GMT -5
Actually, I don't think we need to worry about a 'building commission' or anything like that. Influence is the abstract that says you have the proper connections to build something in a place - and the only one who needs to enforce that is you. If the lion build a barracks in the old Artisan district, and the Crane don't want it there, it's up to the Crane to do something about it. Without Imperial oversight, or really any oversight from your lords, no one's going to be able to enforce 'you can't build there' but other PC's. So let them do it. We can address wanton building by keeping building influence costs high so people will have to think really hard before dropping one, and by capping advantages gained from buildings after a certain number of buildings. (Want to build 50 sake-houses? Fine, you only get the benefit from 5 of them). Below is my pitch for units and how they work.
Other notes on cost, etc. However we work on the influence formula/price units and buildings, we should aim to make sure that the average PC isn't acquiring Samurai units the first few sessions. Someone who's cheesed out to produce influence - sure. But there should be some way to build towards being important enough to being able to command a unit of Samurai.
Unit Types
There are three categories of units
Military units primarily serve to engage in combat and mass combat encounters. Military units will have a higher influence cost than all other type of units (other than mystical), as the demand for military units is fairly high. Military units will also cost more during a time of war. Outside of mass combat, military can also perform the following actions: Clear, Explore. Some Military units have additional special abilities that grant them more utility outside of combat. These abilities will be listed in the individual write-up of the unit. Military units usually consist of 10 individuals.
Political units serve as managers, administrators, and merchants. Political units can order the construction of buildings, they can travel to Kyuden Seppun to engage in politics on your behalf, they can ply the Markets of Otoson Uchii (once they are up and running) for wares or koku, or they can engage in any number of political and social shenanigans. Political units are generally smaller than military units, have no combat value, and have a higher chance of being wounded or killed if caught in combat.
Spiritual Spiritual units consists of Shugenja and Monks. Only spiritual units can order the building of religious buildings such as Shrines, Temples, Grand Temples, and Monasteries. Monks units consist of five individual, and a Shugenja unit consists of exactly 1. Unlike political units, Monk units have a combat value, and do not have a higher chance of being wounded or killed in combat. Shugenja have a higher chance of being wounded in battle, or captured if fighting honorable opponents.
Each unit of Samurai is led by an NPC of School Rank 1 less than the Samurai who acquired it (minimum 1). As you advance in school rank, so do the Samurai under your control. This will largely come into play during mass combats when a PC general is not available.
Unit Actions
There are a number of basic actions that units can perform, listed below. A unit (or a PC) may perform an additional action per session. PC's are considered to have the same abilities as units of the same school. Note: Some actions are considered dishonorable. If a PC delegates a dishonorable task to a unit under his command, he loses honor as if
Build - Political Units can order the construction of a building. In addition, all great clan PC's can order the construction of a building. Explore - Military units or PC's can explore a hex, revealing whatever mysteries within, or triggering an Event. Investigate - Investigating a hex searches for hidden items or units. Investigating plot items was generally yield a result, while there is only a percentage chance of finding stealthed units. Clear - Some hexes will present obstacles that can only be cleared by units. Military units, for example, have the strength to clear certain debris covered hexes. Certain spiritual units can clear tainted hexes. A hex overrun with a violent gang may need to be cleared by a number of military units with a certain military strength. A Courtier unit may be required to quell a riot (or a military unit can be used to do the same). Any unit can clear a hex, provided that the obstacle presented is one that is appropriate for them to clear.
Special Abilities Some units have special abilities.
Ambush- A unit with the ambush special doubles it's combat strength when attacking another unit from stealth. Disguise A disguised unit can appear to be any other unit. It can only be revealed by a perceptive unit or the investigate action. Engineer An engineer unit can perform an additional build OR clear action once per session. Fast- Fast units can perform an additional action in a session. Mercantile- Mercantile units can engage in commerce tasks without their lord losing honor. Perceptive Perceptive units have a percentage chance to automatically reveal traps, stealthed units, or disguised units. This percentage chance stacks with the chance granted by the Investigate action. Stealth - A stealth unit can hide its presence in a hex to keep apprised of what's going on within, or to wait in ambush for passersby. Stealthed units can only be revealed by the INVESTIGATE action or with a unit with the PERCEPTIVE special ability. Jade- Jade units can enter into tainted hexes without incurring the chance of becoming tainted.
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Post by travislerol on Jun 28, 2016 11:26:59 GMT -5
Eh, I don't know that I'm a fan of "obstacle x can only be cleared by units". In the end, it's about the PCs. That feels almost too video gamey.
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Post by Charles ST on Jun 28, 2016 11:30:10 GMT -5
'Only' my not be quite accurate. If you can get a group of PC's together to take on the hostile mob of peasants, fine-do that. But if there's a priority in another hex, or just not enough time to get to it personally, obstacles should be able to be cleared by units.
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Post by travislerol on Jun 28, 2016 11:47:53 GMT -5
Ah, gotcha. As a rule of thumb, I think all obstacles should be clearable by PCs. Some lesser stuff, sure, you can have units handle, but mostly, units only assist, and PCs go in to do the big thing. Yeah, you might need troops to crack a hole in the line for the heroes to get through, but in the end, we want PCs to be goin' on mods.
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Post by Charles ST on Jun 28, 2016 11:59:07 GMT -5
I am not quite with you on that.
It doesn't make sense for a handful of PC's to clear an entire hex from rubble in an ordinary circumstance. If you've got the rank 5 earth Shugenja, sure. Go for it. If all of the strongest PC's get together and are willing to spend their 1 action a game to do it, fine. But without things that only units can do, there's not a lot of reason to use them, which will devalue the Kingmaker/unit portion of the game.
You're right in that players should be able to handle most things, but some things just need to be too BIG for an ordinary PC (or group of PC's). I think we're sort of on the same page - and I think we can find a middle ground.
Mechanically, how about this. A hex cannot be EXPLORED until it is cleared. Clearing a hex generally requires a unit of a type appropriate to the obstacles. A PC can also clear a hex if they have an appropriate skill or power necessary, and some PC's may even be able to bypass this restriction (I.E. Yoritomo courtiers can explore hexes that have difficult terrain).
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Post by Jim ST on Jun 28, 2016 12:00:01 GMT -5
I sense some danger in letting units explore areas. I get that you might need a unit to, say, clear out a ton of debris or roust some low-level bandits BUT that does come at the cost of PC agency. I recall in EH how exciting the Explore action was initially, until I realized that I was uncovering one hex a month, while a standard Cav unit was uncovering a dozen. Sure, I got a 5-min "scene" with an ST and maybe a resource token, but still, it was disheartening.
I think Explore and Investigate should be PC only. Explore "uncovers" the hex, showing terrain and hints of what might lie there. This can be done during Map Time and/or Down Time. (PC submits downtime report: "I'm going to Explore Hex 3A" and then at Check In, gets to uncover that hex, gets told who he ran into during his exploration (other PCs doing the same hex), and given some hints of what he can Investigate.) Investigate is then the "mod."
Units can then follow up with the Clear/Build/Administer actions, etc. after the PCs have done the initial leg work.
To get "Control" of a Hex, maybe we assign points: 2 pt for being (among) the first to Explore it; 1-3 pts for being part of the Investigation of the Hex (ST call, based on difficulty and extent of participation), and X pts where X = Influence Spent. We tally up the totals when the Hex is completely investigated. We can decide whether or not it is possible for someone who have never even been to a Hex to gain control of it simply by spending influence or if they need to have been part of either Explore or Investigate to bid. If it's a Tie, the points are spent and the Hex remains uncontrolled. We can then do effectively a "Silent Auction" between sessions to see who wants it most.
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Post by Charles ST on Jun 28, 2016 12:19:03 GMT -5
I don't think Investigate action should be PC only. A large reason I included them is so that action could be taken to reveal hidden units (as with stealth). Perhaps only units with the 'Perceptive' quality can take that action? That ability should be very rare, as it's going to be largely scout-type units who have it, and there aren't many of those. That way, the clans that have access to those resources can take advantage of it. The only unit type I know should get that ability is the Kitsuki Investigator, but some magistrate units might be able to gain it as well.
Explore - can only be done on hexes that have not already been explored. It will reveal any non-hidden details about the hex, as well as any obstacles that will prevent a pc from safely investigating a hex.
Clear - Clearing a hex can be done in a variety of ways, but it is usually too large a problem for an individual pc to handle alone. Clearing a hex might involve removing debris, cutting down enough enemies to make way for your negotiator to reach the enemy general, providing a group of rioting and angry peasants food, or burning a pile of corpses so they can't be raised as zombies. Generally, a unit can handle most clear actions, or at the very least, create the opportunity for PC's to step in to do it.
Investigate- Investigate action reveals hidden details or plot details about a hex. PC's will have an opportunity to make draws to detect hidden units, and discover story elements about the hex.
Okay, lemme see if this example clears.
I'm Charlie, and I want to explore a hex. I spend my downtime action to explore hex A1. I am then told that hex A1 is covered in rubble. As a player, I have to take action to clear the hex before it can be investigated,.either by using a military unit (specifically in this case because of debris), or by gathering enough other pc's who are willing to use their available actions to do so.
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Post by travislerol on Jun 28, 2016 12:46:34 GMT -5
In general, I do not want the complexity of the map ruleset to approach that of Civilizaton or similar. If there's complex strategy, it needs to be mostly emergent, with the actual units/rulesets being fairly simple. I view EH as roughly as complicated as a larp map game can be, and still be workable. Ideally, I'd like ours to be somewhat less complicated. If we get into a dozen or more keywords, with different map actions associated with them, and we're embracing individual players being able to do these...this puts a LOT of strain on whoever is running the map.
In general, I want PCs to just be able to form a group and waltz into a hex to engage with whatever is there. If someone used a downtime action to check it out, awesome. You get info beforehand, which might be helpful. If not, eh, you can wing it. If you have relevant units in the area, you can be assisted by them to some degree that makes sense.
I mean, you *could* march units randomly into hexes you know nothing about, and have not cleared, but that might be bad if they run into something. Or it might provide info, as if you gathered info in downtime..
But I don't want folks to have to check three exact boxes in order, that ends up being a little complicated. I also don't want units to allow a PC to utterly break action economy either. Like Jim, I quickly became disenchanted with the explore action. The PCs going to the site ends up being the meat of the RP, so we don't want that to be easily bypassed(or particularly hard to engage in).
Consider it with the units in an assist role. If every unit has a combat value, combat encounters the PCs face are reduced by x threat level for every y combat points. Investigate units provide a free raise or something to investigation draws. Downtime actions and NPCs are generally not the main focus, they should provide modest advantages, rather than be a central element. In this model, the vast majority of things are handled by PCs popping into an area to see what the problems are and solve them. If they have eta to order around to handle messy things, well, that's nice from an RP advantage standpoint, but it doesn't greatly affect how the PCs play or solve problems.
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Post by travislerol on Jun 28, 2016 13:02:11 GMT -5
In general, I want to see units no more complex than in the current game, and likely less so.
Your basic ashigaru, samurai, etc...flat combat value. Special crab samurai? Cool, they have better armor, more combat value. Magistrate unit providing a +x to the draw also is super simple. Just look at char sheet, add the bonus. Probably with some cap, because 27 units of magistrates to get autosuccesses is bad. Whoever is running the mods needs to be able to not have to worry overly much about the map, because they probably won't have access to it.
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Post by Jim ST on Jun 28, 2016 13:49:41 GMT -5
Essentially, I don't want units doing what PCs do, because they are going to end up doing it faster and cheaper. I have one PC but can have many units (Faster). I have one PC. If it dies, I start over. I have a unit. If it dies, I buy another one. (Cheaper) I predict the problem will NOT be that the map is being uncovered too slowly, but rather than it is being uncovered too quickly. Ensuring that PCs are the leading/bleeding edge of the sword of Exploration gives us greater control of the pace of the game. Why do we need units at all? To do things that a single PC or group of PCs couldn't plausibly do or wouldn't want to do: clearing rubble, ferrying supply wagons, manning storefronts, managing accounts, etc. I'd vote for NO military units and NO mass battles, personally, but I doubt I can win that vote.
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