Road to Petition

My Liege, is meant to sit comfortably on top of any six-ability, procedure-focused game (OSR games, basically). To that end, it is essentially a new type of turn, familiar to people already used to wilderness turns, dungeon turns, combat turns, etc.

The My Liege, Court Turn occurs twice a year, and flows in this wise:

1. Hear reports of the previous season’s orders.
2. Hear petitions of those seeking an audience with the Court
3. Single-season duties
1. Campaign: Decide which, if any, Vassals will produce luxuries. Return ransomed captives.
2. Harvest: Collect and pay taxes.
4. Issue orders to the Court’s Vassals to carry out for that season

The petition table is really the engine that drives this all forward. It includes chance events, misfortunes, and fortunes that trigger based on decisions the PCs have made, and actions of rival Courts. Essentially, it's the equivalent of Court-level random encounters.

One of my main design goals was low Referee overhead, and this table helps accomplish that by making sure all the other actors stay busy even if the Ref doesn’t spend much time scheming for them (though, of course, they’re free to scheme to their heart’s content). I defined these common orders for the players: assassinate, bribe, build, campaign, muster, negotiate, scout, and spy. Therefore, there are results on the table for the other courts to do similar things.

There are also results for feasts, deaths (sometimes with succession crises), marriages, revolts, famines, monsters, religious complications, luxury trade, and more.

For espionage-style results, they might remain secret if the vassal carrying it out succeeds.

The rule of thumb I've been using is to let the table results stand as long as they don't directly contradict something that's already been established or a plan I already have running in the background.

And finally this is a sliding table - it's a d100 roll, plus the number of vassals loyal to the PCs' Court and all the Favours owed by other Courts. All the most chaotic results are at the bottom of the table, and results above 100 are things that would only happen to a Court with a bit of a reputation. The intent is to inject some dynamism, making it feel like the world is reacting to the Court's power.

My main outstanding question with this is how many petitions to roll for each Court Turn. Right now, it stands at 4, with a chance for more with particularly powerful Courts.

Muster-y Machine

Inevitably, My Liege, is in part a response to the BECMI Companion set from 1984 by Mentzer, Niles, and Spiegel. Their dominion rules go in a completist direction, including specified population sizes grouped into three densities, monthly population increases, incomes of several types including those based on a variety of natural resources, etc.

The rules for war - called the "War Machine" in a rare instance of catchy branding (for these books, anyway) - is a high-level strategic affair. You calculate a rating for each body of troops using, by my count, 28 different variables, then add it to a d100 roll, and compare results to determine the outcome of a battle. There are even further modifications to account for sieges and battle tactics. 

It's not particularly difficult to wrap your head around, and the detail resolution is impressive. I can imagine more than a few 80s nerds went into mathematical modeling after being exposed to equations like these for the first time in games.

Actually, looking back at the Machine now, I can see that My Liege, followed its philosophy pretty faithfully, but I had a few goals of my own:

1. Establish a seasonal rhythm of battle
2. Tie military forces to holdings and especially to vassals
3. Low mental load for resolution while still supporting flavorful, flexible emergent narrative

Seasonal Rhythm

In My Liege, as in many feudal systems, there's no standing army. As I said in my last post, the rules are broken down into Campaign Season (Spring/Summer) and Harvest Season (Fall/Winter). If the players want to make war, they need to decide that during the Harvest Season and order vassals to muster warbands. Then they issue actual military orders during the Campaign Season. Warbands can remain mustered indefinitely, technically, but at the expense of being able to collect taxes from that vassal's holdings and putting it at greater risk for a revolt.

Holdings

When a vassal musters a warband, they pull one "company" from each hex in their holding. I'm keeping these terms vague on purpose, but companies are equal-HD blocks of troops of a single type. The default assumptions are things like spearmen, bowmen, men-at-arms, etc. Any type of company can come from any type of hex, but I'm asking DMs to roll for hex features, which include incentives to muster a certain type of company from the hex. For example, here's the forest table:

d12	Forest
1	Luxury: truffles
2	Luxury: mead
3	Luxury: boar
4	Strong Hacking Arms: +1 Battle Roll to men-at-arms companies
5	Fade into the Trees: +1 Battle Roll while fighting in forest
6	Led by Seers: +1 Battle Roll if outnumbered
7-8	Town
9-12	No feature

Vassals

When it's time to fight, vassals lead their warbands in battle. They need to pass a test like the order resolution system I talked about last time, with Charisma as the primary ability and either Strength (for attackers) or Constitution (for defenders) as the secondary ability. This determines how much of their warband's full strength they're able to utilize effectively on the battlefield.

Battle Rolls

To resolve the battle, each side adds together the number of companies they're able to bring to bear (based on the vassal tests), bonuses for defending, having the most different types of companies, and based on their hex of origin, then rolls d10 and adds it to the total. The highest score wins the battle.

Next, it's time to test Dexterity to determine the aftermath. The greater the gap between winner and loser, the more likely it is that the losing leader will be captured, to be ransomed back the following year.

Example

Let's put this together:

Sir Jannis the Loudmouth musters a warband from his 2-hex holding Glenwode to defend against invaders. It consists of a company of men-at-arms who hail from a forest full of Strong Hacking Arms (+1 to the Battle Roll) and a company of bowmen. He has a Charisma of 14 and a Constitution of 12.

He passes his test of Charisma, but fails his test of Constitution. This means he effectively utilizes 3/4 of his warband, rounding up - so both companies.

Therefore, his score is: 

2 companies 

+ 3 for defending from his stone castle 

+ 1 for Strong Hacking Arms 

= 6

The DM rolls d10 and gets 9, for a total Battle Roll of 15.

Baron Dogon the Merciless of 3-hex domain Keening and Lady Lilith of 4-hex Fayre Vayle are invading. Baron Dogon's warband consists of companies of horsemen, halberdiers, and skirmishers (who come from a forest with a tradition of Fading into the Trees). His Charisma is 8 and his Strength is 12. Lady Lilith's warband consists of mounted archers, magic-users, men-at-arms, and spearmen. Her Charisma is 15 and her Strength is 10.

After testing Charisma and Strength, the Baron fails both and can only effectively utilize 1/4 of companies, rounding up (1 company). Lady Lilth passes Charisma but fails Strength, so can utilize 3/4 of her companies well (3).

The score for this side is: 

1 for the Baron's companies 

+ 1 for Fade into the Trees (assuming Sir Jannis's castle is in a fores) 

+ 3 for the Lady's companies 

+ 1 because she has the most different types of companies 

= 6

The DM rolls d10 and gets 4, for a total Battle Roll of 10.

The defenders win by 5, and we move onto the aftermath.

All leaders test Dexterity (Sir Jannis DEX 8, Baron Dogon DEX 13, Lady Lilith DEX 10):

• Sir Jannis rolls a 4, which is within the difference in scores. Because he won, this means his warband fought well and can add 1 to further Battle Rolls this season.
• Baron Dogon rolls 16, above his Dexterity. This means his warband was routed and may not fight again this season.
• Lady Lilith rolls 5, also within the difference in scores. Because she lost, this means that not only were her forces routed, but she was taken captive!

Hopefully all of that makes sense. There's much more to say about My Liege, so I'll be back soon.

My Liege,

While the plan from the previous post is still in effect, the timeline is not. I'm happy with what I've written for the adventure so far, but I've contracted a touch of writer's block. I've learned my lesson and won't be estimating completion dates for creative work again.

On the other hand, I've had a burst of ideas for feudal domain management, and they're starting to cohere into a set of rules that can overlay any RPG that uses the traditional six ability scores or close analogues.

These rules are central to the vision I have for The Red Ledger of Brechewold, so it allows me to make progress on that front. However, since the rules do seem to be flexible and robust, I think I will publish them in their own right, sooner than later, entitled My Liege, (comma intentional).

The central conceit is that everything must be done through vassals - construction, diplomacy, espionage, and warfare. The PCs issue orders to vassals twice a year: once for the Spring and Summer ("Campaign" season) and once for the Fall and Winter ("Harvest" season). The DM resolves the orders by rolling two ability checks for the vassals: a "primary" and a "secondary" ability depending on the order, and consulting this chart:

	Primary passed	Primary failed
Secondary passed	Order succeeds	Order fails with a silver lining
Secondary failed	Order succeeds with a complication	Order fails with the worst-case scenario

So the vassals need ability scores, and the DM should play them so the PCs have some idea of their strengths and weaknesses.

I defined primary and secondary abilities for a bunch of common orders, but DMs can resolve any order the players can think of by agreeing on what the primary and secondary abilities should be to accomplish the thing. The exception is warfare, which works slightly differently. I'll discuss it in a future post.

The PCs receive taxes in abstracted units that I'm calling Crowns for now, and they can gain even more wealth by ransoming captive enemy vassals or by pillaging. They pay some of this wealth in taxes and use the rest to issue orders.

The other currency for the domain to track is Favours. This is their concretized standing with other feudal courts of similar rank. It is gained by subordinating warbands, opening trade routes for luxury goods, and feasting.

The main mechanic addition is the Court Turn. Twice a year, at the start of the aforementioned Campaign and Harvest seasons, the PCs hear reports of the previous season's orders, petitions for this season (the domain equivalent of random encounters), collect taxes, and issue orders.

The whole thing is very high-level and more about delegating power. I didn't want to create a micro-management sim where players are worrying about every granary. The only real economic management is luxury production, and the political economy centers around feasting and warfare. These are deliberate choices to put the players in the mindset of feudal nobility.

I will be back before too long with more as I make progress here.