Creating NPCs

Because my game uses a central mechanic based on a skill system, creating NPCs out of whole cloth was originally rather challenging as I needed to think through how much training the individual might have received and in what context in order to evaluate what skills they had.  I had a revelation while refining the Bard tables for my world (I'll post the revised tables when I'm done) that I'd like to share here.

As you may recall, my discipline system has 6 tiers of skill: novice, apprentice, journeyman, specialist, master, and grandmaster.  If I were to translate them to a 20-level system, I might do the following: apprentice is 1st level, journeyman 3rd, specialist 7th, master 12th, and grandmaster 18th, and the number of people of each skill level drops dramatically with each tier.

I'm representing that by rolling 5d10 for each discipline (or, if I'm low on time, for clusters of disciplines based on the NPC's trade).  Each 10 rolled increases the tier by one, with a resulting 1/100,000 odds for a grandmaster skill level.

I have a wide list of trades (I've edited the list since I last talked about them) and by placing the NPC into one of them, I can determine their general skill of competency in all the affiliate disciplines of that trade by reducing their tier by one: if I get a Master soldier, then one of their disciplines will be master tier and the rest will be specialist.

This gives me a handful of dice to roll for any character and quickly determine their abilities.  For NPCs that I know will be more powerful, I might raise the base level of their skills to Apprentice and see how much better they are on top of that with the same roll.

Random Skeleton Mutations

This is from a while ago, but I figured I'd share it.  It's a d20 table of random skeleton mutations to make skeletons more interesting.  I ran a skeleton one-shot a couple of years ago, where everyone played a skeleton defending their crypt from adventurers.  Every time they leveled up, they rolled again on the table.  It was whimsical, stupid fun.

Die	Mutation
1	Extra set of arms or legs
2	Jewel in eye that shoots rays of death
3	Jewel-encrusted cutlass
4	Horns and tail
5	Bat wings
6	Projectile hands, operate independently when detached
7	Top hat and cane - learn bartitsu
8	Skeletor powers - scepter that causes localized earthquakes
9	Part-swapping/self-bone-graft
10	Calcium strength boost (when eat a bone/drink some milk, hulk out!)
11	Skeletal telepathy - can control other, unawakened, skeletons
12	Supernatural fear power - terrifying grimace, scary laugh
13	Rib knives
14	Skull can float independently of the body
15	Dick van Dyke skeleton - musical body
16	Fire-breathing
17	Enervating touch
18	Disease carrier
19	Wear the bodies of dead men
20	Wolverine claws/adamantine skeleton

Enjoy.

The Persuasion System

The last time I wrote about Persuasion, I was agreeing with Alexis' comments that one of the major drawbacks of most social mechanics in tabletop roleplaying games, the reason why they fail to 'work,' is their lack of meaningful consequences for failure.

The proper consequence for a failed social interaction is to lose agency in some way proportional to the scope of the party's original request, either by agreeing to undertake some (undesired) action or immediately facing consequences for their persuasion attempt (getting into trouble with the local authorities, etc.).

But before I get to talking about outcomes for Persuasion, I want to outline how the whole process works.  My original approach, drawing from my theatrical training, was a beat-by-beat approach, focusing on specific tactics employed by  both sides.  What I realized was that this was the equivalent to asking players whether to slash at the left bicep, left thigh, or go for the low torso strike each round - far too granular to create a workable system.

My current approach is drawn from how persuasion is often conducted by professional persuaders (salespeople, lawyers, swindlers, etc.), as detailed by Lunamanser's response to this question, and corroborated by some basic Bing searches.

There are potentially four stages to any Persuasion attempt: the pitch, discovery, the proposal, and refutation.

The Pitch

This is the process' starting point - attracting the interest of the party you are trying to persuade and outlining a very general idea of your proposal, convincing them that they should at least take the time to hear what you are saying.  This is an Orator or Mountebank test against the Ascetic discipline of the targeted individual, affected by the reasonableness of what you want, the status/privilege differential, your reputation and relationship with the target, and similar factors.  Success means you can move on to the next step, while failure at this point means the attempt is over (with no negative consequences).  You can try again but would need some way of further enticing them to listen.

Discovery

In order to successfully persuade someone, you have to know what they want and how much they are willing to give.  Discovery is the step in which these two things are, well, discovered.  Borrowing from the language of psychics and mentalists alike, we have hot readings, cold readings, and warm readings.  A hot reading requires researching your target, by sneaking into their home, asking questions of their business associates, family, and/or servants, etc.  Cold reading, on the other hand, is learning information about the target while talking with them.  Test Grokist (from Heinlein's grok, of course) against their Ascetic discipline.  Success reveals what the target wants (their hopes and fears, etc.), failure does not.  A warm reading employs both hot and cold readings, gaining benefits from each.

The Proposal

Combining the Pitch and what you've learned from Discovery, the proposal is a deal between you and your target, where you suggest some way of giving them what they want while you gain what you want, testing Orator or Mountebank against their Ascetic discipline, modified by how their potential gain and risk balance out, as per the table below.  If you offer something not desired by your target, they might still be swayed, but their gain will be measured as one or two categories less (depending upon the difference between what was offered and desired).  Thus, while for low-risk or low-cost actions, research is not particularly required, the discovery step is crucial for high-risk or high-cost actions.

				Risk or Cost
Gain		Extreme	High	Medium	Low	Negligible
	Extreme	1 step harder	As-is	1 step easier	2 steps easier	3 steps easier
	High	2 steps harder	1 step harder	As-is	1 step easier	2 steps easier
	Medium	n/a	2 steps harder	1 step harder	As-is	1 step easier
	Low	n/a	n/a	2 steps harder	1 step harder	As-is
	Negligible	n/a	n/a	n/a	2 steps harder	1 step harder

Remember that costs do not have to be physical - religious and personality costs also need to factor into this equation.

If the test is successful, then the Persuasion attempt has concluded, and the agreement has been agreed-upon.  As long as you do your part, they will do theirs.

Refutation

If the test is not successful, you move to the Refutation step.  You get one chance to modify the offer to somehow make the target's position better (increasing their gain, reducing their risk, or both).  If this is successful, then the target agrees to the new deal and will deliver on it, as long as you do the same.  If this fails, then the target is unmoved by your rewards and, depending upon what was asked and what was offered, may tell the authorities, other folks in the same line of work, etc. - whatever will most thwart the your stated goal.

This process, superficially, bears very little resemblance to most social mechanics I've seen in other RPGs.  However, I think this is a much more workable solution to a meaningful social mechanic.  The trio I've seen in many RPGs, Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate, are very distinct, but consider your favorite thriller movie or TV show - when a character is threatening another, how is the skillset used different from when they are making a deal between equals?  If they are lying or bluffing, how are the skills required for this different?  In fact, using diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate are only clearly distinct if we think of them as intentions, rather than actual mechanical skills (emotional self-control, choosing the most effective words, physical awareness, power-awareness, etc).

Scenario #1: Bribing the [guard, clerk, maid, whatever]

The party's most diplomatic character walks up to whomever and makes the Orator or Mountebank test (Orator if being essentially honest, Mountebank if concealing their identity or employing some other form of falsehood).  If they succeed, great.  If not, then they show the bag full of coin and retest.  Discovery is not important here, because this is a low to medium risk scenario for the target; except in remarkable circumstances, the worst outcome is losing one's job or some reputation.  While absolutely undesirable, definitely something that can be overcome, especially with some financial assistance.  The players have access to the above table and so decide to offer a 'high' reward, a month's wages, to the target (not spare change to the party, but not a huge loss, either).  If this failed to work, they could up the ante to 6 months or 1 years wages in the Refutation step.  They make the final Orator/Mountebank test, promising to hand over the funds in exchange for whatever favor they need, and proceed as usual.

Scenario #2: Intimidation

In any intimidation scenario, the party is balancing the target's fear of being killed or brutally beaten (or having sensitive information released) against the cost of whatever favor they ask.  In this case, the Orator or Mountebank test in the Pitch is about convincing the target of the party's willingness to follow through on the threat (with Orator for a party genuinely willing to do so, or Mountebank for a party that is not [or does not have the blackmail material]).  The potential consequences for failure at this stage are not very high - if they fail the initial test, then their target believes they are either lying or just a bunch of fools - some minor consequence might result (spending the night in jail or being fined) depending upon the intended target.  If successful, though, the process moves onto the Proposal.  Here, gain will be somewhere between medium and extreme, depending on how much that person values their physical safety (finding out who would be most vulnerable to intimidation would come from a successful Discovery step).  As before, balance the costs with the benefits of not being mincemeat, roll the final test, and see where it stands.

Ultimately, this process can take only two rolls, for simple requests like the two presented above - one to get the target's attention and one to conclude the deal.  However, it can also accommodate more involved, delicate proceedings with a better handle as to when, how, and why communication might break down.  Lastly, there is only one step where the players' failure only means that they do not succeed (and even then, they have to raise the stakes and offer something more meaningful to try again, so they are absolutely set back).

One last thing is that NPCs with agendas can absolutely make use of this process against the players, too, with one exception - the players can control who to whom they listen.  Being honest, though, as a DM, your job is controlling what your players find interesting, so that shouldn't be too tricky.  If the players fail that final test, then they have agreed to whatever course of action the NPC suggested.  If the players can force NPCs to lose their agency and do as the players wish, the NPCs can force the players to lose their agency and do what the NPCs wish.

My regular game is on standby for the next little while, but I'll see how this approach works when I next get a group together.

Status and Privilege

After doing some more research on the topic of Persuasion - my social resolution mechanic - I think I'm ready to roll out some rules.  The first, and most important part of the groundwork is coming up with a mechanical way to figure out how status and privilege affect the persuasion attempt.

As I looked at other RPGs for rule suggestions, I came up essentially empty.  The reason for that is that status is intimately connected to the culture in which the interaction is happening.  Thus, rather than one status system, I need one for each culture: Archivists, Areinians, Bairnedred, Ferocia, Southerners, and Tarluskani (with the Confederacy being lumped in with the Tarluskani).

Level	Archivists	Arein	Bairnedred	Ferocia	SK	Tarluskani
0	Non-Archivists	Unemployed poor	Non-elders	Non-Ferocia	Confederate slaves	Confederate slaves
1	Exiled Archivists	Employed poor	Elders	Regular Ferocia	Rural commoners	Nonhumans
2	Apprentice Archivists	Scribes/barristers		Tribe elders	Urban commoners	Southerners, Areinians
3	Regular Archivists	Merchant class			Nobility, priesthood	Ethnic Tarluskani
4	Conclave members	Oligarchs			Beacons	Tarluskani military
5						Generals

The way this works is by first determining in which social sphere the persuasion attempt occurs, and this generally will occur in the context that gives the most advantage to the target of the persuasion (unless this person is wildly out of their area of expertise).  Additionally, if the persuader is in a group of individuals, they will assume the lowest status of anyone in their group.

Here's an example: the party, which comprises of 3 Southerners and a Bairnedred, is attempting to persuade a Tarluskani guard in Reyjadin to let them into the city after curfew, when the gates have been shut.  This is a Tarluskani operating within their official capacity, so the interaction will use the Tarluskani frame of reference.  The guard has a status of 4, whereas the party (with their Bairnedred companion) has a status of 1.  Since the guard has an effective status of 3, all of the party's attempts to influence the guard come with a -3 penalty.

This -3 works in my game, with my skill system.  For a d20-based system, I'd recommend doubling the modifier, to -6 in this case.

A New Skill System

Prodigy, like GURPS and Runequest, is a fully skill-based system, using the same skill mechanic for almost every mechanical test undertaken by the players.

There are four skill systems that I've seen used - d20, 3d6, %, and dice pools.  The d20 system works by rolling 1d20, adding modifiers, and then checking the modified result against a target number determined by the task itself.  What's nice about this system is that the difficulty of the task is directly incorporated into the check, as is the character's skill.  However, the d20 roll is hugely variable, and the chance of critical failure and success are the same no matter one's level of skill.

The 3d6 system (and OD&D's ability score checks work the same way) require rolling your dice (3d6 or d20) under a number determined by the character's proficiency with the skill: so a GURPS character with an 11 Merchant skill would need to roll an 11 or less with 3d6 to succeed a given check.    The bell curve provided by the 3d6 means that results are generated much more reliably.  However, the mechanic does not provide a transparent way of incorporating the difficulty of the task into the check itself - you can add modifiers to the character's skill, but it is a very ad-hoc way to do this.

The percentile system combines some of both of the previous two approaches: characters' skills are ranked 1 to 100.  To test a skill, percentile dice are rolled, and the check succeeds if the dice roll under the character's skill level.  There are some cool number games that can be done here, like special effects on doubles rolled under or over a character's skill level and so on, but it combines the wide variability of the d20 with the fixed difficulty of the 3d6, and so has the aspect from each previous system I most dislike.

The dice pool system gives the player a number of dice equal to their level in the skill, and assigns a strict possibility of success (say 8, 9, or 10 on a d10 or 6 on a d6), with more beneficial results occurring when more successes are rolled.  Thus, a player rolling three d10s might think they have a fairly good chance of getting at least one success.  The odds of success, though, are deceptive (rolling three d10s with success on an 8, 9, or 10 conveys only a 65% chance of any successes, with 4 dice bringing the chance only to 75%), and the system has the highest degree of variability of all the systems, since dice that don't succeed are either merely useless or actively bad (if they roll a failure).

Now, I feel that as one becomes more accomplished with a skill, not only can they accomplish more difficult tasks, but they can also accomplish all tasks more consistently.  I also want my system to be able to concretely incorporate the difficulty of whatever task a player attempts - I want challenging tasks to be challenging and easy tasks to be easy, and I want both of those things to happen with a minimum of ad-hoc adjustments.  I also want it to be fairly uncomplicated - no involved table lookups or complicated math.

The way I've accomplished this is by combining many of the approaches together.  As I've said before, I rank a character's level of skill in one of 6 tiers: Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Specialist, Master, and Grandmaster.

Skill tier	Dice Rolled	Difficulty Value
Novice	1d6	6
Apprentice	1d6+1d4	9
Journeyman	1d6+2d4	12
Specialist	2d6+2d4	15
Master	2d6+3d4	18
Grandmaster	3d6+3d4	22

This approach borrows from the dice pool system in that as more skill is obtained more dice are rolled.  However, unlike the dice pool system, all dice matter - they are summed together and checked against the task's difficulty value.  Because more dice produce a stronger bell curve effect, the expected value of each die roll is 3 less than the difficulty value of a task of equal tier (because of adding in aptitudes, which are scaled from 1 to 6), which means that increasing skill not only increases the overall total, but it also increases consistency when performing tasks.  Lastly, by assigning difficulty values for targets, the task attempted by the character now absolutely factors into the test.

Moreover, when circumstances change, I can alter the difficulty of the test in one of two ways: I can add or subtract 1 to the DV for minor things or I can change the tier of challenge for larger difficulties.  My options for changing the circumstances of the die roll are restricted because of this tiered system.

While I've yet to run a real game with these rules, I've run several oneshots and combat scenarios, and the mechanic has worked exactly as I like it to, but I'd welcome any thoughts folks have on it.

D&D Modern: the Demi-Monde

My players and I ran through the third scenario in our world-choosing spree a while ago, and while I will talk about it later (it is a distant area in the World of Prodigy), we ended up choosing the first setting, the demi-monde, set in the city of Tashkent with fantasy-horror themes.

The engine that I used for all three is Lamentations of the Flame Princess, one of the more popular retroclones around.  However, its fixation upon traditional adventuring activities within a quasi-medieval setting and the utter rigidity of its class system left something to be desired when running a game set in modern times.

I'll talk about the economic system I'm using in the next post, so here I'll talk about the game rules I changed to adapt LotFP to the setting.

The largest changes are to the characters.  In a modern game, character skills are both much more disparate and more evenly distributed between the characters - you can have characters knowledgeable with forensic science, arson, gun technology, and driving.  Trying to list each potential skill leads to the kind of dysfunctional complication one finds in GURPS, so I've left it up to my players to define what skills their character possesses, giving them only a limit to the number of skills they can learn.  Furthermore, each character would be expected to have a variety of skills, not just the specialist/thief-type class, and the knowledge available would often be independent of their particular specialty (the fighter character could easily know about electrical engineering while the specialist might be an expert gunsmith), which makes my previous approach, Alexis' sage ability system, not immediately workable.

My current approach, which still needs more work, splits my four classes into pairs.

Fighters and Specialists are mundane individuals who were drawn into the demi-monde incidentally and are two halves of the same coin.

At first level, each class chooses 4 skills.  Fighters must choose 3 fighting-related skills (more on that in a bit) and specialists can choose no more than 2 fighting-related skills.

At each subsequent level, fighters can improve two fighting-related skills or a noncombat skill, and specialists can improve two noncombat skills or one fighting-related skill.

Currently, the fighting-related skills are different groupings of weapons that are used in a specific way.  They include: Wrestling, Bludgeons, Knives, Thrown Objects, Pistols and Stunguns, Rifles, Automatic Weapons, and Specialty.  With the exception of the Specialty skill (which provides training in a single, unique weapon), each skill provides an increased attack bonus whenever using the appropriate weapons - a character with two ranks in Knives would add +3 to their attack rolls when using one (since every character begins with a +1 attack bonus).

A noncombat skill is any skill that does not immediately impact combat.  Depending upon the skill, each point invested increases the odds of success by 10-17% (mainly this determination is whether the skill in question is dependent upon the character's abilities or independent of them.  Dependent skills require rolling under the appropriate ability score, increasing that ability score by each point in the skill, while independent skills requiring rolling 1d6 and hoping to roll equal to or less than the number of ranks acquired).

Witches and Luminaries are people blessed with profane or divine powers and have sought the demi-monde out for their own purposes.  While they receive no skill points, they are deeply knowledgeable about the occult, religious lore, and so on.


The last major hurdle to handle is that of firearms.  I've attempted to maintain the weapon damage scaling of LotFP to firearms, which makes them particularly lethal.
Pistols and autopistols deal 2d4 damage.
Rifles and automatic rifles deal 2d6 damage.
Shotguns deal 2d8 damage.
Sniper rifles deal 2d10 damage.

Automatic weapons attack spaces, not creatures, and all creatures within the targeted space must save v. Breath Weapon or take full damage (they take half damage on a successful save).

I've also created a Sanity mechanic similar to hitpoints, but sanity is only recovered through engaging in life-affirming activities - playing soccer, admiring art, getting drunk/high, watching a movie, etc.  I'll talk about that more, later.

What is a Class?

In traditional Dungeons and Dragons, the first physical step of character creation is to roll some dice to determine your new character's ability scores (there is often a step 0 before this which is envisioning the type of character you might want, but I'm omitting it for now).  The second step, depending upon the game's edition, is to choose their race, and the third is to choose their class.  For a number of people, this is really the same step - the benefits and disadvantages for the different races are often self-selected to match the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen class, so that the character can more strongly excel in their areas of specialization (making sure that Fighters have high Strength and Constitution scores or Wizards have a high Intelligence score, for example).

Choosing the class is, from a mechanical standpoint, the most impactful decision made during character creation, to the point where it is the defining descriptor for that character: "Oh, I'm playing an assassin this time."

EDIT: OD&D had the fighter, mage, and cleric.  Thieves were added in the Greyhawk expansion somewhat later.

In OD&D, there were three classes (I'm using the more modern terminology): fighter, mage, and thief.  They are intentionally generic and comprise a huge variety of stereotypes and associations.  The cleric was the fourth addition to the mix, and it brought with it a huge shift in perception - the cleric's signature abilities, its spells, are drawn from the list of miracles associated with Christian theology - curative powers, blessing the faithful, providing food and water from nothing, raising the dead, etc.

Now, the cleric is billed as a holy leader for any of the different faiths one might encounter within a fantasy world, but a cleric's powers are quite different than one might expect from a Shinto priest or medicine woman.  Using the class to model such a person is whitewashing the game world.  This begs the question: should there be a Shinto priest and medicine person class, then?  If the existing class doesn't work, and we have people with these compelling and very different abilities, shouldn't they have a class?

In other words, should the setting dictate the classes that are available?

The Ferocia have a tradition of spies and insurgents that operate as part of their larger military force, the Custos.  Their skillset is quite similar to that of a thief, with an emphasis on infiltration, assassination, and forgery.  Should there be a Custos class and should I restrict all Ferocia from being thieves, in favor of this more specialized class?  Should I allow other races to become Custos?  Should this class be available for players to use?

The Sohei are a loosely-organized group of wandering warrior-monks dedicated to spreading peace by beating violence out of would-be miscreants.  Through their devotion to peace, they are able to suppress violence in others, but they can fall back upon their considerable martial training if this ability fails them.  Should there be a Sohei class, as Sohei possess a very distinct skillset combining aspects of the fighter and medium (the class of peace-bringers).

I don't know if there is a good answer to these questions.  I know how I used to answer it, but I am not sure how much I still like it.

I believe that a setting must influence the classes.  In the three scenarios I put together for my Sunday players to help determine in which world we will play, one of the biggest ways I introduced the setting to them was by explaining the different classes and their abilities - there was always a fighter and thief-type class, but the supernatural horror setting had both holy figures (luminaries) and diabolic ones (witches and warlocks), and the Shardpunk setting had believers in the old faiths (Adherents).

I also don't believe that a setting should unduly limit choice - I don't support creating a Custos class because that limits the options of Ferocia characters - they can be thieves who are part of the Custos organization, but I do support the idea of a Sohei class as its abilities are unique from any other class available.

My philosophy up until this point has been that if a class would have a unique set of abilities, things that would make modelling it within the existing class framework challenging or impossible, then it should be its own class.  I also, by default, decided that if a class existed then players who had experience with the world could choose it when they made a new character (brand-new players to my world can choose to play either a fighter or thief).

The problem I find is that I now have 14 different classes, most of which cover a very specific, but culturally-important niche within one of the societies in my world.  I contrast this with the fighter and thief, which are these broad, expansive constructs.  If I look ahead, to 2nd edition, I see the cleric, druid, fighter, paladin, ranger, mage, illusionist, thief, assassin, monk and bard (drawing from Alexis again).  Looking further ahead, to 3rd and 3.5, I find the base classes include the bard, barbarian, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, and wizard.  These classes, ignoring the cleric and paladin, are setting-neutral.  They are generic types that can be found in a variety of environments.

I think there are two things at play between how I have designed my classes and how TSR and Wizards of the Coast have designed their classes.  The first is that the standard D&D classes do not provide social status.  Because they are independent of the setting, they gain no cultural or social power within it - being a member of the Tarluskani Military garners significant benefits, but not all fighters who are Tarluskani are members of the Tarluskani Military.  Likewise, being a Ferocia who is a thief (or rogue) does not make one a Custos.

The second, and I think more fundamental difference, is that a class in the standard D&D sense is a game construct - a grouping of abilities that 'make sense' together.  Bards, as supremely skilled artists (chiefly musicians), have a bevvy of music-related abilities.  Rangers, as skilled survivalists, are well-suited to interfacing with the natural world.  My classes, however, have arisen as diagetic constructs - a grouping of abilities based upon the needs of an in-game culture or group.

The challenging thing about this difference is that there isn't an objective answer to this: diagetic classes promote player immersion with the world - a class rooted within an in-game tradition automatically binds the character (and therefore the player) to the world through that institution.  However, a diagetic class lacks the freedom of expression that a class built around a central theme, independent of the world, can provide players - as a Ferocia thief, I can be a member of the Custos, reject them and their methodology, or take no stance for or against them, whereas if I am a Custos, defined by that identity, then I perceive but one of those three choices (as a DM, I would happily support any of the three even for a class named after the in-game group, but I've seen players with similar nontraditional ideas self-steer to a similar class instead).  Names are powerful determinants.

I think an answer might be found in something Pathfinder did, one of their changes to 3.5 that I embraced wholeheartedly - the idea of class archetypes.  Essentially, Paizo defined a group of class ideas (they use the 3.5 list I provide above as their foundation).  Each class has a default ability set but can choose alternate ones providing a specialization around one facet of their class.  Some archetypes were restricted to members of specific races and cultures while others to members of specific organizations.

I want to encourage player choice when it comes to their characters without compromising the immersion that a diagetic class offers.  So having classes represent as expansive categories as possible with culture-specific and group-specific immersive options seems like an excellent way to take the best of both.

I'll have to do some more research and see how I might implement this - at first blush, LotFP resists this kind of complication of base classes, but I am confident that there is a good solution here.

Now, there is one last question that I did not address.  Should all classes within the world be available to players?

No.  I don't think so.  Certainly not at first.  I very strongly believe that beginning players should only be allowed to play classes that are very broad in scope - fighters and thieves.  Once they establish a positive relationship with a member of the class of interest (or a group with a significant population of people with this class), then I'd allow new characters to take on these classes.

Placing References

Alexis recently finished a series of posts detailing (mostly) his world's economic system.  I've been salivating over it for years, and I immediately set to establishing it in my world.

I immediately ran into some problems specific to my world.  The problems begin in that my world (at least, the parts that I have designed right now) take place on the equator - Sahargeen, the magical rainforest, is on the equator and therefore the Southern Kingdoms, which lie directly south of it, are in a tropical climate.  This means that the Southern Kingdoms have been carved out of this rainforest, (and the land is mostly hilly, I'll get to that later), rendering it less suited for a standard D&D economy - horses do very poorly in jungle, as does grain.

To place resources, I decided to type each hex in two ways: its topography and vegetation, since the two can be independent.  Here, the vegetation is all jungle or jungle and swamp (for the hexes featuring rivers), and the topography is almost entirely hilly (since I started with elevations for each hex instead of a terrain type, I had to come up with some rules to apply a topographic type to each hex.  My rule of thumb is that if there is an elevation change of more than 500', then both hexes will be hilly, and mountains are determined by either hills over 5000' or a difference of more than 2000').

Each topographic and vegetative option has a distinct set of references that might be found there:

Type	Hills; Jungle	Hills; Jungle Swamp	Plain	Plain; JS	Mountain; J	Coast
1	Empty	Empty	Empty	Empty	Empty	Empty
2	Empty	Empty	Empty	Empty	Empty	Roll twice
3	Roll twice	Roll twice	Roll twice	Roll twice	Roll twice	Salt
4	Ore	Ore	Cattle	Cattle	Gold	Fish
5	Bricks	Bricks	Grain	Grain	Ore	Clay
6	Sheep	Clay	Fruit	Fruit	Bricks
7	Clay	Fruit	Horses	Horses
8	Fruit	Empty	Bricks	Bricks
9	Empty	Fruit		Empty
10	Fruit	Spices		Fruit
11	Spices	Timber		Spices
12	Timber	Fish		Fish
13	Gold	Gold

Coasts are (obviously) the hexes that border the sea.  Since I rolled randomly on the table you see above for each hex, I had to essentialize my list to make sure that each area was producing the kinds of things I wanted it to produce - I want coasts to produce primarily salt and fish, and so I ignore whatever vegetation might be there in favor of the opportunities provided by the topography.  Similarly, since having a lot of gold references is important to standardize pricing, I wanted mountains to predominantly offer gold and ore, so I ignore vegetation there, as well.

You'll also notice that I do not have any grapes references as mentioned in Alexis' original setup.  This is because grapes require a hot, dry climate to thrive, but in the tropics, bananas, coconuts, and pineapples serve the same purpose (the brewing of wine).

The table worked fairly well for this area, and once I finish the Southern Kingdoms up, I'm interested in expanding this method to work with my other regions (which are much more vegetatively diverse).  I will probably make them produce fewer resources, as well.

Part of the reason I have for a much higher chance of producing references than not is that the Southern Kingdoms are the player's entry point into my world - it is my Fallow, to draw from Alexis' How to Run.  The culture is based on a European religio-feudal model despite being on the edge of a tropical jungle (they are immigrants), and I want this area, therefore, to be incredibly resource-rich.  The randomization, as you will soon see, still makes relative scarcity occur, but most of the reference types are well-represented, so one can purchase most goods for a reasonable price (the exceptions being horses, cattle, and grain).

Hex

-16

-15

-14

-13

-12

-11

-10

-9

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

7

?

Hills; J

?

?

?

?

Hills; J

?

?

?

Hills; JS

?

Hills; J

?

Hills; J

?

Hills; J

?

?

?

Hills; J

?

Hills; J

?

Hills; J

6

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

5

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Mountain; J

Mountain; J

Mountain; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

4

Hills; J

Hills; J

Mountain; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Mountain; J

Hills; JS

Mountain; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

3

Hills; J

Hills; J

Mountain; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Mountain; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Plain; JS

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Plain

Plain; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

2

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Plain; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; J

Plain; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

1

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Plain; JS

Hills; J

Coast

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; J

Plain; JS

Plain; JS

Coast

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Plain; JS

Plain; JS

Hills; JS

Coast

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Mountain; J

0

Coast

Hills; J

Coast

Plain

Coast

Coast

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; J

Coast

Sea

Coast

Coast

Plain

Coast

Coast

Sea

Coast

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

-1

Plain

Coast

Plain

Coast

Sea

Sea

Coast

Plain

Coast

Coast

Sea

Sea

Sea

Coast

Sea

Coast

Sea

Coast

Plain; JS

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

Mountain; JS

-2

Coast

Plain

Coast

Sea

Sea

Coast

Coast

Sea

Sea

Sea

Sea

Coast

Hills; J

Hills; J

Hills; JS

Plain

Hills; JS

Hills; J

Mountain; J

-3

Sea

Coast

Sea

Sea

Sea

Sea

Coast

Hills; J

Coast; JS

Plain; JS

Plain

Hills; JS

Hills; JS

-4

Sea

Sea

Coast

Sea

Coast

Coast

Hills; JS

Hills; J

-5

Sea

Sea

Sea

Hills; J

Hills; JS

-6

Sea

Coast

Hills; JS

This table lists all of the hexes that I consider within the boundaries of the Southern Kingdoms.  Each 20-mile hex has its own box, and (once I get back to my more powerful computer) I'll assign each hex to a market.  The question marks are areas for which either I couldn't read the elevation or I haven't mapped yet, but they are too far from the Southern Kingdoms to provide references.

This area spans about 100,000 square miles and has 26 markets, concentrated within about 80 miles of the coast.

After randomly determining my references via the process above, I come out with the following list.

Hex

-16

-15

-14

-13

-12

-11

-10

-9

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

7

?

Clay

?

?

?

?

Empty

?

?

?

Empty

?

Timber

?

Clay

?

Empty

?

?

?

Spices

?

Ore

?

Empty

6

Bricks

Fruit

Spices

Spices

Empty

Ore

Fruit

Fruit

Spices

Spices

Fish

Fruit

Empty

Spices

Empty

Fruit

Fruit

Sheep

Empty

Bricks, Fruit

Gold

Fruit, Bricks

Empty

Spices

Spices

5

Ore

Bricks, Ore

Empty

Timber

Timber

Ore

Gold

Fruit

Spices

Timber

Bricks

Fruit

Timber

Ore

Gold

Bricks

Bricks

Empty

Fruit

Sheep

Fruit

Sheep, Fruit

Ore

Empty

Fruit

4

Empty

Gold

Timber, Spices

Ore

Fish

Horses

Ore

Fruit

Gold

Empty

Clay

Empty

Fruit

Bricks

Empty

Timber

Fruit

Ore, Fruit

Timber, Ore

Gold

Fruit

Fruit

Gold

Empty

Empty

3

Fruit

Fruit

Fruit

Bricks

Fish

Bricks

Empty

2 Gold

Fruit

Ore

Horses

Empty

Fruit

Gold

Gold

Empty

Cattle

Bricks, Gold

Empty

Clay

Gold

Fruit

Empty

Clay

Spices

2

Bricks

Ore

Fish, Fruit

Sheep

Gold

Fruit

Timber

Spices

Timber

Fruit, Spices

Bricks

Timber

Bricks

Ore

Clay

Spices, Timber

Spices

Empty

Clay

Timber

Fruit

Bricks

Timber

Empty

Empty

1

Timber

Bricks

Horses

2 Fruit

Salt

Spices, Fruit

Empty

Fruit

Spices

Bricks

Salt

Spices

Empty

Horses

Empty

Empty

Clay

Timber

Empty

Empty

Timber

Empty

Fruit

Timber

Gold

0

2 Salt

Empty

Fish

Empty

Salt, Fish

Salt

Fruit

Clay

Bricks

Fish

Sea

Clay

Salt

Empty

Salt, Fish

Salt

Sea

Empty

Fish

Fruit

Fruit

Spices

Bricks, Timber

Timber

Spices

-1

Bricks, Grain

Salt

Empty

Fish, Salt

Sea

Sea

Empty

Bricks

Empty

Fish

Sea

Sea

Sea

2 Clay

Sea

Clay

Sea

2 Fish

Fish

Bricks

Ore

Bricks

Ore

Fish

Gold

-2

Salt

Empty

Empty

Sea

Sea

2 Salt

Fish, Salt

Sea

Sea

Sea

Sea

Clay, Fish

Fruit

Spices

Fruit

Cattle

Spices

Clay

Empty

-3

Sea

Empty

Sea

Sea

Sea

Sea

Salt

Sheep, Timber

2 Clay

Fish

Bricks

Empty

Spices, Fruit

-4

Sea

Sea

Salt, Fish

Sea

Empty

Salt, Clay

Clay

Gold

-5

Sea

Sea

Sea

Fruit

Empty

-6

Sea

Empty

Fish, Clay

My count of each reference is as follows:

Reference	Totals
Bricks	23
Cattle	2
Clay	19
Fish	21
Fruit	43
Gold	19
Grain	2
Horses	2
Ore	16
Salt	18
Sheep	5
Spices	18
Timber	21

Fruit, then, is the dominant foodstuff, and there's a fair amount of stone, fish, gold, salt, timber, and spices.  The relative scarcity of timber indicates that, although the rainforest is everywhere, most of the wood in the rainforest isn't useful for construction purposes (or the forest's guardians have killed enough would-be loggers that people have learned their lesson).

The lack of grain, however, will be problematic - grain forms a huge staple in most standard medieval diets (especially nonperishable rations, which are kind of important for roleplaying games).  To fix this, I'll go in as I'm assigning hexes to markets and change what references are produced by the plains in columns -6 and 0.

I can already see how this is going to change my game for the better, and I'm excited to implement everything.