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zerombr
2009-05-05, 02:42 PM
The Might of Mortals

by Zerombr, and Vadin

The concept of MoM is to create a supplement, a companion to the LoC games, to help provide definition to the mortal flocks without overcomplicating, or clashing with the rules-light system of Lords of Creation.

All too often in game, wars happen between mortals, which, assuredly is both fun and entertaining until the inevitable question occurs of, 'Who wins?'. Generally the game suggests that both sides decide on a victor beforehand, and when agreed upon, this is surely the easiest and best way to deal with such things. However some players, myself included, may maintain that certain advancements in matters of magic or technology may cause the war to lean a different way.

That is what this system is hoping to represent, so let's get started explaining how it works.

Gods typically bestow knowledge upon their mortals, what we have done is separated each knowledge into one of eight classes, causing it to increase one of the base stats. Gunpowder, for example, is definably a military knowledge, though it has non-violent uses. In truth, what you label the advancement is solely roleplay. Granted, one should use a modicum of discretion, as to not bestow Knowledge:Nuclear warfare upon their flock, until Doomsday actually occurs.

A few LoC commands change using this system, most notably Nourish Populace, is renamed Encourage Populace: (advancement). Create Artifact automatically bestows a point of Encourage: Faith, as well as Creating a new class will bestow a point of Encouragement to a stat.

Every population will increase one of their stats at rollover, and can have up to two points per rollover encouraged by their god, anything above that is wasted as the mortals try to make sense of all the knowledge bestowed at once.

The stats are as follows:

__Military__

Naturally all military tech goes here as well as military organizations and classes created, such as :Fighter, Scout, Warblade...

__Populace__

How large your population is, and things that promote health and welfare of your people, as well as more of a 'catch-all'. Populace is very important, considering that 0 populace is considered either dead or scant survivors, depending on how you wish to play.

Factotums, Chameleons can go here, all uses of Nourish Populace.

__Science__

Mining, Smelting, Alchemy, Chemistry, Robot-Forging, it's all here, as well as non-magical classes

__Faith__

Religious Doctrine, Holidays, Divine casters, religious organizations, and artifacts

__Wealth__

Commerce in general, Currency, Trade Routes, Caravans, Nourish Land can be used here, if creating valuable goods.

__Culture__

society in general, not quite the same as Populace, as this appeals to royalty, class systems and government, and all things that appeal to social causes, such as Bards, Rogues and Paladins of Freedom.

__Arcane__

Magical organizations, arcane spellcasters, creation of meta-magic and Nourish Land if used to denote a more magically inclined area, such as ley lines.

__Spirituality__

A more generic magic/awareness, that supplements nature. Druids, Shamans, Rangers go here. Arcane/Divine casters may go here if the god wishes to have their people close to nature.

So a flock might have stats like this

Military:2
Populace:4
Science:7
Faith:3
Wealth:4
Arcane:1
Social:2
Spirituality:2

such a stat block suggests a technological focus on the civilization with little regard for nature or arcane magic.



Might
Now let's discuss the Mights. A Might is determined by simply adding together the two stats that make it up.

Military and Populace are the backbone of the War Might, as they represent the standard army's power and size

Science and Wealth together are the Trade Might. Having superior goods as well as the best trade routes is not to be underestimated.

Arcane & Spirituality represent the general Supernatural Might, ie: Magical dominance, arcane aided armies and whatnot.

Faith & Social are the last might, the Religious Might. Conversion of enemy forces, divine caster based armies and their ilk


The Mights are the base stats used for large scale attacking and defending from each other.



Combat

Combat can be subtle or overt depending on what you pick to do.

Small scale combat can be waged in any number of ways, skirmishes, siphoning gold from opponents, converting them, infiltration with spies and arsonists, spreading hurtful rumors...

These are generally used to 'soften up' a target before an assault, which helps define weak points to attack.

example: Jeff declares a Trade attack against Matt, saying that his people are starting a new trade route within Matt's cities. To see who benefits from this most, compare the Wealth Might statistics, with each side adding 1d6 to their roll. The victor may steal 1 pt of statistic from their opponent.


There are only 3 positions to use in Large ScaleCombat,
At Home, In the Field, At Enemy Home

In a field scale battle, combat is simply the chosen Might +1d6 for each side, high roll wins. Spoils are +2 points from the losers' stats.

At home or at enemy home, the home side may use more of their advancements to aid them.

Example: Jeff is defending from Matt's large army, with his own more humble army. Matt chose to field a War Might army, and has the stats to back it up. Jeff is more technologically based than military, and his army has suffered, but here, with the resources available, he can add a bit of his scientific knowledge to aid his troops, up to an average of (Military + Science)/2 + populous to calculate his War Might.

so to recap:

Field battles

Matt

5 Military + 7 Populace = War Might 12

Jeff

3 Military + 5 Populace = War Might 8

At home, Jeff would have (3 Military + 9 Science)/2 = 6 + 5 Populace = 11

Jeff stands a greater chance to survive at home base.



Land Control


In the beginning.....the Gods made the world, and then they had a pool of 200 points to distribute among the various terrains of: ocean, wasteland, grassland, forest, jungle, tundra, desert, swamp, mountains, & hills.

There are three reasons I've implemented a land control system is, firstly, to allow players to understand exactly how much room there is to work with, as opposed to undefinable elements. Keep in mind, that this part, as well as MoM is totally optional, and unnecessary for the simple game. The second reason is to encourage gods to use their Alter terrain abilities for more than vague purposes. The third reason involves subraces, which I'll get to in a moment.

so, as always let's do an example



When a race is formed, simply designate what their favored race's terrain type is. That main race may not populate anything but that terrain.

ie: Dwarves - Hills, Dragons - Mountains

For the size of the land controlled by a population, simply add the Populace and next highest score to represent the size of the flock.

example again

the world has 25 pts for Hills.

the Dwarves have developed enough that they have a Populus of 11, and Technology of 14 which gives them a 25 for Size. They cannot increase their Populus or technology until they are given more land to expand into.

If one cannot expand via simple conquest, a god may decide to Create/Alter Land, changing the point spread for the world by 20 pts. A god may also create a secondary area that may be up to 50 pts in size, as an 'extra' zone, such as the Underdark, or an extraplanar area, though generally these areas have their own terrain types to deal with.

Subraces are the easiest way to adapt to being out of terrain, Creating a subrace of Dwarves for Mountains, ie: Mountain Dwarves, lets them move into the mountainous regions for expansion, meaning now Dwarves can count Hills and Mountains in the amount of land they can use.



Errata

No one stat may be over 5 pts higher than the lowest stat.

- changed land size controlled from average of Pop and next stat, to Pop and highest stat.
more to be determined by playtest.

Land control still under development

Questions? Ask!

zerombr
2009-05-05, 02:48 PM
*saved for edits and whatnot*

Also, civilizations gain 1 point for a stat at deific rollover, to represent their own advancment

i think that civilizations that have no stat, aside military and populace, shouldn't be able to be attacked in that regard. Ie: a race of Zerg bugs won't care about economic sanctions. i haven't decided how this'll go yet.

Vadin
2009-05-05, 08:36 PM
On the topic of Boons and Curses, boons shouldn't increase everything by a whole bunch, and curses should be effective enough to be powerful, but not so much so that they can kill everything. One way to accomplish these things is diminishing returns. Unlike in previous LoC games, where every 3 AP spent gets a net +1 effect, every 3 AP spent can increase the total cost by 1. To give a group 3 AP of curses, then, it would actually cost 4 AP. 6 AP of effect would cost 8 AP, and so on. Same for bless actions.

A limit would have to be placed like "total Curse and Bless costs per god per mortal civilization are cumulative throughout the week, but reset at rollover." This would keep gods from spending 2 AP over and over to avoid the diminishing returns.

Your thoughts?

zerombr
2009-05-05, 09:50 PM
so you're saying like, the first boon/bane costs 1, the next costs 2?

I do agree there should be a way to stop people from spamming low level moves to gain DR fast.

I also think that Faith points as they are should be scrapped, maybe like....1/3 of your civilizations total points would be your FP instead. or something like that, we need a good reason for people to want to up their mortals.

Vadin
2009-05-05, 10:40 PM
The first costs 1, the second costs 1, the third costs 2, the fourth costs 1, the fifth costs 1, the sixth costs 2, etc.

A solution we found in other LoCs has been to scrap that altogether. When there is a way to gain DR faster and amass power quickly, it becomes a few players powergaming. Instead, we're looking at increasing everyone's DR by 1 every 2 or 3 weeks and increasing DRs every other week based on exceptional RP and Superlatives (like most mortals, highest Might, highest Wisdom, largest Size, most Artifacts, etc.). This way the most active and influential gods increase DR faster than those who don't actually do anything and it isn't a matter of who can do things the fastest.

I actually disagree somewhat with that part. Mortals shouldn't be necessary for gods to stay on the same power level as their fellows. If FP are going to be kept, they shouldn't have a massive effect on a god's power level.

BTW, I'm very for gods starting out at DR 1, not DR 5 or 6. It starts everyone off at square 1.

ALSO, for anyone who might want to join in a LoC game with more solid and comprehensive mortal rules as a standard part of the game, a preformed world where the old civilizations suddenly disappeared and the old gods left with them, newly born deities with bands of mortals that worship them whether they like it or not, send me a PM with a god concept. Be sure to be a god of something, not a something-flavored god of nothing. No alignment domains, racial domains, or monster domains. Please have it in standard LoC format:
Name, Epithet: Ephedra, the Sympathetic
Alignment: Unaligned
Domain: Celerity
Portfolio: Valor, Panic
Symbol: A sword and winged boot
Description: Ephedra is a goddess revered by warriors and cowards alike and is often called upon in times of stress. Ephedra is there for her followers whether they are looking to take the fight to the enemy or beat an expeditious retreat.
Commands:

* Be prepared for any situation.
* Stand firm in all things, but retreat is better than defeat.
* Don't die.

I'll reply with additional information unique to this upcoming incarnation of LoC.

zerombr
2009-05-07, 08:58 AM
ok so maybe Craft isn't the right word. Industry has been suggested, but that still leaves us with a weak stat, as Tech and Industry are close together still, not to mention that originally Arcane Might is based off of Arcana and Craft, which I was thinking would be production of magical items...

I'm also not sure that a 1,1,2,1,1,2, cycle for AP is a good idea either. I think we need to keep the rules as standardized as possible. In that regard, it'd be easier to say at each divine action a week costs +1 AP for every action done before it.

Vadin, your idea is intriguing enough, but it is a bit subjective. I'm willing to give that a shot.

so, right now I'm curious about how Mort combat would actually work

i like the idea of four big attacks and four small attacks for each Might. Maybe the small one just lowers a stat by 1, and the big one lowers one by 2 and steals 1 pt? or something along those lines.

Then again, there could be a more tangible reward, after all, the god itself can boon/bane the civilization for that effect.

zerombr
2009-05-07, 12:50 PM
ok just to evaluate for the moment, let's take a look at Civ4, which has a similar basis of military, religion, technology, and culture. Wealth itself isn't an issue there, but it can easily be a sub-category.

I still like the idea of each category having 2 sub categories, simply to help keep mortal concepts different.

a flock may not have great military experience but have tremendous numbers
or one may have a good trade value, but not a lot of technology.

so let's try to narrow down what is needed really...

____Military___

all things that promote military advancement over all others
ie: Military classes, horsemanship, armor, strategy

some of my uses in the last game were:
Marshall, Scout, Cavalry, (gunpowder)

____Populace____

all things promoting the health/welfare of a population, as well as more generic items

mine were:
Factotum, Chameleon (I felt the simple focus of adaptation fit here more than elsewhere)

____Science (Technology)____

the ability to simply make everything work better,

Mining, Smelting, Alchemy, Chemistry, there's plenty to work with here

classes: Tinkerer, Techsmith of Gond, Maester
____Faith____

religious texts bestowed to people, Cleric and other Divine caster classes,
initiation of religious holidays, conversion practices, religious organizations, creation of artifacts

____Trade (Wealth)____

provisions for commerce
currency, advanced trade routes, caravans, freight vehicles

____Philosophy____

This is a weak stat in my opinion. I cannot separate it from Faith for the most part, even though they can easily be different things. I also do not see how far a god can go to encourage it without deriving to generic boosts

ie: God teaches populace Encourage:Philosophy.

Culture itself might be a better name for this

____Culture____

social classes and ones that appeal to social causes. I would expect Paladin of Freedom to be put here, as well as Bard and Rogue.

____Arcane____

naturally the more magical inclined classes go here, as well as knowledge of meta-magic. studies into arcane lore and Magical organizations.


hmm I still don't see the need for craft. Any thoughts?

Vadin
2009-05-07, 01:03 PM
Could Philosophy be something else that pertains to Spirituality? Actually, wait...why not Spirituality? It's like Faith for groups that worship Nature more than gods or groups that focus on things like ghosts, necromancy, maybe even demons (though those last two could be Arcane depending on how they're flavored). This would cover things like Druids, Wardens, Shamans, etc.

A group could have a high Faith with a low Spirituality if they are very urban, have an incredibly rigid church hierarchy, or any number of other things.

zerombr
2009-05-07, 01:19 PM
ok let's explore that concept

___Spirituality___

Nature oriented techs, Druids, Shamans, etc...


it seems to me that it could be a representative of Faith itself, just in a different view. It also would appear that it is almost the opposite of the Science category.
I would also like this last subcat to fit in the same pattern as the others


Religious Might- Faith/Culture

Culture fits with religion, because for the most part, both are highly involved in the community aspect

Arcane Might- Arcane/?

what else would work with Arcane? Education? Magic Item production?


Military Might- Military/Populous

these two are easy.

Wealth- Trade/Science

this I should've seen at the start, the ability to work trade routes, and the want of goods produced. They fit perfectly

I am thinking that instead of having 4 types of attacks
to simply have the military war aspect, with 1/2 of another of the 3 scores added in to represent how you wish to wage war.

you think that the others should be able to still engage in lesser manners like, economic leverage, preaching to the other mortals, and whatnot?

Vadin
2009-05-07, 03:28 PM
Religious Might- Faith/Culture

Culture fits with religion, because for the most part, both are highly involved in the community aspect

Arcane Might- Arcane/?

what else would work with Arcane? Education? Magic Item production?

Changing Religious Might to Social Might, the Faith/Culture composite, might better reflect what's really going on in those conflicts.

Arcane Might could be renamed Supernatural Might and be Arcane/Spirituality. This covers normal magic, druidic magic, magical beasts (unless they're military), fey (unless they're military), and other 'magicky' things (unless, again, they're military).

Also, I'm thinking the number of squares each group controls should be a function of their scores. Maybe the average of their Populace and their next highest score, rounded down, minimum 1? For example, a group with 6 Populace and 3 Arcane would control 4 squares, and a group with 2 Populace and 4 Wealth would control 3 squares. A corollary to this would be that to exist, every group must have at least 1 Populace at all times.

As for combat, I liked the idea of each Might being able to resolve a small conflict and make minute changes to scores. Establishing a trade route would be a battle of Wealth to see which group benefits more, with the loser ending up with -1 Wealth. Missionaries or spies would infiltrate a culture and disrupt society or steal state secrets. If they succeed, the defender loses 1 Faith or Culture. If they fail, the attacker is found out, their secrets exposed or priests made an example of, and their relevant score is lowered by one.

The Might in question doesn't need to be the only one involved, however. The Might the attacker uses should be the only one he can lose points from if he scores, but the defender would be at risk for his other scores as well. Perhaps the priests use Religious Might and ruthlessly encourage the other nation to tithe excessively, leaving them with -1 Wealth.

This covers small things to keep enemy nations in check and soften them up for another enemy or a larger attack later, but it doesn't account for all-out war. In large-scale war, things should be at risk. Attackers in Total Offense can steal 2 points from any score if they win, but can lose 2 to Defenders if they fail.

But wait! Wouldn't Attackers simply go for their opponents weaknesses every time? Well, yes. Because, you know, that makes sense. It's how it works. Defenders, however, should have a bit of an advantage. They have to use the relevant Might to defend with, but they can average together the lower score in that Might with a higher score from another Might.

For example, the Attacker attacks with Military Might, Military+Populace. The Defender could defend with just his own Military+Populace, but his Arcane is much higher than his Military. Accordingly, he instead uses ((Military+Arcane)/2)+Populace. This boosts his Military score and gives him more of a fighting chance.

As an alternative to this, scores should be limited. No score may be more than 5 points above the lowest score in a Might. A group might have 0 Faith points, but they have to have at least 1 point in Culture then to get Populace to 6. Faith can stay at 0 as long as Culture isn't more than 5 points below the highest score. Same goes for one score from every other Might as well. Does that make sense? I think I explained myself enough there, but I'm not entirely sure...

zerombr
2009-05-07, 03:38 PM
very good work, I like the ideas you've put forth so far. Now I was also thinking that maybe a god couldn't ascend past a certain DR unless his people were sufficiently advanced to allow it. Off the top of my head, i'd say 1/3 of the total points of the civlization? I'll probably rewrite the top post with the new info/ideals when I get some time to work with.

Vadin
2009-05-07, 03:52 PM
I'm not so much for that. Mortals shouldn't be necessary to advance as a god. They'll definitely make it easier to fit into a superlative category on one of the weeks where that's how DR increases will happen, but it won't and shouldn't hold a god back.

zerombr
2009-05-07, 04:40 PM
I mention it mostly because I think that gods should be concerned with their guys every week, not just doing actions for them to get FP. I like the idea that gods can only increase their mortals so far without increasing themselves, and vice versa. It seems like a balancing action, however there are several noted gods in different games that simply don't have much in the ways of followers but manage to evolve nonetheless.

I could almost see optional rules for gods of death or war that gain their bonuses depending on how much of each is caused in a week.

I'll concede my point for now on this part. I had another thought, but it seems to have passed me by...if I remember, i'll edit my post.

Vadin
2009-05-07, 05:08 PM
A part of LoC:CoA that seemed to work in terms of stopping powergaming was removing Evolution and player-controlled DR increase. Every other week the mods would discuss among themselves and ask for suggestions on which gods have been active enough to warrant a DR increase. This keeps active players steadily advancing without forcing them to sacrifice AP on certain actions to stay competitive.

A sidenote: gods should definitely start out at DR 1.

zerombr
2009-05-07, 05:25 PM
yes, that definitely helps matters, and I wholeheartedly approve of the idea.

so let's see, I suppose most matters have been taken care of, at least enough to playtest this out. I'll go through this thread and compile everything today or tomorrow, unless you want to, to get all the rules organized, then we can do a final look through for missing concepts or loopholes.

I remember now, what do you think about capping how much a race can grow in a week? say 1-2 pts per category? If a god really wanted to, they could spam military growth with all their ap, giving their mortals a dramatic shift in power. Or it could be a total of 3 pts a week, not counting their own natural increase at rollover.

Vadin
2009-05-07, 09:00 PM
so let's see, I suppose most matters have been taken care of, at least enough to playtest this out. I'll go through this thread and compile everything today or tomorrow, unless you want to, to get all the rules organized, then we can do a final look through for missing concepts or loopholes.

Feel free to do all that. :smallbiggrin:


I remember now, what do you think about capping how much a race can grow in a week? say 1-2 pts per category? If a god really wanted to, they could spam military growth with all their ap, giving their mortals a dramatic shift in power. Or it could be a total of 3 pts a week, not counting their own natural increase at rollover.

2 points per week sounds good. It keeps things semi-reasonable.

zerombr
2009-05-13, 09:54 AM
revised post up

zerombr
2009-05-19, 03:51 PM
here's a question for those few who've been posting on this thread

let's say someone comes to my people, interested in trade for something my guys consider either holy or just downright are stingy with.

do you think it'd be possible to simply deny any sale of the item, or would the Trade battle have to occur anyway? If it's possible to deny, why would anyone bother to trade with another race unless the scales were drastically in their favor?

Vadin
2009-05-19, 03:56 PM
You can deny trading with them, but the Trade conflict can still occur. The conflict then represents your economic loss (or gain) from not trading with them and their gain (or loss) at cutting you out of the deal and working around your people to get what they want.

Basically, no, you can't just refuse to be attacked. That's true whether this rule set is being used or not.

zerombr
2009-05-19, 04:18 PM
not a bad way to look at it I suppose, and it'll do for now. i was just thinking earlier about mythril and things of that nature, which as of this time, has no specific benefit to anyone aside from RP wants.

Let's say the dwarves as always have the only mythril on the planet, everyone wants to trade for it, they say no. yet the trade occurs even with the valuable item not part of the deal...I suppose that could be considered an economic lean on the society to give up the mineral rights, ie: sanctions.

So a race could actually be bullied for a nondescript item to be given up, and punished by repeated fleecing of their economy, or whatnot. An interesting idea.

Of course if the Dwarves put their Mythril bonus in their own Wealth, they may be able to take advantage of the sanctions put upon them, by being exclusive partners with any other race...


edit: I get it now!
The conflict then represents your economic loss (or gain) from not trading with them and their gain (or loss) at cutting you out of the deal and working around your people to get what they want.


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