More suitable rules than Ultimate Campaign for running a settlement?

[Trekkin]

I am, as per the last few threads I've posted, running an evil campaign, and last session the group surprised me. They've been based outside a local port that has, partially from the off-target effects of their villainy, been slipping further and further into anarchy, and last session the cleric's player turns to me and says "How do we clean up the town? It seems like we should be able to exert a stabilizing influence with our minions, and I'd rather not have our future subjects killing each other over a loaf of bread."

Vigorous nodding by all players ensued. :smalleek:

I've been talking with them about what they want to do, and I can't find a ruleset for running a settlement at the granularity they want. Ultimate Campaign has rules for building buildings and recruiting organizations, but not for changing the attributes of a settlement thereby; likewise, the kingdom-building rules seem ill-suited for something of this scale. I've suggested both, and my players have expressed a distaste for the amount of bookkeeping involved.

So are there other rules that focus on, say, city blocks rather than inns or provinces?

[LTwerewolf]

Have you perused cityscape? It may be d&d 3.5, but it can transfer pretty easily.

[Sagetim]

I am, as per the last few threads I've posted, running an evil campaign, and last session the group surprised me. They've been based outside a local port that has, partially from the off-target effects of their villainy, been slipping further and further into anarchy, and last session the cleric's player turns to me and says "How do we clean up the town? It seems like we should be able to exert a stabilizing influence with our minions, and I'd rather not have our future subjects killing each other over a loaf of bread."

Vigorous nodding by all players ensued. :smalleek:

I've been talking with them about what they want to do, and I can't find a ruleset for running a settlement at the granularity they want. Ultimate Campaign has rules for building buildings and recruiting organizations, but not for changing the attributes of a settlement thereby; likewise, the kingdom-building rules seem ill-suited for something of this scale. I've suggested both, and my players have expressed a distaste for the amount of bookkeeping involved.

So are there other rules that focus on, say, city blocks rather than inns or provinces?

When I ran a pathfinder game where the players had to build their own settlement from scratch on an island in the middle of the ocean, I didn't have them thar fancy ultimate camaigns or what not. I started by drawing the island, then determining what it was inhabited with, then what they could find where...now, what it comes down to is this:

Compile a list of questions that you can answer and reask yourself from time to time. This list of questions should include "What is in the surrounding area" "Who are the prominent npcs involved?" "What do those npcs do?" "How loyal are they to the players?" and of course, "Is anything going on outside the settlement going to affect the settlement/what's going on inside?"

For an example of these questions in action: Your players have a list of minions. Based on the treatment by the players and their alignments, give them a loyalty value (like, very or not, etc). So when your players start saying 'what can we do to clean this town up' you answer with 'where do you want to start?'. What key government services have they destroyed, and which ones would they be providing? If they blew up the good temple and had rapid dogs pee all over it, then how much of a clean up will it require for them to dedicate it to some evil gods so they can get basic healing services for the population running once more?

The players want to run the city, so you don't need to have them keep the books on ever little thing, but the actions they take should have some impact on what's going on. Keep it simple, keep it sensible. If the players ensure that the trade routes are safe to, from, and within the city, then they should be getting a fair amount of taxes from that (unless someone, or multiple someones, is skimming from it. Which is something the players can investigate and decide how to resolve). If the players have burned and salted the crops of the city, they're going to have a hard time fixing that without druidic magic to boost the crops, or some other means of cleaning the salt out of the ground. In 3.5, I think there's a wizard spell for turning salt to stone, which would make it no longer poisonous to growing crops in an area. If that's not an option, fabricate might provide a solution by targeting the salt in the ground to fabricate up a statue made of salt. Though that might be my wishful interpretation of what Fabricate can do.

The point is, put yourself in the shoes of the city that they have been destabilizing. Note down the problems that now exist in the city, and provide those to the players as a first list of things that they should take care of. Every time the players solve a problem, consider if the methods they have used will cause complications, even if those complications happen because of things the players are unaware of.

Edit: If the players put the time and effort in, they should be able to establish a spy network in the area to keep them informed. This would give them a passive result of gather information based on the spies in the network, or to keep things simple, you could assume that they are given updates as if one of them were making gather info checks each day with a result of 20. This would help keep them informed of regular **** happening as it happens, but if they wanted to dig a little to try and react to things before they happen, they would need to make the gather info checks themselves, or use other methods such as divination or what have you.

[Milo v3]

What aspect of the kingdom rules do you feel doesn't work with the scale? I'd have thought the settlement rules with that district grid would work fine.

[Trekkin]

What aspect of the kingdom rules do you feel doesn't work with the scale? I'd have thought the settlement rules with that district grid would work fine.

I...did not see that when I was reading through, somehow. :smallredface: That's just about perfect.

[Milo v3]

I...did not see that when I was reading through, somehow. :smallredface: That's just about perfect.

Basically, just run the rules as normal, but don't expand past your capital city and the farms/mines/other resources nearby.

[Scowling Dragon]

Dude, Legendary Games has you covered on all sides. It offers the "Ultimate Attachment" series.

AKA: if you feel like you want more rules for your "Insert here", here is the attachment.

The one you could check out would be Ultimate Rulership.

[Nibbens]

I prefer to run my games on a "action-reaction" scale. Everything the players do impacts the city they are based out of in a positive or negative way. Sessions begin writing themselves, and they spend more time cleaning up their messes than advancing any sort of main plot. Tone it down for a story driven game, and tone it up for a sandbox game.