"Viking Sim City" - a Request for Help with a City Management System, or Solution

[Gnome Alone]

Hola amigos, I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya...

And I have the kind of question that for some reason tends to inspire a lot of ridicule, but I'm at an impasse and shall risk the slings and arrows to my dignity stat.

I'm running a D&D 5e campaign (I don't think that's so important to my question though, hence why it's in the general forum) where the players are the kind of people who would give quests in the typical game. They're also pseudo-vikings, and a tribe that's predominantly my own homebrew race, the Lapine, anthropomorphic humanoid rabbit people. (Also not super relevant, but I am unreasonably proud of them :smallbiggrin:.) As a shorthand, I've been calling it "Viking Sim City."

Or at least, that was the pitch. I never did develop a straight-up budget or any kind of system for the sewage and food and maintenance and so on, cuz I figured borrrrrrring borrrrrrrrring, it's for you. And that aspect of city management has slid further away from us a bit, as so many sessions see them sailing away from home. That's fine; they're the ruling council, they can do what they want, and honestly, it's probably more interesting when they sail around plundering.

The problem came to a head, though, because of that very plundering: they paid their yearly "look the other way" tax to the empire they're technically a part of (they of course refrain from pirating ships from that empire, though this is a sore spot with the radicals and/or angry young'uns.) They sailed their ships out to meet the imperial airship (the world is a sort of Renaissance/Victorian fusion steampunk setting; they just don't get to see much of that cuz they live in the ass-crack of nowhere.) However, they heard of a sky pirate's plot to rob the tax ship...so they let it happen, then swooped in to pirate the pirates. And they did a good job with the prisoners the pirates had taken, not letting them see any of the people who'd done the tax hand-off.

So, the players now have in their possession four provinces annual tax yields. I don't want to just go, "Okay, 8th level characters, here's your 500,000 gold pieces or something," yet neither do I want to cheat them of a haul they stole fair and square. It occurred to me that if I'd ever set up a city management system, I could have the tax treasure chests represent a different kind of wealth; "Sim City" coins earmarked for all those kinds of systems I mentioned that I never made explicit.

Kind of amazed that I've managed to write so much when my question is ultimately somewhat simple: does anyone know of a good way to handle this? Is there a pre-made "city management" kind of system I could simply plonk down whole hog into my own game? Is there a better way to do this that's obvious to everyone but me? Should I just shrug and go, "Fine, you have 500,000 gold, go coo-coo banana nut bread-level nuts"...? TAKIN' ALL ADVICE, C'MON DOWN. Thanks in advance, gentle citizen cousin comrades.

[hamishspence]

I get the impression that the empire, when their tax hauls don't come in, is going to send out investigators to the provinces, asking "why haven't we gotten our taxes?".

And that the PCs are going to know this, and need to find some kind of solution to fresh tax demands. If they start putting their gains into the community, the empire investigators may suspect what's up.

[Dr paradox]

I dunno that you necessarily need something all that complicated. A series of upgrades, possibly with dependencies, seems like it'd do just fine, particularly since you can just list these with a price in GP and a time to complete.

Something like...


Infrastructure Upgrades

City Center 30,000 gp, six months. You build your city's heart into a well defined center with stone-brick buildings, multiple wells, and a high council hall.
Citadel 100,000 gp, two years, requires the "City Center" upgrade. You fortify a large area within the center of your city, such that in case of emergency most of your populace could seek refuge there practically.
Clerk's Hall 10,000 gp, two months. You acquire a group of trained bureaucrats to manage administration of your domain. More than simple stewards and subordinates, these are expert scribes, money-managers, and busybodies.
Crafter's District 30,000 gp, six months. You provide gold incentives for skilled artisans to move to your territory, promising them workspaces and spacious living quarters on their arrival.
Communal Granary 20,000 gp, one month, requires the "Clerk's Hall" upgrade. You begin to set aside a portion of each year's surplus for redistribution and safekeeping in case of famine.
Group Longhalls 20,000 gp, six months. You set up public housing for those without, each with a attendant priests to see to the needs of the deprived.
High Temple 50,000 gp, one year, requires a 5th level cleric. You build and ordain an imposing and worthy place of worship to the god or gods of your choice, sanctified ground suitable for rituals and the spiritual needs of your community.
Ratcatchers' Guild 20,000 gp, one month, requires the "Clerks' Hall" upgrade. By formalizing a guild of pest control experts, you help to keep your city free of dangerous vermin, from plague-carrying rats to midden-dwelling Otyughs or Carrion Crawlers, nipped in the bud before they grow to tremendous proportions.
Merchants' Guild 40,000 gp, two months, requires the "Clerks' Hall" upgrade. Gives the merchant class a place to complain to one another, instead of to your hardworking public servants. May give them delusions of grandeur, but such is the price we pay for a bustling market.
Skalds' Guild 20,000 gp, one month. Helps to provide for "starving artists," and promote culture within your city.
Ordered Streets 30,000 gp, six months. Lay out sand, gravel, and planking on your streets to prevent cart-ruts and mud-pits from forming in the rainy seasons.
Cobbled Streets 80,000 gp, one year. With gutters and pavers, you could practically break your fast off the boulevard.
Public Wells 30,000 gp, four months. Sink a series of wells throughout the neighborhoods of your city, ensuring that some kind of fresh water is mostly available - though it may do to boil it anyway.
Aqueduct 200,000 gp, two years, requires "City Center" upgrade. The very height of metropolitan sophistication, these gargantuan public works provide glacier-fresh water in drought or plenty, peace or war, plague or health to a few reservoirs in the city center, and one tasteful fountain.



Military Upgrades

Milita Armory 15,000 gp, two months. Gather, purchase, or produce sufficient equipment to outfit your armed forces with studded leather, pikes, arming swords, and shortbows.
Enhanced Militia Armory 50,000 gp, four months, requires "Crafter's District" and "Militia Armory" upgrades. Comission the production of sufficient equipment to outfit your armed forces with scale mail, halberds, longswords, and longbows, with better equipment available for officers.
Cavalry Herds 50,000 gp, six months, requires the "Militia Armory" upgrade. Buy and train enough horses and warriors to muster a cavalry force.
Mustering Grounds 20,000 gp, one month, requires "Clerk's Hall" upgrade. Allows mass recruitment of troops and levies from a wider area, increasing the number of troops available in times of war.
Training Grounds 20,000 gp, three months, requires a Fighter of at least fifth level. Grants the rank-and-file armed forces training equivalent to that of a first level fighter, at a minimum.
Mercenary Corps 10,000 gp, two weeks. Grants the services of a trained and equipped mercenary band either as a substitute or a supplement to your own armed forces for one campaigning season.
Crack Mercenary Corps 30,000 gp, three weeks. Grants the services of an elite, veteran mercenary company that comes highly recommended, guaranteed to be bribe-proof and reliable for one campaigning season.



This is just off the cuff, prices are gut-checked, I'm sure you could do more with more time. The advantage of it being D&D is that you can spring events on them that relate to these upgrades whenever you feel like it, whether it's "Your Ratcatchers' Guild warns you that there are early signs of a plague outbreak brewing" or "Plague runs rampant in your city! If you'd only had a Ratcatchers' Guild this might have been averted!"

Since it's not a video game, these consequences don't need to be systemic, random, or honest in their appearance. Anytime you want to make them feel connected to their city, just look at what they've bought and what they haven't bought and spin a little yarn or problem based on that.

[Gnome Alone]

I get the impression that the empire, when their tax hauls don't come in, is going to send out investigators to the provinces, asking "why haven't we gotten our taxes?".

And that the PCs are going to know this, and need to find some kind of solution to fresh tax demands. If they start putting their gains into the community, the empire investigators may suspect what's up.

You get a very correct impression, but that is another story.

[Gnome Alone]

I dunno that you necessarily need something all that complicated. A series of upgrades, possibly with dependencies, seems like it'd do just fine, particularly since you can just list these with a price in GP and a time to complete.

Something like...


Infrastructure Upgrades
[awesome ideas]

Wow, thank you! I love this idea. I think I'll try to make them have a little more obvious mechanical benefits (or perhaps lower the prices) but that seems like an ideal solution for anyone (ME) who doesn't want (ME HE MEANS HIMSELF HE MEANS ME) to write their own city management subsystem.

[Beleriphon]

I might suggest looking Acquisitions Inc. While it is certainly goofy, if you look past the jokes the book on the whole can be used to run a business, or in this case a small town.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My Grimoire (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/359663/Grods-Grimoire-of-the-Grotesque) contains a simple-but-robust system for handling this sort of thing. In a nutshell, it breaks down this sort of big, city-level reward into five distinct resources-- Supplies, Magic, Influence, Labor, and Expertise-- and has rules for how to spend them, with different sorts of projects requiring different amounts of different resource. Crafting a new staff wouldn't really take Labor, but would require a lot of Magic and Expertise; conversely, building a new road to the next town over wouldn't need much beyond basic Labor. It lets you quantify otherwise-abstract things like "we got our hands on a huge pile of iron ingots" or "we saved this important guy and now he owes us a favor," and helps players identify what kind of resources they need to acquire for their settlement.

One important point is that the SMILE system (as I call it) places the emphasis on acquiring the resources, rather than spending them. There aren't any complicated subsystems to deal with, no variables to track on a spreadsheet or minutia that the players have to slog through. You adventure, you get Resources, and you use them to buy stuff. Easy!

(I wrote a considerably more intricate system for Exalted that's more about using the bits and pieces of your kingdom, from purely internal stuff like "I want a bridge here" to "I'm going to have my spies undermine my neighbor's army while my own troops cut through the desert to attack from an unexpected angle and I use my trade deals with a third kingdom to force them to put economic pressure on my enemy." But I get the sense that's not what you're after)

[Gnome Alone]

(I wrote a considerably more intricate system for Exalted that's more about using the bits and pieces of your kingdom, from purely internal stuff like "I want a bridge here" to "I'm going to have my spies undermine my neighbor's army while my own troops cut through the desert to attack from an unexpected angle and I use my trade deals with a third kingdom to force them to put economic pressure on my enemy." But I get the sense that's not what you're after)

Holy excretions, that may work just exactly right, thank you!!!

And, as for that last bit with the more intricate system, something like that was actually my original goal. And I still want to get there eventually, but I've been somewhat forced to accept the limitations of my own abilities in that area.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Holy excretions, that may work just exactly right, thank you!!!

And, as for that last bit with the more intricate system, something like that was actually my original goal. And I still want to get there eventually, but I've been somewhat forced to accept the limitations of my own abilities in that area.
Here's a link to the Exalted homebrew (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KkD-EgXCn12bACWo57bogUaATBwOpDce/edit#), for whatever it's worth. I can't speak to how comprehensible it is without knowledge of the system and setting, though.

[Gnome Alone]

Here's a link to the Exalted homebrew (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KkD-EgXCn12bACWo57bogUaATBwOpDce/edit#), for whatever it's worth. I can't speak to how comprehensible it is without knowledge of the system and setting, though.

Well, thank you all the same - if anything it makes me actually wanna play Exalted, which to be honest I'd completely forgotten about, and if nothing else I can probably use at least a few of those things as static upgrades of the kind Dr. Paradox suggested.

[Slipjig]

There's been some good advice in prior posts, but here's a few things to consider:

Representatives of the Empire will be looking for this money, and will probably not be gentle in asking questions. Unless the PCs killed ALL the potential witnesses, there is a high likelihood someone will point the finger at them. If it's known that the PCs killed the pirates, then they will probably be the FIRST ones questioned, even if nobody saw them actually grab the haul. Even if nobody knows they killed the pirates, any sign of undue affluence will be a red flag for investigators..
They are going to have to sit on the money and spend it in a trickle if they don't want to attract attention. Of course, if they DO decide to sit on it, they have to find a way to securely hide it. Unless they are a subjugated people who have an extremely bad relationship with their Imperial Overlords, the smart move would probably be to negotiate it's return and ask to keep 10% (or get a permanent reduction in their province's tax burden). 80k gold that you can spend worry-free is better than 800k that is probably going to get your whole village massacred in an Imperial reprisal. Or at least that's what their most conservative advisors will tell them. Also, once word of a huge fortune getting DB Cooper'ed start passing around the region, all sorts of mercenaries, treasure seekers, and possibly some monsters will come looking for it.

Even if they DO decide to go on a construction binge, the infrastructure may not be in place to support it, especially if their environment resembles real-world Scandanavia. Stone buildings require both appropriate quarry sites and skilled stonemasons to operate them. Anything involving metalwork may require additional mines be dug (which is a long-term project, even if sites are available) or massive amounts of ingots imported (which is going to attract attention). If everything up until now has been built of wood and dung, there's a real chance that they will have to import (or kidnap) the required experts.

Having more gold to spend may be irrelevant unless there are things to spend it on. If they just start spending the money on things that don't generate new goods, it will be a much larger pool of money chasing the same amount of goods, so runaway inflation may be an issue. If there are only two swordsmiths in town, at some point throwing additional money at them won't allow the town to purchase any additional swords (at least until they can train up new apprentices and build additional forges). Similarly, if the most productive arable land is already being farmed (and pretty much all the food being eaten), the town would need to attract new farmers from other regions to move in and clear new farmland before the population can grow any.