I'm running a Rifts campaign in which the party has started their own small but growing nation. I plan to use the Kingmaker kingdom rules, but obvious there are some major changes needed.
I've already figured out how I'll be changing the rules for the positions, although suggestions for new positions are welcome. What I need help with is figuring out what new buildings should be avialable and their stats. If you have any suggestions please list them, preferably with BP costs, economy, stability and loyalty bonuses and any special rules.
I'm also going to be overhauling the event system. I want them to be rarer, and when they do happen that is when the players get into RP mode. So any suggestions for how to handle that would also be welcomed.
Retooling the "magic item economy" would probably be the first step. Minor items are one thing, the medium and major items are another animal.
The "currency exchange" between BP and credits can theoretically be directly made. 2,000 gp = 40 pounds of gold; 4,000 gp = 80 pounds of gold. Go from there, although depending on what metal is really more viable as a currency medium for your purposes you might change this from gold to silver or somesuch. RIFTS Atlantis had values for credits per troy ounce of a given metal. I don't recall clearly if the basic rulebook has this information. Its 12 troy ounces per pound of metal ... which means a BP is a LOT of credits using this method. Perhaps use 1 BP = 5 troy pounds (60 troy oz) of [insert currency medium of choice] as the 4,000 gp: 1 BP exchange?
Next step: does your RIFTS campaign factor in religious beliefs ? If so, the Cathedral-Temple-Shrine-etc "chain" retains its usefulness.
If not, you can simply re-name them. Example: Medical Center, Hospital, Clinic. The Graveyard retains its usefulness for obvious (and less obvious) reasons. ^_^
I suggest retooling some of the "purely magical" buildings to more RIFTSesque nomenclature. The medium and major magical items are just another way of reflecting a kingdom's economic and industrial strengths, so redesignate the names of the relevant buildings as you see fit.
If you check out the various 3rd party supplements pertaining to this rules set, take them with a grain of salt. There are some good ideas ... and a lot of bad/mediocre/insufficiently thought through ones as well.
Most RIFTS magical items fall under the "minor item" category. Those that don't tend to fall off the charts. There are not many in between.
The Herbalist building, for example, could house expatriates from the British Isles with their lovely herb-based magic.
Repurposing/renaming most of the buildings can solve most of the problems you may face. Quite a few form trees branching off the 4x4 buildings (arena, castle, cathedral, waterfront). A few do not - alchemist is notable on that short list. MANY desirable buildings are variations from the common ones in name (inn, tavern, shop, tradesman). Butcher = tanner is an example. Exotic Craftsman covers TONS of RIFTS goodies - cybernetics shops and technowizards for two examples.
Kingdom alignment is a bit tricky in the Palladium system due to the differences between the two games. I suggest that you have your players draw up their basic laws (Constitution, Bill of Rights ad nauseam) and determine the kingdom's alignment based on those, with its attendant benefits.
Early on the kingdom lives or dies by the bonuses provided by the ruling council. After the first few years, this almost becomes a non-issue (only 4 or 5 positions are actually vital, the rest can be lived without). If you have enough players, I recommend proportioning additional positions so that they evenly improve the trio of Economy, Loyalty and Stability.
If you are going to use the KM mass combat system, it is *extremely* simplistic. Too much so in my opinion - but it will certainly work well enough!
The event system you're planning to overhaul is a great idea - definitely a must if your campaign is going to go on for several decades. Don't forget the occassional mass raisings of zombies from the graveyards - RIFTS zombies are nasty buggers!
The month by month turns, after 3 or 4 years, will see your players' kingdom grow explosively if they manage things correctly. (If they don't, that's another matter...)
For BPs I'm going to go with the conversion that 1 BP is rough equals to 50,000 Credits. Of course BPs aren't only in the form of credits, be they electronic or gold.
I'm keeping the shrines in because they can do something with religion if they choose. Orchid was selected as "high priest" althought she is more of counselor and focusing on emotional guidance than spiritual guidance. Brimstone is trying to convince people he is a god and should be worshiped.
So far the buildings are:
Pre-Rifts Museum. Not BP based, +2 economy, +2 stability.
Small power plant. 40BPs, +2 economy, +2 stability, required for certain other buildings. Can power 8 buildings.
Medical center. 20BPs, +1 loyalty, +2 stability.
Aquiduct. 6BPs, +1 loyalty, +1 economy. Cost +2 BPs for each hex between the city and the nearest large water supply, 8 BPs total for them.
I know a this point they have discussed a recycling plant, sewage system and elementary/high school. So far I've been playing it by ear with a lot of these. Factories/magic shops/etc. are doable. Between technowizardry and some rules in Palladium fantasy for good old magic items there are some magic items they could see crop up, the "minor, medium and major" descriptors will give me guildlines about how valuable it should be. So a factory that produces power armor would be producing medium and or major items while a small arms facotry would be producing minor. Factories that don't produce highter end items
Some buildings they can't simply decide to go an build. They may have to do some RP searching for the supplies to make that building or people to run it. Particular with a factory, power plant or tw workshop. Besides the events it gives them something to RP for.
Kingdom alignment I let their leader pick. They changed their leader from Richard to O-Bai. As a samuri she picked principled, which I assigned a +2 stability bonus.
For the leadership bonuses I used the bonus listed for a high PP, with works out anywhere from a +0 (which no one had in their position) to a +8. After three months, including buildings, roads, etc. they have a 21 Economy, 25 Stability and 19 Loyalty. More than good enough for their kindom size.
I haven't read the mass combat rules and don't plan to use them much, but it could happen.
Looking it over one thing I can do is instead of the buildings have a number of magic item slots they can instead produce a specific number of BPs per turn. One of the main benefits of the magic item slots is that you can sell them for BPs. They would produce a lot fewer BPs than the slots could, but they are guaranteed. My initial thought is to go with a ratio of minor = 1/4 BP, medium = 1/2 BP and major = 1 BP, but I may need to play around with it some.
Also as time passes I will move from each turn being 1 month to being 3 months, then 6 months, then 1 year. I do want 70 to pass but don't want to wait 70 real time years to see it happen.
Also I realized that I charged them 80BPs worth of credits for the generator so I'm upgrading it to a medium generator which will power 2 city districts and give +3 economy, +2 stability and +1 loyalty. Eventually I need to figure out for large and super large.
I'm sure I'll post more things as they come up in the game.
Looking it over one thing I can do is instead of the buildings have a number of magic item slots they can instead produce a specific number of BPs per turn. One of the main benefits of the magic item slots is that you can sell them for BPs. They would produce a lot fewer BPs than the slots could, but they are guaranteed. My initial thought is to go with a ratio of minor = 1/4 BP, medium = 1/2 BP and major = 1 BP, but I may need to play around with it some.
Also as time passes I will move from each turn being 1 month to being 3 months, then 6 months, then 1 year. I do want 70 to pass but don't want to wait 70 real time years to see it happen.
Also I realized that I charged them 80BPs worth of credits for the generator so I'm upgrading it to a medium generator which will power 2 city districts and give +3 economy, +2 stability and +1 loyalty. Eventually I need to figure out for large and super large.
I'm sure I'll post more things as they come up in the game.
I like that change to the item slots producing (x) BP every turn.
The only drawback to the sliding scale of the turns is that some things seem like they would go pretty wonky pretty quick when "time slows down".
Large: powers 4 city districts, 1x2 building, 175 BP, +4 economy, +2 stability, +2 loyalty.
Really Big: powers 8 city districts, 2x2 building, 250 BP, +5 economy, +3 stability, +3 loyalty.
|
Although I haven't touched a Palladium product for many years, I just wanted to jump in on this thread and say this is very, very cool.
Rifts always held the promise of trying to build a better world out of the post-apocalyptic muck, but it was never clear on how to do so.
Bravo!
I only hope your PCs can fight off bandit gangs, extraplanar hordes, and expansionist Coalition forces.
I will definately let you know how things go. You can get more details on the game over at the Try Not to Die thread under campaign journals which chronicles this game. It started out as a GURPS survival horror game but as you can tell has changed quite a bit since then.
Okay so far the campaign is working out well, but we're still in the earlier stages yet.
At this point the party wants to appoint two new posts. Minister of Transportation and Surgeon General. I'm trying to come up with the exact bonus they would give and I want to get a little more creative then X stat gives X bonus to X country stat.
For the Minister of Transportation my current thought is stat mod * 5 as a percentage bonus to the economy and stability bonus provided by roads. I'm looking at 5 because the stat bonuses in rifts can go as high as +8.
So far I'm coming up blank for the Surgeon General.
As for the revamped event system I've got something I am testing out. There are actually going to be 3 rolls. The one I have already implemented is to replace the current roll. Instead of 25% or 75% if they missed the last one it's starting at 20% +10% for each month an encounter hasn't been rolled. I still use their table for what kind of event it is, but mainly as imspiration.
When they recently finally rolled an event it was something like good omen (I can't find my copy of the table at the moment) and the result was 120 square feet of forest got rifted in right beside their kingdom. The final result will be that next turn they will get to claim a hex with a second city. The city will have a number of new buildings. I'll do another post in a day or two with my current working details of the city for critique.
A second one happens during the build phase. It's a roll to see what if any special citizens they might be able to attract to their city/nation. This includes stuff like techno-wizards, dragons, MDC leather workers. Many building will only be available to be made if the roll comes up or they have RPed attracting someone like that. I need to decide if a) it's per city or just one for the country and b) exactly what to base it off of.
The third will happen during the event phase and is sort of an "opportunity" roll. This is where any scouts they send out come back with news or rumors the part might care about would show up. The events in it would be less immediate and have less of a direct relation to their country as the other event roll. I'm thinking a flat 10 or 15% modified by the quality of scouts they send out. The question is just how the scouts modify it.
I'm also considering allowing them to just send troops/hirelings/etc. to deal with these, although would have a much lower chance of success and be less rewarding than if the party went.
As usual any critiques or advice is appreciated.
Surgeon General: bonus adds on checks dealing with diseases, sanitation, foodstuffs and so on. In this case, the Surgeon General acts as a combination of CDC, FDA and FEMA.
Keep one of each event for the nation as a whole. It will keep your brain from leaving without you.
"Special Buildings" should be special. Ones that they cannot themselves figure out how to do. Presuming that they have various Engineering skills along with some others, almost any regular building they can come up with.
A tanner is a tanner - the trick is the livestock from which the hide is acquired and whether or not the tools are available to work with it. In that area, there are herds of tri-tops (triceratops), among many other critters.
The BP represents more the collective productiveness of the kingdom than actual cash - there are several excellent posts on other threads discussing this that will make it far clearer than I can right now.
Scouts and other hirelings, mini-onions and such can map/explore on their behalf; deal with lower-end critter problems and whatever else you're willing to let them dispatch. You can eyeball the Army/Mass Combat rules to get an idea of costs.
If your looking for mass combat rules in the rifts setting then Rifter 23 should be worth taking a look at. The design behind it is pretty similar but takes into account the different attributes of the setting. They're good in my opinion
Currently for the game this is most of what you have brought to my attention along with a few questions that I have at the moment:
1. New Hastings, near the site of the hold Hastings town, would like a cardinal direction of new Hastings position in relation to old Hastings
2. Old Hastings is trapped inside a time phase loop. Every day is effectively equal to one year if I remember correctly.
3. There is a decent length leyline to the west of the town's, approximately how far off is the leyline and does it intersect with another one at some point.
4. I'm relatively up to date with the actions of the group via the campaign journal of course there is some holes that need to be filled due to the time gaps
5. What kind of resources are available to the party in regards to current level of knowledge of the world are they up to at this point
6. Regarding their immediate surroundings what is available and what were you working on i.e; resources, landmarks, neighbors, dangers, questpoints ?
7. Are there any changes to the setting that were thinking of like inserting changes into the timeline prior to their cannon info. I know you were working on turning or implying that Richard may in fact be Lord Coake, though in actuality the real Lord Coake has been on planet since 80+ years prior to this point.