Expanded Holdings
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:56 pm
A thread in the General forum got me thinking about how the rules for holdings could be expanded to accommodate Companies who wish to found or run substantial settlements, rather than just a single business or homestead. I posted this idea there, but I'm making this thread to expand upon what I said before and to solicit opinions or other ideas for how this could be accomplished.
For the purpose of this thread, I'll refer to three levels of player controlled settlements. A holding sticks to the scope of the original rules, a village is a settlement comprised of many holdings, and a kingdom is a settlement comprised of many villages. For example, Dale could be seen as a Kingdom comprised of five distinct parts: the businesses of Dale, the residencies of Dale, the army, and two divisions of outlying settlements. While not all of these would be "villages" in the traditional sense, they could be seen as such for the purposes of running them. Likewise, the way the Lake-town guide splits up the city essentially breaks a kingdom up into several villages.
The PCs could control every settlement in all the levels, or they could control only a few. They might, for example, be responsible for a village, but not the holdings that make up that village. They may split the various holdings among themselves, or delegate some to NPCs.
Different events could occur when rolls are failed at different levels of settlements. Failing a roll on the hunting lodge sub-holding of an Eotheod village might mean there's a shortage of food, or that some fearsome beast is slaughtering game. Failing a roll on the village might mean that an orc band is going to attack, or that the villagers are grumbling about leaving for greener pastures. Failing a roll on the kingdom that the village belongs to may mean a group of Trolls has made their home by a major byway, or that the leader of a neighboring kingdom is threatening to cut ties.
Throw in an adventure or two about drumming up support for a new settlement, an adventure or three about clearing the immediate area of threats, and you have yourself a solid campaign based on founding and sustaining a village. A few adventures to unite several villages, or build a village up to a city, and you have yourself a kingdom. You could even periodically make it harder to maintain these settlements, as they did in DoM, to make it very difficult to sustain the settlement all the way to the War.
For the purpose of this thread, I'll refer to three levels of player controlled settlements. A holding sticks to the scope of the original rules, a village is a settlement comprised of many holdings, and a kingdom is a settlement comprised of many villages. For example, Dale could be seen as a Kingdom comprised of five distinct parts: the businesses of Dale, the residencies of Dale, the army, and two divisions of outlying settlements. While not all of these would be "villages" in the traditional sense, they could be seen as such for the purposes of running them. Likewise, the way the Lake-town guide splits up the city essentially breaks a kingdom up into several villages.
The PCs could control every settlement in all the levels, or they could control only a few. They might, for example, be responsible for a village, but not the holdings that make up that village. They may split the various holdings among themselves, or delegate some to NPCs.
Different events could occur when rolls are failed at different levels of settlements. Failing a roll on the hunting lodge sub-holding of an Eotheod village might mean there's a shortage of food, or that some fearsome beast is slaughtering game. Failing a roll on the village might mean that an orc band is going to attack, or that the villagers are grumbling about leaving for greener pastures. Failing a roll on the kingdom that the village belongs to may mean a group of Trolls has made their home by a major byway, or that the leader of a neighboring kingdom is threatening to cut ties.
Throw in an adventure or two about drumming up support for a new settlement, an adventure or three about clearing the immediate area of threats, and you have yourself a solid campaign based on founding and sustaining a village. A few adventures to unite several villages, or build a village up to a city, and you have yourself a kingdom. You could even periodically make it harder to maintain these settlements, as they did in DoM, to make it very difficult to sustain the settlement all the way to the War.