Events for Holdings

[Mim]

Rich (as usual) has done a great job with these events & I can't wait to use 'em.

My apologies to Rich or anyone if you're working on this, however; if any of you are considering using events like these, you may also want to put together a list of additional outcomes from these events. This will save you time while you LM your heroes through the Fellowship Phase, & may even lead into an Adventure Phase.

For example, some years back, my LM surprised Grór - my Dwarf - as I returned from an adventure to my hold in the Ered Luin, only to discover that some Huntsmen discovered a gold mine! The vein rapidly played out of course, but ere it did, the challenges included:

1. Angry Dwarves & Huntsmen insulted over this affront to what they considered to be their claim.

2. A band of Outlaws that ambushed one of the wagons.

3. Double-deals & stake-jumping.

4. The rest of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains who suddenly remembered all the tolls I owed.

5. Rains washed out the road & blocked further travel. This became quite a job clearing up, especially when a pack of hungry Stone-trolls roved westward & some of the workmen mysteriously disappeared...

You get the idea. These can be a blast.

[Rich H]

I came up with a few Hazards for Holdings (ie, bad events) as follows...

1) Disaster strikes and an Improvement, selected at random, is destroyed. This may have occurred due to a fire, flood or other natural disaster or something more sinister. Reduce the rating of the Holding by one point.

2) Your Holding has been extraordinarily unsuccessful this year. Subtract three points of Treasure to its profit (or loss) for this year.

3) Your liege lord visits during the winter and costs two Treasure (for Poor/Frugal cultures), three Treasure (for Martial/Prosperous cultures), and four Treasure (for Rich cultures) to accommodate him and his entourage.

4) Fate curses your Holding. For next year's success check, roll the Feat Die a second time and pick the worst result.

5) Your lands are beset by marauding creatures. If they go unchecked then an Improvement will be destroyed. The nature of the creature(s) can be determined by the Loremaster and should result in an adventure of some kind to deal with the threat.

6) Your Holding has invested poorly in improvements. Roll a Success Die, the cost of your Holding's next improvement is increased by that amount.

7) Brigands attack your Holding, pillaging your supplies. Roll a Success Die and reduce the Holding's Stored Wealth by the result shown. Heroes may decide to hunt down the brigands which would require a short adventure to do so.

8) You owe a favour to an important Holding near to yours which they collect on this year; roll one Success Die and increase the point cost for your next Improvement by the result.

9) Pestilence and disease strikes your holding. Roll a Success Die and reduce the Holding's Stored Wealth by double the result shown.

10) There is a dispute with a neighbour. Test your character's Persuade skill against TN 16. A failure results in a loss of one point in your character's Standing. Any success results in no loss to Standing.

11) The Holding has had an unsuccessful year. Deduct one point of Treasure from the profit (or loss) calculated for this year.

[Glorelendil]

I've started reading all the ideas for Holdings by mentally applying several different archetypes (some of which I've gotten from other posters) against them, to see if the rules apply generally. I've been using:
- An inn in the Shire
- A musical instrument shop in Laketown or Dale
- A secluded forest grove in the Woodland Realm
- A precious metals mine

Not every rule/idea has to apply against all of them, of course, but I think it's a useful exercise to make sure a variety of themes are supported.

[zedturtle]

Yeah, in my rules rolling an Eye for the years end check will generate a Holding 'hazard'; which will have to be dealt with in some way.

[zedturtle]

I've started reading all the ideas for Holdings by mentally applying several different archetypes (some of which I've gotten from other posters) against them, to see if the rules apply generally. I've been using:
- An inn in the Shire
- A musical instrument shop in Laketown or Dale
- A secluded forest grove in the Woodland Realm
- A precious metals mine

Not every rule/idea has to apply against all of them, of course, but I think it's a useful exercise to make sure a variety of themes are supported.

Yep, what I'm doing in my rules is to pick six of Rich's (and mine if I can think of something that isn't on Rich's list) traits for each culture. For example Beornings get apiaries, etc. but I also make it clear that you can mix and match, woodmen can have mines, dwarves could have inns; they're kind of like the least likely calling... It doesn't prevent you from doing it, just makes it known what is most likely.

[Glorelendil]

If you want to share what you've got in progress some of us might have fun brainstorming more ideas, to pick & choose or reject as you will.

[zedturtle]

If you want to share what you've got in progress some of us might have fun brainstorming more ideas, to pick & choose or reject as you will.

Yeah, I'll post a link to my 'extended edition' Holding rules when I'm next in front of my computer, there are still some gaps and terminology issues for which I am anxious for assistance with.

[zedturtle]

Here is the latest version of my file.

As you can see, there's plenty of opportunities for improvement. I'd like to:

• Reword the overview on page 1
• More fully integrate Holding traits, I say that they're optional but if they can be used in good years and bad then they need to be mandatory
• Flesh out the traits for each of the cultures and work up short intro blurbs, sort of like what the Bardings and Beornings have now (what the Dwarves have is too much).
• Steal almost all of Rich's misfortune table above for page 8. The only changes will be to make some of the penalties a little more random. Also, I want the reverse of 'Favours Done' so that there's 'Favours Owed'... pay up or lose Standing (emphasizing the reciprocal nature of these societies, if you do someone a favour, they'll do you a favour. The first time you try to collect outside of the favour system, there's potential for both of you to look bad.)

Thanks for all the help!

Ideas, suggestions, corrections: post them here or PM me, it's all good!

[zedturtle]

So it seems to me that traits might be divided into categories:

• Some traits, like Farm, Mill, Mine, Trading House, etc. seem to be fairly fundemental. They are also ones that I can most easily see being upgraded, e.g. there can be such a thing as a Farm 2 or Mine 3 or whatever.
• Some seem more like upgrades to existing Holdings, like Apiaries, Gardens, Orchards, maybe even Mills.
• Some seem almost ancillary to Holdings;Carpenters, Crafters, Artists, etc. They are more people-based and less location based, in other words.

So, I guess my questions are: does the above division make sense? and should each of these categories be treated differently?

[Glorelendil]

I think it's worth differentiating between fluff and crunch. If a player upgrades their farm Holding from 3 to 4 and wants to say "it's because I added an apiary" then we don't really need a rule; the list of "traits" can just be suggestions and people can pick whatever they want. If a Barding wants to open a Mathom Trader and upgrade it with a Coneygarth...well, who's to say he can't?

It's only when the types of Holdings and the Traits have specific game mechanics that it starts to matter. For example, maybe adding an Apiary has some effect on relations with Beornings, or gives a boost to Twice-Baked Honey Cakes.

Or, since we are calling them traits, they could even be invoked like character traits: "I'm going to invoke my Holding's "Apiary" trait: my farm has particularly vibrant flowers because of the bees, so I'm going to send a bouquet of flowers as an apology." In that case, adding an apiary to a copper mine might not be appropriate.

Of course, like I've expressed in threads about armor and virtues and other topics, I like everything to come with a trade-off. Maybe an Apiary makes your holding particularly vulnerable to bad weather years.

So here's how it could, in theory, work (like most of my posts, I literally made this up just now while typing):
1) The basic Holding "types" would be, as zed mentions, "Farm", "Shop", "Mine", "Grove", "Inn", etc. Each culture could have "preferred" types, but (like Callings) those would be suggestions, not rules.
2) When holdings fail (on their yearly roll) another roll could be made on a table of causes. "Dishonest Employee", "Bad Weather", "Market Glut", "Infestation", "Disease Outbreak", "Predators", "Vicious Rumor", "Orc Raid", "Dragon", etc. (Ok, maybe not that last one.)
3) Every trait comes with advantages, but also a specific disadvantage that applies when a specific failure result occurs. (E.g., if you have an Apiary and your holding has a failed year because of Bad Weather, you suffer a -2 roll the next year.)

Thoughts?

Really, I think a 2015 goal for C7 should be a whole book on Holdings....