Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings

[Songtress]

Hey people if we can get a mu together, would anyone be oppose to me pulling these ideas into a play by post forum game and spinning up a world and pbp game based on It? (probably using Jcink hosting and of course premium because.. People gonna.. . People.)

I did come up with an idea around that squickyy topic that was touch on early (i. E zoophilia the mu*). The Rhydan-like animals... TThey can shape shift into a kenomimi(that is human with ears and tails of animals).

There probably solved¿ and now I have created a whole new one of course.

[Pyrephox]

@packrat said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

One thing that I do feel is valuable in a Lords and Ladies set up is a large population of NPC nobles and society. Then you can have people with social stats or plots influence things, or social pressures be applied, etc, without having to rely on player characters entirely.

Another consideration, for me at least? Player characters almost always have 'above average' stats and skills for good reason but if player characters then make up the entire structure of an inherited noble caste? That starts to create a world in which those of noble birth are inherently superior even if that was not the intention.

I am to be honest a big fan of making that kind of thing based on 'level' of nobility also, if you are a knight/dame? Be really good at stuff! There might well be thousands of NPC gentry and you are one of the people who stand out. Somebody is playing a duke or duchess? Have them given points to be statted like a vaguely kind of competent person because they are going to get plenty of spotlight and agency from their position and power. They do not also need to be a master duellist or peerless tactician or unmatched courtier, actually if they are merely decent at stuff then they have much more reason to want to recruit, retain the loyalty of and have to delegate power to other player characters.

I agree with this. Rank, honestly, should be a purchasable ability, not something you get just by saying 'I want to play a Duke'. In most L&L settings, it comes with too many inherent bonuses for people to ALSO get full stats/skills/other abilities. Particularly when you add in personal wealth from being nobility, it's very easy to have Nobles Who Do Everything - they're warriors with the best equipment, they're researchers with the greatest libraries and assistants, they're diplomats with the ability to pay massive bribes, AND they receive an ongoing source of income and their own armies.

However, if you do that, I'd also recommend standardizing and being specific about the privileges of nobility: at X level, you have access to Y personal troops, X ongoing wealth, Z bonuses to social interactions with people beneath you on the chain, etc. And instead of letting people change rank (unless you have a setting that allows that), let people gain and lose temporary titles. Many royal/imperial courts had loads of minor titles JUST so that they could award good service (or punish someone who fell out of favor) in ways that were under their control. It's one of those things that a lot of games don't bother with, and it's a shame. 'The Keeper of the Royal Bedchamber' doesn't sound like an exciting title until you realize that in some places, the monarch took personal audiences in their bedchamber and it was the Keeper who decided who got in.

That said, looking at other alternatives: I'd love to see a game that played around with something along the Imperial Exam system. Blue Rose does this in part: you have to past tests of nobility, the last of which is the scepter test. But you could go more into an Imperial Exam kind of thing where your scholar class ARE your nobility, and the 'noble families' are the ones who push their children to study, take the exams, and get bureaucratic postings, including things like governorships. It also gives you characters who may be raised to wealth and privilege, but failed the exams or didn't take them, and now fill different positions for their family.

Also, @Songtress - it's a nice thought, but people do not pretend bang animals because they just don't have a humanoid form for that character they're in love with to bang. They pretend bang animals because the idea of getting ridden by a wolf, or cat, or whatever REALLY turns them on.

[Songtress]

@pyrephox I was hoping... To not be reminded of that. Hence the "solving" of the issue. sigh

[Pyrephox]

@songtress I am here to destroy your illusions about humanity!

[Arkandel]

Another take on Lords and Ladies could be to introduce a level of strategic planning to it.

One of my peeves about settings like that, for some time, was that there was no cost to anything. Every other noble PC walks around throwing gold at problems; if Jane comes asking Jim for some ships to move her good he can just... give it since there's an inexhaustible supply. Here, have some imaginary ships, lady!

Similarly there's no downside in being nice. Hey peasants, I lowered your taxes! Love me! Which means playing cutthroat, cynical characters with an eye toward making money and using it to gain political advantages (think Littlefinger from Game of Thrones) doesn't give any edge over honorable ones (like Eddard Stark), and that ultimately cheapens both; honor is cheap without sacrifice, and bastardy is just dumb because... you act like an asshole IC yet get nothing to show for it.

I'd love to see a setting where clever players managing their estates well is meaningful and gets them the upper hand. Treating serfs well makes one popular - which grants bonuses - but empty coffers also translate to disadvantages that have to be played around.

Anyway. Lords and ladies. Resources. Meaningful choices. I'd like to see a good take on it.

[Ominous]

@arkandel

Absolutely. I pushed for this without much luck on a few L&L games. It's hard to RP trade deals and such when there is no actual mechanical basis for it. It's sort of the opposite of the problem with some Euro board games that have weak flavor and all you're doing is just pushing around cubes with one another. I want the crunch and the fluff!

[Pacha]

@pyrephox

I mean, maybe I am just very laissez-faire about this but if someone wants to have consensual sex with a sentient Animal in a fantasy setting and they do it in private, is that really so awful? I might find it personally distasteful, but if I could ban everything in a MU that I found distasteful we would end up with not a lot left at times, honestly.

[Ganymede]

@pacha

I mean, sex with an animal sort of formed the basis of one of Canada's most famous novels.

[il-volpe]

What @pacha said.
or

[Runescryer]

@il-volpe In general...yes. absolutely. perfect. Everyone mind their own fracking business.

In practice, though....

Again, this is just me voicing my experience in MUSHdom for 20+ years, whatever that may be worth. YMMV.

It's the same problem that happens in any game where TS can happen, even if it's supposed to be 'on the sly'. It's not so much the norms minding their own business that's the issue. It's the TSers who need to brag about their latest exploits and flaunt it who are the issue. Granted, sometimes it's a Monty Python 'Nudge, Nudge, Say No More, eh?' kind of flaunting. But there are times that players can't just keep things that should be private, private. And that sets collapses in motion. At this time, I'd like to enter into evidence Defense Exhibit #1: Hero's Dreaming.

Four words: Open Teen Superhuman Pedophilia

I mean, other than that, it was a great mixed universe supers game. Hell, it wouldn't have even mattered if the PLAYERS AND STAFF HADN'T BEEN SO EFFING OPEN ABOUT IT.

I rest my case.

[Runescryer]

Anyways, back to the topic at hand L&L settings. Apologies for starting us on that tangent....

Again, I'm going to put forth the AD&D 2e Birthright setting. PC's are/can be Blooded Scions, inheritors of a Divine Bloodline that gives them special abilities as well as connect them to the land. It's not the standard AD&D murderhobo campaign. It's focused around politics, intrigue, empire building, strategic combat maneuvering, a bit of traditional dungeon delving...

And a pinch of hunting down other Blooded Scions, killing them, and sucking out their divine power to increase your own, Highlander style.

Several 5e homebrew conversion rules are available. Minor tweeks needed to overcome the communication/travel distances between the central 'Imperial City' and the scattered home provinces the PC's are in charge of. Other than that, this has a fantastic amount of potential.I've always thought tht Birthright was a concept ahead of it's time, just missing out by 10 years on the social media revolution that would have really made this setting shine.

[Songtress]

@runescryer
Not a bad start.

I saw we we mix a little Blue Rose in there & a little pern (because while candles are great, I think we should have hospitals, the scientific method, and electric and cool things. So most of this is written from the top of my head.

The Founders of the country were these Divine Birthright Scions, who were fleeing the destruction of the Old Kingdom(and by destruction I mean the kind they brought on themselves). [Truth: Space ships, psionic humans, nanotechnology colony finds the perfect planet]

They took all the small folk with them, and the Gods guided them across the boiling oceans to a new land.

Here this land was open to them. The land itself accepted them by offering anyone who wished to live upon it, choices. The divineblood of the other land needed to match the 'hummm' of this new land, and so the Great Beasts (Basically 'Rhydan/Companions' make links with some people so they're attuned to the world better.

Over time this Divine blood of Gods, spreads through the population like wildfire.
[Truth: The humans use their technology to modify themselves, increasing their psionics after discovering that the Great Beasts they've made contact with are sapient and are kineses weilders amoung other things (that being the most outward sign). Notably Greater Beasts, are bigger, and more intelligent than their mundane counterparts. (You have 'Greater Beasts & 'normal' animals. The normal animals from earth, seem to be compatible with the normal animals of the world. Scienticsts surmise that the world have have some kind of mental life force, since it seem to be using their animals as templates, and the Greater Beasts for communication. They note that there are no other humanoid lifeforms on the world.

(Just me blabbering and a round 1 kinda way)

[Packrat]

@arkandel said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

Another take on Lords and Ladies could be to introduce a level of strategic planning to it.

One of my peeves about settings like that, for some time, was that there was no cost to anything. Every other noble PC walks around throwing gold at problems; if Jane comes asking Jim for some ships to move her good he can just... give it since there's an inexhaustible supply. Here, have some imaginary ships, lady!

Similarly there's no downside in being nice. Hey peasants, I lowered your taxes! Love me! Which means playing cutthroat, cynical characters with an eye toward making money and using it to gain political advantages (think Littlefinger from Game of Thrones) doesn't give any edge over honorable ones (like Eddard Stark), and that ultimately cheapens both; honor is cheap without sacrifice, and bastardy is just dumb because... you act like an asshole IC yet get nothing to show for it.

I'd love to see a setting where clever players managing their estates well is meaningful and gets them the upper hand. Treating serfs well makes one popular - which grants bonuses - but empty coffers also translate to disadvantages that have to be played around.

Anyway. Lords and ladies. Resources. Meaningful choices. I'd like to see a good take on it.

One of the systems used on the Fading Suns game set on Vargo did this pretty well, basically you defaulted as a noble to having everything funded at the 'thoroughly mediocre' level when it came to loyalty of your people and vassals and that left you with a properly funded lifestyle for your rank along with some spending money but not a fortune. The moment you wanted to live in an extra fancy manner, or do well by your peasants, etc? You either needed to be excellent at managing your lands or obtain money from outside sources.

It ended up with things like one faction leader trying to sign a peace deal with the NPC neighbor and it being foiled because one of his baronesses was sending pirate ships to raid their coast and he had no idea it was going on. He thought the other party was making up coastal raids in order to try to get concessions but they were totally real and were making said baroness a ton of money.

I had a character who was held a senior military position and she was 100% embezzling the budget to help fund her personal goon squad of elite and ludicrously well paid murderers. They were just down the road from the palace where her boss lived though and so whilst he knew she was embezzling money he did not say anything due to being legitimately concerned about a coup.

It obviously had major problems but I loved how it rapidly turned landed nobles into money grubbing kleptocrats who would strike dubious deals with people and go into debt continuously. Successful military campaigns and sacking towns was also a great source of incoming if you could pull it off.

[Arkandel]

@packrat One concern here is that players would leave most Houses bankrupt in the long run because they'd just spend gold on lavish parties.

Alt behavior would also need to be monitored. If I'm allied to you on my main character it'd be a bit suspicious when I roll a different PC, make a lucrative deal whose terms favor your IC interests then fade into inactivity leaving the rest of that second PC's family to pick up the pieces.

[Ganymede]

@arkandel

Or just allow players only one PC.

[Derp]

@ganymede said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

@arkandel

Or just allow players only one PC.

This is the one I'm always for. But the altaholics out there would gather the pitchforks and torches, I think.

But as a general rule, if you have enough characters to populate your own entire kingdom, you might have too many alts.

[Runescryer]

@ganymede Or, Dark Sun Character Tree route...

You can have up to X number of characters, but only 1 can be active (earning XP/Prestige/GP/Resources) at any one time at 'normal' rate; your other alts earn at a fraction of what your active alt earns.

[Ganymede]

@runescryer said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

You can have up to X number of characters, but only 1 can be active (earning XP/Prestige/GP/Resources) at any one time at 'normal' rate; your other alts earn at a fraction of what your active alt earns.

This doesn't avert alt-conflicts.

[il-volpe]

I can't imagine how people would think it would.

[Runescryer]

@ganymede True, but a bit of further planning can eliminate that.