A Kingdom Divided : Rules and game mechanics (Discussion)

Ser Varys wrote:

At dawn!

(Maybe, it'll involve a shield for now)

Yes sire!

*Hides the gun behind the back.

Instead of a Sangendal style that won't fit with his Dragon armor and weapons, perhaps it is allowed to create a Drake style?
In the original description they would have rivalled the D'shar Blademaster...

Any thoughts?

Hold up on creating styles. Also remember that these are... heroic. Normal Order members are not going to learn them, many PCs may not even learn such a style. It requires study, not simply 'I'm D'Artagnan and can fight 300 men along with my three companions!' Think more Eastern-themed martial artists, rather than battlefield-trained warriors.

A complete and definitive list of styles will be posted soon. Perhaps you'll like to wait until then? I'm trying to make something pretty.

Anyway, since the main purpose of the fighting styles is to improve RP, you could already start writing a story for yours or the ones you like. It should have a martial philosophy behind it, and not be restricted to any order.

Niiinja'ed!

Pretty much was Isabel said. Think about Wudang and Shaolin. Or those many Japanese styles. For example the Japanese Double Sky (dual wield style) was a part of a philosophy that taught warriors to "use all they have when fighting for their lives". And so on.

Ah yes, but the fact that the Drakes are so skilled in their own fighting style already.. one could decide to stay a Drake well after knighthood and truly excell with it to a level wich would earn that bonus. (since it requires 'Legendary')

Thus I was thinking that only a few, who achieve legendary swordsman status in the North would be considered to have mastered a technique all Drakes learn. Since war has not been their primary goal these last decade or so, no true masters in the technique are still alive.

Edit:
Right, I realised I only answered like fifty per cent of the what you two wrote.. So I'm just letting you know that I wasn't planning on writing anything yet and I'm looking forward to Saeros' impressive creativity in the upcoming fighting styles.

Did miss something?

Half of them are Mordred's (although we've been reading each others minds these days). At any rate, the credit goes for both.

Yeah, the reason why Barclay was earlier "Ravenstern style" was because of the Drakes.

However, despite their unquestionably high swordsmanship skill, now I think that they shouldn't have a systematized school. One reason is because Blademasters would need one too, and both would be too similar. Another more relevant one is that both Ravenstern and D'Shar have rather individualistic cultures, so I suppose every Drake would develop his style according to his own preference, instead of submitting himself to the opinion of a master. Very stubborn, they are.

Dragons are institutionally stubborn.

Fantastic!

Well, I aplaude the both of you then!

Anyway, I like the idea of individual style of swordmanship... but they have to learn it from somewhere and it's not like every stubborn lad from noble stock has the talent to get to the Drake level of skill on their own.

Aelos has, coincidently, but he devoted his entire life to it. Plus he grew up amongst Dragons and Drakes, so if he really did make it all up himself is another question.

Edit:
Now that I'm thinking about Aelos' swordmanship anyway..would it be logical RP-wise to say Haegon loved the Barclay style so much that he took books about it with him to Pendor?

The books would be fine... but trying to keep a fighting style within a family, over the course of a century, with the frequent deaths of the family members, would be a bit of a stretch!

Translation: Your characters die too much. DENIED!


j/k

We should get you a gavel to smack on something hard when you make a pronouncement such as that.

Since I've been flipping through people signatures to see their gear and such, I realized we have a large/bigger than I expected number of PCs that have the legendary trait.

If that's the case would PCs like Morek,Seph, and Rivatha etc etc know about them from word of mouth about Pendor?

That is quite possible, but also up to the players involved. A knight who regularly fights in tournaments (and has the legendary trait) could very well be known by others. On the other hand, a 'legendary' knight might spend their time humbly practicing and so not be well-known. Even if one knight is well-known, your PC may not actually know of them due to some circumstance or another.

The general assumption is that characters are among the more prominent of knights within their Orders, so they may be recognized in that way too.

But as always, these are generalities... individual stories are all that really matter.

(Yay for saying absolutely nothing in this post!)

Isabel Tenorio wrote:

The books would be fine... but trying to keep a fighting style within a family, over the course of a century, with the frequent deaths of the family members, would be a bit of a stretch!

Translation: Your characters die too much. DENIED!


j/k

Oh please! I said combining it, not mastering it.
Getting a basic grasp from it, and then setting it to your own hand with a more physical Ravenstern style of swordmanship should be good enough.

And.. for the record.. only Aelos died in a roleplay.. and I did find his death rather epic. (in his own weird way, I suppose)

Yes, Aelos, you can. With the revised system you'll be able to belong to a school without actually mastering it, very much like how you can be a Niten disciple without being Musashi.

But you won't be able to create another style later, or even follow another school, but at least you'll have a grasp of Barclay system and will be free to RP that as you please (like the warrior who is desperate to learn more but can't find a master who will teach him).

Quote :

That is quite possible, but also up to the players involved. A knight who regularly fights in tournaments (and has the legendary trait) could very well be known by others. On the other hand, a 'legendary' knight might spend their time humbly practicing and so not be well-known. Even if one knight is well-known, your PC may not actually know of them due to some circumstance or another.

What about some sort of recognition procent? Each player would decide his own starting procent based on his story, and it would help in interactions with PC and NPC alike. For PC it would help to decide wether you know this knight or no, and for NPC it's GM's decision, and it helps with interaction, let's say NPC knows much about you (90%)who you are and he admires you for what you did in tournaments. Other who likes commoners knows that you once slaughtered whole peasant rebellion and despises you for it.

I like that idea, but I'd be careful to keep it simple and not complex if you do decide to do something like that.

My idea is to keep it simple.
0% percent is completely unknown
100% means you are known pretty much in every tavern.

Various actions add those percents: Appearing at the meeting and voicing your opinion would give small amount, 5%, because you are only get better known by other knights.Should you get publicly punished it would give big amount, for example 20%.

Percents should be subtracted with time, in my opinion subtraction per every event would work nice, or otherwise each PC would end up with 100%.

It's up to PC to decide his starting recognition based on their background, famous fighter and tournament winner would have 70-100% while someone like my Rivatha, or a simple squire would have 5-10%

Of course it would be more realistic for recognition to be different with every group, but i think it would make system too complex.

Also we could have one post where everyone's recognition would be kept, it makes it easier for GMs to edit it, and makes it available for anyone to see.

Without advanced communication technology there is no universal fame. A famous tournament champion will be totally unknown to the merchant who never watches tournaments. A warhero in Ravenstern would be totally unsung in the Empire.

Isabel Tenorio wrote:

Without advanced communication technology there is no universal fame. A famous tournament champion will be totally unknown to the merchant who never watches tournaments. A warhero in Ravenstern would be totally unsung in the Empire.

But everyone... EVERYONE.. knows the beloved founder Cavalas and Mordred I Adalhard. If not, come meet Aelos at the execution grounds in Sarleon.

Quote :

But everyone... EVERYONE.. knows the beloved founder Cavalas and Mordred I Adalhard. If not, come meet Aelos at the execution grounds in Sarleon.

This,and i guess this could be 100%, and then it need's to be really hard to achieve such status, maybe some sort of formula to make recognition progressively harder to achieve. I was thinking =Recognition*(100-Current)/100 , so if you get 10% raw recognition, and you already got 90 now (10*(100-90)/100=10) so you get only 1% recognition for action. And considering you lose about 10% after every event it would be nearly impossible to achieve 90-100%.

I guess also recognition gains should be lower then i used in example before.

It could also be modified by whether your deeds are sung by bards or not, and modified further by region.

1% Normal, +10% in Ravenstern.

Hmm, i guess regions wouldn't make it too much complicated.

I'm a bit against using mechanics for something like this... why can't the GM's decide about wether or not something is known?

Quote :

But everyone... EVERYONE.. knows the beloved founder Cavalas and Mordred I Adalhard

Not the Order of the XXXX and the Knights of the XXXX. They don't even care about Pendorian history. All Pendorians are pretty much the same for them.

What.
And that's all I'll say.

Seriously, though: 499AF Pendor is a bit more globalized than the PoP 3 version, very much like late 16th centuty Europe. The many foreigners in the kingdom may have no idea about Pendorian history, as you have no idea about theirs.

Yes, I'm doubleposting.

If you decide not to use mechanics (I'm completely indifferent about that), you may use a qualitative criterion: backgrounds like noble and foreigner influence how much you know, or how well known your name is. Traits like legendary (weapon), champion, etc. may also make it more likely for someone to recognize you, although not necessarily. Depends on how showy you have been in the RP and in your bio.

EDIT:
Medics/alchemists are a rare profession and should be known regionally. Assassins and the sort should obviously not be very known, since what they do is against the law.

And by you I mean "you all". I'll take no position on this (--> indifferent).