Recruiting: Prince Illiam Needs You ... ?

[rust]

Most of the system part of our Carelan setting has now been designed, the eco-

nomy will be borrowed from Harnmaster, the mass combat mainly from Pendragon

and GURPS, and the magic from Midgard - they all fit in well enough with our ver-

sion of a "BRP-enriched CoC".

Unfortunately there is still one problem remaining, recruiting. The characters will

have to win new members for the rebellion, and I failed to come up with a con-

vincing rules mechanism for this, a complete "setting designer's block".

The mechanism should consider the reputation of the rebellion, the social skills

of the recruiters, the degree of oppression suffered by the community where the

attempt to win recruits is made, and the size of this community (and perhaps also

other factors I did not think of ...) and should give the number of recruits as the

result.

I suspect that something like this has already been developed for some game out

there, and also that it would not be terribly difficult to come up with such a me-

chanism, but right now I can only stare at the screen and wonder where my brain

has gone.

Any help with this would be most welcome.

[seneschal]

Flash Gordon, John Carter and Buck Rogers never messed with game mechanics. Recruiting allies usually involved defeating or proving their valor to suspicious parties who happened to also be hostile to the Big Bad. Once the former opponent was impressed with the heroes' courage, combat ability, honor or natural charisma, he or she usually joined up. It's a role-playing thing, not a game mechanics thing. The recruits are typically the rulers of a particular racial or ethnic group and bring their armed followers along with them.

So forget tables and charts; stat up Allura, Queen of the Squirrel People; and have her fall hopelessly in lust with one of your PCs.

[rust]

The recruits are typically the rulers of a particular racial or ethnic group and bring their armed followers along with them.

I see your point, but this would not work in this setting, the characters have to

go to the settlements and to convince villagers and townsmen to join the rebel-

lion, there simply are no particular racial or ethnic groups with armed followers in

this setting. And just to claim that all peasants of Village Remote hate the usur-

per and leave their families and farms to join the good fight seems rather implau-

sible, so I am looking for a way to determine how many of those farmers could

be willing to become rebels, based upon the previous successes or failures of the

rebellion (= its reputation) and the "sales pitch" (= Recruiting skill) of the charac-

ters.

Edit.:

I just got an interesting tip in another forum, to use the people's Loyalty to the

ruler as a base value and add and subtract modifiers according to the local si-

tuation and the activities and skills of the characters. For example, the further

the settlement is from the capital and the more the people are oppressed, the

less is their Loyalty, and when the characters manage to turn it into negative

Loyalty (ah, Disloyalty), a certain percentage of them will join the rebellion.

I think this approach should work, now I only have to think about the modifiers

which would fit well into the setting - I hope.

Edited April 8, 2011 by rust

[seneschal]

Hmmm. Well, you could always take the David/Robin Hood approach and send your PCs to those already disaffected with the usurper. Is there an element or elements of society who have lost their farms, homes, families to the bad guy? If they're already refugees, vagrants or outlaws because of the villain, they have little to lose and perhaps much to gain by joining the PCs.

[rust]

Hmmm. Well, you could always take the David/Robin Hood approach and send your PCs to those already disaffected with the usurper. Is there an element or elements of society who have lost their farms, homes, families to the bad guy? If they're already refugees, vagrants or outlaws because of the villain, they have little to lose and perhaps much to gain by joining the PCs.

Thank you very much, this would be good modifiers for the approach I edited into my last post.

[filbanto]

Presumably the adventurers in this game are "righters of wrongs" or "steal from the rich and give to the poor" types, no? I suggest using their deeds as a measure. Set some value to the scenarios you create. Helping a little old lady across the street is worth one point. Slaying the evil Baron is worth 25. As their the value of their deeds increases it becomes easier to convince people to join the rebellion.

[rust]

Presumably the adventurers in this game are "righters of wrongs" or "steal from the rich and give to the poor" types, no? I suggest using their deeds as a measure. Set some value to the scenarios you create. Helping a little old lady across the street is worth one point. Slaying the evil Baron is worth 25. As their the value of their deeds increases it becomes easier to convince people to join the rebellion.

Thank you for a good idea.

Of course, there should also be negative modifiers, for example for wounding ci-

vilians or otherwise causing harm to them (those stolen chickens ...).

[Agentorange]

mmmmm.......maybe something around the allegiance rules ? The average peasant or whatever starts off neutral ( or pretty close to it ) 50 points towards the rebellion 49 for the ruling elite. Every time the PC's stop the evil barons troops from looting the village they shift towards the rebellion 10 points, everytime the PC's nick some chickens they shift 5 points towards the rulers etc etc. Do it for each village or hamlet ( rather than individuals ). When they reach a critical point say 80% then they're bona fide members of the rebellion just waiting to get out the pitchforks and flaming torches.

All very rough and ready, but I'm sure you get the idea.

[rust]

All very rough and ready, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Yep, thank you very much.

Since there are different factions among the rebellion, and not all of them are of

the Robin Hood kind, I will also use modifiers / points for the less than helpful ac-

tions of those other factions, hoping that this will cause the characters to try to

rein in the bandits among the rebels - which will of course increase the peasants'

sympathies and support for the characters.

[SDLeary]

Something based a bit on Pendragon Glory perhaps? Lets call it Renown or Repute. Overall value of this determines how well you are known among the masses.

Unlike Pendragon, it is divided in two. One positive value (Good?) and one negative (Bad?); sum of the absolute values/modulus' creating the master number. The positive equate to good deeds, the negative to bad deeds; like wounding civilians mentioned upthread.

SDLeary

Edited April 9, 2011 by SDLeary

[rust]

Something based a bit on Pendragon Glory perhaps? Lets call it Renown or Repute. Overall value of this determines how well you are known among the masses.

Thank you very much, another good idea.

[filbanto]

Allegiance rules, suggested by Agentorange, are a brilliant idea. Under the existing framework they should work well. Once the village/town/group's allegiance to a faction is 20 points more than any other faction they will start actively aiding that group (supplies, a place to hide, etc). Once their allegiance to a faction has risen to 100 they are in full support (rebellion).