Stronghold & Castle Rules for BRP?

[Nokaion]

Hey, I wanted to do a fantasy campaign, where my PCs get their own castle/stronghold they can manage and renovate, and I wanted to ask if there were rules that could work for it.

Thx in advance!

[Raleel]

maybe a touch far afield and perhaps not as detailed as you want (hard to say there) but Destined (the superhero version of the BRP cousin Mythras) has a set of base building rules that work well. Aspects like power might have to be changed, but it includes various upgrades for facilities and the like.

[SDLeary]

There are also rules for manors and strongholds in Pendragon that you could adapt. I’m not aware of anything in base BRP though.

@Raleel, perhaps also in Perceforest? Don’t have my books nearby at the moment.

[Raleel]

@SDLeary I don't actually own it, so I couldn't tell you 🙂 yes, shocking i know.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Nokaion said:

Hey, I wanted to do a fantasy campaign, where my PCs get their own castle/stronghold they can manage and renovate, and I wanted to ask if there were rules that could work for it.

Thx in advance!

As SDLEarly already mentioned, Pendragon is really the only BRP related stuff that covers castles and fortifications in a way similar to what you are asking about.

Pendragon, BTW, is not exactly BRP but a BRP realted game set in an Arthurian feudal setting. It isn't quite BRP compatible and the castle rules have changes somewhat between editions but you could pick up and adapt the rules to BRP. The Nobles Book from first edition is available on DriveThru RPG for about $5. The latter Book of the Estate is also available (for $20) but most of what in it probably wouldn't be of much use to you. 

In a nutshell fortifications cost money to create but provide a Defensive Value that affects battles in Pendragon, (and would need to be adapted somewhat to BRP, which as yet doesn't have a mass battle system, although the orginal rules for Pendragon are simple enough to adapt easily). Defesises are build in concetric layers with higher fortifications being able to add to lower ones in front and various bits of fortification also have other effects and benefits (for instance you need gates to get into and out of the fort) but the core idea is that they all increase DV. 

 

You could also look through the Pendragon section of this board to see what's been posted and what is there for download. 

 

 

[SDLeary]

Perceforest has rules for creating and maintaining a Ville, basically a manoral holding. There doesn't seem to be anything about castles or strongholds in particular, but an Advantage that a Ville can have is a Palisade. This could probably be extended somewhat.

There is Ville combat, but it is against the encroachment of The Forest. At a glance it looks like it could at least provide a mechanism for the Ville (as a whole) to resist something, without having to devolve to individual combat.

SDLeary

Edited November 3, 2023 by SDLeary

[kara]

20 hours ago, Nokaion said:

Hey, I wanted to do a fantasy campaign, where my PCs get their own castle/stronghold they can manage and renovate, and I wanted to ask if there were rules that could work for it.

Thx in advance!

There is some basic detail in the Runequest Weapons and Equipment Guide: about land, dwellings, fortifications and improvements.

Another book to look at would be HarnManor (pdf available from drivethru). It is closer to standard medieval fantasy than the bronze age of Glorantha and is written for HarnMaster (another d100 system) though is system neutral. It is about running the manor once going. For building the fortifications and clearing the land in the first place, see the article in Thonahexus 8, a free fanzine for Harnmaster https://www.lythia.com/?s=thonahexus&post_type=post

[Mugen]

17 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

As SDLEarly already mentioned, Pendragon is really the only BRP related stuff that covers castles and fortifications in a way similar to what you are asking about.

Pendragon, BTW, is not exactly BRP but a BRP realted game set in an Arthurian feudal setting. It isn't quite BRP compatible and the castle rules have changes somewhat between editions but you could pick up and adapt the rules to BRP. The Nobles Book from first edition is available on DriveThru RPG for about $5. The latter Book of the Estate is also available (for $20) but most of what in it probably wouldn't be of much use to you. 

In a nutshell fortifications cost money to create but provide a Defensive Value that affects battles in Pendragon, (and would need to be adapted somewhat to BRP, which as yet doesn't have a mass battle system, although the orginal rules for Pendragon are simple enough to adapt easily). Defesises are build in concetric layers with higher fortifications being able to add to lower ones in front and various bits of fortification also have other effects and benefits (for instance you need gates to get into and out of the fort) but the core idea is that they all increase DV. 

 

You could also look through the Pendragon section of this board to see what's been posted and what is there for download.

How do those books compare to Lordly Domains ? I only know this one, and in my memory it could serve as a basis for another system.

Edit: hmm... I should have looked at the comments section at DTRPG, as it seems I already have my answer there...

Edited November 3, 2023 by Mugen

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

How do those books compare to Lordly Domains ? I only know this one, and in my memory it could serve as a basis for another system.

Edit: hmm... I should have looked at the comments section at DTRPG, as it seems I already have my answer there...

Lordly Domains is pretty much the same Fortification rules from the Pendragon Noble's Book combined with some hunting stuff an adventure or two and all updated for 4th edition.. 

There is also the Book of the Manor for Pendragon 5th edtion which is nice but requires a lot of bookkeeping and  has some major flaws, as you can pretty much build infinite improvements and break the game. The Book of the Estate addresses most of that, but it is geared towards major landholders, and  land rules and confrontations are only a small part of it, and it doesn't go into the same detail as the eariler books.

There was supposed to be a new book of castles for KAP5,but it hasn't been released yet, and it is still DV based.

 

Oh, and come to think of it, Greg Stafford had  https://gspendragon.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/pendragon_fortifications.pdf on his website.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Atgxtg

[SDLeary]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Oh, and come to think of it, Greg Stafford had  https://gspendragon.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/pendragon_fortifications.pdf on his website.

Link MAY be busted, though I am on my phone.

SDLeary

[Atgxtg]

On 11/3/2023 at 10:33 AM, SDLeary said:

Link MAY be busted, though I am on my phone.

SDLeary

No , the link is busted, which is strange, since the pdf still pops up when I googled "Pendragon Fortifcations".

Maybe I should try to upload the PDF to the downloads section of this board?

Like so: https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/884-pendragon-fortication-castle-pieces/

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Atgxtg

[Nokaion]

Hey, thank you for your answers!

From what I gathered, I should check out the Pendragon books for rules and the Harnmaster fanzine seems to be trying to be "historically accurate" which isn't really my taste. I've wanted to do something rather gamified that gives the PCs bonuses, like in Pillars of Eternity.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Nokaion said:

From what I gathered, I should check out the Pendragon books for rules

I depends on what you are going for. if you want something  feudal then Pendragon (or Harn) is worth a look. On the other hand, if you just want to add soem fortications to your BRP game, then the download covers most of it.

But it really does depend on just what you want. For instance, Pendragon (and Harn) has a farily sound ecomonic model compared to most FRPGs, which gives players a fell for how expensive some of these things are. Depending on which edition of PEndragon you pay, a knight might have an annual  income of £2, £6 or £10, most of which goes to maintaining the knight, his family, and so on.  So a a stone tower that cost £30 is a significant expense that ususally requires the knight to hold multiple manors or have acqyuired a lot of treasure in war or adventures.

 

Also, it's probably worth mentioning that quite a few of us already own these games (and others) and so we have every reason to use them as references and guidelines for other games when doing what you want to do now. If we didn't have all of them already, we'd probably only use what we already have or just one source. 

 

3 hours ago, Nokaion said:

 

and the Harnmaster fanzine seems to be trying to be "historically accurate" which isn't really my taste.

Harn is a feudal fantasy world that goes into a lot more detail than most other medieval style RPGs. Pendragon, by contrast, focuses more on Arthurian  legend, and doesn't go into the same level of detail as Harn, but it still has enough of the feudal economics in it so that player knights will feel the probllems that go with maintaining a knight and holding land. 

3 hours ago, Nokaion said:

 

 

I've wanted to do something rather gamified that gives the PCs bonuses, like in Pillars of Eternity.

I'm not familiar with Pillars, but Pendragon does give player characters bonuses from buildings, just not for fortifications. For instance if you build a Jousting Area you get a yearly check to lance. There was a cheat sheet for all this on the Pendragon forums. Maybe I can dig it up. But Pendragon focuses on character traits and glory, with most benefits impacting one or both.

 

[tooley1chris]

Not really sure why castles would be a thing in a world of magic. It would be like building city walls 50 years after canons were invented. 

Still...it's a fantasy staple so:

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by tooley1chris

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, tooley1chris said:

Not really sure why castles would be a thing in a world of magic. It would be like building city walls 50 years after canons were invented. 

I that that would depend on the way magic worked. If like D&D where it lets you bypass most defenses then yeah, it don't make much sense. But a lower powered/higher cost magic system might not invalidate fortification. For example in Pendragon 4th edition magicians have to pay for their spells with lots of prep time, weeks of magical sleep, or multiple rolls on the aging table, so a spell that bypasses the fortifications is usually prohibitively expensive- at least at a scale large enough to be useful in battle.

Oh, btw, they still built city walls and other fortifications  long after the advent of cannon, they just changed the fortification to reflect the new technology. Actually taking a wall down with a cannon requires that they have a cannon, cannonballs, powder, etc. and can transport it to the site and man it long enough for it to actually take down that wall.