Pendragon questions

[Al.]

WRT Swashbuckling and the deadliness of PenDragon combat without PenDragon armour

I had a similar problem when roughing out my Daimyo game (since Saborai would only be wearing their armour in a pitched battle and I wasn't planning on having any of them)

 

All I did was offer the winning player in an opposed combat a choice:

Either inflict half rolled damage and take none

Or inflict full rolled damage but take half rolled from the loser

 

In a setting where Death is a feather and duty a mountain but a Saborai owes it to their liege lord not to throw their life away it makes for a proper moral choice in combat.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Algesan said:

Then, there was the 5.2....You know, did someone else write/edit the Book of Knights?  Seriously.  Oh, severely limited scope of character creation too, seriously limited.  Usually the "quick start" version is the extremely limited version, not the "core rulebook" version, right?

Not really. Most versions of the game came with the complete chargen. Only 3rd edition and 5th took the simplified pregen system, and put expanded stuff into a supplements. If you want one complete game then 4th edition is hard to beat. It isn't the latest, and doesn't have quite the level of detail that 5th does, but it's close. Besides not all the changes in 5th edition are necessarily improvements. 

[Algesan]

4 hours ago, Al. said:

WRT Swashbuckling and the deadliness of PenDragon combat without PenDragon armour

I had a similar problem when roughing out my Daimyo game (since Saborai would only be wearing their armour in a pitched battle and I wasn't planning on having any of them)

 

All I did was offer the winning player in an opposed combat a choice:

Either inflict half rolled damage and take none

Or inflict full rolled damage but take half rolled from the loser

 

In a setting where Death is a feather and duty a mountain but a Saborai owes it to their liege lord not to throw their life away it makes for a proper moral choice in combat.

The problem with the Japanese culture is that it emphasized agility over sheer protection (although this was more of a physical issue that became cultural, Japan did NOT have the mineral wealth or quality that Western Europeans had, but there were cultural issues related to the Orient), so they never actually got to the quality of gear that Europeans enjoyed and the Europeans still emphasized agility, but with less need to dodge every blow. 

Even then, recorded duels with between Samurai and Portuguese in the Sengoku and early Edo periods tend to record a clear superiority in duels by the Portuguese using both an agility based fencing style and similar heavy clothing for "armor".  In fact, it has been noted that Miyamoto Musashi  lived in a time and place where he could have trivially observed or come in contact with European rapier & dagger fighting, which some consider might have inspired his two sword style. 

Personally, I wouldn't run a post gunpowder or Oriental game of any sort without a parry or dodge capability using d100.  Pendragon looks like a lot of fun, but it is a rather simple game trying to recreate (somewhat) the life & times of King Arthur from a romantic point of view from 1000 or so years after his possible lifetime.  Many of the issues I asked questions about above are all part of the tradition classic Arthurian fantasies and as someone pointed out, they were issues from many centuries later.  Heh, the "Norman chainmail" listed as armor for the game dates several hundred years *after* the game's set time line, which is set a century after the classic period for King Arthur....

So, the idea of giving and receiving might blows protected only by one's stout set of armor fits right in...ignoring what we do know about systems of martial arts to fight that including deflecting, parrying and avoiding (dodging) incoming blows.  Fantasy for fun instead of reality.  It also makes for simpler combat resolution...

[Algesan]

5 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

I think the various supplement books in the bundle come from different editions, so some of the issues you mention are probably related to 5 editions, 3 or 4 publishers, multiple authors and different expectations based on the period of time they were released.

 

I read through the 1st ed rules which I picked up a few months ago and only skimmed through the other books which I picked up a few days ago. 1st ed is 150 pages, 5.2 ed 276 pages. I haven't even started to look into what accounts for the additional almost twice the size in the later book.

Might be, but supposedly the Book of Knights & Ladies is updated to 5th Edition standards and from the layout, look and feel of the Quick Start Book of Knights, I'd say it was based on 5th Edition as well.  Ahhh, except for maybe the more straightforward and complete feeling character creation system in the BoK that doesn't resemble prebuilt clones that takes multiple page flips to fill out a number of items on the character sheet.  Although there is that difference where quickstart gets a cultural "specialty weapon" and the BoK&L get special skills that replace other skills.....

I'll put it this way, I'm almost finished with my 3d BoK&L (mainstream) character when in a similar amount of time going step by step through the rules in BoK (quick start), I'd finished 10 characters.

[Algesan]

49 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Not really. Most versions of the game came with the complete chargen. Only 3rd edition and 5th took the simplified pregen system, and put expanded stuff into a supplements. If you want one complete game then 4th edition is hard to beat. It isn't the latest, and doesn't have quite the level of detail that 5th does, but it's close. Besides not all the changes in 5th edition are necessarily improvements. 

I really think it isn't going to be too bad (except the oversimplified "squire" experience in the main book), just as soon as I can write up:

1.  Start on page 16, roll or pick starting homeland

2.  Go to page 17-X and roll on the appropriate chart for actual home.

3.  Go to page ? and roll for this

4.  Go to page ?? and look for that

5.  Go to page ??? and roll for the other thing

etc.

Or probably go with shortening up the entire thing by changing up the order to match how  players have been filling out character sheets since before Pendragon existed.

[Toadmaster]

5 hours ago, Algesan said:

Might be, but supposedly the Book of Knights & Ladies is updated to 5th Edition standards and from the layout, look and feel of the Quick Start Book of Knights, I'd say it was based on 5th Edition as well.  Ahhh, except for maybe the more straightforward and complete feeling character creation system in the BoK that doesn't resemble prebuilt clones that takes multiple page flips to fill out a number of items on the character sheet.  Although there is that difference where quickstart gets a cultural "specialty weapon" and the BoK&L get special skills that replace other skills.....

I'll put it this way, I'm almost finished with my 3d BoK&L (mainstream) character when in a similar amount of time going step by step through the rules in BoK (quick start), I'd finished 10 characters.

 

Sounds like you've dug into the game more than I have, I really haven't had the time to do much more than download and give a quick skim so far.

I just noticed that the included books came from at least 4 publishers so thought there might be a little bit of edition mix and match going on. 

[Atgxtg]

9 hours ago, Algesan said:

Might be, but supposedly the Book of Knights & Ladies is updated to 5th Edition standards

No, K&L is a 5th Edition supplement. 

 

9 hours ago, Algesan said:

and from the layoutt, look and feel of the Quick Start Book of Knights, I'd say it was based on 5th Edition as well.

No, if you got the one I'm thinking of it was for 4th Edition, but..at the time that the old Chasoium broke up into different companies (Chaosium, Issaries, Green Knight), Greg Stafford was with Issaries, but Green Knight  had control of Pendragon. They made a few tweaks to the rules, namely getting three trainning opportunies during the Winter Phase instead of the usual one.

 

9 hours ago, Algesan said:

I'll put it this way, I'm almost finished with my 3d BoK&L (mainstream) character when in a similar amount of time going step by step through the rules in BoK (quick start), I'd finished 10 characters.

Yup, that about sums things up for all the "Book of" supplements. You get a lot more detail, but it a double edged sword. More stuff to do, more choices to make, more interesting possibilities, and it takes more time to do it all. 

BTW, what Pendragon stuff do you have now? That would help in deciding what the priority stuff would be, and what you don't really need or even want. . 

 

[Algesan]

9 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

 

Sounds like you've dug into the game more than I have, I really haven't had the time to do much more than download and give a quick skim so far.

I just noticed that the included books came from at least 4 publishers so thought there might be a little bit of edition mix and match going on. 

Not so much "dug in", I'm only working character creation right now to fiddle with the system.  It is something I do, make up the characters to find issues and options, then run a few combats against stock NPCs to get a feel for how the combat works.  Yeah, you are right about the multiple publishers.

As a side comment on the BRP system itself, the point allocation character creation stinks.  It works great if I prebuild or use something like the Cthulhu Fantasy character generator and my players like that just fine.  Converting characters over from d20 based systems worked out as well.  Allocating points?  It was seriously tedious as everyone worried about getting some kind of skill to at least have a roll vs. pushing as many skills to max so they were effective.  {shrug}  Might just be us, only two of the five us actually create our own Hero characters when we do that system, so that might be part of it, but quite frankly the best way I liked using the BRP system as is was to divide the Professional points by 10 and then give a flat bonus to 10 Professional skills, then divide the Personal points by 10 and pick 10 other skills to slot them in, although you could stack on top of your Professional skills if you wanted to.

[Algesan]

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

No, K&L is a 5th Edition supplement. 

 

No, if you got the one I'm thinking of it was for 4th Edition, but..at the time that the old Chasoium broke up into different companies (Chaosium, Issaries, Green Knight), Greg Stafford was with Issaries, but Green Knight  had control of Pendragon. They made a few tweaks to the rules, namely getting three trainning opportunies during the Winter Phase instead of the usual one.

 

Yup, that about sums things up for all the "Book of" supplements. You get a lot more detail, but it a double edged sword. More stuff to do, more choices to make, more interesting possibilities, and it takes more time to do it all. 

BTW, what Pendragon stuff do you have now? That would help in deciding what the priority stuff would be, and what you don't really need or even want. . 

 

This one.  All I have it the BoK linked, The Pendragon Campaign QS rules, and the two bundles that were linked earlier.  See, prayer works, I say "God, I wish I didn't have to spend so much money on this system" and someone links to the bundles in my price range .  

I don't have any issues with BoK&L from an informational standpoint, it is just laid out so badly compared to BoK.  Something has been telling me that 4th Edition was the one I wanted, but surprisingly it cannot be found anywhere on the Net to download for a peek.  The funniest part, using the Cthulhu Fantasy character creator I kept coming across these odd Lore skills that I could only link back to Pendragon, especially the 4th Edition.  Right now I'm testing character creation and seeing if it "breaks" it to use some of the stuff from the BoK.  Much cleaner (in one case) and flexible (in another case).  Mostly using the family & inheritance system from BoK and letting everyone be a "knight" without worrying about dates (the game is anachronistic enough, so what's a bit more?) plus adding in the squire training system from BoK.  I will be retaining some of the greater info from the BoK&L because it gives more character and the Expertise skills instead of cultural weapons.  Will it work?  Probably.  I really think that in the end it won't matter too much either way.

What I'm looking forward to is the potential for: Spring - go to court (or take care of other biz) and intrigue/romance to set up for Summer - quest/big tournament and then Fall - report back to court/go home/tie up loose ends intrigue/romance and ending up with Winter glory, exp, land gains.  That sounds like a bit of fun.

Edited September 23, 2018 by Algesan

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, Algesan said:

Allocating points?

Sword and steward, and you’ll do fine. Although others will say different skills hopefully. In my games a lot of the emphasis is on getting a wife. Preferably one with good Churgury. 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Algesan said:

This one.  All I have it the BoK linked, The Pendragon Campaign QS rules, and the two bundles that were linked earlier.  See, prayer works, I say "God, I wish I didn't have to spend so much money on this system" and someone links to the bundles in my price range .  

Then you've got more than enough to run a campaign. 

3 hours ago, Algesan said:

I don't have any issues with BoK&L from an informational standpoint, it is just laid out so badly compared to BoK.  Something has been telling me that 4th Edition was the one I wanted, but surprisingly it cannot be found anywhere on the Net to download for a peek.

The Book of Knights is pretty much it. Just go with one training per Winter Phase and you got it. Other than the magic system, 3rd and 4th editions are the same, so you know what 3rd is like too.

3 hours ago, Algesan said:

  Right now I'm testing character creation and seeing if it "breaks" it to use some of the stuff from the BoK.

It won't The basic chargen in 4th edition is (practically) identical to the  one in 5th, so if you run 5E with BoK for chargen you are pretty much running 3E-4E. 

3 hours ago, Algesan said:

What I'm looking forward to is the potential for: Spring - go to court (or take care of other biz) and intrigue/romance to set up for Summer - quest/big tournament and then Fall - report back to court/go home/tie up loose ends intrigue/romance and ending up with Winter glory, exp, land gains.  That sounds like a bit of fun.

It can be. Just remember that all those things can take time, and you want to fit in an adventure too. 

 

Oh, and in case you haven noticed it yet, healing can take up quite a bit of time. Expect characters to miss a lot of stuff while they recover from their wounds-make that if they recover from their wounds. 

[Algesan]

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

Sword and steward, and you’ll do fine. Although others will say different skills hopefully. In my games a lot of the emphasis is on getting a wife. Preferably one with good Churgury. 

Heh, the reference was more towards the core BRP system where you aren't enhancing skills, but having to figure out exactly what skills to buy.

[Algesan]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

{snip}

 

Oh, and in case you haven noticed it yet, healing can take up quite a bit of time. Expect characters to miss a lot of stuff while they recover from their wounds-make that if they recover from their wounds. 

Haven't gotten that far into the system yet, but I did pick up that players should have an extra character or two rolled up for just such emergencies, as well as simply getting whacked.  Although after a few game years that should take care of itself since the knight's first squire should be a knight also, usually having been knighted as a household knight by their "master".

[Atgxtg]

On 9/23/2018 at 9:29 PM, Algesan said:

Haven't gotten that far into the system yet, but I did pick up that players should have an extra character or two rolled up for just such emergencies, as well as simply getting whacked.  Although after a few game years that should take care of itself since the knight's first squire should be a knight also, usually having been knighted as a household knight by their "master".

It's not quite so simple. Unlike most other RPGs characters often survive the battle only to die weeks later. A character who has his Chirugery Needed? box checked (usually from a major wound, but it can happen from other things, such as poisoned weapons), then that character doesn't heal normally, and his wound might even get worse, depending on his die rolls and the skill of the attending Chirugeon (Surgeon). It's quite possible that by the time the first squires become knights some of the original knights will have died. 

It's easily possible to derail an entire game session because some of the characters take a major wound in a "minor" encounter, and then the rest of the group has to bring the wounded to a healer, where it can take months just to see if the characters will live or die, then more months for them to recover. I've had groups actually miss a year or two  because they were wounded out in the boonies with an inadequate healer, as their hit points fluctuated week by week. 

 

This is just a heads up. Don't try to squeeze too much into a year until you get familiar with the pace of things. Many adevntures can take place at any time, though, so you can usually run an adventure later than originally intended. 

[jeffjerwin]

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's not quite so simple. Unlike most other RPGs characters often survive the battle only to die weeks later. A character who has his Chirugery Needed? box checked (usually from a major wound, but it can happen from other things, such as poisoned weapons), then that character doesn't heal normally, and his wound might even get worse, depending on his die rolls and the skill of the attending Chirugeon (Surgeon). It's quite possible that by the time the first squires become knights some of the original knights will have died. 

It's easily possible to derail an entire game session because some of the characters take a major wound in a "minor" encounter, and then the rest of the group has to bring the wounded to a healer, where it can take months just to see if the characters will live or die, then more months for them to recover. I've had groups actually miss a year or two  because they were wounded out in the boonies with an inadequate healer, as their hit points fluctuated week by week. 

 

This is just a heads up. Don't try to squeeze too much into a year until you get familiar with the pace of things. Many adevntures can take place at any time, though, so you can usually run an adventure later than originally intended. 

This is the plot of more than one part of the (poetic) Tristan cycle.

He ultimately dies while awaiting a chirurgeon... So it can make for as good a story - finding a healer - as something more 'heroic'.

[Algesan]

On 9/24/2018 at 11:33 PM, Atgxtg said:

It's not quite so simple. Unlike most other RPGs characters often survive the battle only to die weeks later. A character who has his Chirugery Needed? box checked (usually from a major wound, but it can happen from other things, such as poisoned weapons), then that character doesn't heal normally, and his wound might even get worse, depending on his die rolls and the skill of the attending Chirugeon (Surgeon). It's quite possible that by the time the first squires become knights some of the original knights will have died. 

It's easily possible to derail an entire game session because some of the characters take a major wound in a "minor" encounter, and then the rest of the group has to bring the wounded to a healer, where it can take months just to see if the characters will live or die, then more months for them to recover. I've had groups actually miss a year or two  because they were wounded out in the boonies with an inadequate healer, as their hit points fluctuated week by week. 

 

This is just a heads up. Don't try to squeeze too much into a year until you get familiar with the pace of things. Many adevntures can take place at any time, though, so you can usually run an adventure later than originally intended. 

Thanks, I'm going to be looking at the system more in the next week.  Now, I'm trying to play some catch up elsewhere....

Delays in quests/missions are something I'm used to one way or another.  Heck, my first "main" campaign ended up on hold for almost a month for a RL issue, which was fortunate since the player had managed to get the unholy crap shot out of himself (in a non-magic, WW2 tech hellhole at the arse end of nowhere) and get sidelined for another month of game time.  Soooo, I simply gave him a couple of exp rolls per week in certain skills (book learning types of skills he could study while stuck in the hospital) after he got back some of his lost hit points to compensate for everyone else continuing to do missions buffing their combat abilities.

I have time though, I don't see a Pendragon campaign going anywhere until next year sometime.

[Algesan]

Okay, next question, what is the difference between Book of the Manor and Book of the Estate?

Manor holdings seem to be a bit skimmed in the bundles, but from what I'm pulling together, each new player knight has a manor worth a base of 10L a year and only a few potential optional rolls (or luck roll goodies) alter that amount.  Not much on how to build the all important fortifications (so the lady waifu can defend against the sieges of villains) or much else.  Heh, I know one of my players will go for the 40 year old widow with the five manors available listed among the notable NPCs of Salisbury.....

Oh, ugh, this is kind of important, because that one starter manor kinda sorta hand-wavishly covers the expenses of the player (and new lordling) along with his relative knights...and I guess the levies....but if a player does something like marrying the rich widow, now he has a bunch of manors that kinda sorta hand-wavishly cover the expense of the knights running each of those manors for him....but what generates the new income that he is now supposed to spend by "living large" with his wealth?  <sigh>

I might just hand-wavium all of this into "it kinda sorta supports you as much as you need".  Heh.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Algesan

[jeffjerwin]

55 minutes ago, Algesan said:

Okay, next question, what is the difference between Book of the Manor and Book of the Estate?

Manor holdings seem to be a bit skimmed in the bundles, but from what I'm pulling together, each new player knight has a manor worth a base of 10L a year and only a few potential optional rolls (or luck roll goodies) alter that amount.  Not much on how to build the all important fortifications (so the lady waifu can defend against the sieges of villains) or much else.  Heh, I know one of my players will go for the 40 year old widow with the five manors available listed among the notable NPCs of Salisbury.....

Oh, ugh, this is kind of important, because that one starter manor kinda sorta hand-wavishly covers the expenses of the player (and new lordling) along with his relative knights...and I guess the levies....but if a player does something like marrying the rich widow, now he has a bunch of manors that kinda sorta hand-wavishly cover the expense of the knights running each of those manors for him....but what generates the new income that he is now supposed to spend by "living large" with his wealth?  <sigh>

I might just hand-wavium all of this into "it kinda sorta supports you as much as you need".  Heh.

Some players and GMs care more about these things. Some do not. Do you want a 'gritty' game with accounting involved? (The main advantage is that the effects of crises like the Wasteland and wars are more palpable, and servants, family, and local details matter more)... Or do you want to focus on relationships with major NPCs, adventures and the meta-plot?

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Okay, next question, what is the difference between Book of the Manor and Book of the Estate?

The Book of Manor is a detailed way of handling a knight's manor house, including things like the defenses, retainers, income boosting improvements, religious works and so forth. The Book of the Estate is designed to handle multiple manors and other larger holdings, and is supposed to be more streamlined. BotE basically superseded BotM, which I guess is going to be dropped. IMO that's a good thing. BotM is okay when characters have only one manor, but it really bogs the game down once characters start to get multiple holdings. BotM kinda ruined my last Pendragon Campaign-we spent more time on the Winter Phase then we did adventuring, and BotM was a major reason why. 

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Manor holdings seem to be a bit skimmed in the bundles, but from what I'm pulling together, each new player knight has a manor worth a base of 10L a year and only a few potential optional rolls (or luck roll goodies) alter that amount.  Not much on how to build the all important fortifications (so the lady waifu can defend against the sieges of villains) or much else.  Heh, I know one of my players will go for the 40 year old widow with the five manors available listed among the notable NPCs of Salisbury.....

Thats where BotM and such come in. Although the specific game mechanics vary depending on what version of the Land Upkeep rules you use, it boils down to making some sort of Stewardship roll to see what the Harvest was like and how much the Knight gets that year. If your player gets that widow, make sure you don't use the Book of the Manor-not if you want to do anything else.

1 hour ago, Algesan said:

Oh, ugh, this is kind of important, because that one starter manor kinda sorta hand-wavishly covers the expenses of the player (and new lordling) along with his relative knights...and I guess the levies....but if a player does something like marrying the rich widow, now he has a bunch of manors that kinda sorta hand-wavishly cover the expense of the knights running each of those manors for him....but what generates the new income that he is now supposed to spend by "living large" with his wealth?  <sigh>

I might just hand-wavium all of this into "it kinda sorta supports you as much as you need".  Heh.

Quickie Feudal Economics:

This is Pre 5.2, when the standard income was 6£ instead of 10£, but it should give you a basic rundown.

A landed Knight requires 6£ for upkeep (prior to 5.2), but a household knight only requires 4£ (again prior to 5.2), because he doesn't have a wife and children to support. So if a PC knight got an second manor, and took on a household knight to fulfill his military obligations, then the Player Knight would come out 2£ ahead on an average year. Now the Player Knight could do better on good years, and might do a lot worse on bad ones,  but one average, he's 2£ ahead. Now if he had five extra manors and five household knights, he'd have 10£ extra each year.

Now longterm, some or all of those household knight will probably end up landed and holding those manors in service to the Player Knight, and most will probably be held by someone to begin with, but those extra knights also provide the Player Knight with a larger force for war or raid, and that leads to more income too. 

[Algesan]

Thanks to both of you on this one.  I'll shelve it for now.  This was just my Pendragon "day" and I was skimming my way through some stuff and taking notes.  I'm putting it on my list to poke around for some charts online and see what the accounting they entail is.  Having played a number of games with heavy accounting loads, it isn't too bad if it can be automated, but even if it cannot be and the players do want more accounting, then hand-wavium works early on and we can tag on the more complicated stuff later if they want it.  Even if they do, the first few sessions would still be about RPing and combat, which fits n00b knights who don't have a wife yet.

Thanks again, I'll probably have another question or two next week.

Oh, for reference, I'm looking at running the starter appendix in the back of 5.2 (technically as squires, but fully trained ones) and then go into The Great Pendragon Campaign sequence with a knighting happening in there somewhere.

[Atgxtg]

The 

Gm has a lot of control over how much bookkeeping there will be. He gets to decide when method to use, and also, to some extent, how much property the players get to lord over. The GM doesn't have to start the PCs out a landed knights either. Early editions of Pendragon started the PCs off as Squires, who them became Household Knights, who aspired to be landed. You could certainly run things that way if you want to avoid the paperwork. 

[cgcauth]

New... old question. I have been, to put it frankly, roped into playing KAP 5.1 using the Book of Manors as a supplement. Having read some of the forums here, I gather that it is generally viewed as broken. Still, it's what I have to work with. The question is about Hate (Landlord) as it applies to the Book of Manors. I get that the passion is the counter for Knights Concern (Commoners) passion. It isn't hte rule exactly that I stumble over, so much as the mechanics behind it. Looking at the system, there are a hand full of buildings that can 'reduce' the hate, as long as they are standing and operational. The problem comes when adding in other improvements that also reduce the hate. The real headache, and where I feel that my interpretation is completely different from the GM's, is in the settlements hate reduction. Build a hamlet, it earns a Libram and reduces hate by 3, I think. upgrade that to a vilage of 500 commoners, and it reads like it "reduces' hate by 15. My interpretation is that as the population increases, it offsets the hate passion (by roughly 3 per 100, if I recall). the GM's interpretation is... more like the passion is 'X' until the settlement is razed to the dirt, and then it goes up by 'Y'. So, in my interpretation, I had finally seen past the 'screw the player vibe' this game is giving me thus far. His insistence of the reversal, though, indicates that no matter how hard you try, the hate only gets worse, you can't counter it or decrease it. While, ultimately, it doesn't matter, it's his game and his rules, I still would like to know if I have jsut completely read it all wrong?

[Morien]

48 minutes ago, cgcauth said:

The problem comes when adding in other improvements that also reduce the hate.

The way I read the rules on p. 14, p. 29 and p. 41 of Book of the Manor:

1) Replacing: If an existing structure gets destroyed, you gain Hate. If you finance the rebuilding, you reduce the Hate by the amount the structure's destruction cost you.

2) Adding: You reduce Hate when you add developments. However, after they have been built, they become Existing Structures, see above if destroyed.

So, in your example, you build the hamlet. This is financed by you, so added by you. Hate goes down by 3.

Later on, natural population growth increases the population enough that you can build another (new) hamlet. Again, the landlord must put some money into it and we see that Hate goes down by 3 on a success (by the way, I would limit the TOTAL Hate reduction to 3, you can't just keep trying to build for 10 years with £1 and get -10 Hate). In your example, I assume that both you and the GM have envisioned that these hamlets would coalescence together and would eventually form a village.

By this time, your efforts have been rewarded with -15 Hate. But oh noes, evil Sir Blaggart attacks and burns your (existing) village down, and you have no money to rebuild it! Yes, you take +15 to Hate (although you might still get Hate reduction for the Protection, if you tried fighting the raid off).

 

While your GM is free to GM the campaign the way he chooses to, pp. 14-15 showcase many different ways to reduce Hate. Justice event is by far one of the easiest ways of doing it, and good for a Just check, too. Many PKs have high Just (since it is a Chivalric trait), so it is usually easy for them to pick -1 Hate and a check, or if they are unlucky, come off with a mere 'Nothing happens'. It is pretty common in our campaign to see at least -1 Hate every other year for PK manors. (Although we use a homebrew hybrid between BotM and BotE, the Hate gain and loss mechanic is the same.)

 

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, BoM is somewhat broken. If you have to use it, my suggestion is to limit the number of investments (apiaries, dairies,herds, vineyards etc.) to one or two per manor, with possible exceptions for those that wouldn't require much space, such as a Jeweler or a Scriptorium (which could be fit into a village somewhere).  That's what the Book of the Estate does. MOst such investments require space, which is limited, so building too much comes as the expense of the fields and reduces the harvest . So a knight who has lots and lots of horses needs lots and lots of land to keep them, or he won't have the fields to feed them.. The major thing that breaks the rules is that without some sort of limit a wealthy knight could built lots and lots of investments, to the point where it becomes a case of perpetual expansion. Long before that the greatly increased income will cause problems. But limit the investments/improvements and you should be mostly okay.  

 

As far as Hate(Landlord) goes it is really counter to Love (Landlord). It mostly works against any attempts to build projects- the idea being that unhappy serfs will drag their feet and find ways to cause problems whereas as happy serfs with be more enthusiastic and work harder towards completing a project. 

 

The tough bit about hate (landlord) is that is is difficult to reduce. The reduction for buildings is mostly (if not entirely) limited to getting points for rebuilding common structures that were destroyed, not for adding new ones. Basically the way it works is that if raisers come and burn down a Hamlet (1/4 of a village), the serfs are homeless and so their Hate(Landlord) goes up 3 points (because according to the feudal "contract" the Lord is supposed to protect his vassals, even serfs, and see to their well being and he failed to do so, leading to resentment). If the Lord rebuilds the Hamlet, the serfs then have brand new homes to move into and their Hate drops 2 points, for a net zero effect. If a Lord were to build a Village instead, it would just mean that most of the buildings would be empty and the serfs wouldn't care about the extra buildings (they just want to have homes again) and so the Hate would only drop by 3 points, not 15. The advantage of doing so isn't the reduced Hate, but the room for population growth. 

 

The only buildings that can  reduce Hate (Landlord) that are not rebuilds are developments. There are a few other ways to reduce the hate, as listed on page s 19-20, but generally it's expensive. The knight generally has to spend more on the peasants than he gets back in income. The general point being  that discontentment serfs weren't merely due to a lord being greedy and grasping (ala Robin Hood) but also a factor of the harsh conditions of the time.

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

The way I read the rules on p. 14, p. 29 and p. 41 of Book of the Manor:

1) Replacing: If an existing structure gets destroyed, you gain Hate. If you finance the rebuilding, you reduce the Hate by the amount the structure's destruction cost you.

2) Adding: You reduce Hate when you add developments. However, after they have been built, they become Existing Structures, see above if destroyed.

So, in your example, you build the hamlet. This is financed by you, so added by you. Hate goes down by 3.

The way I read it, is that the Hate is only lowered if the lord rebuilds a common structure, not if he builds a new one. So building additional Hamlets do not reduce the Hate score. But rebuilding destroyed ones gets rid of the hate gained when they were destroyed. So it's a zero sum gain.

The only way to really reduce the Hate score is to build developments per page 24. So if a Knight wanted to reduce the serf's Hate score he could build a Smithy or a Stone Bridge or give out 30 libra to the serfs, or some other combination of other developments. 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Atgxtg