Wine Prices...

[Atgxtg]

9 minutes ago, Hzark10 said:

Yup, that would be also a good point.  Women could compete as to who had the greatest harvest, largest bull, herd, greatest raid, etc.

Oohh, now your bringing Stewardship and Industry into it. That could actually add a lot to Lady characters.Suddenly all those "background flavor" skills would have real in game uses and rewards. We know skills like Industry and Fashion are supposed to man something but never really have been worth the points. But if they could lead to in game benefits they become useful and wives become values for more than being baby machines, sources of land,m and trophies (high APP).

 

I could see something based around the idea of the Liege wanted to build a chase or deer park and the various wives maneuvering to get in in the woods near their manors so their husbands could be put in charge of it (and reap the game benefits). The PK get's a "free" Improvement to his manor, if his wife can swing it. 

 

EEk! I've threadjacked my own thread!

Edited April 8, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Hzark10]

"You're Welcome!" sung to a certain song...

[Khanwulf]

My work here is done. 

Well no not really, but @Hzark10 has the right of it: it's about understanding better how society and culture is supposed to go together in the setting to create the "feel" of KAP and the incentives that underpin character interactions. Like the graft game in BoW--it drives home the point that our modern horror in the west at official corruption is quaint at best. 

And the "lady's game" of influence-trading, intrigue and gossip hiding under basic stewardship, manorial economics and industry is also appealing. The point is not to add so many systems that play is overwhelmed, but to provide tools for the GM to pull out and say "for this type of game this shorthand tool is useful"... and then set the fun without having to do the work of arbitrating so many moving parts.

And culture? Details? Some of us spend far more time in books and articles trying to hammer in verisimilitude than at actual play. Because detail matters. And KAP swims upstream against a current of pop-fantasy and DnD tropes.  It has to stand above them; on the shoulders of greatness, but also on stilts of plausibility.

So back to wine: every interaction, by knights or ladies (and ESPECIALLY the ladies) is occasion for competition. And competition = glory. Ladies don't go out, slay dragons and rescue handsome knights--not much anyway--and they need sources of glory as well. Not much at a time, but just a few points in a parched economy is enough to bring out the knives.

Figuratively. Mostly.

 

--Khanwulf 

[Atgxtg]

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

My work here is done. 

Well no not really, but @Hzark10 has the right of it: it's about understanding better how society and culture is supposed to go together in the setting to create the "feel" of KAP and the incentives that underpin character interactions.

 

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

 

Like the graft game in BoW--it drives home the point that our modern horror in the west at official corruption is quaint at best.

Uh, not really. The penalties far outweigh the rewards, and most my players just opt for the free Honest check. Why risk throwing everything away for a dozen libra or less? Nor do I think there is much modern horror about official corruption. Is there any place in the modern world where the people don't  think that they have some corrupt officials?

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

And the "lady's game" of influence-trading, intrigue and gossip hiding under basic stewardship, manorial economics and industry is also appealing. The point is not to add so many systems that play is overwhelmed, but to provide tools for the GM to pull out and say "for this type of game this shorthand tool is useful"... and then set the fun without having to do the work of arbitrating so many moving parts.

I view it less as adding more systems than trying to make use of what's already there. We could easily toss out all the lady stuff, in fact most KAP games do that, as they are just NPCs that serve some important functions in the support role. But to make them really worth playing they need something more meaningful to do other than a stewardship roll and bearing children. 

I'd like APP either we use it or we should lose it.

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

And culture? Details? Some of us spend far more time in books and articles trying to hammer in verisimilitude than at actual play. Because detail matters. And KAP swims upstream against a current of pop-fantasy and DnD tropes.  It has to stand above them; on the shoulders of greatness, but also on stilts of plausibility.

It kinda goes hand in hand with playing something that isn't a derivative of D&D. It has it drawback but also it's advantages. For instance while Pendragon doesn't use as many monsters or as many varieties as typical FRPGs, it can also get greater effect out of the ones it has. An experienced knight slaying a dragon still means something in KAP because it is both rare and difficult, where as in more typical FRPGs it can become mundane (in AD&D the fighters usually had more hit points and did more damage than the dragons).

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

So back to wine: every interaction, by knights or ladies (and ESPECIALLY the ladies) is occasion for competition. And competition = glory. Ladies don't go out, slay dragons and rescue handsome knights--not much anyway--and they need sources of glory as well. Not much at a time, but just a few points in a parched economy is enough to bring out the knives.

Figuratively. Mostly.

Yeah, but I think strategic skill modifiers are probably worth more than the glory. In part because the glory doesn't do as much for the wives as it does for the knights. A knight gets more glory improves his abilities and can go out and do heroic things that can net him hundred or more glory. A wife would be luck yin what she improved ever netted her enough glory to get another glory point to make up for the one she spent. But having the Counts wife own you a "10 point favor" might be worth something when the hubbie gets busted for graft. 

"But dear, he was only taking that money to buy you that horse that you liked so much the last time you were in London. He wanted to get it before it was gone, and was planning on replacing the money later when his harvest came in, and he could sell that extra suit of armor he has."