Dragon-Blooded Political Game Interest Check

[QUOTE="Iron Penguin]Control of the Navy does not necessarily = control of maritime trade. Creation isn't Early Modern Earth, after all. I imagine the houses have their own trading vessels and possibly merchant navies; if Peleps (or any other hosue) wanted to attack a rival house's trading ships they'd have to do so covertly, possibly through privateers. I imagine the Empress wouldn't look too kindly on any Peleps captain overstepping their authority and using their ship for their own personal ends.

[/QUOTE]
That's implying that use their ships for anything other than furthering their personal careers.


I'm not sure that assertion is well justified.
 
[QUOTE="Iron Penguin]Control of the Navy does not necessarily = control of maritime trade.

[/QUOTE]
The history of every maritime empire in the history of the world, from the Romans clear through to the USA, argues the contrary point.

[QUOTE="Iron Penguin]if Peleps (or any other hosue) wanted to attack a rival house's trading ships they'd have to do so covertly

[/QUOTE]
The power that keeps the sea-lanes open does not need to act overtly against those whose commerce it wishes to disfavor. It can simply selectively withdraw its protection of the sea-lanes. The common instinct of private enterprise among the local population will suffice to do the rest.
 
Scandinavian said:
The history of every maritime empire in the history of the world, from the Romans clear through to the USA, argues the contrary point.
The power that keeps the sea-lanes open does not need to act overtly against those whose commerce it wishes to disfavor. It can simply selectively withdraw its protection of the sea-lanes. The common instinct of private enterprise among the local population will suffice to do the rest.
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I would add to this by pointing out that the Lintha often attack, in force, as far east as Churiscaro. So, in context, anyone who controls the navy can destroy any threashold city they please by simply letting the right spies know that the Realm's navy will not take action to protect those cities.
 
Scandinavian said:
The history of every maritime empire in the history of the world, from the Romans clear through to the USA, argues the contrary point.
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Hence the reason I said "Creation is not Early Modern Earth" - or indeed Earth in any time period. The Great Houses of the Realm, however fractious and self-interested, are not rival national powers. The Empress, when she was around, must have had ways to sanction Houses that overstepped the mark - for example, warships are expensive to run and you need plenty of land-based resources to support them. It's all very well to Rule the Waves (and waive the rules), but navies don't pay for themselves (just ask Charles I about a little thing called Ship Money).


Admittedly, I hadn't realised the extent or severity of Lintha depredations (I'd assumed they were confined to the West - questions of scale in Creation still utterly baffle me, but I think the sourcebook writers all have the same problem), but I'm sure the Empress had ways of punishing any too-overt disruption of the status quo.


Of course, the (ostensible) destruction of House Iselsi probably didn't help the balance of power - weren't they navally-inclined too?
 
The whole architecture of the Realm's political life is based around the Empress being able to defeat any plausible change coalition in detail: The Houses use their legions to keep the Threshold satrapies in line... conveniently allowing the Empress to and the Imperial Bureaucracy keep their legions concentrated on Isle. The Wyld Hunt, the Magistrates, the All-Seeing Eye and House Iselsi all function as political police, have mostly independent chains of command, and have considerable jurisdictional overlap, allowing (and providing an incentive for) three of them to root out sedition in the fourth. The Treasury, which disburses funds, the Assessors (who collect taxes), the Registers (who collect excise and customs) and the management of the Satrapies (which generates tribute) are all kept apart, to provide a check on sticky fingers along the way.


Allowing a single house to control the warfleet is just... well, dumb. And allowing the single house with the greatest personal fleet and the greatest inclination towards maritime warfare control of the imperial fleet is totally contrary to the fundamental principles of the Empress' rule. You might as well argue that House Ragara should control of the Treasury, that Mnemon should be in charge of the Heptagram and Cathak Cainan in command of the Silent Legion. After all, the Empress' rule is absolute, so what could possibly go wrong?
 
"The V’neef run the Realm’s merchant marine defense force" (Ex p35)


I concede - the writers of Exalted don't understand naval power.
 
[QUOTE="Iron Penguin]"The V’neef run the Realm’s merchant marine defense force" (Ex p35)
I concede - the writers of Exalted don't understand naval power.

[/QUOTE]
The Merchant Marine Defense Force is:

  • Not the official navy, but a group of privateers.
  • In no way granted a legal right to escort merchant vessels, which may chose to hire private protection instead.
  • In no way obligated to provide protection if asked.
  • Not composed of warships above a certain size.


In short, that boils down to "The V'neef do a brisk business in escorting naval traffic around the Realm," which seems reasonable.
 
Wow. I was definitely in the same boat as the writers on this (they have no excuse though, they wrote the damn game). I hadn't even considered the Fleet. But as already pointed out, moving Legions and troops around is only economical of you do it by ship. Otherwise, the only thing the Empress and her Empire could hope to control, at best, would be the Blessed Isle.


I'm actually astonished at how little there is about an Imperial Navy.
 
The Legions can cheat. Moving legions around expeditiously without the aid of water carriage is basically what Stormwind Rider does for you.


The problem with moving them about by Stormwind Rider is that the point of moving Legions around is to beat someone over the head and take his stuff. And the only way to economically move the stuff you beat out of the other guy back to the Blessed Isle (where you can enjoy it) is by water carriage. Sorcerers are, eh, expensive. Also a limited resource.


I actually think that point can be generalized: Having a lot of Exalted around means that anything that is deemed important enough to throw enough of your limited Exalted manpower at it can in principle be done better, stronger, faster by Exalted. This does not, however, mean that the Exalted run around babysitting every shipment of goods or every harvest of crops: Most of those things can be done much cheaper, even if not nearly as well by just throwing enough mortal manpower at the problem until it goes away.
 
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Character draft:


Name: Nellens Rugoshi


Theme music:


Pokrovsky, Kirill; Broken Valley Wakes


[media]



[/media]
Ruleset: Dragon-Blooded, Water Aspect


Background:


30 years old, born in Dragons Maw, An-Teng to a port whore. Exalted in the aspect of Daan'ad at the age of 17, and was adopted as a Found Egg of the Coin by a Nellens trade factor. After graduating from Pasiap's Stair with neither particular distinction nor demerit, he earned his Coin as quartermaster in the Fire Fleet, where he was greatly valued for his ability to ensure that the ship he sailed on never faced difficulties provisioning, no matter how hardscrabble their port of call.


Having earned his Coin, he promptly left the Fire Fleet for a position as House Nellens' trade factor in one of the minor Lap ports. When asked about his motive for coming back onshore, his answer is that he did so to better provide for his old age. Specifically by ensuring that he got to experience old age: Maritime careers tend to be short, glorious and end with a nice pyre and a marker on a peaceful family cemetery somewhere in a rural part of the Isle. Merchant factors careers tend to be long, dull and end with a nice Manse and a consort in a peaceful family holding somewhere in a rural part of the Isle.


During the three years since his homesteading, Nellens Rugoshi has developed an extensive network of friends and contacts among Guildsmen, local potentates, and assorted businessmen and religious figures of upstanding and unimpeachable repute. His network is centered around those ports where he made call during his tour with the Fire Fleet.


Rugoshi's personal leisure craft is currently dry-docked in the commercial shipyard in Noble for overhaul, and he is taking this opportunity to take one of his infrequent tours of the Blessed Isle, visiting the elders of his House in Juche, some old friends in the great port city of Dragonsmouth, and paying his respect to the Scarlet Court in the City of Cities.
 
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I wrote some summaries (and supplements) for my last Dynast game:


Fluff:


Moar schools:


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/organization-minor-secondary-schools-of-the-realm.54984/#post-748989


Thousand Scales organization:


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/organization-the-thousand-scales.54117/


Titles and formalities:


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/dynastic-etiquette.54397/ We later decided to rename "Captain" to "Shiplord," "Admiral" to "Fleetlord" and adding a naval rank of "Directional Fleetlord" above the Fleetlord, to lend greater consistency to the naming scheme.


The fluff is partly summaries of canon culled from CoCD:BI, MoEP: DB and Scroll of Kings, partly a codification of habits my old group developed for playing Dynasts, and partly non-canonical supplements I wrote to patch the shocking lack of naval fluff and improve the coherence of the Thousand Scales to make them feel like a plausible semi-feudal bureaucracy, such as might have been found in the Roman or Ottoman empires.


Tweaks:


Assorted small hacks (mostly removing pure diceadders with unclear stacking rules) :


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/minor-rule-revisions.54109/


Simplified social combat (because RAW has way too high crunch-to-plot ratio) :


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/faster-social-combat.54110/


XP-based chargen (because RAW chargen rewards ruthless min-maxing) :


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/character-creation.54108/


Feel free to use or discard at your discretion.
 
Let me take this opportunity to advocate for xp-based character generation. RAW chargen means that there can be a difference of up to roughly 200 xp between a min-maxed and a mediumed character.
 
May I then advocate for steeper progression in XP costs? XP-based chargen based on the XP tables in RAW makes it basically obligatory for you to have 5/3 ability/specialty in anything you want to be halfway competent in - it costs only three charms to do so. Attributes and Virtues are a bit better, but still IMO too cheap. And Backgrounds are just silly.
 
Scandinavian said:
May I then advocate for steeper progression in XP costs? XP-based chargen based on the XP tables in RAW makes it basically obligatory for you to have 5/3 ability/specialty in anything you want to be halfway competent in - it costs only three charms to do so. Attributes and Virtues are a bit better, but still IMO too cheap. And Backgrounds are just silly.
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While this is true (and arguably a problem, I must admit I don't see it as much of such), it is in no way related to the xp-based chargen. RAW also makes you take 5/3 in all abilities you care about.


The only thing that is special about xp-based is the backgrounds, they're just silly. You get soooo much bang for your buck when buying artifacts.
 
Artifacts are easier to compare with, say, charms. While I (of course) agree that Backing and Connections are bread and butter for a political dynast, their value is heavily ST dependent and can in principle be stunted around. Artifacts make for a more solid comparison.
 
Current chargen is fine if you use the static XP table developed by Sojiko. It makes a bonus point worth 2-3xp depending on where you do it so min maxing gives a very very tiny utility. Here it is for your convenience.


All XP costs are replaced by the below chart (thanks to Sojiko for developing it). These costs are static, except for Essence, meaning they do NOT rely on the current rating.


XP Costs (Unfavored/Favored)


* Attribute : 8/6 XP


* Ability : 4/3 XP


* Specialty : 2/1 XP


* Native-level Magics : 10/8 XP (includes Charms and spells)


* Superior Magics : 12/10 XP (includes mortals learning TMA and TCS, or Db learning CMAs)


* Other Magic : 9 XP (includes heretical Charms, Infernal spells, and Knacks)


* Essence : Rating × 8 XP


* Virtue : 3 XP


* Willpower : 3 XP


* Colleges: 4/2 XP


* Thaumaturgy Degree 6/4 XP (or 3/2 BP at chargen)
 
But that makes overspecialization even more ridiculously favored. Under a fixed marginal cost system, you would be deliberately crippling your build by not going 5/5/3 on everything you want to do and 1/0/0 on everything else that you're not strictly required to take.
 
Whether you want to favor specialization or generalization is a matter of taste. However, most people can agree that the current system which tries to mix fixed cost and progressive costs makes no sense and forces more than favors specialization.
 
Scandanavian, I am not following your argument. Under this XP regime, you arent losing out if you generalize. Take willpower for example, if you dont max it out at character generation you can raise it later for 3xp a dot instead of the bonkers rating that it is currently. Under this system there are less optimal choices since there is only a 1 xp difference where you can apply your BP. I have a generalist character I built under this XP system and feel free to compare him to a min maxed character in your analysis.


http://www.rpdom.com/threads/mnemon-karas.57395/
 
Kaji-Oni]Scandanavian said:
http://www.rpdom.com/threads/mnemon-karas.57395/[/URL]
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Mechanically, you generally win by specializing, but real people are generally generalized. Scandinavian's system favors this more "natural" progression where you will actually encounter sorcerors with Occult 4 and warriors with a melee specialty of merely +1.
 
Just a suggestion, I once implemented a tweak on character creation to avoid overspecialized characters right of char gen, it was an adjustment made on a whim, and it could use some input and some fine tuning, but basically it's to follow the skill requirements you find in the FATE rpg as a guide.


This means, that any ability rated higher than 1, requires the same amount of abilities plus 1 to be rated 1 dot lower, and so on and son. So basically, if you want melee 5, you need at least two other abilities rated at 4, and in order to have 2 abilities at 4, you need 3 abilities rated 3, and for this you need 4 abilities rated 2, and lastly 5 abilities rated 1. There is no limit of abilities with only 1 rank in it, but in order to progress in rank, you need to increase other abilities to maintain the skill/ability prerequisites. This essentially creates a pyramid of your ranked abilities.


I found that this progression allows for a decent and slightly more realistic approach at character growth, and a similar rule could be implemented for attributes in case it's needed.
 
I like it. Assuming one of the "unified Craft" hacks, that would cap you out at one 5-dot Attribute, three 5-dot Abilities, and 7 3-dot Specialties. Which strikes me as about right, but may seem too harsh for some people. (Though really, how many people are world champions in more than one or two disciplines?) We may want to implement rules for selling back dots in skills to make room for trading up other skills, though. And definitely revisit the ability requirements of some Charms.


On the other hand, a pyramid structure isn't very natural. The authors of the core book wrote the scales something like this (although the splatbooks, as is usually the case with splatbooks, suffer from stat-inflation) :


Attributes:


* Defective


** Untrained


*** Professional


**** Extreme


***** Limit of natural human potential


Abilities:


- Untrained


* Amateur


** Professional


*** Specialist


**** Expert


***** Leading authority


Specialties:


- Generalist


* Specialist


** Nerd


*** Obsessive


Virtues:


* Defective


** Ordinary


*** Noticeable


**** Leading driver of personality


***** Obsession


Tools:


-2 No tools


-1 Incomplete or broken tools


0 Commercial tools


+1 Specialized professional tools


+2 Pinnacle of contemporary non-magical technical assistance.


+3 Magical tools


+4 Dedicated factory-cathedral


On these scales, a village smith would have Str 3, Craft 2-3, no specialization, no applicable virtue greater than 2 and commercial-grade tools. This would give him a dice pool of 5-6, and an extra success if he really applied himself (e.g. when working for the local Patrician). A toolsmith such as might be found selling to the general public in a moderately large mercantile port could plausibly have Str 3, Craft 2-3, Specialization 1-2 and specialized tools (+1), for a dicepool of 7-9 (+ up to one success for WP).


Remember that these are examples of high-end tradesmen, who live very comfortably by their skills.


A dedicated weaponsmith, such as might be kept on retainer by any unexceptional Dynast or wealthy Patrician, or who might take commissions in a major mercantile port would have a dicepool between 9 and 12 (Str. 3, Craft 3-4, Specialization 2-3, tools +1-2).


Anything above that range and we're in the realm of services which cannot be procured on the open or semi-open market, for any price in scrip or silver. Think masters who can afford to turn away any customer they don't actively approve of, or jealously guarded specialists on permanent and exclusive retainer to important Dynasts.
 
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