Rules for Historical Settings
- Thread starter Chaos
- Start date
The ruleset is intended to cover all the setting; invariably there´ll be some adjustments in each setting.
The way I intend to do it, each setting is a snapshot of a certain time period that serves as a starting point for events to unfold. It´s kind of hard to have things follow a fixed timeline with a bunch of player characters running around and changing things. The Trojan War for example will unfold slightly differently if the players manage to prevent Paris from absconding with Helen to begin with...
I´ve been thinking some more on the UCP (Unified City Profile) and come up with a revised version:
A-BCD-EFG-H
A: Port level
A through E are accessible for deep draft ships, F through I or J are river ports or other ports only accessible for shallow draft ships, X means not accessible by ship
B: Network level
Codes from A through E denote successively less central locations within the long-distance trade network, with A a central trade hub and E an isolated backwater; X is reserved for places traders are not supposed to visit (something akin to a Red Zone, perhaps, or maybe the place is inhabited by a tribe of cannibals or something).
C: Market level
A through E denote successively less extensive infrastructure for traders present: marketplaces, inns for travellers, warehouses, stables, moneylenders and currency exchange, etc etc
D: Road level
A through E denote successively less extensive and advanced road networks linking the city to others overland; A represents the finest Roman road networks, E means not even dirt paths, while X denotes that it is literally impossible to reach any other city overland from this one (such as when the city is the only settlement on a smallish island).
E: Population level
F: Government
G: Law level
I: Tech level
Those are more or less the same as in CE.
Population would of course not vary as wildly as in CE; I´m thinking of "100 or less" as Pop 0 and "1 million or more" as Pop A (i.e. a Pop difference of 2 is the same as a Pop difference of 1 in CE), with a theoretical uninhabited city having Pop X.
Government would see some changes; for example, instead of Balkanisation, Gov 7 means control of the city is currently contested between two or more parties, not necessarily in a civil war but in some sort of civil strife.
Tech level would follow the scale as established earlier, from Stone Age to Coal Age.
A-BCD-EFG-H
A: Port level
A through E are accessible for deep draft ships, F through I or J are river ports or other ports only accessible for shallow draft ships, X means not accessible by ship
B: Network level
Codes from A through E denote successively less central locations within the long-distance trade network, with A a central trade hub and E an isolated backwater; X is reserved for places traders are not supposed to visit (something akin to a Red Zone, perhaps, or maybe the place is inhabited by a tribe of cannibals or something).
C: Market level
A through E denote successively less extensive infrastructure for traders present: marketplaces, inns for travellers, warehouses, stables, moneylenders and currency exchange, etc etc
D: Road level
A through E denote successively less extensive and advanced road networks linking the city to others overland; A represents the finest Roman road networks, E means not even dirt paths, while X denotes that it is literally impossible to reach any other city overland from this one (such as when the city is the only settlement on a smallish island).
E: Population level
F: Government
G: Law level
I: Tech level
Those are more or less the same as in CE.
Population would of course not vary as wildly as in CE; I´m thinking of "100 or less" as Pop 0 and "1 million or more" as Pop A (i.e. a Pop difference of 2 is the same as a Pop difference of 1 in CE), with a theoretical uninhabited city having Pop X.
Government would see some changes; for example, instead of Balkanisation, Gov 7 means control of the city is currently contested between two or more parties, not necessarily in a civil war but in some sort of civil strife.
Tech level would follow the scale as established earlier, from Stone Age to Coal Age.
CIties with 1 million inhabitants were quite rare (if they exist) all along this period (at least in Europe, maybe some eisted in Asia).
Why not POP2*1000 (so from 1000 to 100000 inhabitants, with a median of 32000)?
Cities over 50000 (so, POP 8+) should be seen as very large cities (equivalent to HiPop systems)
See that, as cities will not be rolled as in Traveller (I guess, being historical campaigns), you can assign a code Z (special) for the rare city with population over those numbers.
There were a few cities of that size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history
But, true, Pop A would be even rarer than in Traveller. But they exist, and I want the scale to be able to cover them.
Agreed, but they were few. THat's why I suggested the Z code (idea taken from the batteries mumbers and bearing in CT:HG) to represent those ocasional cities.
Trade codes would mostly not be derived from the UCP, but either manually, or randomly based on separate dice rolls.
High Pop and Low Pop are viable trade codes, but would most likely be awarded based on variable criteria depending on the era and setting - the great Northern trade nexus of Hedeby, 9th and 10th century AD, had maybe 1,500 permanent inhabitants, which would have qualified it is little more than a fishing village in the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire´s heyday.
The Rich and Poor trade codes are considerably more subjective as well, and probably more fleeting than in Traveller.
Cities are assumed to be more or less self-sufficient in agricultural production by default, counting their area of influence around them; they might import some items (like an inland city importing fish from the coast) and import others, but they would not suffer famine if long-distance trade ceased.
The Agricultural (Ag) trade code denotes breadbasket cities or the major shipping ports for breadbasket provinces - such as Alexandria in the Roman Empire - or cities exporting large quantities of other agricultural products such as wool.
Non-Agricultural (NA) is for cities who need significant amounts of food imports via long-distance trade - such as Rome itself in its heyday.
Likewise, cities are assumed have access to at least some raw materials and have the artisans to create whatever finished products are made from these raw materials (as well as from the local agricultural products).
A city with few or no artisans would get the No Manufacturing (NM) code, while one lacking some important raw materials (even something as simple as no wood for heating and construction) gets the Resource Poor (RP) code.
A city with a great number of skilled artisans, especially one famous some sort of finished product (such as Venetian glassworks) gets the Master Artisans (MA) code, while one which exports large amounts of non-agricultural resources, including things like lumber, gets the Mining (Mi) code.
Other trade codes could be:
- Capital (Ca) for the capital of major nations
- Religious (Re) for major religious centers such as Rome, Jerusalem, Olympia and so on - since religious centers are often flush with money due to the flow of donations towards the religious organisations, and perhaps also the pilgrim streams
- Icebound (Ic) for ports that are icebound during winter
- Laws (La) for cities with particularly invasive laws, especially those governing trade (like the Spanish colonies in the New World with very restrictive rules on who could trade there)
- Piracy (Pi) for ports either considered pirate dens, or with particularly high risks of pirate encounters in their vicinity
- Crime (Cr) for cities with an extraordinarily high risk of being victim of a crime - either in the form of pickpockets or robbers in the city, or highwaymen in the surrounding countryside
Things like war, civil war and epidemics are probably too transient to be codified by trade codes.
High Pop and Low Pop are viable trade codes, but would most likely be awarded based on variable criteria depending on the era and setting - the great Northern trade nexus of Hedeby, 9th and 10th century AD, had maybe 1,500 permanent inhabitants, which would have qualified it is little more than a fishing village in the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire´s heyday.
The Rich and Poor trade codes are considerably more subjective as well, and probably more fleeting than in Traveller.
Cities are assumed to be more or less self-sufficient in agricultural production by default, counting their area of influence around them; they might import some items (like an inland city importing fish from the coast) and import others, but they would not suffer famine if long-distance trade ceased.
The Agricultural (Ag) trade code denotes breadbasket cities or the major shipping ports for breadbasket provinces - such as Alexandria in the Roman Empire - or cities exporting large quantities of other agricultural products such as wool.
Non-Agricultural (NA) is for cities who need significant amounts of food imports via long-distance trade - such as Rome itself in its heyday.
Likewise, cities are assumed have access to at least some raw materials and have the artisans to create whatever finished products are made from these raw materials (as well as from the local agricultural products).
A city with few or no artisans would get the No Manufacturing (NM) code, while one lacking some important raw materials (even something as simple as no wood for heating and construction) gets the Resource Poor (RP) code.
A city with a great number of skilled artisans, especially one famous some sort of finished product (such as Venetian glassworks) gets the Master Artisans (MA) code, while one which exports large amounts of non-agricultural resources, including things like lumber, gets the Mining (Mi) code.
Other trade codes could be:
- Capital (Ca) for the capital of major nations
- Religious (Re) for major religious centers such as Rome, Jerusalem, Olympia and so on - since religious centers are often flush with money due to the flow of donations towards the religious organisations, and perhaps also the pilgrim streams
- Icebound (Ic) for ports that are icebound during winter
- Laws (La) for cities with particularly invasive laws, especially those governing trade (like the Spanish colonies in the New World with very restrictive rules on who could trade there)
- Piracy (Pi) for ports either considered pirate dens, or with particularly high risks of pirate encounters in their vicinity
- Crime (Cr) for cities with an extraordinarily high risk of being victim of a crime - either in the form of pickpockets or robbers in the city, or highwaymen in the surrounding countryside
Things like war, civil war and epidemics are probably too transient to be codified by trade codes.
The basic structure of character creation remains recognizably similar, but it has undergone some significant changes. Society in many of the eras the Zephyr Engine covers has far less sophisticated and formalized structure than the society assumed for the Cepheus Engine rules - starting with institutions like the Draft, or even the necessary bureaucracy to provide regular pension payments to veterans; the rules need to reflect this.
- In place of the Draft, there is a Hard Times table, to determine which of several careers the character finds themselves in - either a job taken up for lack of alternatives, being press-ganged into the Navy or captured and sold as a slave, or winding up as an outlaw after either a misdeed or a misunderstanding. The mechanism is the same, but depending on the era and setting, the careers involved are very different from the “six branches of the military” roll provided in the Cepheus Engine.
- Likewise, in most eras the career paths with a formal system of ranks would be the exception, rather than the rule. For that reason, rather than a Commission and Advancement check system, careers have a Special Events check; success in the Special Events check gives the character an extra skill roll for that term, plus a roll on a Special Events table that might result in any combination of a promotion (for those careers that do have ranks), an extra benefit, an ally and/or a positive reputation.
- Similarly to the above, failing a Survival check means a roll on the Survival Mishaps table, which can result in any combination of being ejected from the career, suffering an injury, losing the benefit for this term, gaining an enemy and/or a negative reputation.
- To reflect the fact that people tended to begin working for a living long before the age of majority for most of history, characters in the Zephyr Engine begin their prior history at age 14, but must have spent at least one term in a career (and thus be aged at least 18) before they can begin pay; likewise, to reflect shorter life expectancies and poorer medical care, the effects of age begin to set in at age 30 rather than 34 - and since careers start at 14 rather than 18, a 30-year-old character runs the same risk of characteristics decreases as a 34-year-old in the Cepheus Engine. The maximum number of terms, not considering forced re-enlistment, remains 7.
- Speaking of injuries and old age, medical treatment to recover lost characteristic points or avert aging/injury crises does not exist. In a fantasy setting variant, there may or may not be magic procedures (such as prayers to the right supernatural entity) who can deliver the results of the medical treatments - at a price.
- Pensions as a standard benefits after a certain number of terms in a career do not exist; some careers in some settings may have pensions as an entry on a material benefits table. To compensate for the loss of a pension, I am considering awarding one additional benefit to any character who stay in a career for five or more term.
- Instead of a +1 bonus to benefit rolls for rank or Gambling skill, a character leaving a career who has at least Gambling-1 has the option of wagering one or more of the benefits they receive (at most one per Gambling skill level) on a Difficult Gambling skill check - winning one additional benefit for each benefit wagered on a success and losing the wagered benefits on a failure.
- In place of the Draft, there is a Hard Times table, to determine which of several careers the character finds themselves in - either a job taken up for lack of alternatives, being press-ganged into the Navy or captured and sold as a slave, or winding up as an outlaw after either a misdeed or a misunderstanding. The mechanism is the same, but depending on the era and setting, the careers involved are very different from the “six branches of the military” roll provided in the Cepheus Engine.
- Likewise, in most eras the career paths with a formal system of ranks would be the exception, rather than the rule. For that reason, rather than a Commission and Advancement check system, careers have a Special Events check; success in the Special Events check gives the character an extra skill roll for that term, plus a roll on a Special Events table that might result in any combination of a promotion (for those careers that do have ranks), an extra benefit, an ally and/or a positive reputation.
- Similarly to the above, failing a Survival check means a roll on the Survival Mishaps table, which can result in any combination of being ejected from the career, suffering an injury, losing the benefit for this term, gaining an enemy and/or a negative reputation.
- To reflect the fact that people tended to begin working for a living long before the age of majority for most of history, characters in the Zephyr Engine begin their prior history at age 14, but must have spent at least one term in a career (and thus be aged at least 18) before they can begin pay; likewise, to reflect shorter life expectancies and poorer medical care, the effects of age begin to set in at age 30 rather than 34 - and since careers start at 14 rather than 18, a 30-year-old character runs the same risk of characteristics decreases as a 34-year-old in the Cepheus Engine. The maximum number of terms, not considering forced re-enlistment, remains 7.
- Speaking of injuries and old age, medical treatment to recover lost characteristic points or avert aging/injury crises does not exist. In a fantasy setting variant, there may or may not be magic procedures (such as prayers to the right supernatural entity) who can deliver the results of the medical treatments - at a price.
- Pensions as a standard benefits after a certain number of terms in a career do not exist; some careers in some settings may have pensions as an entry on a material benefits table. To compensate for the loss of a pension, I am considering awarding one additional benefit to any character who stay in a career for five or more term.
- Instead of a +1 bonus to benefit rolls for rank or Gambling skill, a character leaving a career who has at least Gambling-1 has the option of wagering one or more of the benefits they receive (at most one per Gambling skill level) on a Difficult Gambling skill check - winning one additional benefit for each benefit wagered on a success and losing the wagered benefits on a failure.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
If you need any artwork for your material, I have quite a bit. I have purchased the Cepheus Engine, and it does look quite adaptable.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
There are those who argue that Helen's kidnapping was simply the excuse for the Greeks to attack Troy. Troy did control trade through the Dardanelles, which was important to the Greeks. Against that, it might have been harder to put together a large force without Helen being involved.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
My apologies for bumping this thread, however, it does discuss Mercator in terms of the Cepheus Engine. Paul Elliot of Zozer Games, who developed Mercator has now come out with a magic supplement for the Cepheus Engine called Fast Magic. If you take Mercator, which I have and add Fast Magic to it, you have the basics for a pretty good fantasy RPG.
As Mercator is set in the Roman Empire, you do not have all of the other familiar fantasy races to work with: Elves, Dwarves, Halfilings, Orcs, Gnomes, etx. Those probably could be added via blending the Alien descriptions given with the Animal Creation section, or consider getting an Alien Creation supplement.
As I have Mercator, Fast Magic, Low Tech Weapons, and Archaic Firearms, all published by Zozer Games, with the latter three written for the Cepheus Engine, and Mercator readily adaptable to the Cepheus Engine, I will have to see what I can come up with.
Note, while I am a fan of Zozer Games and Paul Elliot, I do not have any pecuniary interest in the company. If you do look at his site, check out Attack Squadron: Roswell. That module was so good, I bought Mongoose 1edition to figure out how to play it.
As Mercator is set in the Roman Empire, you do not have all of the other familiar fantasy races to work with: Elves, Dwarves, Halfilings, Orcs, Gnomes, etx. Those probably could be added via blending the Alien descriptions given with the Animal Creation section, or consider getting an Alien Creation supplement.
As I have Mercator, Fast Magic, Low Tech Weapons, and Archaic Firearms, all published by Zozer Games, with the latter three written for the Cepheus Engine, and Mercator readily adaptable to the Cepheus Engine, I will have to see what I can come up with.
Note, while I am a fan of Zozer Games and Paul Elliot, I do not have any pecuniary interest in the company. If you do look at his site, check out Attack Squadron: Roswell. That module was so good, I bought Mongoose 1edition to figure out how to play it.
