Draft revised version of the PBM rules by "haste#@andrew.cmu.edu" submitted 24-FEB-1987 16:34:19 to TIHOR@NYU-ACF7.ARPA (Stephen Tihor) for comment. Rules version 0.1.11 Contents 1.0 Introduction 2.0 T'Nyc 3.0 Skills 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Skill List 3.3 Skill Descriptions 3.4 Skill Acquisition 4.0 New Characters 4.1 Character Generation 4.2 Startup Information 5.0 Entities and Stacks 5.1 Entities 5.2 Stacks 5.3 Things 6.0 Actions 6.1 Introduction 6.2 How To 6.2.1 Recruiting 6.2.2 Combat 6.2.3 Making Money 6.2.4 Gathering Information 6.3 Command Descriptions 6.4 Orders 7.0 Game Mechanics 7.1 Turn Sheets 7.2 Turn Reports 7.3 Game Mechanics 7.4 Communications 8.0 Advice 8.1 Miscellaneous Advice 8.2 Player Articles Appendix Skills List Command List Command Summary Turn Sheet Character Design Sheet Calendar +---------------------------------- NOTE ------------------------------------+ These rules reflect the current version 1 of the game. Version 2 is being written now and at some point there will be a cold start of the new version. Nonethless a certain amount of play time remains in this version and I recommend that you do your experimenting with this version as many of the basic ideas will carry over. +--------------------------------- NOTE ------------------------------------+ 1.0 Introductions These rules describe a "Play-By-Mail/Net/Phone" game which a number of New York City gamers have been discussing for some time, but which has recently gelled enough to turn it into code. The game is set in a medium to low technological fantasy world with limited magic. Each player takes the role of a single, highly skilled individual, but can acquire subordinates, and eventually build a substantial empire. One of these magical aspects of the world is the Telepathy spell which permits a character to maintain constant contact with up to five subordinates. Each of those subordinates can, in turn, maintain contact with up to five more, and so on, and so on.... Each of these subordinates could be a single skilled individual, a group of similarly trained beings, or even an entire province and its network of village headmen and sheriffs. Thus you build an empire or a mercenary band with equal aplomb. You begin with a period quality map of the area you start in, details of the province you occupy and the skills you command. Inter-player co-operation and competition is assumed to be a major part of play for many players. It is assumed that the same Telepathy spells that permit you to remain in touch with your subordinates will permit semi-reliable communications with the other players at will. Thus, contact addresses and/or box numbers will be published in the newsletter if the players wish. You start play with your selection of skills and a large purse in a major city. Otherwise, your fate is up to you. A significant part of the game is limited information effects. Developing or acquiring a good detailed map and descriptions of provinces is an early subgoal for most characters. Nor do players start with much information about the combat system or object distributions. Since it is always possible to release more information but hard to "take back" information we are being very careful before releasing details or numbers rather than generalities. There are a number of modules to game, and only some of them are currently engaged. The first set of modules in place were those for the budding empire builder, including the basic 5 subordinates per leader table of organization, large unit combat, taxation, unit creation and training. The scale of military actions is expected to start at the level of Italian city-states with elite mercenary units of 50 to 150 men and later peasant levees of perhaps 500 or 1000 men. You will be informed as new possibilites are added to the game. 2.0 T'Nyc More Monsters and of course the edge of the world X ^ ^ . . . .. . .. R H ^ ^ . . . ~ ~ . . X e e ^ ^ (e) ~ ~ ... ~ ~ ~ . X . c r ^ ^ () ----,. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . e e + / .~ ~ . ~. ~ ~ ~ p ~ . . Silver e X / . . . (c) ~ ~ ~ . . X Isles d t X (*)- X . ~ p ~ ~ (S). . i o ______/ . ~ ~ ~ . . ~ n o (h) + ^ . ~ ~ ~ Pirates g (b) . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X & ^ . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ s ^ (&) (X) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X l ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ & . ~ ~ X ~ ~ ~ o ^ X ^ ^ ^ . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ w . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ l X ~ ~ ~ Here be Monsters y ( ) Cities + major Castles and Fortresses * Imperial Capital / \ , Major Seaports | Chardian Players: | | see provincial maps | ~ ~ Seas & \ / ~ Oceans _/ Navigable rivers ^ ^ High Hills, Mountains ^ & Plateaus p Recent Pirate attacks X Magic, Danger, or Evil & Reported pillaged cities towns and villages (*): The Golden City was once the capitol of a great empire spanning the known world and beyond. The Dark King wars three hundred years ago devastated the land and the empire colapsed into civil wars. The other cities have mostly stopped paying their taxes and the non-human races have withdrawn from contact with mankind. The last of the old line of kings died ninety years ago and the capital has since been ruled by a variety of lesser nobels and warlords. Trade is limited and bandits roam the country side within weeks of the capital. The old imperial palace is still defended by Imperial Troops, although they are mostly paid with the proceeds from the Imperial Zoo. Rumors speak of evil dwelling in the South and storytellers still sing of Silver Isles beyond the storms. The city remains spanning the amber waves of the river Gold collecting tolls from each vessel passing up or downstream. [] * || _____ " | /\ || () / \ " ===| +-----------------------------------------+ | __ __ __ | -----------_/ \____/ \____/ \_---------- / ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~/ / ~ ~ ~ / | ~ ~ ~ ~ | / ~ ~ ~ | / ~ ~ ~ / Although the political cohesion is gone, the continent still shares a common language and culture, the old Imperial currency (based on the silver penny) and the old Imperial Calendar: Lune Terran Imperial Name Characterized by .. Winter "YearTurn" Snows melting 1 Spring "Seeds to the Soil" Planting time 2 Spring "Seeds to the Soil" Spring Rains 3 Spring "Clouds of War" Summer showers 4 Summer "Clouds of War" Planting ends, War begins 5 Summer "Doom Thunder" Most combat 6 Summer "Doom Thunder" 7 Summer "Safe Harbor" Huricane season 8 Summer "Safe Harbor" Ships in port 9 Fall "Sunstrike" Storms End 10 Fall "Wanderer's Night" Weather cools, peasant militia 11 Fall "Harvest Nights" return to harvest 12 Winter "Ice Death" Weather cools 13 Winter "Sunreturning" Shortest Day .. Winter "YearTurn" Snows melting Important Weeks of the Year Years' Turn Ice Break Week First Seed Storm Birth Fire Loom Burn Day Deserters' Day 3.0 Skills 3.1 Skill Introduction Skills are the learned abilities which enable you to survive and prosper in this world. They may be as mundane as farming or as esoteric as the summoning of demons. Those possessing a skill, will have a proficiency rating usually ranging from 1 (knowledge of some basics) to 10 (total mastery). As characters or their subordinates improve their skills they will receive lore sheets with new information about their abilities. Some skills must be caled upon explicitly in the course of play. Others are function automatically. For example, combat skills are automatically employed during a fight. Some scrying skills will automatically cause you to notice more of what happens around you. All skills may have an effect, for good or for ill, on the impression you make upon potential recruits, with different entities having different opinions about different skills. 3.2 Skill Numbers The currently available skills are: Skill Skill Number Name ------ ----- 0 None 1 Administration 2 Archery 3 Cavalry 4 Courtliness 5 Entertainment 6 Farming 7 Gaming 8 Herding 9 Intrigue 10 Lore 11 Oratory 12 Medicine 13 Melee 14 Military Leadership 15 Military Tactics 16 Naval Tactics 17 Sailing 18 Shipbuilding 19 Stealth 20 Stewardship 21 Tracking 22 Trading 23 Forestry 24 Mining 25 Fishing 32 Magic Resistance 33 Fire Magic 34 Earth Magic 35 Air Magic 36 Water Magic 37 Scrying 38 Gatecraft 39 Illusions 40 Summoning 41 Necromancy 50 Scribe 51 Pottery 52 Herbalist 65 Swimming They are described more fully below. 3.3 Individual Skill Descriptions 3.31 --------------------PERSONAL SKILLS----------------------------------- 3.31.1 Administration Administration is the art of handling the "paperwork" and the bureaucratics of governing cities and provinces. Use of Administration can improve the economy, and thus increase tax revenues. 3.31.2 Courtliness Courtliness conveys the abilities to deal with court etiquette, and other subtleties dealing with the upper circles of society. Courtliness is very useful to the social climber and those who seek to impress the nobility. 3.31.3 Entertain Entertain conveys knowledge of a variety of musical instruments, songs, jokes, etc. It is useful in making ones way through many different circles of society, and is a handy skill if you need to earn money through honest labor. 3.31.4 Game Game is the ability to play the traditional card and board games, including both gambling games and games of skill. A character can either gain or lose money depending on skill and luck. 3.31.5 Lore Lore is the ability to discover background information about almost any subject. 3.31.6 Oratory Orators have the ability to sway the masses who can afford to listen. It is the ability to engage in persuasive public speaking, and associated personal relations skills for those who would sway crowds. 3.31.7 Medicine Medicine covers the physical and magical art of healing wounds. Its primary scope is those wounds which occur in personal combat, since most battlefield injuries not immediately fatal are too expensive to cure. Physicians tend to be healthy people as a result. 3.31.8 Intrigue Intrigue covers those things useful to know in surviving the murky underworld of civilization, both criminal and political. 3.31.9 Stealth Stealth is the general skill of characters working the underside of life. It is primarily the ability not to be noticed in any environment, but also conveys skill at underhanded dealings, escapes, larceny, robbery, and some skill at spotting other sneaky individuals. 3.31.9.1 Note on detection & stealth The "slimy skills", Stealth, Illusions, & Intrigue all affect who can see you and what they can see about you. Stealth, Tracking, Scrying, Intrigue, Lore, etc. all help others discover things about you. 3.31.10 Sailing Sailing includes all ship mastery skills. The captain of a ship is the entity stacked on top of it, issuing the MOVE orders for the ship and it's stack. The captain's sailing values reduce the chance of foundering in a storm, improve nautical navigation, etc. 3.32 -------------------------COMBAT SKILLS-------------------------------- 3.32.1 Archery Archery is the combat skill covering all ranged weapons. 3.32.2 Cavalry Cavalry is the combat skill covering mounted combat. Possessing this skill implies ownership of a horse, so training a unit in the first point of Cavalry "consumes" a Horse. Mounted units can move up to twice as fast as foot units with similar armor and equipment. [See the MOVE command for more details] [Possessing Cavalry skill automatically bestows the skill Horse Riding] 3.32.3 Melee Melee is the basic physical hand-to hand combat skill, covering all uses of hand weapons by footmen, as opposed to ranged weapons (Archery) or mounted combat (Cavalry). 3.32.4 Military Leadership Military Leadership is useful for leading large groups of men. It reduces the affect of a rout, and will help with such efforts as forced marches when implemented. It also includes some strategic and tactical sense. 3.32.5 Military Tactics Military Tactics is of obvious value when commanding troops in land combat. It also includes some ability to make judgements of the tactical implications of men and terrain. 3.32.6 Naval Tactics Naval Tactics is of value when commanding troops (and ships) in combat at sea. It also includes some ability to make judgements of the tactical implications of men and seascape. 3.33 --------------------PRODUCTION SKILLS--------------------------------- 3.33.1 Farming Farming conveys an agricultural sense, and is generally useful in governing agricultural provinces. Use of Farming can improve the economy, and thus tax revenues of agricultural provinces. 3.33.2 Forestry Forestry conveys knowledge of the proper management techniques for heavily forested areas, as well as miscellaneous tidbits of useful information. Use of Forestry can improve the economy, and thus tax revenues of forest provinces. 3.33.3 Herding Herding conveys knowledge useful for governing ranching provinces. Use of Herding can improve the economy, and thus tax revenues of stock raising provinces. 3.33.4 Mining Mining covers mine engineering, mine production, and the general management techniques for governing provinces where mining is a major occupation. Use of Mining can improve the economy, and thus tax revenues in such mountainous provinces. 3.33.5 Stewardship Stewardship conveys the skill to be the manager of a castle or fortress. Use of stewardship can improve the economy, and thus tax revenues. 3.33.6 Tracking Tracking covers the basic woodcraft skills, conveys general alertness and skill at spotting individuals. Persons with Tracking skill are well suited to rule provinces where trapping and herding are major parts of the economy. 3.33.7 Trading The portion of the economy which appears "above the level of the simulation" where players can directly see it is the luxury good trade, high priced, high risk goods which must be transported many hundreds or thousands of miles to reach a good market. The market system in the world of T'Nyc is not the nearly perfect market of the modern stock exchange but the dramatically imperfect market of an Arabian bazaar. Trading provides more detailed information about the prices and availability of goods, the mechanism of the trading system itself, and an "edge" when purchasing or selling goods. 3.34 ---------------MAGICAL SKILLS----------------------------------------- 3.34.1 Magic Resistance Magic Resistance reduces the effects of offensive magical spells directed at you. Having several points of magic resistance is recommended to all healers, for those with a life of personal combat, or those with whom study of the arcane arts is likely to create enemies. Magic Resistance is an inherent skill, used automatically. 3.34.2 Fire Magic Your friendly neighborhood pyromaniac, the fire mage is good at converting forests into deserts, parching green valleys, paralyzing armies with thirst, etc. 2.24.3 Earth Magic Earthquakes, mineral extraction, and other sedimentary activities characterize the earth mage. Not a good person to offend unless you are at sea. 3.34.4 Air Magic Wind and weather, storms and zephyrs, the air mage can eventually pin you in place with a blast of air or reduce your province to mud. 3.34.5 Water Magic Control of the seas, rivers, and their denizens is the province of the water mage, although a certain amount of weather magic is also possible. 3.34.6 Scrying Armed with crystal ball or pool of water, the Scryer peers into the near provinces and penetrates disguises. While limited in offensive powers, a highly skilled scryer is very hard to hide from. 3.34.7 Gatecraft The noble and ancient methods of creating, sensing, and manipulating gates and portals to travel from place to place, or hurl objects there in one's absence. Once one of the major crafts of the empire, this art has fallen into sad disarray. 3.34.8 Illusions Mastery of appearances and disappearances is the province of the master illusionist. If you can find one, which is unlikely, the illusionist is often seen in the company of dragons, elves, gods, talking bears, dead Emperors, and all other manner of beings. Who knows what is real and what is false? A master scryer perhaps, others probably not. Illusion is the art of creating appearances of persons and things which do not exist and of making things which exist appear to be something else or nothing at all. A high level illusionist can conceal an entire army -- or conjure one up. Illusionary units have lords just like regular units, and you can write orders for them just as for regular units. An illusory unit can try to do anything which a real unit of the same type could do. MOVE commands will always work, but, at the moment, any order which would require real power, such as combat, skill use, or sale will also cause the the illusion to evaporate. Only a truly great illusionist will be able to make illusions which are nearly real. (The supporting code is undergoing aggressive testing, but is not completed as yet.) Most illusions merely appear to do things. Of course, even that can be enough to scare enemies and intimidate neutrals. An illusion appears as one figure, and the number and attributes can be greatly increased by a high level illusionist at some cost of power. Special Illusion Crafting spells can vary the attributes of an illusion. Illusions can be of things as well as of people. 3.34.9 Necromancy Generally disliked by all who see them, the necromancer is a master of calling forth the dead to do his bidding. Necromancy has a rather bad reputation because the necromancer makes a good villain, since his legions are too slow to create a viable society of their own, and thus most spend their time collecting others earnings. Undead troops have a nasty tendency to decay and fall apart, but a few good battles or a high population province to raid, and their forces are up to strength again. Only running water proves a hindrance to their slow deathly march. 3.34.10 Summoning Summoning is the art of calling up beings, usually demons, and binding then to your service. It is expensive, produces powerful, high maintenance units which are reliable until the spell expires, and whose skills depend in part on the power of the Summoner invoking them. Summoning is considered dangerous. Imagine that you were sitting down eating dinner when suddenly you found yourself in a strange land filled with ugly creatures, and one of them insisted that you fight others of them or suffer unbearable pain. Wherever you went, even the beings you weren't trying to hurt ran screaming and called you a monster. You'd be pretty annoyed at the thing that called you up. So when a summoning spell begins to fail, the summoner and the people near him should beware. Further, not all summoning spells are safe. Most are expensive, and demonic troops, while strong, are both costly to maintain and are subject to sudden rebellion if the binding spell weakens. While the summoning spells hold, so will the summoners kingdom. 3.35 -------------------------Movement Skills------------------------------ Swimming is the only movement skill that a character would be able to start with. All characters are either human or similar species at this time, and can walk. Any player wishing to ride, and thus move at horse speeds, should take at least one point of Cavalry. Characters can not fly without Air Magic, or implementing, capturing, and/or taming a magical creature. 3.35.1 Swimming Swimming permits the character to swim. Many points of swimming permit the character to swim well. Master Swimmers who try to cross the Angric Channel get sung about by the bards. 3.36 ----------------------Production Skills, Province--------------------- A number of provincial production skill exist, which are most useful to provinces, which use them to produce trade goods. They also permit the production of commodities, if enough points of them are available in a suitable province. A single character will not be able to produce a useful quantity of the trade good over the course of play, but players may take these as skills if they really want to. These "production skills" will someday have special rules for their specific abilities above and beyond general information and production, but they will be among the last for which special rules will be written. 3.36.1 Herbalist The skill Herbalist provides information about the cultivation of herbs in a given province, such as the growing season. 3.36.2 Scribe The skill Scribe provides information about the literary output of that province. 3.36.3 Pottery The skill Pottery provides information about the production of pots and ceramic objects in that province. 3.4 Skill Acquisition A character starts with a selection of skills. Unless otherwise specified, a character has no skills in an area. Skill ratings may be improved -- and new skills learned -- by means of study. Study is easier at lower skill levels. A month of study will almost surely suffice to learn the basics of a new skill, but there is no more than a 10% chance that a character can go from level 9 to level 10 in a single month. (See the STUDY command in 6.3.8 for details.) Skills cost money both to learn and to maintain. Most skills cost less than 50 silvers to learn at level 1 and less than 5 silvers for each additional week of study. (Of course, a unit of ten followers will cost about ten times that much to train.) Monthly maintenance costs for a skill are about equal to a figure's armor rating, with higher level skills requiring higher maintenance costs for specialized equipment and the like. Generally, the higher the skill number within each specific skill grouping, the more costly it is, both to learn it and to maintain it. Magic skills are costlier to acquire or maintain. They cost up to 1000 silvers to reach level 1, up to 50 silvers for each additional week of study, and about five times the figure's armor rating for maintenance. The higher costs of magical skills tend to make LARGE UNITS of wizards uneconomical. Listed in order of increasing costs, the magic skills are: Magic Resistance Fire Magic Earth Magic Air Magic Water Magic Scrying Necromancy Gatecraft Illusions Summoning 4.0 New Characters 4.1 Character Creation To create a new character, you must first choose that character's skills and other attributes: 4.1.1 Select a name. 4.1.2 Allocate up to TWENTY-FIVE (25) points of skill levels, from among up to SEVEN (7) of the skills listed in 2.2 above. 4.1.3 Select a default attitude towards most things in the world. Friendly (1), Neutral (2), Hostile (3) 4.1.3.1 The default attitude is Neutral (2) unless you specify otherwise to keep you from picking fights with the Imperial Guards by ACCIDENT. 4.1.4 Select an ARMOR rating from between ONE (1) to NINE (9). 4.1.4.1 Armor ratings of FIVE will cut wounds by almost half. An armor rating of NINE means that you, the individual, will not be killed in army combat, although a duel or an encounter with a very good assassin might get you killed. 4.1.4.2 Lightly armored footmen move up to two provinces/turn, lightly armored horsemen move up to four, while heavily armored units can move one fewer per turn. Armor ratings between 1 and 3 are considered light, 4 thru 6 are considered medium, and 7 thru 9 are considered heavy. 4.1.5 Indicate if you would rather start in the capitol, or in a random city. All players start at the capitol unless they request otherwise. It is a major city on a major river on the major land mass. A simple filled out sheet for a mythical character follows. ** SAMPLE ** DESIGN SHEET T'Nyc PBM campaign ** SAMPLE ** Player's Name R. E. Howard Date 13 January 1851 Address(es) The Manse Lorado Texas 99101 Phone(s) & Time(s) 800 555 1212 212 555 1212 to call 9pm to 12 pm 7 am to 10 am Weekdays Have you played in any PBM games before? YES How many? 1 SF? 0 Fantasy? 1 When would be the best day/time of week for you submit turns? Thursday To receive them back? Sunday What times are impossible? Saturday, Sun AM Starting Character (YOU) Character's Name: Conan the Copyrighted Please also print the name in the boxes below as well to insure that we get first few characters right. There is no hard limit on the length of a name unless they get too silly. +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | C | O | N | A | N | | t | h | e | | C | o | p | y | r |... +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ ...| i | g | h | t | e | d | | | | | | | | | ... +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ Armor Rating (between 1 and 9): 3 Start in Capital - ------- Attitude towards strangers: Friendly -------- Skill Rating 1. Melee 10 2. Cavalry 4 3. Military Tactics 3 4. Swimming 1 5. Sailing 2 6. Stealth 5 7. Description Conan is a large bullying man wth sinnewed thews and all that. He displays a morbid fear of pools of blood but is otherwise obnoxious and disliked. He drinks too much. His flowing black hair reveals his barbarian origins as does his light leather armor. Rumors He is said to have killed his parents in his youth and is frequently seen destroying large parts of the countryside in a drunken rage. He seeks power, money, and a place in life. What is important to me about PBM gaming My output has to be printed in brown dried blood on yellow parchment. I want lots of rules, I mean a nine inch thick rule book. When filling out the DESIGN sheet remember that you do not have to use all seven starting skill slots. If the Ratings do not total 25 the ratings will be adjusted to make things add up. New players should consider carefully the implications of the study order when creating a new character. Except for Cavalry it usually makes more sense to spend a few weeks studying to pick up skills at level 1 or 2 and to give your character at least medium levels in everything he or she is starting with. Chosing Cavalry gives you a Horse and lets you move faster. Characters who start with no skills at level 9 or 10 start with a 100% bonus in money. There is a blank design sheet in the appendix. Please don't just fill in the raw statistics. Send me additional information about your character. Initially a brief physical description of your character will do. But more history will be a help, as your time to write and my time to enter make possible. 4.2 General Start-up Information Characters will start with a reasonable amount of Silver. The first characters received 4000 silver. New characters will recieve about that much or double that if none of their skills were above level 8 to keep them from being shutout by the first few players. A ship would cost somewhat more than a character's beginning purse. A small mercenary force could be recruited, trained, and maintained for that amount for a campaign season. Your character starts well supplied with food and such. The Setup Turn report will indicate what trade goods can be bought in the city where you begin, and what surroundings you see. You will also receive a rough map of the play area initially defined (new provinces will be added continuously as time permits), and the Lore sheets for your location, species, and skills. 5.0 Entitites and Stacks 5.1 Entities The orders you give generally apply to a single ENTITY. Your character is an entity. Any UNIT you may recruit (a follower or a troop of followers) is an entity. So is a city or province. Entities may not be subdivided. You can't order part of a troop to one place and the rest to another, for example. An entity has a unique name and a unique number. A THING (eg an artifact or load of trade goods) is an entity, as are certain persistent events (such as curses or quests). 5.2 Stacks The notion of a "stack" of units is a familiar one to those from a wargaming backgroup. A stack of units moves and fights together. Movement orders issued for the unit on top of the stack apply to all members of the stack. The attitude of a stack is the attitude of the stack' top unit and the attitude of its lord. A stack of several units is a more efficient fighting force than the same units separately. The tactical skills of the unit on top of the stack affect the stacks fighting ability. Money flows down the stack if necessary to pay a unit its monthly salary and maintenance costs. A stack is not an entity. There are, however, several cases where the entity number of the unit on top of a stack stands for the stack. Generally a stack is formed of units which are trying to stick together for mutual protection and support so MOST attacks against a unit are treated as attacks on the stack as a whole. Duels, sorcerous or otherwise, attempt to cut a unit out of its stack and may or may not succeed. If an entire stack participates in, say, a theft, the stealth used for the theft is that of all units in the stack. Having a person in the stack with stealth 0 would not help the actual theft, and would increase the number of bodies which could be spotted by those who would foil you attempts, but if they have skills they may increase the chance of hiding, or of defending the thieves if it comes to combat. For most activities other than theft, combat, and movement only the skill of the entity issuing an order is used actively, but all memebers of the stack may be involved passively or defensively in the consequences of the action. By default new units are stacked under you and thus will move with you until and unless you explicitly DROP them or write separate movement orders for them (or something fatal happens to them.) When a unit moves away from the stack of which it is a part, it is perceived by the rest of the stack to have deserted, and this has a negative effect on morale. This makes using the DROP order a good idea, if that movement is deliberate. A stack cannot be persuaded to one's side as a whole. Tthe PERSUADE order encompasses a single entity, be it a person, a unit of men, or a province. 5.3 Things Goods are treated as units ("entities") for the purposes of order writing and for most other aspects of the game. Things can not move by themselves, control units, and thus most of the orders except a few of the zero time orders (JOIN and DROP in particular) can not be issued by them. THINGS (such as trade goods and magical artifacts) must be stacked under a person to be sold or moved. 6.0 Actions This section describes the orders which may be given. The List of Commands names the legal orders. They will be referred to in what follows. The second part of this chapter describes how to use these orders to achieve some of the more common and important goals, such as recruiting followers. Part three gives detailed descriptions of each command and the last part describes the mechanics of writing orders. 6.1 List of Commands 0. Hold 1. Move 2. Attack 3. Use Use a skill 4. Take Pick something up 5. Drop Drop unit from stack 6. Join Add unit to stack 8. Study Try gain or improve a skill 9. Work Use skill to earn money directly 10. Buy 11. Sell 12. Follow 14. Explore Explore current city or province 15. Persuade Attempt to sway an entity to your faction 16. Swear Pass control of your follower 18. Pay 19. Declare Set your attitude to friendly, neutral or hostile 20. Recruit Try recruit more entities to expand a unit 21. Form Form a new unit 23. Pillage Squeeze money from a province or place 23. Tax See Pillage 24. Execute Execute a prisoner 25. Terrorize Increase a province's loyalty through force 26. Wait 27. Armor Change armor rating 28. Tell 29. Garrison Protect or stop protecting current province __ 6.2 6.2.1 Obtaining Followers There are five ways to obtain followers: The FORM command lets you hire average followers of no particular skill. You may then order them to STUDY to improve their skills. The RECRUIT command lets you increase the size of a previously formed troop. If the troop has acquired skills since it was formed, new recruits will also have those skills. They will, consequently, be more expensive to hire. Your may PERSUADE or TERRORIZE existing units to sway them over to your faction. Another character or non-player character may SWEAR a unit over to you. A character with the requisite magical skills may conjure up undead or demonic or illusionary followers. None of these methods is likely to be cheap. You can only control up to 5 followers directly, but each of your followers can also control up to 5 followers, and each of theirs, so that you may gain control over a substantial following. (An entity -- a person, place, vehicle -- can control followers. Things cannot.) It is recommended that you keep a slot free so that you can recruit a new follower when an opportunity arises. Our estimates are that 50 to 100 is optimal for fighting force, over 1000 is both unutterable expensive and unwieldy, and 5 to 15 is reasonable for your first few units. You can always try and recruit more members later. The social mores of this land require that any (non-slimy) individual wear "colors" indicating their family and their lord. As a simplification at this stage of the game this information is report through the unit number of their lord. Extremely sneaky individuals can conceal this information and are assumed to do so automatically. If you see such information on your printout this indicates that the unit in question was (a) honorable or (b) less sneaky/discerning than you. 6.2.1.1 Forming and Recruiting Followers The FORM order will give you a new unit consisting of a single follower with a specified armor rating and a specified amount of silver. A newly formed unit will typically cost about 500-600 silver (more for heavier armor). Most of that covers the cost of buying and sensitizing a telepathy jewel. You should name that unit. The newly formed unit is automatically stacked under its creator, and they will move together until the unit is DROPped from the stack or is given an independent MOVE order. The RECRUIT order will add followers to a previously formed unit. Generally, you must offer a recruitment bonus in order to attract recruits. This is over and above the ongoing cost of maintaining the unit. Not much of a bonus is required to recruit followers to a newly formed unit. However, if the unit has had the opportunity to acquire valuable skills, only recruits with those same skills will be taken on, and the bonus required to attract them may be quite high. You may not recruit someone into your initial (player) unit; you can't afford it. Example 1: Entity 999 wishes to create two units, 1 unit armor 5 containing 20 men with 200 odd silver in their pocket and a second unit, armor 9, containing 1 man who should study Administration for the month. If entity 999 isn't planning on doing anything else that month it should issue the orders: Entity 999, X Orders: 4 FORM 5 0 230 1 RECRUIT 19 30 FORM 9 0 100 1 STUDY 1 . . Names: 999 The Raptors 999 Mung the Merciful Example 2: This turn entity 999 wishes to create one new unit, armor 5, train the initial member for several weeks in the art of face to face melee and then hire a number of similar men. Entity 999 then plan on studying Administration (1) itself for one month. It should issue the orders: Entity 999, X Orders: 4 FORM 5 0 500 2 STUDY 13 42 RECRUIT 19 300 STUDY 1 28 Names: 999 Mylian Guard Note that the last study order (StUDY 1 28) is the order that 999 actually executes for most of the month. The form order occusa at the stard of the month and the new unit, the Mylian Guard, will execute the two orders STUDY 13 42 and RECRUIT 19 300 since the last parameter on the FORM line tells the compute to pass the next 2 orders to the new unit. Note also that 999 still had to specify that it was issuing 4 orders for the turn since until the form is executed the computer has no way to tell that 2 of the orders are going to be passed from 999's pending order list to the Mylian Guards list. 6.2.1.2 PERSUADE, TERRORIZE; loyalty and control The orders PERSUADE and TERRORIZE are the only general commands which normally will cause an existing unit to switch its allegiance to you. Combat does not directly grant you control of units or provinces. FORM and some magical spells will create new units under your command. PERSUADE is the polite way to gain control of an existing person or place. It automatically applies all of your skills with which the victim(s) are impressed (local opinions varies from place to place and NPC to NPC) and puts special emphasis on one. It also permits you to make a gift of cash (silver) to try and sway the victim(s) to your faction. Loyalty is to a specific lord, freely transferable by the player by using the SWEAR command. When a unit is being persuaded if the ultimate lord of the persuader and the persuadee is the same then persuasion increases loyalty. If the ultimate lord is different then persuasion decreases loyalty. If loyalty falls too low then an entity may switch allegiance to one of the entities persuading it. The basic time for a persuade order is 7 days. A loyal unit can not be subverted in 7 or even 28 days. It took one player 7 lunes to persuade a highly loyal unit to change sides and will take another six or seven lunes to built up the same sort of loyalty to its new lord. If persuasion was easy then you could not rely on your own followers and since when one follower defects he takes all his followers and their followers along it would be impossible to build up a large organization. As it is you will have more warning of subversion attempts if your followers are more loyal and a certain amount of continued effort to maintain and increase their loyalties is justified. The PERSUADE order encompasses a single entity, be it a person, a unit of men, or a province. You must be in the same location as the entity you are persuading. If two of your units persuade a third, since everyone has the same lord the persuasion values combine. Again, you can PERSUADE an entity; you cannot persuade a stack. TERRORIZE works similarly except that it is not possible to produce the highest level of loyalty through terror alone no matter what the Dark Lord says. Also you must be careful that you do not destroy a province or cities value though excessive terror. An aspiring Dark Lord recently had a Demon Army terrorize a city at the maximum possible intensity, 10, for a lune. The city had already been reduce to the lowest possible normal loyalty so that a single kind word (PERSUADE order offering a few of the gold PILLAGEd during the previous turn) would converted it. By the end of the turn the city was depopulated, and if there had been anyone left they would have been hiding and dramatically uninterested. The effectiveness of Terrorizing tactics depends on the number of entities engaged in it and their skills. A single unskilled follower hired to TERRORIZE a province will not have a very noticeable effect. A player attempting to TERRORIZE a small city or province single-handedly may well succeed -- but it can take a long time. To come to rule a province you must change its loyalty to you. Provinces and cities are "Entities" and you can apply the PERSUADE or TERRORIZE orders with suitable amounts of money or combat value (respectively) to alter their loyalties. Since players always control their own allegiance when someone tries to persuade you you will recieve a message stating who attempted to persuade you and how much money you recieved. Some people wonder "Since players can not be persuaded against their will if I can't tell the difference between players and non-players won't I be wasting my time by persuading them?" Probably. Of course they may like your offer and accept it. Or send you a message. Its just one of life's little challanges. If a player declares you as his liege lord you will be informed. The grades of loyalty, in decreasing order, are: Fanatic Extreme Very Loyal Loyal Indifferent Disgruntled Limited Minescule None and, worst of all, Player 6.2.1.3 Swearing Followers You may SWEAR a unit which is loyal to you to another lord, or vice versa. If a unit is sworn to itself, or if it is sworn to a lord who already has five followers, it becomes a free agent. You no longer control it unless 'it' is your primary (player) character. If a person gets killed, those sworn to him are released at the end of their turn. This is done because it is very difficult to find a good place to put them. We are investigating alternate solutions that are both playable and computationally feasible. Fortunately it is difficult to eliminate a leader, for example, without going though the steps of a formal execution which gives his faction time to adjust control. 6.2.2 Armed units An armed unit it one which has a combat skill at level 1 or higher. Archery, Cavaly, and Melee are the three combat skills. The first level in a number of skills is more expensive than subsequent levels because at that point the individual in question is purchasing the implements of the trade. In the case of Archery, Cavalry, and Melee, there would include bows, sabres, and all other weapons. The only exception among the ordinary skills is cavalry which also requires that the character be stacked immediately on top of a unit of horses. To make a proper military unit you need (a) Armor, (b) Weapon skills, and (c) sophonts to become soldiers. A new unit is created with the FORM command and Armor can be supplied then or later unit the ARMOR command. The new unit should issue some combination of RECRUIT orders to get new members, ARMOR commands to change their armor class, STUDY orders to improve combat skills, and, perhaps, BUY orders to acquire HORSES if Cavalry is part of the curiculum. (A player who starts with Cavalry skill starts with a horse, as well. Otherwise, horses may be purchased at a horse market (found in large cities), bought or stolen from some tribe with a herd, or even captured in the wild.) Whether it is better to recruit a large number of unskilled individual (easy) and then try and train all of them together (hard and expensive), or train one perfect soldier and then try and recuit more of the same or some mixture is something which has yet to be discovered by most players. Combat strengths of different units vary with terrain depending on their combat skill mix and species. Mercenaries Mercenary units differ from normal units it two regards. The only SWEAR orders permitted are that of the commander to another, non-mercenary. While it is possible to place units other than mercenaries under the command of a mercenary it is not considered wise. They will only PAY money to other mercenaries who were part of the same force. Unlike the Feudal units you have been familiar with so far a mercenary is "paid" a regular salary well above the maintenance costs and their loyalty when the term of their contract expires, or when they are not paid is, ah, proverbial. Hiring mercenaries (or winning them at dice) is one possibility in the Heroic Adventure module. Prisoners USEing a combat skill to attack an individual may result in the individual's capture. (Warning: using a combat skill to attack an individual more than once in a single turn may result in death instead of capture.) Prisoners will automatically try to escape each week. Prisoners may be EXECTUTEd. Booty Part of the defeated opponent's wealth is collected by the victor automatically, depending on terrain and followers' loyalty. The rest winds up in the hands of peasants (and can be taxed or otherwise gotten away by appropriate means). 6.2.3 Making Money 6.2.3.1 Pillage The most direct route to wealth is the PILLAGE order, which combines the most profitable aspects of death and taxes. You must be in a province in order to pillage it. Pillaging can be dangerous if the province in question has armed forces, or a ruler who might take exception. It also messes up a province and so should not be overused on a province which you hope to someday rule. 6.2.3.2 Working WORKing at your skills should at least bring in enough money to support the working unit, with something left over. Different provinces have different attitudes towards different skills. Different provinces are richer or poorer than other and thus earnings vary. Skills like Entertain and Game are the safest and most efficient ways to earn money. (The big payoff in Entertainment, though, is to units of entertainers, rather than to individual characters.) Combat skills can pay off big, but of course there is the risk of injury. Ditto Theft (WORKing at STEALTH). Magic payoffs are extremely variable. Many places do not offer any prospects for employment. A few are very positive. At present, specific NPC's cannot hire PC's, though that will change when the Heroic Adventure module is done. PC's can and have hired other PC's. You can put an Ad in the paper and see hat happens. 6.2.3.3 Trading The details of the pricing formulas are part of the Trading Game. There is a medium complexity economic model underlying that part of the game. Consumption and production data is displayed on all units printouts when EXPLOREing or first entering a province although only skilled traders get very good information each turn. The economic model is that of luxury trading and the market is far for "efficient". The data displayed sometime includes a number of units bought or sold and the per unit prices offered or taken. Keep in mind that this information is for the pervious month and prices change over time depending on the amount of economic activity. Your Trading and production skills may affect the information your recieve. You can try and sell a commodity that is not listed as being consumed there. Sometimes it will sell, sometimes it will not. Mostly trade pioneering is effective with goods from distant places. Initially we recommend that you stick to the known commodities until you can afford the risks involved in creating a new market. 6.2.4 Gathering Information Much information gathering takes place automatically. Skill in stealth, tracking, scrying, intrigue, lore, etc. help you notice or find out things. Such skills as stealth, intrigue and illusion can also make it difficult for others to find out about you. NPC's whom you PURSUADE to your side often bring information with them. The richest source of information, of course, is other players. 6.3 Command Descriptions Detailed command descriptions follow. A command applies to an entity, though some commands (eg movement, combat, theft) apply to the whole stack if given to the entity at the top of the stack. Cities and provinces are entitities too, and most commands apply to them as well. (Commands requiring movement will not generally be successful, of course.) ___________________________________________________________________________ [] command options surrounded by brackets are optional and may be omitted (replaced by zeros). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quick Command Summary ___________________________________________________________________________ Days 0. Hold 7 1. Move Direction varies 2. Attack [Direction] varies 3. Use [Skill] [Target] [Modifier] varies 4. Take Unit 7 5. Drop [Unit] 0 6. Join Stack 0 8. Study Skill [days] varies 9. Work [Skill] [Options] 7 10. Buy Thing [From] Offer [Number] 7 11. Sell Thing [To] Price [Number] 7 12. Follow [Entity] 28 14. Explore 7 15. Persuade Entity [Skill] [Bribe] 7 16. Swear [Lord-Entity] 0 18. Pay Entity Money MoneyLeft 0 19. Declare [Entity] Opinion 0 20. Recruit NumberSought PayOffered 14 21. Form Armor [SpeciesHired] [Amount] [NumOrders] 0 23. Pillage Province [Severity] 7 23. Tax Province [Severity] 7 24. Execute Captive 28 25. Terrorize [Province] [Severity] [Mode] 7 26. Wait [Days] varies 27. Armor [New Rating] varies 28. Tell [Entity] Y/N/Number [Number] 0+ 29. Garrison [State] 0 ____________________________________________________________________________ 0. Hold 1. Move Direction 2. Attack [Direction] The basic movement order. Directions that you can "reasonably" move are listed on the results. HOLD is a move in direction zero, meaning stay in this location. ATTACK differs from MOVE in that units ordered to ATTACK will fight units towards which they feel "Neutral" as well as units which they "Hate". (See order Declare, concept Attitude). If the unit issuing the movement order is not at the top of its stack it will slip quietly out of the stack and then make the move. This is identical to the behavior of deserters. (See order Drop). If three units are stacked, A over B over C, and B issues a MOVE order while C does not then unit B will be extracted from the stack and move separately from the remaing stack, A over C. The morale effects of such a desertion are similar to unit B being killed in combat. This unit or stack attempts moves in the specified direction. Each move takes from one to four weeks of the one month turn depending on the units speed and terrain effects. The number of days for this particular unit to move in a given direction is part of the output from the Explore command and the automatic exploration at the end of each month. Generally movement into or out of cities, castles, towers, and fortresses contained in a place takes one week regardless of the unit's speed. Most other moves take one week for small ships one week for light cavalry two weeks for medium and heavy cavalry two weeks for light infantry three weeks for medium infantry four weeks for heavy infantry four weeks for things (ex: trade goods) (where light, medium, and heavy indicates the unit's armor. * Moving large armies should take more time, moving very small units should take less time, good leaders should permit faster movement of large armies. These rules will be added later in the game as we figure out how to provide the player with sufficient information about unit speeds * If you attempt to enter a province which contains hostile units or units towards which you are hostile combat will occur. If you take significant losses your attempt to enter the province will fail. You can fight a given enemy unit only once per month in a given province without issuing a non-movement order which causes combat. 3. Use [Skill] [Target] [Modifier] [Modifier2] varies The generic skill usage command. Skill is the number of the skill being used. The interpretation of the parameters of the USE command depends on the skill. The detailed skill writeups for your skills will include explainations of the forms of the USE command that applies to that skill. Most forms of the use command take one month but some take fewer weeks as indicated in the writups. Some uses of skills take a risk modifier. A risk of 10 is normally considered suicidal and a risk of 0 paranoid. Numbers from 1 to 9 are usual. Strange circumstances can change this of course. The use command can result in combat occuring. * New uses for skills will be added to the game continuously * 4. Take Unit 7 days Picks up a thing, lying loose in a province (not stacked with any other unit). DOES NOT TAKE IT OUT OF A STACK. If you want to steal something you will have use some other command or else make your victim drop the unit in question. 5. Drop [Unit] 0 days 6. Join Stack 0 days Drop drops a specified unit from your stack; dropping unit 0 means leave your own stack. Join stacks under the named friendly unit. Takes units stacked under it with it. [Note: issuing a join order towards something in the same stack is equivalent to a DROP order followed by the JOIN order.] 8. Study Skill [days] varies Studies the specified skill in an attempt to improve it. The unit studying must have enough funds to cover the costs and must be stacked over any materials need, e.g. must be in the same stack as and above one horse per member of the unit studying if studying Cavalry. Chance of increasing a skill in one month's studies is at most (100% - ( 10% * current skill value ) ). Thus TEN points is normally the upper limit for a skill. This chance is prorated downward for shorter (weeks) durations of study. Every three skill levels represents a different order of command of the skill. For magical crafts level 3 represents the completion of apprenticeship, and level 6 or 7 represents the attainment of mastery. For combat skills levels one through four are Green, Trained, Veteran, and Elite. Levels above six are "Heroic." Studying most skills cost between ten and one hundered silvers per month per figure. 9. Work [Skill] [Options] 7 days Uses Skill to earn money directly. Unless otherwise indicated in your skill writeup the Option field indicates the degree of intensity (on the same 0-10 scale as WORK risks) with which you are working which will scale the rewards and the risks. If Skill is a combat skill higher risk increase both payout and chance of injury and loss. At the moment the basic WORK cycle is one week for all skills. Cities and provinces cannot use this command. 10. Buy Thing [From] Offer [Number] 7 days 11. Sell Thing [To] Price [Number] 7 days Offers to buy of sell up to Number (default 1) of the Things to or from the individual or provincal market indicated [default is current location's market] for the number of silver specified each. The markets are not efficient, so the prices you hear about will not always be the best possible depending on your skills and the other activity in the market place. Prices vary over time and with the gerneral state of the economy inthe province. The From or To parameter should always be specified as an explicit ZERO in this stage of the game. You can only sell something that is stacked under you. 12. Follow [Entity] varies Try to do what Entity does for one order. Works best when both units have the same ultimate lord, are the same type of unit, and start in the same place. 14. Explore 7 days Explore the current province, providing a detailed printout of the province or city containing this unit. This command was added to permit units passing through a province to examine it and get a printout even if they are not going to end their turn there. 15. Persuade Entity [Skill] [Bribe] 7 days Attempt to sway the named entity to your faction through the use of skills and silver. All non-players characters have a loyalty to their current lord. The persuade command modifies this loyalty. Those who are very loyal are very hard to sway while those with low loyalty are easiest to sway. In all cases loyal individuals can not be "stolen out from under their lords" in one turn but must be steadily seduced. The bribe offered is usually accepted but even very large bribes will not sway loyal individuals to your cause immediately. Disloyal slime will change masters at the flash of a silver pence, as many times each turn as they get offers. Non-player characters have varying opinions of different skills and types of people which affect how easily they can be swayed. The skill you emphasize will have double its usual value in trying to persuade the unit to your faction. The persuade order can be used to increase the loyalty of your followers as well. Player characters can not be persuaded without their consent. If the unit issueing the persuade command succeeds in making the target switch allegiances, that unit must be able to take the target as a follower. If it already has the maximum number of followers the victim becomes a free agent. 16. Swear [Lord-Entity] 0 days Grants control of this entity, which you must control, to the lord-entity or to itself if lord-entity is zero. If the lord-entity already has the maximum number of followers the unit becomes a free agent. If you swear a unit (other than your own character) to itself then it becomes a free agent, no longer under your control. Any units controlled by the unit giving this order are also transfered. Similarly any things stacked under this unit are also transfered. This order is primarily useful to rearrange your control heirarchy. 18. Pay Entity Money MoneyLeft 0 days Pays silver to the entity named. The entity issuing this order must have the amount of silver specified. The recipient of the silver must be in the same location. If the amount to be paid is zero it is treated as all silver the payer currently has. The amount payed will be reduced if necessary to insure that thay at least "MoneyLeft" silver should be left. 19. Declare [Entity] Opinion 0 days Sets your default opinion of everyone (Entity=0) or of a specific entity. The opinion of the unit on top of a stack of units controls the stacks behavior. The current opinions are: 1) Friendly, 2) Neutral, and 3) Hostile. Your friends can stack with you and generally cooperate efficiently. Your enemies will be attacked where ever they are seen. The opinion of the ultimate lord of a unit (the being at the top of its control heirarchy) is used if the unit has no strong feelings of either friendship or hatred for a given other entity. 20. Recruit NumberSought PayOffered 14 days Offers a total of PayOffered silver in recruiting bonuses for up to NumberSought more individuals of the same species and wiuth the same skills to join this unit. 21. Form Armor [SpeciesHired] [Silver] [WhattoDo] 0 days Forms a new unit of the specified species with the specified armor. The new unit has average loyalty, no skills, and one member. It is created stacked under the unit issueing the FORM order. Cost is currently between 500 and 600 silver for humans, depending on the armor. The default species is human. The cost is paid by the creating unit, then the amount of silver given is transfered from the creating unit to the new unit to cover any costs it may incur following the orders it is given for the inital month. The third modifier, what to do, tells the system how many of the creating units orders immediately following the FORM are really for the new unit. If you do not specify a name for the new unit it will be assigned one during the next turn. Example: to create two units, 1 unit armor 5 containing 20 men with 200 odd silver in their pocket and a second unit, armor 9, containing 1 man who should study Administration for the month issue the orders: FORM 5 0 230 1 RECRUIT 5 30 FORM 9 0 100 1 STUDY 1 The unit issuing these orders still has not specified a FULL TURN action for itself for this month. 23. Pillage Place [Severity] 7 days Extracts money from a province by permitting the specified level of damage [from minor, 1, up to severe, 10]. 23. Tax Place [Severity] 7 days Extracts money from a province by permitting the specified level of damage [from minor, 1, up to severe, 10]. 24. Execute Captive 28 days Execure a prisonner (a unit which has been captured in a previous combat.) 25. Terrorize [Province] [Severity] 7 days Increases a province's loyalty by brutal means. 26. Wait [Day] varies Delays for the specified number of days, doing nothing. 27. Armor [New Rating] varies The command armor indicates the this unit is attempting to adjust its armor either up or down. Any whole number in the range one to nine, inclusive, can be specified as the "New Rating" parameter to the armor command. The effect will depend on wether the new rathing is higher (armor is increasing) or lower (armor is decreasing). Adjusting a persons armor down any amount takes a full week to complete. This may cost money or affect combat skills at some time in the future but the current mechanism does not include such a penalty. Armor can be raised. Doing so can be a slow process. Armor rating increases one level each game week until the desired new rating is achieved. The unit is considered retraining and can do nothing else while the armor is being increased. Each week will cost at least the units full monthly maintenance. Only player characters not oweing allegiance to a lord are exempt from this charge. Demon's armor can not be changed. Changing the armor of undead troops is possible but very expensive. Adjusting a place's armor down costs money and time. 28. Tell Entity Y/N/Number [Number] 0+ The TELL command is used in the Heroic adventure module and to convey information to another character directly within the execution of a turn. For player player communication simply sending notes is usually more effecient and sending notes containg real world contact information such as name, address, and phone numbers is even better. The second and third parameters of the TELL command will be interpreted in context dependant manners. If a Yes or No question is being answered then a 1 indicates YES and a 0 indicates NO. 28. Garrison Y/N 0 The Garrison command controls wether this unit automatically becomes hostile to entities pillaging or terrorizing its current location. A command of Garrison 1 sets this state on, a command of Garrison 0 sets the state off. 6.4 Orders A unit may carry out a month's worth of actions in one turn. This includes as many zero-day orders as you wish, plus a single one-month order or a combination of shorter orders. Most orders take a week. Since your followers are carrying telepathy jewels, you do not have to be with them to give them orders. All players' orders are processed semi-concurrently. The basic order cycle will execute the first order in each player's order list if it is a zero day order. It repeats this cycle until all players are waiting for a non-zero day order to be executed. Then the necessary number of days is allowed to pass until an order completes. Then the cycle begins again. At the end of a month the economic cycle is executed and all pending bids and offers are resolved. Maintenance, spell decay, etc. will also take place at this time. A player's orders will be processed in the order in which they are given, until all the orders are processed or the player's month is used up. If an order fails, the unit in question just goes on and executes the next order in sequence. (This can have unfortunate consequences. Suppose a player issues: MOVE 10 BUY 22 19 500 1 MOVE 10 MOVE 5 DROP 192 ATTACK 2 PILLAGE 0 10 and the MOVE 10 order fails. If the MOVE 5 order, then executed next, cuases the unit to march into the ocean that is what will happen.) Note that orders for a given unit are executed in sequence and at almost the same time as an equivalent order issued by another unit at the same time of month. Unit 115 Unit 114 DECLARE 114 1 JOIN 115 SWEAR 291 STUDY 3 MOVE 4 USE 17 1 WORK 5 These might be executed in the sequence: DECLARE JOIN SWEAR MOVE STUDY WORK USE 7.0 Game Mechanics 7.1 Turn Sheets 7.1.1 How to Write Orders Some people have asked how to fill out an order sheet. The example below is for our friend Conan the Copyright [101] as he attempts dumps his girlfriend Sendya [102] and heads for the hills, and the same player has Sendya start a new job. If you are a PBM or face-to-face player submit the prepared order sheets at the end of these rules or xeroxs thereof filled out like this: Written: DROP SENYA Unit# Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: 101 | 5 | | 1 0 2 | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: MOVE NORTH NORTHEAST EAST NORTHEAST Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: 101 | 1 | | 1 | | 2 | | 3 | | 2 | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: WORK ENGINEERING 10 Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: 102 | 9 | | 5 7| | 1 0 | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ For players submitting orders by electronic mail write the unit number, unit name, and number of orders, and then for each order the command word itself and the numeric parameters, one line per order. The same set of orders submitted electronically should read: Entity 101, Conan the Copyright Orders: 2 drop 102 move 1 2 3 2 Entity 102, Sendya Orders: 1 work 57 10 Spacing is at your discression since it is parsed by decent parser but try and avoid TAB characters since they upset BITnet. If it is conveint pad the parameters with trailing zeros (so that there are always four parameters). 7.1.2 Eliminating long turn sheets It is best if players submitting orders by hand turn in filled out Turn sheets giving both English and numeric forms their orders so that we can cross check them. Network players should submit their orders in the format described below. To save paper the order sheets are being replaced with a short listing of units for whom orders are requested. A copy of the blank generic turn sheet is appended to this issue of the newsletter. Players submitting orders by post or hand should copy and use these unless they have discussed the optimal format to write them on other sheets. Networked orders: Entity #, name Orders: numberoforders orders Names: unit forming name for unit formed unit forming name for unit formed unit forming name for unit formed .. For example: Entity 204, King Loric the Dread Orders: 5 study 39 14 form 9 16 2000 2 buy 40 40 1 1 study 9 45 Names: 204 The Slaves of Darkness 7.1.3 Multiple version of orders To avoid missing a turn due to communications problems some players have taken to submitting multiple version of their orders. In general this is not a bad thing however since orders are entered into the database when recieved please remember to include the CANCEL command at the beginning of any subsequent orders for each unit since otherwise I can not easily distinguish the cases of canceling old orders and adding new ones from adding an additional months orders. *) Extra Turn Sheets Along with the initial ruleset you recieve a set of preprinted order sheets for your characters. If you need to submit orders by mail please copy this sheet and submit your orders on it. 7.2 Turn Reports 7.2.1 Reading a province description A printed description of a province looks like: 300: 300: Sees Oopsland [312]: 300: Place, Steppe [2], population 2005 300: Walls: 2 300: wearing the colors of 315 300: direction 1, North, is Steppe 300: goes to Ug [19], 28 days 300: direction 2, North East, is Steppe 300: goes to Lost [17], 28 days 300: direction 3, East, is Steppe 300: goes to Homedell [98], 28 days 300: direction 5, South, is Hills 300: goes to Deep Pitland [38], 28 days 300: direction 7, West, is River 300: goes to Open Sewer [1], 28 days 300: direction 9, In, is City 300: goes to City of Fishsellers [13] 300: direction 10, High OOl, is Castle 300: goes to High OOl [19] 300: 300: produces Toads, Black Horn [97] at 24 silver Bit by bit this is saying 300: 300: Sees Oopsland [312]: The province name is "Oopsland", the provinces number is 312. 300: Place, Steppe [2], population 2005 It is a place, rather than a person or a thing, it is Steppe (open plains) which is terrain type 2, and has a population of 2005 families 300: Walls: 2 It is a walled province. The walls would add to defenders armor within the province. Most walled provinces are cities. 300: wearing the colors of 317 This entity is controlled by entity number 317. The social mores of this land require that any individual wear "colors" indicating their family and their lord. As a simplification at this stage of the game this information is report through the unit number of their lord. Extremely sneaky individuals can conceal this information and are assumed to do so automatically. If you see such information on your printout this indicates that the unit in question was (a) honorable or (b) less sneaky/discerning than you. Who a unit owes alegiance to is controlled by the SWEAR order. FACTIONs are a separate code module not yet working or integrated into the main system. You may spot various entities during your turn, depending upon your luck, your skills and theirs. Spotting is done when needed during the execution of a turn, during the combat phase of each basic cycle (week) and when an Exploration output is generate by the EXPLORE order or at the end of a turn (lune). You may also notice things about them such as their probable skills and (sometimes) their attitude towards you. If an entity is in Oopsland it can move any any of the following six directions: 300: direction 1, North, is Steppe 300: goes to Ug [19], 28 days 300: direction 2, North East, is Steppe 300: goes to Lost [17], 28 days 300: direction 3, East, is Steppe 300: goes to Homedell [98], 28 days 300: direction 5, South, is Hills 300: goes to Deep Pitland [38], 28 days 300: direction 7, West, is River 300: goes to Open Sewer [1], 28 days Directions are only displayed when you first see a province or when you issue an explore order. Consistent numbers have been used for the directions where possible, however not all provinces has accessible connections in all directions. When moving specify the direction number on the movement command (MOVE or ATTACK) you choose to use. If you know which of the basic 8 compass points you want to travel in you guess the direction number, i,.e. South is normally 5 in all provinces with a southern exit. After the direction, direction name, the terrain of the connection your are following and where it goes, name and entity number, is the number of days for this unit to travel in that direction. Note that this province has no roads leading out and to the South East, South West, North West, or in other odd-ball directions. 300: direction 9, In, is City 300: goes to City of Fishsellers [13] Entering or leaving a city (and certain similar moves) does not require travelling a great distance so there is no time given. Any unit can traverse that distance in the minimal possible time (currently one week). 300: produces Toads, Black Horn [97] at 24 silver This province produces Black Horn Toads, which are commodity 97. Although the character observing this did nto know much about when Toads are good to buy or have the connections to see how many were sold last month he supects that they cost about 24 silvers each. Of course that price will change over time. Items produced in a city should normally be bought there rather than sold since the prices are much better. Similarly with items consumed. These commodity listings are sometimes preceeded by the notation "between 0 and 300" (or any other pair of numbers). Such commodities are only bought and sold between those days of the year. 7.3 Game Mechanics Playtest Plans The game is currently running with biweekly turns (due every other Friday). It is possible to submit more that one turns moves at a time with the obvious problem that you will not be able to see the results of the first turn's actions to plan the second turns moves. However such orders can be canceled up and changed up to the deadline. To try the game, fill out the DESIGN Sheet and turn it in to me at any time. Note that new players also have the options to take over a vacant but established playership such as one of the ones vacated by people unable to keep up their network connections after leaving school for the summer. A player with a defunct character may reenter the game as a new character. You will be placed in a different section of the world and start with a different set of resources. Note that a "second generation" character will start with a different, and smaller, set of resources since it will not need to 'expend' as many getting comfortable witht he game. The playtest is being run at cost minus a little. The first few turns were free, and we are now asking those that are costing me U.S. postage for postage/SASE type money. As the playtest progresses, you will get updated rulesets and maps (depending on the generosity of the Mapmaker). You will be asked for various suggestions and relative priorities of changes and new features. Modules (in order of completion): Movement; Combat; Command/Control; Training; Taxation; Pillaging; Maintenance; Simple Trading and Production; Basic Magic; Exploration; Healing, Drowning, and Decay; Basic Magic; Necromancy; Intermediate Magic; Prisoners. Other modules will be added as time goes on. Playtesters should indicate those areas which require the most development effort at this time. B. Joining the playtest Fill out the sheet below and get it to me at: Arpanet: TIHOR@NYU-ACF1.ARPA TIHOR@NYU-ACF6.ARPA TIHOR@NYU-ACF7.ARPA (if your host tables is old: TIHOR@NYU.ARPA) BITnet: TIHOR@NYUACF Usenet: {ihnp4,seismo,...}!cmcl2!acf7!tihor U.S.Mail: (work) (home) or Stephen Tihor Stephen Tihor Room 326 32 Washington Sq W 251 Mercer Street NY NY 10011 NY NY 10012 212 460 7289 The phone is covered by a fairly reliable answering machine at all times. If it doesn't answer you didn't get through to me. If you don't get a return call try again the next day. Most of the initial playtesters know my home number and when is safe to call there. The work number is almost always better. Moves can be dropped off in person, by mail, or (for the first few turns) by phone. Specify how moves should be returned. If there are a bunch of players all from one place talk to each other and me about arranging a group pickup/drop rather than relying on the Post Awful or slogging by my office individually. Since the playtest has proceeded to the point that I can no longer cover all costs of operation myself or steal postage from NYU I would appreciate if all players please arrange to: (1) pick up their turn results by hand (2) pick up their turn results by electronic mail (3) provide me with stamped self addressed envelopes sufficient to contain their turns (4) provide me with $2 per month (US$3 in Canada and Europe) to cover the costs of buying envelopes and posting turns [i.e. you take care of communications costs, I'll cover the rest] Non-electronic messages People submitting BOX# ads should submit some SASEs (Stamped, Self-addressed, Envelopes) for messages. People sending non-electronic messages to players by entity number should provide envelopes eact postage or about 50 cents per person on the average for postage costs. (Europeans and Canadians are more, Americans are less.) 7.4 Communications 7.4.1 Direct Communication As a side effect of the telepathy spells used to control units it is possible for any to characters to communicate over large distances if both wish it. The implemntation is to send a message to the unit with your turn. All units have an "implicit" box number of their unit number. First time they get messages they will recieve them and be asked to make arrangements to recieve them regularly. After that messages will just be held until arrangements are made. E-mail message are always delivered but replies from Postal players to E-mail players without SASE's on file get sent slowly since I have to type them in. All entity numbers are in effect box numbers so that your primary character's number is usable. On request another number can be assigned for those who wish extra anonyminity. [In such cases stamped self addressed envelopes must be supplied in advanced.] It may be desirable to exchange real addresses of one sort or another early in a correspondance to avoid problems. If you are playing by POST or by NETWORK you will usually get messages from others playing the same way fairly quickly. Normally Email messages to a box are attached to a players' printout, and paper messages are stuffed into envelopes. Email messages to POSTAL players will be printed and stuffed into envelopes as well. If a paper message arrives for someone playing by network who has not supplied an envelope I'll have to type it in and then email it. This will take a while and I will ask the NETWORK player to supply an envelope for future messages. It is not the my intention to get in the middle of all the negotiations hich should be taking place. Rather I am willing to pass along some message to help get people talking to each other politly. 7.4.2 Advertising Advertisments from players and nonplayer characters looking for work will appear as time goes on. BOX Numbers available if a suitable envelope is included with the Ad. We encourage all advertisers to include a real name/address, a character number/location number, or a BOX number in their ads to improve communications. The only restriction is that you can only advertise your own address and/or phone number in an ad. Aside from that nothing is guarenteed although most nonplayer characters are basically honest. 8.0 Advice 8.1 WHAT TO DO The options are only limited by your imagination and my time implementing code. With the basic framework one can reasonable expect to accomplish such goals as (1) restablishing the Empire with me as Imperator, (2) becoming so filthy rich that I can buy the Empire and the Imperator, (3) becoming a world famous mercenary captain, wizard, bard, explorer, or (4) combinations and variations of these. Be a famous adventurer and kill the Dragon of the Southern Hills in single combat (not an immediate goal for a new character but someday....) Discover all the ancient artifacts such as the magical Gates and find out how to operate them. Found a peaceful and thriving rich kingdom. Defeat the Dark Lord. Become the Dark Lord. Find the dwarves, the elven fastness, the City of the Emporers. Set up a world girdling shipping network, exterminating the pirates and sea monsters, and provide regular transportation about the map. There are undoubtedly things to do which we have not though of. Some require major work on our part to implement and will not be done soon even if you can explain what seems to be needed. Others may be doable or trivial to permit. Think about what you might want to do and with whom. Let us know if some small addition might provide an entire new world of possibilities. One key factor in many of these operations is to make money. Five ways which we have though of that one can make money are (a) Trading (b) Taxing/Pillaging (c) Working (d) Getting paid by another unit (e) Using skills in a special way. There may well be others but those are the ones which come to mind. Trading successfully requires information about how to get places and about the patterns of supply and demand. One step is thus to look around or attempt to buy or sell information about various provinces. Non-player characters will not normally provide you with this information except in so far as you can persuade them to join your faction and then send them out looking around the board. Thus your best sources for information are other player characters. Given a knowledge of what is things are worth, where, and how to get there it is possible to earn a significant amount of silver at the lower levels. Thus this information is in and of itself salable. For the purposes of the empire builder level of the game only a few trade goods have real uses, such as SHIPs. Most are simply things bought or sold in different places based on different demands. This is not so true of the Heroic Adventure module commodities. Pillaging a province is a good way to turn military skills into money and provinces in wastelands. It is dangerous if the province in question has armed forces, or a ruler who might take exception. At the higher levels it also messes up a province and so should not be overused on a province which you hope to someday rule. As long as you have better armed forces than the natives there is a reasonable hope. Overdoing it has depopulated a couple of cities and resulted in some antipathy for the Dark Lady of the South whose demons and undead overdid the dirty deads. Taxing a province implies that you are the ruler already. To take over a province you will need to win its loyalty away from its current lord and towards yourself. This may require discouraging other would-be rulers or the current lord from pressing the claims and that discouragement may involve military or magical force. There are two commands which directly affects the loyalty of any entity such as a province, are PERSUADE and TERRORIZE. Some skills, such as Oratory and Intrigue, can be USEd to affect the loyalty of some provinces. If you take these skills at a suitable level the skill writeups will describe the options. Some provinces may already be ruled by players. Consider asking them to help you conquer some territory in return for fealty, money, or some other consideration. Each of the factors money, skills, and combat value can be used to help take a province. Money through PERSUADE. Combat value through TERRORIZE. Skills through both PERSUADE and TERRORIZE, and in some case through special USE options described in the skill sheets your recieve when youlearn a skill at the necessary level. Care should be take when using terror not to completely destroy the province you are trying to convert. Working is a basic way to make money. many of the ordinary skills, especially such skills as Entertain and Gaming will earn cash if you issue a suitable WORK command. Different provinces have different attitudes towards different skills. Different provinces are richer or poorer than other and thus earnings vary. Combat skills can pay off big, but there is the risk of injury. Ditto Theft and Blackmail (STEALTH and INTRIGUE). Magic payoffs are extremely variable. Many places do not offer any prospects for employment. A few are very positive or negative towards wizards. Working in a reasonable place produces enough silver to cover support costs in most cases with some left over. Getting paid by another unit requires that you come up with something the other person wants or thinks that they want. A number of things which were a pain to setup (such as high speed NPC operated shipping lines) were omited to permit players to offer such services. Information of various sorts is valuable. Two or three players cooperating, pooling their talents and their funds can cut a wide swath accross the board. NPC's wont be able to hire PCs until the Heroic Adventure module is done. PC's can and have hired other PC's. You can put an Ad in the newsletter or answer one there and see what happens. The Heroic Adventure module is the next one to be added although there is already a pirate lord to defeat, a monster (complete with treasure horde) to slay, and a princess to rescue. Basic trading should be enough for merchants to build up a base for trade exploration. Further there is a strong link between active player based trading and the tax base, and between the positive security environment (suppression of banditry) and the income from trading. A master of a magical art is capable of preventing combat in an entire 250mi x 250mi province, decimating a military unit, render one invisible, walk or fly across the ocean, open a gate to another island continent, raise a medium unit of undead, or summon a great demon or demon horde, depending on the branch of magic involved. A thief can earn on a decent living in a big city just by WORKing, but the majority of targets for the USE of thieving skills will be player traders. A sucessful theft from a caravan can provide funds sufficient to cover the costs of a military unit for a year. 8.2 Player Articles What NOT to do on your first turn --------------------------------- by A. Tim Royappa 1. Try to become the new Dark Lord in the first turn. By this I mean, try to take over all of T'Nyc in one fell swoop. This may be accomplished by recruiting a huge, highly skilled army without regard to cost. Or by summoning a small demon army with enormous skills in some area. Mounted on demon steeds for maximum horror effect. Led by a host of demon lords with amazing abilities. That would cost you a pretty penny. Or you could call up a massive army of Greater Undead. That would run up the bill quite a bit. Make you promptly a persona non grata, too. Or create a humongous army - all illusory. You'd be broke mighty quick. Then your armies would instantly complain about no pay, break their enslavement, declare YOU hostile, and grind you into the dust in a matter of 1/1000th of a turn. That would be a short game, but fun. Or you could start by taking over the nearest city. It's bound to have a large number of player characters in it. They would band together to work against you. But you're the greatest, after all. Their conspiracy should pose no problem whatsoever. You'll show 'em. 2. Don't explore the area around you. Why bother about what's around you? You're out to take over the world anyway, so who cares what it looks like or what's in it? So there might be someone you might team up with. What does it matter if you're trying to make it big all on your own? So there might be an artifact or two sitting around, stacked under someone. You wouldn't want to steal, I mean borrow it, would you? Besides, exploring takes SEVEN whole days. That's too long for someone who wants to become the new Supreme Emperor of T'Nyc in a hurry. 3. Don't communicate with other players. The less they know, the better. What could they possibly know that could be of interest to you? More importantly, what could they possibly know that would be of USE to you? So there might be a demon army around the corner in the next province that's been whaling on all innocent aspiring Dark Lords that they might warn you about. Big deal. So what if there's a great demand for someone with your exact combination of skills in the neighboring town, 0 days away? You aren't interested in honest work in the first place. All you want to do is become the new Dark Lord. Fast. 4. Don't write an article to The T'Nyc Times. Write an article to The Times just to make some quick cash? WHAT? People like you don't NEED cash. You start out with 4000 s.p. after all. Why, that's practically an infinite supply of dough. In a short while, when your hordes start pillaging and terrorizing the nearby provinces and cities, the bucks will flow like water. Maintenance costs? What mainten- ance costs? Who wants a measly 500 s.p.? Is Stephen insulting you or what? Most importantly, writing an article involves WORK. Horrors! 5. Declare your world attitude hostile. You like a good fight. What's the point of playing a game without a brawl or two? The fact that your melee skill is at level 2 doesn't matter. He's only a demon lord with armor 11. And that demon army that he's stacked over looks like a bunch of wimps. They'd make a good start in conquering the world. Or that giant over there. He seems to be carrying a very interesting bag, bulging with stuff. What power you could have by pilfering all his artifacts! Your mind reels with visions of dominion. He doesn't seem like the alert type. So you make a few enemies. It's all for the cause. Besides, it's in character for a future Dark Lord to make enemies quickly. 6. Send signed messages threatening entities you don't know. Make people a little upset. Irk them a bit. They ought to be prep ared for life under you as the new Ruler of T'Nyc. Let the word spread about you. Let them put a price on your head. They'll rue it in the next turn, by which time YOU will have assumed duties and sundry responsibilities as the new Dark Lord, whom you intend to depose this turn. Remember, it's enjoyable sending people threatening messages. Just imagine their annoyance at your arrogance. What fun. 7. Send the Game Master truckloads of complaints. Tell Stephen that his game really stinks. Tell him all that you would have done if you were him. No constructive criticism needed here. Just criticism will do fine. This doesn't need to be well thought out. Also, insult Stephen a little bit. He can take it. He's a good sport. By the way, that unknown assassin NPC who stabbed you in the back, who could he possibly have been? -*- Tim Making a Living -or- How not to Starve to Death in a Year. --C. Patrick Simons OK. You've finally gotten out of that school your folks put you in to learn a trade. That you learned a few other skills on the side is something they dont know. What they don't know is their tough luck. Well. Let's look around, and see what we can see. Hmm...need a place to stay. Well, we got lots of money that we received on graduation, for the work we did as apprentices and journeymen. What did you want? 400 silver a week for a room? Sure! No problem! A nice comfy bed, hot water for a bath at least twice a week... what luxury! Now, to find some fun around here.. after all, that's what we set out for, right? All these exotic foods, traveling performers, a little companionship on the side..ahh.... Umpf. After a month of this frolicksome revelry, you've got a head that just wants to fall off, and that nick you took in the arm from that card player who thought you were cheating has turned into a red swelling. Time to go see a doctor. You don't care what he charges, you just want him to get rid of these awful headaches, and make your arm usable again. Oh, boy. The innkeeper came by for your weekly pre-payment for the room. When you got out your moneybag, it was empty. That's ok.. you have more in the locked chest you bought for 1200 silvers..it was really a cheap deal. But, what's this! It's empty! Alas, the good Guild of Theives has finally taken note of your extravagent spending, and has thought of helping you on towards your estimable goal. The 'keeper is insistant. You turn to him, pulling out your pockets, and say since you've been robbed, you'll have to pay him after you win some money this afternoon. Now, where has he heard THAT line before? In hardly a blink, you find yourself out on the street with all your belongings piled in a heap. You take them up, and make the rounds of the market stalls, getting what you can for all those fine clothes you bought, the fancy boots, and that fine chest that was supposed to protect your money. All in all, you have about 8000 silver or thereabouts. Now, you have to find a job... Hmm... Well, it depends on just exactly you studied in school. There are a few quiet skills that make a pretty decent living, such as administration, stewardship, or maybe a scribe. You heard that entertainers were in high demand in the rich sectors. And, of course, you could always try your hand at gambling again. Then again, you could hire onto a good mercenary company. Several have recruiting stations in town. And their have been those long unanswered notices for wizards to hire out to caravans travelling to far off places, and lords wanting to protect their dominions. Gads.... there seem to be a million choices... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, you need to find a city or province that isn't too poor, and is in a peaceful area. You can't make much of a living while someone is trying to tear the city or province to pieces! Unless, of course, you are a Summoner of demons, or a dreaded Necromancer. Then, you'd probably have to pillage the peasants into giving you what you need to keep you and yours in food and clothing. An elemental mage stands a good chance of hiring out to some faction in return for pretty good wages, but you have to find one that has the means to pay you first. And a good Scryer is always wanted. The mighty Gatecrafter always recieved requests for transport to some distant part of the realm. The transport fees charged should keep him in easy living for quite a while. The military skills can always be used to make money by fighting in the arena for the pleasures of the crowds, but this is very hazardous! When a person is working, they expect a little wear and tear every once in a while, but this is putting your life on the line every time you go to work! Most of the production skills are mainly used for governing a city or province, so they dont earn much, but you can get by on it. Administration doesn't do too badly, but you really need to find a rich city that isn't bothered by barbarians every week to hope to get anywhere. Stewardship is like that too. Gaming isn't too bad, but you stand the chance of losing as much as winning. Working at Oratory is kinda chancy too. Of course, Entertainers are in high demand, but it's the large groups that make the real big money, but you'd make enough to get bye. And people with high Medicine skill are worth their weight in gold. They should be, with how much they cost to maintain. But they get paid well. But overall, most of the real money comes from the cities and provinces around you. The cities work at using their specific skill, and produce the trade goods that you can buy and sell (hopefully at a cheerfully good profit!) And taxing is always a viable method of getting money from the good people to support yourself and the followers that have formed under you, but you have to make sure to counteract the damage you've done to the economy by taxing the with some usefull aplication of a skill. The thing to remember is that you need to find somewhere that has a good, ripening economy, one that will let you earn a living, not throw your money down the drain. You could always persuade units into your command, take all their money away, and then work then to death, but their former owners might not like that too much and come look you up. On the other hand..... If you are one of those wonderful people that like bringing up nasty people from the nether depths, or preventing nice people from getting their eternal rest, you might have troubles earning money in one of the above mentioned ways, so you'd have to pillage and rape your way into wealth. So what if the property and people you destroy belongs to someone else..you have the forces to keep the area you are in nice and quiet. (Ya, right..) One thing you need to keep in mind. You need to balance your forces so that some of them are making money to pay for the others maintenance costs and other expenses you incure in daily life, or each unit need to have some means of supporting itself. Just remember that everything is rated in relative risk. You can take it easy and eek out a meager living, or take huge risks in the hopes of getting great profits. That's the big point in trying to earn a living, here in Entnychardia. Just how much are you willing to risk? Well, good luck. Hope you find some way of making back all that bundle you managed to throw away in that wonderful month. Ya might think of putting some into savings bonds, or investing in trade. But make up your mind soon. That 8000 +/- you scrounged up won't last you forever....... How to make a fortune without trying too hard! Did you start in a backwater province? Perhaps there are rapacious warlords pillaging, plundering and generally making mayhem no matter where you are! Do not fear, you are a puisant Player Character (as if you had your doubts)! Do you really want to make some money? Step right up! Sign up for this great sales course and get in touch with the true source of money in T'Nyc: Taxation! "Oh, but I don't rule a province or city to tax," you might mutter. But wait, this course is just for you then! Don't go away yet! Here's how you do it in three easy lunes! That's right! Destitution to riches, the E-Z way! And all you have to do is follow these quick and easy steps! First, identify two wealthy, competing entities. Pick the more docile of the two and suck up to him or her. All you need to say is: "Ahh come on Mr. Prince/Emporer/Mayor/Whatever. I don't got nuthin and youse gots lots! Gimme a paltry province or two! I'll lick your boots! I'll run your errands, I'll hassle the other players in the game without your sterling, docile reputation being tarnished!" Repeat this procedure until the person forks over a little of the quick stuff. Meanwhile, do the same thing with the other wealthy people too. At least one of them will succumb. Then, when you have some 10,000 - 15,000 silver be sure to invest it wisely! That's right! Invest it in your future! Raise an army! Make sure its a nice quick army! Armor 3 should do the trick! If your REAL CLEVER (which you are!) you can have a hefty 150 - 200 men trained in melee and archery before your gracious host can write Declare Your-Number 3! If you were really smart, you probably bamboozled, er, uh hum, convinced, your host that you were going to use the army on his "enemy." At this point, it might be opportune to whine about the need to train the army so that it's good enough to engage some of his rivals forces. If your host objects, pout and sniffle some more as you move the army out of his lands. Such phrases as: "Well, when I take over his provinces, I'll remember who helped me! I remember my friends! No sirree, I don't turn a friend out in the cold!" have been found to work in the past! At this point, you can start making vague threatening noises in the direction of your patron's rival. If you're really sly, you might even be able to gather together a few other players to help you. Wolves usually gather when the huntin's good! By now, if you are lucky, your patron's rival has noticed you. If this has not happened, pillage a province or two as you meander about his borders. This will cover your maintenance and infuriate your rival. The hours of glee that you get out of reading the pillage output on your printout and counting the silver your army extracts in exchange for his population points are well worth the boot licking you had to stoop to. Given that your army is probably pretty expensive at this point, you are ready to go onto the next step: Righteous Indignation! In the operating state called Righteous Indignation, it is acceptable to presence yourself as a force without a peg to hang your "hat" on. After all, you have the fearsome army! You need money to make ends meet! Never mind trading, it takes too long! Never mind the more clever and subtle methods of making money such as theft or executing random NPC's in the hope of extracting what silver they have, you can be direct: make a simple, small request! Say to your rival, in your suavist Wall Street English, "Look, I have an army where you don't. It's faster than your defensive troops. You have lot's of territory to cover. What's it going to be? Bad press and rubble or some simple province with a large city in it for me to hang my hat on." Whine. Remonstrate. Bully. Badger. Threaten. Take an assertiveness course (only $525 dollars and two weekends). The agony of listening to your misery alone should be enough to have the person capitulate. And if they don't, carry out your threats, only this time, turn them around! Make a deal with them to stab your sponsor! They'll see the logic: it's him or me and the fattest fish get's eaten! -- Carey Gister Appendices Written: Unit# Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ W: Order object modifiers... +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ #: | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ DESIGN SHEET T'Nyc PBM campaign Player's Name Date Address(es) Phone(s) & Time(s) to call Have you played in any PBM games before? How many? SF? Fantasy? When would be the best day/time of week for you submit turns? To receive them back? What times are impossible? Starting Character (YOU) Character's Name: Please also print the name in the boxes below as well to insure that we get first few characters right. There is no hard limit on the length of a name unless they get too silly. +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |... +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ ...| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ... +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ Armor Rating (between 1 and 9): Start in Capital or [Random] Attitude towards strangers: [Friendly] Neutral [Hostile] Skill Rating 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Describe your character physically, describe some of the rumors that might be associated with yor character, and describe what is important to you about a PBM game? (answer on the back) * Description * Rumors * What is important to me about PBM gaming List of Commands 0. Hold 1. Move 2. Attack 3. Use Use a skill 4. Take Pick something up 5. Drop Drop unit from stack 6. Join Add unit to stack 8. Study Try gain or improve a skill 9. Work Use skill to earn money directly 10. Buy 11. Sell 12. Follow 14. Explore Explore current city or province 15. Persuade Attempt to sway an entity to your faction 16. Swear Pass control of your follower 18. Pay 19. Declare Set your attitude to friendly, neutral or hostile 20. Recruit Try recruit more entities to expand a unit 21. Form Form a new unit 23. Pillage Squeeze money from a province or place 23. Tax See Pillage 24. Execute Execute a prisoner 25. Terrorize Increase a province's loyalty through force 26. Wait 27. Armor Change armor rating 28. Tell 29. Garrison Protect or stop protecting current province __________________________________________________________________________ [] command options surrounded by brackets are optional and may be omitted (replaced by zeros). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quick Command Summary ___________________________________________________________________________ Days 0. Hold 7 1. Move Direction varies 2. Attack [Direction] varies 3. Use [Skill] [Target] [Modifier] varies 4. Take Unit 7 5. Drop [Unit] 0 6. Join Stack 0 8. Study Skill [days] varies 9. Work [Skill] [Options] 7 10. Buy Thing [From] Offer [Number] 7 11. Sell Thing [To] Price [Number] 7 12. Follow [Entity] 28 14. Explore 7 15. Persuade Entity [Skill] [Bribe] 7 16. Swear [Lord-Entity] 0 18. Pay Entity Money MoneyLeft 0 19. Declare [Entity] Opinion 0 20. Recruit NumberSought PayOffered 14 21. Form Armor [SpeciesHired] [Amount] [NumOrders] 0 23. Pillage Province [Severity] 7 23. Tax Province [Severity] 7 24. Execute Captive 28 25. Terrorize [Province] [Severity] [Mode] 7 26. Wait [Days] varies 27. Armor [New Rating] varies 28. Tell [Entity] Y/N/Number [Number] 0+ 29. Garrison [State] 0 ____________________________________________________________________________ The Old Imperial Calendar: Lune Terran Imperial Name Characterized by .. Winter "YearTurn" Snows melting 1 Spring "Seeds to the Soil" Planting time 2 Spring "Seeds to the Soil" Spring Rains 3 Spring "Clouds of War" Summer showers 4 Summer "Clouds of War" Planting ends, War begins 5 Summer "Doom Thunder" Most combat 6 Summer "Doom Thunder" 7 Summer "Safe Harbor" Huricane season 8 Summer "Safe Harbor" Ships in port 9 Fall "Sunstrike" Storms End 10 Fall "Wanderer's Night" Weather cools, peasant militia 11 Fall "Harvest Nights" return to harvest 12 Winter "Ice Death" Weather cools 13 Winter "Sunreturning" Shortest Day .. Winter "YearTurn" Snows melting Important Weeks of the Year Years' Turn Ice Break Week First Seed Storm Birth Fire Loom Burn Day Deserters' Day The currently available skills are: Skill Skill Number Name ------ ----- 0 None 1 Administration 2 Archery 3 Cavalry 4 Courtliness 5 Entertainment 6 Farming 7 Gaming 8 Herding 9 Intrigue 10 Lore 11 Oratory 12 Medicine 13 Melee 14 Military Leadership 15 Military Tactics 16 Naval Tactics 17 Sailing 18 Shipbuilding 19 Stealth 20 Stewardship 21 Tracking 22 Trading 23 Forestry 24 Mining 25 Fishing 32 Magic Resistance 33 Fire Magic 34 Earth Magic 35 Air Magic 36 Water Magic 37 Scrying 38 Gatecraft 39 Illusions 40 Summoning 41 Necromancy 50 Scribe 51 Pottery 52 Herbalist 65 Swimming