RGO's

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RGO's

Post by Ian_McAllister »

I have been wondering about this. I was wondering what the reasoning behind keeping RGO's being limited to 8th level? It seems to me that by doing so it is creating factionalism within groups merely to assure the influx of resources.. For instance as the Phoenix we have 2 RGO's, and an RRO.. Mind you the only reason we have 2 RGO's is because our first one maxed out it's trade routes.. So we created another just to make sure we can bring in the resources for survival. It seems to me that it would be easier to alter the RGO rules slightly and merely expand them to make it so if you have more people you can have more trade routes.. allowing larger groups to maintain their in-game solidarity. I realize this may bring up some problems I have not forseen, which is why i posted it here hoping to here from Aaron, Eric and who ever else would like to comment. Thanks.
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Post by GM_Chris »

doing so it is creating factionalism
That is the point.

It is increasingly more difficult for 1 person to own everything because that person must put other people in charge of things. By putting people in charge of things you basically pass power to someone else. That person then might get ambitions.

As we see it is hard to get a ruler in the town that everyone agrees to bend knee to .

[/quote]
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Post by Ian_McAllister »

Mayhaps, but we create enough factionalism just by being humans. If you are just trying to create artifical factionalism then I see why the cap was made, I just do not see the need for it, especially with the numbers of FH rising. As the numbers rise more and more factions will HAVE to be made without the choice of the people involved..At least thats the way i see it.

I also thought that by reducing the need for multiple RGO's, it would decrease the amount of paperwork for players and GM's involved and allow more time to role-play than sit and putter through the papers to make sure your people can survive the coming months.

again just my idea.. curious to see what others think?
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Post by GM_Chris »

Can you give me an example of puddling through paperwork and not role playing?

I would like to know how things go for you in game because this is how I think things should go.

Bill, Sue, and Harry like politics so they each decide to rally people to their cause.

Bill is on the side of good and rally’s the good people to him.

Sue is on the side of Evil and rally all the evil people to her

Harry picks up everyone who is left.

General populas could care less about trade routes, commodities, people, or support points. What they do understand is they would really like to not starve, they believe in your cause, and would love some shiny new armor.

Bill, sue and Harry try to corner certain markets, bring in food, cloth, and shelter and basically try to keep their people happy so they don't get mad and go join some other group.

Ingame Bill, Sue, and Harry should be the ones worrying about all the back end stuff while the players hsould be like "Wow I sure like Sue so I am going to support her."

If the general populas is spending time going over all the back end stuff they do not want to go over then perhaps leadership is doing something wrong.

Also, if you are worried about making sure you make certain numbers then perhaps you should make a level 1 guild and fill it with 15 people and a beurocrat. You would only need 2 people to stay in the guild, and you would only need to pay attention to 1 trade route.
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Post by Ian_McAllister »

perhaps paperwork was half the wrong term. Paperwork out of game would be a little reduced I would think.

Ingame it would reduce the necessity of people swapping out of RGO's, at least for groups that are already razor thin.. not saying it would be better for them, just reduce the necessity of swapping and trying to min/max your people and sources. For example in the Phoenix I am the one that organizes most of our RGO, RRO stuff.. therefore pretty much everyone is realyl supporting me, but if everyone in our org, supported me we would only have one RGO and 3 traderoutes and not be able to bring in as many resources to help us and the town survive.. and if we have player absenteeism then I am forced to swap people from one RGO to another.. just seems like a lot of work that could be reduced for what I see as a neglible change.. and if the all race, path and such rules stay in there are still reasons for some orgs to have multiple RGO's if they wish.
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Post by GM_Chris »

First off I am definitly not against some adjustments to the system.

That said I want to challenge a couple of the issues you are having.

1) You talked about moving people around because to keep things afloat.

Answer: We give you time before colapsing a guild or a house for this exact reason.

2) at least for groups that are already razor thin.. not saying it would be better for them, just reduce the necessity of swapping and trying to min/max your people and sources.

Answer: I cannot feel good changing rules to help min/max. If you or anyone else is so stretched that 1 person missing messes evertything up then why are you stretching yourselves? I would bring the level down and that would make things not so stretched.

4) Phoenix I am the one that organizes most of our RGO, RRO stuff.. therefore pretty much everyone is realyl supporting me

Answer: Is this reality? I think this is really where Takki and myself have a big dissagreement. In a feudal system everyone supports a king. Ok is that how it really works? From what I see Kings give governing authority to other nobles who own land. The peasants never really see the king they see the noble, and are really only loyal to that person. In a CORP are you loyal to the CEO or are you loyal to your department and manageer you see everyday? I understand that in our game we have say 60 people so we have to abstract things a bit, but lets say your ORG had 10 adventures and 1000 people scattered around you have to control. I would bet you would appoint others to be managers. The locals would be loyal to those managers.

In FH we kinda force the issue. I expect guild leaders to RP their guild and bring people in under a set mindset. I expect guilds of like mind sets to work together. I expect houses who work together to form kingdoms.

In your situation you are really 1 guild/1 house, but are trying to min /max on paper and thus you are 1 house with 2 ever changing guilds.
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Post by WayneO42 »

What if we stayed with eight levels but just compressed them abit:

Code: Select all

Level/ SP to Start/ SP to Maintain/members/Max Routes
1	5	3	3	1
2	25	17	4	2
3	60	45	6	3
4	95	75	7	4
5	140	120	8	5
6	195	146	9	6
7	260	195	10	7
8	335	251	11	8
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Post by General Maximus »

I believe the main issue is people coming cosently to events. There is about half of the players that make almost everygame. Now the other people are hard to count on because they might come and might not. It is hard to plan around this. To get enough resources to support a large group of people, you need many RGO's and many people fullfill the min people requirements. I believe the support points works well, but the amount of people to bring trade routes is what is hindering things. the more people who get involved, the harder it is to manage stuff.

Wayne's suggestion works very well. If you have the support points and the people, than you can get many trade routes. Waynes idea balances the need for many support points and with required people, and the number of trade routes controled. With wayne's idea, a group could be selfsufficent with the correct routes. Now, it is almost impossible in the current rules, to be a selfsufficent group.

I really do like the 11 people minium and the max 8 trade routes. I believe this more balanced, becasue once you start going past this number, it gets very hard to manage.

I give Waynes idea 2 tumbs up!!
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Post by GM_Chris »

Well let me make it clear that it is VERY important to make suer orgs cannot be self sufficient. Co dependancy is one of the stops put in to cull PvP

As for the people requirement as I said we give you time to make it up. We even give you a beurocrat ability to help make it up.

There are things you can do, but you guys tend to min/max and then people drop and you are hosed. You guys burn through surplus to fund quality materials.

If you guys cannot make it work then you guys need to lower your guild levels.
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Post by General Maximus »

I thought so Chris. Then the current system works perfectly. I would love to see the minium people requirement drop by 1 to make it a little easier to keep up a major guild. Support points is not the issue, it is the minium number of people required. Thats what the problem is.
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Post by GM_Chris »

Interesting you said that.

If people are such a big issue then why are we not seeing more 4th level beurocrats?
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Post by Ian_McAllister »

First off, I did not start this to help any org become self sufficient easier.. it is already possible with the creation of many RGO's, but in my opinion if you have the people to make multiple RGO's in reality what is the sense of that many people working together as one to bring in resources and the like.. just seems easier for everyone involved and no easier to become self sufficient, heck with Wayne's idea which I could get behind it might even be harder. I even like his idea better I think because it makes support points as important as people.

I also do not see many people min/maxing.. and say what you will about me but if I wanted to min/max our Org, I could do a better job of it..What I am trying to do is come up with a good in game reason to have 2 RGO's so that more resources can be brought into town to feed people.. I do not see that as min/maxing, but I guess we all have our definitions.

As for more 4th level beuracrats. My guess is that as you said before Chris, most of the people in the game do not care how they get fed and clothed and such as long as they do.. so it rests on a few individuals that do care enough to do the RGO, RRO work. So far from my experience it usually winds up with the same few.. I am sure other people would step in if necessary , and I cannot wait to see that happen. As for now you have a few that do and while they could care to play a 4th level Beuracrat, I think they would rather play something that can get them invilved in the game more directly and during the whole event, rather than have a great deal of points spent on something that will only help out of game. Not that I think bureaucrat is bad, I think it is fine.. just my opinion why you don't see many.
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Post by GM_Chris »

Interesting insite on the skill.

I think some of that might have to do with perceptions of survivability and usefullness which we talked about before. I forexample, think any newb with no skill except to swing 1 is about as valuable as the next person.

Anyways, did not mean to say you weer min/maxing I just thought that is what you said you were trying to do.

As for a reason to have 2 orgs inside 1 org when you really have 1 org then think of the other orgs as heading up a certain area. Forexample 1 group could help control the peeps who work farmers fred field. Also another group could help manage the mine.

1 org with 2 different management branches.

If you think about this abstractly you are a group that basically controls or deals with different groups of people to bring in goods and services into Haven. The people who produce these groups and services are MANY and make up the bulk of the world population. It is your job to manage it all. This is not a 1 person job even though mechanically it appears so. You need people to guard the good, peopl to manage the people. It is complex and you NEED people. You might be so big you need two divisions.\\In game RP with people and ask them to do just that. Say "Hey will you head up bringing in MY crops into Haven. Person turns to you and says "yes my liege" That person turns around and makes sure he/she has enough people to make sure the food is rolling in. You can then turn and tell another person "maange my mines"

Now the problem is mechanically the guilds put you in charge of a house and pehaps you view it as such and feel it is not YOU who created the guilds so to bring in the stuff that is your stuff. After all you own vast quantities of land and you need people to man it all. Make sense?
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Post by Donovan Thynedar »

Once again, we're running into problems with the balance between the mechanics of the system and the perceived realities of the world.

Mechanically, it currently makes no sense for people to overstaff an RGO. Once you have enough people to maintain your level and enough points to bring in your routes, any excess is wasted. I think that is the point that Phil is trying to make: why waste a large number of Support points by remaining in one organization when you can get more bang for your buck by splitting into two?

Yes, some people might call that min-maxing. However, not doing it seems stupid.

A couple of observations:

-The general population of PC's is very aware of the resource game and most of the in-game political factions. The most constant element of the FH society (and the only one reinforced by the mechanics) is the RGO system. Recruitment and membership are very, very significant elements of a PC's everyday life.

-The caps and structure of the RGO system, when given their in-game justifications, don't make sense. If you need a certain number of people and influence to bring in a route, and that is the reason for the level requirements (as Chris's example suggests), than why do RGO's with more than double the number of people and support points required hit some artificial limit?

I think some of the difficulties we're running into here come from the use of a real-FH world example to explain one mechanic when another mechanic violates that same example.
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Post by dier_cire »

Well, I would see it as a real life business. most of the PCs are "experts" or "managers". In a business, you don't put everbody on one project, but rather group people so you have multiple projects (RGO) running concurrently. Now occasionally, people move to new projects, but at that point the old one is sustainable by the rest of the group (ie the rest have enough support without the one leaving). The people in the new project (RGO) are usually some of the top people to get things going (ie you put some higher levels in to begin with a larger support point pool to get better routes). Sometimes people quit and a project might get sucked into another group or dropped (characters leave and either the RGO and routes get absorbed or die).

By splitting your groups you get more done.
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