Not sure if this is the right place to post this question, but it does involve the rules for landholding so, here goes.

Let's say a player knight has two manors, the one he started with and one additional demesne manor. If I understand the manor rules correctly, demesne manors generate income for the knight who holds them.

I'm using the GPC and Book of the Manor rules for economic stuff. During the Winter Phase our player knight rolls poorly on his Stewardship vs. the Bad Weather roll, getting a result of"Poor". However, couldn't he use the income from his demesne manor to avoid being poor? The book states that a married knight needs 6 Libra to live comfortably. If the demesne manor generates 6 Libra, could he avoid the "Poor" table result penalties by taKing the demesne manor's income to pay his 6L of expenses?

Or is that not how it's intended to work?

That is how it works
However, be sure to have his demense manor subject to the same forces of weather and raid, etc.

--Greg




Not sure if this is the right place to post this question, but it does involve the rules for landholding so, here goes.

Let's say a player knight has two manors, the one he started with and one additional demesne manor. If I understand the manor rules correctly, demesne manors generate income for the knight who holds them.

I'm using the GPC and Book of the Manor rules for economic stuff. During the Winter Phase our player knight rolls poorly on his Stewardship vs. the Bad Weather roll, getting a result of"Poor". However, couldn't he use the income from his demesne manor to avoid being poor? The book states that a married knight needs 6 Libra to live comfortably. If the demesne manor generates 6 Libra, could he avoid the "Poor" table result penalties by taKing the demesne manor's income to pay his 6L of expenses?

Or is that not how it's intended to work?

IIRC your roll once for each manor (unless they are close together--I don't remember if this a suggested or house rule or intended) stewardship vs misfortune and apply the results separately.

So if Sir Example has his family manor (run by his wife), two disparate in location demesne manors (without obligation; run by separate stewards), he needs to roll thrice.

It would be possible to have a good harvest from a steward, a very bad result from a pretty, young, inexperienced wife, and a bad result from a different steward.

Good harvest: 9L, Very bad harvest:1.5L, Bad harvest: 3L; with expenses (2L knight, 2L squire, 2L wife, 1L each for 2 stewards), only giving Sir Example 4.5L left afterwards. All numbers assume no improvements.

This would leave Sir Example enough to boost to "rich" at 9L with 1.5L left over.

EDIT: Spelling and word choices.

That is how it works
However, be sure to have his demense manor subject to the same forces of weather and raid, etc.

--Greg




Not sure if this is the right place to post this question, but it does involve the rules for landholding so, here goes.

Let's say a player knight has two manors, the one he started with and one additional demesne manor. If I understand the manor rules correctly, demesne manors generate income for the knight who holds them.

I'm using the GPC and Book of the Manor rules for economic stuff. During the Winter Phase our player knight rolls poorly on his Stewardship vs. the Bad Weather roll, getting a result of"Poor". However, couldn't he use the income from his demesne manor to avoid being poor? The book states that a married knight needs 6 Libra to live comfortably. If the demesne manor generates 6 Libra, could he avoid the "Poor" table result penalties by taKing the demesne manor's income to pay his 6L of expenses?

Or is that not how it's intended to work?



Thank you for the quick replies, gents. And Greg, thank you especially for supporting your game so well. This is the only RPG I think I've ever played where the game's designer provides quick answers to my forum questions. It's pretty awesome.

As a follow-up, whose Stewardship is used to determine how the demesne manors fare? Is it the same person used for the player's knight's original manor (IE his wife or his hired steward), or does each manor require its own steward?

If the latter, can the player knight hire additional stewards to run more of his manors and thus improve their chances of a bountiful harvest?

You do not get a harvest result of 'Poor' - the worse than normal results for the harvest (p44 of BotM) are 'meager', 'bad', 'very bad' and 'negligible'. Are you looking at the narrative method on p38?

With the long-form method you multiply the factor you get from the stewardship roll (x0.75 for 'meager' for example) by the expected income of the manor to get your actual income for the year.

Your grade of maintenance is decided as you fill in the 'Tally' section of the worksheet - if you end up at a -ve final value (£3 income from a 'bad' harvest less £6 for normal maintenance for instance) then provided you have enough in your treasury to cover the shortfall you're fine. If not, get some emergency income to cover the gap or downgrade your standard of living.

Turning to your example of original manor plus an additional demesne manor - I would generally apply the same harvest result multiplier to both manors; thus an expected income of £12 becomes £9 with a meagre harvest, £6 with 'bad', £3 with 'very bad' and £2 with 'negligible'.

You would therefore expect your PC knight to hardly ever live at below 'rich' grade; he will run a surplus in normal years or better and use this surplus to cushion him in the bad years.

As you can see demesne manors are seriously desirable plums.

NB.
Book of the Estate abstracts a lot of this detail away.

<Doh - ninja'd>


...whose Stewardship is used to determine how the demesne manors fare? Is it the same person used for the player's knight's original manor (IE his wife or his hired steward), or does each manor require its own steward?

If it's close enough to the original to be run together (within half a day's ride) then the 'home manor' steward; otherwise appoint someone to the post.


If the latter, can the player knight hire additional stewards to run more of his manors and thus improve their chances of a bountiful harvest?

Yes. Just remember to add their salary to your 'expenses' total (£1 rising to £2 if they are highly skilled). Note that steward is the sort of job that should go to a trusted insider and is a suitably 'gentle' occupation for a nobleman who is not fitted to military service (ie look to your lineage and expect pointed questions if you overlook 'useless cousin Harry' in order to give the job to a professional).


Regards
Luke

Hey Luke,

Sorry, I should have made it more clear what I was referring to. I'm looking at pages 12-13 of the Great Pendragon Campaign book, which has a harvest resolution table that includes results of Superlative, Rich, Normal, Poor and Impoverished. I'm trying to figure out how that table, and the rules the govern harvests in general, interact with demesne manors.

I'm curious about this Book of the Estate you mentioned. It sounds like a nice update to the landholding system. I certainly want my player knights to be able to do cool things with the manors, but I would not mind a simpler ruleset for it. I will have to look for that.

BotM supercedes the GPC rule for manorial income. I wouldn't try and use both together.

If I was going with the GPC rule (which is fairly quick-n-dirty) I would probably say having a demesne manor on hand bumps up the result of your stewardship result (or bumps down the bad weather if you roll a crit). That seems to get you to broadly the same result.

Book of the Estate is coming quite soon I believe. There was an announcement about it going into final layout a few weeks back IIRC.

Regards
Luke

BotM supercedes the GPC rule for manorial income. I wouldn't try and use both together.


Ah, I see. Well shoot, I guess I am trying to have my cake and eat it, too. I like the simplicity of the GPC harvest roll system, but I also like for my player knights to have all the manorial upgrade and retinue options so they have an interesting way to spend their money rather than it just turning into Glory.
I also love the idea that their heirs will inherit manors that their fathers upgraded. I think that will really stregnthen the game's ense of continuity, as well as each household's sense of identity and uniqueness.

Well hey, if anyone need a playtester or guinea pig for ths Book of the Estate, just let me know :) I'm the meantime we'll muddle through as best we can.

Thanks again!

Hey Luke,

Sorry, I should have made it more clear what I was referring to. I'm looking at pages 12-13 of the Great Pendragon Campaign book, which has a harvest resolution table that includes results of Superlative, Rich, Normal, Poor and Impoverished. I'm trying to figure out how that table, and the rules the govern harvests in general, interact with demesne manors.


Sorry, I was using Book of the Manor results earlier in my example. I do highly recommend BotM if you are willing to run what my players fondly call "spread-sheets the RPG".

Hey Luke,

Sorry, I should have made it more clear what I was referring to. I'm looking at pages 12-13 of the Great Pendragon Campaign book, which has a harvest resolution table that includes results of Superlative, Rich, Normal, Poor and Impoverished. I'm trying to figure out how that table, and the rules the govern harvests in general, interact with demesne manors.


Sorry, I was using Book of the Manor results earlier in my example. I do highly recommend BotM if you are willing to run what my players fondly call "spread-sheets the RPG".


Sounds... awesome... ::)

Nice answers everyone

A couple of points:
one steward per county is all that is needed
If there is a wife, she is the steward even if her Stewardship is low
Why?
Because that is her job, that's why!
Robbing her of her primary duty is a bad insult.

I am switching entirely to the Book of the ESTATE system
It's in layout, we will offer a few previews too.