So how about 3), the Harvest Results?
For single manors, here is what I would do with those (but see an upcoming discussion on the houserules section re: Raids, Pestilence & Wasteland):

Incredible: +£6 excess (+100% to normal) + £1 DF = £6 + £7 surplus
Excellent: +£4 excess (+67% to normal) + £1 DF = £6 + £5 surplus
Good: +£2 excess (+33% to normal) + £1 DF = £6 + £3 surplus
Regular: Normal harvest (£6 for the knight's upkeep) + £1 Discretionary Fund.
Meager: Normal harvest (£6 for the knight's upkeep), no Discretionary Funds this year.
Bad: £4 harvest (-33%), no Discretionary Funds.
Very Bad: £2 harvest (-67%), no Discretionary Funds.
Negligible: £0 harvest (-100%), no Discretionary Funds.



(EDIT: I found this Harvest table too variable and I have migrated to the Harvest table in the next post, that makes each harvest result step +-£1 than +-£2. See my reasoning in the next post.)

So the above is a comment I made in the Rules section about how I'd use the variable harvests of Book of the Manor together with the new economy system of Book of the Warlord.

I am still in the process of thinking this through for our campaign, but here are some thoughts that I am starting to veer towards in our campaign and the reasons why. Note, we have been using Book of the Manor so far, and in BotM, the Harvest roll is an opposed roll between Misfortune (weather, luck, concern for commoners, raids, pestilence, wasteland, what have you) and Stewardship.

First of all, bundling everything to Misfortune is, in my opinion, a mistake. Yes, it does make a success in Misfortune more likely and hence makes the Harvest result poorer, but at the same time, we have had instances where there has been Pestilence and thanks to the very low weather during Pax Arthuriana, the harvest result has still been Good (x1.5 in BotM). This is somewhat irksome. It is even worse when Wasteland creeps in, since it is described as this horrendous scourge, turning the lands into a desert, practically, but in southern Logres, you barely notice a thing before Grail Quest takes care of the matter. That being said, even in Camelot, in year 553 (GPC), people are talking about the encroaching Wasteland as if it would be a horrible curse. Whereas it is just a +1/+2 modifier or so, likely insignificant.

The other thing that annoys me a bit is that there is a huge amount of randomness involved, when rolling for different manors, as each 1d20 misfortune roll is specific to that one manor. So you can have, in the same year with the same weather (I roll one weather result for the whole county, not for individual manors) and no other events, a manor getting a Incredible result (fumble misfortune and critical stewardship) and another Negligible (the other way around). This feels a bit off to me.

The third 'annoyance' is the Concern My Commoners. It is simply too much of a good thing, as it tends to give -5 modifier to Misfortune on a success (success rate around 50%). The -5 is significant enough to cancel like the results of a raid quite easily.

So, how would I fix these issues?

1. Unbundle Misfortune.
Have Raids, Pestilence and Wasteland as narrative elements, reducing the harvest result. Same goes for Tribute to the Saxons during Anarchy. That gives them the oomph that they need and also brings Raids more in line with the BotE / BotW results, where they actually hurt.
For example:
- Raid / Pillage / Plunder: -1 / -2 / -3 harvest result. Meaning that a Manor that was Pillaged, if the Harvest result would normally be Good, now it is Meager, and so forth. As in BotM, I'd let the effects linger, so Pillage would give -1 the following year, and Plunder -2.
- Each Tribute: -£1 / manor. It makes paying Tribute a choice that is better than being Raided, while at the same time stinging a bit. (I think I have made a similar comment in another thread regarding the Saxon raiding and tribute.) Having a full -1 harvest result drop would be kinda like allowing the Saxons to have a successful raid without needing to do it. Yep, -£1 / manor seems OK.
- Pestilence: -2 harvest result if it is the real one (+10 in GPC), -1 harvest result if it is only some sickness (+5 in GPC). I think Pestilence SHOULD have a lingering effect, too, like -1 harvest result the next year. The original 'Yellow Pestilence' in 548 should have a major impact, as it hits the whole country. I think I'd assign -3 for that, becoming -2 in 549 and -1 in 550.
- Wasteland: -1 harvest result when it arrives, -2 harvest result after 3 years (4th year), and maybe -3 harvest result after 10 years (11th year). The last part is more common for the northern parts of Logres, rather than the southern parts.

2. Move Manorial Luck & Apiary modifiers to Stewardship.
If the Manorial Luck says +X to Fate, apply it as a penalty to Stewardship. If it is -X to fate, it is +X to Stewardship (Apiary gives +1 to Stewardship). However, if it is saying Pestilence or a Raid or similar, then use the above rules for those.

3. Abolish Concern (My Commoners).
I never liked this passion to begin with. Just apply Hate Landlord as a penalty and Like Landlord as a bonus to Stewardship for that manor. This also gives Hate Landlord some teeth; someone with low Concern my commoners might have figured that since he is going to fail that roll anyway, why bother getting Like Landlord? Also, someone with High Concern could afford to be a WORSE landlord than someone with a low Passion, which was a cognitive dissonance point for me. Now, getting Hate Landlord 10 will actually impact on Stewardship skill quite significantly, and similarly, happy peasants will give a rather nice bonus to Stewardship, too, making those Stewardship failures less likely.

4. Roll Misfortune (Weather) result only once for the whole County.
This is why I have step 2 moving the Fate modifiers to Stewardship, since I don't have individual Fate for the manors anymore, just a county-wide one. This is a bit of a risky move, as it reduces the 'averaging' effect of having multiple manors. The Criticals & Fumbles in Weather have a much higher effect. On the other hand, the Stewardship is still rolled for each manor, which should keep the very best and worst results rare, still. Even a county-wide Crit in Weather will likely result only in an average of £3 (or even £4, given the high Stewardships I tend to see) per manor. That is something one Squeeze will likely cover, in a pinch. Also, it works the other way, too: on a good year, someone with multiple manors is raking the money in. Finally, with the addition of +£1 Discretionary Fund on a Regular result, there should be enough of a buffer for the vassal knights. Even without thinking about PKs' loot from adventures and war, or previous good harvests which tend to be plentiful during Pax Arthuriana, or investment income.


Note that I have not had an opportunity to playtest this yet, but I think it should work well. I'll let you know as our campaign progresses.

Here is an alternative Harvest result table that I have been considering. It scales down the effect of the harvest by a significant margin, making it much better suited for bigger estates. Also, you can use it more easily with BotW or BotE, since each step is basically a tenth, a Lot, of the estate/honour, and those books already have rules for those shortfalls.


Incredible: +£3 excess (+30% of customary revenue of £10) + £1 DF = £6 + £4 surplus
Excellent: +£2 excess (+20% of customary revenue of £10) + £1 DF = £6 + £3 surplus
Good: +£1 excess (+10% of customary revenue of £10) + £1 DF = £6 + £2 surplus
Regular: Normal harvest (£6 for the £10 manor knight's Standard of Living) + £1 Discretionary Fund.
Meager: -10% of customary revenue = no Discretionary Funds this year.
Bad: -20%, no Discretionary Funds and -£1 to Treasury.
Very Bad: -30%, no Discretionary Funds and -£2 to Treasury.
Negligible: -40%, no Discretionary Funds and -£3 to Treasury.


This makes Harvest a much less important than it was in BotM, as it reduced the Bad result from -£3 to a mere -£1. So it depends a bit what kind of a situation you wish to have for the PKs. I am veering towards using the above one, though, at it makes a bit more sense to me from a mere Weather perspective: a variance of -40% to +30% seems better to me than -70% - +60% (what the previous post's table would be scaled to £10 harvest).

Quick look of US crop production shows that bad weather seems to have about 1/6th to 30% effect on the harvest (i.e. above table's Bad to Very Bad).
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/agriculture.html
Of course, I can easily imagine that the effect of a drought, for example, are somewhat ameliorated by the modern technology, but by the same token, many of the farmlands in US are in much dryer areas than Britain.

If a peasant family is already living on a subsistence level, losing 30% of the crops would certainly spell hard times ahead, potentially a small famine.

Additional advantage of scaling down the impact of harvest is that it makes harvests a bit more predictable for the PKs. At least in the Uther's age, when raids are more common and bad weather as well, the harvests tend to be a bit on the poor side -> my players' vassal knights have occasionally grumbled over the fact that having an extra manor seems more like an extra expense. The extra £1 Discretionary Fund and reducing the impact of weather would no doubt help them see the manors as the rewards they are. During Pax Arthuriana, the weather is great, so the manors tend to make more money. Here again, the impact is reduced, so that the extra money from adventures and war have more of a role.

I would likely increase the impact of raids and pestilence and wasteland: doubling them would keep them more in line with the intended outcomes (-20%, -40%, -60%). Wasteland might be -10% per year up to the maximum of -60%, to show its gradual increase. Pestilence would follow the Raids: Yellow Pestilence (548) -60%, pestilence -40%, some sickness -20%. Naturally, different categories are cumulative, so a place hit by Pestilence, Pillaging raid and two years of Wasteland would get a whopping -100% modifier. Ouch. Alternatively, I might consider taking the biggest modifier (-40%) and halve the others (-60% -> -30%) for a total of -70%. After all, if your peasants are already going to leave some of the harvest to rot on the field because of lacking healthy workers, having your enemy trample a couple of fields doesn't really matter that much anymore. Yeah, I think I like that interpretation, although it means a bit more calculating for the GM. Some people might like the simplicity of just adding modifiers together.

These raid modifiers are a bit smaller than in Book of the Estate, even just by counting the temporary Lots. However, in BotE, some of the temporary raid damage can be restored in the Winter Phase before the income is calculated. Also permanent damage can be fixed in BotE, but this takes time and/or money. The final effect is rather similar, though, whether you use the lingering damage (reducing the impact by a step each subsequent year as in BotM) or if you are keeping track of permanent damage and it being fixed (BotE). I have not fully made up my mind about this, to be honest.

BotE Plundering raid (assuming I got the sequence right):
Same year as the raid: permanent damage doesn't hit yet (7 or 6 temporary damage instead), +1 repair costs for the next year, one reconstruction roll (successful)?
First year after the raid: 3 permanent damage, 2 lots recovered (assuming successful rolls), trusting reconstruction next year
Second year: 1 permanent damage, one lot recovered (assuming a successful reconstruction roll)
All in all, the Plundering will cause 7 lots of temporary damage (likely one fixed so 6 hit), 1 in repair costs and 4 while the permanent damage is being fixed = 11-12 lots of damage (one failed Stewardship roll likely, so 12 lots of damage).
In comparison, the BotM-lookalike with lingering damage has 6+4+2 = 12 lots of damage.

The results seem quite similar. Since BotE gives a bit more control to the PK about what to do with his estate, I might migrate to that raid model.

Thanks for sharing, Morien. I'm afriad I really can't write an response that is somehow ... worthy ... these posts, but I will write somehing more modest.

Since I am your Swedish clone (or is it shadow?), and we tend to agree a lot, there is I'm sure no suprise that I think that BoM is too complex, think Concern my Commoners is "too much of a good thing", that the Wasteland lacks teeth and so forth. I have been writing my own Manor system but lack of time and - right now - anyone to play with - has left this half completed. Simply put, I try to make a compromise between the system in PGC and the one in BoM. Manors don't give an income, but a standard of livning and there will be far fewer options in my system than in BoM.

This is part of my system, just to show how I think about these issues:


B. MISFORTUNE
Misfortunes measure the whims of fate that can affect a fragile agrarian economy and a harsh, often violent world. These are things that are beyond a single knight’s control: weather, raids, pestilence and so forth. In step D., the Misfortune value for the year will oppose a Stewardship roll.

1. Weather
This measures who harsh Nature was this year: a frost in spring or a late thaw, too much or little sun or rain, rats in the granaries or varmints in the fields, disease that strikes the crops or sickness that afflicts the livestock.

Roll 2d6+3. This value will be modified by Conflict.

Make one Weather roll only for all manors held by the PKs in the campaign, unless your PKs have manors that are really far apart such as outside Logres.

Comment: Yes, this is lower than in BoM. The reason for this is, firstly, that there is no Care in this system, and Care tends to lower what’s called Misfortune in BoM. Experienced PKs tend to have high values in Concern, so Weather needs to be lowered. Secondly, the Harvest Result Table in this system is harsher, and it is harder to get an increase in the harvest above the baseline. Thus, Weather needs to be lower, or all vassal knights will be doomed to live Poor lives. Also, 2d6+3 gives a nice span of 5-15 and an average of 10.

2. Conflict
Conflict is a catch all phrase for all those things apart from weather that might hit a manor during a year: bandit raids or Saxon plunderers, pestilence, Faerie curses and whatnot. This also includes the attitudes of the serfs, who may be in open rebellion or just sulky, feigning stupidity and dragging their feet and poaching and stealing. Some of this might result from scripted events (i.e. The Pendragon Great Campaign say that the Saxons raid the county), others from events in play.

Conflict is rolled for each holding individually, even if they were struck by the same event. Example: Salisbury was Pillaged during the Year 50x. The GM rolls 2d6 for each player holdings. Some might be hard hit, and some may get away lightly.

Military Conflict

This year
 Your land was Raided: +1d6 to Misfortune
 Your land was Pillaged: +2d6 to Misfortune
 Your Land was Plundered: +3d6 to Misfortune

Last year
 Your land was Pillaged: +1d6 to Misfortune
 Your Land was Plundered: +2d6 to Misfortune


Two years ago
 Your Land was Plundered: +1d6 to Misfortune


Pestilence
The Yellow Pestilence strikes Britain with full effect from 548 to 554, and with some effect 555 and 556, see Pendragon Great Campaign. Other widespread illness may occur through game play or because the Game Master says so.

This year
 Pestilence struck Hard: +2d6 Misfortune (this replaces the “+10” from PGC)
 Pestilence struck Somewhat: +1d6 Misfortune (this replaces the “+5” from PGC)

Last year
 Pestilence struck Hard: +1d6 Misfortune


Wasteland
This is the supernatural effect caused by the Dolorous Stroke that slowly spreads over Britain during the middle of Arthur’s reign (starting in 538)-
 Holding is in Wasteland: +3d6 Fate

Comment: Yes, this is a rather brutal effect, especially compared to the +1 per year in BoM. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the Wasteland should be horrible. It should really hurt and players and their characters should fear it. Assuming that Salisbury is the setting for the campaign, the Wasteland will reach the PKs manors late, and not really have that much of an effect. Secondly, in this system it is likely that many PK controlled holdings have high Pax bonus (+20 to +30 is possible), and the Wasteland effect must be rather large to be able to whittle it down. This effect will kill off even a very high Pax bonus in two to four years, after which the Wasteland will be really hurtful.


Foreign overlord
Cultural differences might aggravate the commoner’s attitude towards their lord. A new lord with a different Culture than the commoners will have some increased Conflict. This will apply to all those Cymric knights that are given land from the Saxons areas after the battle of Badon Hill, but also to Cymric knights on Ireland, and so on. When King Arthur gives Cymric land to his Aquitainian favorites, this will apply. These commoners all hate or dislike their foreign overlords, but will get used to their new lord as time goes by. If the knight takes a wife for the culture of his commoners, this will help alleviate the hatred.
 Lord has different Culture, first five years of possession: +2d6 to Misfortune
 Lord has different Culture, six to ten years of possession: +1d6 to Misfortune
Each year that the lord is married to a woman of the same Culture as the commoners, counts a two years for this calculation.


3. Tally Misfortune
Add Weather and Conflict to find the final Misfortune. Record this number for stage D below.

C. STEWARDSHIP

1. Find the Steward
Each player chooses if the knight, the wife (if any) or the staff will make the roll. The choice is his to make, but note that a knight or wife that is totally absent the whole year (see below) may not roll.

A knight’s wife can always steward his land, given she was not totally absent during the year. If there is no reason otherwise the Stewardship skill for a PK knight’s wife is assumed to be 12 (cf. “Lady” in KAP p. 179). If the wife is very young, or very experienced, or known to possess the “Caretaker” Woman’s Gift, or other relevant factors exists, the GM can set the Stewardship higher or lower. The wife’s skill can increase with time, but, again, this is up the GM. The Stewardship skill of the wife should be noted on the Manor Sheet.

Optional Rule. Some groups may not be happy with the rule that gives the GM total control over wifely Stewardship increases. In such a case, use this simple rule: if the wife makes the Stewardship roll for the manor a given year and the roll fails (i.e. is above her skill), her Stewardship increases one point.

A PK can always steward his own lands, given he was not totally absent during the year.

The staff (i.e. the steward, the reeve and their helpers) can always steward the land. Since staff is always changing, there is no fixed skill. A player that choses this option (or is forced to rely on his staff due to absence and/or lack of a wife) can either 1) roll the Stewardship skill for this year with 2d6 or 2) use a default Stewardship skill of 8.

Each Spring, Summer and Autumn season during the year that a knight of wife has been absent for a month or more (Gamemaster discretion) give the Stewardship skill of that character a modifier of -5. Longer absences within each season do not give additional penalties. Thus, the final modifier is never more than -15. Shorter absences such as going for court a day here and to town a day there do not count, but garrison duty, warfare, going on adventure or following the tournament circuit does. A PK or wife that was entirely absent throughout the year (campaigning on the Continent, in prison, lost in Faerie, mad, etc.) they cannot make the roll.


2. Calculate Pax (Arthur) bonus
Each year a holding suffers no Conflict, it accrues a bonus to Stewardship for the Harvest Roll of +1.

If Conflict happens, the total Conflict rolled for the year is subtracted from the Pax Arthur bonus.

3. Add other bonuses
The GM may add other bonuses to Stewardship.

Typically, this is due to some supernatural effect, as Faerie blessing, or the work of some pagan priestess or holy Christian that has occurred during game play (or that the Gamemaster just imposes at this moment, at his whim).

The GM may also give a bonus based on major events in the PGC. For example, the GM may rule that after the wedding of Arthur and Guenever, there is a bonus of +10 for all subjects of the High King (cf. PGC p. 148, “Special Winter Phase Modifiers” for year 514).

4. Tally Stewardship
Add the Pax bonus and any other bonus to the Stewardship skill of whoever will make the Stewardship roll for the holding.

D. HARVEST
1. Harvest Roll
Roll Stewardship versus Misfortune. Find the result on the Harvest Result Table.

No no, I am glad that someone seems to be reading these posts and answering them! Part of the charm of this Forum, for me, is the ability to bounce ideas off other GMs of Pendragon, as well as shamelessly steal their ideas/work for my own campaigns. :)

At a quick look of your system:
1) It still bundles everything up.
2) I do like the way you do the Pax modifier (the slow accrual and diminishing it if there are raids), although I think I would cap it at 20. Also, I would probably have it as a negative modifier on the weather, since otherwise, Critical Stewardship becomes perhaps a bit too common.
3) You have diminished the impact of Weather (3d6+5 in the basic system, so -5 there and making one 1d6 into +3, no problem with the latter), and also diminished the impact of Sickness (+1d6 instead of +5). While the former can be taken as a balancing effort for removing the -5 from successful Care Commoners -roll, the average Care Commoners was only 7. So you have, in effect, given a free -5 bonus 2/3rds of the time. So you should, in principle, be seeing more good harvests than someone using the basic BotM system.

We used the basic BotM system during the Yellow Pestilence strike in 548, giving a +10 modifier. Thanks to Pax Arthuriana, its impact was minor rather than the total catastrophy that Black Death type of epidemic should have been.

Yesterday, we did a manorial winter phase using the second set of harvest results and house rules that I posted in this thread. The results were, in my opinion, much better. Thanks to the encroaching Wasteland (-10%: -£1 / year), everyone felt a little sting. Furthermore, the lucky ones who succeeded in their Stewardship while the Misfortune roll failed, didn't get x1.5 their manors' worth, but simply +£1 over the norm (the new norm, which is Knight's Standard of Living £6 + £1 spending money). There was even one player who managed to crit his PK's wife's Stewardship-roll, which normally would have netted double the ordinary income, which would have felt very wrong as the narrative was describing how the harvests are poorer than before, and the growth is slow, etc... Whereas those unfortunates who failed in their Stewardship were not totally crippled by the -£3 Bad result, but instead got -£1. There was one player who would have gotten an Average result (Fail-Fail), but then got piled on by Some Sickness, Wasteland and Manorial Luck, for a total of -£4 in negative modifiers, resulting in a final harvest (for the knight) £3.

In any case, the range of harvests (what reached the knight) in the end were from £3 to £8, instead of from £3 to £12, which most people at £7 instead of £8 (using the same Wasteland -£1 mod for both styles). Sure, it is not a huge change, but it does rein in the very high fluctuation of the Harvest, and makes the other stuff (Wasteland, Raids, Pestilence) matter more visibly.

Also, I like the idea that the manor is relatively robust unit: the basic knight should not be scrambling all the time to make ends meet. Now he doesn't have to. As long as the Stewardship roll succeeds or the Misfortune roll fails, he will make at least his needed £6 / year.

No no, I am glad that someone seems to be reading these posts and answering them! Part of the charm of this Forum, for me, is the ability to bounce ideas off other GMs of Pendragon, as well as shamelessly steal their ideas/work for my own campaigns. :)

I concur.


Also, I like the idea that the manor is relatively robust unit: the basic knight should not be scrambling all the time to make ends meet. Now he doesn't have to. As long as the Stewardship roll succeeds or the Misfortune roll fails, he will make at least his needed £6 / year.

Personally, I don't mind that the BoM makes it though on vassal knights (though it is way to brutal that a PK can loose his whole manor due to bad luck), but players seems to mind. There is a lot of whining during the early Phases from manor owning players (so to speek). Though did not hear any complaints later on, when a well developed BoM-manor can bring in enormous amounts om £. To avoid player compaints, my own system is built on your lines, that incomes are rather "robust".


At a quick look of your system:
1) It still bundles everything up.
2) I do like the way you do the Pax modifier (the slow accrual and diminishing it if there are raids), although I think I would cap it at 20. Also, I would probably have it as a negative modifier on the weather, since otherwise, Critical Stewardship becomes perhaps a bit too common.
3) You have diminished the impact of Weather (3d6+5 in the basic system, so -5 there and making one 1d6 into +3, no problem with the latter), and also diminished the impact of Sickness (+1d6 instead of +5). While the former can be taken as a balancing effort for removing the -5 from successful Care Commoners -roll, the average Care Commoners was only 7. So you have, in effect, given a free -5 bonus 2/3rds of the time. So you should, in principle, be seeing more good harvests than someone using the basic BotM system.

1. You lost me there. Is that bad or good.

3. Good point, though I think you exagerate. The latter part of the campaign, I saw Concern passions mostly in the 15-20 range. Those second and third generation PKs are good. But I think I'll give the weather a bit more teeth.

2. What I did not tell you is that I have changed the way manor income and harvest work, which has some bearing on what the Pax A modifier does. See below.


Basic Income Level: Each holding has a Basic Income Level (BIL). BIL is measured in steps which are the equivalent of the grades of maintenance (see KAP pp. 156-157). Depending on the results of the Harvest roll, a holding might supply its knight with at grade of maintenance that is the same, higher or lower than the BIL.

The BIL Table
Grade of Maintenance and BIL Income equivalent
SPECTACULAR £24
SUPERLATIVE £15
RICH £9
ORDINARY £6
POOR £3
IMPOVERISED £0

Factors that affect the BIL
A manor starts out with an Ordinary BIL. The BIL can change due to a number of reasons.

Changes in BIL
… An extra manor increases the BIL one step (up to two times). If the manor leaves the holding (if for example it was gifted and not passed on to the heir), the BIL is lost again.
… A Widows gift decreases the BIL one step (as many times as there are widows). If the widows) dies, the BIL increase again.

Comment: Yes, as you might have noticed: in this system the second and third manor don’t add its full nominal income (£6 per annum) to the Income Equivalent. The reason for this is to keep the system simple. Remember that one of the basic goals of this system is that the manor generates a Grade of Maintenance, not money. If you need a rationale (to keep those pesky players happy), this is because of increased costs of surveillance and the inefficiencies built into running several manors apart from each other.

XXXX

D. HARVEST
1. Harvest Roll
Roll Stewardship versus Misfortune. Find the result on the Harvest Result Table. The Harvest Result Table is based on the BIL of the holding, and may change give a Grade of Maintenance up to three steps up or down from the BIL of the holding. The resulting effective Grade of Maintenance is used in step D2 through D3 below.

HARVEST RESULT TABLE
The roll is a … Effect on BIL is …
WIN, TIE BIL is unchanged
LOSS BIL drops one level

Note: for this table, if both rolls are Critical, Fumble or Failure, the result is a TIE.

Additional effects:
 Stewardship Critical BIL increases one level
 Stewardship Fumble BIL drops one level
 Misfortune Critical BIL drops one level
 Misfortune Fumble BIL increases one level

2. Result Shifts
Two things may change the Grade of Maintenance from step D1: if the wife on the holding has the Gentlewoman’s bonus or if the holding was required to pay tribute (typically to some Saxon king or warlord). These shifts can never drop the Grade of Maintenance below IMPOVERISHED.

Gentlewoman’s Bonus. If the knight’s wife has the Gentlewoman’s bonus, the Grade of Maintenance increases one step.

Widow’s Gift. More rules here

Tribute. Tribute is payment given by barons, earls and even kings to the Saxons or other foreign invaders in lieu of warfare and looting. Basically, it is protection money. The costs are distributed evenly among the landholders of any lord paying tribute, so knights holding land from a tribute paying lord will have to pay their share.
 If tribute is paid, the Grade of Maintenance is shifted down one level.
 If double tribute is paid, the Grade of Maintenance is shifted down two levels.
 If triple tribute is paid, the Grade of Maintenance is shifted down three levels.
If tribute is demanded and not paid, because the holding reached Impoverished Grade of Maintenance and could not pay the whole amount, prepare to be attacked by whoever demanded the tribute if you relatives, lord or friends don’t pitch in. In such a case, each level of tribute equals £3 in value.

3. Decide final Grade of Maintenance
PKs might not be happy with the Grade of Maintenance that they have ended up with. They can now make final adjustments up or down, before the Grade is finally set for the year.

To increase the Grade of Maintenance, find the Income equivalent of the Grade generated in step D2 and find the Income equivalent of the Grade the PK wants. Pay the difference in Libra, from the treasury of the PK. Exampel: Sir Ambrut’s player have ended up Poor due to those pesky Saxons and their tribute! He has a good horse and a 13 year old son who he hopes to play one day, after Ambrut had fallen in combat. The Income Equivalent of Poor is £3. Looking at his treasury – thanks to some loot from a battle versus some other pesky Saxons – he realizes that he can afford to increase this. Living as a Superlative knight would cost a whopping £12 (£15 minus £3 equals £12), and is out of his reach. But Rich has an Income equivalent of £9; it will cost him £6 to have a final Grade of Maintenance of Rich for the year passed. Ambrut’s player happily subtracts £6 from his treasury.

To decrease Grade of Maintenance, find the Income equivalent of the Grade generated in step D2 and find the Income equivalent of the Grade the PK wants. Earn half the difference (no rounding) in Libra, added to the treasury of the PK. Exampel: Sir Ambrut’s player has had some good die rolls and can live as SuperlativeII.

At a quick look of your system:
1) It still bundles everything up.


1. You lost me there. Is that bad or good.


It is bad, one of my pet peeves about the BotM system, as shown in my first post in this thread. In short, the problem is that the estate can get hit by Yellow Pestilence and be Pillaged, but thanks for some lucky rolling, the Player Knight can still get Good Harvest (x1.5 = £9). Like, no. This shouldn't happen. The manor should be next best thing to a smoking ruin with plaque-ridden corpses lying in the fields, not making Good Harvests!



D. HARVEST
1. Harvest Roll
Roll Stewardship versus Misfortune. Find the result on the Harvest Result Table. The Harvest Result Table is based on the BIL of the holding, and may change give a Grade of Maintenance up to three steps up or down from the BIL of the holding. The resulting effective Grade of Maintenance is used in step D2 through D3 below.

HARVEST RESULT TABLE
The roll is a … Effect on BIL is …
WIN, TIE BIL is unchanged
LOSS BIL drops one level

Note: for this table, if both rolls are Critical, Fumble or Failure, the result is a TIE.

Additional effects:
 Stewardship Critical BIL increases one level
 Stewardship Fumble BIL drops one level
 Misfortune Critical BIL drops one level
 Misfortune Fumble BIL increases one level


Ah, I see. Your Critical can only ever bump the knight's grade up by one level (to £9), unlike in basic BotM, where it is between £9 and £15, and often closer to £12 during Arthurian times. Yes, I can see how that would make it a lesser concern. Also, losing the Harvest roll is pretty harsh in your system: instant drop to Poor (£3). BotM had the Meager rank in between, so as long as you succeeded in your Stewardship, even if it was only a partial success, it didn't hurt so bad.

It is bad, one of my pet peeves about the BotM system, as shown in my first post in this thread. In short, the problem is that the estate can get hit by Yellow Pestilence and be Pillaged, but thanks for some lucky rolling, the Player Knight can still get Good Harvest (x1.5 = £9). Like, no. This shouldn't happen. The manor should be next best thing to a smoking ruin with plaque-ridden corpses lying in the fields, not making Good Harvests!

Oh, I see your point. On the other hand, my system has very few steps, and unless an crit or a fumble occours the result will be the the harvest is normal or one step worse than normal. So barring a crit on Stewardship, the harvest on an normal Manor would be Ordinary or Poor in my system, and Impoverishes if Misfortune rolls a crit (which will be more the 1 in 20 if if the manor is hit by several disasters at once).



Ah, I see. Your Critical can only ever bump the knight's grade up by one level (to £9), unlike in basic BotM, where it is between £9 and £15, and often closer to £12 during Arthurian times. Yes, I can see how that would make it a lesser concern. Also, losing the Harvest roll is pretty harsh in your system: instant drop to Poor (£3). BotM had the Meager rank in between, so as long as you succeeded in your Stewardship, even if it was only a partial success, it didn't hurt so bad.

Yes, it is pretty harsh, but I think that vassal knights should have something to worry about. PKs with manors will want to save some treasure if they can, at least during the early phases, which in my book is a good thing (among other things it makes those Generous checks harder to get, and forces players/PKs to think about their priorities: should treasure be saved, spent on Glory, on horses, on knighting that extra son, etc).

Granted, my system may have to few steps, but this is what I would like to test.

I should add, that there is no destruction of property in my system, you wont see permanent damage to the Hall, the fields, the hamlets etc. So becoming Poor or Impoverished is the worst that can happen. You wont ever have to spend dozens of Libra to rebuild stuff.

Yes, it is pretty harsh, but I think that vassal knights should have something to worry about.


My philosophy is that being a Vassal Knight should be a clear step above the Household Knight. His future and his family's future is secure. He shouldn't be living from hand to mouth, worried if he will drop to Poor (unlike his putatively humbler cousin, the Household Knight, whose standard of living is secured through his Lord). Yes, he might have some tense moments, but those should, IMHO, be mainly due to the fact that his manor got raided by some bastard (feuding? bandits?) or that there is a Plague or the island-wide, years-long famine (Wasteland). Or, once in a generation or so, an abysmal harvest (critical Misfortune roll).

The normal year for a vassal knight, if he doesn't get raided or anything, should, at worst, be break-even. He should even make some money so that he'd have some to upgrade him son's equipment or give dowries to his younger daughters. That is pretty much what comes out of my 2nd suggestion: As long as you succeed in your Stewardship (which is 75% of the time at Stewardship 15), pretty much the worst you can get is break-even. Even if you fail your Stewardship, likely the result is just -£1 from the weather. An annoyance, but something likely made good from the good years easily enough. That is partially the point, since I am using the same system (without rolling) to suss out a bit how the NPCs are doing. You know, those NPC vassal knights who are not adventuring and racking those tens of libras in loot, unlike the PKs. And if they are swinging every now and again to Poor and rarely if ever making a profit, why, then they WOULD be worse off than the Household knights in that regard. And that feels wrong to me.



PKs with manors will want to save some treasure if they can, at least during the early phases, which in my book is a good thing (among other things it makes those Generous checks harder to get, and forces players/PKs to think about their priorities: should treasure be saved, spent on Glory, on horses, on knighting that extra son, etc).


Here's the thing, though... When money is tight, I almost NEVER see a PK doing anything else than saving the money, save for upgrading to a better armor. It is simply too irresponsible to waste it into anything else, when it is so desperately needed for the family's upkeep. Especially which using the rules from the KAP rulebook, which pretty much condemn a Poor Knight's children and horses to death if it continues for more than a couple of years consecutively. Whereas when they have reserves of treasure and they are feeling confident that the manors will bring in enough to cover the standard of living, they are much more likely to host tournaments, knight younger sons, give bigger dowries to their daughters and maybe even get a better horse for themselves, if they have the money for it. In short, act more like knights would, rather than bean-counting miserly merchants. Frankly, I think they would do this even if they didn't have oodles of treasure, since once the pressure of 'my family might starve' is taken off, they really start to see the rest of the treasure as disposable income, that they can splurge away or save for special projects, rather than a matter of life-or-death.

To each their own, of course. Just sharing some of my opinions and experiences. :)



I should add, that there is no destruction of property in my system, you wont see permanent damage to the Hall, the fields, the hamlets etc. So becoming Poor or Impoverished is the worst that can happen. You wont ever have to spend dozens of Libra to rebuild stuff.


You rarely have to do that in BotM, either. The peasants build most of their own stuff back. Spending the money is simply a way of buying back their good will. Granted, if the enemy gets through and burns the manor house itself, then that is a problem. The chances of that happening are low, though, and I would say, not comparable to having to spend £3 every other year (during early times, much less of a problem during Pax Arthuriana). That is £30 over a 20-year period!

To each their own, of course. Just sharing some of my opinions and experiences. :)

Well, I did post here in the hope of getting some feedback and discussing a topic that intrigues me. So thank you. I'm not ready to abandon my ideas yet, being a bit pig-headed, but you have given me some food for thought.


My philosophy is that being a Vassal Knight should be a clear step above the Household Knight. His future and his family's future is secure. He shouldn't be living from hand to mouth, worried if he will drop to Poor (unlike his putatively humbler cousin, the Household Knight, whose standard of living is secured through his Lord). Yes, he might have some tense moments, but those should, IMHO, be mainly due to the fact that his manor got raided by some bastard (feuding? bandits?) or that there is a Plague or the island-wide, years-long famine (Wasteland). Or, once in a generation or so, an abysmal harvest (critical Misfortune roll).

The normal year for a vassal knight, if he doesn't get raided or anything, should, at worst, be break-even. He should even make some money so that he'd have some to upgrade him son's equipment or give dowries to his younger daughters. That is pretty much what comes out of my 2nd suggestion: As long as you succeed in your Stewardship (which is 75% of the time at Stewardship 15), pretty much the worst you can get is break-even. Even if you fail your Stewardship, likely the result is just -£1 from the weather. An annoyance, but something likely made good from the good years easily enough. That is partially the point, since I am using the same system (without rolling) to suss out a bit how the NPCs are doing. You know, those NPC vassal knights who are not adventuring and racking those tens of libras in loot, unlike the PKs. And if they are swinging every now and again to Poor and rarely if ever making a profit, why, then they WOULD be worse off than the Household knights in that regard. And that feels wrong to me.

I find this perfectly reasonable, but I want to achive something different with my system: I want a money-sink. I want vassals to worry a bit. I want them to feel that they need to find some extra money. Being vassals, they already have a pretty sweet deal. And from Conquest and onwards, they will have an easy ride.



Here's the thing, though... When money is tight, I almost NEVER see a PK doing anything else than saving the money, save for upgrading to a better armor. It is simply too irresponsible to waste it into anything else, when it is so desperately needed for the family's upkeep. Especially which using the rules from the KAP rulebook, which pretty much condemn a Poor Knight's children and horses to death if it continues for more than a couple of years consecutively. Whereas when they have reserves of treasure and they are feeling confident that the manors will bring in enough to cover the standard of living, they are much more likely to host tournaments, knight younger sons, give bigger dowries to their daughters and maybe even get a better horse for themselves, if they have the money for it. In short, act more like knights would, rather than bean-counting miserly merchants. Frankly, I think they would do this even if they didn't have oodles of treasure, since once the pressure of 'my family might starve' is taken off, they really start to see the rest of the treasure as disposable income, that they can splurge away or save for special projects, rather than a matter of life-or-death.

I've seen my share of this kind of behavior, but also some really cool conspicous consumtion.




You rarely have to do that in BotM, either. The peasants build most of their own stuff back. Spending the money is simply a way of buying back their good will. Granted, if the enemy gets through and burns the manor house itself, then that is a problem. The chances of that happening are low, though, and I would say, not comparable to having to spend £3 every other year (during early times, much less of a problem during Pax Arthuriana). That is £30 over a 20-year period!

No, you rarely see it, but the mere possibilty of massive destruction on that scale ... no, thanks, its too much for me to stomach.

But I admit that it may be too harsh, having a "poor" standrad of living every third or second year for so long. The problem is, if it is a problem, that there are so few grades of maintenance. And I really like the simplicity in that, and that the harvest roll is about that; generating a basic grade of maintenance.

Oh, perhaps I'll just ditch the whole thing and use the narrative "system"!

But I admit that it may be too harsh, having a "poor" standrad of living every third or second year for so long. The problem is, if it is a problem, that there are so few grades of maintenance. And I really like the simplicity in that, and that the harvest roll is about that; generating a basic grade of maintenance.


That is why I went with the system I posted. I mean, if you are keeping track of treasure (which I presume you are, since you were talking about a money sink), then keeping track of librum instead of full grades is not big hassle. That gives a much smoother scale of harvest results, too, but also instantly pinches on a guy if there is a raid or a sickness. Or, indeed, Tribute payments. In short, it acts as a money sink when there is a narrative reason for it, and a light pinch on a bad rolling, but won't see the knight starving (granted, he can always squeeze the peasantry, I guess).

Here is an easy option to tweak your harvest results, though, while keeping the same system... Require that the Stewardship roll fails while the Misfortune roll succeeds in order to drop to Poor.

Ordinary: Stewardship succeeds or both fail.
Poor: Stewardship fails, Misfortune succeeds.

Critical Stewardship or Fumble Misfortune: +1 grade.
Fumble Stewardship or Critical Misfortune: -1 grade.

What this means is that assuming you are looking at something like Stewardship 15 and Misfortune 15, instead of having like one third of a chance of dropping to Poor, you actually need for the Stewardship to fail, too. So the probability becomes (roughly): 1/4 * 3/4 = 3/16 = about 20%, or once every 5 years. Granted, the annoying factor here is that as soon as Stewardship climbs to 20, you can no longer get Poor Harvests. But since I am not too keen on Vassal Knights being Poor, I am not too bothered by this. :P

Here is an easy option to tweak your harvest results, though, while keeping the same system... Require that the Stewardship roll fails while the Misfortune roll succeeds in order to drop to Poor.

Ordinary: Stewardship succeeds or both fail.
Poor: Stewardship fails, Misfortune succeeds.

Critical Stewardship or Fumble Misfortune: +1 grade.
Fumble Stewardship or Critical Misfortune: -1 grade.

What this means is that assuming you are looking at something like Stewardship 15 and Misfortune 15, instead of having like one third of a chance of dropping to Poor, you actually need for the Stewardship to fail, too. So the probability becomes (roughly): 1/4 * 3/4 = 3/16 = about 20%, or once every 5 years. Granted, the annoying factor here is that as soon as Stewardship climbs to 20, you can no longer get Poor Harvests. But since I am not too keen on Vassal Knights being Poor, I am not too bothered by this. :P

Thats an interesting idea. I might steal that, if I don't give up entierly on this system. Thanks!

Hi Morien,
how do think about this now with latests updates on economy?

fg,
Thijs

Well, I am currently using the £10 manors from Book of the Warlord (more or less), and the harvest system explained in the second post on this thread.

I haven't migrated to Book of the Estate's raid rules, but we just had an army plundering through Salisbury and combined with Wasteland... The PKs are definitely the pinch in their pocketbooks, as their manors are pretty much only making 30% or less of their

Using the old Book of the Manor rules, the situation would have been a lot different. Wasteland would have been a joke. Even with the weather & Plundering, the chance of a Misfortune crit would have been about fifty/fifty. Most stewards should have succeeded, so the result would have been Bad, £3 harvest (-£3 from normal). Now the average was around -£6.

The Estate's raiding rules would have hurt even worse, with the permanent, long-term damage. That might have been a better model: I was a bit disappointed in a way that even with Plundering, the enemy army didn't really manage to make too much of an permanent impact. Couple of manor houses got burned and some peasants got more Hate for having their huts burned, but that was pretty much it.

Note that I have not had an opportunity to playtest this yet, but I think it should work well. I'll let you know as our campaign progresses.


Looks like I forgot to let you know how this system worked out.
(EDIT: Looks like I didn't forget after all, but I forgot that I had posted half a year ago already. Oh well, might as well leave this one up since I actually did say something extra, too. :) )

I am actually using the Harvest Table and Raid etc modifiers from the second post (+-10% harvest steps), not from the first one.

We played through the Wasteland, and I have to say, now it had TEETH. It annoyed me so much that there was this huge Yellow Pestilence before, and the Manors kept churning out regular income, or in the case of some of them, even Good Harvest (+£3 in the old BotM system). Someone may have even rolled a critical. Now, there was a nice progression. The PKs had witnessed the creeping Wasteland effect from the north, and then their manors started suffering. Slowly at first, but when the Wasteland progressed, it was really starting to hurt the finances of the knights, especially after all those fat Pax Arthuriana years. It felt like an actual crisis.

Rolling one misfortune (= Weather now, since the fate is out) for each county works very well, too. First of all, I only need to roll once per county, rather than to every manor. The Players do their calculations (Stewardship - Fate - Hate Landlord (Like is -Hate, so +Like) = final Stewardship to roll against) and then roll, and it goes smoothly. Also, it keeps things more... believable, IMHO. It had happened before that we had widely variable harvests in two manors right next to one another, since misfortune was rolled separately. Not any more: if the county is doing poorly, then that is the base level. Some do even more poorly (failed Stewardship), but we no longer get £1.5 in one manor and £12 in the neighboring one (old £6 manors).

I did think that one way to use this in Uther's time would be to allow the PKs take their full Assized Rent share of the harvest, regardless how badly it goes, but start giving Hate Landlord and at the really bad harvest level Cruel checks. Not Arbitrary, though, since it is OK to take that. On the flipside, if the PK takes LESS than the full share to help the peasants, then start giving Like Landlord and Merciful and/or Generous checks. I haven't done that yet.

(I still don't like Concern My Commoners and do not have it in my campaign anymore. :P )