Mr.47
06-18-2017, 02:20 AM
I'm back again with a new crack at a homebrew winter-phase money system. Should I leave well enough alone? Probably. WILL I leave well enough alone? Probably not. I think there might be something wrong with me.
Anyway, we're finally scraping our way into the first winter phase again with newb players, I figure might as well get some feedback on this system before I shove it down their throats.
I have full confidence that if there is something wonky, the ample minds here will spot it.
I've returned to the idea of rolling 2d20 for discretionary income in shillings rather than taking a flat 1L, but now I think I've found a way to reconcile it with Estate/Warlord. I've never read Lordly Domains, but I believe I've picked up a few of its concepts through osmosis.
Having played with Estate Improvements, it seems to me that players figure out very quickly which investments are worthwhile and which aren't. So what I'm thinking of as an alternative is giving the players a choice between growing their Total Wealth by boosting their customary revenue of manorial lands, or growing their Cash Income through investments.
CR = Customary Revenue, as per Book of the Estate, tied to manorial custom and subject to feudal duties, SD and household consumption. 60% to the army, 30% to household maintenance, %10 discretionary, more or less.
FI = Free Income, in silver, deriving from investments and money rents and the like, not tied to the manor.
Waste = Land in a holding that is not currently in use, in the form of 3d3 x EM slots.
EM = Estate Multiplier = CR/10. This applies to the yearly 2d20 discretionary roll, as well as peasant squeezes, and Damage Lots.
Every winter, the player rolls for 2d20 shillings for their discretionary income, and multiplies the result by the Estate Multiplier. Since the starting CR for a vassal knight is 10 Libra, the result is multiplied by 1. If the manor were worth 11 Libra, the EM would be 1.1, if it were 20 the EM would be 2, and so on.
In this way, the discretionary income received via Customary Revenue is still theoretically proportional to 1/10th the estate value, but with an added element of randomness.
This also applies to revenue from imposts, so if you roll 1d6 for a new impost, you would multiply the result by the EM. ex: roll 3, estate is worth 15L, receive 4.5L
Every Manor starts (if beginning in the Uther period) with 4-10 waste slots for improvement. There are two ways that a player can invest his loot by taking advantage of this waste.
1. Build an investment. An Investment can include a Vaccary and Dairy, an Orchard, a Fishery, a Coneygarth, a Sheep Fold or Horse Herd, and so on and so on. An Investment takes up 3 Waste slots, costs 5 Libra, and yields 1 Libra of free income yearly, in hard silver.
2. Improve the Estste. This involves claring wild lands, draining marshes, sewing new fields and building new hovels. More fields, and more peasants. This takes 1 slot, costs 2 Libra, and increases the Customary Revenue of the Estate by 1 (largely in-kind) Libra, and adds +5 men to the manor "Levy" (which I know is defunct, but it makes the players feel good).
For the Sake of Example, let's take 2 players who both had 6 slots to begin with, but invested their silver differently.
Knight One built 2 investments, a sheepfold and an apiary on his manor, and now has a steady stream of 2 Libra per year in hard cash, for a cost of 10 Libra over 2 years.
Knight Two build new cottages and cleared new fields, and now sits pretty on an Estate worth 16 Libra. He has 6 additional spearmen in his household force, an additional 30 fighting-age with which to defend the manor, his family upkeep now sits at 7.8 by default, and he makes on average 1.6L discretionary income on his harvest rolls, which puts him in range to live as a Rich Knight most years if he so chooses. This took 12 Libra and 6 years to complete.
Obviously a player could mix and match these approaches to their heart's desire.
A final avenue for long term enrichment is purchasing freehold land for rent. Obviously since this commodity is in such short supply, the cost is steep, but can be a worthwhile money sink if your own estate is built up to the brim.
Freehold land yielding 1 shilling a year in rent (for the sake of argument let's call it an acre) costs 10 shillings to purchase, or more broadly, a consortium of land yielding 1 Libra per year in rent is 10 Libra to purchase.
Every county in which you own freehold parcels requires its own hired Rent-Collector per 100 acres, who costs 5 shillings a year. Any given county has only 1d20 Acres for purchase in a given winter phase.
So say for example I throw 10 Libra at 20 acres in Salisbury and rent it out, I'd recieve 15 shillings per year in Free Income after paying the rent-collector his wage of 5 shillings.
Let's construct another example knight to tie this all back, Sir Exy the Exemplary. Sir Exy is now an old knight, haing lived through the latter days of Uther and the Anarchy, retiring just as the Boy King is crowned, and has invested his war treasure wisely over the years. He has expanded his manor fields three times, and settled a large sheep-fold on a vacant hill. He has also acquired a consortium of free lands across the county of Salisbury numbering at 20 acres and a smaller swathe in county Gentian numbering 10 acres. He sits down with his wife, who is largely the one left in charge of these sorts of things, and goes over the accounts, much as he'd rather be hunting or telling war stories to his grandchildren.
Customary Revenue (CR): 13 Libra
Estate Multiplier (EM): 1.3
Family Upkeep: 6.9 Libra
Army: 1 knight, 1 squire, 5 spearmen on hand, 1 spearman in lord's garrison.
Harvest Roll (2d20): 20
Discretionary Income = 20 x 1.3 = 26 shillings = 1.3 Libra
Investments: 1 Libra
Free Acreage: 30 shillings
Collectors: 10 shillings
=
Free Income: 2 Libra
Free Income + Discretionary CR = 3.3 Libra
Anyway, we're finally scraping our way into the first winter phase again with newb players, I figure might as well get some feedback on this system before I shove it down their throats.
I have full confidence that if there is something wonky, the ample minds here will spot it.
I've returned to the idea of rolling 2d20 for discretionary income in shillings rather than taking a flat 1L, but now I think I've found a way to reconcile it with Estate/Warlord. I've never read Lordly Domains, but I believe I've picked up a few of its concepts through osmosis.
Having played with Estate Improvements, it seems to me that players figure out very quickly which investments are worthwhile and which aren't. So what I'm thinking of as an alternative is giving the players a choice between growing their Total Wealth by boosting their customary revenue of manorial lands, or growing their Cash Income through investments.
CR = Customary Revenue, as per Book of the Estate, tied to manorial custom and subject to feudal duties, SD and household consumption. 60% to the army, 30% to household maintenance, %10 discretionary, more or less.
FI = Free Income, in silver, deriving from investments and money rents and the like, not tied to the manor.
Waste = Land in a holding that is not currently in use, in the form of 3d3 x EM slots.
EM = Estate Multiplier = CR/10. This applies to the yearly 2d20 discretionary roll, as well as peasant squeezes, and Damage Lots.
Every winter, the player rolls for 2d20 shillings for their discretionary income, and multiplies the result by the Estate Multiplier. Since the starting CR for a vassal knight is 10 Libra, the result is multiplied by 1. If the manor were worth 11 Libra, the EM would be 1.1, if it were 20 the EM would be 2, and so on.
In this way, the discretionary income received via Customary Revenue is still theoretically proportional to 1/10th the estate value, but with an added element of randomness.
This also applies to revenue from imposts, so if you roll 1d6 for a new impost, you would multiply the result by the EM. ex: roll 3, estate is worth 15L, receive 4.5L
Every Manor starts (if beginning in the Uther period) with 4-10 waste slots for improvement. There are two ways that a player can invest his loot by taking advantage of this waste.
1. Build an investment. An Investment can include a Vaccary and Dairy, an Orchard, a Fishery, a Coneygarth, a Sheep Fold or Horse Herd, and so on and so on. An Investment takes up 3 Waste slots, costs 5 Libra, and yields 1 Libra of free income yearly, in hard silver.
2. Improve the Estste. This involves claring wild lands, draining marshes, sewing new fields and building new hovels. More fields, and more peasants. This takes 1 slot, costs 2 Libra, and increases the Customary Revenue of the Estate by 1 (largely in-kind) Libra, and adds +5 men to the manor "Levy" (which I know is defunct, but it makes the players feel good).
For the Sake of Example, let's take 2 players who both had 6 slots to begin with, but invested their silver differently.
Knight One built 2 investments, a sheepfold and an apiary on his manor, and now has a steady stream of 2 Libra per year in hard cash, for a cost of 10 Libra over 2 years.
Knight Two build new cottages and cleared new fields, and now sits pretty on an Estate worth 16 Libra. He has 6 additional spearmen in his household force, an additional 30 fighting-age with which to defend the manor, his family upkeep now sits at 7.8 by default, and he makes on average 1.6L discretionary income on his harvest rolls, which puts him in range to live as a Rich Knight most years if he so chooses. This took 12 Libra and 6 years to complete.
Obviously a player could mix and match these approaches to their heart's desire.
A final avenue for long term enrichment is purchasing freehold land for rent. Obviously since this commodity is in such short supply, the cost is steep, but can be a worthwhile money sink if your own estate is built up to the brim.
Freehold land yielding 1 shilling a year in rent (for the sake of argument let's call it an acre) costs 10 shillings to purchase, or more broadly, a consortium of land yielding 1 Libra per year in rent is 10 Libra to purchase.
Every county in which you own freehold parcels requires its own hired Rent-Collector per 100 acres, who costs 5 shillings a year. Any given county has only 1d20 Acres for purchase in a given winter phase.
So say for example I throw 10 Libra at 20 acres in Salisbury and rent it out, I'd recieve 15 shillings per year in Free Income after paying the rent-collector his wage of 5 shillings.
Let's construct another example knight to tie this all back, Sir Exy the Exemplary. Sir Exy is now an old knight, haing lived through the latter days of Uther and the Anarchy, retiring just as the Boy King is crowned, and has invested his war treasure wisely over the years. He has expanded his manor fields three times, and settled a large sheep-fold on a vacant hill. He has also acquired a consortium of free lands across the county of Salisbury numbering at 20 acres and a smaller swathe in county Gentian numbering 10 acres. He sits down with his wife, who is largely the one left in charge of these sorts of things, and goes over the accounts, much as he'd rather be hunting or telling war stories to his grandchildren.
Customary Revenue (CR): 13 Libra
Estate Multiplier (EM): 1.3
Family Upkeep: 6.9 Libra
Army: 1 knight, 1 squire, 5 spearmen on hand, 1 spearman in lord's garrison.
Harvest Roll (2d20): 20
Discretionary Income = 20 x 1.3 = 26 shillings = 1.3 Libra
Investments: 1 Libra
Free Acreage: 30 shillings
Collectors: 10 shillings
=
Free Income: 2 Libra
Free Income + Discretionary CR = 3.3 Libra