Hello all,

I've had Book of the Manor for a while now, and just picked up Book of the Estate and Book of the Warlord. However I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around what's going on with the whole system.

Part of the difficulty is knowing which particular system to use.

I'm going to be running the GPC as a solo campaign (taking cues from this wonderful little blog (http://shirosrpg.blogspot.com/p/the-solo-gpc.html)) so I know that I don't have to worry too much about bogging the game down every winter phase while a whole party tries to calculate their income, however I do know that my one player isn't the type to obsess over the little details.

However, all of those observations don't amount to much since I'm still having trouble figuring them all out myself.

If someone could give a run-down, both of how the particular economic systems work as well as which would probably be most suited for our needs, I would be grateful.

I'm sure Morien can go into much greater depth than I can, but I'll try to give you the bare essentials.

Every Manor is (generally) assumed to have a value of £10. The size of your holdings determine your standard of upkeep, your army, as well as how much spending cash you get each year. There aren't harvest/bad weather rolls as standard anymore, unless you feel like modding them back in, as many do.

Standard of Upkeep is determined as (Income / 10) + 5. So the knight of a £10 manor would have an upkeep of (10 / 10) + 5 = £6, just as in the base handbook.

Your Army is broken down into 1 knight, 1 Squire, and 2 footsoldiers for every block of £10 one's lands are worth. If the value of the holding isn't divisible by 10, the remainder is broken down into 1 footsoldier for every £1. So For example if I had a chunk of land with an income of £24, it would Supply me 2 knights (including myself), 2 Squires, 8 footsoldiers (4 standard plus 4 for the remainder).

Discretionary Income is determined as Income / 10. So the lord of a £10 manor would receive £1 per year with which to spend freely.

The rest is spent on various servants, most notably the Chaplain who does your reading and writing. There's also manorial production which doesn't impact play at all because it's entirely zero-sum, basically your various domestics and laborers that keep your manor running in the background are all paid for by the value they generate.


So it's really mostly designed to avoid hassle. It's endlessly modifiable as many people have illustrated with their own spins and housreules (including me: http://nocturnalmediaforum.com/iecarus/forum/showthread.php?2967-Basic-Knight-Upkeep-and-a-different-SD-breakdown)

but like I said, BoE/BoW was mostly designed, as far as I understand it, to make the winter phase a bit easier.

Standard Knight:

Total Revenue = £10
Family Upkeep = £6 Ordinary (1+5)
Spending Money = £1
Army = 1 Knight (player), 1 Squire, 2 footsoldiers.


And then this scales all the way up the feudal ladder, say for a minor baron.

Total Revenue = £100
Family Upkeep = £15 Superlative (10+5)
Spending Money = £10
Army = 10 Knights, 10 Squires, 20 footsoldiers.

I've had Book of the Manor for a while now, and just picked up Book of the Estate and Book of the Warlord. However I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around what's going on with the whole system.


Sorry to hear that. Did you read through Appendix D of BotW? It shows you the example £10 Manor of a knight.



If someone could give a run-down, both of how the particular economic systems work as well as which would probably be most suited for our needs, I would be grateful.

Looks like Mr.47 already gave you the details on how the new BotE/W system works. :)

Personally, I find the new BotE/W much superior to the old BotM system, although I like having some variance in the Winter Phase (see below). However, in BotM, the variance was all over the place, which I disliked: either the knights were flush with funds, or they were barely making enough to eat, their manors constantly draining their funds, as poor rolling resulted in less than £6 income. Also, BotM doesn't limit (explicitly, at least) the investments, so it is quite possible for a player character build up his manor from £6 income up to an estate, using nothing but investment income and re-investing. The return of investment in some of those options are insanely high. BotE fixes this as well as limits how many investments your estate has room for.

So yeah, especially since your player sounds like that they don't so much care about the nitty-gritty, just tell them that there is £1 of funds (per £10 = average manor) that they can use each Winter Phase, and you are done. Easy as that.


I'm sure Morien can go into much greater depth than I can, but I'll try to give you the bare essentials.


Nah, you basically covered everything I would have. :) Just a couple of things for me to note/add.



Your Army is broken down into 1 knight, 1 Squire, and 2 footsoldiers for every block of £10 one's lands are worth.


+1 garrison footsoldier per £10.



but like I said, BoE/BoW was mostly designed, as far as I understand it, to make the winter phase a bit easier.


Actually, the main design goal was to show how the landholdings would scale up, and give the GMs some framework with which to do it, if it ever became an issue in their games. And try to make that all as scalable, consistent and easy as possible, hence for instance the decision to make Production = Commoner Servants' upkeep, so that you could simply focus on the Customary Revenue.

(Now I will freely admit that the particulars of the landholding system might not be easy, all the different income sources and Assized Rent vs. Customary Revenue, parcels and outliers etc., but all that is just details. You don't actually have to use any of that. Heck, I am still making do with £10 manors, and not even whispering to my players about Assized Rent or Customary Revenue. All they know is that their manors are worth £10, from which they pay £3 to various staff (3 soldiers (£1.5), Lady's Maid (£0.5) and Chaplain (£1)), leaving £6 to their family upkeep and £1 left over to spend as they wish, on a regular harvest (see below). The harvests are usually expressed in the format of £6+£1, the £3 already deducted.)

If you recall, the winter phase in KAP 5.1 or GPC wasn't all that complicated, either. The Winter Phase could have been added in (I did so myself, here: http://nocturnalmediaforum.com/iecarus/forum/showthread.php?2234-Harvests-Raids-Pestilence-and-Wasteland&p=18904&viewfull=1#post18904 , and have been quite happy with the results), but it was decided to keep it simple in the book, explained with the fact that the Lord would take his share no matter how crappy the harvest was, leaving the peasants to starve if need be.

ESTATE 1.0 still had some problems, which we very painstakingly straightened out in 1.3. We need not go into detail about all that now. Suffice it to say, ESTATE 1.3 is the latest and currently preferred method of household management, regardless of the size of the landholding. My advice is to throw away the Book of the Manor, or at least put it away. The nice thing about ESTATE in particular is it reveals what the typical household staff looks like, as various sizes. Wanna know if your household includes a messenger? Just look at the models to see who might be on hand, by default.

But Veli's right — if you understand nothing else, all you really need to remember in for every £10 of land, you get one knight, one squire, two Footsoldiers, and one Footsoldier for the king's garrison. Plus you get £1 of spending money every year. Easy peasy. The rest is just details for those who geek out to such things.


T.

If someone could give a run-down, both of how the particular economic systems work as well as which would probably be most suited for our needs, I would be grateful.

Others have answered already, so according to the new system (introduced in Book of Estate), here's how things work:

Manor = £10.
Staff = £3
Lord + Lady + Children = £6 (like the corebook).
Total £10 - £3 - £6 = £1 which goes directly into the knights pocked.

That £3 to maintain the manor staff is invisible money in the old system. You don't have to think about it. Every year you just put in your pocked £1. If you don't have children, put an additional £1. If you don't have a wife, just assume you hired a Steward. So, at most, you get £2 / year. Simple.

The Book of Estate are for anyone who is detailed-oriented (which I'm not) and there are still some things in the BoE that don't apply to manors (lots, for instance). And BoE really applies only the early eras of the game (Uther through Boy King) so some of the later stuff (available in the BoM) is not really avaiable in BoE.

My suggestion, each manor is £10, then go from there.

Every year you just put in your pocked £1. If you don't have children, put an additional £1. If you don't have a wife, just assume you hired a Steward. So, at most, you get £2 / year. Simple.

Exactly. Then just multiply by the number of manors (or if you want to be a pedant, Landholdings value/£10).

You get the upkeep (per £10 manor) for
1 knight (the first one is you, the rest are household knights sworn to you)
2 foot soldiers for the army
1 foot soldier for the king's garrison(s) (in royal castles)

All of which you can ignore as well if your campaign is more focused on individual adventuring.