The Sajavedran Calendar

Click to embiggen. 

I'm preparing to run a Qelong campaign - if you don't know, it's a horrific Southeast Asia setting being poisoned by a misfired magic bomb - and so I'm putting the ol' tools to work.

Here is my Qelong calendar. I based the months off of the Khmer lunar calendar, with Qelong-style syllable replacements. There are ten months for the reasons explained in this post - but in short, it's easier to not have to remember different numbers of days for different months. The yellow is, of course, the dry season, and the green is wet - changing around what would be November and April. Meqasay is the "new year."

Basically, use it to keep track of major events, past and future. At least three of the four factions in Qelong are actively attempting to increase their power, and while you can certainly have that be a foggy, unresolved background, having them dynamically clash and maneuver is, I think, much more interesting. With the calendar, you can simply jot down future clashes and some notes on them, for the party to interfere with (or ignore.)

As for the year itself, the Khmer calendar marks years with zodiac signs in the way the Chinese calendar does, but also respects a multi-year cycle, where each animal also advances in number - resetting every 60 years.

For Qelong, I decided to modify the cycle so that each decade is marked by a single zodiac sign, creating a 120-year cycle. However, changing to the next sign is usually accompanied by some sort of portent, determining the mood of the next few years, and the lack of portents can sometimes extend the "decade" well past its normal expiration date. Therefore, the dying land of Sajavedra is still in the Years of the Dog - with no end in sight.

To reflect this, add two rumors to the rumor table - they can be included normally, or you can use them in lieu of the first two duplicate rolls.

The Mage War began in the Years of the Rooster, and it will end in the Years of the Pig. After that, we'll face the long Years of the Rat...
The sign of the zodiac usually changes every ten years. But we've seen twelve Years of the Dog, and I hear there will be many more...

Descriptive Skills

Skills in action?

To my mind, the regular kind of numeral skills are needlessly dissociated and kind of confusing. Usually, they need some sort of second-order transformation in order to be useful - so, "Climb 5" becomes "Can climb 30 feet in under a minute 75% of the time" or else "Can climb any wall any distance 83% of the time."

Instead, I'd like to notate skill levels in ways that are inherently meaningful. Here, I'm drawing from Alexis' writing about thief skills that don't suck, and Charles Angus' writing about descriptive damage.



Movement Skills

The movement skills have a base time frame of one minute - your "score" is the number of feet you can move per minute. The first minute is always successful, but every minute after that requires you to check against the linked ability score. All movement skills divide their speeds by the DR of any worn armor. (So, no penalty for leather, half speed for chain, quarter speed for plate.) You can "sprint" with any of these, moving at double speed but taking 1d4 extra stones of fatigue each time.

Climb (STR) - Climbing skill advances in intervals of ten feet. Each successful check, after the first, adds an extra stone's weight in fatigue. Failure means falling, but you can make Might checks (-1 penalty per failure, cumulative) to try to catch yourself every ten feet, until you've fallen farther than your Climbing skill.
So, if you have Climb 30', you can climb 30' free, 90' with two checks, and you get three chances to stop yourself if you fall. Falling damage is 1d10 per 10 feet, to a max of 10d10.

Swim (CON) - Swimming skill advances in intervals of thirty feet. Each successful check, after the first, adds an extra stone's weight in fatigue (and remember that waterlogged fabric can double or triple in weight). Failure means you begin to drown - roll Will checks every minute. Once you fail, you lose 1d4 INT, WIS, and CHA per minute until rescue or death. Diving uses the same mechanics, but the diving interval is 1/3 of your swimming interval, and you have to get back up!

Stalking (DEX) - Hiding, I think, is better implemented as direct player interaction with the environment and any NPCs searching for people.  Stalking is the active element - how far you can move between "hides" without drawing attention to yourself. It's judged more as a defense against being heard, or noticed out of the corner of the NPC's eye - there's no such thing as "stalking" someone by walking directly towards them in their field of vision. Stalking is like being a Weeping Angel - you can only move when they can't see you.

So: intervals of twenty feet. Stalking accrues no penalties for extended time - but the first check isn't automatically successful, and you can't "sprint." Failure doesn't immediately mean detection - rather, it means you've snapped a twig, knocked down a glass, stepped on a weak floorboard, etc. The results are, of course, dependent on the situation. Snapping a twig 100' away from a sentry might not necessarily draw any attention, but doing the same thing from 10' away will certainly get you caught. Wile saves are used to duck into cover if a guard suddenly turns around, or for simple distractions (the old rock throw, etc.)

Non-Movement Skills

The other skills are given a direct time frame, which is the time needed for automatic success. You can try to complete at half-time, rolling against the linked ability score. Each additional halving applies a -5 penalty.

Tinkering (INT) - Tinkering starts at 6 turns, and reduces by 1 turn each "skill level," until it takes 1 turn. Then it reduces by 1 minute, then by the round, etc. Therefore, three Spies of levels 6, 8, and 17, will automatically pick a lock in 1 turn, 7 minutes, and 8 rounds, respectively. If you fail the INT roll when rushing, you jam the lock.
For trapped locks, detecting and disarming the trap is its own separate task and they'll automatically activate if you don't try to find it first, but you get a Wile save to dodge its activation, in addition to the Might save to resist its poison. Failing a rushed trap detection activates the trap.

Tracking (WIS) - Tracking starts at 6 turns, reducing by the turn, then by the minute, then by the round. This is the time it takes to get a pretty good look at a patch of ground - say, 20' square, or 400' in a line (like, along a fence.). You have to re-check the track every four hours, or if it's disrupted by something like a stream, or a fallen tree, or mud. Tracks remain for about a week, by default, but again that's modified by the specifics of the situation. For things half the size of a man, you have to re-check twice as often, half that is twice as often again, etc. For things larger, the time multiplies in the opposite direction - tracking a bear means you re-check every eight hours, twice that is sixteen hours. If you rush it, and you fail, well, obviously you didn't find any traps.

Procurement (CHA) - Procurement is the process of locating things. Things like henchman recruits, uncommon items, or even information - such as rumors and gossip. Procurement doesn't include the purchase itself - though information can sometimes be had for free, or for just a few too many coppers for mead - it only covers the process of finding it. And, of course, it doesn't allow you to find things that aren't there.

Procurement starts at 56 hours - or one whole week, assuming 8 hours of work per day, and a population of about 1,000-3,000 people. Decrease the time proportionally for smaller towns, but for larger cities, the work only covers a single neighborhood. This decreases by four hours per "skill level." If you rush it, and fail, you create a bit of bad blood in town - by stepping on some toes, ignoring some customs, or going to the "wrong people." Obviously, town politics are pretty situational, but "three strikes" is probably a pretty good rule of thumb.

To determine what specialized/rare items are available, you can't go wrong with the vendor saving throw - applying, say, a -2 for items with triple-digit costs, -4 for items with quadruple-digits, and assuming anything more expensive is not going to be hanging out in some pawnshop. A successful Procurement tells you everything that's there and what it costs.

For hirelings, assuming a town of 1,000, you'll find 1d4 capable mercenaries (or other professionals) are found, and 4d6 base laborers. -1 mercenary and -4 laborers each time you halve the town size. So, a village of 250 people has 1d4-2 mercenaries and 4d6-8 laborers. Yes, there can be zero hirelings.
Rumors and secrets have to be Procured by subject, if you want anything more specific than the gossip spouted by every drunkard. Obviously, not all secrets are so easily found - since Procurement involves nothing more than asking around, crawling the pubs, and being generally alert, it will never discover information guarded with any amount of competence. The best you can get in these cases are tips to where the information might be found.

Yes, exactly, a plot hook.

Notes

A lot of other skills don't make it in - for the most part, because I think those can best be resolved with simple ability checks and some planning. Sleight of Hand counts for this (and has the added bonus of preventing people from looking at their sheet, seeing "Pickpocketing" and going $$__$$). Hunting is basically Tracking that leads to an encounter (or, like modern duck hunting, sitting on your ass until an encounter finds you).

I moved Tinkering from DEX to INT in order to support different "styles" of thievery, and because picking a lock is to my mind much more about thinking about the manner in which the lock is constructed, and how to circumvent its elements, than simply sticking your pick in the right spot.

Crafting

Yes, yes, I haven't been providing a whole lot of context on overall structure. It's my blog. Like I mentioned last time, you can take a Specialization every third level. They're not like classes - you can take a different one each time, etc. There will ultimately be seven, not including change class/alignment, which requires no further explanation.

Anyway, I'm taking a page out of Numenera here:

"Crafting" is a specialization available to Lawful or Neutral characters. Each time you specialize in Crafting, you can put a word into each of the following blanks:

"I can use my [tool] to make [material] into [object]."

Everything else, of course, is dependent on what we know about the real world. This is a mundane, not a magical skill (though if you wish to insert spells, you are free to, so long as you can cast them). Therefore, combinations that obviously don't work, such as "I use my fork to make air into battleships" means nothing more than your character specializes in waving around cutlery and shouting like a madman. Lesser failures are, of course, still failures - you need wood and feathers to make arrows.

The effects are the logical results of attempting to make the object using the named tool and material, which of course means that complex objects will need extra descriptors, and you can build on them with additional specializations. So, you might start with, "I can use my adze to make wood into canoes," then later expand it to "I can use my adze and sewing kit to make wood and hides into (better) canoes." Or you can use additional specializations to learn how to make multiple objects. 

Class System

The above, from Wikipedia, is my class and multiclassing system. It comes from Talysman's post on the three-role class system, which recognizes that there are three basic archetypes inherent in the early game, which also comport with archetypes present in fiction - the fighter, the wizard, the trickster. The fighter approaches problems directly, with force or toughness, the wizard, using magic, and the trickster, indirectly, but without magic - applying her own cleverness and skill.

Therefore, I have:
The Warrior: Receives training in two different weapons per level, and reduces Death and Dismemberment Table rolls by one, per level.
The Mystic: Receives one extra spell die per level, and can craft magic items using a system I have yet to satisfactorily determine.
The Spy: Receives training in climbing or swimming, per level. Receives training in stealth, per level. Begins with literacy in native language, and can use the Lore system to gain knowledge of additional languages or scripts, or otherwise rumors and gossip.

Each of these is one of the "primary" colors - say the Warrior is red, the Mystic is blue, and the Spy is green. Overlap represents a "dual-class" - which I'm constructing to be a fully-fledged class, since that is much clearer and easier to conceptualize than a hyphenated Franken-class. So: between the Warrior and the Mystic is the Warlock, who gains weapon training at the cost of crafting ability. Between the Warrior and the Spy is the Assassin, who retains the weapon use, stealth, and terrain abilities of both classes. And between the Mystic and Spy is the Trickster, which is a stealthy spellcaster.

Obviously, there's no reason to mix between any of the derived classes - there's absolutely no reason to be 1/4 this and 1/3 that, or to pursue any of the more esoteric shades of green. There is, of course, the central mix of all primary colors - the polymath, who is stealthy, gains some weapon abilities, and is a spellcaster.

Incomplete, as usual. But I think I'm going to do away with separated hit die progressions, attack-bonus tables, and definitely with weapon and armor restrictions. That way, each class is as concise as possible, and imposes much less upon your character's stats and abilities.

Mass Combat

So, predictably, I got sidetracked. Currently, I'm working out a system for determining politics inside-out and backwards (literally - I want to figure out how to realistically model power structures but still be able to improvise new ones in play). Of course, as Clausewitz points out, the necessary corollary to politics is war.

The biggest hurdle I see in mass combat is that it presents as, basically, a completely different game. You trade the creature-to-creature brutality of regular fighting for the clinical precision of a battlemap, and you learn new things like facing, movement rates, morale, and discipline. D&D is a first-person game, and you want to retain the ability to slide into your character's head, dump the cowardly peasant battle line, and kill that giant like you know you can. But that doesn't comport with normal mass combat rules.

It doesn't help that clinical precision is itself ahistorical, and also prevents some of the more interesting battle scenarios that tended to happen. In real battles, confused and exhausted soldiers mistook returning scouts for whole new armies, or misinterpreted enemy reinforcements as friendly units, or impulsively charged directly into obvious traps. Nothing like carefully adjudicating facing, distance, and range. Also, nothing like the tedium of tracking precise casualties at each step of the battle. Again, real battles were decided primarily by breaking the enemy's ranks or minds, not physically destroying every opposing combatant. The latter role is, of course, where cavalry actually excelled - as any close-packed infantry line could repulse a cavalry charge, spears or no, so long as it didn't break and flee.

Luckily, real-world generals tended to fight battles in a manner similar to how a D&D player would ideally wish to do the same. They commanded their units ad-hoc, in between leading a charge and forgoing a command perspective in order to get to grips with the enemy. The information they could process was limited and fairly general - and so a mass combat system should be the same.There's no real need to track the precise location of a multitude of different units when historical commanders worried only about the left, flank, the right flank, and the center.

Furthermore, the mass combat system should, as much as possible, stick to the mechanics and statistics used in the basic game. What do we really need to know about our units - and, more importantly, how can we transmit this information along the channels players are already familiar with?

Strength: In my game, I've done away with splitting the melee and ranged AB's, so Strength translates directly to how hard you can hit. So, it means the same for a whole armed unit.

Constitution: Again, in my game, Constitution provides bonuses both hit point gain and the Will save. The latter is more important for a unit - since the intent of battle is to induce the opposing force to rout, Constitution indicates resistance to routing. The unit's discipline is its staying power on the battlefield, just as constitution is the same for the individual.

Dexterity: Dexterity connotes tactile adaptability and the fine manipulation of parts. It also means a defensive bonus in any D&D style game. In battle, the unit's formation determines its resistance to damage, and ability to change formations rapidly reduces the opportunity for catching it off-guard. A dexterous formation presents its toughest face against any attack - much like a dexterous hero taking blows on the hardest parts of her armor. In my system, Dexterity also relates to how many actions you can complete per combat round. Therefore, Dexterity means both defense and mobility, as it does for the normal combat system.

Defense: I replaced AC with "defense" in my own system, modelling armor as damage reduction. It's the same thing here.

Morale: This is the first "independent" stat. It's directly affected by Charisma, and similar to the idea of morale for monsters and henchmen, but I want it to behave differently in battle. The main objective of mass combat is wearing down enemy morale so they'll break and stay broken, rather than enacting a disciplined withdrawal. A unit's morale score thus modifies the results of failed Constitution checks, and is tracked per flank, rather than per unit.

Stamina: In my game, fatigue is treated as additional encumbrance. Since encumbrance is a non-issue in battle (you drop everything at the start, then you either win and everything's safe or you lose and nobody drags along massive bags of gold while being pursued by a bloodthirsty army) it has to be treated substantially differently in mass combat. The difference, and the fact that "higher Fatigue" sounds bad but is good, means I'll call it Stamina. Stamina scores modify a unit's Strength and Dexterity.

And that's basically it. Everything else can basically be added as special rules - cavalry units get the special ability to rapidly redeploy between flanks, heavy armor is a modifer to Dexterity that increases damage resistance but reduces mobility, ranged attacks are given a "near" range and a "far" range, with separate Strengths for each.

Units attack by rolling a d20, adding their Strength modifier, trying to beat enemy Defense. Damage is not directly tracked - at least not now. A hit instead reduces Stamina by one. A critical hit means an officer is killed or ferocious warriors scythe through some significant portion of the enemy line. Reduce Stamina by one and make a Constitution check.

The CON check is 1d20 roll-under. If you fail, roll 2d6 and apply morale modifiers:

2: Destroyed. Deprived of discipline, a significant portion of the unit is destroyed and the rest flee for safety or are simply absorbed by neighboring units. 

3-5: Broken. The unit's will to fight leaves them and they immediately attempt to disengage and leave the battlefield. Move the unit to Reserves and reduce its Stamina by 1d4. Next turn, roll another CON check - if successful, it rallies as a combat unit, and if failed, it leaves the battlefield entirely.

6-8: Retreating. The unit pulls itself out of the battle line and moves to Reserves. Reduce Stamina by 1d4. The unit may return to the front line next turn as normal.

9-11: Shaken. Through hard fighting, the unit manages to reform, though it is now disorganized and exhausted. Reduce Stamina by 1d4. The unit will automatically fail any CON checks it is forced to make next turn. 

12: Counterattack - The unit fights back with such ferocity that it turns the tables! Reduce both units' Stamina by 1d4. 

Whenever a unit is forced out of the battle line, any adjacent units must also roll CON checks, in order to close the gap that is created. Passed checks, obviously, close the gap, while failed ones roll on the above table. Shaken results close the gap, while Counterattacks close it at the cost of 1 stamina, inflicting nothing upon the enemy. 

Tactically withdrawing units also requires CON checks for adjacent units according to the above procedure. The withdrawing unit itself is placed directly into reserves, no rolls required. 

Gaps allow your opponent to commit reserves to gang up on your units. Each unit absent from the line allows two enemy units to enter the gap and roll extra attacks on your units, starting with those on the immediate edges of the gap. Units exploiting holes in the line roll criticals on a 19-20.

You can close gaps by committing extra reserves to engage the excess enemy units, or by opening gaps in the enemy battle line. If you can open two gaps, and engage most of the units in between, you've isolated that segment of the enemy army - your forces can continue ganging up on them even if the enemy plugs the line. They have to be rescued.

Each turn, any flank that has a unit which has failed a CON check must make a 1d20 roll-under Morale check. Pass, and no effect. Fail, reduce Morale by one. Every time an enemy unit is Broken or Annihilated, roll another Morale check - add 1 Morale if passed.

I'm still working on exact rules for positioning, forming up, etc. but the principles are here. Most of the stats are ability-score style, with modifiers. Therefore, the average flank might start with a Morale of 12,  providing no bonuses or penalties. But if four morale checks are failed, and you're knocked back to Morale 8, then the retreats table lurches towards the "annihilated" end. Similarly, a fresh, well-trained unit might have STR 13 and 13 Stamina, which gives a +2 to attack bonuses. Lose 5 Stamina to hard fighting and it's +0. Yes, the Stamina rules mean that armed units have a practically unlimited capacity to slaughter helpless innocents.

The idea is you want to be able to run the battle in the background and give it its own personality. For the most part, it'll be a pretty inconclusive slog, where you slowwly wear down your enemy with little to show. But now and then something interesting happens - with the potential to create devastating cascade effects. Do you commit now? Or do you wait, knowing how dangerous it is to withdraw units?

Of course, the PC's can always dive in and create criticals - assassinating officers, or killing a lot of soldiers. The latter really does have to be a lot - units are considered to be 1,000 men, so you need to get them all to notice for it to count.

Putting NPC Polities into the Toolbox

I think the most important thing is to remember the Magic Number 7, and not have more than 7 things in front of you at once. Since political groups operate in the same way as World NPCs will, they compete with those for the 7 slots of global movers and shakers you can comfortably juggle at a time.

Luckily, for the most part, a World NPC will be aligned or associated with a given political entity, and can be part of the polity's entry. Only extremely charismatic, powerful, or manipulative individuals can be expect to be a global force entirely their own - others, even those having significant disagreements with the polity they participate in, will still be significantly constrained by the preferences of the polity, and should be considered within it, rather than apart from it.

The other type of World NPC that can get away with one of the 7 spots on the front page of your campaign journal is an individual with an absolutely loyal following, or crazy enough to not even go around with much of a following. Generally, these will be necromancers with armies of undead, iron-fisted cult leaders with fewer, but crazier followers, (larger cults with more than one power base will actually behave as normal polities), and lone wacko heroes like Hercules, Arjuna, or the PCs.

Honestly, for the most part, most World NPCs can be replaced by NPC polities. Instead of "King Hendrik of Lyceum," just use "Lyceum." The 7 great powers in your region will be the 7 polities you generate, unless there are 1 or 2 crazy individuals out there who can either compete on their own or are sufficiently unhinged that they can generate their own gravity on the world equal to that of a kingdom.

So, it's time for a few definitions. We want this system to be easy to port into different power levels, and easy to remember - therefore, use fractal design. Up to 7 kingdoms in your continent, each with up to 7 major internal players, each of which has up to 7 of its own major entities.

From here on out, a domain is the "setting level" at which there are up to 7 actors, which are entities both able and willing to meaningfully change the state of a given domain. A domain can be a multiverse, a continent, a kingdom, a city, a region, or even a single hamlet. An actor can be a race, a religion, a kingdom, a political party, a guild, a mercenary band, a cult, a posse, or a family.

(An actor can also be a single individual, but for the most part they will simply be subunits of other actors. Historically, even a king could never rule on his own - he needed the support of a complex network of noble, merchant, and military backers. And this network, of course, would never be completely unified - if necessary, it could be considered a domain all its own. Anyway, if you want, put in individuals as actors rather than subunits of traditional actors whenever you want to, and ignore these rules completely whenever you do so. Unless the individual in question has seven personalities.)

Therefore, each domain has up to 7 actors, each of which is their own domain, with up to 7 smaller actors, which are also domains, and so forth. Each actor uses the the stats described in my previous post:

• Strength: Isolation versus interventionism. 
• Constitution: Pacifism versus militarism. 
• Dexterity: Stasis vs. change.
• Intelligence: Social memory.
• Wisdom: Elitism versus populism.
• Charisma: Xenophobia vs cosmopolitanism.

I suggest beginning with the domain that is one higher than what the PC's will begin acting on. Perhaps more - it is easier to improvise downwards than upwards, since a strange new town they've never heard of before is accepted more easily than the appearance of a strange new empire just a few miles away. Generating this "top-level domain" is the simplest - choose the number of actors you want, roll their stats in order, then write the name, a 1-2 sentence description, and any other notes - important NPCs, controlled subunits and regions, etc. I made a summary sheet with all this inputted. Write down both the stats and the stat bonuses - the latter are important when moving downwards to a lower domain.

For example, the Kingdom of Lyceum is, from the PC's position, the most important entity in my Veil setting. The domain is functionally the World - the "Old Continent" of Estia, and the "New Continent" of Adrastia. There are two other actors on this domain - the Polikan Empire and the Safarran League - but I'll just do Lyceum for now:

STR: 9 (0)

CON: 10 (0)

DEX: 14 (+1)

INT: 8 (-1)

WIS: 8 (-1)

CHA: 12 (0)

As you can see, not particularly extreme in any area, but it is favorably disposed to social change, isn't rooted much in the past, and favors elite rule. I re-rolled the lowest die for STR and CHA, because I already have Lyceum funding exploration and colonization of a New Continent, and that wouldn't jive with scores of 7 and 5 on each of those. However, I do like that neither of those stats is particularly high - perhaps the kingdom is only exploring out of necessity? Or excitement has waned?

Of course, each actor is its own domain, so do this again for each actor. The exact manner in which you execute the next step depends on what the original actor is - most importantly on its centralization. A loosely organized religion might have its internal actors represent different schools of thought, while a rigid cult would have its internal actors representing different direct units. Political actors - such as states or empires - would have a mix of independent internal actors, such as different political parties or social groups, and subordinate ones, like militaries, tax agencies, et cetera.

Importantly, you apply the main actor's stat modifiers to the stats of every smaller actor under its direct control. Sometimes this is done crosswise - if a major actor within a kingdom is an independence movement controlled by a rival kingdom, apply the rival kingdom's stat modifiers. 

Continuing within Lyceum, one of the most important organizations in the Kingdom is the Black Chamber. It began as a cryptographic office and expanded to become a hybrid of magical and philosophical research unit, witch hunter, and spy ring. As its purview has grown, so has its power, and its secrets - both mundane and mystical - shape the entire kingdom's future.

STR: 13 (+1)

CON: 11 (0)

DEX: 9+1= 10 (+0)

INT: 10-1= 9 (-0)

WIS: 8-1=7 (-1)

CHA: 14 (+1)

So, the Black Chamber is fairly interventionist, still fairly elitist, but pretty cosmopolitan. That last might sound strange for a spy group, but remember it's equal parts mage, alchemist, and assassin. Lyceum's stats modified DEX, INT, and WIS to a small degree. Again, record the stat modifiers so they can be applied to any smaller actors the Black Chamber controls. 

Continuing on, Lyceum is a trading state, and thus Lycian merchants are socially and economically powerful, even if their political power is curtailed by the proliferation of trading guilds and shipping companies. 

STR: 11 (0)

CON: 9 (0)

DEX: 8 (-1)

INT: 10 (0)

WIS: 8 (-1)

CHA: 16 (+2)

The merchants are, of course, not under the crown's direct control. They're mildly interventionist, with a mild aversion to fighting, and are actually fairly inflexible and elitist. They're extremely cosmopolitan - I actually fudged this roll, since the first would have given me xenophobic traders - not a contradiction I'm willing to work with at this point. Inflexibility and elitism might seem counterintuitive to some, but this can easily happen if trading is conducted by smaller, entrenched family monopolies, rather than independent explorers.

From here, you can continue on down the line as far as you like. I wouldn't fully generate every actor at every domain level - keeping in mind that its easier to generate downwards rather than upwards, I'd fully generate every actor at the domain the players are starting in and the one immediately above it, and then partially generate one or two lower domains the players will likely come into contact with.

Partial generation involves rolling only the stats that players are likely to hear about from other actors - Charisma and one other stat (probably Strength, Constitution, or Wisdom). Partially generating like this greatly reduces the generation time, and provides enough information to allow incomplete actors to interact with the players from afar, buying you time to roll the other four stats.

The next post, I'll write up how to account for influences - religions, regions, social strata, and changes in command.

Polities as NPCs

The next awesome tool in LS's Campaign Toolbox is the list of World NPCs, basically the few really important people whose actions and goals cause great changes in the nature of the campaign world. Of course, these can't all be individuals, since that would be hoary old Great Man History and poorly reflects the way societies drove and determined their fates. But it's been hard to quickly model sublimated social currents.

I thought, why not use ability scores, like we use for individuals? 3d6 in order, straight up. I got the idea from Europa Universalis III's policy sliders. The major difference from normal ability scores is that "polity ability score" is a continuum - no score is strictly "better" or "worse" - instead it shows what position the polity has on an axis.

• Strength: Isolation versus interventionism. Low scores indicate an unwillingness to become involved in the political affairs of other polities, and high scores indicate eagerness to intervene.
• Constitution: Pacifism versus militarism. The low end doesn't necessarily indicate complete pacifism, just an anemic army and thinking that doesn't lend itself to violent solutions. More militarized polities have conflict as their first choice.
• Dexterity: Conservatism vs progressivism. This measures the polity's rhetoric and goals. Ignore the real-world connotations - Traditionalism means the polity wants what it wants because it believes that society is currently in a better state, progressive polities want to drive forward into that future state. Any desire for change - even "regressive" change - is modeled as "progressivism" here.
• Intelligence: Social memory. Social memory indicates how much the polity retains a sense of its past. This doesn't imply any other positions - a group can have detailed knowledge and many connections to its past, and be determined to move past it, just as much as it can wish a return to a past it knows nothing about. I can think of many real-life examples.
• Wisdom: Elitism versus populism. Fairly self-explanatory - high scores mean the polity fancies itself a champion of the people, and low scores mean they think the people are an ignorant rabble.
• Charisma: Xenophobia vs cosmopolitanism. Again, fairly self-explanatory - and remember that a polity can be cosmopolitan and still isolationist. Differs from Strength in that Strength indicates a willingness to affect other societies, and Charisma indicates the society's willingness to be affected.

I think the biggest advantage with these ability scores is that they - realistically - depict all of the internal contradictions and complexities displayed by real-life polities. You might think that the Xenophobic Interventionist Conservatives with low Social Memory are just four contradictions piled right on top of each other, except for the fact that this group exists.