Lone Wolf Fists: Serfdom in the post-apocalypse

"Managing societal resources" is a boring part of any game; so boring that only hopeless pedants like myself ever pay any attention to it. It's an abstraction of an abstraction of something so hideously tedious and boring that they pay people to do it. You didn't come here to do your accounting homework; you came here to breath fire on a scorpion demon.

The exact accountancy is dull, but what it represents is not. When you're painfully counting every bean from the last reluctant harvest from dead soil, you're deciding life and death for the starving survivors which are your only family and the last hope for a future for humankind.

That is great stuff! But here's been the challenge that's eaten me for this last month: how do you make that not boring?

There were two works which I kept firmly in mind as I traveled in this deep, shadowy country:
1) The Mandate of Heaven system from the Exalted storyteller's companion (2nd edition)
2) The Domain rules from the Adventurer Conqueror King System

One is a gold standard, one is a cautionary tale. Here's some things I discovered as to why, while I was creating my own game's system:

Lesson #1: Don't firewall. The Mandate of heaven is basically a separate game that you play that has nothing to do with the RPG that it's designed for. You define your dominion, play between "real" sessions, and it "generates plots" but otherwise doesn't in any way intersect with the game.

Fire-walling like this made the entire exercise pointless; what, you think I can't write down the phrase "trade war" on my own, Exalted? Pretty sure getting ideas wasn't a problem that needed a subsystem to solve.

ACKS on the other hand, has you conquer a tract of land (represented by a hex on the campaign map), clear it out of monsters, build a castle (that is your actual-factual castle, that you can stock with stuff or use to defend you kingdom or what have you), build towns, attract peasants and followers, and have them work to get you GOOOOOOOOOLD. Real, spendable, XP-bearing GOOOOLD. It's a central attraction of the entire system, and one that players get to do things with. 

If you did all this stuff in your Exalted game, it would get abstracted into a pile of dots on an unattractive, truncated character sheet and relegated to a part of the system that is totally independent of playing the game. Blech. Don't firewall kids.

Lesson #2: Keep it simple. Really simple. To do something in Mandate, you choose what is essentially a charm-based action and duke it out in a multi-step combat framework with a rival domain. It's complex, clunky, time consuming, and every step is so alienated from actual in-game events that there's no way to actually describe what's happening outside of the abstraction's framework. You do (something?) with (something?) trying to accomplish (something?) and that results in (something?).

In ACKS, you get gold from you place during downtime. How much gold? Population X Land's Bounty. You need to spend some money to upkeep this. How much money? Population X How dangerous the land is. You never touch the dice; you work this stuff out, and it makes gold happen. Bam the end.

(Okay, you might touch dice, but it's to see if the peasants are revolting, which is awesome) 

The simpler system is more concrete, direct, and SIMPLE god its just so wonderfully SIMPLE. It's a small player-work extension from tracking follower upkeep to domain upkeep; this makes it desirable by players, since they don't have to learn a completely alien system from the ground up and their reward is in GOOOOLD. 

Lesson #3: Give them a reason to care. I can't stress enough how important the rewards are: you get level-boosting GOLD, you get a headquarters, you get new options for espionage and theft, you get the ability to make powerful magic items and cast the most powerful spells... ACKS is a high water mark in game design, not just because it ties advancement to broadening the scope of the game but because this broadening of scope give rise logically to the setting of the game.

In Mandate, players spin their wheels in a pointless, disconnected minigame and their reward is that they get to participate in the generation of the GM's plots. Note that they should already have this power, because they are playing a roleplaying game as the most powerful beings within it. If they're not already generating more steam for the game than you can handle, you've already failed at living up to the promise of Exalted

Anyway, go check out ACKS, it's worth your time. Also here are the Populace and Resource rules.

....

Populaces

Not every random NPC a character meets is “Follower material”; sometimes they’re just a huddled, frightened and starving mass of post-apocalypse survivors. However, even such pathetic wretches might swear their loyalty to a powerful PC; what’s a hero to do with these noncombatant slobs?

Well, you put them to work, of course!

Populaces who swear allegiance to a character are more abstracted than proper followers and are hence easier to track. They’re represented by only two stats: Population (which is just their total headcount), and a Loyalty score: that’s it.

A character may put a Populace to work, leveraging any available resources with their hard labor. The exact resources and the amount produced depends on the fertility of the land or the productivity of its factories; this is fully explored under Resource (p.XX).

Populaces are unskilled laborers: They farm, or scavenge, or pull levers, or otherwise perform relatively simple tasks for their lords.

To produce works of art, industry and science, more skillful labor is required. This is handled by the Intellect Mechanics. (p.XX)

Growth and decline

Populaces expand and shrink over time, due to immigration, plague, starvation, and (rarely, in the fallen world) healthy live births.

Decline: At the end of any scene in which the Populace endures a hardship (famine, plague, war, etc.), check for population decline.

Roll 1d10, interpreted as follows:

• Minor hardship: The d10 represents number of persons lost. Decrease Loyalty by 1.
• Significant hardship: The d10 is the percentage of the population lost, resulting in between 1-10% lost. Round up to the next whole person. Decrease Loyalty by d5.
• Major hardship: The d10 is multiplied by 10%, resulting in between 10-100% of the population lost, rounding up to the closest whole person. Decrease Loyalty by d10.

Every time a Populace suffers losses, roll 1d10 for each named, 0-Degree NPC the players have met within that Populace; on a roll of 1, they died in the hardship.

***CALLOUT BOX*** Math nerds may note that, for a Populace of precisely 10 people, these results are identical, while for populations below 10, the more severe hardships are technically beneficial. We recommend simply adopting the “lowest” penalty of 1d10 persons lost, while keeping the more severe Loyalty drain, in these edge cases. Feel free to use this as an excuse to push your tiny Populaces to the breaking point. ***END***

Growth: At the end of any scene in which the Populace is adequately fed, housed and cared for, check for population growth.

• Surviving: Roll 1d10 and grow the population by that many persons. Increase Loyalty by 1.
• Thriving: If the Populace produces more than they need and doesn’t choose to save it, but to immediately consume it, then they are Thriving. Roll 1d10, multiply the result by 10, and grow the population by that many persons. Increase Loyalty by 1d5

Growth represents previously ill, weak or young persons becoming healthy and able-bodied, as well as the trickle of immigrants and healthy births that prosperous civilizations draw in the future’ graveyard.

Growth rates are slower than decline rates: this is the post-apocalypse, after all.

The best insurance of growth is absorbing a new Populace into an existing one. This might be a result of peaceful cooperation, or a bloody military conquest. The result is identical: The Populace grows.

However, whenever an alien culture is absorbed into a Populace, the larger of the two Populaces becomes the new dominant culture. In addition to whatever effect this has in the Tactical Infinity, this means that the largest Populace’s Loyalty becomes the new aggregate Populace’s Loyalty.

Example: Nuke decides to absorb the vanquished serfs of Seven Sorrows Raven to her gang of desert raiders. The Serfs have a Population of 140, while Nuke’s gang has a Population of 23. Nuke’s followers previously had a Loyalty of 9, but the Serfs have a pitiful Loyalty of 2. Nuke’s gang struggles to contain the unrest of the serfs, and the entire Populace’s Loyalty drops to 2.

Loyalty may grow if a culture of fanatics is absorbed. Fanatics, unfortunately, tend to bring significant cultural baggage with them.

Sustaining Populaces

People need to eat, and they need clean water to survive.

Food is important to a Populace, for obvious reasons: just like other characters, Populaces must eat once per Montage scene to survive. However, because they are accustomed to living on scraps, they can be fed less than their number might indicate.

• If fed less than ¼ of their Population, they begin dying of starvation. This is a Major Hardship.
• If fed more than ¼ but less than ½ population, they become hungry and miserable, but survive. This is a Significant Hardship
• If fed more than ½ but less total Population, they are underfed but subsist. This is a Minor Hardship.
• If fed equal to or over total Population, they are well-fed and satisfied (in lieu of other disasters, this grows their population, as outlined in Growth and Decline above)

Water however is more vital: Populaces which do not receive water rations equal to the Population sicken and die. This is always a Major Hardship.

Getting food and water is covered under Resources (p.XX)

Resources

Wars are fought over the scarce resources remaining to the World of Ashes and Ghosts. This section will give your characters reasons to fight those wars.

Places and Resources: Nodes

Resources reside in places, called Nodes; most Fields are too small to have more than one (if they have any at all), but Tracts and larger areas typically have Nodes. The larger the area, the more geographic space it encompasses, and the more Nodes it generally has.

The description of an area often provides clues to what Resource Nodes it contains (or doesn’t… barren, irradiated wastes don’t much to offer).

Types of Resource Nodes

Resource Nodes might be harvested, mined, manufactured; any kind of labor or industry is possible. There are broadly three types of Node:

• Limited Nodes have a finite sum of resources, which is extracted by labor. After their resources are extricated, they are depleted. Gold deposits in a mountainside are an example of a Limited Resource.
• Renewable Nodes regenerate their Resources given time. They are harvested for their bounty then renew unless overtaxed. Produce crops are an example of a Renewable Node.
• Manufacturing Nodes are factories of some variety. They combine the raw materials provided by Limited and Renewable Nodes into useful things. Automobile assembly lines, pharmaceutical laboratories, and bullet factories are all examples of Manufacturing Nodes.

Attributes of a Node

Below are all the attributes that define nodes. Every node has some of these, but not every node has them all. For example, a farmer’s field wouldn’t have a Deposit, but it might have a Limit.

• Resource: The specific resource produced by the node. Might have several: forests produce timber, for example, but might produce meat from hunting
• Productivity: The number of finished resources created per worker, per work scene
• Limit: The maximum amount of resources that can be produced per work scene
• Deposit: The total amount of resources present within the node. Once harvested, the node is depleted; for example, a “mined out” gold mine, or a dry oil well
• Cost: The amount of fuel needed to run the node’s productive faculties. Gasoline to run a factory’s engines, for example
• Size: The amount of space taken up by the node. A sprawling peat bog might be the size of a Domain, while a single oil well might be as small as a Field

Scavenging and subsisting

Two resources are of vital importance in the World of Ashes and Ghosts: Food and Water. Almost every population center is built around water and food producing nodes. Once these have a surplus of goods which can be saved, Populaces gradually expand their work to include non-vital operations; mining out gold or drilling for oil or rousing ancient factories into life. Societies of this level of stability become powerful in the graveyard of the world.

To represent this scrabble, a Populace may, in lieu of more profitable labor, Scavenge an area for food and water. This follows these steps:

1.    Scouting. During this step, lean-bellied scouts survey the area for food and water. Surveying a Field can be done with 10 or less people; for every greater category of land surveyed, increase either the number requirement by a factor of ten (100 for a Tract, 1000 for a Domain, etc). Or the time spent surveying by a factor of 5 (5 scenes for a Tract, 25 for a domain, etc.)

2.    Discovery. Scouting reveals every obvious resource node available in the area.

3.    Scrounging. The populace does everything in their immediate power to harvest, hunt, scrape, ration, and otherwise efficiently feed their hungry people. This allows them to survive on starvation rations with only a Minor Hardship, or any greater amount with no hardship as they bend their full skill to survival.

4.    Surplus. If they do happen to discover more than they need to survive, they can save their surplus. This might be used for future scenes of scrounging, but could also serve as the basis to feed them while they work on something more lucrative than mere subsistence.

Using a Node

At the beginning of any Montage scene, a player may direct a Populace under their control to work a Node that they occupy. For example, they might be directed to run a recently discovered oil rig, or sow and plow a rare stretch of arable land. This follows these steps:

1.    Nourishment: Populaces must be given adequate food and potable water before they begin working. Populations suffering a Major Hardship are too distressed to work this scene.

2.    Fuel: If the node requires fuel, then you must spend the type and amount it requires in this step.

3.    Work: The populace uses their muscles and performs the “unskilled” labor of tilling fields, casting fishing nets, pulling levers in a factory, or some similar task. This takes the entire Montage scene

4.    Production: Every worker produces one “unit” of the node’s Resource. If the Productivity attribute is greater than 1, it acts as a multiplier to this labor. For example, Productivity 2 would allow every worker to produce two units. You can’t produce more than the Limit, or the Deposit, whichever is smallest

Resources and Trade

You just produced a huge pile of bullets from your bullet factory: awesome! Now what? You can use them to load all those guns your followers keep insisting on, true. You could even stockpile them, so that you might use them to shoot future threats (also a great idea). But, since you’ve got such a massive ammunition surplus, you could also trade some bullets for something else you want or need.

Neighboring areas can trade at the beginning or end of any Montage scene; they move the goods quickly and safely to their bordering trade partners.

Moving loads of resources longer distances requires them to be appropriately transported (using trucks, sleds, or some other method of moving things). This follows the normal travel rules, but of course invites danger en route. This is naturally a perfect setting for some post-apocalyptic martial-arts heroics.

Nodes and the Shared Mindspace

You might be asking “What is the point of all of this?”: Good question: at its core, this system exists to give a timeframe, cost, and logistic underpinning to the activities of post-apocalypse survivors trying to build societies and defend their food and other resources. That’s it. You can use it for a lot of things, though.

Maybe you’re nutty and want to provide your population with sweater vests (I’m not at your table, I don’t know what weird crap you get up to). Maybe you want to mass-produce guns and bullets to arm your followers (that’s a little more in-genre in my opinion, but you do you sweater vest guy). This system lets you do that in a structured way.

It also forces your kung-fu superhero to defend these peoples, places and things from threats. You’re not the only warlord that could use access to a goldmine as a monetary underpinning to your burgeoning society.

Alternatively, maybe you’re the threat. You can attack a powerful foe through setting fire to their wheat fields, instead of engaging in open battle. Cripple their people’s food supply and you can undermine their empire without ever throwing a punch.

This system brings these elements into the game in a way that can matter to players.