03-25-2018, 09:43 PM | #21 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
Likewise. I've found that modifying the productivity achievable without magic is a comfortable abstraction.
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03-26-2018, 01:07 AM | #22 |
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Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
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03-26-2018, 01:33 AM | #23 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
I'd make it a section of a chapter at most, or at the least a sidebox. It's not going to be part of basic AtE, most historical settings, or even most sci-fi settings, but if you're putting in a bit of fantasy farming an acknowledgement of the effects of hedge magic - and here I'd go not only with spells-as-skills magic but also Path/Book, RPM, Syntactic, and Powers-based (ala Divine Favor) magic as well.
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03-26-2018, 01:35 AM | #24 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
For me I would want the following.
Maybe toss in a few prebuilt spells but you could just explain the effects of certain existing spells, powers and limited technologies (tractors, fertilizer) could have if they covered enough area or man days. Some of this is in Urban Magics.
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03-26-2018, 05:18 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
I think that something like that original thread would make a very useful book! I find an explanation of the issues in general terms more useful than trying too hard to create a detailed game model. Knowing that the weak spot in a given system is salinization, or the motors powering pumps for the canals, or a dietary deficiency is useful: trying too hard to get precise numbers and game mechanics out of ambiguous data does not add as much. Knowing that a given system can support on the order of a thousand people is useful, trying to decide whether the actual limit is 830 or 2400 is folly.
Quote:
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03-27-2018, 02:05 AM | #26 |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
I'd really like a system that were you can input the size of your group, and the environment and then tells you what's nessissery for that group to sustain itself by farming. Once those essentials are obtained the GM can make appropriate rolls adjusted by a list of modifiers. Things like "has tractor, +2" or " irradiated soil, -4" if the roll succeds the settlement is fed for a length of time.
If it fails you"d apply the margin of failure to anther table and figure out what's gone wrong. Maybe there just isn't enough to go around and people die, maybe the crop was tainted and everyone is alive, but ill. I'm thinking back to fallout 2 were you leave the village to obtain the McGuffen that'll solve the crop issues. Instead of just setting an arbitrary peroid of time, the GM could use the above system for a more organic decline. It could also make it easier for the PCs to find mitigating factors that while not solving the issue give bonuses to the settlements rolls and give the PCs more time. |
03-28-2018, 04:48 AM | #27 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
Ok, progress has been made, it's not a fast project whatever form it ends up in. I did three hours on wheat (TL8) research last night for example.
I looked at extending the crop table from Low tech 3 but there are just too many variables to make it meaningful. I think I have a solid formula to use instead, now I have to research the numbers that will be plugged into it. The big thing so far is balancing detail with abstraction.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
03-28-2018, 02:07 PM | #28 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
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03-28-2018, 08:25 PM | #29 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
Another question that has come to mind, What not to include?
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
03-29-2018, 03:15 PM | #30 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds
I'd recommend you leave off trade, and don't spend much time on cash crops, just yet. Stick to subsistence, for your first effort. Also, probably take a bye on exotic husbandry; I 'd focus on traditional livestock -- yer basic chickens, pigs, sheep and goats; beef cattle, dairy cows, and oxen breeds; donkeys, mules, draft horses and riding horses.
About the only "utility" crops I'd look at are hemp and flax. They're just too useful, for all sorts of purposes. Cotton and tobacco strip the soil, but flax seems okay. eiha.org/media/2014/10/Ecological-benefits-of-hemp-and-flax-cultivation-and-products-2011.pdf
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