Social Status and Rank for TL3 High Fantasy Wuxia Campaign

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Ok, it sounds like the bureaucrats are playing a role similar to the church in medieval times, helping manage day to day life and providing law while the nobility is really only concerned with war. The bureaucrats recently expanded their powers during the noble's absence, but now they're back. That makes sense.

The setup is unstable, but the setting is aware of that and using it to its advantage. Good.

I kind of like this analogy. It's not a full on, but it's close.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I'm curious how the campaign can already be started without these sorts of questions being ironed out already.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Probably because if one waited to get every detail nailed down, most campaigns would never get off the ground.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

That's exactly why I'm curious. I want insight into how to get a campaign rolling without having to sort out elements which I would have previously regarded as essential.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

So in this case, I'm guessing the players were guided away from making characters in any of the categories the OP mentions?

Originally Posted by Refplace

No, the characters filled out a survey and campaign direction was focused on that. Politics will come up but most of it did not need to be fully decided before starting. As I said, the Rank or exact Status level, much less point costs and all effects dont need to be set up and play can adjust to circumstances.

So the way I build campaigns is through notional accretion. I start off with the idea of what I want to run - in this case it was "I want to run a high fantasy and wuxia campaign!" Then after I have some stuff planned out - I send out surveys to all my players on exactly what they want to do. It's individual to each team (I have 3 teams with 4-5 players per team). Once I have that information I then combine them into a workable vision and create my campaign "skeleton." All the players then help with the creation of the setting itself through ideas, reveiw, or outright adding stuff to the campaign. Once I have all the stuff needed for the players I just add things as I go. It takes some time - 4-6 months to get everything in place usually - but the campaign becomes a deep living thing the players (hopefully) are invested in.

[ericthered]

Merchants can go up the ladder of power fairly easily since they more or less drive the economy. Crafters provide the means and merchants make sure it gets around.

How big do craftsman organizations become? and who manages their regulation?


Suppose we have a head weaver in a city known for making fine cloth.



Is this person a weaver who has gained the ability to guide and represent the weavers of the city and their association to nobles and bureaucrats? A weaver's child who ended up more skilled at politics?



Or is this person a bureaucrat appointed to manage and regulate weaving, enforcing and enacting regulations? (hopefully for the good of the consumers AND weavers and not just to make himself rich)


Or is this "Head Weaver" actually an aristocrat who has invested heavily in the weaving industry?



This tells you a lot about your civil structure, and also can inform some nice story elements. Abuse of power is a great source of adventures.

[AlexanderHowl]

Or the weavers could have a clan structure, where every weaver is a region belongs to the same clan, and they never marry members of weavers clans from other regions for fear of losing their secrets (similar to feudal Japan). The head weaver would be the matriarch/patriarch of the family, though their appointed heir would handle day-to-day business while the head weaver would handle family concerns and monitor quality of work.

A question, how do you handle marriage/concubinage? For example, pre-modern China allowed men to have up to 121 wives/concubines (1 primary wife, 3 secondary, 9 teritary, 27 quaternary, and 81 quinary). Wealthy and powerful men would sometimes marry a woman as his primary wife and take all of her unmarried female relatives of the equivalent age (sisters, cousins, etc.) as his lesser wives, meaning that she would have an immediate support network. This was actually an improvement compared to before the unification of China, when princes would marry every attractive woman that they could find, to the point where they had so many wives that the only time they slept together was their wedding night.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by ericthered

How big do craftsman organizations become? and who manages their regulation?

Good question. I'm thinking Maybe Rank 6-8. I would exclude Apprentices or just works out of hand. You need to be a journeyman to officially join the guild.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Suppose we have a head weaver in a city known for making fine cloth.


Is this person a weaver who has gained the ability to guide and represent the weavers of the city and their association to nobles and bureaucrats? A weaver's child who ended up more skilled at politics?

Could be both I suppose.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Or is this person a bureaucrat appointed to manage and regulate weaving, enforcing and enacting regulations? (hopefully for the good of the consumers AND weavers and not just to make himself rich)

I'm thinking that they are there to make sure the product doesn't run out and have control over weaving. But now that you mention it, I'm not sure.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Or is this "Head Weaver" actually an aristocrat who has invested heavily in the weaving industry?

I don't see a problem with this. You could be a noble who weaves or even a weaver who was good enough to become a noble.

Originally Posted by ericthered

This tells you a lot about your civil structure, and also can inform some nice story elements. Abuse of power is a great source of adventures.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Or the weavers could have a clan structure, where every weaver is a region belongs to the same clan, and they never marry members of weavers clans from other regions for fear of losing their secrets (similar to feudal Japan). The head weaver would be the matriarch/patriarch of the family, though their appointed heir would handle day-to-day business while the head weaver would handle family concerns and monitor quality of work.

That's not a bad idea either.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A question, how do you handle marriage/concubinage? For example, pre-modern China allowed men to have up to 121 wives/concubines (1 primary wife, 3 secondary, 9 teritary, 27 quaternary, and 81 quinary). Wealthy and powerful men would sometimes marry a woman as his primary wife and take all of her unmarried female relatives of the equivalent age (sisters, cousins, etc.) as his lesser wives, meaning that she would have an immediate support network. This was actually an improvement compared to before the unification of China, when princes would marry every attractive woman that they could find, to the point where they had so many wives that the only time they slept together was their wedding night.

I think I'm going to allow up to five and then however many concubines the husband can afford with his wealth and status. Women have a Social Stigma in the setting, but they also have several protected rights. They can't be forced to marry for example. That's a departure from history, but I don't think people playing female characters should suffer unduly because history says this or that. It's a game. It's meant to be fun.

[ericthered]

So you want as many competing hierarchies claiming control over the same stuff as possible? The silk market regulator AND the silk guild-master AND the great silk trader all stuffed into one town?

That could work if you're looking for conflict between them.

EDIT: oh, I forgot the head of the silk-weaver's clan

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by ericthered

So you want as many competing hierarchies claiming control over the same stuff as possible? The silk market regulator AND the silk guild-master AND the great silk trader all stuffed into one town?

That could work if you're looking for conflict between them.

EDIT: oh, I forgot the head of the silk-weaver's clan

That's a really good point. I'm not sure what I want exactly but I don't think that's it. Hmmm.

[AlexanderHowl]

The best arrangement would likely be the silk-farmers clan, the silk-weavers clan, and the silk merchant clan, each with its own regulator/tax collector. In that case, you avoid vertical monopolies and have a regulator at each step (the regulator would get a share of the tax produced at their step of regulation).