Using the Pathfinder Kingdom Building rules with GURPS

[Jürgen Hubert]

Sadly, GURPS doesn't really have any rules for running a nation (though those would probably be far too complex anyway), so those of us who want to do something like this have to resort to other rules.

In my campaign, I plan on using the Kingdom Building rules for Pathfinder, which have the advantage that they are available for free online. My goal was not to convert these rules to GURPS, but to provide an "interface" between the two systems - so the charcters will be GURPS characters, but whenever rules matters move to the Kingdom level we'd be using the Pathfinder rules.

One important interface concerns the "roles" in the government of the nation. Normally, each role gives boni to one or more "kingdom attributes", depending on a specific attribute modifier of the character filling the role (as well as a lesser bonus from an appropriate proficiency). Since GURPS is a skill-based system, I decided to base these bonuses on the character’s skills instead.

It works like this: Each role has three associated skills. For the purpose of calculating kingdom attribute boni, the character picks the best of the three skill. If the role is filled by an NPC (which is likely - there are too many roles for them to be all filled by player characters), or the player is absent, then the bonus depends on the skill level - a +1 bonus for each two skill levels above 10 (i.e. +1 for a skill level of 12, +2 for 14, and so forth).

For (present) player characters, the bonus is calculated each month anew based on a skill roll:

Critical Failure: The role suffers the penalty for being “unoccupied”, and Interesting Things happen.
Ordinary Failure: +0
Success: +1 bonus, with a further +1 for each 2 points of Margin of Success.
Critical Success: +3 on top of the bonus for an ordinary success.

The roles and their associated skills are:

Ruler: Administration, Leadership, Politics
Consort: Diplomacy, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire (High Society)
Councilor: Current Affairs (Own Nation), Politics, Propaganda
General: Savoir-Faire (Military), Soldier, Strategy
Grand Diplomat: Current Affairs (other nations), Diplomacy, Intelligence Analysis
Heir: Diplomacy, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire (High Society)
High Priest: Propaganda, Public Speaking, Theology
Magister: Administration, Research, Teaching
Marshal: Area Knowledge, Intelligence Analysis, Law
Royal Enforcer: Criminology, Law, Interrogation
Spymaster: Cryptography, Intelligence Analysis, Streetwise
Treasurer: Accounting, Economics, Market Analysis
Viceroy: Administration, Leadership, Politics
Warden: Criminology, Law, Streetwise

Note: I intend to add two skills to each of these lists, and turn them into a Talent appropriate for each role. Do you have any suggestions on what skills to add?


For conversion purposes, each Build Point is equal to 4,000 gp… which is equal to 40,000 GURPS $/silver pieces.

Not included in the original campaign are salaries - the PCs draw salaries depending on their Wealth levels and pay according to their Social Status. The ruler of the smallest nation should probably start out as Social Status 2 (town mayor), and the characters with other roles should likely have a Social Status one level lower. In my campaign, I gave the PCs an additional 10 points in the Wealth advantage, and Social Status for free - and the non-ruler PCs got additional character points to spend on social advantage to compensate for their lower status. Each player could decide whether they wanted their wages to be “formal” (i.e. fixed monthly income) or “informal” (i.e. variable monthly income). Their job roll is based on the lowest of their three role-associated skills.

The players also asked me if they could fill out two rolls at once at the beginning of the game if they spent 14 day each month on running things, instead of 7 like the rules suggest. I allowed this, but enforced a -1 penalty for each hex grid field (defined as a hex with a distance of 10 miles from side to side) the nation has, which means that if they expand they will want to hire some additional guys in a hurry.

Finally, to encourage their megalomaniac tendencies, I promised the players one additional character point for each 2 hex grid fields they incorporate into their nation, to be spent on social advantages only (including Wealth).


What do you think of this conversion?

[Qhaysh]

This looks great! I look forward to updates about how the actual game plays out! I'll be sure to test it with my group as soon as I get a chance.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Sadly, GURPS doesn't really have any rules for running a nation

I think I've asked this before, but what about City Stats and the city management rules in Pyramid #54?

[Qhaysh]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I think I've asked this before, but what about City Stats and the city management rules in Pyramid #54?

I've tried going this route a couple of times, but couldn't make it scale very well (my fault, evidently), and it quickly became too complicated. I'd pay a lot for something official, as I'm sure many would. *nudge nudge wink wink*

[McAllister]

I'm one of those people Qhaysh is talking about. Sure, we've got city management rules, and farm-management rules, and mass-combat rules, and do any of them actually mesh with each other on a campaign scale? Grand Unified Kingdom Generation and Running would be money out of my pocket.

In the mean time, Jurgen's goal might not to be to convert these free rules (thanks Paizo!) to GURPS, but I just might... Anyway, my first comment is that almost all of these roles are administrators, so I'd say that Administration can be a complementary skill on any roll that isn't against Administration. So, add Admin to the skill list for most of the roles it's not on, and to flesh it out...

Ruler: Administration, Current Affairs (Several), Leadership, Politics, Public Speaking
Consort: Administration, Diplomacy, Housekeeping, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire (High Society)
Councilor: Administration, Current Affairs (Own Nation), Politics, Propaganda, Sociology
General: Administration, Tactics, Savoir-Faire (Military), Soldier, Strategy
Grand Diplomat: Current Affairs (other nations), Diplomacy, Intelligence Analysis, Politics, Savoir-Faire (Several)
Heir: Administration, Diplomacy, Leadership, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire (High Society)
High Priest: Administration, Propaganda, Public Speaking, Religious Ritual, Theology
Magister: Administration, Research, Teaching, Writing... Speed Reading or Savoir-Faire (Academia)? Something focused in a field?
Marshal: Administration, Area Knowledge, Intelligence Analysis, Law, Survival
Royal Enforcer: Criminology, Law, Intimidation, Interrogation, Streetwise
Spymaster: Administration, Acting, Cryptography, Intelligence Analysis, Streetwise
Treasurer: Accounting, Administration, Economics, Finance*, Market Analysis
Viceroy: As Leader
Warden: Administration, Criminology, Law, Savoir-Faire (Commoners), Streetwise

*Finance is probably better than Economics for the original. "It is a practical application of Economics (p. 189), much as Engineer skill is a practical application of Physics."

[nondescript handle]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

I think I've asked this before, but what about City Stats and the city management rules in Pyramid #54?

City Stats is very good at what it does (describing cities/settlements carefully designed by the GM), and I think it can be expanded to a more general system. But it is quite hard and frustrating to do so ad hoc for an GM. This is really more a task for a game designer and a playtest group.

Scaling City Stats down (i.e. for city quarters) is the easiest, but it relies heavily on GM fiat (e.g. what is the combined Corruption Rating? The average of all quarters? The one of the government quarter?).

Scaling City Stats up for nations is much harder. E.g. in City Stats you just pick a number for the population and there are some vague hints about the area this city then covers (CS p. 12). In nation building you often have the area first and have to come up with an appropriate population number. I bolted on the Carring Capacity rules from Space p. 91, but those are very granular and incorporating Environmental Quality ratings would make a big difference especially at low TLs.
I would also like some kind of system for natural resources (e.g. silver mines, etherwood forests, etc) and other physical/social features (natural harbors, way point at the silk road, etc).
And the RAW system of 'taxes depend on CR, CR depends heavily on Society Type' is a bit constricting for players and too granular for domain play.

Also: player often want to build their domains, since they are basically an extension of the PCs. A build system would be of great help: 'You have 100 City Build Points/12M$/whatever to build your barony, normal mana only, max TL3!'

On the other hand GMs often need to come up with several NPC-domains, so a random city/domain creation table would be GM-stress reducing.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by nondescript handle

Also: player often want to build their domains, since they are basically an extension of the PCs. A build system would be of great help: 'You have 100 City Build Points/12M$/whatever to build your barony, normal mana only, max TL3!'

This is why I'm pulling for that Grand Unified Kingdom Generation and Running ruleset. I can pretend to be a game designer and a playtest group, but I'd love for the professionals to do it.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Well, the other reason why I am using the Pathfinder Kingdom Building rules is that while I am running most of this campaign with GURPS, I want to eventually release it as a Pathfinder product.

But yeah, a nation-building system for GURPS would be of huge interest to me as well.

[Dragondog]

It might work to run a Kingdom, but as each plot is 750 by 750 square feet, creating a small town seem to give results that doesn't fit with the small fantasy towns I've seen created for RPGs.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

It might work to run a Kingdom, but as each plot is 750 by 750 square feet, creating a small town seem to give results that doesn't fit with the small fantasy towns I've seen created for RPGs.

The population for a fully occupied district - one square mile - is about 9,000 people.

And now I am wondering: What is the population density for pseudo-medieval towns?