[ACKS] Adventurer Conqueror King System

[Havard]

A new RPG system which looks back to both Arneson and Gygax' visions for the ultimate fantasy system:

http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/20 ... -king.html

I know some of you have already found out about it. What are your thoughts?

Edit: More details here: http://muleabides.wordpress.com/2011/07 ... eror-king/

-Havard

[Tavis]

Thinking about what players could do in the original Blackmoor Campaign, from wilderness exploration to barony building and management to special interests, and how to support that for modern gamers has been a major impetus in the design, and we have a "Dave Arneson" tag in our publishing blog to highlight posts where we're specifically taking on his ideas: http://www.autarch.co/tag/dave-arneson/

[Havard]

Thinking about what players could do in the original Blackmoor Campaign, from wilderness exploration to barony building and management to special interests, and how to support that for modern gamers has been a major impetus in the design, and we have a "Dave Arneson" tag in our publishing blog to highlight posts where we're specifically taking on his ideas: http://www.autarch.co/tag/dave-arneson/

That is going to be very useful when keeping an eye on what you guys are up to!

Since the First Fantasy Campaign undervalued the value of a peasant, the First Fantasy Campaign had to set its population densities vastly in excess of historical standards, which was necessary to provide sufficient funds for the players to field appropriate sized armies. Meanwhile the D&D Cyclopedia has population densities vastly below historical standards, which was necessary because D&D Cyclopedia has undervalued how much armies cost. Put another way, First Fantasy Campaign has densely packed countrysides filled with inefficient farmers paying the wages of dirt-cheap soldiers; while D&D Cyclopedia has empty countrysides filled with standard medieval farmers in just sufficient numbers to pay the wages of dirt-cheap soldiers.

I wonder if this in fact was a mistake from Dave, or if it rather could be a setting statement. Life in the Northern Marches was harsh and farming there with shifting weather, swamplands and harsh winters would in fact make those farmers so inefficient...?

-Havard

[Tavis]

I wonder if this in fact was a mistake from Dave, or if it rather could be a setting statement. Life in the Northern Marches was harsh and farming there with shifting weather, swamplands and harsh winters would in fact make those farmers so inefficient...?

If anyone would know, it's aldarron. His back and forth with Alex in the blog comments was fascinating but a little over my head - fortunately I'll see each of them in person and have it explained to me!

On the one hand, I am reluctant to think Dave was wrong, especially since lots of other things about the ways that his medieval framework does hold together emerged during our work and that of others like ckutalik at Hill Cantons and bargle at Dragonsfoot. On the other hand, I remember Darlene at Gary Con talking about how she used to go a long way to the university library to get the one book that had pictures of unicorns. Compared to the desert it was like back then, we swim in vast oceans of data. It's not inconceivable to think that the one book Dave could find with figures on mercenary prices was representative of a different period or setting than the one book on farm yields. And of course, even with a comparable wealth of data people can still disagree on what it means, much less how to represent it in a game.

[Havard]

Bargle at DF mentioned that ACKS has level limits, with most classes maxing out at 14th, while some classes end before that? Is this true? I'm really hoping not...

-Havard

[Tavis]

Bargle at DF mentioned that ACKS has level limits, with most classes maxing out at 14th, while some classes end before that? Is this true? I'm really hoping not...

Yes, in this regard it's more B/X than B/E/C/M/I. The focus of the core system is on presenting an integrated economy, in which a 14th level character is the best in the known world and rules an appropriately-sized domain. Characters in play might well transcend this limit, but that's beyond the scope of the initial book.

Tell me more about what you're hoping for, Havard; this time I have clicked 'notify me when a reply is posted' so I will not be so late in replying!

[aldarron]

Since the First Fantasy Campaign undervalued the value of a peasant, the First Fantasy Campaign had to set its population densities vastly in excess of historical standards, which was necessary to provide sufficient funds for the players to field appropriate sized armies.

I wonder if this in fact was a mistake from Dave, or if it rather could be a setting statement. Life in the Northern Marches was harsh and farming there with shifting weather, swamplands and harsh winters would in fact make those farmers so inefficient...?

-Havard

I should take the time to look at that a bit more, but it will take some digging and calculating. Thing is I'm not sure about Alex's figures regarding population density and I should ask him how he calculated that. Part of the issue is the size of the area, and who lives where, and what time period we're talking about. Since the costs and so forth of peasants and soldiers are early FFC material it makes sense to look at the FFC Blackmoor data too for what Dave had in mind. The FFC FACTS ABOUT BLACKMOOR: gives 4,346 sq miles and lists the population as 1000 peasants, 100 nobles and soldiers, 4 wizards, 100 elves and some monsters.

Being generous and rounding that up to 1300 people, that gives a pop density of 30 persons per square mile. That's a reasonable figure. If you compare to medieval Ireland, which is estimated to have had a population of around 500,000 in the early medieval period and around 900,000 in the high medieval period, at 32599 sq mi., you have pop density there at between 25 to 28 people per sq mi.


So, without really trying to dig into the other figures given or other calculations from later maps and so forth, Dave's population figures seem fine to me.

Blackmoor in the army list is said to have an annual income of 35,000. That's a good bit more than one could get from just farming.

It's possible Alex didn't calculate the pop density but was just working off the value of a peasant and assuming that was the major sorce of funding for nobles, etc., but that would be a serious mistake since there should have been addditional sources of income Dave intended (his list of improvements, for ex) and its also possible the nobles were intended to be recieving imperial support. I dunno.

[Havard]

Bargle at DF mentioned that ACKS has level limits, with most classes maxing out at 14th, while some classes end before that? Is this true? I'm really hoping not...

Yes, in this regard it's more B/X than B/E/C/M/I. The focus of the core system is on presenting an integrated economy, in which a 14th level character is the best in the known world and rules an appropriately-sized domain. Characters in play might well transcend this limit, but that's beyond the scope of the initial book.

Tell me more about what you're hoping for, Havard; this time I have clicked 'notify me when a reply is posted' so I will not be so late in replying!

Sorry it took me so long to respond to this message. What I like about the OSR in general is revisiting good ideas that may have been forgotten along the way in the urge to push out new editions. What I dislike is the revisiting of bad ideas. Granted this is all subjective, but level limits is in my opinion the mother of bad ideas.

Now I can understand the decision to stop at 14th level. A rulebook will always have limited space, and some things can be saved for possible expansions. That said, what made me cringe was the suggestion that while humans would not progress beyond 14th level, demihumans met their level limit long before that.

That said, I am still interested in the book. I really like what I am hearing about dominion style play. Also the idea of Thieves being able to use their followers in new ways sounds really interesting. I am hoping each class will get a similar treatment with new options.

It would be interesting to see Magic-Users get rules for using apprentices to assist research and the gathering of spell components and perhaps even group casting of spells?

For Clerics, it would be interesting to see rules for building religious organizations.

Am I hoping for too much?

-Havard

[aldarron]

Bargle at DF mentioned that ACKS has level limits, with most classes maxing out at 14th, while some classes end before that? Is this true? I'm really hoping not...

Yes, in this regard it's more B/X than B/E/C/M/I. The focus of the core system is on presenting an integrated economy, in which a 14th level character is the best in the known world and rules an appropriately-sized domain. Characters in play might well transcend this limit, but that's beyond the scope of the initial book.

Tell me more about what you're hoping for, Havard; this time I have clicked 'notify me when a reply is posted' so I will not be so late in replying!

Sorry it took me so long to respond to this message. What I like about the OSR in general is revisiting good ideas that may have been forgotten along the way in the urge to push out new editions. What I dislike is the revisiting of bad ideas. Granted this is all subjective, but level limits is in my opinion the mother of bad ideas.

It would be interesting to see your reasoning on this. I'm thinking the exact opposite. If I'm not mistaken, even Becmi stops at level 36, which just seems plum silly. If you think of levels as kinds of ranks of ability then there comes a point at which no more ability can be gained. One may start as a private and go through all the ranks but sooner or later one becomes a general or a king or a president and there are no higer ranks to reach, nothing more to be gained.

[Tavis]

I think you are specifically talking about demihuman level limits. I can't opine on this directly - my own campaign has no PCs above 7th level. I do know that Alex's Auran Empire campaign has multiple PCs who "stalled out" well before the rest, and that the players were happy with this - obviously others' experience differs! I can say that this would not be hard to change; the mechanics are compatible with enough older editions & retroclones that swapping out the XP tables would present little challenge and have little impact on the game's economic assumptions.