The overarching theme in my own quest for the perfect rule set (ha ha) is this: high verisimilitude, low bookkeeping. I don't like to handwave stuff. I like to have simple rule systems for as many possible player action types as possible. They need to be simple so I can write them down and have them at hand because I can't remember anything. The way you sometimes hear it said is "as simple as possible, but no simpler" which is kind of a funny Seussian saying.
A lot of that, I put into my game called Mythical Journeys which draws on elements of 0e, Holmes, BX and BECMI but is not a direct descendant of any of them. If you want to get them, I'll have them up on DriveThruRPG soon and you can bet I'll be banging on you to buy them.But even those rules are a little bit of a straitjacket for the kind of sweeping epic that is suggested by the Fallen Empire.
Mythical Journeys handles dungeons and wilderness fine, but there's not a lot of meat on it for town adventuring and politics; just the excellent and supremely useful old standby, the 2d6 Reaction Table (my favorite table in all of D&D.)
But even in the adventuring day, I want to see if I can get a little simpler than that. Mythical Journeys still keeps the same timekeeping, mapping, resource management etc. stuff from 0e that hasn't gotten much better over the course of 45 years. But Brendan over on Necropraxis thought up a different kind of system that makes it way easier to track your stuff and your time called the Hazard System. It's not quite intuitive for me yet though so my homework for myself is
1. really understand the Hazard System.
2. rewrite it (version 0.301) to my own tastes
3. decide what parts of the game will be governed by Mythical Journeys and what parts will be governed by Hazard.
4. Riff on the Pendragon dynastic rules to build a system to generate families.
5. Refit my own domain rules for the campaign in case the players would either rather play that way or if they get to Name level and get their own domains naturally.
On point 3, my sense is that shopping, combat, retainers, magic spells, saves and exploration actions will be handled with MJ while time, distance, encumbrance, resource management, rumors, omens and the major moves of political players will be handled with the Hazard System. But that's just my opening ante. I have no idea how the hand will shake out yet. I may not know even when we first sit down to play.
So that resolves the issue of what rule systems I'm going to be using as a backbone to the game. Again, it's going to require some thinking and elbow grease to get it all to hang together. I'll be back to this when I know more about how it will all work.
On Time and Season
See, this is very important. In my opinion you can't have a campaign where you ignore time. Seasons change and people get older. Holy days are important. The world changes, especially the world inside the city of Port. Things are changing superfast inside the city.
So you've got this dynamic world, which is only possible if time exists. Otherwise it's a snapshot. That's why I love the idea of the Haven Turn from the Hazard System. And on a longer timescale, the dynastic succession in Pendragon.
My conception is that only one or fewer expeditions happen in one year. Not one adventuring session, per se, but one story arc. Perhaps the players go through A1 within one year of game time, I don't know. Maybe they go through A1 to A4. Whatever feels right.
But what I don't want to do is hustle them off to the next thing before they can catch their breath. After all, weather can turn crappy, people have responsibilities at home, they may have politics to deal with, they may have a job or profession, they will have romance (either on or offscreen), children, and so forth. They will have to craft and buy gear and hire retainers and so forth. They will hear rumors of things in town and out. And simply crossing from one side of the city to the other may require them to traverse the inside-wilderness of ruined neighborhoods and temples. Those wouldn't count against the one adventure per year thing but would definitely feel and behave like traditional adventures.
Dungeon Adventures
The main dungeon in the game at least to start are Castle Triskelion (downloads and blog) to represent the Prince's old holdings. Functionally speaking, it's arbitrarily large. No play group will ever see it all.
There is also the Catacombs, which is a huge maze underground. There are several entrances which lead to a collossal dungeon filled mostly with low-level undead and some traps. It's not terribly exciting once you get to mid levels, but then below that is a dwarf city and then below that is a real Infernal dungeon.
Finally, in each little neighborhood or patch of ruin, there will be the possibility of a little dungeon of 1-3 levels to explore.
The Catacombs and these little mini-dungeons will be procedurally generated on the fly at donjon.com which is a pretty darn cool generator. I do know about other generators but this one is perfect for my needs.
Wars
And of course, every summer there is a pointless war. Every. Summer. Because that's how noblemen and guild leaders amuse themselves in the long summer months: putting their men into a meat grinder. As you can see, this system is designed to generate stalemates and unsatisfying results. On the other hand, a single battle doth not bear alone a war. A particular person such as a PC may be able to sway the tide of a particular battle and achieve fame and XP. The idea is, you roll up to 8 times - once per week - and take a step in the direction indicated to see how things progress week to week.
Or in the case of the big war, 12 weeks, I don't know. I'll think about the exact rules.
Of course as years go on, the heads of the houses change. And they will change according to the tables in this document: Reign of Kings. It's also useful to determine who they are and what comes of their reign. It's a good imagination aid even if you're not a slave to the dice.
Politics and Diplomacy
What happens in a campaign when the PCs are the heads of a guild or noble house, or all in the same noble house? This one is easy: we will play Diplomacy. It's really an easy one to figure out since the map I'm going to use for Port is actually topologically equivalent to the map of the traditional board game.
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