Domains & Dominions
A downloadable game
This is a quick and engaging system for adding Domain play to a TTRPG campaign without requiring too much time or heavy bookkeeping. The Influence system allows for scalable play from a small player run hideout to eventual dominion over entire regions.
This system will work with most D20 fantasy tabletop role playing games. It was designed for Shadowdark with economic conversions for OSE, LevelUP 5E, and MorkBorg provided.
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Development log
- Added Narrative exampleFeb 16, 2024
- updated SheetFeb 11, 2024
Comments
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Hey there, this is super cool! I am wondering why as per 5e costs, the horse and cart costs 2000gp (1 Influence). I can think of a couple justifications but I'd like to hear your thoughts on it!
Great question! I calibrated the influence costs by looking at treasure drops and typical economy (using weapons and armor costs as well as Keep costs if the system published that.) between the games.
The idea with non-diagetically acquired influence is that the purchase represents the physical aspect, maintenance, employees, etc. In the case of the horse and cart that also includes a driver or two and a place to park it when off duty.
I set the cost at 1 since that was the lowest integer for a less complex influence. Do you think the 2000gp Influence cost is fair for 5E? My experience has been that treasure flows pretty freely in 5E, but I am open to having over-estimated that!
I was comparing the 5e book costs of a horse (50gp), cart(15gp), and trained hireling (2gp/day) to the cost of 1 influence. If we figure cost of storage, a second horse and second trained hireling, and say that these costs pay for a year (not saying to make influence a yearly cost, just thinking out loud) then we arrive at ~1500gp. Some 5e adventures may have time pass quicker than others, with years occurring in a campaign... others might take a month or two :'D
If you're wondering about costs though, since you listed Level Up A5E (I think?) in consideration, you CAN see in their Trials & Treasures book how much wealth a character should roughly accumulate on a level-by-level basis. Page 176 of T&T (their books are freely accessible on a5e.tools) "Treasure by level" says each character should have acquired ~2100gp in total by level 5. So I guess it depends on how much of an investment you intend Influence to be.
... Of course I don't follow this, I roll randomly for treasure (using their a5e tables) and I'm not even sure how much I give out relative to this chart :')
One more thing to consider re: a5e is the cost of Strongholds, listed in the Adventurer's Guide. They start at 500gp for an "Encampment," 1000gp for a 1000sq ft Guild House, etc.
It's definitely a tough thing to nail due to the abstraction- and I do appreciate the simple abstraction of the system.
That's really helpful! I think I should dial back the intended cost for an Influence point in 5E. (I had considered 1500, but 1 or 2 K seemed simpler) My sense from the last few 5E campaigns was that we were always swimming in too much gold, but it may also be due to the easy access to bags of holding and the like that made transport of coin a non issue. (Artificer in the party really changes things, for example...)
I really appreciate the feedback! I'm also working on a section to encourage diegetic acquisition of Assets when it makes sense as consequence of in-session party actions separate from the downtime purchase method. That is how my home game is actually using this system. If GMs add some natural Asset gains when the party saves something / someone or is owed a boon, it should help bootstrap things for the lower levels when coin is more sparse.