You may have noticed a lack of Five Link Fridays in the last two weeks. I have decided to discontinue them as a regular weekly post to save my sanity, build up links for the future, and reduce my weekly blogging workload. Going forward, I’ll be doing two posts a week. If you have links you’d like to share or see some future links posts, leave me a comment.

I left off with the Part 1 talking about vague generalities on how I think a system of treating organizations, domains, and empires as creatures/characters would work. Now that I look back on that system I proposed, I can easily see it becoming a nightmare of extra work for you, the DM, without really adding much to your game. So in part 2, I will be breaking things down into three different complexities.

An example of three factions and their constituent parts.

This type of map would probably be useful for any tier of simulation accuracy. I am working on a template for the different complexities, something sleek to contain the necessary information you will want to keep for your campaign.

Simple:

For the simple version, you still have three tiers: Organizations, Domains, and Empires. At each of those levels, the various groups will have the equivalent of hit dice, made up of class or monster levels. Each higher tiers’ die is made up of ten dice of the lower tier, if you want to record the makeup of a kingdom’s guilds or an empires vassals, for example.

Instead of recording each individual class, if you want, the classes can be sort of clumped into muscle (fighters or barbarians), magic (wizards, sorcerers, or warlocks), subterfuge (bards or rogues), faith (clerics or paladins), or nature (druids or rangers).

-The simple system assumes a status-quo between groups until someone makes a move. That can happen no faster than each week, month, or year for Organizations, Domains, or Empires, respectively.

-When that happens, roll a 2d6 with the attacker adding a 1 per relevant die and the attacker subtracting 1 per relevant die. These bonuses are whether the attack or defense is related to the die: muscle for fighting, subterfuge for underhanded tactics, faith for cultural or religious attacks, magic for magic, and nature for terrain or resources. A result of 7 means the status-quo is maintained. For each point below 7, the attacker takes one damage. Each point above 7 means the defender takes 1 damage.

-Each OD/DD/ED is 5 points of health. Every five points lost depletes a die and weakens the faction. Factions heal by one point for each week/month/year in which they take no actions. A faction with no hit points left dies, and other factions nearby can attempt to incorporate the dead faction’s dice, taking in a number of dice equal to their 2d6 roll, modified by their bonuses, minus 7.

Moderate:

-Factions are represented by their dice, as made up by their constituent parts as character class levels. They also have the six statistics: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma, to represent their various strengths and weaknesses. A faction’s constitution bonus is applied to each die, increasing their total hit points above the 5 points per die.

-Each week/month/year any faction that wishes can choose to spend some of its hit dice towards an attack or action. A contested action between factions is resolved by each rolling 2d6 and adding their proficiency and statistic bonuses. The losing faction takes damage equal to the difference in results.

-A faction’s bonus is reduced proportionally if the faction does not commit all of its dice to that action. For example, if a faction only uses half its dice, it only gets half its bonus (rounded down). Factions can choose to split their dice in order to take multiple actions.

-Losing hit points weakens the faction, reducing its dice each time it loses enough hit points equal to 5 + constitution bonus. A faction with no hit points left dies, and other factions nearby can attempt to incorporate the dead faction’s dice on its next turn, taking in a number of dice equal to their 2d6 roll, modified by their bonuses, minus 7. Any remaining dice break down into their constituent next-lowest-tier parts, individuals, organizations, or domains.

Complex:

-Factions are completely modeled creatures as any monster or NPC with character levels. They use the same HD, stat blocks, abilities, etc.

-Each week/month/year, model the interactions of factions as a 10 round interaction. Factions can use their actions to intimidate, cajole, trade, bargain, fight, or harm the other factions around them. Initiative order, just like normal combat, is maintained. It isn’t necessary to model the whole world, so it can be just those factions within the campaigns scope. Assume factions on the border are not able to commit their full attention to the 10 rounds, as they have neighbors outside the scope.

-Factions that lose all their hit points begin dying, like a player character would. They make death saving throws each round, losing one hit die on each failed save. These dice split off to make their own faction. If the faction loses all its dice or fails three saves, all of its dice split into their constituent parts on the next lowest tier. The faction has been utterly destroyed and fragmented.

-Lower tiers can only attempt to fight the parts that make up a higher tier. A higher tier faction can attack a lower tier as many of its lower tier components as it wishes.