Realm Management Rules, v 1

[Anastasia]

These are the rules we're going to try for now. I fully expect tweaking in the future.

Realm Management

This system is meant to provide a basic and abstract method of marshaling and tracking your realm's resources. It's meant to cover all the things your realm is investing energy into above and beyond what the PCs do - essentially what the forces you command are up to. It covers a myriad of of possibilities and tasks to complete.

Right now, this system is relevant to everyone but Tryll. This may change if Tryll gains any sort of centralized position or otherwise a position with minions, infrastructure and resources to draw on.

Rules

Every polity covered in these rules, from the lowliest settlement to the grandest plane, is called a realm and will be called as such in this article. A realm's resources are displayed as a percentage, 100%. This percentage is known as your realm's total resources. This covers things such as the military, internal production, deployment ability, research capacity and so forth. While a default amount to everything is assumed to handle basic, day by day tasks, anything beyond that requires an investment from your realm's total resources.

Every realm has the same 100% for your realm's total resources. This is not a reflection of how big your realm is nor how populous (or not) it is. Instead, various things to invest your realm's total resources into require a percentage that scales depending on the size of your realm. These things are known as tasks.

A task consumes a percentage of your realm's total resources. A task has a difficulty from one of six categories, with the difficulty determining the percentage of your realm's total resources needed to accomplish it. You can engage in as many tasks as your realm's total resources permit, but never above 100%. See table 1, below.

Minor: 1%
Light: 5%
Moderate: 10%
Serious: 20%
Critical: 50%
Custom: Varies.

A task is further distinguished by the task's rank. This is to scale the task to the proper size that the task covers. After all, a task for a village and a task for an empire are on far different scales. A task's rank can be as low as 1 and as high as 30 (or even higher, theoretically). See table 2, below.

1: A small hamlet.
3: A village
5: A town
7: A city (Victoria)
9: A metropolis (Balmuria)
11: A kingdom (United Baronies)
13: An empire (The Old Malmuth Empire)
15: An 'average' demiplane (Makil's Demiplane)
17: An 'average' planar group (Githzerai)
19: A 'strong' planar group or demiplane (Githyanki)
21: The plane/domain of a demipower (Sylica, the Cauldron)
23: The plane/domain of a lesser power
25: The plane/domain of an intermediate power
27: The plane/domain of a greater power
29: The plane/domain of a planar lord (Asmodeus, Morwel) or a greater power that leads a pantheon (CL, Moradin)

An example task is provided below.

Clear Out the Mines
Task Rank: 5
Task Difficulty: Moderate (10%)

Clear some kobolds out of our mines so we can get back to work. They're hampering the city's livelihood and endangering miners.

The task's rank is 5. That means the task's size is something a town may deal with. In this case, it's a band of kobolds interfering in a town's mining operations. The task's difficulty is moderate (10%), which means it takes 10% of your realm's total resources to deal with. In this case it may be rounding up a party to deal with it from the town itself, or pooling money to hire adventurers to sort it out.

That all assumes your realm is rank 5, a typical town. However, a realm may have a task to which its rank does not match. If the task's rank is higher than the realm's rank, increase the difficulty by one for each rank it is above the realm's rank. For example, the above task would be treated as a serious (20%) difficulty task by a rank 4 realm. A rank 3 realm (a typical village) would treat it as a critical (50%) task. While a a village that isn't quite a town can buckle down and step up with an increased investment to deal with the task, it becomes nigh overwhelming for a mere village. Any task that would go above critical cannot be accomplished by your realm in this manner. Such things are more the domain of PCs or IC action rather than your realm dealing with things, or simply beyond your reach altogether at this time.

Additionally, if your realm's total resources permit, you can multiply the resources expended by two, three, four or five. If you do, this increases the speed and results of the task getting done. This represents devoting an abnormal amount of resources to a particular situation. Certain custom difficulty tasks cannot be altered in this manner.  Using the previous example task above, if a rank 5 realm wished to expend three times the normal resources to a task, this would raise your realm's total resources invested into it to 30% increases both the speed and improves the outcome of the task.

Do note that even investing heavily into a task won't let you accomplish something that is impossible, nor does it guarantee success. Even the best and most lavishly funded efforts sometimes fail for a variety of reasons. (Not to mention the fact that these things going wrong often give adventurers jobs.)

In the inverse direction, if the tasks' rank is lower than the realm's rank, decrease the difficulty by one for each rank it is above the realm's rank. For example, the above task would be treated as a light (5%) difficulty task by a rank 6 realm. A rank 7 realm would treat it as a minor (1%) task. A town on the cusp of becoming a big city has more resources to deal with such a thing, while a proper city can easily dispatch forces to clean out the infestation. Any task that would go below minor should not be considered tasks for you at all. These are the sort of things that are simply dealt with by your realm, the forces, funds or effort needed trivial to them.

Finally, there is one more feature in how your realm handles tasks. You may assign a leader to direct each task. This leader must be a named NPC that has featured in your adventures and is available for your realm to call on. Each leader has trait that influences how the task is accomplished. This trait may help the task succeed, it may lower the task's costs or a myriad of other things. This is where you all come in: I'd like a list of named NPCs working and available in your realms so I can generate them as leaders.  You may not use members of your node for this, they are automatically disqualified. This isn't the place for them, their place is in the node adventuring and dealing with IC things.

What Your Realm Covers Automatically

Your realm's day to day and basic operations are assumed to be covered. However, a few special tasks are available to represent an increased investment in certain matters.

Realm Defense: This is an investment in your realm's defense above the norm For example, the norm for a hamlet might be a single retired guard and a few farmers keeping an eye out. For a city that's a routine city watch along with any related law enforcement elements. It's what you'd assume would be there. Any investment in this task channels resources into a more active and robust defense. A village dealing with a few minor raids may invest 10% into this, while a city under siege might invest 100% into this.

Realm Production: This your realm going above and beyond to produce more than usual. This includes maintenance, repairs and other such things. Normally, a realm is assumed to do the basics of this automatically. If you feel you're in a situation where making more is needed, this is where to go.

Rest: Not every percentage of every realm is used all the time. This is normal and this is what unused resources should be put into. Most non Hellish realms have some percentage here, as it's only normal to rest forces.

Realm Defense
Task Rank: N/A
Task Difficulty: Custom (Any)

The percentage of your resources dedicated to your realm's defenses, above and beyond the norm.

Realm Production
Task Rank: N/A
Task Difficulty: Custom (Any)

The percentage of your resources dedicated to production, repairs, supplies and other such things, above and beyond the norm.

Rest
Task Rank: N/A
Task Difficult: (Any)

The percentage of your resources not dedicated to a particular task.

[Anastasia]

FYI: Everyone starts with 6 leaders. This is an intentional choice to keep the moving parts to a minimum for now. I'll add in more as the system shapes up under use, as well as more potentials may be recruited.