Monday, November 11, 2013

Instant Hierarchies

Sorry for the lack of posting. I'll spare you the boring details how busy I'm right now. But I wanted to share this idea. At least the outlines. There's more to it and I believe it deserves further exploration. But that's not for today. Here's the idea so far.

Roll 3d6, create a hierarchy

Still got the cleric on my mind and I realized a few days ago that a churches hierarchy or the number of active servants of a faith is something that could be very useful for a DM (and the player of the cleric). An easy way to achieve this would be to roll 3d6 and interpret the results.
  • The plain numbers would be the whole clergy of a church. I'm assuming very small groups, obviously, with the level 1 player being the lowest in the food chain. I'd say a die means one temple. More dice in the beginning would result in a bigger church. But they would be all in one region.
  • Every 6 gets rerolled and indicates the number of those travelling holy men that spread the word without having a temple of their own (other than the player).
  • Pairs allow for another roll of 3d6, the church just got a bit bigger and expanded another region.
  • Triples not only expand the church, but give it some holy (or otherwise important) site (could be a university, a site where a saint is buried, stuff like that).
  • If the first roll with 3d6 shows three time 1, the player character (or NPC) is the only cleric with access to a lost faith. Maybe he found a holy text, something like that. It's on him to spread the word now.
  • Other than that, ones indicate lost lore and legends directly connected to that particular faith/deity/whatever, another roll with 1d6 per rolled 1 determining the number rumors, legends, MIA clerics, etc.. Could be the story of a cleric that got lost on a mission, some legend of saints and where their bones might be found, stuff like that. A pair of ones doesn't result in another roll of 3d6.
  • I'm imagining a simple pyramid as far as hierarchy goes, so there is always something like the head of the church (the one with the highest level) and those below. Should make a table for that (in another post...). The higher the number rolled, the higher the levels of those in charge. For now I'd go with something like this:
3 - Only legends and the one guy spreading the word.
4 - Old wise men (level 6) with a lot of stories to tell (and the one green guy that listened and goes on a mission from god, i. e. the player's cleric).
5 - 1 Leader (level 6) and 2 disciples with moderate support of their deity (level 4) .
6-10 1 leader (level 9) 2 clerics with level6 and as many level 4 disciples as dice are rolled.
...

Doubles and triples will result in higher numbers and other than rerolled sixes, every rolled number relates to the first three (example: a first roll of 3 3 5 and a second roll of 2 1 5 results in two pairs (3 3 and 5 5) and will expand the church further in the second roll, may even produce triples along the way... or quadruples, but I've no ideas for that right now).

I should go on, but I guess that explains the idea. I will write more about it as soon as I have the time. Ideas and comments are always welcome, of course. As it is, this could easily be used to create a thieves guild or any other group that needs a hierarchy. For now I'll go for churches... 

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