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Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

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Mon, 2012-05-28 23:27
#1
Anetra
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Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Pathfinder Game Mastery: Settlements In Play

The settlement stat block presented for Pathfinder accommodates such factors as Government types, Qualities, and Disadvantages, but the options presented in the GMG are very much geared for Prime settlements. I believe it would be interesting and a boon to the community to work on fleshing out Planar settlements -- how is a settlement different based on the plane that it is on?

Alignment is already taken into account, offering modifiers to the law, society, crime, corruption, and lore components, but I do not feel this is enough -- a city on Mechanus should be more lawful than any old lawful city on a prime.

I propose the following:

1. Additional Quality: Outer Planar. Does something to more dramatically effect the components of the settlement, perhaps doubling the alignment modifiers?

2. Additional Quality: Gate Town. Not necessarily reserved for the Outlander Gate Towns, but a town with a portal has more planewalkers and other folk passing through it Just For The Portal. Should have a pretty significant effect on things.

3. Additional Quality: In A Divine Realm? Being in a God's realm is definitely going to have some sort of impact.

4. Additional Quality: Faction Presence. A faction's presence in a burg is going to have some serious sway, though sway in what direction in particular is going to depend.

5. OTHER ADDITIONAL QUALITIES

6. ADDITIONAL GOVERNMENT TYPES? Perhaps a government type for a town that's actually run by a faction?

7. ADDITIONAL DISADVANTAGES. I can't think of any right now.

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Tue, 2012-05-29 08:19
#2
swiftcutter
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

I have a couple of ideas for government types.

For lawful planes, you could have a settlement where there's no central authority whatsoever and the citizens all live according to some extensive set of written laws (let's call them "the Pillars"). No one is needed to enforce the laws because the citizens are all highly lawful and devoted to the Pillars, and no one is needed to write new laws because the citizens believe the Pillars are already perfect. Transgressions and outsiders are dealt with by the entire citizenry according to the Pillars.

You might also have some true democracies around the lawful and good planes, where all of the citizens have equal say and vote directly on major issues. (Maybe even on some of the lawful evil planes--- majority rule can be used to oppress and abuse minorities, after all.)

On the other side, for chaotic planes, you could have an "always changing" type of government, where every time the players visit (or every X days, or whatever), someone new is in charge (or a new group, or no one at all). You could have a table for this...
Roll a d6:
1-3 current government (or lack thereof) persists
4-5 new leader(s) take power
6 settlement collapses into anarchy

Tue, 2012-05-29 08:52
#3
Anetra
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

"The Pillars" is definitely a needed addition to government types for lawful planes, at least one city on Mechanus is run that way in canon (Delon-Estin Oti, one of my favourite burgs), and it's certainly not unlikely for other settlements to be run that way out on the planes.

Rolling to determine the type of rulership is also a necessary addition if we want to recreate canon cities, as Xaos is run that way.

Great suggestions! What kinds of adjustments do we think these would offer?

Tue, 2012-05-29 09:30
#4
swiftcutter
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

I apologize then if I've been obvious or redundant. I have not had a chance to read the original Planescape books. I've only learned about the setting from this site. (But I am quite fond of it!)

As for specific modifiers, I'd have to mull that over a bit. Obviously, there would be a large + to law for the lawful type government. The ever-changing government would shift around, using the current government type's modifiers. Though it could also have an additional - to law at all times, regardless of the government type. A true democracy would probably be like a more extreme version of the council government type, so maybe Society +6, Law and Lore -4.

To expand a bit on the chaotic changing government... maybe the new leader's alignment could shift around as well (always chaotic, but could be CE, CN, or CG) and the settlement's alignment could shift with it (along with the modifiers). Here's an expanded version of the table I posted before...

Roll a d10 for change of government...
1-3 current government persists
4 peaceful change of leadership, resulting in a council
5 peaceful change of leadership, resulting in an autocracy
6 populace revolts and places champion in charge, resulting in an autocracy
7 overlord stages a coup, previous leaders flee
8 previous leader is compromised by secret syndicate
9 previous leader loses control of populace, anarchy results
10 previous leader is assassinated, anarchy results

Roll a d6 for new government's alignment...
1-2 CE
3-4 CN
5-6 CG

Tue, 2012-05-29 12:44
#5
Anetra
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Don't apologize, I think it'll be great if we can create the tools necessary to stat out existing canon settlements!

Regarding the chaotic shifting government type, I don't think it will be in our best interest for the component ratings of a settlement to shift around along with the current government -- as that would render the settlement stat block basically useless. Instead, we could have the rolls influence other ratings -- the danger rating, the maximum wealth rating, etc, by flat amounts that are included in the results of the roll.

For example:

10: previous leader is assassinated, anarchy results. Increase Danger rating by 5, decrease purchase limit by 20%.

Or some such.

Tue, 2012-05-29 13:19
#6
swiftcutter
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Sure. That sounds good. You could even have other things on the table that aren't necessarily linked to government type. The settlement could experience random economic booms and busts, for example.

You could also have different tables (or just specific randomized stats) for different settlements. That would make them more distinctive, instead of every chaotic town being just as random as the next. You could have a "Jeckyll and Hyde" town that randomly flips between CG and CE, even though everything else about the town stays the same. Or a town that's prone to random surges of violence could have a danger rating that changes to +1d20 each day/week/whatever.

Wed, 2012-05-30 21:52
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Wicke
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Disadvantage: Staging area for the Blood War. People are far more likely to be press-ganged into service in these towns. These places are also more likely to be attacked by one side or the other.

Disadvantage: Beseiged. This town is under constant assault, whether from the Blood War, Ysgardians or Acheronians, Djinn/Efreet, or whatever. Getting in to or out of the city is difficult, as is finding trade goods of any sort.

Advantage/Disadvantage: Recently shifted. This town has just recently shifted planes. Could affect any number of things.

Thu, 2012-05-31 06:30
#8
Anetra
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Oh, those are fantastic! I'll start working on how those might affect the settlement components.

Thu, 2012-05-31 18:38
#9
Wicke
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

A couple more, though I'm not sure if they really fit in with how the settlements thing is arranged.

Additional Quality: Exemplar/native frequented. For whatever reason, this particular town is frequented by either exemplars of the plane (in the case out Outer Planar locations) or by native elementals (in the case of Inner Planar locations).

Additional Quality: Opposite of the home plane. The overall alignment or elemental nature of this particular town tends towards the opposite of whatever plane it's on. (If used, this one is likely to give some weird effects and raise some questions. Like, how exactly is it maintained?)

Thu, 2012-05-31 20:09
#10
Wicke
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Aaaand some possible additional government types:

Bureaucracy. Various governmental agencies, regulations and enforcers maintain the town. +2 Law and Lore, -2 Crime and Society

Military rule/occupation. +3 Corruption and Law, -2 Economy, Lore and Society

Mon, 2012-06-11 12:29
#11
sciborg2
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Was drafting a settlement, the City of Courtesans, here:

/forum/article-braintstorm-planar-metropoli

Since the city centers around prostitution, it may be difficult to work it into adventures.

There are small summaries of other planar cities in that thread as well.

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Mon, 2012-07-16 23:13
#12
Anetra
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Oh my gaw there are new settlement qualities in Dark Roads and Golden Hells. I love you all.

Thu, 2012-07-19 13:45
#13
sciborg2
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

Anerta -> Curious, what did you think of the product overall?

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Fri, 2012-07-20 15:47
#14
Anetra
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Re: Creating Planar Settlements, Sample Settlements

I really enjoyed it! The material that was geared more toward Midgard was of less immediate interest to me, but I may or may not make use of them as domains and/or demiplanes -- we'll see :].

The book is full of really fantastic ideas, but its pitfall is that the spells, feats, and traits are poorly balanced in my opinion. As eager as I am to use them all, the majority need to be rebalanced prior to use; with that said, though, everything that suffers from this problem is just so freaking cool that I am going to have to figure out a way to make it work.

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