Re: (TFT) Goblin port

["Jay Carlisle" <Jay_Carlisle@charter.net>]

I spent yesterday putting virtual pins all over north England in Google 
Earth.
This mainly involved "flying" over the region at an altitude under 2 miles 
and dropping pins on settlements that appear at that scale.
For those curious I'm focusing on a meta-region roughly bounded by the 
castles Brough to the west and Bolton to the south and the towns Durham to 
the north and Redcar to the east.
An altitude of about 60 miles in Google Earth should do it (15.00 mi on the 
scale).
This shows the Count's County as well as surrounding Counties.
Off the map, King Nicolius Chrisus resides in Petuaria (Hull making it a 
Kings Town) on the northern bank of the Abus Fluvius river (Humber).
The Duke resides in Eburacum (York). (I'll use Haakon as a corruption of 
Ebur-ACUM a century or two after human occupation withdraws.)

Of course, all of that is for a campaign.
Some folks have their own campaigns and lots of background is of dubious 
value to them at best.
Other folks don't bother with campaigns at all and just want adventures so I'll 
hold off on the full campaign description till I have the basic mechanics 
described.
To do that I'm going to mention a couple of things about how I use these 
things as tools.

Point number one is a little subtler than the second point.
Rather than looking at the map as a game board for a wargame it's better to 
look at it as a tool for handling larger scale Actions over long periods of 
time.
War is going to happen, no worries on that count, but there's a whole TON of 
RPG opportunities available in anticipation of war or even basic maintance.
The first example of this is what is involved in the Count simply performing 
his duties to the Duke.
I'll describe the power structures involved in a separate post but from a 
practical standpoint collection of "taxes" is not as straightforward as 
might be assumed.
As most tax is collected in grain, there will be issues involved with how 
well the harvest did that particular year.
Grain is harder to collect in a drought than after a bumper crop.
Also there is the relationship between the Count and his Barons and their 
Bannerets.
More trusted Barons (likely New Followers of the Count) are more easily left 
to their own devices but a troublemaker or two (like a Banneret with New 
Follower Talent) may require micro-management from the Count.
Another example is improvement of the County's infrastructure.
Clearing and irrigating fields, building and extending roads, aqueducts, 
palisades, outposts, etc. all improve aspects of the County and also can be 
targeted during invasion.
A crafty goblin raiding party in hex 1304 can cut off 2 hamlets for example.
A little road improvement could help this situation.
The point here is that the County map is for more than war.

The second point here addresses the use of the County map as a game tool 
more directly.
> From a RPG standpoint the player doesn't get to sit across the map from the 
GM and play a traditional wargame, instead the County map is a tool for the 
GM to keep track of what is physically happening in the County that players 
may not be aware of.
Just because the Count orders a garrison to Swillgate doesn't mean that they 
make it there, and if the Unit gets wiped out then the Count may not learn 
about this at all.
Players can gain more information about conditions across the County with 
things like magic but these are likely to only be snapshots that don't 
warrant full access to the County map.
Maybe the Orbs from Orb Quest can be used to give a continuous geo-sync 
orbit type continuous view?
Baring such, I suggest that running a medieval style defense of a County is 
a little like playing a game of blind chess.
Aspects of County improvement that focus on defense allow the defender to 
"change the board".
This type of approach makes Jobs like Courier or Scout have chances for RPG 
playable scenarios.

A final note.
Several major mechanics of Goblin get completely changed by this approach.
By far the most important aspect is throwing any concerns of "game balance" 
out the window.
Many of these games are concerned with balance for the games replayability 
factor.
When a wargame is simply a Scale-level in a campaign, balance isn't an 
issue.
As a matter of fact, most of the most interesting action occurs where things 
are most imbalanced.
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