I was pretty impressed with the design and scope of ACKS. One curious omission I found was anything to do with Urban Adventuring Specifically the material in Section 5. In an email to Tavis and Alexander, I talked about this. That in addition to the categories of Dungeons, Wilderness, and Sea, that Urban be added.
So you would cover
Urban Adventures
Urban Encounters
Urban Evasion and Pursuit.
While perhaps rules in the current section could be used to cover Urban adventures, It is distinct enough to warrant it inclusion. Tavis and Alexander mention that perhaps this would be a good supplement as time and space consideration preclude it inclusion. Like the comments on Wind Tables I am posting this on the forum for everybody to see.
On the whole I think that urban adventures and city politics would be better handled in supplement rather than in the core rules.
But I suppose I would prefer setting-specific to generic info/tables e.g. rather than encounter ‘2 factions in conflict’ I’d want know that ‘bravos from House Drakomir are arguing with priests of Istreus’.
on urban chases - how do the rest of you handle these - as minigames, skill challenges, dex and streetwise checks, using random tables ?
I don’t know if urban is any more setting specific than a wilderness. A mass of people living a large collection of building is present in most setting.
For Evasion and Pursuit, the big difference is that in Wilderness you can go pretty in any direction and the terrain can vary a lot. While a dungeon has a fairly uniform terrain but contained in what directions you can go. So it make sense that you need talk about the urban situation. It can build on the same mechanics as Wilderness and Dungeon pursuits.
Urban pursuit is a hybrid of the two. At first it looks like a dungeon with streets instead of corridors. But unlike Dungeons, barring magic, you can go inside the “walls” or even above them. It is a harder going that way than the streets but results in different considerations for the pursuit. Compounding this is the presence of masses of people. Something not normally found in dungeons or wilderness.
All this consideration cut across various settings thus making a good topic for a core rulebook to cover.
As for Encounters and Adventures, the level of detail used in the other sections is sufficient. Politics and other setting and roleplaying consideration can be addressed in another area.
Remember when masses of people live together in a pre-industrial society there are lot of circumstances that are the same regardless of culture.
Babylon and York differed fundamently because they stemmed from the projected desires and fears of their rulers, as well as geography and tech. I liked how the D&D gazetters emphasized the differences.
But I think generic rules help with things like 'how many guards ?, ‘how many demi-humans?’ - the demographics. A cool compromise would be to use them with cascading generators like the classic traveller planet/society gen. - to bring out the differences. That would work in a corebook but would take up space.
Interestingly enough I made one for human villages.
Random Human Village Determination
1 Hex = 5 miles or 10 km
Stat block
12-345678-9
1 Fortification Level
2 Wall Level
3 Local Water Level
4 Local Soil Fertility
5 Local Resource Level
6 Population
7 Government
8 Law Level
9 Tech Level
Fortification level
2d6+Modifiers
12 A-Citadel
11 B-Castle
10 C-Keep
9 D-Stone Buildings
8 E-Wooden Keep
7- X-None
+6 if Pop 9+
+4 if Pop 7+
+2 if Pop 5+
-2 if Pop 3-
-4 if Pop 1-
+2 if Gov 2,4,6,8,A,F
Wall Level
12 A-Stone Curtain
10-11 B-Stone Wall
9 C-Reinforced Wooden Wall
7-8 D-Wooden Wall
6 E-Stone Fence/Hedge
5- X-None
+6 if Pop 9+
+4 if Pop 7+
+2 if Pop 5+
-2 if Pop 3-
-4 if Pop 1-
+2 if Gov 7,9
+2 if has Citadel
+1 if has Castle
Hydrographics
2d6-2 Min: 0 Max:10
+6 within one hex of a river
-6 within desert terrian
-2 within mountains
-1 within hill terrian
Automatically 10 within a swamp
+2 within forest
+4 within two hexes of a coast or lake of one hex size.
Fertility
1d6-1d6+Hydrographics Min:0 Max:10
10 is average fertility divide by 10 then multiply by crop yield to get actual yield.
Resource Level
2D-2
Represents the percentage chance of finding a resource.
Population
2d6-2
-6 within 1 hex of a Pop 9+ settlement
-3 within 2 hexes of a Pop 9+ settlement
-4 within 1 hex of a Pop 7 to 8 settlement
-2 within 2 hexes of a Pop 7 to 8 settlement
-2 within 1 hex of a Pop 4 to 6 settlement
-1 within 2 hexes of a Pop 4 to 6 settlement
0 100
1 200
2 400
3 600
4 800
5 1,000
6 2,000
7 4,000
8 8,000
9 16,000
A 32,000
Government
1d6-1d6+Population
0 Head of Family
1 Council of Elders
2 Knight
3 High Priest
4 Baron
5 Mage
6 Count
7 Guild
8 Duke
9 Republic
A King
B Overlord/Tyrant
C Patriarch
D Archmage
E Amazon Queen
F Emperor
Law Level
1d6-1d6+Population
This represents the degree of the ruler’s involvement in the populace daily life. 0 being the lower and F the highest.
Tech Level
Represent Capability more than knowledge. Interpretation should be done on a region by region basis.
1d6 + Modifiers
Min: 0
Max: Max TL of Campaign Region
0 Stone Age (10,000 BC)
1 Copper Age (8,000 to 4,000 BC)
2 Bronze Age (4,000 to 1,000 BC)
3 Iron Age (1,000 BC to 500 AD)
4 Dark Age (500 AD to 1000 AD)
5 Middle Ages (1000 AD to 1400 AD)
6 Renaissance(1400 AD Max )
-2 Pop 0-1
-1 Pop 2-3
+1 Pop 7-8
+2 Pop 9-10
+1 if Gov 7,9,F
-1 if Gov 5,D (Magical Repression)
-2 to +2 if Gov 3,C (Specific to Religion)
we.are.not.worthy 