ACKS Birthright

An Overview of the Conversion Process

Birthright is in my opinion the most awesome setting to come out of AD&D 2e’s run of boxed sets. The gods of men are dead, but their power lingers within the bloodlines of the ancient heroes. Such men — called regents — are destined to rule by right of birth, one with the land itself, and Birthright’s core assumption is that PC regents begin play with a moderately sized domain of their own. This is further extended by special rules for regent characters, for mustering and leading armies, drawing power from the land and people to weave mighty Realm Magic, and contesting rivals’ claims upon their demesnes.

The array of different cultures is iconic, ranging from extinct mariners and barbarians riding furred lizards to a Wild Hunt of elves that pursue any mortal who dares tread within the ancient woods — and does this in a naturalistic way that preserves the archetypal feel, rather than becoming gonzo. The incredible powers of a regent are likewise the stuff of myth and legend, not flying cities, but perhaps a kingdom veiled in perilous mists that mislead interlopers, a sorcerer who calls down hellfire on the field of battle, or a high priest who blesses the fields and ensures a bounteous harvest. It has much in common with ACKS, in that regard. Certainly I’ve not made a custom setting for it because I dislike Birthright in any manner, but Birthright already exists, and I do it greater honor by creating anew in its type. Running a game is ultimately an act of creation, and I will be creating the Shadowlands in which to run my ACKS-Birthright game.

I am debating posting a more complete version of this map because players in my game will not have access to it. But I generally trust them not to read this, so perhaps I will make a more general post soon on my development of the Shadowlands as an alternative take on Birthright’s core ideas.

I’ve been quite hesitant to commit to running Birthright at all, because it’s a tricky ruleset to teach new players with, and to use it in ACKS would require ambitious modifications to the system. But my chief alternative proposal — Gallia, inspired by the Matter of France and Britain — was met with little excitement, which I suppose makes sense. I’d grown interested in Gallia by reading the works that inspired it, and if my players largely haven’t read them then it stands to reason they’d share the fictional grounding to appreciate it. Comparatively, Birthright and the Shadowlands have been eagerly pursued, so such it shall be (and any new players shall be tried by fire in terms of managing new rules . . .).

Reconciling Assumptions

ACKS is a remarkably comprehensive ruleset, but it gets there in part by making assumptions about what sort of world it is modelling. Birthright does so as well, and these don’t always line up neatly. Reconciling this differences is naturally the chief difficulty in adapting one to the other.

The foremost example of this is that Birthright describes a setting where character level and rulership are largely divorced, to allow low level PCs to rule over mighty realms. On the other hand, a character’s personal power being directly tied to their political station is a cornerstone of ACKS, which goes so far as to make rulership a source of XP so that a ruler will naturally come up to their proper level. Likewise, Birthright regents typically begin play with a domain already in place, whereas the Conqueror tier of play is an important transition period in ACKS. Some compromise must thus be reached.

My proposed balance involves adjusting ACKS’ system to better support low level domain play, using some of the approaches previously discussed as well as by granting regents a smaller measure of followers at every odd level after 1st, rather than just at 9th. Likewise, I will not be starting players with domains immediately (though I have worked out a framework for such, because it is such a traditional part of Birthright play), but providing them a setting rife with opportunities to conquer them over their first few levels. I have also thought on how to adapt the D@W rules to squad-scale combats, and am considering whether that is necessary (at present, I’m inclined to use the rules to guide how large of a file a low level character can command, but to otherwise resolve such conflicts at personal scale). Finally, I am adding Realm Magic as a magic research option available from 1st level, to ensure that regents have access to that full spectrum of options. At this point I aim to merge Battle Magic and Realm Magic into one system of miniaturized ritual magic.

Second comes the favored level of abstraction and granularity, in which I have favored that of ACKS. Where Birthright ranks Holdings on a scale of 0 to 10, I have mapped that to gp income using ACKS’ Campaign XP Thresholds so that an existing ACKS domain can have the various holding types layered on top as descriptors of its garrison size, divine power production, etc. At its core, ACKS shares the same basic spheres of interest as does Birthright, as conceptualized in the various Holding types, so this converts fairly cleanly (though the results for a typical domain come out somewhat different). These Holdings thus determine how many regency points a ruler earns, an in-character representation of their ability to draw upon the land for power and to impose their divine will. And one clear benefit of using ACKS’ domain rules is that “gold bars” are no longer needed as a distinct resource to separate a regent’s resources as king from those as adventurer.

A particularly notable dimension of this shift in abstraction are the changes to realm actions. Birthright has a quite solid but very symbolic framework of monthly character actions that offer ways to spend the aforementioned gold bars and regency points. In ACKS, most of these are things you can accomplish without a roll, and they normally don’t require regency points either. It was a topic of great consideration as to whether I should add regency point costs and require rolls for such actions, and perhaps extend how long they take to line up more closely with Birthright, but ultimately I decided against this. Rather, I created some ways to spend RP to create related effects — modifying domain morale rolls; recruiting new families, congregants, or replacement followers; accelerating construction and making it more efficient; accelerating recruitment and negating its cost; inflicting the reverse of such things on a rival; etc. Additionally, a breakthrough I’m particularly happy with is that RP can be spent like Fate Points within the ruler’s domain, a potent bonus that will make it particularly difficult to dethrone one of the Lords of Shadow (and likewise grant PCs some security in their holdings). These expansions further reinforce the ability of low level adventurers to rule expose domains.

Comparatively, working out conversions of the various realm powers and individual activities was more straightforward. I’ve simplified the Bloodline Strength system from a 100-point scale detached from purity rank and with random ability acquisition to a seventh core attribute possessed by blooded scions, and converted basically all of the core bloodline abilities to be roughly equivalent to a class proficiency (with the more potent Major and Great abilities requiring their Minor forms to be possessed first). Thus, a blooded scion gains one bloodline power, plus one per point of BLD bonus, plus an additional power whenever he would gain a general proficiency. This preserves roughly the same incidence of powers overall.

One of my spreadsheets used to balance this method against the traditional Birthright guidelines on generating bloodlines. My method yields roughly twice as many Tainted Bloodlines, equally many Minor, and half as many Major or Great, but preserves the expected average number of powers by ensuring that even a scion of a Tainted line will have a power. This makes that lower end more enjoyable to play, and ultimately allows such characters more potential growth through play as they attempt to strengthen their bloodlines.

In doing so, I have attempted to avoid duplicating existing class powers and proficiencies where reasonable, which has led to a substantial variety of new powers that I’m excited to see in play. I initially had some concerns about creating “feat chains,” but because a character has to randomly roll any given chain I believe this will not be a problem (and likewise, the list of options is Judge-tier content that players don’t see until they roll it).

And of course, there are still a few things I have yet to really work out. The list of realm spells is in ongoing conversion, and I haven’t even begun to start work on demihumans and their domains. I am certainly open to suggestions on how they might be integrated into the system more generally, and feedback on the above is always welcome. I’m making good progress and hoping to start a campaign to begin playtesting elements of it mid-December, so expect to hear more!

In the meanwhile, ACKS II is Kickstarting right now with less than 24 hours left to go! If you have any interest in this sort of domain play, campaign activities, mass combat, or even just an exceptionally coherent and complete system for adventuring, it is absolutely worth checking out and cannot come recommended more highly. If you have any exclamations or reservations, join us on the ACKS Discord and you can likely talk with the designer himself.