Comments on: Worldbuilding 101: Organizations

By: Gnome Rodeo: Evil Robots Made Me Write This in Binary - Gnome Stew, the Game Mastering Blog

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:39:54 +0000

[...] Worldbuilding 101: Organizations gives you a simple framework (suitable for any RPG) for defining your campaign’s [...]

By: Hypnoangel

Hypnoangel — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:37:32 +0000

Here's a free "nutshell" PDF of CORPS if you can't find yours.

By: Berin Kinsman

Berin Kinsman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:26:01 +0000

I think somewhere I have a free PDF or CORPS from a thanksgiving giveaway from some year past. Never looked at it, will have to dig it out and giver it a peek. Or maybe I’m thinking of another game.

By: Hypnoangel

Hypnoangel — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:14:35 +0000

Very nice. And thanks, Lon, for the CORPS tipoff.

By: Lon Sarver

Lon Sarver — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:54:15 +0000

Berin,

Are you familiar with CORPS? It’s an old global conspiracy RPG from BTRC, and it used a similar system of statting out organizations. They used four stats, which affected each other as the organization acted.

By: Micah

Micah — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:59:32 +0000

This seems like a lot of unnecessary quantifying for an organization. I tend to think that while players should be constrained by stats, points, and rules, GMs should be constrained only by common sense and what’s necessary to keep the game flowing.

So, while I like the idea of the 1-10 ranking for power and resources, I don’t think the resource points are necessary. Just let the organization do what’s reasonable. A collective of farmers? Maybe they buy a herd of cattle or pool their money to hire a group of stalwart adventurers to clear out the nearby caves. A shadowy enclave of evil mages? They can summon a demon or two, whatever is necessary to provide a challenging encounter for the party.

The points might be useful for PC-run organizations, but even still, I would lean toward common sense. However, if you do need stats, the abstract points are a better way to handle it than a full-on resource ledger with income and expenses. No need to turn a tabletop game into a spreadsheet exercise.