Clerics make catacombs: closing the circle of dungeon creation

OK, so the world of ACKS is littered with sites for adventuring. Where do they come from? The actions of previous high-level parties.
We find ruined Castle Blackmoors and Greyhawks. The rules for strongholds explain why the party’s fighter-types built these, and the Domains of War rules tell us how they were reduced to rubble.
We find elaborate dungeons beneath these castles. The rules for dungeon harvesting tell us why the mage-types built these.
We find that parts of these subterranean areas are full of elaborate traps. I think the rules for hideout construction, as mentioned in another thread, will tell us why the thieves built these regions of the dungeon.
We also find that common features of these dungeons are strange temples and catacombs of the dead. I think it would be super cool if there were rules that explained why cleric-types contributed these characteristic elements of the construction a high-level party leaves behind.
I also think that, just as there are mini-games for the fighter’s domain events and the thieves’ hijinks, there should be mini-games that summarize the things that could happen while managing a dungeon (rather than needing to roleplay it out in detail) and the things that could happen while maintaining a temple and its corpse-disposal facilities.
One of the things I think explains why domain-level play doesn’t get used that much is that it tends to be envisioned as splitting the party. You go over here to your castle, I go over there to my wizard’s tower, and the table doesn’t have as much fun until we leave those behind and get together again.
So I really like the idea of conceptualizing each of the classic character roles as having a part in building one aspect of the kind of structure the original game teaches us is all over the place: castles with dungeons and deathtraps and hidden temples and catacombs. And ensuring that the rules make this joint effort fun to manage for everyone would be a huge win for domain play, I think.

I feel like there’s a hook here in the idea of mystery cults- that some of a cleric’s rites are only for a subset of adherents, and those rituals have to be hidden away. These areas must not only be kept secluded, but ritually maintained, etc.

So, I have been giving some thought to how domain play “plays” best. Currently, the way the rules read (as I understand them) is that each PC is expected to go claim his own chunk of land. The stronghold is built on that land and each PC rules his own land (or as a vassal to a higher lord that he swears fealty to). This style of play seems to create a relationship that tugs in two directions. First, it seperates the PCs. Each PC “needs” to attend to his own affairs within his own domain on a mechanics level. Second, it encourages unity with the other PCs on a roleplay level in terms of uniting against a common threat to the entire kingdom for example.
While this works, a more unified domain play could exist in the form of allowing multiple strongholds within the same chunk of land. Thus, a wizard builds a tower near the castle that a fighter builds (within the same hex). The cleric establishes the religious progaganda that the peasants follow while the thief establishes a hideout within the same area as a means of developing a black market for trade or hijinks to discover plots afoot in the area. If the rules were tweaked in such a way that having multiple roles exist within the same domain and in fact making it even more beneficial by working together than alone, then the game would be stronger for it.
Paizo recently released an Adventure Path called Kingmaker. In their rules for domain management, they created roles that every kingdom had. They included things like Ruler, High Priest, Magister, Royal Assassin, Spymaster, Warden, etc. Having PCs fill these roles would apply certain bonuses to the domain that NPCs could not give. It wouldn’t be major but still a bonus is a bonus. I see no reason why something similar wouldn’t work here.
This will foster the same desire to “adventure” together at the higher levels that true adventuring does at lower levels.
This unity really would tie together what Tavis discusses above and why “Trapped dungeons and hidden catacombs and temples” exist in the same spot of land.
This also explains the reasons behind some classic roleplaying tropes that exist in literature. Why is the mage rarely seen and appears to be a lonely old coot? Maybe its because he’s Chaotic (which differs from the population) and wants to be left alone to do his experiments and this is how his alignment is manifested in a roleplaying sense to the population. Why is there a sudden abbundance of monsters nearby the castle? Rumors spring up that the damn wizard whose tower is only a mile out of town is attracting monsters. There are plenty more examples of this.
As an aside to all this, I have given further thought to Thieves Hideouts. The rules still aren’t very clear to me. How I see them working is this - When a thief establishes a hideout, he can pick any urban settlement that exists to buid his hideout. There may or may not be a thief’s guild there (if there is, then these are added complications in the form of roleplaying and guildwars). Hideouts (and the Hijinks from them) can be used in an offensive or defensive manner. Offensively, they can be used to uncover vital weaknesses in enemy domains that can be exploited or they could be used to strike fear into an enemies population. Defensively, they can be used to uncover plots that enemy realms are planning on PC domains. Either way this is largely a layer of mechanics/roleplaying that already exist in the form of Hijinks. Determining whether the hideout is offensive or defensive is really a matter of placement. If the hideout is placed within a PCs realm it is likely for defense. Secretly placed within an enemies realm would make its use an offensive one. If Hideouts were cheaper than the standard castles, then it would be easier for thieves to create a network (syndicate) of Hideouts for both uses (but with plenty more complications). This opens up all kinds of roleplaying and potential hooks with traitors, turncoats, subterfuge and guild wars. I think this has the potential to be a boatload of fun!

I think it would be super cool if there were rules that explained why cleric-types contributed these characteristic elements of the construction a high-level party leaves behind.
That would be awesome, and it really reinforces the empire-in-decline theme. I wonder if a true believer with a proper religious burial might still qualify as part of a congregation for divine power, or if the lack of proper burial services brings loss of faith. That would motivate Lawful clerics to construct and maintain tombs and catacombs, and necromancy would be even more of an affront to civilization.
there should be mini-games that summarize the things that could happen while managing a dungeon (rather than needing to roleplay it out in detail) and the things that could happen while maintaining a temple and its corpse-disposal facilities.
Especially if they could be added in simply - a table, say, and a paragraph or two.

I have a confession to make - Wizards building dungeons under towers is about the only part of ACKS I have a visceral dislike of. Wizards + Towers is a standard trope of fantasy and it bothers me slightly that they’re kinda ‘restricted’ to that here (Castle of the Mad Archmage anyone?), but it bothers me more that the contextual setting of the game implies that every dungeon has a tower on top of it.
I see the reasoning, and I can’t express why it bugs me properly, but it does.
Clerics getting to build catacombs and temples etc… As a counterpart to the other classes, and to complete the circle - yes, absolutely. Although again, it implies or reinforces the implied setting. Not all religious cultures used catacombs.
What about Clerics also being able to construct monuments, statuary to the gods (a la Ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt)?
Maybe there’s also scope for improving Villages, Towns and Cities (for all the classes?). I’m thinking something along the lines of the Civilisation game here. Monuments provide religious bonuses, Arenas provide morale bonuses and ‘produce’ tourism and gladiators, the Arcane Sanctum allows passing adventurers and others to procure magical items, Safe houses give bonuses to hijinks, etc… This is particularly appropriate if you’ve got a character directly running an urban settlement / city state, as the rules as written appear to concentrate on trade.

SgtHardPlace - the wizard needn’t build a tower, he just has to build a sanctum. His sanctum could be underground if desired. Nothing says it can’t be part of the dungeon. On the other hand, nothing says that the dungeon can’t be a few miles from the sanctum. Also, not every dungeon will be a dungeon built by a wizard - that’s just one type. And given sufficient age, the sanctum could be long destroyed while the dungeon survives thru occupancy.
Catacombs - We aren’t going to include rules for clerics building catacombs, for several reasons.

  1. Clerics already have strongholds, domains, magic item creation, necromancy, and congregations. Adding another cleric sub-system seems overkill.
  2. Clerics are already rewarded for spending money to build temples and other holy buildings by helping them attract Congregants.
  3. Clerics are already rewarded for spending money to have a necromantic workshop, which could very well be a catacomb.
  4. In the implied setting of the game (Auran Empire) the Imperials burn their dead. The implied Cleric of Ammonar wouldn’t be caught dead (hah) making a catacomb.
    If we do a supplement about Kemesh or Zahar we may expand the rules and have info on chaotic cults and catacombs and so on.

Maybe there’s also scope for improving Villages, Towns and Cities (for all the classes?). I’m thinking something along the lines of the Civilisation game here. Monuments provide religious bonuses, Arenas provide morale bonuses and ‘produce’ tourism and gladiators, the Arcane Sanctum allows passing adventurers and others to procure magical items, Safe houses give bonuses to hijinks, etc… This is particularly appropriate if you’ve got a character directly running an urban settlement / city state, as the rules as written appear to concentrate on trade.
ALEX: We looked at this (I love computer strategy games!) The problem is that whatever monument/building bonuses you come up with will end up as standard options - i.e. you can’t balance the end game on the idea that they won’t be built, and you can’t assume that huge capitals won’t have them. So that means one of three things:

  1. If you make the bonuses minor to avoid messing with balance, you’ve created a meaningless subsystem
  2. If you make the bonuses major to reward building them, and don’t re-balance the system, you’ve created increasing returns at the end game
  3. If you make the bonuses major to reward building them, but re-balance the system, you’ve made it punitively harder for the lower game
    Computer games get around this by having very complex multifactorial math, combined with multiple tiers of each type of item at each level of play, with the player assumed to have, e.g., Chapel, then Church, then Cathedral, etc. In an RPG, we need to limit the complexity to make it manageable without an AI.

To some extent, the need for monuments is already in the system – it’s one possible place for the “investments” that attract followers and bring up the population of domains.
One place that more specific improvements might be appropriate is settlements. One traditional way of distinguishing settlements went something like the following:
Hamlet - mill or other industry
Village - local church (with Priest), market fair
Town/Burg - defensive walls, market
City - cathedral (with Bishop/High Priest)
Metropolis - colony (possibly suburbs/satellite settlements), international trade routes
Possibly with a sanctum or college substituting for or alongside the religious structures. One nifty way this could work out is that anyone could hold a rural domain, and anyone could build the special holdings of their class, but only several allied characters of different classes could sponsor the requirements of a growing settlement.

FWIW, the Kingmaker Adventure Path from Paizo does something along these lines and I think it worked fairly well.

As a person who played 9 levels of Paizo’s Kingmaker modules, I state that you do NOT want to use that system.
The initial pieces of the system made it feel like the fledgling kingdom needed to pace itself on what it built before it started to boom. However, the Waterfront piece is a gamebreaker. Everything was moot and pointless. We accrued more building points (think gold and resources for the place) than we ever needed in one month due to building restrictions.
My other concern is that the Kingmaker system was BORING. You had about 10 rolls to make for a month, and that ended up with 4 players and 1 DM keeping numbers as we spent three months in the winter just seeing how the place did while we took time off from adventuring. It was extremely tedious and didn’t add any flavor to the system.
It was a lovely attempt on Paizo’s part, but the system was needlessly finicky and not even promoted much by Paizo. They were always stating in the book, “You can stop using these rules if they don’t fit your needs,” which seemed more apologetic and acknowledged that they were not good compared to allowing a modular playstyle.
If you want a building system, I’d suggest as few rolls and bookkeeping as possible and make sure growth never gets out of hand. Paizo’s Kingmaker is what made me switch over to ACKS.

I’m not advocating a replica of Kingmaker. I’m simply saying that the idea of domain growth based on the need of certain improvements is something that can work. It doesn’t have to be detailed (and for those groups who want detail could look at Kingmaker as a way of fleshing it out further). OD&D is pretty abstract in this manner, so it doesn’t necessarily require rules of this nature.
The main reason few companies tackle domain management is because just about everyone tackles the situation from a different angle. There are many, many ways to create a system. The system that works for someone depends on how it fits into their campaign - and therein lies the challenge. Everyone has different needs out of domain play. These needs drive a certain style of play which makes a rule set workable or not workable for a group. You need a certain level of detail that one playstyle needs while another playstyle will ignore that info all together and need different detail to make the campaign workable.
One other point about Kingmaker and Paizo in general. The “You can stop using these rules if they don’t fit your needs” is something that Paizo is very, very good at. Paizo recognizes that the level of detail in Kingmaker management isn’t suited to all groups. They make sure the adventures can be played even if you choose not to use the intricate rules. They have done this through most adventure paths where they have created additional rules that MAY enhance a groups fun, however they don’t require a group to use them. Its certainly not an apology for a bad rule set.
In the end, I absolutely agree with your final analysis. As few rules and bookkeeping as possible and make sure there is a paced growth and you have the makings of a fine domain management system.

One last thing to add: I would expect ACKS to do their own thing. Not be a replica of someone elses. The challenge is finding the sweet spot that meets a certain demographics needs and rising to the challenge.