Domain morale roll modifiers are much more significant than base morale.
Take a Domain with a Base Morale of -4 or whatever. If the Morale Roll modifier is +2, then the effect of the Morale Roll, month by month, will be…
Roll 2–6: -1 current morale.
Roll 7–9: +1 current morale.
Roll 10–12: +2 current morale.
So the month-by-month change will be heavily biased toward an increase in current morale.
This means that, even if you are an utterly incompetent ruler (say running a huge domain with no stronghold), as long you can make it through the first few months of rule (however long it takes to bring current morale to +0 from your starting value), you will be able to keep your domain indefinitely, and in fact most of the time current morale will be hovering around +3 / Steadfast or +4 / Stalwart.
Additionally, the problem of making it through the first months of rule does not even present itself if you’re growing a domain you already own beyond what your personal authority and stronghold size would seem to suggest you can actually hold on to: With low enough taxation and high enough liturgy expenses, your current morale will always be high enough that you can take momentary hits due to the domain growing in size.
I find it interesting since it completely contradicts the general idea that rulers will tend to rule domains such that their personal authority is about +0: It’s definitely possible to keep the peace even with abysmal personal authority, at least as far as the local population is concerned.
It’s just a matter of providing the populace with enough panem et circenses.
Addendum: Table with morale roll from simulations (100,000 months for each Base Morale / Morale Roll Mod combination). Cross-referencing the Base Morale row (–6 to +6) with the Morale Roll Mod column (–4 to +4) you get the long-term AVERAGE CURRENT MORALE for the domain.
This is a subject I have discussed at length in the discord. Generally most campaigns apparently don’t encounter a problem because there aren’t typically long periods of peaceful downtime (in the AE campaign I believe the apocalypse happens 3 years after game start unless stopped by PCs).
I don’t think they completely solve the issue but I’ll copy/paste some tips that helped my campaign deal with this with help from Arbrethil and Archon.
1: Calculate personal authority based on income before liturgies/repression expenditure
2: Cap liturgies at an extra 2gp/family
3: Require ruler to spend maintenance equal to his intended rank at personal authority +0 or have neighbouring realms all roll reaction to see if they invade every year
4: “Traditional Society: The ruler is supposed to uphold the traditions of his people. As long as he does not change the tax rate or liturgy rate from its traditional values, he gains a +1 bonus to loyalty rolls with his vassals, who know him to be a rightful ruler. If he changes the tax rate or liturgy rate, it counts as a calamity for the vassals, who make loyalty rolls at -1 per point of change.” (straight from Archon)
5: “Accession: When a ruler takes power, he is allowed to increase Liturgy spending by 2gp in the first month and 1gp in the second month in order to show his appreciation of the people” or whatever.
6: Divine power cannot be used to replicate the entirety of the material component of magical item creation
7: Good random event table (I use one from Harnmaster)
8: Remember that realms are supposed to receive a -1 minor calamity to domain morale on average, usually not PC realms but should be in a long term scenario
I’d love to hear your ideas as well. I wonder, how would an unadjusted roll of 2 being “set to base morale or -2” affect the system?
That would mean a terrible ruler of the wrong alignment with an insufficient stronghold etc could keep his domain afloat with heavy religious donations and low taxes for 3 years on average before suddenly the seething populace will revolt.
Your analysis is correct. Partly what you are seeing is my own libertarian inclinations at work: A ruler who reduces taxes to almost nothing and provides services to his constituents from his own income seems like an ideal ruler to me!
I tend to imagine game worlds as being set during dark and dangerous times, like Warring States, Crisis of the Third Century, and so on, where such tactics aren’t really viable. And historically, of course, such rulers were breathtakingly rare. Even enlightened rulers such as Marcus Aurelius weren’t able to do such things, as usually there were too many crises requiring expenditures - think of Justinian’s wars and plagues. Alternatively, what we remember as enlightened rulers are those who invested in very long-term projects that weren’t just “bread and circuses” for the masses.
If you are concerned that your players will “power game” this, the solutions I’ve offered on the Discord can be found above. Cheers!
A couple of things I’ll note. First, base morale only extends between -4 and +4; I don’t think this has a significant impact. Second, a roll of a natural 2 always reduces current morale by 2, regardless of modifiers to the roll. Third, a typical domain will have an average Calamity penalty of -1 every month (as Woad notes in point 8), so if the ruler isn’t actively Administering the Domain, there will be a base -1 to the morale roll. If he’s trying to get to a net +2 modifier, he’s sacrificing 2gp/family in income every month and the time to administer his domain, which makes him poorer, gets him less campaign XP, and ultimately leaves him weak relative to other rulers who invest that 2gp/family in military assets (which won’t be all other rulers, but should be some of them). That in turn leads to enemy armies in his territory, which lead to mounting penalties to the morale roll, etc. Bread and circuses are expensive, and while they protect him from an internal coup, the opportunity cost of investing in them can easily expose him to external invasion. That’s not to say no one does it; it’s a meaningful tradeoff to make, but it is a tradeoff, not an easy choice.
I’ll also add that I definitely assume Woad’s guideline 1 is in use; that was later added to the errata as an official interpretation. Likewise, while 3 is not directly RAW, personal authority is based on upkeep spending, so that’s a very substantial expense. Lastly, Woad’s point 7 on a good random event table is likewise a good one; I don’t think there strictly needs to be a random table, but it should be the case that players aren’t running their domain in a vacuum. Other things are going on, adding random stressors and opportunities, and being robustly able to respond to such events is a part of domain play.
That said, I do think Woad’s suggestion is a good one, to have a natural 2 inflict the worse of a 2 point decrease in current morale, or resetting it to your base morale (and I think the reverse for a natural 12 is also reasonable). Making an unlikable ruler have to periodically deal with that even if he spends on liturgies seems a good outcome in my book, and it makes morale a bit more dynamic.