Not quite. ^^; the Personnel needed is a strict number, you need to be able to pay the fee. However, if you want to roleplay the number of personnel to be a little higher than what you actually have for the fight, I'd be okay with that.

Does that make sense?

Does the personnel requirement for upgrading a District reflect overall faction number? Or do I need the minimum within the district to upgrade? Do I lose personnel when I upgrade, similar to wealtb?

@Little Bird Great question. The Personnel amount is pooled together to upgrade a district, and reflects your physical faction amount. You do lose Personnel when you upgrade.

Dies that answer it alright?

I find it a little unrealistic if the personnel number reflected the faction size.

Say, if having 5 personnel meant your team is only 5-man strong, and no gyft at that... I don't know how they would've came into control of an entire area, much less multiple... (Not to mention the possibility of being a bare-stick commander after losing an attempt)

If these personnel had their own teams or 'outsourced' certain tasks... But then it would be unrealistic for a group to double or triple in size over 1-2 GM posts (which I don't think spans that long IC), when everyone has already an established faction

I find it a little unrealistic if the personnel number reflected the faction size.

Say, if having 5 personnel meant your team is only 5-man strong, and no gyft at that... I don't know how they would've came into control of an entire area, much less multiple... (Not to mention the possibility of being a bare-stick commander after losing an attempt)

If these personnel had their own teams or 'outsourced' certain tasks... But then it would be unrealistic for a group to double or triple in size over 1-2 GM posts (which I don't think spans that long IC), when everyone has already an established faction

I just imply that my faction sustained losses prior to the RP which necessitated a rebuild. Losing personnel in attempting to take a district is reasonable. I'm not sure about upgrading though... kind of implies people are dying in the effort to improve conditions.

<Snipped quote by evierose>

I just imply that my faction sustained losses prior to the RP which necessitated a rebuild. Losing personnel in attempting to take a district is reasonable. I'm not sure about upgrading though... kind of implies people are dying in the effort to improve conditions.

Don't think of it as dying. Just they're on permanent assignment to maintain the new needs of the district.

Personnel is an abstraction of people, not hard numbers. So 1 Personnel doesn't necessarily mean just 1 person.

In any case, I wouldn't be too hung up about making a system as realistic as possible, or I'd just play a 4x.

For one...

The word personnel is not a singular amount unless it's a singular group. Personnel means a group of people employed by an organization. So if you have 1 personnel, you do not have one person, since you would have one group of people.

If you had 5 personnel, you do not have 5 people... you have five groups of people.

Secondly, I do not believe that personnel in this role-play are hard factor numbers and our main characters are the bigger parts of the equation. There are going to be different amounts of personnel (more groups possibly for richer districts versus smaller and so on) and if you are using your personnel or not (or they are dying or not), etc... etc... A lot of variables and factors.

To want hard numbers, the most realistic questions, outcomes, answers, etc... would take way too long to actually do for an role-play that is setup like this and IF you wanted to spend that time, you'd have to make a whole system like Dungeons and Dragons 5e or use a pre-made system like DnD 5e for everything.

Edit:

What I am emphasizing above is being a little creative, a little flexible, and not overly worrying about accounting for each number. That would be like worry for every single background character in a Marvel movie or action movie in general. It doesn't make sense too.

Because if that is what we are doing, then our lovely GM would have to figure out how many personnel we each would have. Which means she would have to figure out how many are in a group of 1 personnel (be that the same or not for districts which are classified different) and then we would all have a horrible time either calling them thing 1 and thing 2, naming them, and putting little backgrounds on who they are and that could literally mean doing little quick sheets of 100 people for your business.

So why stop there? If we already gotta fill out a quick little sheet for ALL and each person that you have control over. Why not make a quick little sheet for every civilian in your district(s)? It would only make sense to make it more realistic and so on.

Except... that would suck all the fun out of the roleplay by having to pre-start or stop to get all this information to be setup to have the most realistic or hard factual outcome.

Give me 100 personnel and see the city be saved :-3

100 Personnel, 0 Wealth start kekeke.

We got some really good discussion going on here, and some really good insights.

I've given it a bit of thought, and it's true. Just like how one Wealth could equal $10,000 or $1 million, I may have been thinking about Personnel wrong. 1 Personnel could, in fact, equal to 10 people, or 100, depending on the district.

I believe it's still realistic to say that you lose Personnel when you claim a new district, as I'm sure there are roles to fill, and if there is a war, people die. However, I would be willing to make it so you only need to meet the minimum for upgrading a district - I wouldn't take your Personnel from you as a fee.

(That way Personnel are not turning into bricks....)

Would that make it more fair and realistic? :>

And yessss, I had a thought that in the beginning, all the mafias and organizations are small and struggling with their numbers, maybe due to a recent war, or people quitting. Perhaps the war was expensive, which is why no one really has any money right now. Whatever reasons, I want to leave this open to your own interpretation as to why you're starting out somewhat fresh.

I don't think it needs to be more realistic. I personally like Herald's idea that there's Personnel permanently allocated to like, construction and infrastructure projects or aid programs within the district you've upgraded.

And I've been implying in all my collabs that there was a big city-wide conflict in the recent past that necessitated everyone burning their resources to stay afloat kekek.

@ERode Fair enough, then we will keep things as it is. :>

Yes, I noticed that, and I was nodding along enthusiastically, lol.

We got some really good discussion going on here, and some really good insights.

I've given it a bit of thought, and it's true. Just like how one Wealth could equal $10,000 or $1 million, I may have been thinking about Personnel wrong. 1 Personnel could, in fact, equal to 10 people, or 100, depending on the district.

I believe it's still realistic to say that you lose Personnel when you claim a new district, as I'm sure there are roles to fill, and if there is a war, people die. However, I would be willing to make it so you only need to meet the minimum for upgrading a district - I wouldn't take your Personnel from you as a fee.

(That way Personnel are not turning into bricks....)

Would that make it more fair and realistic? :>

And yessss, I had a thought that in the beginning, all the mafias and organizations are small and struggling with their numbers, maybe due to a recent war, or people quitting. Perhaps the war was expensive, which is why no one really has any money right now. Whatever reasons, I want to leave this open to your own interpretation as to why you're starting out somewhat fresh.

Retaining personnel after upgrading would certainly be a benefit for lower districts looking to grow. It's a lot easier to only have to accrue more wealth and still have personnel on hand to validate a competent defense of territory should one be attacked.

Call me selfish, but at least allowing Poor -> Comfortable to happen as a purely monetary investment coukd balance things a bit.

When someone else attacks you, you don't need to spend any Wealth or Personnel to fight back. They're risking the cost of invasion and you're risking your ownership of the district.

Yep, there is no cost to you when you defend from an attack. Plus, with the recontextualizing of Personnel, treating it like Wealth, it becomes a variable. 1 W = $10,000 or $1 mil. 1 P = 10 people, 100 people. By this way, you can roleplay that you have enough Personnel to protect yourself. Though, those with Gyfts will always be stronger... if you're worried about an attack, you could always make a few more NPC sheets. :>

I'm really just spitballing ways to maintain a degree of parity so that the map doesn't turn into a Monopoly board.

As far as personnel expenditure on defense, I'm putting up the idea that sacrificing the requisite personnel can effectively counter an invasion without having to go into a drawn out battle sequence.

I'm of the opinion that the Personnel really should have it's own functional identity, and yhat it and Wealth should have actions in which they can act independently of each other. (EG - The above suggestion, and making District upgrades a Wealth only expense).

As I've more or less inquired previously, what's the point lf the personnel metric if it's just going to be used in exact tandem with Wealth and not play into the process of invasions and defense, etc? Would it not be simpler to just consolidate everything into Wealth and trust that no one is gonna pull a 'gotcha,' by having a full on army come around the corner in the middle of a battle? (Endgame scenarios notwithstanding; if we get that far into this I'd be dissappointed if we didn't have forces of 100s if not 1000s in a city-wide fire fight.

EDIT:

All of the above aside my sentiment boils down to two questions:
1. Are we all in agreement that the story is of higher importance than the game elements?
2. Are we (mostly) ok with collaborating our way to a more even board state before getting into the more cutthroat activity of trying to conquer one another?

I'm really just spitballing ways to maintain a degree of parity so that the map doesn't turn into a Monopoly board.

As far as personnel expenditure on defense, I'm putting up the idea that sacrificing the requisite personnel can effectively counter an invasion without having to go into a drawn out battle sequence.

I'm of the opinion that the Personnel really should have it's own functional identity, and yhat it and Wealth should have actions in which they can act independently of each other. (EG - The above suggestion, and making District upgrades a Wealth only expense).

As I've more or less inquired previously, what's the point lf the personnel metric if it's just going to be used in exact tandem with Wealth and not play into the process of invasions and defense, etc? Would it not be simpler to just consolidate everything into Wealth and trust that no one is gonna pull a 'gotcha,' by having a full on army come around the corner in the middle of a battle? (Endgame scenarios notwithstanding; if we get that far into this I'd be dissappointed if we didn't have forces of 100s if not 1000s in a city-wide fire fight.

You realize without bodies, making a check to wealth means nothing? For example, if I have $100,000 to build a house but I do not want to hire a group of people to build that house. How is that house going to be built? How is that money going to actually be used? Having personnel a little distracted from wealth investments just makes sense. You need someone/some people at least to focus on whatever you are upgrading.

You cannot upgrade an area and just think it'll magically be upgraded without anyone touching/working to get it upgraded.

Now, I could see there being already established weapons/gyfts/etc... in a personnel and your character sending out troops to go fight another district/take other a district without expelling extra money.

But to spend money, especially on something like upgrading/building. You need to actually have people to do that.

Can't wait for Nocturnia Christmas carols and gats.

🎵🎶 Deck the streets with shadows creeping,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
Crime and greed are never sleeping,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
In the alleys whispers linger,
Deals are made with deadly fingers,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la,
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la! 🎵🎶

<3