Birthright was another one of those #dnd settings that fall under "great concept, bad rules". The idea of player characters starting out as the rulers of their own domain was and is awesome (although I've grown a bit leery about the whole "Divine Right of Kings" thing - but I can let that slide for a good story). However, the rules for managing domains and fighting armies were a mess, and would involve more spreadsheets than I want to bother with for recreational gaming.

If I were to run a #ttrpg campaign in this setting, I'd probably use @GregStolze@mastodon.social 's Reign (with bits of Wild Talents thrown in for the birthright powers) - rules for running domains (or "companies") are integrated into the ruleset from the start, and they are also much more scaleable - if you plan to conquer all of Anuire, this should be much less of a headache.

Although I'd have to re-read the assorted magic rules of Reign to see if they have something similar in mood to what *Birthright offers (which is mostly D&D magic, but with some significant thematic differences from more "standard" campaign settings).

@juergen_hubert

The interesting thing about Birthright to me is that there wasn't actually a "divine right of kings". It was explicitly transferable, and was transferable by violence. If you were a shitty ruler, people could and would rise up and kill you, and your chunk of divinity would either die with you or be taken by someone who killed you correctly.

@NinjaDebugger@mastodon.sandwich.net Didn't the people who killed you also need to have a divine bloodline in order to receive the benefit?

Although I think there were some special artifact swords who circumvented this... it's been a while since I read them.

@juergen_hubert

As far as I know, it was definitely possible for someone without the spark, because ultimately _everybody_ had some degree of possibility, thanks to a long time and plenty of illegitimate children.

It was absolutely _easier_ for soemone from a neighboring bloodline who wasn't anywhere near inheritance to pop over and lead a revolution, but successful revolutions usually involve the powerful from nearby countries in one way or another.

@juergen_hubert

Also, and this is kind of weird to say, maybe...

but Birthright is an explicitly post-apocalyptic setting, so it's actually kind of ripe potentially for a reskin/remake in PBTA.

@juergen_hubert

I'm a larger fan of FITD, which would probably also work.

@NinjaDebugger@mastodon.sandwich.net Can't say that I have.

@juergen_hubert

Not surprising, it barely got a release in the US, let alone Germany. Little known gurps knockoff heartbreaker in 97ish, got a one paragraph review mention in Dragon Magazine, and otherwise vanished without a trace.

It had one great idea, and that was how it handled both static and dynamic magic, making spells from threads that were divided into "what you can affect" and "how you can affect it". Granted, the way those threads were divided up was insane, but.