Axioms of an Addled Antillectual

Into the Great Beyond

Now that we have our Currency, Adventurer Progression & Gold-as-XP, and Wealth & Influence decoder rings established we’re getting pretty close to being able to start highlighting where to plug various ACKS features into DFRPG, GURPS DF, and similar—we’ll be tying all the puzzle pieces together into a more cohesive process later on.

It’s worth noting that Generic Universal Eggplant has already done a ton of the heavy lifting required already on many (in fact, I’m pretty sure most) essential ACKS gameplay procedures, as well as other critical components which are a vital resource for helping people (including me!) bring ACKS‘ economics and gameplay loop home to a GURPS table near you. While the approaches outlined over there differ in some ways from the ones I’ve outlined so far on this blog, Eggplant’s exploration of the subject matter is both broad and deep—a gold mine begging to be plundered—and it would absolutely be an error of judgement to ignore the work there regardless of which specific sub-flavor of GURPS you choose to run!

There is, however, one more high-level decoder ring that will help us translate between ACKS and DFRPG and more broadly, the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line: the demographics of adventurers.

Population Planning

The economic model so critical to ACKS is tied in many ways directly to the demographics of the setting. While GACKS does not assume you will be using the Auran Empire setting explicitly, we nonetheless need to map its default high-level core assumptions onto GACKS regarding the prevalence or relative rarity of specific types of adventurers in the overall population.

Establishing this for DF professions will help us get the most use out of the various tables and summaries present across various ACKS books and supplements as published, as well as allow us to use any direction they provide on altering or deviating from their core assumptions (such as alternative types of societies, demi-human civilizations, et al.).

That means we need to at least loosely associate ACKS class categories with specific DFRPG professional templates—and since we’re going to do that, we might as well go ahead and cover every published DF template as well based on those appearing in the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Career Guide, which includes every profession currently published not only via the DF line itself, but also within numerous issues of Pyramid Magazine.

Who’s on First?

The leveled adventurer demographics in ACKS II (JJ, p. 246) break character populations down at each level into the following categories and percentages:

• Fighters/Explorers ~40%
• Crusaders ~20%
• Thieves ~20%
• Mage ~10%
• Venturers ~10%

This is interesting, but pretty high level—to dig deeper we’ll go back to a document released on the Autarch Patreon, “The Econometrics of Aurepos, Parts I–IV.” This document is written for the first edition of ACKS, but most of the economic and demographical assumptions hold between editions. Certain classes released and popularized since ACKS was originally published have since been made “core” types of adventurers in ACKS II, so some of the category names differ.

This document breaks adventurers down into the following:

• Fighters 40%
• Clerics 20%
• Thieves 20%
• Mage 10%
• Others 10%

Importantly, the document notes that these categories should be understood to refer to types of classes rather than to specific classes.

• “Fighters” includes all characters with Fighting Value 2, such as barbarians, explorers, and paladins, which don’t qualify for another type.
• “Mages” includes all characters with Arcane Value 3+, such as elven enchanters and warlocks.
• “Clerics” includes all characters with Divine Value 2+, such as bladedancers, clerics, priestesses, shamans and witches.
• “Thieves” includes all characters with the ability to backstab or inspire courage, such as assassins, bards, delvers, and freebooters.
• “Other” includes all characters who don’t qualify in another category, with venturers being the most common.

The document also notes that some classes may qualify for two categories and can be assigned as desired, with specific occurrence rates for each class within each overall category depending on what culture is being referenced within a given setting.

Fighting, Arcane, Divine, and Thievery values (Thievery Value having been added in ACKS II) are basically measures of specialization within a specific category for a given class.

Building a custom class in ACKS II means assigning “build points,” normally restricted to a total of 4 for human classes, with each listed category allocated between 0–4 build points.

“Trade-offs” are opportunities to buy custom powers or additional class skills after build point allocation, at the cost of other features. Gee, a lot of this is sounding pretty familiar… almost like some sort of point-buy system!

We can take the above to mean that the broad strokes of approximate categorical percentages will remain true at the highest level, while any sub-tables for appearance rates of specific professions will by their nature depend on which campaign world you choose to play in.

Thus, all we need to do at this stage is map our DF professions (which includes those from DFRPG) onto these high-level categories in ACKS.

Method 1 (Role-Based)

The above is not too terribly disparate from how GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Career Guide (DFCG) already categorizes its professional templates:

• Cunning, accounting for adventurers adept at many mundane noncombat skills—craftspeople, talkers, woodsmen.
• Mystical, accounting for adventurers specializing in spells or the wielding of powers.
• Warrior, of course referring to adventurers whose primary purpose is fighting.

Professions which straddle a line between categories get two labels, such as “Warrior-Cunning” for the Scout.

At this point, it is very straightforward to simply map these labels directly to ACKS II categories. By DFCG standards:

• Fighters + Explorers (total 40%) are Warrior-type
• Crusaders + Mages (total 30%) are Mystical-type
• Thieves + Venturers (total 30%) are Cunning-type

This results in the following, for core DF professions:

Adventurer Type (Occurrence)	Core DF Professions
Warrior (40%)	Barbarian, Holy Warrior, Knight, Martial Artist, Scout, Swashbuckler
Cunning (30%)	Thief
Mystical (30%)	Bard, Cleric, Druid, Wizard

Our poor, lonely thief! Or rather, it seems like almost every party will probably have a thief representing the “cunning” delver, which is probably not inaccurate. Either way, that’s OK—remember, many of these professions have dual labels such as the Scout with “Warrior-Cunning,” and so could easily be accounted for in either of the two categories if we felt the need to “even out” the numbers of representative professions.

Furthermore, these are just the “core” 11 Dungeon Fantasy professions—there are many more to fill out these categories as labeled in the DFCG. Consult that document for an exhaustive list of professions by type(s).

Using only the first and primary label for each profession (and without filtering out any “weird” or otherwise inappropriate ones for GACKS purposes), we get the following (not including the Imitator):

Warrior (40%): Barbarian, Blob, Chevalier, Commander, Demolisher, Demon-Slayer, Dragon, Dwarf, Holy Warrior, Knight, Martial Artist, Musketeer, Mystic Knight, Psychic Slayer, Scout, Shield-Bearer, Swashbuckler, Undead-Slayer, Unholy Warrior, Wrestler.

Cunning (30%): Artificer, Assassin, Elf, Innkeeper, Justiciar, Monster Slaver, Ninja, Scholar, Thief.

Mystical (30%): Bard, Beastmaster, Carnie, Cleric, Demonologist, Druid, Elementalist, Evil Cleric, Incanter, Mentalist, Necromancer, Shaman, Sorcerer, Unknowable Thing, Wizard.

Method 2 (Trait-Based)

While the above is useful enough to run with, it’s not the only way to break down the demographics for GACKS purposes. Another possibility is by associating ACKS build point categories with specific GURPS traits.

In accordance with our reasoning outlined in Part II, the implication here isn’t that any character with the traits outlined below fits neatly into these rates of occurrence—rather, the implication is that any adventurer would fall into these categories according to which traits they do, or do not, possess.

Most of the below categories are fairly straightforward to assess, but for the “Thievery Value” (20%) and “Other” (10%) categories accounting for delvers which simply don’t qualify for any of the other buckets in the context of DF, the lines are a little bit blurrier:

We could just combine the two (total 30%) to account for any and all skill-based delvers which aren’t otherwise qualified for the above categories, but that leaves no consideration for some of the “weirder” DF professions or other types of adventurers which are not strictly skill-focused.

The Thievery category in ACKS has an emphasis on skill selection, making this category suitable for any delver with a reliance on mundane skills—in the words of DF 1, they aren’t combatants nor do they have access to powers, spells or special skills. Thus, the Thief and other skill- or knowledge-based delvers including the Artificer and similar could be lumped into this category.

By process of elimination, this makes the Other category best suited for delvers which don’t qualify as a fighter, arcane, divine, or mundane skill-based type—those with “strange” powers, advantages and skills outside the norm.

My suggestions are as follows—the main thing to remember is that whatever trait criteria you decide on for each bucket, you should stick to them strictly otherwise this method loses much of its utility.

Fighting Value 2+ (40%): Martial delvers with any of Combat Reflexes, Gunslinger, Higher Purpose (Slay [any type of foe]), Heroic Archer or Crossbowman (from Warlock Knight), High Pain Threshold, or Weapon Master (any type), and which do not qualify for another category.

Thievery Value 3+ (20%): Expert delvers which qualify for no other category (thus, a focus on mundane non-combat skills and traits). This category also notably includes “dabbler” spellcasters which nonetheless do not qualify for any other categories.

Divine Value 2+ (20%): Divine delvers with any of Power Investiture (any), Divine Favor, or similar advantage serving as a prerequisite for divine spells or effects granted by a divine patron—notably not including “mere” divine power talents such as Holiness.

Arcane Value 3+ (10%): Arcane delvers with any of Magery 1+ (any), Incantation Gift, Sorcerous Empowerment, or similar advantage serving as a prerequisite for magical spellcasting—notably not including “mere” magical power talents, even those which imitate Magery under certain circumstances by granting access to or enhancing a restricted list of spells, such as Bardic Talent or Elemental Influence.

Other (10%): Esoteric delvers with any of the following—

• Power talents which transcend the strictly magical or divine such as Madness for the Carnie, Psi Talent for the Mentalist, Deathliness for the Necromancer, or even Chi Talent for the Martial Artist.
• Trained By a Master and similar advantages such as Wrestling Master which enable the use of special or esoteric skills.
• “Wild” Exotic or Supernatural advantages not part of any power and neither divine nor magical in nature.

Looking at the NPC Class table on page 259 of the ACKS II JJ one can see there is a 10% of encountering a “weird” class in the wild, even though there is no “Other (10%)” category officially listed in the adventurer demographics on page 246—so there is still some precedent for us saving and repurposing the “Other (10%)” from the first edition ACKS article, for GACKS purposes.

Having associated build point categories with specific GURPS traits, we can now name the categories (with some artistic license) and corresponding professions:

Adventurer Type (Occurrence)	Qualifying Core DF Professions
Martial (40%)	Barbarian, Holy Warrior, Knight, Scout, Swashbuckler
Expert (20%)	Bard, Thief
Divine (20%)	Cleric, Druid
Arcane (10%)	Wizard
Esoteric (10%)	Martial Artist

Incorporating every profession listed within DFCG would look like the following if sorted into each relevant bucket by the required advantages for each profession according trait criteria (customizations with optional advantages might change their category, for instance a cavalryman Chevalier would move into “Martial”):

• Martial (40%):
  1. Assassin
  2. Barbarian
  3. Holy Warrior
  4. Knight
  5. Musketeer
  6. Scout
  7. Shield-Bearer
  8. Swashbuckler
  9. Unholy Warrior
• Expert (20%):
  1. Artificer
  2. Bard
  3. Chevalier
  4. Demolisher
  5. Dwarf
  6. Elf
  7. Justiciar
  8. Monster Slaver
  9. Thief
• Divine (20%):
  1. Cleric
  2. Druid
  3. Evil Cleric
  4. Shaman
• Arcane (10%):
  1. Incanter
  2. Sorcerer
  3. Wizard
• Esoteric (10%):
  1. Beastmaster
  2. Blob
  3. Carnie
  4. Commander
  5. Demon-Slayer
  6. Demonologist
  7. Dragon
  8. Elementalist
  9. Imitator
  10. Innkeeper (due to Wild Talent)
  11. Mage-Slayer
  12. Martial Artist
  13. Mentalist
  14. Mystic Knight
  15. Necromancer
  16. Ninja
  17. Psychic Slayer
  18. Scholar (due to Modular Abilities)
  19. Undead-Slayer
  20. Unknowable Thing
  21. Wrestler (due to Wrestling Master)

The above are numbered so that if someone wanted each profession to represent an equal part of a given category (extremely unlikely, but for simplicity’s sake) they could simply take the overall percentage of the category and divide by number of professions to get an idea of the occurrence rating of a given profession.

Example: members of the Assassin profession represent (40% for Martial, divided among 9 professions) ~4.44% of all leveled adventurers, which could then be multiplied by the figures for specific populations to figure out exactly how many assassins are likely to reside there.

One advantage of using this approach over Method 1 is that it produces more concrete and focused categories, which may give them more utility (but also necessarily meaning they’re more explicit).

Another advantage is that this method doesn’t discern by role almost at all—this might sound like a disadvantage, but explicitly defined trait-based criteria for each category means that blended-role professions such as Scouts cease to be reliant on judgement calls.

A third advantage is that this method not only accounts for all currently published professions, but also for any future ones and any adventurers which fall outside the finite DF template umbrella. For PCs created from scratch or even just built using alternative means in the context of DF or DFRPG (such as with the Five Easy Pieces article), no matter how far they deviate from the norm they can still drop neatly into a single corresponding category!

For homebrew purposes, if your campaign has a different type(s) of magic from those in DF or otherwise outlined above, all you need to do is add any corresponding traits to a given category’s list of criteria as appropriate.

Whatever method you choose should be fine, but if you aren’t sure (such as if you are uncertain about choosing or adhering to specific trait criteria for Method 2) then of the two approaches above I would recommend erring on the side of caution and using the broader, less-specific Method 1 role-based approach, then design sub-tables for each of the three buckets of professions (Warrior-Cunning-Mystical) according to best judgement.

For the purposes of the GACKS series though, we will probably assume the use of Method 2 since it enables us to easily categorize any current or future published professions and even allows us to categorize adventurers falling entirely outside of the strict DF template-based approach! It doesn’t prevent us from developing sub-tables, either.

Most of the “level 1” 62-point Delvers to Grow novice modules for each profession fit into the Method 2 categories seamlessly according to trait criteria outlined above, but a few don’t—namely the Martial Artist and Scout, which both fall into the “Expert” category due to being unqualified for anything else.

This is fine! In practice, such low-point versions of these professions functionally do fall into expert-first (martial-second) niches, at least until they “level up” enough to gain critical (but expensive) template advantages later on such as Trained By a Master and Heroic Archer—finally promoting them into the Esoteric and Martial categories, respectively!

Stronghold Types and Followers

If using the GACKS Wealth & Influence guidelines, one might wonder based on these demographics which type of followers each profession might attract and what type of stronghold they must establish (in addition to having Status 2+, or Rank 2+ in the case of barbarians) in order to attract them.

One option is to map each individual DFCG profession to a Stronghold Type and variety of Followers according to the class with the closest matching flavor (ACKS II RR, p. 334):

1. Artificer—Workshop (treat as Sanctum, 15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level artificers.
2. Assassin—Hideout (5K GP); 2d 1st-level assassins.
3. Barbarian—Chieftain’s Hall (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level barbarians.
4. Bard—Great Hall (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level bards.
5. Beastmaster—Cottage (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level beastmasters.
6. Blob—Vault (15K GP); 1d puddings (DFM 2, p. 13) “paid” as hirelings (in food).
7. Carnie—Circus Tent (treat as Guildhouse, 5K GP); 2d 1st-level carnies.
8. Chevalier—Castle (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level chevaliers.
9. Cleric/Evil Cleric—Fortified Church (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level clerics.
10. Commander—Castle (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level chevaliers.
11. Demolisher—Vault (15K GP); 1d–1×10 1st-level dwarven mercs, 1d 1st–3rd level demolishers.
12. Demon, Mage, or Undead-Slayer—Temple (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level slayers of the same type.
13. Demonologist—Sanctum (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level demonologists.
14. Dragon—Lair (treat as Border Fort, 15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level barbarians (who might venerate or even worship them).
15. Druid—Cloister (15K GP); 1d6×30 apprentices, 10 (1–3 on 1d) or 20 (4–6) 1st-level druids.
16. Dwarf—Vault (15K GP); 3d×10 1st-level dwarven mercs.
17. Elementalist—Sanctum (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level elementalists.
18. Elf—Fastness (15K GP); 2d×10 1st-level elven troops.
19. Holy/Unholy Warrior—Fortress or Dark Fortress (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level holy/unholy warriors.
20. Imitator—any!
21. Incanter—Sanctum (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level incanters.
22. Innkeeper—Inn (treat as Guildhouse, 5K GP); 2d 1st-level innkeepers (staff).
23. Justiciar—Office (treat as Hideout, 5K GP); 2d 1st-level justiciars.
24. Knight—Castle (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level knights.
25. Martial Artist—Dojo (treat as Temple, 15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level martial artists.
26. Mentalist—Cloister (15K GP); 1d6×30 apprentices, 10 (1–3 on 1d) or 20 (4–6) 1st-level mentalists.
27. Monster Slaver—Slaver Fort (treat as Dark Fortress, 15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level monster slavers.
28. Musketeer—Castle (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level musketeers.
29. Mystic Knight—Fortress (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level mystic knights.
30. Necromancer—Sanctum (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level necromancers.
31. Ninja—Hideout (5K GP); 2d 1st-level ninjas.
32. Psychic Slayer—Temple (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level psychic slayers.
33. Scholar—Library (treat as Sanctum, 15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level scholars.
34. Scout—Border Fort (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level scouts.
35. Shaman—Medicine Lodge (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level shamans.
36. Shield-Bearer—Castle (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level shield-bearers.
37. Sorcerer—Cottage (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level sorcerers.
38. Swashbuckler—Fortress (15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level swashbucklers.
39. Thief—Hideout (5K GP); 2d 1st-level thieves.
40. Unknowable Thing—Sanctum (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level scholars (perhaps there to learn, or just to study the “master” itself…).
41. Wizard—Sanctum (15K GP); 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level wizards.
42. Wrestler—Wrestling Hall (treat as Great Hall, 15K GP); 5d×10 troops, 1d 1st–3rd level wrestlers.

If using Method 2, you could instead map each high-level category to one of the Custom Class Stronghold types (ACKS II JJ, p. 298). This is probably the most straightforward approach for a GACKS campaign, at the highest level (since it accounts for every kind of adventurer, whether using a discrete DF template or not)—a GM could allow the acquisition of any type of stronghold to qualify a given PC for the arrival of followers at their discretion however, simply treating the following list as the “defaults”:

• Martial (40%)—Castle or Fortified Church (15K GP; 5d mercenaries or fanatical mercs, 1d 1st–3rd level members of same profession). Holy Warriors and similarly devout adventurers use the latter.
• Expert (20%)—Hideout (5K GP; 2d 1st-level members of same profession).
• Divine (20%)—Cloister (15K GP; 1d×30 apprentices, 1d20×10 or 3d6×10 1st-level members of the same profession).
• Arcane (10%)—Sanctum and Dungeon (15K GP; 2d apprentices, 1d 1st–3rd level members of same profession).
• Esoteric (10%)—Any, depending on role. Dwarven Vaults and Elven Fastnesses are open to any of the corresponding racial professions.

“How exactly do I make these ‘1st-level’ characters for all these weird professions?!”

Great question! We’ll cover that in detail with a post coming Soon™ (Editor’s note: that post is now here!), but in the meantime I would recommend using Delvers to Grow and simply building 62-point characters for “level 1” (according to our progression from Part II) as close as you can get to the spirit of the profession in question—then semi-arbitrarily adding upgrade modules or raising skill levels or whatever means you choose based on profession to bring them up to “level 2 or 3” according to our progression if needed.

Most holy warriors at 62 points will look very similar to knights anyway, as one example—a lot of the “special sauce” that makes each profession unique at 250 points tends to melt away in favor of the absolute essentials at lower point values, even for different types of spellcaster (spell choices make a big difference in flavor, here!).

When in doubt, take one or two of the required advantages or skills as appropriate from the 250-point template of the profession in question (dropping a couple of levels from any essential Talent) and simply swap them into the closest “basic module” in DtG—the basic Holy Warrior module could serve well enough as the foundation for a Psychic Slayer, if you squint hard enough.

This won’t work for every profession, which is part of why this topic needs its own post!

Some Assembly Required

We’ve now established two methods for calibrating occurrence rates at the highest level for professions as labeled in the Dungeon Fantasy Career Guide, which will be helpful for developing campaign dependent sub-tables later on.

We’ve also established a couple of ways to assign stronghold types and followers to each DF profession, so we can make use of our Wealth & Influence post if we so choose.

While these are not top-to-bottom fully worked examples (impossible without enforcing setting assumptions), we now have clear outlines which we can begin to color in as we shift from a focus on “decoder rings” to assembling our tool chest and beginning to map out some campaign designs (and pointing out where to plug in various ACKS features) in earnest.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with GACKS versions of the leveled NPCs table from page 246 of the ACKS II JJ (calibrated by default to Aurëpos’ population of 66,067,940 people; refer to that table for precise population % for each level, as all they do here is muck up table formatting) for each of the approaches outlined in this post:

Method 1 (Role-Based)

Lvl	# of Characters	Warrior (~40%)	Cunning (~30%)	Mystical (~30%)
1	1,761,624	704,650	528,487	528,487
2	640,590	256,236	192,177	192,177
3	232,942	93,177	69,882	69,882
4	84,706	33,882	25,412	25,412
5	30,802	10,011	9,240	11,550
6	11,201	3,920	3,360	3,920
7	4,073	1,426	1,222	1,426
8	1,481	518	444	518
9	592	207	177	207
10	237	59	71	106
11	105	26	32	47
12	38	10	12	18
13	14	3	4	6
14	5	1	2	2

Method 2 (Trait-Based), the GACKS pick

Lvl	# of Characters	Martial (~40%)	Expert (~20%)	Divine (~20%)	Arcane (~10%)	Esoteric (~10%)
1	1,761,624	704,650	352,325	352,325	176,162	176,162
2	640,590	256,236	128,118	128,118	64,059	64,059
3	232,942	93,177	46,588	46,588	23,294	23,294
4	84,706	33,882	16,941	16,941	8,471	8,471
5	30,802	10,011	6,160	6,160	5,390	3,080
6	11,201	3,920	2,240	2,240	1,680	1,120
7	4,073	1,426	815	815	611	407
8	1,481	518	296	296	222	148
9	592	207	118	118	89	59
10	237	59	47	47	59	24
11	105	26	21	21	26	11
12	38	10	8	8	10	4
13	14	3	3	3	3	1
14	5	1	1	1	1	1

Next Time…

We have a ton of different headings we can set our GACKS compass to at this juncture, but a critical component of actually playing is simply making player characters… and since we’ve now opened up the can of worms that is the larger GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line of profession templates (as opposed to just those found within the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game) for demographics purposes, then it may be desirable to outline a process for making “level 1” characters for each profession across the board in addition to the option of simply using Delvers to Grow, which has been the suggested method for GACKS games in this series thus far.

See you there!

—

26.05 edit: heavily revised “Method 2,” other miscellany