If you are running a dnd/Pathfinder campaign i suggest checking out Ultimate Campaign. Its a great resource for running a nation and building it up and even has room for adventuring. ie you Govern your nation for one week per month and then have 3 weeks left to explore and solve issues personally.

Does it Have to be a "kingdom"? What about a town or village?
What about a few families in a valley?
Maybe a RPG version of Caverna: The Cave Farmers?
http://boardgamegeek.com/board...caverna-cave-farmers
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In reply to GreenTongue (msg # 17):

I followed your link, Greentongue, but that game seems to be an online type that you have to register for.

However, in the process of seeking more info about it, I stumbled across a board game called Blood Royale by Games Workshop, which seems to borrow heavily from the Royale version of Diplomacy (or vice versa, I haven't checked publication dates). It has some useful rules that I can in turn borrow. As a board game, the rules are not over complex and there aren't too many beans to count.

So thanks for the suggestion. :)

I'm also looking at a rule set called An Echo Resounding, by Kevin Crawford (who created Stars Without Number). It seems to have some good ideas for generating and managing everything from homesteads to kingdoms with very little calculation.

I think my homebrew may have a flavour of each of these.

In reply to icosahedron152 (msg # 22):

Excellent comparison between Domain Management in ACKS vs. An Echo Resounding
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21979
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This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 14:45, Sun 14 Dec 2014.

In reply to GreenTongue (msg # 23):

Yes, it was that discussion, involving Kevin himself, that convinced me to try AER.

Incidentally, I thought that was supposed to be a dalek's eye...

Since AER is not one of the searchable game system names how would you find one on this site?
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Use the search function on the main page, but search using one of the other searchable fields, like the GM name, for example.

Also note that you don't have to use the drop down list to find a system, you can enter a system name which isn't listed, and might still find  games using it.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:35, Sun 14 Dec 2014.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 27):

Thank you
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In reply to bigbadron (msg # 27):

I had not realized that you could put in a system name that was not recognized by the search engine. For searching and for creating.
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For me personally the BECMI war machine and domain rules are the basis of any custom system I build for this, some things borrowed from the pathfinder kingdom rules.

Other systems I have used /tweaked include :

Mongoose runequest empires book and guilds book.

heroquest the community rules is a useful bookkeeping light system.

AEG did some rules for 3.0 war and empires, personally useful for ideas not as a complete system.

IF you are looking for useful ideas on how to build an adventure around uniting disparate forces into an army against  common foe look at the old BECMI adventure x10 red arrow, black shield.

old style pen and paper PBM games can also give useful ideas and most of them no longer run but the rules are often still freely availzble on the internet, they tend to be computational intensive but can be good for ideas.

You've already heard about the benefits of boardgames such as blood royale.

Good Luck.

Interesting


Sounds very helpful for the PbP format. Any example link?
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While trying to run an AER game, I have encountered some issues.

For example, the Guardmen ability is needed to address the Disorder obstacle however there is no listed Unit that has this ability.

I had to add the Unit:
Guards 1 9 120’ 1d6 Spear F1 6 1M 1W 0S Guardsmen

Does this seem like the correct solution?

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Another thing is the 1 roll for Assets per Action. Since M/W/S each need their own successful roll, I changed it to a SET of rolls per Action. That way you get one for each instead of ONE period.

Will this be a problem later when the Domains get big bonuses for their sizes?

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What about the number of Actions per turn. The rules state 2 for a PC.
Since we are playing AER as its own game, should the number of allowed Actions increase as the size of a Domain increases?
This message was last edited by the user at 01:03, Tue 30 Dec 2014.

Having tried to run a Birthright game, I'm going to weigh in here:

Birthright has some good aspects running for it: It's got a good amount of supporting information for it. You've got books about regions, cultures, campaigns, adventures, and so on. It does a very good job of putting names and faces and numbers into place for having a setting that can just kind of exist as written.

The downsides, however, shoot it in the foot. One downside, depending on your fancy, is that it's all second edition ADND. And while there's a fan site that has forums, and pdfs, and a fan conversion to 3.5 (and maybe even pathfinder now), the bulk of the material is still 2nd edition. If second edition is not your cup of tea, this is a downside.

An actual downside, however, is that if you want to run it using the rules as written, with the npcs as they've been set up and so on, and do a reasonable job of keeping real track of what the not player run kingdoms are up to, then you will need a spread sheet. And maybe to use the custom program that is on the birthright fan site I mentioned, and maybe to make a program of your own to do it, because I know the one that is on that site (at least when I tried using it) didn't really have the Rjuvik area filled in (or whatever it's called, the viking area with badasses and their axe wielding culture of kicking ass and having a giant wall to fight invading goblinoids off of).

Another benefit however, is that you've got a war system in place, you've got an economic system, and you have the sweet sweet system where the power of the land is tied to ruling it, the whole bloodline system and all it's glorious implications. Of course, you probably shouldn't worry about balancing the players too much, because some of them might wind up with things like Regeneration from their bloodline, or the power to call elementals once a week. It's got a good, flavorful setting. And with the whole 'need a bloodline or to be elf or half elf' to cast strong spells helps ensure that the players can feel powerful when their wizard drops a fireball, since it's just not at all the kind of common spell that it winds up being in other settings.

So, if you're looking for a system that can do a lot? Birthright will see you through...it just might take a lot of book work (which is the main reason I stopped running my birthright game, too much book work to run the other countries)

I'm just beginning with AER, GreenTongue, so I can't answer specifics yet. I haven't actually run a game with it, I'm more mining it for ideas, or perhaps using it as the foundation for a homebrew.

However, it seems to be a feature of the game that it can be scaled up or down easily, so I'd say you should not have more Actions per turn at higher levels, but those actions may incorporate wider goals.

I think the intention is that if one polity is significantly larger than others in the game, you should perhaps consider breaking it into smaller subdivisions, each having its own Actions, and play the game at that scale.

For example, the Kingdom of Nepal is never going to take on the might of the Chinese Empire, but instead of giving China twenty actions per turn, divide it into twenty provinces each with one action, and pit Nepal against the neighbouring province(s).

The same may work for the Assets per Action, but I can't comment on the guardsmen at present.

Melan's Sword and Magic has a Bullae and Mining Rights chapter, it is simple and easy to use. I don't know if it has major problem, but it would be. Unfortunatelly it is hungarian, but if anyone would like to know it I can make a short translation.
It is hexbased and oldschool retroclone. The author is economist, but his system is very simple. :)

About the rpg (the english version doesn't contain the kingdom management system, it is only in hun. version)

http://grognardia.blogspot.hu/2008/10/kard-s-mgia.html

icosahedron152 the person that created the AER rules posted a response to a thread of mine with interesting info.

It's always good to see people using my stuff. You spotted the Guardsman absence, and I'll also note that I goofed a few places in totaling up the example polities in the Westmark section, so don't take those numbers too literally if they're off a dot or two.

I would have to warn you, though, that AER doesn't really work as a stand-alone game. The balance involved for the PCs fundamentally assumes that adventures are going to happen that affect the polities. Without it, things like building assets don't work right- it takes too long for the PCs to accomplish anything, because the game assumes that their adventure sessions are automatically achieving goals for the polity. It's extremely hard to build a game that functions both as a stand-alone domain game and an integrated part of a campaign; either PC adventures don't count for much, allowing an appropriate degree of balance in the domain game but leaving the adventure sessions rather superfluous, or else they have real significance, making the important part of the session the adventuring and leaving it very difficult to balance the domain game aspects. For AER, the important part is unquestionably the adventuring.

When it comes to Heroes and Champions, again, they're meant to integrate with the adventuring aspects of things. In a vacuum, they're going to be extremely powerful in a domain-level sense, and they're intended to be another of the tacit advantages that PC domains have over NPC ones. The NPCs might have a few, but they don't have an entire adventuring party's worth constantly going on and doing Useful Things. If you try to balance them among the domains it might be more even, but again, you're running into the basic issue that the game wasn't meant to be run apart from a normal adventuring campaign.

Still, you can always give it a spin and see what happens. In place of adventures, you might give the PC side one automatically-successful action per turn to represent a successful adventure. I didn't playtest it that way, but surprises can always pop out when a system is put into a new form of stress.

Yep, that makes sense. The game does incorporate adventuring in an integrated way, but it doesn't need to be D&D. I'm figuring out a way of incorporating my own preferred system into it.

Kevin is great for answering users' queries. I asked him about another game last year. I'll keep an eye open for more of his stuff.

Has anyone tried (With success) Pendragon 5.1? I just saw it and was thinking of getting it.

The other one is "Ultimate Rulership" by Legendary, I am curious how their edict system works.

If 5.1 is like the earlier versions of Pendragon, it'll be an exercise in bean counting. Interesting to mine from, perhaps. YMMV of course.

I'll have to look up Ultimate Rulership.

In reply to namaste (msg # 38):

I have the older version and I agree with icosahedron152. Looks to be more spreadsheet than fun. IMHO. This is why I'm trying An Echo Resounding. May turn into a bean counting exercise but I'm hoping it will not suck out all the fun.

I just got Savage Worlds Broken Earth, it has an interesting management system for communities (players are supposed to help build up their own community). Its fairly simple, there are three states (Economy, Force & Morale) and various edges (Building, Citizen and Resource) modify these stats (or give other benefits like food) and also gives a player benefit.

You gain edges for your community by completing certain tasks in the game world, like when you recruit a useful civilian it gains you the appropriate edge. Not entirely sure if that's what you were looking for OP, but out of all the kingdom management system i have seen over the years, this one is simple but it still has the ability to perform complex strategies.

When running a game like AER, how much of the rules do you think are required by the players?
In other words should the players be required to purchase the rules or should the person running the game provide the minimum needed to play?

Also, how many players are needed for a "good" game?
How can you tell if there are enough?

If you're playing a FtF game, you'd buy the rules and tell the players what they need to know. Often, players would buy the rules because they're interested in them, want to understand more about the game or want to run it themselves.

Is it different for PbP? Maybe.

How many players? Depends on your game. Is it PvP or players against NPCs? How much work do you want to put into it? How many can you manage?

If you're running PvP, you'll need enough to make it interesting and to allow a choice of alliances. I suspect you'd need at least 6. Many causes tend to be polar, on side 'for' and one 'against'. 6 players allows 3 per 'side'. 2 per side can be a bit restrictive.

If they're doing most of the work of designing and running their domain, it's not too bad, but if you're trying to create stuff for six nations while they just RP, that can be a GM killer.

Just my opinion, of course. Hope that helps.