Hi there I am just seeing if there is any interest in the following idea, or if it sparks any ideas of your own. Then I may need two people to test pilot it with before I flesh it out into a fully functioning game and take on more players.


The premise of the game is that you are an inheritor to a kingdom, you are the newly appointed King or queen of a region. Or insert other honorific title, that amounts to having the same level of power to steer your kingdom.

The theme: Hard choices.

The setting: High magic fantasy with little in the way of technology, but if you want to pioneer into being the first kingdom to develop a steam punk themed kingdom; be my guest. This world also has interventionist gods that certainly like to meddle. Based somewhat off the Greek and Norse gods and their behaviours and schemes. Many have their own followers, religions and dictates, rivals and allies.

(I will flesh this out further and open up players to add gods their ruler and kingdom may well worship. The way I have it in mind, is if you go it alone you are open season to the other gods, aligning with a god gives you their protection and various boons, but also means you must keep them content. Not the easiest task as they can be fickle and demanding and rather petty when they want to be.)


You can define a race if you wish. Or you can default to human. You can also establish the style of a kingdom that you have inherited. I will take the ideas presented, settle them in the world and establish neighbours, existing allies and external and internal threats. Along with rivalries and alliances, scheming siblings. As well as the pre existing nobles who have fiefs under you and are supposedly loyal to you. It is a good job you have a spymaster to keep an eye on them though.

You will also have advisers that will give you a feel for what is going on within your kingdom. That you can call upon when you wish and that will also show up with various problems or suggestions for you to decide upon. You can also appoint them a variety of tasks that are conjured from your imagination driven by the direction you want to take your kingdom in. You can establish laws and set policies.

(For the time being the advisers I have in mind are listed below. But if you can think of any others that you feel are missing let me know. Some will however be covered by various guilds that already exist.)



- Counsel - Your closest advisor, often a  trusted friend. Stays apprised of the nobles gossip, can relay who hates who, who has shown dissatisfaction towards your rule, who seems genuinely loyal as well as brings to attention various schemes and plots the nobility may well be involved in. Who seeks titles, extra privileges and who should be shamed at court in front of their peers or you may well be seen to be weak. The Counsel works closely with the Spymaster. He/she is a generalist advisor to the ruler, he/she also keeps an eye on what the other advisers are upto and if their advice may well be driven by their own agendas or that of other nobles who have paid well or shown favours to advise you in a certain way.

- Spymaster  - Alerts the ruler of nefarious plots both within and outside of the kingdom. Will find out information by dispatching spies and sharing intelligence gathered. Can sabotage, steal research, and sow dissent in other kingdoms. Is able to operate outside the laws of the Kingdom if given permission to do so. Such activities though if discovered can cause serious ramifications.

-Chaplain - Attends to the wants of the gods and expressions of acceptable worship and behaviour. Rules over the spiritual matters of the devoted and is also responsible for revealing and eradicating enemies of the chosen God or pantheon. Often has significant authority within their purview.

- Speaker of the People. - Reveals the general mood, wants and needs of the people. How they view you and your rule and their various views of your recent choices and actions.

- Treasurer - Deals with the economics of the Kingdom and advises on how to grow the coffers through taxation and other methods.

- Foreign Affairs - Deals with affairs beyond the kingdom. Is knowledgeable in customs and etiquette. Also responsible for diplomats.

- Justicar - Responsible for law and maintaining the law. But also highlights issue that arise with newly created laws. Or past outdated laws. Or raises the need for new laws when new technologies come about.

- Military Advisor - Responsible for military strength, defence and tactics at home and abroad.

- Rural Affairs - Governs over food production, environmental concerns, reveals the needs of rural workers and plight of isolated villages. As well as tries to keep druids appeased.

- Scout Master - Highlights things of worth found throughout the kingdom and beyond. Is the first to reveal a growing camp of slavers and raiders, wandering monster, or areas of valuable resources, or the fact a dragon has moved in right next door and is residing in the mountains along with a cult of lizard men. Known to have been saying. “We shall feast on the soft ones.” Or, “Death  to the scaleless.” “Now is the time of fire and ash.”

- Chief Architect - Responsible for overseeing and maintaining the infrastructure of the Kingdom. Also manages the future works that require large resources and/or manpower. Will often make suggestions on what constructions would perhaps be most beneficial to build next and the pros and cons. But is also ready to take on other projects dreamed up by the ruler.

- Scholar - The scholar is responsible for research and development and education within the kingdom.. Often coming forward with suggestions on branching research and concerns of unforeseen consequences of new developments. But readily available to pursue new avenues of research or focus more on war, development or other spheres of research and understanding.

- Archmage - Magic is rife in this world and the Archmage is on the pulse of magical threats and dangerous expressions of magic. Generally sets the tone of how magic is taught and who gets access to it. Is responsible for warding the ruler from magical threats and revealing abuses of magic that undermine the kingdom. Can also be tasked with working magics that glean information from realms beyond or undermine distant kingdoms. How trustworthy such gleanings are is debatable.


You will also have your own citizens and various guilds request a chunk of your time. Each having their own wants and agendas and not all will be favourable to your own interests. How you treat them will set the tone of their own behaviour and the consequences that then leads to. You will also get foreign dignitaries arrive, some with gifts, some beseeching aid and others with veiled threats or rather blatant threats with a formerly dispatched spies head rolling across the court floor, carved into it a declaration of war.

There are also magical threats to contend with, wandering monsters, druids that take issue with aggressive farming methods and foul necromancers raising the dead. Or maybe necromancy is entirely legal in your kingdom. As such you pioneer necromancy and it is what you are famed and reviled for. Entirely upto you. It is your kingdom to shape after all.

The idea is for you to run the kingdom from the confines of the palace, or other seat of your empire. With a mind to steer the direction of your civilisation and grow your kingdom, or maybe you will preside over its ruin. Lose too many allies, upset your populace into revolt and your reign may not last all that long. As you are usurped by your own siblings or a disenfranchised advisor.

What this game is not.

This however is not the sort of game where you ride out to battle, or go dungeoneering. Nor is it a game where you keep an eye on deep statistics. Instead resources will be simplified, you set the tone and your loyal subjects deal with the minutia. Nor are there grand balls and lavish feasts to roleplay through. The roleplay comes from your interactions with the various people who attend your court along with the relationships you foster with you advisors, allies and who you give title and more attention to. But most importantly what choices you make and how you respond to the ramifications of those choices later on.

A taster of issues raised.

A recent development within alchemy has allowed the distillation of already existing charm magic into a bottled and drinkable form. The mixture is stable and potent, allowing for the mental enslavement of other beings exposed to the elixir. The amount of time the effect lasts for is dependent on the strength of the mixture itself. The watered down variety produces a devotional effect akin to love and could easily be sold on a large scale. The alchemists guild is in fierce debate about the ethical ramifications of freely making such a potion available to the wider public as a whole. Some demand laws curtailing who can get ahold of such a potion. Others see profit to be made and believe it is the citizens  responsibility to choose what they do with the product. Others demand the research be burned before it can be turned into a weapon by enemies and people wills end up violated.



- Justicar. - I foresee many ramification to law, I await your deliberation. But my own feeling, is I am against unregulated distribution. As we know you can’t trust the people to be responsible for even themselves, let alone others. It is already an offence to use force to coerce another into making decisions outside of their best interest. Coercion in a bottle is still coercion.

- Military Advisor. - It could be harnessed into a weapon turning enemy combatants into devoted allies that die for us instead of endangering our own men. However there is little stopping the enemy doing the same should such research become common knowledge. It could be a valuable asset to us as a specialist tool of war if we guard its secret carefully. Deploying it only in times of vital need.

- Chaplain. - The goddess of Freedom would perhaps look unfavourably upon us if we were to walk this path. Although she is not our god it is unwise to garner her disfavour, especially with her brood being the rebellious violent sort. Also coercing the will of another to be infatuated on flesh and blood and not devotion to the gods above, is blasphemy unto itself. I must strongly recommend such research be burned and stricken from the record. Those knowledgeable in the formula should be watched and sworn to oaths of silence until such secrets are taken to the grave.”

- Spymaster. - It has its uses, would make interrogation easier, silence dissenters without corpse disposal and inadvertent martyrs. Maybe can even push it to create sleeper agents, why worry about loyalty when you can ensure it in a bottle. But also who is to say it won’t find its way into your own drink one of these days? As always my will is yours to command. My strong suggestion is to also research a way to detect such a substance if we are going to keep it. Or alternatively I can ‘retire’ those with the knowledge you may take issue with.

- Scholar - Such a breakthrough! It would be a crime against knowledge to deny further research. What other magical arts can be bottled?  To destroy such knowledge could deny us future understanding of things beyond it. I implore you to allow further research to continue just set limits, upon who and what direction such research is undertaken.

- Counsel -  If you wish to speak with me further I will tell you my own personal opinion. But I will Enact your will without question regardless.


So ruler of the kingdom what do you decide? Do you wish to talk to some of your advisors in greater detail? Or have you got in mind how to proceed? Laws you wish to create. Questions you want to ask of the alchemists? Deeper research to be done. Or maybe you are more concerned by the awareness a diplomat from another empire has just arrived, with gifts of skulls and feathers and towering grey animals the likes of which are unknown in your lands. He demands an audience with you now.

If that is not bad enough, your foreign advisors seems to be oddly absent so can’t advise you on the proper etiquette or if skulls in a basket are a threat. Your spymaster is demanding to speak with you immediately. One of your demanding siblings also wants your time and attention, inviting you to a hunt this afternoon. Your Scout Master has left information that a small scouting unit of lizardmen have been seen in low lying mountains at the edge of the territory, lighting small fires as they go. Your rural affairs advisor is concerned by a poor harvest and the emergence of lycanthropy in several rural towns that seems to be spreading. Your demanding sibling has also pointed out three of the nobles will also be attending the hunt and to not attend would be seen as slight on his name and yours and rather insulting the nobles in question.

Ah the joys of rulership. Decisions, decisions and not enough time to please everyone.


If any of that sounds interesting or you have further questions or ideas of your own please let me know.

Definitely interested, tried to run something similar last year

 Does sound interesting. While i may not be the brightest bulb i do have fun in these types of games. So, yes i would be interested. Though it does sound like alot of work for the DM to keep track of all the players.

Potentially interested.  Will it be more than just a series of decisions or will there be player driven diplomacy and war?

I love Strategy about as much as Roleplaying. I love ideas such as this, especially when they worked. A user on here ran a fallout-themed Strategy game similar to the concept here, but unfortunately it started up about a month before Christmas I think, and it died. Still, count me in on this.

I would very much like to play a game of this kind.

I would generally prefer that the gods be mere myths (e.g., maybe they exist, maybe they don't, "divine magicians" have to learn their magic, etc), because I think that's rather more interesting, being generally more relate-able. That being said, it's not a dealbreaker for me.

I'd be interested.

I'm interested as well. Seems entertaining to play.

In reply to spyfox259 (msg # 8):

Interested

I'd run with this. I have been reading a number of books that have a feel similar to this.

What caliber of response would you be looking for?

I am highly interested.

This sounds like a really fun game. I am very interested!

Heh, the game can also work that you have a hierarchy if you have more players.

For example 1 player is King/Queen, 4 players are Duke/Duchess under the King/Queen, 8 players are Count/Countess with 2 of each under a Duke/Duchess.

Then you would have player alliances, rivarlies, and all that intrigue and politics, that players will use in order to advance in rank. Advancing in rank would mean that one of the higher players must fall. For example to become a Duke you must make sure your own Duke drops down to Count.

There are many possibilities to this game, I must admit.

How did that work out in the end? How many players did you have? Were there any issues that arose I should be aware of?  Any things you would have done differently in hindsight? Or altered so it ran smoother? Any advice would be most helpful.




Sort of, in truth you do most the work, I just apply causality. I can even recycle events nudging them slightly to better reflect the culture of each players kingdom. It is why I intend to keep the player base small so as not to get overwhelmed. I ran a God game once for just under a year. It would be nice to achieve similar with this.




Player driven diplomacy and war is certainly on the table. All the kingdoms reside on the same continent. You also have access to magical communication. Making diplomacy as simple as getting your arch Mage to set it up. Although you should likely send advanced warning or it could be mistaken as a magical assault. The choice of war and diplomacy is still driven by decisions and the consequences of those decisions.




I am glad it is not a deal breaker. The gods in truth are my wild card, they create an extra layer of politics to contend with along with various religious pressures. If you want a less god involved game you can choose to be a generalist. But that invites new issues, like appeasing the myriad of faiths that outright oppose one another.



Generally what you are comfortable with, in play tests in IRL it mostly ends up as a sort of speech of what you would like to enact. With some on the side discussion with the people that are petitioning the court or your advisors.

quote:

Percy
Heh, the game can also work that you have a hierarchy if you have more players.
For example 1 player is King/Queen, 4 players are Duke/Duchess under the King/Queen, 8 players are Count/Countess with 2 of each under a Duke/Duchess.

I have to say that is a fascinating idea. I am just not sure how that would work in practice. Or how much extra work on top of everything else that would require from me. I am also aware that this has generated a lot more interest than I was expecting. I could see the potential for non rulers to also be advisors. It would also allow more court drama and rulers to roleplay more direct with their lessers and involve themselves in player driven intrigue.

I would very much like others view on this potential development. Thanks for all your input thus far. I will start building my original vision and modify it accordingly, if there is greater interest in Percy’s idea.

Actually, in regards to player interaction, such as player intrigue and diplomacy, or the relation between a non-ruler player and a ruler-player, can all be done freeform I believe.

But then again, at the same time it just might complicate things.

If you want to make sure you are not overwhelmed, I suggest a bit of game-theory applied here. And by that I mean do the game in feature steps. Start with a few features, easily manageable, and see how the players handle them and how you handle them.

After that if you have the time and energy, and the players are up to it, add 1 feature at a time. Just be careful not to stretch your time and energy too far.

  What is the expected 'arc' of the game? Rule until something disastrous happens, or is there an expected end point, either generally or specific rulers retiring after N turns, etc?

  Are the ruler-characters expected to have or develop skills of their own? Some rulers might not need their foreign minister to tell them what the basked o' skull means, and the theocratic ruler might be able to read divine omens just fine by themselves, while (with apologies to Long Live The Queen) a third one has enough knowledge of who makes what to realize that they'd better not eat those gift chocolates.

I think having a hierarchy of PCs would reduce your workload considerably, since you'll only need to deal with a few foreign nations rather than dozens. You'd still need to come up with events and dilemmas for subordinate nobles.

My suggestion would be to enlist the help of the players. If someone wants to play a higher-ranked character, they should put more into the game as well. For example, if Count is the lowest PC rank, then Duke players might have to come up with some plots and developments for other Dukes' vassals, while the King/Queen/Emperor player has to come up with stuff for every player, both within their role (e.g., raising an army requires raising the levies of vassals) and OOCly (e.g., village X in player Y's territory has suffered a flood).

I also think you should recruit in order, starting with the King/Queen player, then the Dukes, then the Earls (or Counts, same rank), with each "level" of players providing more specific information about the PC kingdom. That is, the King/Queen player might define general geography, climate, and culture for the kingdom as a whole, while Dukes give more specific information for their areas, then Counts give the most specific information.
This message was last edited by the user at 03:20, Sat 24 Jan 2015.

 Hmmm, i had thought the idea was each player to run their own kingdom?, not to be part of one kingdom?.

  I don't think a hierarchy would work well. Not only would it create an immediate stratification between players (in a bad way), but it pretty much forces everyone to use the same political structure/culture/race/etc (namely, the one chosen by the 'top' player).

I'm very interested in playing!

I think the hierarchy would be excellent if taken the right way. I think AscendedMaster has a good idea. With every players input to the kingdom in some form it would make the players happy and less GM work in defining the kingdom.

Different ranks do have different jobs in the kingdom that are equally important and I think I would have that be stressed. Either way this goes I would be happy to play.

In reply to spyfox259 (msg # 20):

I completely agree.

I've been asking for a game like this for a while - I would be quite interested.

Unfortunately I ended up with only a couple of players and by the time I had more the early players had gotten bored, so the game didn't get off the ground. I also wasn't happy with the pace and mechanics - I erred to heavily on the RP side and whilst that was awesomely freeform for creating interesting characters it was unclear to the players the scope of their agency and unclear to me how I could easily resolve it... Plus RL intervened

Bits that seemed to be enjoyed was the richness and that it was placed in a fixed geography and historical socio-political context..

I have done very little free-form in my time storytelling. I can see the potential of it but I can also see how it alienates the players that have no power to alter the fate of the kingdom. AscendedMasters idea is interesting but I have no desire to simply have a single kingdom and the court drama attached becoming the focus. As that dilutes the original premise.

The core feature is the player is a ruler of a kingdom, steering the course of that kingdom via their decisions.

Further Clarification On Freeform.

If there were to be freeform it would be upto the player base how they want to express it and what kingdoms court they want to be part of. Lets say you have a classic noble Human kingdom, a savage primal Orc Kingdom and a  kingdom of sultry shadowy vampires. Freeformers can join a sub forums within those kingdom. The role play within then fits the theme of the kingdoms in question giving a lot of freedom for both the ruler and players to do what they want. This also opens up the option for those players to be rolled into events and becoming part of them, even addressing the king/queen. As part of an event chain, that maybe involves their fief. There will however be no jostling to overthrow the current ruler. I can see too many issues with that arrangement.

Various events themselves may well be inspired by the intrigues the players create. I could also view this pool of freeformers as ready to take over inactive slots when they arise. Or have them form their own kingdom. It may well over complicate things but I have seen entire freeform games dedicated to similar ideas, minus the kingdom simulation. All we can do is trial it and see.

Let me know what you think on that set up. Why you think that could work or is a terrible idea for various reasons. Thanks for your input. All of it is helping to shape a game I intend to dedicate myself to for a good while.



Syrris




There is no ‘arc’ beyond the shaping of your civilization, its rise and eventual fall. There are no victory condition beyond surviving through the gods making messes, subversive elements trying to poison your chocolates and how you deal with them. As well as making it through another event relatively unscatehed. Your rule and kingdom will eventually succumb like every kingdom before it. It is more the journey and how you shape it for your successor.


 


I had not even considered skills for rulers. The advisors are merely a tool, to give you a good idea about the world your ruler inhabits.  No dice are rolled, but if you want your ruler to be skilled in something. That is simply backstory, I will take account of when it is relevant. For instance an advisor may give you false advice, your natural knowledge would allow you to see through it.

I hope that is helpful.

Jhaelan.

I am sorry to hear that Jhalean. I also can get pacing wrong. Its easier with people at your table but forum based throws up extra issues. I have gone for something very structured this time round. I intend to be less hung up on small details and the minutiae of roleplay. I am hopeful it will work out.

Sounds like fun; Color me interested.

Also interested

Interested as well , even got an idea for a relatively unique kingdom in mind.

Just an update, I have been busy playtesting this with my usual troupe in person. Refining it as we go and working out the issues that certainly arose. Describing how the phases function is taking some time to write, but I am near done and just about finished on the different Gods. Then I got distracted at running it for a while. It turned out to be an amazing tool for world building and works well enough in person.  Then D&D 5th came to my attention and we ended up playing that amidst the very kingdoms and political landscapes created. All in all I have had fun with the process. My next update beyond this one should be a link to the game itself. Although it will be in its early experimental stage and I will only be able to take on two people to start. Then see how it goes from there.

Thanks for all your feedback.