Playtest Campaign Suggestions

[Steve Long]

To help people get started (once they have the rules, natch!;)), I thought I’d post a list of possible games or campaigns you could run using the Kingdom rules. For playtesting purposes it’s preferable that many different types of games are run to “redline the engine,” so to speak. To put it another way, I don’t want everyone to run games with Fantasy kingdoms! :) So, here’s a list of just a few of the ideas I’ve had, some of which I hope to try out with my own group:

Low Fantasy kingdoms, or fiefdoms/regions within a large kingdom

High Fantasy kingdoms, with lots of different magical military types (skeleton infantry, sorcerer elite units, dragon air cav...)

Any historical war (Napoleonics, Vietnam, WWII, War of Jenkins’ Ear, Hundred Years War, etc.)

Renaissance-level kingdoms with no magic, just technology

Victorian or Pulp secret societies fighting a “shadow war” across the globe

Cold War-era espionage organizations playing the “great game”

Modern-day nations in geopolitical conflict/maneuvering

Modern-day conspiratorial organizations fighting a “shadow war”

Modern-day US interest groups struggling for power and influence on the American sociopolitical scene

Champions organizations (UNTIL vs. VIPER vs. DEMON vs. ARGENT vs. PRIMUS and on and on...)

Cyber Hero-style “megacorporations” struggling for profit, power, and influence on the world sociopolitical scene

Low Science Fiction colonized planets in the Sol System engaged in a system war

Low Science Fiction “great houses” struggling for power and influence on the galactic sociopolitical scene (think: like the Federated Houses of the Landsraad in Dune)

High Science Fiction interstellar empires (Federation vs. Klingons vs. Romulans vs. Cardassians, Minbari vs. Centauri vs. Narn vs. Humans, etc.)

Try to “re-create” a board game such as Diplomacy, Risk, Supremacy, or Twilight Imperium


If you have any ideas, feel free to post ’em here to inspire others. ;)

[Super Squirrel]

What I don't see a clear fit for is the current campaign I'm working on. It is a cross between Any Historical War and Low-Fantasy Kingdom. The campaign is a Robin Hood style resistance outlaw campaign.

[Steve Long]

There may not be a fit for your campaign, or any other type of campaign. Not all campaigns need/require Kingdom-level play.

But for that matter, the list isn't intended to be exhaustive. ;) I could easily see a "Robin Hood" game that switches between one session of Kingdom-level play featuring the various nobles of the land, and one of personal-level play where our Righteous Outlaw Heroes deal with the consequences of the most recent political maneuvering. If the ROHs are sufficiently popular and powerful, they might even be written up as a Kingdom themselves for Kingdom-level play.

[mayapuppies]

I am so in the 'Hating You' mode right now.

Such a tease! I have to finish my damn book and you throw this in my face? Have you no sympathy?

[Steve Long]

Have you no sympathy?

:: points at self::
Has no soul, hates people... remember? :eek: :eg: :sneaky: :D

[Captain Obvious]

The "no soul, hates people" thing is why this is coming out now. I'm moving so soon it ain't funny...my wife's already plotting to pack up the whole house and live out of boxes, and I might be able to make it to two more game sessions with the local group before I go, and I have no way in hell of doing any kind of playtest any time soon.

I'd be so all over this if I had the time and the people to do it, though. The list of possibilities just makes it worse.

[mayapuppies]

:: points at self::
Has no soul, hates people... remember? :eek: :eg: :sneaky: :D
This is a lawyer thing, isn't it? :thumbup:

[Steve Long]

No, it's just me. :eek: ;)

[GreyGuardian]

One category that is probably included in the ones listed, but not explicitly stated is present day or near future (cyberpunk) mega corporations battling for resources (personnel, patents, information etc.) and / or their interactions with national governments.

A related idea I've been pondering - how to include geographically distant friends in an ongoing rpg without having a huge time burden on the game master or distance disadvantage friend?

The solution which I haven't thought through all the way might benefit from or fit right into the concept of the ultimate base. The rough idea is - Give players that can't be present factional groups which have their own agendas that are likely to interact with or be relevant to the player characters. In theory this would provide events to report to the local folk that would enhance the setting by making it feel more real since there would be on going events that are not driven specifically to affect or avoid the player characters. Second, it should provide some variation in overall strategy for these external player organizations - compared to having one game master running all factions. These factional groups should ideally be competing for resources, power, etc. amongst themselves and vs. game mastered factions and periodically against the group of player characters.

Examples for a star hero game would be interstellar corporations, subgroups of the military, law enforcement, and bureaucracies, both alien and within the empire (for Terran empires), mercenaries, and conspiratorial "secret" organizations (both for good and ill to overall society). Actions might include business acquisitions, dispatching exploratory or trade missions, intelligence gathering, public opinion manipulation, political influence spending for or against items up for vote or decision, etc. In order to manage that these factional groups would need resources that are somewhat defined and a rate at which those resources refresh or means to refresh them.

For example a trading company might have 10 large freighters and 2 small trading ships intended to scout new markets and make new opportunities for the company. They might have 4 espionage missions available per year and 5 "units" of security personnel that can be reassigned and used for various tasks (that would not include the routine security provided for the freighters or other business resources like warehouses.) 2 propaganda / communication "resources" with options for acquiring more from advertising or government sources. There would be a sphere of influence and their relationship with other factions. Etc.

[SCUBA Hero]

Such a tease! I have to finish my damn book and you throw this in my face? Have you no sympathy?Hey, at least you *have* a damn book to finish!!!

No, I'm not jealous. At. All.

:D

[Steve]

Champions organizations (UNTIL vs. VIPER vs. DEMON vs. ARGENT vs. PRIMUS and on and on...)

Will the rules you are creating allow "zooming in" on more local conflicts? For example, VIPER vs. UNTIL can be run as worldwide in scope, but it is also composed of smaller conflicts at a regional level. Will the rules allow for shifting focus down to a single region (Europe) or a single city (Millenium City) and causing changes to the overall world picture?

I could see running the local PRIMUS/UNTIL base versus the local VIPER nests as a smaller focus point for specific campaign actions, but I can also see the worldwide struggle being the main campaign.

It would be cool to see some examples of play with such entities as UNTIL/VIPER.

I also have a campaign suggestion to add to the playtest list:

Hudson City PD vs. The Mafia Families (or Yakuza, etc).

[Steve Long]

Will the rules you are creating allow "zooming in" on more local conflicts? For example, VIPER vs. UNTIL can be run as worldwide in scope, but it is also composed of smaller conflicts at a regional level. Will the rules allow for shifting focus down to a single region (Europe) or a single city (Millenium City) and causing changes to the overall world picture?

Well, yeah -- otherwise it would be hard to include "Low Fantasy" and "Interstellar Empires" on the same list of potential campaigns. ;) Regardless of what type of Kingdom you have, it's just a matter of scaling up or down.

[Marcus Impudite]

How about unearthly kingdoms, such as Heaven and Hell (or Elysium and Netherworld as they're called in The Mystic World book)?

[Steve Long]

Sure, you could do that, though I suppose you might need to add a few homebrewed rules, or redefine what constitutes an "economy" in Heaven. ;)

[Captain Obvious]

...or redefine what constitutes an "economy" in Heaven. ;)

Worshippers.

[Marcus Impudite]

Worshippers.

Exactly.

[Steve]

Well, yeah -- otherwise it would be hard to include "Low Fantasy" and "Interstellar Empires" on the same list of potential campaigns. ;) Regardless of what type of Kingdom you have, it's just a matter of scaling up or down.

I think I asked the question the wrong way.

If you have a "kingdom" represented as a single entity, can you segment it out into sub-entities that would then add together to the same values as the main entity?

In a kingdom example, the kingdom itself is an entity. Can a province or city be broken out and detailed on its own, and if all such sub-entities were aggregated together, they would add to the total for the original Kingdom?

With that level of detail available, it would be like tracking damage by body location to a character. Sure, maybe a kingdom can just batter itself against another kingdom, but imagine if the main trading port kept getting attacked instead in an aimed attack by another kingdom. The kingdom could die even if most of it remains undamaged.

[Steve Long]

If you have a "kingdom" represented as a single entity, can you segment it out into sub-entities that would then add together to the same values as the main entity?

In a kingdom example, the kingdom itself is an entity. Can a province or city be broken out and detailed on its own, and if all such sub-entities were aggregated together, they would add to the total for the original Kingdom?

With that level of detail available, it would be like tracking damage by body location to a character. Sure, maybe a kingdom can just batter itself against another kingdom, but imagine if the main trading port kept getting attacked instead in an aimed attack by another kingdom. The kingdom could die even if most of it remains undamaged.

I don't want to go into details, at least not at this stage of playtesting, but basically speaking, that's not an option, that's required. You have to allocate a lot of things and create "special effects" for a lot of things so you know how they factor into the combat/adventuring rules. You can pay extra to not do this, thus creating a sort of "defense," but this also cuts off some of the abilities you'd otherwise have.

[mattingly]

I'd also like to see some sort of rules for inter-organizational rivalries. Perhaps UNTIL's field agents are vying for more budget clout against UNTIL's R&D department, all while UNTIL's analysts are considering falsifying data to make the other departments look foolish. When all the various factions are part of the same overall group, the supergroup's resources become divided -- it's a closed system.

[SCUBA Hero]

My initial thoughts on playtest scenarios for our group:

1. High Colonies: Multiple orbital habitats (maybe a Moon base), with Earth uninhabitable after a nuclear war.

2. Gang Wars: Multiple gangs vying for control of New York or Los Angeles.

3. Fantasy: Either generic, or a Tuala Morn setting.

Several other players in my group like to run / twist the rules and see what breaks, so they may also come up with different playtest ideas.

[Netzilla]

Yeah, I'm in the same group with SCUBA. I've only just today started looking over the playtest rules, but I've got a few ideas in mind:

Post Apoc: Allied stable communities fending off roving bands of mutant raiders, opposing communities/city-states and the obligatory evil genocidal robots.

Semi-Historical: Caribbean colonies vying for trade rights, dealing with pirates & privateers and warring with rival colonies.

Mythological: The city-states of Ancient Greece where all the myths are fact.

Ninja Hero: Rival ninja clans interacting with Daiymo and yakuza throughout Feudal Japan.

[Steve Long]

I'd also like to see some sort of rules for inter-organizational rivalries. Perhaps UNTIL's field agents are vying for more budget clout against UNTIL's R&D department, all while UNTIL's analysts are considering falsifying data to make the other departments look foolish. When all the various factions are part of the same overall group, the supergroup's resources become divided -- it's a closed system.

The rules for that are either:

1. Buy each faction as a separate "Kingdom" and let them work as allies when they want, rivals when they want.

2. Buy down (or don't buy up as high) some of the organization's capabilities, with the explanation of "factional infighting."

[Netzilla]

Caveat: While I've skimmed the entire Kingdom Creation rules, I'm only about 1/2 way through reading them in detail, so if this is already covered, my apologies.

All this talk of sub-departments/specific cities/manors/etc strikes me as something that could potentially be handled by adapting the Contact/Follower rules.

For example, if you're focusing on Kingdom-level play, you can buy the various King's Vassals as Followers (though a 1/5 price break might not be balanced). The points spent on the Kingdom would reflect those lands, armies and other resources directly held by the King. Heck, you could potentially have some Vassals as "DNPCs" to reflect rebellious lords/citizens, targets of political scandal, territories on volatile borders, etc. Basically, they require commitment of the King's personal resources in order to maintain stability.

At the other end, if you're focusing on Vassal-level play (the players are all running Dukes, Barons, Earls, etc), then they'd buy the King as a Contact. The level of the Contact representing their relationship to/political influence with the King.

Hmmm... That may be something I have to play with depending on what our group actually wants to do.

[Steve Long]

I think the rules already cover most of what you're looking for through the requirement to define the "special effects" of various boni and abilities. Though there are definitely some issues of personal-level/Kingdom-level play interaction at work here that need to be more fully addressed. Thanx!

[Patriot]

:: points at self::
Has no soul, hates people... remember? :eek: :eg: :sneaky: :D

so, slightly off subject, how many points is that worth as a disad?

Next Question.....How Do I get to play test a supplement?

[ghost-angel]

For infighting - purchase a Skill Bonus at the 3pt Level thusly:

Budgetary Concerns: +1 Diplomacy, Espionage, Strategy

Only one department gets the funds for the +1 at a time. You could even go so far as to force allocation Per Turn instead of Per Phase. Once the budget has been decided you have to wait until the next Turn to reallocate funds.

[Steve Long]

so, slightly off subject, how many points is that worth as a disad?

Well, sell off your soul and learn to hate people... and you'll find out! :eg:



Next Question.....How Do I get to play test a supplement?

Generally we don't do playtesting of supplements. This is a special case for the reasons discussed in my introductory post (which is stickied), and which has instructions for how to get involved.

[Steve Long]

Budgetary Concerns: +1 Diplomacy, Espionage, Strategy

Only one department gets the funds for the +1 at a time. You could even go so far as to force allocation Per Turn instead of Per Phase. Once the budget has been decided you have to wait until the next Turn to reallocate funds.

Clever! Might need a random matrix to determine who gets the funds each year, or some other way to determine it aside from GM whim.

[Steve]

Reading through the posts, I'm reminded of how the Birthright setting for AD&D functioned at the Kingdom-level. Was any of that an inspiration for how entities functioned in the UB rules?

[Steve Long]

No, not specifically. I have a large stack of games that touch on this sort of thing right here on my desk, but ironically Birthright isn't one of them. I should try to track down a copy, since it's always helpful to see what other games have done so I can try to do better. ;)

[ghost-angel]

Clever! Might need a random matrix to determine who gets the funds each year, or some other way to determine it aside from GM whim.

Since I'm not a fan of random tables. . .
Could be as simple as a Limitation on 5pt Skill Levels.

Annual Budget -1/2
Skill Levels with this Limitation may only be assigned on your first Phase. They cannot be reassigned until the next Turn. If you do not allocate the Skill Level during your first Phase it cannot be allocated later in the Turn.

If you don't use your funds, you lose 'em! :eek:

[Steve]

Since I don't have a playtest copy to read, my question may already be answered in there.

When speaking of phases in terms of a base, is there an adjustment as to what a base uses for the time frame of a phase in terms of its dealings with other bases? Two kingdoms would not operate in seconds when taking actions based on what one sees in the real world with the federal government. Maybe a "phase" for a kingdom is more in terms of actions per year or actions per month or maybe even as rapid as actions per day?

[Steve Long]

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I don't mean it snidely, but while I may not be the brightest bulb in the pack I'm not so stupid as to make Kingdoms operate on 12-second Turns. ;)

[Steve]

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I don't mean it snidely, but while I may not be the brightest bulb in the pack I'm not so stupid as to make Kingdoms operate on 12-second Turns. ;)

That's a relief. :winkgrin:

Do you make some sort of differentiation in the rules for the speed of a base (such as a superhero base) that can interact with characters on a 12-second Turn basis, and other bases (like Kingdoms or Empires) that operate in a more sweeping sense of time?

[ghost-angel]

I hope I'm not giving out too much of Steve's rules at this stage, if so Steve feel free to delete or edit this post.

The Kingdom Rules, for the most part, are designed only for Kingdom-to-Kingdom interaction.

If you want Base-To-Character action move back to the Character's time frame of reference.

Otherwise, Kingdom's as a whole don't interact with Characters in their totality as a Kingdom. If, for instance, you need the Master Spy of the Kingdom to interact with Characters do so on the Character time frame - even if the Master Spy is the SFX for several Kingdom Level Effects.

The way the rules are built switching between the two requires book keeping, but is otherwise seamless. (theoretically, you could have a Kingdom perform an Action in one of its Phases that trips a group of PCs into an adventure on their time frame, complete that and then go back to the Kingdom's time frame with total ease).

Short answer: yes.

[Steve Long]

g-a has done a good job summarizing things. There are ways for PCs to interact with the Kingdom rules directly (for example, by assigning a PC to "help" with a particular Action the Kingdom gets a bonus, reflecting the fact that PCs have Dramatic Fate on their side ;)), but by and large the two are separate. One of the big things left to do with the rules is write more about how Kingdom-level and Character-level rules interact; one of the goals of playtesting is to tease out more potential issues on that front that I can then address.

[Blue]

Clever! Might need a random matrix to determine who gets the funds each year, or some other way to determine it aside from GM whim.
In the "real world" it would be performance based.

[Steve Long]

No, it can't just be performance based; that's too logical (not to mention no fun). The randomness allows for things like data manipulation, stabbing your co-workers in the back, weird unexpected stuff, etc. ;)

[ghost-angel]

In the "real world" it would be performance based.

performance based?

Those who perform the worst and buy the budget committee the best lunch get more money?

[Netzilla]

In the "real world" it would be performance based.performance based?

Those who perform the worst and buy the budget committee the best lunch get more money?

Those who waste the most money and use up 100% of this year's budget have "shown" that they need at least that much money to operate and thus get their budget expanded for the next year. In the mean time, the more efficient group that manages to operate under budget obviously doesn't need that much money and thus get's their budget slashed to 75% of what they actually used this year.

[algesan]

I'm thinking as I'm setting up the first run (which will be without PCs, although some of the past actions of PCs will have set up some situations) as a solo campaign setting, call it "mid" Fantasy. I can see setting up three levels of Kingdoms (call them country, state, city/county). If you are familiar, it is a situation where the king is trying to establish control over the powerful greater nobility of his realm.

The "country" Kingdom is fragmented, but can and will respond (mostly) to certain threats as a block.

The "state" Kingdoms are pursuing their own agendas to a certain extent with allies, friends, rivals and enemies. At this level, the "states" actually have more resources than the "country" (define as special effect I think) if you sum them all up. This would be the primary level of interaction in this campaign.

The "city/county" level would again have more resources than the "state" level would, but not as marked a difference since the game culture defines the "states" as a generally (but not always) more homogeneous grouping.

There are at least three "country" level Kingdom organizations who will also interact.

I'll report more on this as it goes along, since I'm also looking at the military rules. I think more of what I'm going to be doing will be example Kingdom characters on how the system can be used.

As a first cut, what this would do is let me have a system for handling what any PCs do at the Kingdom level (with a testbed by starting before the last campaign and calculating the effect of their actions on one of the "state" level Kingdoms).

[Steve Long]

Sounds good Algesan -- looking forward to hearing how it turns out!

[algesan]

As a first cut, it bombed. Nothing worked right on the economic side. You know if these rules were better wri....... Oh yeah, that is what we are for. :D

I need to fiddle a bit more, the framework is there. Failure came when trying to define the interaction I have hand waved into the campaign for cash flow.

My mistake was trying to do it top down I think. I need to build from the bottom up (which I was afraid of) and then I need to define how the lower levels interact with the higher levels. I'm looking for an elegant way to not turn it into a bunch of diplomacy/bureaucratic actions at the city/state level to give me results to be used at the state/country level. While that might be fun in some ways, it would be waaaaay too tedious for most GMs and almost beyond the scope of what the rules probably should cover.

There is a more practical approach and I'll do that one first, which is simply to fix the relationships at one level (which would give me the amount of "disposable income" at each level) and only work with two at first. Then start interjecting changes at the lower levels in one location to simulate PC actions.

[Steve Long]

Thanx, Algesan -- looking forward to hearing more!