Strategic Level Game System

[Rilvar]

I'm looking for a gaming system that supports a level above RPG play: controlling cities/kingdoms/empires. My group has been heavily involved in D&D over the years, but we've seen very few systems that support running a city, being a baron, or a king. I'd like to hear what others have found useful for handling this sort of game.

Explanations: As I said, my group has been heavily involved in D&D over the years, but our games have been restricted to heroes and adventuring. Rarely we branch out to keeps, but that incorporation tends to be over simplified and superficial. City or kingdom rule only comes at the end of the game (epic destiny themed).

However we've always wanted to explore the possibilities of higher level management, be it in military, politics, economics, or what have you. I've searched, but not been very successful in finding a system that adequately supports lordship over some large area of land. I'm about to try to create my own very simple system, but I thought I'd ask around and see if anyone has found a system they like.

What I'm looking for: Obviously I'd welcome any suggestions, but I'd like something along the following lines:
- Simple - this will be either an expansion to a D&D game or a side game, not the main focus. So I'd like it to be simple enough to run as a side game.
- Cover Kingdom Scope - The idea is to have a system that allows you to run a kingdom. Collect taxes, raise militia, deal with internal politics, economics, exercise influence on other powers, and wage war. This is not a system to get stats for a king, but rather focus on how a kingdom runs.
- Quick Pace - We have two uses in mind for this system, one for concurrent use with D&D, so maybe one turn per session pace, allocating a little time out of session to the game. The other for history development (because I'm a fan of cooperative history development, since I believe the world means a lot more to the players when everyone contributes), so quick turns that allow over the course of a game session to develop an entire history for a continent/area.

Any thoughts would be extremely appreciated!

 

[Stormonu]

Though I never got to run a game, Birthright seems right in league with what you are looking for. You could rule countries, temples, set up your own wizard academy or control the ley lines of magic, run your own merchant/smuggler's/thieve's guild and the like - supposedly.

Also, during the d20 glut, AEG put out a series of books about different aspects of the D&D game. Some of the ones that might be of interest are: War (AEG8508), Guilds (AEG8519) and the book Empire (AEG8518).

Back in 1E/2E, there was Battlesystem, which handled mass combat for D&D, though I'm not very fond of it overall. The modules H1 - Bloodstone Pass, H2 - Mines of Bloodstone and H3 - Bloodstone Wars use this system while also providing an adventure in establishing a kingdom. From Dragonlance, the adventure DL8 - Dragons of War has both a simplified mass combat resolution system and employs several scenarios using Battlesystem. It also has one of the most intriguing and gorgeous castles (The Tower of the High Clerist) this side of Castle Ravenloft.

The Castles boxed set (TSR1056) contains some nice statted-out castles (and detailed maps + standups) that could be used for the lynchpin of a kingdom, with Battlesystem stats for the troops and forces contained within.

There's also Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but if you're planning to implement it in a D&D game, you'd have to do a bit of conversion for troop types (though the basic rules should work fine). For a campaign/rulership mode, look into GW's Mighty Empires.

There is also BECMI's D&D War Machine rules for handling mass combat. They also had a section or two on ruling dominions in the Cyclopedia and Companion/Master's set. CM1 - Test of the Warlords focuses on setting up a kingdom. X10 - Red Arrow, Black Shield provides a combination adventure/Risk-style war using the War Machine rules that could possibly be adapted for play in in other realms.

 

[Daztur]

If you like B/X-style D&D, ACKS is a retro-clone that includes a lot of kingdom and rulership stuff all in the core book.

 

[Quickleaf]

If you like B/X-style D&D, ACKS is a retro-clone that includes a lot of kingdom and rulership stuff all in the core book.

For the uninitiated ACKS stands for Adventurer Conquerer King System, a very successful kickstarter project. Autarch | every campaign is a law unto itself…

 

[S'mon]

There is also BECMI's D&D War Machine rules for handling mass combat. They also had a section or two on ruling dominions in the Cyclopedia and Companion/Master's set. CM1 - Test of the Warlords focuses on setting up a kingdom. X10 - Red Arrow, Black Shield provides a combination adventure/Risk-style war using the War Machine rules that could possibly be adapted for play in in other realms.

As a practical matter I always use BECMI/RC War Machine & Dominion Rules for kingdom rulership and warfare. I supplement these with random tables to aid content creation, "Holding Down the Fort" from Dragon magazine (ca 152?) is particularly good for castle-level stuff. I find this is the perfect stuff for supporting domain-level play without becoming the main focus of play - it allows PCs to rule and lead armies, but they can still spend most play time on traditional adventuring.

For a more mechanistic approach, Birthright d20 which is/was free online looks good.

ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King) seems interesting but I don't have it.

I sometimes open my copy of Fields of Blood: The Book of War, a d20 book from Eden Studios AIR, to look at the beautiful art, marvel at the great atmosphere, wince at the incredibly complicated rules, then put it away again. It's like Birthright d20 but about 10 times more complicated. You might find it inspirational though.

 

[S'mon]

There's also Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but if you're planning to implement it in a D&D game, you'd have to do a bit of conversion for troop types (though the basic rules should work fine).

IME Warhammer is a poor fit with 0e-3e D&D due to very different assumptions around magic and the power level of heroes. But it looks like it ought to work well with 4e D&D; the magic assumptions are much closer, as is the feel of combat. At least in Warhammer Battle 2e, the edition I have, it maps pretty closely to 4e combat. Because 4e does not have hard-coded NPC demographics ("most soldiers are 1st level warriors" type stuff) you can use relativistic statting - eg a PC or Elite NPC would be a Warhammer Hero worth around the same points value as around 8 minions (regular soldiers) of his 4e level. If a soldier (4e minion) is worth 5 points in Warhammer, a PC Hero or NPC Elite of the same 4e level would be worth 40 points. Standard monsters count as minions 8 levels higher. +4 levels = x2 point value.

Example - you can change according to your demographics:

Human Town Guard = 4e Standard 3 = 4e Minion 11 = Warhammer 5 point human soldier

Therefore an 11th level 4e PC or elite monster will be a 40 point Hero. A 15th level 4e PC/elite monster would be an 80 point Hero. A 23rd level PC/elite would be a 320 point Hero, and a 27th level Hero/elite monster would be a 640 point Hero, which is interesting as that is the level of the standard 4e Balor, and close to the Point Value of the Warhammer Balrog in the edition I have!

Edit: I'd probably set the baseline slightly lower; Human Common Bandit 4e standard 2 = 4e Minion 10 = Warhammer 5 point soldier looks elegant.

Of course for all I know it's been umpteen Warhammer editions since the baseline human soldier was worth 5 points!

 

[jedavis]

As a practical matter I always use BECMI/RC War Machine & Dominion Rules for kingdom rulership and warfare. I supplement these with random tables to aid content creation, "Holding Down the Fort" from Dragon magazine (ca 152?) is particularly good for castle-level stuff. I find this is the perfect stuff for supporting domain-level play without becoming the main focus of play - it allows PCs to rule and lead armies, but they can still spend most play time on traditional adventuring.

For a more mechanistic approach, Birthright d20 which is/was free online looks good.

ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King) seems interesting but I don't have it.

I sometimes open my copy of Fields of Blood: The Book of War, a d20 book from Eden Studios AIR, to look at the beautiful art, marvel at the great atmosphere, wince at the incredibly complicated rules, then put it away again. It's like Birthright d20 but about 10 times more complicated. You might find it inspirational though.

Yeah... Fields of Blood, while a neat idea, is a bit baroque. I recently picked up ACKS to hopefully scratch the same itch, and it looks really promising, but I haven't managed to get a group together yet (nevermind get up to realm-running levels).

 

[griffonwing]

If your characters wish to actually BUILD their castles and fortifications, then I highly recommend Kenzer & Company's HackMaster 4e supplement "Lord Flataroy's Guide to Fortifications". VERY in-depth construction guides. I'm unsure if there is much on ruling, but for building, there are tons of information.

 

[Rilvar]

Thanks for all the responses!

I have looked into Birthright, and was a little put off by the complexity of the rules (not extremely complex but obviously this is not the focus of our games). However considering these other alternatives I might give it another chance.

BECMI Dominions is interesting, although my group really found its niche in 3E and likes thorough rules that earlier versions are often lacking.

Have never heard of or looked at ACKS, anyone used the system?

Warhammer probably wouldn't work for us, as I said we are a 3.54E group (our houseruled version of 3.5 that pulls the better parts of 4E).

After my quick review, I could put some time into really getting to understand the Birthright rules and try a test run.

I recently was pointed to Primal Order for handling divine rules, and I'm already a big fan (though admittedly untested). I like the idea of a very simple concept, which you can expand on as much as you like as the base of the system. I was hoping there was a domain/realm/kingdom rules system similar to this, but I understand that to fully appreciate the complexities of strategic level play there are many factors to consider and an over-glossed system would probably do it injustice.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I like birthright as I have found it easy to run (overall) and easy to drop between the rulership level and the adventuring party level.