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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rilvar" data-source="post: 5860744" data-attributes="member: 67519">ACKS The ACKS is similar enough to BECMI that I’m going to only discuss differences. After reviewing ACKS I revise my complexity rating from low to high – which is not surprising since I found that for BECMI to be comprehensive enough it would need LOTS of rules. ACKS has lots of rules.  ACKS has polished up and expanded on BECMI Dominions quite a bit. It has very detailed rules on domain creation: income, population, expenses, growing populations, confidence, etc. The rules follow in the style of BECMI, namely by expanding standard rules to large scale. Wealth comes from calculating the individual contributions of each peasant, population is generated by calculating numbers of families, etc. The rules for constructing the entire realm consist of a dozen tables and in depth calculations for all levels of society, more similar to MMSWE.  As with BECMI, the system is very specialized in regards to class: fighter stronghold domains are very different from rogue thief guilds (as they should be). It has a whole set of actions and reactions for what the master of a criminal syndicate might do as opposed to the lord of a manor. It has rules for wizards to create dungeons and merchants to engage in mercantile ventures. The rules are very detailed, for example covering how a merchant transports goods or what the repercussions of an assassination attempt might be.  In some ways the system reminds me of some MMORPGs out there, like EVE. It provides a number of “professions” you might engage in, and develops each in a layered system where you could conceivably start out a 1st level adventuring for a high level mage who is engaging in a spell component harvest action. At higher level, the PCs can be the ones commissioning low level adventurers for the advancement of their domain. In theory this is great, but I’ve found in practice it is VERY time intensive for a GM to run this kind of game (unless you have a whole staff support to run all the higher level NPC shaping actions).  However, ACKS lacks in the same way as BECMI in that it has very little to offer for strategic level play. It has virtually no rules for interaction between different powers, so beyond developing your domain the system is left to the GM’s discretion. Other than describing what a kingdom is, it has few rules for what a kingdom actually does.  I would probably recommend this system over BECMI for those who want to have a stronghold/guild/venture add on. It has many comprehensive rules for each, and would be great for a campaign which focuses on the characters who have a domain on the side that can develop over the campaign, but does not play much into the overall political maneuvers of the region. </blockquote>

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