Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I have in mind something like what Arneson describes in FFC: players controlling (small) nations, building cities and forts and armies and supply lines and alliances and missions and clashes and campaigns. All of this lasting years like a D&D campaign but being on a larger scale. I’m lost at sea, here, so, help me out. What is it called, is it a thing, and are there popular (non-video) games like this?

Falconer wrote:I have in mind something like what Arneson describes in FFC: players controlling (small) nations, building cities and forts and armies and supply lines and alliances and missions and clashes and campaigns. All of this lasting years like a D&D campaign but being on a larger scale. I’m lost at sea, here, so, help me out. What is it called, is it a thing, and are there popular (non-video) games like this?

In that description of yours I see the DNA of Diplomacy.

Using this map I'm currently trying to engineer a more sophisticated game based partly on RISK, partly on Diplomacy, and with liberal doses of wargaming mechanics. Dungeoncrawls and hack-n-slash sessions are nice, but over the years I've gotten a hankering for grand-scale wheeling-n-dealing.

Here's a page with the rules for Diplomacy for those interested. It would be a very easy thing to adapt the rules for a Blackmoor, Greyhawk, or homebrewed campaign map.

Side Note: I was poking around and found this hilarious map (I used to live in "European Wisconsin"!).

For a wargaming version there's Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming: https://www.amazon.com/BathS-Ancient-Wa ... =tony+bath; for something incorporated into D&D there's always Adventurer Conqueror King and it's supplements Domains at War: Battles and Domains at War: Campaigns.

rhialto wrote:For a wargaming version there's Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming: https://www.amazon.com/BathS-Ancient-Wa ... =tony+bath; for something incorporated into D&D there's always Adventurer Conqueror King and it's supplements Domains at War: Battles and Domains at War: Campaigns.

N.B.: John Curry's reprints are riddled with OCR-related typos, and an obvious lack of editorial oversight. I currently have about a dozen titles of his and cringe each time I see typos. Cringey-face -->

Falconer wrote:I have in mind something like what Arneson describes in FFC: players controlling (small) nations, building cities and forts and armies and supply lines and alliances and missions and clashes and campaigns. All of this lasting years like a D&D campaign but being on a larger scale. I’m lost at sea, here, so, help me out. What is it called, is it a thing, and are there popular (non-video) games like this?

How much of a wargame do you want it to be? The difference is based whether you are going to continue to focus on the players playing as their character or the more god's eye view of controlling a faction/side/realm in a wargame. I have used wargames resolves things in my campaign (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2016/ ... -long.html), but far more common is just having the players rules as their character as part of a tabletop campaign.

It not much different than adventuring. The players only know what their character knows and roleplays accordingly. I try to recreate what it would really look like to the character and roleplay accordingly. So a lot depends on the advisers and staff the players hires as his character. Orders don't automatically get executed and experience friction based on the competence and allegiances of the NPCs involved.

I generally track the overall picture through notes and map notation rather than setting up any type of formal wargame board. However this part needs to be tailored to the individual as the referee is juggling a fair amount of information. If hex and counter, or token and areas are the way to do it for you then go for it.

My preference for my D&D campaigns is to use 1st edition Battlesystem to resolve battles. (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2013/ ... fifty.html) Because the math behind the core table can handle any d20 based system I use it for OD&D, and 5th edition as well as AD&D 1st. That way I can use the stats of character, creatures, and NPCs as is.

For realm manage I use the information in the various Harn supplements (particularly Harnmanor) as a foundation. While Harnmanor is focused on managed a single estate. I extrapolated it to handle realm mechanics. What makes Harnmanor more than just a spreadsheet exercise is a set of tables that used to generate manor events and tenant events throughout a year. They represents good and bad things that happen as well as complication that the PCs have to resolve through roleplaying.

When the PCs are rulers I do something similar. There are kingdom events, and events for each person the PCs deals with directly. Over a campaign year, they provide complications that PCs have to resolves while working on their plans.

rhialto wrote:For a wargaming version there's Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming: https://www.amazon.com/BathS-Ancient-Wa ... =tony+bath; for something incorporated into D&D there's always Adventurer Conqueror King and it's supplements Domains at War: Battles and Domains at War: Campaigns.

I've been reading this for the past week and recommend it

I know there’s a whole hobby out there around Tolkien Diplomacy Variants, which seem to be roughly in the same ballpark as what I want to do. Unlike a boardgame, though, it would be a persistent campaign that could last 3-4 (real world) years and theoretically forever (the same way a D&D campaign can).

Middle-Earth Play-By-Mail also looks rad. I’d want to do something much less involved and somehow more freeform (and run by me… not paying a third party to GM).

And not necessarily Middle-earth, for that matter, though I love the idea.

I was really thinking about Star Wars. There’s a board game called Star Wars: Rebellion where you build ships and capture each other’s planets, but, again, you play for a few hours and it’s over, and then you start over. There’s no “story” in the retelling. What I’d like to do is more like go into Sequel Trilogy territory but let it play out completely differently based on the creative input of all the players, if that makes sense, as they develop their factions and their planets.

I'd set it up with PCs at name level with established holds/domains. (Personally, I'd probably include "sides" based on law vs. chaos.)
Divide the campaign into years and seasons.
Each season, a domain would have a given number of resources and income (based on farms, villages, et cetera).
Each season, a ruler could allocate resources (e.g. fortifications, garrison, military campaign, mercenaries, food for population, etc).
Each season, rulers would submit their campaign plans to the DM. This would include resource management and general orders for troops, as well as special missions (probably played out as traditional D&D adventures).

The campaign map would be hex-based. An addition to showing the terrain, roads, and locations of domains, the DM's map would also include other features. For example, NPC wizard tower, NPC/neutral castles, humanoid lairs, monster lairs, dungeons. I'd set this up so that NPCs and powerful monsters could potentially be recruited by PCs. I'd also set up the dungeons and powerful monster lairs such that these encounter areas include potential resources that could be useful in the "campaign game." For example, bodies of troops that could be recruited (or enslaved), wealth, magical items that might be useful in warfare, et cetera. For some such places/items, players might receive rumors about their existence (but would need to explore to find them, and then probably have traditional D&D sessions that attempt to secure them). In other words, the traditional D&D adventure would be more about acquiring resources or advantage in the greater campaign game (and could also include things like spying, assassinations, and such).

For mass combat, I'd use whatever wargame system you like best. Some possibilities (*'d entries would be on my my short-list):
Chainmail* (playable, but cavalry and missile fire are both way strong)
Field of Glory* (would need some house-rules for fantasy elements)
Swords & Spells* (probably the most accurate to D&D, but kinda quirky)
Battlesystem (kinda meh, IMO)
One of the DBx versions/variants (e.g., HOTT)
War Machine/Siege Machine (from the BECM rules - completely abstract, not really a war game)
Etc.

Falconer wrote:I have in mind something like what Arneson describes in FFC: players controlling (small) nations, building cities and forts and armies and supply lines and alliances and missions and clashes and campaigns. All of this lasting years like a D&D campaign but being on a larger scale. I’m lost at sea, here, so, help me out. What is it called, is it a thing, and are there popular (non-video) games like this?

I played Divine Right recently with some of the guys in my local group. What you're describing sounds very similar. If I'm not mistaken, there were several (or more) articles in The Dragon that fleshed out the various parts of the world map as if they might be used for a D&D setting. (The game is pretty detailed already, even before the Dragon articles.)

Another game that might work as a model is "City States of Arklyrell" (Task Force Games, I think). This one is kind of like Divine Right, but way stripped down, so there's lot's of room for customization. If I were doing what you describe (and I have thought about doing it from time to time), there's a good chance I'd use Arklyrell as the "campaign outline."

Very interesting, thanks all for your thoughts. Keep ’em coming.

It seems step one no matter what would be to start with a map. A simple line drawing would be best, and basically the bigger the better. I think I would prefer the map to be divided into Diplomacy/Risk-style “provinces” like this rather than hexes, just as a matter of taste. Hexes can be sweet, though.

Hexes, because it will just be easier to locate icons quickly.

Setting this up shouldn't be difficult. Set aside the martial part of the game for now, because that will be easiest part to develop. There's lots of different rules to choose from.

First thing you'll need is something to fight over. Here, fight is used in a broad sense. Maybe strive would be a better word. What better to strive for than resources? Resources make your keeps, cities, territories, kingdoms and empires strong! Resources are needed to build your military (to get more resources!), feed your people, build your homes, ships and defensive walls. Resources are finite. Every resource you possess starves your opponent(s) of a resource. Hrrrm. Maybe resources could possess experience points. Once you have enough XP of a given resource, it allows you build X. A total of all resources XP could allow your civilization to acquire Y technology/magic/societal benefits/whatever.

For a simpler game, a set of resources could be just stone quarries, woodlands for timber, farmland and maybe gold mines. For a more nuanced game, add gem, silver, copper and tin mines. Particular bits of shoreline could be food sources just like farmland.

Scatter the resources across the map. Do it randomly, because there's nothing fair about such things. This will encourage both trade and conquest. Conquest being a vigorous type of trade. Place the resources prior to placing any points of civilization. In fact, let the players pick their starting locals. Who picks first? The luck of the dice! There's always the dark variant. Each player is randomly assigned a locale, and they know only a very few hexes of their territory. Only through committing to exploration can they find more resources, and eventually bump into other PC and NPC units.

As far as play, the game doesn't have to be very historically accurate, it just has to be believable enough. The DMG rules are good enough for starting players off with their keeps. Most everything you need to know is right there, including who and what to hire to keep the place running. That doesn't mean hiring each miner and woodsman individually, but it's good for figuring out the leaders of such professions.

The leader of each *minor* kingdom would probably get to start with a basic, vanilla court. A steward, architect, engineer, general, etc. Additionally, there'd be some chance at starting with above average NPCs in certain positions. Vanilla NPCs are safe, such that, they're always there. The special NPCs are not safe. They can be hired away or driven away. Just like D&D henchmen.

So far, all of this would be simple enough tables to construct, and not that many at that.

I want to continue thinking on this, and fleshing it out. Let me know if this thread is appropriate for that, or if it should scooted off to a thread specific to development.

Maybe poke through this article?

https://warontherocks.com/2016/04/warga ... n-odyssey/

The first one that jumps out at me is this (from the article):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PBBKMRY

Others have mentioned Diplomacy already. From what I recall of the parts of "Playing at the World", Arneson used Diplomacy to do the geopolitical stuff and when there was a conflict/battle they broke out the wargaming stuff. For that you could use Chainmail or Book of War of something similar. The hard part would be to figure out army sizes and their change over time.

@TRP: Good stuff. I *think* we’re all on the same topic, but there is obviously quite a wide variety of approaches. If it seems to make more sense to spin off into a separate topic as your approach gels, be my guest.

Very interesting, gizmomathboy. Thanks. Between this and TRP’s post I have a lot to think about re: resources. I play a fun 2-4hr 5-player board game called Mare Nostrum which does this really well, albeit (because of the weight of it) not in too great depth. Polis looks very interesting, if its principles can be applied to a multiplayer game.