WHY I CHOSE TO RUN A KINGDOM BUILDING SIM INSTEAD OF AN RPG
Well, besides the fact that my gaming group was getting tired of RPGing, I saw it as a way to create a new gaming world without busting my poor GMly ass. I gave them the tools to start a new civilization and then turned them loose. My involvement was rather minimal…mostly just telling them about what they found as they went out exploring. What they did with the info was up to them.
I started things out by running the game at a 1 turn = 1 month rate. After the first year, I moved it up to 1 turn = 3 months. Finally, the last few turns have been 1 turn = 1 year (and they have 2 sessions left before the game ends). Thanks to the fact that their sims brought most everything needed to set up shop quickly, the game went into “age of exploration mode” after only about a year, game time. Since then, they’ve explored and expanded until they have a pretty extensive kingdom. They hammered out some basics concerning their political structure, society and the problem of diminishing mana (in fact, by last turn, magic was pretty much dead).
Their explorations have found 4 other civilizations (who all, like them, came from a world ravaged by evil…but due to temporal fluctuations came into this world at different times) and the mysterious remains of a very ancient civilization that disappeared in a single night a thousand years ago.
All in all, the kingdom sim has gone well. Now, with our group going on a hiatus for the next 7 months or so, I will take the world they have built and use it to create a new place for them to roleplay in. I figure that the new RPG will take place about 200+ years in the future. Things will be different, but still recognizable for them. It should be interesting.
As for the rules I’ll use for the new RPG…I’m kinda leaning towards HeroQuest, but that could change. I’ll keep ya posted.
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