Kingdoms are all around us...
We're playing with a colony ship as our Kingdom. We're still years from the target system when we pick up the signal. Could this be first contact with an alien intelligence? Unfortunately, it's light years out of our way. This is our Crossroad: do we change course to investigate?
The colonists are excited even if it means abandoning our carefully calculated settlement plans. But by now all the players suspect that Captain Browning (ahem, *Acting* Captain Browning) cares more about looking like a good leader than being one. He's in charge and he wants to keep it that way. My character tells the Captain that the data's conclusive: the signal is definitely not natural. But she also mutters that if we're abandoning the plan and just making things up as we go along, pretty soon everyone is going to want a vote.
I'm Perspective so what I predict is true. A Touchstone character showed us what the people wanted. But the Captain has Power. He decides what we do. And I just told him that if he does what the people want his precious authority is going to be a thing of the past.
Captain Browning carefully straightens his uniform, then flips the switch to make a ship-wide address…
Communities tie us together. When you play Kingdom, you’ll sit down and make a community together and then strive to make it live up to your ideals... or watch as it burns.
Your Kingdom can be any group or organization that interests you. You could make a Wild West frontier town, a colony ship crawling to a distant star, or a sprawling Empire holding conquered peoples beneath its thumb. As you play, you'll confront your Kingdom with Crossroads, critical decisions that may change your Kingdom forever. Does the frontier town hang the outlaw without a fair trial? Do the colonists settle on an inhospitable world? Does the Empire grant conquered provinces their freedom?
What will your Kingdom do? What will it become? Will it stay true to its ideals–our ideals–or will it become some twisted shadow of our dreams?
The Kingdom is in your hands. The question is: will you change the Kingdom or will the Kingdom change you?
A role-playing game by Ben Robbins, creator of Microscope. For two to five players. No GM. No prep.
172 pages, softcover