Deep in its DNA, Dungeons & Dragons has a fundamental mismatch between the expectations of its players and the design of the game that goes back to its very earliest days.
If you look all the way back to Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign, the original tabletop roleplaying game and the world from which D&D was born, the game was designed with a structure of zero-to-hero-to-king: The PCs went into the dungeon beneath Castle Blackmoor. Those who survived earned money and power with which they would raise armies and eventually fight vast wars for the fate of the empire before being retired as the next best thing to legendary demigods.
But those earliest players also talk about how Greg Svenson was really smart because he never allowed his character to level up high enough to get retired.
Fast forward a quarter century to D&D 3rd Edition, and you’ll find the E6 variant — which capped leveling at 6th level, but allowed PCs to continue gaining new abilities through feats — resonating with a goodly portion of the fanbase (and probably would have resonated with even more if they’d known about it).
Through D&D’s history, we see this same pattern again and again and again: The game holds out the promise of characters advancing into truly epic levels of power — founding kingdoms in AD&D, becoming literal gods in Basic D&D, the Epic Level Handbook in 3rd Edition, the Paragon and Epic tiers of 4th Edition — but a significant portion of the fanbase has mostly been interested in playing Aragorn and Conan (i.e., fairly gritty fantasy heroes rooted pretty firmly in reality). And when the mechanics of the game have tried to push them into those epic levels of play, they have mostly just kept playing Aragorn and Conan while getting cranky that the high-level mechanics are returning “nonsensical” results.
The one exception to this is combat: They still want to play Aragorn and Conan, but they want to be able to solo Smaug.
D&D 4th Edition tried to square expectations with mechanics by having the world level up with the PCs: The numbers get bigger as you level up, but the stuff the PCs are doing doesn’t fundamentally shift except for the set dressing.
D&D 5th Edition, on the other hand, went the other direction: Just don’t let the numbers increase. Lock the target numbers in with bounded accuracy and unlock Smaug-tier monsters by increasing the number of hit points monsters have and the amount of damage characters can do.
Between the two, the 5th Edition approach is almost certainly preferable, but not entirely successful, because you can also think of this problem as, “The players don’t want to leave the dungeon.”
Which makes sense: Dungeons are fun. We enjoy playing them. So why would we want to stop playing them?
But as you gain the powers of a demigod, the scenario structure of the dungeon — exploring an unknown location one room at a time — begins to fall apart: Teleportation. Scrying. Divination. Planar travel. All of this shreds the dungeon structure. This shift in play was entirely intentional in how the game was designed, but despite trying to move away from that shift in play, 5th Edition nevertheless inherits the spells and abilities that make it inevitable.
THE FIRST SOLUTION
The first solution would be to fully commit to what at least one part of 5th Edition’s schizo identity is trying to do: Eliminate all of those high-level abilities that shred dungeons and low-level structures of play.
This is basically what the E6 variant does, but arguably even better, because you can still use damage and hit point escalation to let the PCs level up into soloing Smaug.
But, frankly, I hate it. Not only do I enjoy taking characters into truly epic spheres of play, but I find the 5th Edition dynamic — where you can trivially dispatch celestial titans and fight your way to the throne of Asmodeus, but knocking down a wooden door? Man, that’s a tough ask! —to be kind of ridiculous. But I would really hate to see the game cripple itself by lopping off the epic modes of play for those of us who enjoy them.
It would be a failure of imagination.
So I think the first true solution to this problem would be for D&D to offer an E(X)-style option so that groups can lock in the style of play they enjoy — whether that’s what we currently think of as Tier 1 or Tier 3 or whatever — with or without the option of continuing to boost combat performance for the all-important soloing of Smaug.
THE SECOND SOLUTION
But I think it might also be worthwhile to take a slightly deeper look at this problem.
Why, exactly, have players been so reluctant to move into the various “endgames” that D&D has offered over the years?
I said they wanted to play Aragorn and Conan… but both of those characters ended up being kings. So why does realms-based play seem to so often lie fallow, even in editions of the game that have tried very hard to include it?
Ultimately, I think it comes back to scenario structures. I’ve talked in the past about the fact that the only two game structures most DMs really know are dungeon crawls and railroading (and the DMG doesn’t even teach you how to run dungeons any more). We’ve already discussed how high-level D&D abilities shred dungeons, but they also shred railroads: It becomes increasingly difficult for a DM to force their players to do stuff as the power level and options available to the PCs proliferate.
If the only scenario structure the rulebooks teach is railroading, the game will fall apart at the point where PCs become powerful enough that it’s difficult or impossible for the DM to constrain their choices.
In addition, dungeons kinda become irrelevant to kings and gods. In order to go on a dungeon crawl, a king and/or god would really need to take a break from being a king or god to go on the adventure. So if the only adventures you’re running are dungeon adventures, being a king or god ends up just being a decorative element in the campaign; a distraction from what the game is actually about.
This spills over into official support products: If you don’t have a scenario structure for running a realms-based campaign, then you can’t publish adventures that will slot into that structure. So DMs end up with a nigh-infinite supply of books filled with dungeons, but nothing for would-be kings or demigods fighting interplanar conflicts.
It also spills over into mechanical design! High-level D&D characters get plied with abilities and spells all aimed to support the robust combat scene structure at the heart of the game, but it’s been more than two decades since there was an official edition of D&D that hardcoded realms-based play or any other post-low-level alternative into character advancement.
To boil this down, what you ultimately have is a DM problem: Even if you had players who wanted to, for example, become dukes and rule a realm, DMs aren’t being given the tools they need to successfully create and run those adventures. If they nevertheless decide to take the plunge, they’re basically just tossed into the deep end. Some of them might spontaneously figure out how to swim, but most of them will just drown and end their campaigns.
So the other solution would be to fully support the shift in play. Not just with rules, but with the scene structures, scenario structures, and campaign structures that would support realms-based play or divinity or whatever other styles of play you want to unlock at Tier 3 or Tier 4.
I’ve been saying for years that D&D should be designed around only 10 levels in the Player’s Handbook and 15 levels at most.
I heard spells were originally designed to only cover 6th level for wizards and 5th level for clerics, which is why many of the classic iconic example of awesome arcane and divine power are found at those levels.
Extending spells all the way up to 9th level was a mistake.
I don’t think 5e players want realm-based play at all. They want to go on an epic adventure, be the heroes and save the world, not manage a kingdom. From my experience, even dungeons are fading out and are replaced with point crawly structures.
This is why my fav version of D&D is Adventurer, Conqueror, King System. Though there’s a couple of other OSR that try and do something similar if you’d rather run something less simulationist.
I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, it was just a mistake to not enforce what already was in the rules.
On the other hand people WANT unlimited increase of levels. I for sure did at one point. But realistically how many people will play that far, and how effective will it be?
I think the main issue is that at higher levels you really should be going on planar adventures, but this means leaving behind the campaign world somewhat.
Which is actually the logical extension of the whole issue: your characters want to adventure at level 20? Well, maybe you should run through a dungeon in hell instead of killing the local wildlife.
Wow. That was a hard tease. Any chance we get some articles about Tiers 3 and 4 anytime soon? I’ve been thinking of structures for running this kind of thing for a while now, and would obviously love to get some ideas.
I think the challenge with this is that the demonstrated behavior of the players has almost always been to avoid the realm rules- even when they were a bigger part of the game, it’s hard to tell what to do once you have two kings, a high priest, a wizard with his own tower. How do you maintain a party dynamic when everyone can just put together some underlings to do party things?
I think Birthright would be more fondly remembered if people really were aching for the ‘king’ experience, but it really does feel odd once you get past the first few levels, what the progression really is.
I believe E. Gary himself once said that 9th level spells were for the DM and NPCs, not the players. In any case, I too structure my 1e play around the idea that 9th-12th level is the player peak, and levels 13-16 is where the PCs transition into leaders of the realm and eventual NPCs. Above 16th level, they further transition into being absenting themselves from the earthy realm entirely, beginning planar travels (think heirophant druids from Unearthed Arcana). For example, the 1e spells that allow the summoning of extraplanar creatures are high level and INCREDIBLY dangerous!
But Mr. Alexander’s main point is exactly right: it would be nice if players and DMs could lean into different styles of play as the game changes, but their needs to be good support for this in the rules and supporting modules. A board game that I think does this well is Kingdom Death: Monster, if you’re familiar with that.
Man, that’s a great lacuna in scenario structures you’ve identified, Mr. Alexander. Sounds like we need someone to take a swing at building realms-oriented structures. I look forward to seeing your work on the subject!
Great read! I totally agree. In the past I’ve run 5e with a half-baked E6-like system to great effect. I’d love to see your versions of Solutions 1 & 2.
I do want to respectfully criticize your use of the term “schizo” where you wrote “The first solution would be to fully commit to what at least one part of 5th Edition’s schizo identity is trying…”, though.
I never understood back in the BECM days, how you would transition an adventuring party into a game where every PC has their own stronghold / temple/ guild / tower, and as a DM I only had the skills to make it work in what would now be called “Duet” play with 1 DM and one PC. In my head, I struggle to imagine a scenario structure that has multiple epic level characters acting as emperors or gods but yet still operating as a party. These scenario structures might need to address party size, player power, and epic role to truly extend DnD play.
Conventional 5e progression kinda sucks because there is an inherent disparity between power and status of a player character. Player character gets power (levels, spells, to hit bonus, magic items) but does not get status (titles, meaningful place in the game world). PCs are still homeless people if they get to Tier 3-4 play, they are just super powered homeless people.
Also one the problems in B/X (and even 5e, where you can build a castle) was that domains gave no profit. It shouldn’t be just a way to spend money, but a way to get money (tax peasants), invest in magic research, etc.
I’m going to try ACKS, it looks like it solves some problems by incentivizing domain play as part of the character progression.
Adventurer Conqueror King System has been providing unparalleled support to domain and sandbox play since 2011. The second edition is kickstarting now and dials support for that up to 11. The whole game is tuned to be conquerors and kings while still allowing epic feats from your character (albeit not 5e high level madness)
Also, great post. I am looking forward to November for your book sir!
I think this stuff is really interesting. As a relative “newcomer” to D&D and TTRPGs, I’m interested in or have experience with some of the old school styles of play, but not all. For example, I like hexcrawls and wilderness exploration, but not in a way that emphasizes expeditions and hirelings and lots of pre-planned logistics.
So when I hear talk about realms-based play, that doesn’t really interest me… but also I’ve never *tried* it. It’s hard to like a thing that you’ve never tried. You need to experience it with a DM who knows what they’re doing, using a system that supports that type of gameplay.
I don’t have a firm opinion on what D&D should offer; only that it should deliver on what it promises. 5E promises too much, it seems.
I think this is why systems like Savage Worlds and FATE are getting so popular. Not only do they give you the keys to other genres, but to other modes of play, not exclusively just dungeon diving. Even more specific systems have options like Paizo’s Kingmaker campaign, which is fun and written for the sole purpose of getting the players to make a new, independent kingdom.
Hopefully WotC catches up soon.
I was really expecting this article to transition into: “and here’s how you do it” but maybe you’ve just spoiled me with all the great content over the years and I shouldn’t have expected that handed to me immediately lol
Maybe there’ll be something about it in the book? I’m looking forward to the book in any case.
It feels like the old Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book could have been the very thing that was needed. It was so full of details about every location that all it would have needed would be a few realm-crossing story arcs. Not to say that this would be trivial, but all the necessary ingredients were there. I guess they still are, because the details from that book are still largely being used today.
What DMs could use is a guideline for creating such realm-spanning adventures fit for kings and gods. Much like the Alexandrian has created guidelines for “normal” adventures, we need a similar framework for “epic” adventures. If WotC or similar publishers aren’t going to do it, we as a community need to come up with it.
I wonder if this is a case where “don’t prep plots, prep situations” would continue to be useful advice. Although the scale has changed, the principles remain the same: there are various groups trying to do things, they have limitations on their actions and resources… How are they likely to attempt to advance their agendas or respond to changes in their environment? Okay, we’re talking about dukes or small nations or demigods, but the basic idea doesn’t seem to be a million miles away from running a homebrew campaign at any level.
Now, let it be admitted that official D&D support for this is terrible, insofar as it exists at all. This is just a continuation of the generally piss-poor support for DMs which is alluded to above, and which is one of the biggest gripes I have with 5th edition. There’s definitely a gap in the market for 3rd party material which supports this, even at lower levels. And the popularity of products which try to include this, shopping with player strongholds etc, shows that there’s demand for it.
Does anyone have a good example of a published adventure, for any game really, doesn’t have to be D&D, working the “you’re now in charge of the castle” angle?
There aren’t even many novels, really, not compared to the mass of plucky upstarts and coming-of-age adventures. Game of Thrones, obviously, but even that drops most of the protagonists into wandering around the countryside on their own. Dune. King Arthur & the Round Table maybe.
“Becoming monarch” is the victory condition at the end, not usually a transition to act 2. If people don’t have a clear idea of what fiction they mean to role-play, maybe it’s more reasonable to explicitly focus the mass-market game on the stories the mass market understands.
I think there was already something of an attempt to address this problem in AD&D, in that hit dice for PCs were capped at a certain level – subsequent levels increased your hp total by a set amount (+1 for magic-users, +2 for clerics and rogues, +3 for fighter types). But of course, the main issue seems to be magic – that’s really what breaks the game at higher levels.
As for PCs becoming rulers… that’s a different type of game, and one that isn’t really suitable for a tabletop RPG. Kings (and Queens) make decisions about national issues; they may lead an army into battle, but are otherwise not going to take part in combat personally. I know that Pathfinder has that Kingmaker adventure, which deals with some of the issues surrounding rulership. Perhaps that can be a model for PCs who are interested in carving a domain out of the wilderness.
However, I expect that any campaign where the PCs end up as rulers is going to require a lot of work from the DM to come up with new challenges. And it’s hard to see how any supplements can help very much with that. Can you write an adventure module for ruling a kingdom?
The Birthright campaign setting was meant to address this segment of play, however, even 1st level characters could become kings in Birthright which was a bit silly in it’s own right.
However, running Birthright under 5e can make sense as the setting provides a solid framework for a robust political game with multiple factions and even the domain rules can be adapted to 5e relatively easily.
A pattern that I’ve observed over the decades when the adventuring game intersects with the strategic style play of armies and kingdoms is that it falls apart because of the makeup of players at the table. I can’t think of a time when I had a table composed of gamers who were all experienced, enthusiastic, and competent at all the different game styles that this transition would require. A dream team of players would all be lean-in style players that wanted to commit to two years of play where we started with D&D, but then shifted into a mindset of miniature wargaming, 18xx economic games, operational level wargames, and then smooth it out with Axis & Allies grand strategy, while the whole time seeing these game elements filtered through the D&D packaging and tropes. Most tables have one to three of these gamers. The others players at the table don’t have the desire or competency to navigate all those layers of play.
Pathfinder’s Kingmaker is the perfect example of working the “you’re now in charge of the castle” angle… You become the leader of a country, with full mechanics, and even a video game and D&D official 5e conversion.
Neil@22 – That’s one way to do it, but “you’re in charge of the kingdom” doesn’t have to mean “we’re playing Axis & Allies now” — it could as easily be Diplomacy or Tigris and Euphrates or Puerto Rico.
About being able to solo Smaug – wasn’t Smaug killed by one arrow? Sure, advice of the thrush was extremely helpful, and the Black Arrow probably was magical, and Bard the Bowman was quite a good archer (although he doesn’t seem to be particularly “high-level” to me). All other arrows shot by all other archers and by Bard himself were, it seems, mostly unable to penetrate Smaug’s scales and wound him (“no arrow hindered Smaug or hurt him more than a fly from the marshes”), so it is unlikely that they somehow contributed (in game terms, Smaug should have high enough AC to ignore regular arrows and not a ton of HP to soak the damage).
If we look at other dragon-slayings from legends and fantasy, then Sigurd killed Fafnir solo, by one sword-strike, St.George killed the dragon solo with a lance and/or a sword, Beowulf killed the dragon with the help of one of his retainers and Turin killed Glaurung solo with his sword.
So, it seems to me that the problem with being able to solo Smaug is not that it requires some supernatural abilities from the PCs but that dragons in D&D are too powerful and have too many HP. Even in OD&D average adult red dragon has 40HP, if I understand correctly, so it is almost impossible to kill it with one arrow. And in 5E adult red dragon has enormous 256 HP…
P.S. Also, mandatory link to every post where Conan and Aragorn are mentioned side-by-side: http://ravencrowking.blogspot.com/2012/11/conan-or-aragorn.html
@Panzeh: “It’s hard to tell what to do once you have two kings, a high priest, a wizard with his own tower. How do you maintain a party dynamic when everyone can just put together some underlings to do party things?”
I didn’t really touch on this in the article, but it’s another key factor: Not only did 1974 D&D lack clear scenario structures for what happened during stronghold-play, but the entire basis of stronghold-play in Arneson’s campaign — for which the rules were designed — was based around an open table. You didn’t need to keep the party dynamic intact, because there was no persistent party. But the standard form of play D&D pretty quickly shifted away from that (for better or worse).
Which is why it’s kinda bizarre that the Bastions playtest rules for 2024 D&D are leaning into that same “separate stronghold for every party member” dynamic (although you can have your separate strongholds both in the same place).
The model you probably want to look to are things like Ars Magica and Blades in the Dark, in which different characters contribute to a joint venture. Also valuable lessons to be picked up from Pendragon, Burning Empires, and Nobilis, among others. Stolze’s Reign is also great, and designed to be serve as a cap system.
The other thing is that there doesn’t need to be just one vision for what this type of endgame looks like. D&D is big enough that you could easily imagine a Kingdoms book with accompanying campaign book(s); a Divinity book with accompanying campaign(s); a Thieves’ Guild book, etc.
@knowingest: “Maybe there’ll be something about it in the book? I’m looking forward to the book in any case.”
The book will lay some groundwork that I think will be useful for this (faction-based play, robust downtime structure, etc.). But I wanted the book to stick to stuff that was tried-and-proven, and this endgame stuff is really stuff I need to spend more time experimenting with.
Hi Justin
Great article as always!
Am with you. 3rd edition had some splat books from Atlas games on domain management…
And interestingly, Beowulf 5e has a new KS all about King Beowulf & domain management! Hwaet!
Likewise, Pendragon covers this concept well.
For D&D, you’re right. A new play style would be needed. Incl players running heirs to their original PCs kingdom. An interesting challenge.
For me that failure of imagination isn’t really a failure; I don’t expect or want a Warhammer tabletop campaign to also be social sim, I don’t expect or want a rhythm game to turn into a racing game.
If you want players and DMs to be able to be a king or a god, then they should be start as a mayor or a cultist. In other words, to make people want to go out of the dungeon(or gladiatorial arena) domain level play shouldn’t be high level play, it should start at the very latest level 5.
That’s why I disagree with @Robert: Of course they should start as Kings at level 1, the setting is about facilitating rulership, why shouldn’t they start ruling at level 1?
(Of course if you’re a church priest or village chief at level 1, that’d make more sense on progression…)
People really fixate on realms-management because that’s what 1974 D&D did, but there are lots of paths the game can take to more epic game play.
The choices are not limited to (a) stay in the dungeon forever and (b) rule a kingdom.
There’s not just one world out there. There’s literally a multiverse.
@Justin Alexander: Well yes, but an extreme gameplay shift is still unlikely to go well for players to accept or even care.
An epic gameplay can’t be mostly detached from the mudcore gameplay if you want progression from the latter to the former. If the ‘epic’ gameplay is a racing game, then the players should be driving family cars(or bicycles) at level 1 even if they’re mostly playing a farming game at that level.
Long-term minecraft is about automation and large, building projects but players are hunting-gathering and building wooded houses or dirthuts from the very beginning. The Nether and The End(Alternate dimensions for unique resources) is just a separate biome that’s harder to gain access and live in, but it’s still a biome you interact with the same way(block destruction, building, fighting)
@Justin Alexander,
I am late to the party and stating the obvious but amazing website. You are generous with your advice, and it is appreciated. And this article is timely, at least for me.
The past week I hunted down Reigns, Reign Enchidiron (core domain/realms rules without setting), Ars Magica, Kingmaker, Pendragon, and Nobilis (hardcover 12″x12″ version) in a quest to better understand what the late game could look like for characters and players.
I have ACKS and signed up for the ACKS 2E KS preorder, and I have been thinking about that and the 0D&D domain rules.
Burning Empire is new to me. I am going after that next (right after I publish this article). I also pre-ordered your book on Amazon and picked up Infinity. I had to go to eBay. I couldn’t find the HC on the Modiphius store.
And @Ben Ferguson, thanks for the tip on King Beowulf. I am going to back that.
Anyway, enough about my shopping list. I think this article opened the door to an important discussion. I look forward to reading more on this and am hopeful you write more on the subject.
One thing to note is that yes, players want to be Aragorn and Conan, and yes they both became kings, but they don’t really do any active kinging within the story. Aragorn becomes king basically at the end of Lord of the Rings, so that’s all denouement stuff that the players in an RPG are rarely playing out at any length. And literally the first thing that happens in “Hour of the Dragon” is Conan getting de-kinged from Aquilonia so he can keep doing Conan stuff. I think players shy away from that sort of realm based play because it’s really not a part of the fantasy. They want the title, because in the fantasy that’s the reward at the end.
I think Blades in the Dark holds an unexpected clue for how high-level play including things like realm management could work. One of the things I personally hate about that system is the whole using flashbacks to pretend you planned idea. For a long time I didn’t understand why so many people seemed to love it until I realized that most players don’t actually want to plan, they want to feel ‘planning vibes’. It doesn’t work for me, doesn’t feel earned, but some people love it.
I think a lot of high level endeavours work the same way for many players. When a wizard player sits down at your table and wants to start his own magic school, most often this does not mean he actually wants to play a game about founding and running a magic school. It means that his vision of his character’s arc includes him eventually running a school. They want the vibe, but not the actual experience.
Frankly, this is fine. It’s not my cup of tea, but different strokes for different folks. But changing the whole game to be about a thing that was really only background decoration will never make that player happy, no matter how well designed it is. The worst part is, the player probably won’t know why it’s unsatisfying, because it appears to them that the GM is trying to give them what they want. The expectations are often unknown to the player themself, unspoken, and misunderstood.
Obviously some people actually do want to run a magic school, and we should have scenario structures and other tools to facilitate that, but that’s impossible if we get lost in the weeds trying toplease the people who don’t realize that’s not what they really want.
I have been investing alot of time into solo role-playing games lately and I personally believe a cross between solo role-playing style games and traditional style could solve the problems mentioned here. There are games for homesteading, traveling, pit fiting, even one center on writting letters. A hybrid were your players could be a king or ruler, run a magic school etc, or do so through a steward allowing for expansion game play. The DM would just get a simple report to approve or modify. Like I went here. Met a contact npc, kill x bad guys and receive x, x and x for these things. This would also give the Dm access to other stories, hooks and problems for the players to solve. I am still working out the complete details but I believe that a mix of the two styles traditional role playing and solo role playing would satisfy everyone’s style at the table. The DM could also do solo role-playing to create background stories for new bad guys, what the bad guys are doing etc, and introducing new. NPC to the game.
For a more DnD example of that flashback mechanic: The 4e warlord.
An entire class about being a tactical and charismatic genius even if you can literally, factually, be tactical and charismatic through in-fiction and IRL means.
Mind you, I love the 4e warlord, and want it back.
Wesley-
I think you’re right there, about people often asking for the vibe of a thing rather than the thing- i’ve seen it in mysteries a lot, people really like mysteries but often times when it comes time to actually plan out how they intend to investigate, they struggle, and lean on the character sheet to get them there, or stuff like Microscope’s systems where it’s sort of assumed what they will do will bring success. Sometimes you can do more genuine mysteries by having one player able to really run an investigation and make good moves, but often times it works best when mystery is more of a vibe.
@Ray Gunner
If I understand correctly, in OD&D it is possible for PCs to have hirelings at 1 level and almost mandatory at higher levels (someone must quard your horses when you are exploring a dungeon in the wilderness). So PCs there start as leaders of small warbands and as they level-up, they get bigger and bigger warbands, bases for such warbands and eventually small realms. The ACKS (Adventurer-Conqueror-King System) OSR RPG quite clearly shows that progression in the title.
I agree that in modern D&D, where hirelings are almost nonexistant and expedition-based play is mostly gone, progression from a dungeon-clearing adventurer to a king doesn’t work at all.
@Angon
That’s very true, and I get how that could move into ruling a kingdom… but I have a feeling the way one(or really, how most players) interacts with having hirelings in the same way that one rules a kingdom in OD&D.
It’s weird that everyone is zeroing in on the idea of managing a kingdom because that doesn’t seem to be what the article is about. A Crusader Kings/ King’s Dilemma style game about managing crises that arise in your domain is an interesting idea (I think one way to do it would be to have, like, one choice at the beginning of the session, then do an adventure. On your way out the door to go do a fun quest, your page comes up to you with an issue to adjudicate. You make the decision, the GM notes the consequences (including bonuses and maluses to adventuring that your decision may prompt), and then you go into the wild to do some fantasy gaming.
But that said, there’s still an extent to which the “homeless wandering poking through a dungeon” doesn’t feel right at high levels, and the spells Justin mentioned that negate a lot of dungeon challenges have nothing to do with domain management. What I think of for high level play, at least in systems like D&D that scale very high indeed when it comes to personal power, is not a king sitting in a courtroom but a demigod striding across the landscape, perhaps with a small army of followers, putting kings on their throne, and taking on the existential threats that lower level adventurers just learned to work around. That lich territory that was once the edge of the map for viable adventuring grounds is now a target. That evil overlord who taxed us when we passed through his kingdom? His days are numbered. We once stopped the cultists from raising their eldritch lord. Now *we’ll* raise him so we can kill him permanently.
It doesn’t fit in the easy dungeon play structure, but I think it’s doable if it’s the culmination of a campaign setting that has already allowed for (1) things to happen that the players can’t address at their current level and (2) players to generally decide what they do and don’t want to address.
@RatherDashing: Realm management is just one example, but for me at least, the reason I’m not worrying about high level adventuring play is that I’ve never found it to be a problem. Yes, dungeons are more difficult (though far from impossible) but my games were never confined to the dungeon at any level so it doesn’t bother me any. As far as I’m concerned, putting a king on the throne, as you say, in high tiers isn’t conceptually any different from deciding who’s going to be mayor of the little fishing village in your first adventure. It’s merely scale that differs.
And I’ve never understood arguments that that teleportation or planar travel or whatever high level thing people want to talk about ruins adventures. By that logic the ability to pick locks ruins low level adventures because adventurers can get past locked doors. They’re supposed to succeed. Their resources are supposed to be useful. You just have to design with a different set of constraints.
I sometimes joke that 13th level is the most dangerous level in DnD because players get all excited about teleporting, jump to the boss’ bedroom with their one 7th level spell slot, kill him, and then realize they’re stuck in his fortress with all his minions and no idea where the exit is.
If high level play is still focused on moment to moment adventuring, even once you’ve left the dungeon behind, the game still plays very similarly. The players have far more freedom to choose their engagements, but fighting the boss still essentially plays out the same way as it did at 1st level. You have a fight, someone wins.
By contrast, realm management, as the popular example at the moment, is an example of something where the players engage with the game in a fundamentally different way. They’re not making moment to moment decisions. The king issues the orders to establish a new fort or whatever, but he’s not going out and doing it himself.
Stepping out of that moment to moment gameplay can be a problem for many players trained on railroads. I see this a lot with downtime. Instead of saying they want to sell their treasure, players will often default to a grueling, dull, street by street faux dungeon crawl to find a vendor because that’s the only way they’ve been taught to interact with the game. It can be hard to break them out of that habit, even when you outright tell them that they don’t have to do that.
I agree with RatherDashing @ 39 The spell selection in DnD doesn’t do a lot for domain management. I’ve been reading Industrial Magic Revolution and thinking about magical domain management. I’d want something that would help me build roads and bridges and canals, manage weather events boost crops. If I were a Duke who could influence magical research I’d be very interested in that sort of economically useful spell. Even something like Continuous Light would make a huge difference to the amount of lamp oil I need to produce.
A chicken in every pot, a magical light source in every sconce and a Cure Diseases spell in every temple.
@RatherDashing
“a demigod striding across the landscape, perhaps with a small army of followers, putting kings on their throne, and taking on the existential threats that lower level adventurers just learned to work around.”
That’s quite similar to itinerant court of Early Middle Ages – a king with a small army of retainers and courtiers wandering arownd his kingdom, putting earls and counts on their thrones, fighting with rebel lords and foreign raiders and so on. Early Medieval kings were travellers and warriors, not bureaucrats.
@
“The king issues the orders to establish a new fort or whatever, but he’s not going out and doing it himself.”
There were no developed bureaucracy in Early Medieval Europe, so kings were unable to just issue orders. For example, Richard the Lionheart was not only present during constuction of Château Gaillard, but also may be was the overall architect of that castle. Similarly, kings often led themselves their armies during wars, went themselves on diplomatic missions to other countries, personally managed their domains and so on.
@Bailey,
Do you have any solo titles you would recommend?
I had assumed that the ‘standard scenario structure for stronghold play’ in 1974 was to transfer to playing tabletop wargames & map campaigns, & the reason that didn’t & doesn’t (usually) work is that more people like doing individual character roleplaying than playing miniature wargames. I think, maybe, part of the answer is that you need game structures which do ‘battles’, ‘political negotiations’, even maybe ‘world building’ in The Silmarillion sense (kinda) but which are resolved in ways which make sense to roleplayers, not wargamers and boardgamers.
@Angon: I’m well aware that there was no developed bureaucracy, and yes, a king might be personally involved in the construction of a castle, but there are a lot more in his domain than he’s personally involved in. The nobility is expected to maintain them as part of their obligation to manage their particular slice of the kingdom, but the king would generally be pretty hands off as long as the taxes flow in and the peasants are kept in line and nobody invades. Moreover, I specified fort, and kings certainly have better things to do than personally maintain the vast system of forts and smaller castles that spring up along contested boundaries. And in any case, I doubt that when players want to be kings they envisioned themselves sitting down to do some architectural planning.
Also, most DnD games do not take place in medieval Europe, so the presence of a bureaucracy is an open question in any case. The worlds generally depicted in fantasy RPGs almost never resemble in any accurate way feudal systems anyway. But if we’re insisting that bureaucracies in the middle ages are simply unrealistic, I’d direct your attention to China and the Islamic world.
Random recommendation since you mentioned kings leading armies though, if you haven’t before, read about Raynald of Chatillon. Not a king, but an interesting figure in that he is kind of a proto example of the DnD style adventurer becomes ruler character arc. Weaseled his way into higher social circles in the Crusader States, launched an unsanctioned and hilariously ineffective attempt to conquer Medina, and eventually executedby Salah al-Din.
I think some variation on 4e’s Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies is a potential segway into higher level play – but while 4e had a clear design goal of actually being the pure dungeon crawler 3e marketed itself to be, it is possible to use other approaches for what such an upgrade could give you.
As for realms play, the biggest problem there is how it’s an entirely different approach and mode of play from dungeon crawling. So old-school players would either have their cool adventurer locked to a throne, away from the action, or you would have people interested in courtly intrigue have to suffer through many rat cellars and kobold dens to be allowed to play the game they wanted to.
And as far as I remember, the whole “become a king” stuff was more or less a passive-aggressive way of asking you to retire a character by having you start over as a level 1 servant of your newly-crowned king.
I’m proud to say that towards the end of 3.5, I was able to gather a group of great players to run an Epic Level Campaign. We started at level 17 and everyone had to take the Leadership Feat. This gave each player a large number of followers and they were responsible to populate their followers into an organization of their own design. These “guilds” were finally used in a special session with many table tops and separate war maps representing multiple fronts for a battle simulation.
For most units, we calculated a DC for that unit to kill an enemy unit and another DC to resist dying. This meant that players were rolling 20d20’s at a time and reducing their numbers each round for fast combat resolution. But still, there were a handful of special units with levels, like flying spellcasters, and these units actually rolled initiative so that they could cast spells and support the ground troops. Not to mention the players got to use their high level characters to annihilate the larger battle threats.
This battle sim, only took up one session and players were able to plan their strategies for several weeks ahead of time. The rest of the campaign was filled with the players fighting several of the highest Challenge Rating Monsters in the Manual. Once they had enough XP to reach Level 21, each player had to figure out how to enter Demi-god-hood. This just meant that they each had to go on an ascension quest (solo), which mostly consisted of them reaching out to their patron Deity to get instructions, and in a couple cases a Hero God or a conversation with an Ideal Personified. Nearly all of them had to sacrifice themselves to be reborn as immortal godlings, and maybe one of them (a spellcaster) was able to ascend with a ritual and become immortal without dying first. In the end, all the players reached Level 21 and then we began fighting monsters in the Epic Level Handbook.
The campaign only lasted a short time after that, they reached Level 22 or 23 and the amount of material we explored in the Epic book was slight. Most players were more interested in returning to the Mortal Planes to check on their followers, not to mention that the Epic Monsters scaled so quickly that I had to create/reskin tons of monsters to even get to level 22.
4th edition was difficult to play Epic levels due to multiple paralyze, stun, and disable effects. I didn’t even try to recruit a group for an Epic campaign.
But I’ve had great success playing levels 15+ in 5e (still no Epic yet), with the same mindset of mixing standard initiative combats with custom scenarios and alternatives-to-combat without doing away with standard combat completely.
So I agree, there isn’t too much support for this style of play, but I can tell you as a DM with players who ask for this level of play that if you can come up with your own alternatives to combat encounters, it’s well worth the time and effort. As DMs we can mold the game into anything we want.
@Wesley: Sure, there were states with bureaucracies during Middle Ages – not only in China and in the Islamic world, but also the Byzantine Empire or even the Kingdom of Sicily. But the OD&D setting (or at least those parts of it where adventures take place and adventurers are able to create their own realms) seems to be vastly more de-centralised than even Early Medieval Western Europe. So if the PCs want some bureoascracy to give orders to, they have to create it themselves.
Also I agree that a king wouldn’t personally build every fort and castle in his kingdom. But I also doubt that the king would personally order to build most of them. That’s a job of his vassals to build and maintain their own castles in their own counties and baronies. You are absolutely right that “the king would generally be pretty hands off”. And if there is something important to the kingdom as a whole, such as construction of a new strategically important castle or a major invasion, the king probably would be personally involved.
My point is that playing as pseudo-medieval king (or feudal lord, or tribal chief) isn’t mostly about sitting in a courtroom and issuing orders, but about travelling, fighting, personal negotiations and so on.
@Angon: to emphasize your point; there’s some degree of mythology around the role of the medieval king. By this I mean you’ve got post-medieval stories about medieval kings (like King Arthur) that position the king as a supernatural being with a direct hand in everything, and even in the time, there was a pro-monarchy mythology positioning the king *as* a supernatural being to reinforce their divine right to rule.
All of this plays very well with D&D for high-level kings, because a high-level player actually *is* superior to their vassals and peasants. They’ve got more hit points! So while a real world king may have been expected to lead the charge for morale purposes, a D&D king has even more reason to lead the charge because he is literally a superior combatant. Depending on the system he may be a one-man army to rival an actual small army.
So while a real world king will write a dispatch to handle the problem at the border, it makes perfect sense for the adventurer king to ride out and deal with it himself. Whereas the historical king established this myth of how he, personally, kept the realm safe, the D&D king can actually *do* this.
There ARE conversations to be had about how desirable realm-based play even is – sure, Conan and Aragorn both became kings, but Aragorn’s story ended on the spot, whilst Conan spent his time grumbling about how much less fun it was unless circumstances forced him to do dungeoncrawley things. But it is certainly on my own bucket list, with or without obvious fictional antecedents.
By far the best work I’ve ever seen for DMing a game like that comes from Godbound, which is kind of ironic, because that book only devotes four pages to the subject. But those pages have Kevin Crawford’s talent for random tables which can spit out countless hours of gameplay on full display. For taking an idea like “abolish this terrible custom” or “get my subjects to stop killing each other over this petty feud” and spitting out gameable answers for why nobody else has just done this already, it’s in a league of its own.
@RatherDashing: Exactely! Although even IRL the king sometimes did lead the charge, because most experienced and best armed and armored warriors were in his retinue. But of course this idea is much more common in epic literature and makes much more sense in D&D.
And while the king might delegate handling border problems to local lords of the marches, sometimes he had to go there in person to restore and strengthen his rule. Again, this is easier to explain in D&D, where high-level threats require high-level characters to solve.
@Highbrowbarian: I somewhat disagree here. While both Aragorn and Conan became kings late in their adventures, both were tribal chieftains, lead armies and fleets and participated in high politics way earlier in their career. For example, Conan lead the army of Khoraja (in “Black Colossus”), while Aragorn (as Thorongil) lead the Gondorian fleet against the corsairs of Umbar. So while they didn’t have the title of king, they both weren’t your average dungeon-crawling adventurer either.
Hmm. If you think of kingship from the royal progress angle, you could structure it as a point-crawl…
@Wesley: I think Blades in the Dark holds an unexpected clue for how high-level play including things like realm management could work.
I realize I’m backing up a bit here, but I would like to interject with this thought: I think BitD, coincidentally, ALSO has a really good example of how to handle domain-based play.
Leave all the actual heists and such aside for a moment. Right off the bat, Blades will set up an area and tell you about the local power players. Then:
* Make at least one an ally.
* Make at least one an enemy.
* Figure out both a good thing about your own followers and something which can drive them into conflict with you.
And then, crucially, the GM is given three tools. One, an agenda each faction are pursuing. Two, a general purpose mechanic for those factions to act on those agendas. Third and most subtle, a webwork of ways those agendas overlap and conflict with one another (as a minor criticism, I do think Forged in the Dark games should have some sort of revelation list laying those connections out for the GM in one place).
All of that would work flawlessly for kingdoms, too. Heck, even if the players aren’t interesting in domain management at all, that would be a great model to use for high-level characters WITHOUT the world leveling up with them – skim through the faction sections of Blades (or Scum And Villainy, which is if anything even better at the factions game) and imagine a group of PCs taking adventures in this world and winning effortlessly at everything. They can solo armies or lay low buildings… but they would still always have challenging choices to make, because people have motives and actions have consequences.
@TheAlexandrian Please please please make a running a domain blog, I am in need of it, I am running a hodge podge of kingmaker plus stuff from older editions and its working now, but it would be good to get some solid advice about it.
@Highbrowbarian I am intrigued at what you say, I want to know more, I am running a kingmaker campaign with two groups in the same world, so any advice and help would be useful. What part of scum and villainy would you suggest reading to get some hints and tips?
Food for thought! Didn’t realize I was hungry for this. Interesting article.
@Charlie Lazenby: Fair warning – I’m a total fanboy here, and this post got much longer than I had intended.
To understand the realm-level ideas you can get from Scum And Villainy, you’d want to skim through the chapters Ships & Crews (to see how the game hard codes the PCs being entangled with multiple factions from the start), Running The Game (to understand how the writers expect you to use the countdown clocks) and The Procyon Sector (for context) – then start paying very close attention on page 316 when it gets into the factions. As I said before, the ways the book makes them all entangled with both each other and various gameable premises is really masterful stuff.
In fact, just for fun, how about an example. Let’s assume that the PCs (in breaking with the RPG’s general assumptions) are the leadership of a mid-sized noble house establishing power in this sector, since that seems kinda comparable to Kingmaker. In keeping with my earlier post, we’ll also assume they are effortlessly steamrolling all direct opposition, although another thing I love about these games is how they have a clear path forward when the PCs straight-up fail an adventure.
To increase their power, they’ll want allies among the “legitimate” establishment, so I look at the Hegemony factions. More or less at random, I’ll pick the Yaru (who provide an allegedly-mindless clone workforce) from the lower-tier options. These guys are already a pile of plot hooks internally, using their signature cloning technology in secret and illegal ways behind closed doors, but forget about that for now.
The PCs want the Yaru’s support, so what do the Yaru want? Well, it turns out that they have a beef with the current emperor, and are secretly making an army for the renegade Lost Legion hiding a rival heir in this sector. Exciting – but not really something they would talk about at first. Instead, they might ask the PCs to secure raw materials for them, setting them on any number of potential paths, but let’s simplify things by saying that instead, they ask the PCs to attack their immediate enemies, the Cobalt Syndicate (a labor union who offer alternative labor to the Yaru’s clones).
The Cobalt Syndicate’s writeup tells us that they’re working to unify assorted labor forces under their leadership, so the Yaru tell the PCs to sabotage those same relationships. The PCs do so, crossing paths with the enforcer Sephua – maybe she becomes a recurring rival, or maybe they quickly kill her, unaware that her brother, Jax, runs the syndicate. Either way, this is now personal to someone.
The PCs now have the support they wanted from the Yaru, and they can move forward with their proactive plans. However, as allies, the Yaru will now start talking about the resources for that clone army – will the PCs grow suspicious and investigate? They’ve also proven themselves in battle, so the Lost Legion start asking the Yaru to set up a meeting between the PCs and one of their agents to feel them out.
And since it’s now personal with the Cobalt Syndicate, those guys turn to one of their listed allies – the pirate fleet of The Maelstrom. These guys are a much bigger deal than the Cobalts, so they would presumably want a heavy price to hunt down the Syndicate’s enemies. Their goal is “seize control of a jumpgate,” so we’ll assume the Cobalts use their industry ties and place a Maelstrom operative in a high-ranking position at the shipping docks near one of the gates – write that down as information, and mark some progress on the clock tracking how close they get to that goal (which the PCs might help, hinder, or remain totally unaware of as it ticks away offscreen). With that, the Maelstrom’s pirate fleet begins gearing up for battle against the PCs’ forces. There will be some skirmishes before the situation either gets resolved, or escalates to the mechanics for outright war.
And far offscreen, another enemy of the Cobalt Syndicate, the 51st Legion, is impressed by this upstart house humbling a group they’ve never much liked. They might offer the PCs aid in the future… which would be an especially awkward alliance if the PCs should develop working relationships with both the Lost Legion and this legitimate one, even before the book drops the bombshell that the 51st is plotting a coup of its own.
That’s a silly amount of text, and I didn’t even get to a second mission as I had intended. But that might be the best demonstration of my larger point: a bunch of entwined factions with interesting agendas (and a system for them acting on those agendas) will provide constant consequences on any scale, from personal to countries.
I will make one caveat about my focus on S&V’s faction dynamics: Blades in the Dark does have some rules for territorial control which this game lacks, and those are obviously worth at least reading for inspiration in a domain management game. Both sets of factions are brilliant, so if you’re going to get one book, Blades is probably it.
You have convinced me that it’s worth acquiring Scum & Villainy, while I already have Blades.
If there were any edition or supplement that were serious about realm-leading levels of play, they would find a way to mechanize party dynamics and character abilities into this level. In any existing version of the game, once the party find their kingdom they have to wing it completely. Their party abilities are for stomping monsters, but their kingdom tasks are to raise taxes, build structures, conduct diplomacy, and manage the economy. There may be a ruleset for those latter tasks, but there is no interface between the character sheets and the ruleset, and no clear way for the characters to interact. If they each get a separate realm, as AD&D suggests, the group nature of play becomes fragmented and it is hard to run engrossing sessions where everyone takes a part.
A radical change of play would be to offer new multiclassing options with abilities aimed at the higher tiers. The adventuring party becomes a ruling party, with “cabinet” offices in the niches that class used to supply. You now have Diplomats, Generals, Heads of State, Treasurers, and Pontiffs layered on to Fighters, Rogues, Clerics, and Wizards. The scale of play changes, and instead of six-second rounds, you have rounds where each officeholder resolves their own action, working together in times of crisis, with councils similar to the planning sessions in between fights where they debate their next move. They still have their old abilities in case they need to get the band together for one last heist, but they are working up in a new game now.
Thank you Justin, another excellent thoughtful post.
As well as Conan and Aragorn – what about Theoden? Leader of a warrior race. Owes fealty to the declining empire to the south. Neighbours include an ancient restive enemy (Dunland), tree beings according to folklore, powerful elves that haven’t been seen for thousands of years. Has to choose leaders of the eastern and western parts of his kingdom, one of which (his son) dies. Territory includes a wizard’s tower, initially an ally but… Recruits a party of high-level adventurers to help with the threat to his kingdom.
That all sounds quite high-level-PC-ish.
“I’ve talked in the past about the fact that the only two game structures most DMs really know are dungeon crawls and railroading”
excellent point. I think the missing game structure is Free Kriegspiel or Braunstein, which is where these things came from. Megagames and LARPS are the inheritors here I think. It would be interesting to see more people rediscover this. I think as a social thing for this you need a bigger player base
When the RPGA had the Living campaigns that was the closest D&D got to having this be official. The Aventurer’s League is a pale shadow of that. Pity.
[…] think Epic 6 idea ( https://www.enworld.org/threads/e6-the-game-inside-d-d-new-revision.200754/ and https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/50073/roleplaying-games/soloing-smaug-the-struggle-for-the-soul… ) from DnD 3.5 has some merit here. Short summary – Epic 6 is the mode of play where you […]
The Sine Nomine type faction tools these DMs and gamers could use.
I would argue there is an official 5E book offering realms-based play. We deliberately created that in the Acquisitions Inc book. Yes, it has a strong comedic dressing. But it is there to facilitate, flexibly, the larger goals of the PCs. Run a tavern. A freight business. A criminal organization. Whatever. As you level, you get more agency and reach. But like all D&D 5E amazing systems (downtime, franchises, patrons, etc.) future books don’t make use of them.