I'm developing a free, innovative, tactical fantasy TTRPG.
Yes!
Join us on Discord, and we'll hook you up.
While employing "henchmen" have become popular in many games, Futile Kingdoms embraces it as a core design element.
Play a whole squad of companions through the eyes of your main character. A typical adventuring party might have about 10-20 members, each with their own capabilities and ambitions.
The system is built to handle larger groups comfortably, and comes with special subsystems for company management.
Built on a solid foundation inspired by skirmish wargaming, combat is not an afterthought in Futile Kingdoms.
Battles can handle up to dozens of individuals using the core combat system. Players must collaborate and develop strategies to overcome the odds in a tactical sub game that would still be fun to play on its own.
While not attempting to simulate realism, combat makes the weight of plausible in-game factors felt, such as missile combat, shields, weapon reach, troop quality and morale, formations and flanking, or the occasional battle magic or hero.
The game world Auropia is a fantasy parallel to Europe in the early 1200s: foreign enough to not feel constrained by history, but recognizable enough to feel right at home.
Its cultures, religions, and mythology are grounded in familiar European themes, instantly evoking images without the need for long exposition.
Its technology and political dynamics focus on what one would expect from the High Middle Ages specifically, rather than the kitchen sink approach taken by more generic fantasy settings.
A good world model emphasizes limited resources, and the most valuable resource in Futile Kingdoms are heroes (and villains).
Powerful rulers and political factions compete for the service of high level characters, who often enough become rulers in their own right. A dozen heroes can hold the true power behind a major kingdom, all with their own fiefs and responsibilities to worry about.
As you rise through the levels, you will inevitably find yourself caught up in their games.
Peril is the spice of adventure. In Futile Kingdoms, you can die quickly. A single lucky shot or sword strike could kill you. Traps are allowed to be deadly. Bad odds really are bad. No ghost in the machine is coming to your rescue — the dice lie as they land.
The looming threat of death makes your victories all the sweeter: when your careful precautions pay off, when your bold plan works out, when you are saved by pure luck. As a leader, you need to foresee these risks and plan ahead, or send someone else to take the punishment (ideally without getting caught).
When you inevitably do keel over, hopefully you already have a prepared successor in your ranks. Maybe you haven't, but hey — character creation is a breeze.
Most games treat magic like technology: powerful, predictable, quantifiable. This is not how magic is usually depicted in fiction, and arguably it takes the fun out of it.
Futile Kingdoms keeps magic fresh by employing two basic principles:
Magic users don't have inherent powers. They are merely experts in occultism, half mad and overconfident, studying strange phenomena they will never fully understand, in hopes of having a better chance at directing them.
Most of us are older now and have busy lives. We can't come together at the gaming table as often as we might like. At the same time, it has become easy to just sit down for a few minutes on a workday evening and exchange a couple messages.
This plays perfectly into the optional, extensive Downtime subsystem. Your characters get something to do between sessions, and so do their underlings: Manage your domain, research a magic spell, prepare a great feast, build a temple, learn a language. Plot to usurp one of those Futile Kingdoms. Or be lazy if you prefer, and watch your peers overtake you.
Let a robust set of rules work on a simple model, and feed it with an infinite variety of data. That's a proven principle of engineering, and game design is no exception.
All core components of Futile Kingdoms, be it character stats, features, items, or magic spells, are straightforward and bite-sized. Complexity emerges from their combination, providing a solid foundation to extend and modify, and build subsystems around.
Online play has gotten more popular in recent years, making many things easier, although bringing its own drawbacks. Some people love it, others prefer the traditional gaming table. Futile Kingdoms caters to both sorts of players.
You can play online taking advantage of custom tools and gaming aids, sit down in person and play face to face using the same rules, or mix it up and do both inside the same campaign.
This is a labor of love, made by and for hobby enthusiasts. I'm making it because it has to be made, not because I think it makes a great business model.
All rules and materials required to play will be published under a free license, in a convenient and accessible form — which in our day and age means responsive Web. I want you to be able to just pick it up and play.
That said, please consider supporting me if you can. The economy is going downhill and I'm terrified.