Really good idea! Gonna give this a look soon, I've been wanting something like this since the AC Brotherhood days.
A member registered Oct 25, 2019
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Gave it a test on a little village and I like the difference! The main thing I like about it is that power can blob and shift freely no matter the size of the settlement. Previously, I felt like with small villages, I was just constantly shifting one or two population tokens between factions.
A few things I was unclear on while playtesting the new power rules:
1. Is there an intended maximum power pool like there is with the population pool, or do we simply produce tokens from a nebulous pool as instructed? Are we to instead relocate tokens from the city to a faction?
2. We place the initial two tokens on our first resource. Does this mean the initial faction card placement takes one of these, or do we add a new one from the pool? My brain wants to interpret the tokens on resources as "Control of this resource is worth X power to the faction who controls it."
3. If so, what happens when there's only one token left on the resource but another faction gains power? Do they take it from a different faction, take a new token from pool, or just not gain power in order to leave at least 1 token in the city?
5. Is there an intended interpretation for the majority of power tokens being in the city? Does this imply that this amount of power is spread among the citizens? That the factions fight over it and that power is constantly in flux? Is it assumed that the faction with the majority of power controls all the rest of the power not allocated to another faction? Specifically, what do tokens left on resources symbolize?
I have a feeling 5 is supposed to be up to individual player interpretation, but I figured I'd ask just in case. (The rules lawyer in me must know...!)
Presuming a great deal, I came up with this. Perhaps the placement of the power tokens (the purple ones) will help you spot any unintended interpretations I made of the rules?
She's an elven pegasus ranch originally set up as an outpost meant to breed steeds for a war effort further off. Came out kinda peculiar for an elven settlement, but the important part is the way power tokens ended up getting placed. :)
We've done it. A serious, proper run. (Though my art is still terrible, I wish I was as good drawing quick and rough as I am drawing slow and careful.) The resource icons and such aren't my doing, unfortunately, they're found things from the internet.
Behold Vixenwood, seat of House Liskfield (with a couple little tweaks we'll be making to suit the Song of Ice and Fire ruleset). It sits in the Westerlands of Westeros. A brief history of this hamlet:
Vixenwood was founded by a convergence of scouts who camped on the secure little peninsula, in the time during the latter days of Aegon's conquest of Westeros. After the war, these scouts decided collectively to make it their home.
The four terrain features that dominate the landscape are the river that cuts the peninsula in two, the Vixenwood (home to many foxes, and origin of the village's name), the hilly land east of the river, and Deadmire, so named for the bones discovered beneath it some time after the founding. The Vixenwood yielded many edible rootplants, which were available for mass foraging after hunters drove the dangerous predators out of the forest.
After settlement, the ruling house sent knights to see to the newly formed peasantry. These knights ruled over the village for decades, adorned with silks that put even some lords to shame (another gift from the Vixenwood!). When they got too big for their titles, though, their lord sent a small army to demand his tribute. When the knights defied the army, they were slain in a violent little skirmish.
After that point, the populace was left to more or less govern itself. While the farming folk deferred largely to their elders at first, it was the hunters, with their weapons and martial expertise, that filled the void. Without armed knights to rule, the task fell naturally to those with bows.
Unfortunately without lords to demand they wash their stink, the earthy hunters stopped caring for their hygiene and fell ill. This in turn contaminated the rootplants they collected, resulting in a new fields popping up all over across the river to fill the need for meals. Eventually the disease forced the to burn their own dwellings in a desperate attempt to stem the decay, and for a time, the village was divided in two, hunters disbarred from crossing the river.
It took another 30 years or so - and the advent of herbal medicine in the village - for the hunters to reclaim their former glory. A booming boar population in the Foxwood yielded leathers, and clad in iconic cuir bouilli, they once again became the undisputed leaders of the settlement.
Some time after the end of our Ex Novo phase, a keep was constructed over the ruins of the old knights' hall and would serve as a home and fortification for House Liskfield, who would seize power by scheming against another Westerland house and being elevated to nobility themselves during the Blackfyre Rebellion.
.... Okay, not as brief as I'd intended. But that's an excellent sign! Just goes to show how much engaging lore can come from Ex Novo so quickly. This was only a 10-turn run, too! Really loving this thing, best $5 I've spent in a long time. My friend and I already have our next session in mind.
Superb game! This does exactly what I wanted it to and does it OH so smoothly. A friend and I used digital software for a very rough first run at the game, making this little hamlet for our Song of Ice and Fire RPG run. We're eager to sit down with it tomorrow and try a more serious run (with a more uniform format for labeling)!