(I know that I am making this post without hearing the full details of the King level play at GenCon, but I have been thinking about this a lot recently.)
One thing I would like to see in the GM’s section of the rules is a nice clean breakdown of the three types of “turn” sequences used in the game. By this I mean the summarized GM procedures for dungeon exploration, wilderness exploration, and domain activities.
At the lower levels of play, we are all familiar with the traditional procedure of exploring the dungeon by ten minute turns, searching for secret doors, and rolling for chance encounters (wandering monsters) along with the following reaction rolls and encounter distances.
And, if you are fortunate enough to play long enough for mid-level adventuring, the GM and the players become familiar with wilderness exploration that entails the party’s chance of getting lost, different movement rates through different terrain, and the more scary chances of wilderness encounters.
It would be great if there was a codified procedure for the things that happen at the domain level of play with a timeframe of months. And I know there is already this structure in the RAW. Much of the breakdown of economics and domain development is already listed at monthly intervals. But I think if we can point to a summarized procedure for this time interval and build it as a third type of “turn”, it would add a lot of clarity about what ACKS has going for it over brand X. (Other than all the other neat qualities of course.)
On a related note, I guess what I really want is another type of GM roll that happens either at the monthly or seasonal time period that functions as a “wandering domain event” to facilitate that little bit of random monkey-wrench fun that the encounter rolls in the dungeon and wilderness provide at the lower levels of play.
For example I can think of dozens of random things that would sweep through the player’s domains like droughts, plagues, hard winters, humanoid raiders from adjoining lands, cult influences, a spike in highway crime, etc. All things that would affect the proper functioning of the PC’s holdings and provide a background to whatever the party is up to at that point in time. Say maybe a 1 in 6 chance every season for rolling on the random event table
It does make the GM’s job a bit more complex in that they would have to work it narratively into play. But I find myself doing the same thing with wandering monsters at the other levels of play anyway, trying to explain to myself why they are there in the first place. And of course, wandering encounters have always been optional to whatever is going on at the table but I would love to have a tool like that to use as a story prod.
Am I totally off base? Do people want to see a set turn procedure for the domain level or am I being anal?
I agree! Seeing the monthly domain run-down done right at the Gen Con demo was hugely revealing - I am also one who needs tables or visuals to understand all of the many things that could take place on a monthly basis. During play the basic procedure and understanding of how these thing come into play clicked for me, but a table or reference could help prevent brain cramps when trying to get it all in at the table.
I have to add that the crazy events and ups and downs that my “domain” experienced randomly added some great hooks for role play and interaction with the domain, it was cool. And I’m not trying to be a shameless huckster, just sayin’. I had fun with the bugbear Blade Dancer initiates that we gained as an asset, and it was cool to blow 33K gold on a festival for the kingdom and see it have an effect on the game 
I second that idea.
In Blackmoor (and FWIW in my Dragons at Dawn and Champions of ZED) this is handled by chance cards . Arneson wrote up a few dozen random possible events and had his players draw one card for each month of the year.
thirded…
If you are looking for a model, the AD&D 1st Ed Oriental Adventures book has tables of random monthly and yearly domain-level events.
Huh, I never bothered to get that book, but now I guess I’ll have to. 
The Oriental Adventures yearly and monthly events are great. In fact, I’m currently running Oriental Adventures using ACKS rules with the monthly and yearly events in conjucntion with ACKS domains. Wonderful stuff.
My intent is to include yearly and monthly events for the Auran Empire in the Auran Empire campaign setting.
If you are still looking for these tables, Jeff Rients posted them on his blog (http://jrients.blogspot.com/2012/04/oa-event-charts.html). OA has descriptions of each event on the table, so it might still be useful to you.
I would love to see some Western/knightly random events charts of OA quality…
By that I mean, I would like to see something like the OA tables but much more specific like Zak’s comments suggest in the Jeff’s blog link. [damn save button = post and no edit features, my mistakes are posted for the whole world to see!]
I don’t have it, but does Pathfinder’s Kingmaker product line have a turn mechanic for kingdoms and domain events, and could those also be used for inspiration in addition to OA? I seem to recall that they do but I’m only passingly familiar with it.
I’m using the ACKS domain rules in my AD&D campaign that just hit its 3 year mark. This Saturday will be the first time I’ve used them. This is going to be my monthly resolution plan. I have it worked out in more detail than this but here is an outline of the procedure I plan to use. If there is interest, I’ll put the full notes together in a readable form and post them.
- Determine Loyalty of Population (once each season)
- Determine # of Families lost or gained:
- Collect Revenue
- Pay Expenses
- Determine any favors from or duties owed to liege and resolve result
- Determine any favors to or duties required of henchman controlling vassal realms.
- Resolve any hijinks or other events taking place in domain
- Determine net loss/gain in gp for month
- Determine XP (if xp threshold is met)
Ahh! Thread necromancy while I was in my torpid slumber away from the forums.
Honestly a simple domain-turn procedure sheet that looks like the combat summary sheet in the back of the book would be great. Since it looks like the domain stuff is pretty clearly regimented (haven’t DMed it) I know that the only challenge is to try and make a clear diagram and fit it on the one or two pages. (I was one of the original monkeys fiddling around with the combat summary sheet under Alex’s direction way back when.)
A sturdy set of tables for the random domain events would also be space effective. I really like the Vassal request tables (gifts, build stronghold etc.)
I think the only sticking point would be to have the tables result in events that where level appropriateness. Maybe have one set of tables each for the different domain levels:
Small, medium, large domain event (local issues, affects the single domain only)
Settlement event (city/town specific issues)
Realm event (effects entire realm of domains or local relations between smaller domains)
region event (portion of regional map, invasion, plague, earthquake, war)
Season event (weather & natural items, 4 times a year)
The procedure worked well over the weekend. It didn’t take long to calculate everything and we were back to other matters without much time spent dealing with domain issues. Not much happened in the domain in the last game month so there wasn’t much to process really. The whole thing took about 10 minutes at the table.
I think maybe having a a turn summary sheet like the combat summary sheet would be the way to go. I also think putting the tables all on one or two pages would be helpful to prevent page flipping.
I have some of that done already. I’ll keep at it and when I’m done I’ll send it on to Alex to see what he thinks.