Intended Play

Rulers is intended to be a setting agnostic TTRPG system that can be played as a standalone game.

By default, Rulers is assumed to be played asynchronously with a campaign lasting at least several sessions of play, and open competition between players should they choose to pursue it.

This is not the only way to play Rulers, but many mechanics are designed with the assumption this is how the game will be played.

Ways to play

• Play-by-Post: Rulers can be played as Play-by-Post game (PBP) and in fact was often playtested this way. Players act on their turns asynchronously, when it’s convenient for them do so, writing up their actions and then submitting them to their GM. At a set date and time the GM then advances play to the next turn.

• Round table: Playing around one table together, all the players must be able to view and interact with a global map on a table between them. The GM announce the start of the next turn, each player declares when they are done with each phase in the turn, and the GM declares the end of the Turn, and then repeats the process. All players should look for opportunities to engage with roleplay to expand the story of the game as appropriate during the turn. When communicating between players, physical notes and letters may be passed to one another, and the GM may take other players aside to communicate information secret to them alone.

• One-shot: Rulers can be played as a one-shot, where the story of the game is told over the course of one single session. It may be best to think of it as a “board game night with roleplay elements”. Rulers features simultaneous turns, heavy resource tracking, and needs a map that all players are able to see. In this way, it is somewhat similar to games like Scythe or Twilight Imperium, but with more rules for politics and an emphasis on roleplay.

• LARP: Rulers can also be used for a Live Action Roleplay (LARP) experience. Players can roleplay as their Rulers completely in-character, in a Model UN style of event, then step to the side to take their turns to detail their actions and expenditure of resources during a recess. The GM then advances the turn, before the players reconvene and continue to roleplay with their updated political and economic situation.

• Solo-game: Rulers could also be played by yourself as a solo-game. This can be a great exercise in worldbuilding, allowing you to quickly play out many years of history in your world as various factions. This can give you a sense of the broader geo-political events of the world in which your story is taking place, either for a another TTRPG or as a personal writing exercise.

• Competitive or co-operative: Rulers games can be pseudo-competitive. In the style of video game series like Civilization and Total War, players may conquer, annex or vassalize other players. While players may instead choose to co-operate, there is no guarantee that will be the case. If players want to have a purely co-operative game, then that should be discussed when setting up your game.

Communication in Play

Rulers can be played with a group at a table. Alternatively that group can be communicating online via voice or text, in real-time or asynchronously. Whatever your medium for discussion, in-character communication is intentionally limited to certain actions.

Communication that occurs between Rulers, must happen through the Send Message action. The ability for Rulers to freely speak to one another in real-time is limited to an Assembly, which may only occur after the Announce Assembly action has been taken by a Ruler. Therefore, no amount of back and forth discussion of trade-deals or alliances is permitted in the medium through which the game is being hosted, without those players having followed the rules of the actions required to do so.

However, Rulers is still a roleplaying game. Everyone is encouraged to look for every opportunity to embellish moments with the emotion and to build the narrative of their Ruler and their Realm. These narrative moments should not constitute an attempt to communicate with another Ruler. There is also a certain amount of communication that needs to occur between players to resolve actions and turns, for these out-of-character discussions all players are allowed to free speak, providing they respect the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge.

Calling for Roleplay

Rulers is at its core a game of collaborative storytelling, but with its presumption on asynchronous play and intentional limitations of character-to-character communication it can be easy to forget to roleplay. The GM and the players should always be looking for opportunities to call for roleplay.

Moments to look for roleplay are when critical political or military decisions are being made, when secrets are revealed and when the stakes are high. As GM ask yourself: “Could this be a scene in Game of Thrones or Dune?”. That’s a great time to ask the other players to expand on that moment in a scene with roleplaying.

When asking a player to roleplay a scene as their Ruler, invite the other players to participate even if their Ruler is not present. Give them other characters in the scene to roleplay as, such as mentors, servants and family members in the Ruler’s court. Who do they look to for guidance when they are scared? Who do they speak to when they need to feel brave?

Remember, the player whose Ruler this scene is focused on has the ultimate power of veto over the culture and narrative of their Realm. They can ask the other players to respect their ideas for the culture and language of their people. Roleplay scenes like these, are an opportunity for the other players to inhabit your Realm as you see it, and they are also a great time to take input from the other players on how to develop less explored parts of your civilization’s culture.

Here are a few likely opportunities to call for roleplay.

• Writing a Message

• Upon receiving a Message

• Before or after a battle between Armies

• At the signing of a new Treaty

• At the death of a Ruler

Roleplay does not have to happen at each of these moments if it is not interesting to the players to do so, but this list may prove a useful reference point for when to think about calling for roleplay.

Advancing Turns

Rulers is played across a series of turns, with each representing one season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter). Each turn is resolved simultaneously. This means the GM and all players act at once, paying the costs for any actions they take and roleplaying any scenes they wish to explore. The turn ends, the world map is updated and then the next turn begins.

Each turn is broken up into phases. In real-time play, the GM may enforce progress into the next phase for every player simultaneously if all the players agree. It is sufficient for a player to declare publicly they are done with a certain phase, as long as they understand they cannot go back to a previous phase later during the same turn. Because turns are simultaneous, Messengers and Armies will not affect other Rulers until the next turn. For example, combat between opposing Armies begins automatically at the start of each turn, but not during a turn.

Refer to Taking a Turn to review a complete breakdown of the Turn Order.

When playing around a table or in real-time online, it is simple for each player to announce when they have completed their turn, and for the GM to declare the end of the turn. When playing asynchronously, the players have the option to set a date and time at which point the turn will end and be advanced to the next turn by the GM. For instance, every Friday at noon, or at the start of the last day of each month. Even when playing in real-time, the players may wish to set a timer to countdown to the conclusion of each turn, pausing for any roleplay they wish to share with the other players.

Each player should do as much as they can during their turn to resolve actions themselves, and work together to minimize the work of the GM to update the world map and act for every GMR. Players should manage their own resources, their upkeep costs, the positions of their Messenger and Armies, and call for roleplay where they feel its is appropriate.

When to roll dice

Rulers is a game that uses dicepools of six-sided dice (d6). A roll of a 5-6 is consider a success. All dice rolls in Rulers are opposed by another dicepool of d6. Whichever side has the greater number of success is victorious in the exchange, whatever that may mean in the context of the situation. The number of successes over the opposition’s dicepool reflects the degree to which the victorious side is successful in achieving their goals.

In Rulers, this most commonly comes up in combat rolls for warfare. Each Army rolls a number of d6 equal to its Might and whichever side has the greater number of successes wins the battle, and the outcome is detailed in the combat rolls tables based on how many successes they rolled above their opponent.

There may be other occasions a GM calls for a diceroll to determine the outcome of an action. For example, when a player Ruler makes a proposal to a GMR through the Draft Treaty action, the GM may decide how that Ruler wants to response or they could call for a dice roll instead. In this case, the player Ruler could roll their total Influence production against the total Influence production of the GMR to create two dicepools which will be rolled in opposition to one another.

Might, while a unique resource in Rulers, is still considered to be a Special Resource. If the GM feels it necessary, they may call for any resource to be rolled as a dicepool in opposition to the GM or another player. For example, a GM might call for Food production to be rolled to resist a famine, or Wealth production to be rolled to determine if a GMR can be bribed into a deal. However, it is important to remember that these resources are not consumed by these dice rolls. Might is not consumed when an Army makes a combat roll, but the available Might of an army may be lowered by a failed roll.

Campaign Map

Rulers requires a campaign map to play on. There needs to be at least one version, accessible to all the players. For games with more hidden information, different versions of the map need to be available.

• Global map (required) - There should be a map showing all of the Regions in the game, all of the Realms that govern them, whether they are controlled by the GM or other players, as well as any neutral Regions controlled by no Realm. This “world map” may not be the entirety of the whole world the game is set in, but for the purposes of playing Rulers it is the complete area of play. This map may be physical or digital, or both, and must be viewable by all players.

• Player only map (optional) - This is a copy of the global map viewable to only one player Ruler, with each player Ruler having their own copy. The Visibility of this map extends only to Regions adjacent to their Realm or Agents. The extent of the Ruler’s Exploration is to be determined at the start of the game by all the players.

• GM only map (optional) - This is a copy of the global map only for the GM to view. On this map they have complete information to the current position of all Armies, Messengers and any other Agents, as well as current information relating to all Regions and Realms. Unlike the global map which is viewable to everyone, the GM map may contain information the GM wishes to keep hidden from the other players.