Note, while I call this a variant, aside from having a role card it is played with normal commander decks (very different kind of 'variant' than pauper, tiny leaders etc). Also I wanted this to have the attention of being in the main EDH space as there have been a lot of comments over on the reddit thread that this is just the thing that some people need to revitalise a stale EDH playgroup.
Expanded Kingdoms is a 5+ player format (although it can also be played with 4 players), where each player is given a specialized role card that gives them unique win/loss conditions and special abilities that they can use.
Similar to the normal ‘Kingdoms’ variant, there is a King, a Knight, and two Bandit roles in each game. The King wants to survive as last man standing, and the Knight is his ally and can win with him. The Bandits win when the King dies, and all of the roles are secret, so the King can’t trust anyone.
In Expanded Kingdoms the 5th player is a Renegade with any of a number of unique win conditions that throw a wrench into the works. In addition, each Knight and Bandit has a unique randomized ability that can be used once per game.
The biggest difference in Expanded Kingdoms starts with 6 player games. At 6 players, in addition to the King, Knight, and Bandits, there is another team of ‘Nobles’. Their goal is to be the last players in the game, but they can’t let the King die until the Bandits are killed first. This leads to a tentative alliance with the King that must eventually be broken. Add the fact that players can lie and claim to be whatever role they want, and nearly every game involves an epic betrayal or two.
**Deck Building:**
Other than the role cards, the game is played with normal EDH/Commander decks. However, do note that specific rules are in place (rules list included). **The only rule that effects deck-building is that you can only win the game using the win conditions of your role card**, meaning that abilities of cards that say "You win the game" (such as Laboratory Maniac, Test of Endurance) and "Can't win the game" (Platinum Angel, Abyssal Persecutor) don't work.
The variant is very stable up to at least 9 players, and is the only way that I have personally been able to consistently enjoy such large commander games (free for all games this large generally are not fun, but in Expanded Kingdoms it works).
This variant is the result of about a year of play-testing and constant revision, balancing and redesigning. So I hope that you enjoy them as much as my friends and I do.
**Non-Commander/EDH Rebalanced Role Cards:**
A second copy of some of the role cards are also included (at common rarity and with slightly different borders) that are balanced for 60-card non-Commander multiplayer instead of EDH, these are found on the last page of the Imgur link and Print document below.
**LINKS:**
Included below are links to several files. The first file is a link to Imgur.com, where you can view the role cards within your browser. The rest of the links are to various downloads, which include a printable PDF document (that prints the role cards at the perfect Magic card size to slip into a sleeve over the top of a land or something), as well as the individual role cards as separate files.
Instructions on how to set up the game, as well as updates to the rules that are in force in Expanded Kingdoms are also included as 4 small info cards.
Also included is a link to renamed individual files that can be used in Cockatrice for online play. By placing these in the "custom" images folder for Cockatrice, they can be viewed in game, and to go with them is a text file with matching file names that you can use to make a Cockatrice deck for the role cards.
Edit: Feb 4th, minor update to Start of Game card and The Illusionist.
Edit: Nov 9th 2016, minor, nonfunctional updates to The Dragonkeeper, The Executioner, and The Jester. Changes to The Kingslayer (new king now chosen at random), The Gunslinger (two targets instead of one), The Sellsword (players can bid the same amount now), and rule/start of game cards (minor changes). The Ice Lord added, snow zombie tokens added.
Edit: Nov 13 2016, minor nonfuctional edits to The Sellsword and The Ice Lord. Art change on one Zombie token, and minor change to The Impostor (Simplified by removing the ability to take the Jester card). Also added details on how to play a stable 4 player game.
Note: All art was borrowed from posts online, generally Deviantart.com, and is properly attributed to the best of my knowledge. These cards are not to be used for profit, and if any artist does **not** wish their art to be featured on these cards, please message me and I will update the cards to remove it.
Interesting concept. Not usually a big fan of cooperative variants, but it's a decent foundation that I think could lead to some fun games. Biggest problem is that 5 or more players means a really long EDH game, and the most interesting stuff starts happening once you hit 5 or more.
Have you played a game with it? Could you report at all on the results?
Biggest problem is that 5 or more players means a really long EDH game, and the most interesting stuff starts happening once you hit 5 or more.
Have you played a game with it? Could you report at all on the results?
I was the main developer for the role cards, and I can happily report that games of kingdoms typically last a considerably shorter time than Commander/EDH games with the same number of players. Due to players having teammates that can back them up in dealing the coup de grace, the games typically don't last much more than an hour for 5-6 players, and generally don't last longer than 1.5-2 hours even when playing with up to 9 players.
Usually the bandits either kill the King, or fail, resulting in the table quickly ganging up on them once they reveal themselves (or else when it becomes clear who they are based on other revealed cards). Once the Bandits are gone, in games of 5 it generally depends on what Renegade card is in the game, as the game might just end right there (Sellsword, Executioner) or continue. In 6 player games, either the bandits win early, or are knocked out, leading to a 2v2 game between the Nobles and the King/Knight. Larger games of Expanded Kingdoms preserve this team dynamic, adding the Queen at 7 players, who chooses whether to join the King's team or the Nobles team, and adding a Renegade card at 8. At 9 players it is a 3v3v3 (again leading to a quicker game) with two Knights and a King, three Bandits, and three Nobles.
You also don't tend to get stagnant games where no one wants to attack someone, for fear of leaving themselves open, as it is pretty easy to justify yourself in swinging at someone, and players tend to attack players not because they are open, but because of what role they think that they have. Wrathing the board is less common, because players generally won't want to clear away their teammate's board.
we've actually been doing this for months when events only have like 7 people show up. its been a blast.
Yes, that is one of the best reasons to play Kingdoms, it can be awkward to make games to include everyone. Generally prior to using kingdoms we used to just play 3-4 player games and split up, but now we can have larger games without them becoming unwieldy. I hope these new role cards work for your playgroup as well as they do in mine. Have fun.
Here is an idea I ended up reworking a PW template for something similar to this, and this seemed like a decent application for it. What do you think?
Something else, you'll probably pretty easily see that I took out some of the text that is on the cards. While I can understand the importance of that text being there, I think that it would be better handled to have the text which applies to all the roles in general in a separate reference sheets for people to easily look at as well as look at the rest of the rules. I think creating a somewhat nicely designed 5"x8.5" sheet would be able to fit all of the rules, as well as reminders nicely. And taking this text away from the cards makes them look a lot cleaner (IMO).
Here is an idea I ended up reworking a PW template for something similar to this, and this seemed like a decent application for it. What do you think?
Something else, you'll probably pretty easily see that I took out some of the text that is on the cards. While I can understand the importance of that text being there, I think that it would be better handled to have the text which applies to all the roles in general in a separate reference sheets for people to easily look at as well as look at the rest of the rules. I think creating a somewhat nicely designed 5"x8.5" sheet would be able to fit all of the rules, as well as reminders nicely. And taking this text away from the cards makes them look a lot cleaner (IMO).
Yeah the PW template works fine too, not much difference. Having the win conditions on the card is pretty important though, especially for new players of the format, as having to ask a question about how, for example, Bandits work, basically gives up the surprise. Note that not all knights have the same loss conditions, Most die when the King dies, but some of them can live on if they are able to turn their card face up (as long as the bandits don't win immediately). If the 'reference sheet' contained all the relevant information about all the roles, it would be pretty damn cluttered I think and hard to find the information that you need for your specific role. It might seem longwinded specifying the win/loss conditions on each card, but in game, players will be able to work out how their role works simply by reading their card, which cuts down on "complexity creep" considerably. You also won't be able to save any space on the Renegade cards, as all of them work completely differently. By all means, try it out if you like. I can give you the magic set editor file if you are keen (it is way more work than it sounds like though, especially getting the syntax and oracle text right, trust me).
On a side note: I noticed that you changed some of the wording of the cards, and that your Priestess card mockup only activates when you have "more than 10 life" (11 or more life). Interestingly, this was how the Priestess was originally, until we realised that paying someone back for a Magister Sphinx or Sorin Markov was really funny ("10 or more life").Note also that the Priestess is considerably less powerful than it seems at first glance, as the King usually has the ability to gain the Priestess 5 life in response, effectively raising the minimum life swap to 15 most of the time if targeting the King. So much play testing has gone into little things like this.
Yeah the PW template works fine too, not much difference. Having the win conditions on the card is pretty important though, especially for new players of the format, as having to ask a question about how, for example, Bandits work, basically gives up the surprise. Note that not all knights have the same loss conditions, Most die when the King dies, but some of them can live on if they are able to turn their card face up (as long as the bandits don't win immediately). If the 'reference sheet' contained all the relevant information about all the roles, it would be pretty damn cluttered I think and hard to find the information that you need for your specific role. It might seem longwinded specifying the win/loss conditions on each card, but in game, players will be able to work out how their role works simply by reading their card, which cuts down on "complexity creep" considerably. You also won't be able to save any space on the Renegade cards, as all of them work completely differently. By all means, try it out if you like. I can give you the magic set editor file if you are keen (it is way more work than it sounds like though, especially getting the syntax and oracle text right, trust me).
On a side note: I noticed that you changed some of the wording of the cards, and that your Priestess card mockup only activates when you have "more than 10 life" (11 or more life). Interestingly, this was how the Priestess was originally, until we realized that paying someone back for a Magister Sphinx or Sorin Markov was really funny ("10 or more life").Note also that the Priestess is considerably less powerful than it seems at first glance, as the King usually has the ability to gain the Priestess 5 life in response, effectively raising the minimum life swap to 15 most of the time if targeting the King. So much play testing has gone into little things like this.
I understand that having all the information on the cards for new players would be very helpful, but I don't really think it's necessary. Every card which has a unique ability would have it on the card that's for sure, but the win condition for Knights/Bandits/Nobles, which are all the same respectively, could easily be put to a reference sheet. I'm really big into many many different types of boardgames, and coming from a design perspective it's usually better to have little information on cards as possible, and including general win conditions in a rulebook, which are explained from the outset, and then have a handy reference for people to look at.
I've at least seen anecdotal evidence of this working because for quite some time my group had been playing a not-base game of Kingdoms which supported up to 8. I did a rethemeing, and used the Ultimate Wereworld cards that I had in order to deal out roles, so literally no one had relevant information on their cards, and I put everything about those characters on a 5X8.5 sheet, and no one had any issues with it.
As for the sidenote, I think I intentionally only changed two things, the wording on the mana ability for the king, and Kingsguard to Royal Guard. The mana ability of the king, I completely derped thinking that there wasn't wording for that kind of an effect, and there is (no surprise) I just wish that there was a more succinct way to reference colorless mana, but my font set doesn't have the colorless symbol yet. The wording screw up on priestess was completely my bad. I was doing that right before I went to bed and messed up copying it.
If you wanted to supply either the raw text, or the Magic Editor files, that would be awesome and sometime in the next week or two I'd find time to do the rest of the set as well as do up a reference sheet, and see how it all shapes up.
Oh I'm sure it would work fine. You'll have to keep the 'loss conditions' of the Knights on the card though (which you didn't on the Knight you mocked up) as these are different for the various knights. I'll PM you with a link to the set editor file.
Note that the Slaver card has a (slightly) different win condition than the other Bandits and if you go the route you've been discussing you'll probably need to modify the Slave card so that it wins with the Slaver instead of the way I've done it.
Awesome, much appreciated. So I'm curious, has your group just printed these out on paper and slid them in front of cards like proxies, or have you gone through and done something more fabulous with them?
Printed and in sleeves over a basic land. The PDF I provided is printable at the perfect size for this application.
Also note as per your previous message, a bit of interesting trivia: The Kingsguard was actually originally called 'The Royal Guard', back when this card used Brienne of Tarth in the art. Later when Brienne was used for the Oathkeeper instead, The Royal Guard became 'The Kingsguard' with Ser Barriston Selmy in the art.
GoT references are completely lost on me. I really should watch the shows or read the books sometime. But as you could probably tell, I really want to find cohesive generic fantasy art instead of references for various characters. What can I say, I'm boring but I like things to look consistent.
Yeah anyone who has watched the show gets the references (although only about 2/3s of the cards are GoT characters, others are from other pop-culture and geek-culture media).
Note: I have updated the cards, no functional changes, but I have reworded The Illusionist's first ability into clearer Oracle text, as well as specified on the start of game card that players should choose their decks BEFORE seeing their role card. This is very important if you want to be able to let players bulls**t each other successfully, also otherwise it significantly helps players who have more decks, and hinders those that might only have one deck. The roles are designed specifically so that any EDH deck capable of killing other players should be able to use any role (vast majority of EDH decks).
We have also a group playing this kind of variant in Brussels (Belgium). We name it "Treachery".
Our group have a website mtgtreachery.forumactif.be where you can download some additional Comprehensive Rules and, mostly, card images.
Our variant is based from .Rai's Treachery (custom set) and from the boardgame BANG!.
I can confirm that this kind of variant allows multiplayer tables of 5, 6 and even more, without increasing the playtime that much. Other advantages are bigger and deeper diplomatics pourparlers between players. The EDH format is better with this !
We are developping and beta testing since one year, and now people in our gamestore want to play EDH only with this variant.
insertcleverphrasehere: may I use some of your ideas to insert them in our "Treachery" ?
Whew finally finished some long overdue changes and updates.
Minor, nonfunctional, updates to The Dragonkeeper, The Executioner, and The Jester.
Changes to The Kingslayer (new king now chosen at random), The Gunslinger (two targets instead of one), The Sellsword (players can bid the same amount now), and rule/start of game cards (minor changes).
The Ice Lord was added as a renegade card. This is basically the Night King from Game of Thrones and creates an archenemy for the whole table to fight, snow zombie tokens for The Ice Lord were added as well.
I didn't update the Cockatrice files, mainly because I can't be bothered, and I doubt whether anyone but myself is ever using them anyway. I'll likely update this next time I want to play kingdoms on cockatrice.
EDIT: 13 Nov, additional minor changes, as well as information on how to play a stable 4 player game.
I used to have a variant of kingdom, but we called them King, Knight, Usurper, and Usurper's Knight. There were additional roles you could add for other wincons. The most basic wincon was when the King or the Usurper died. (Though with five or more players, that's not enough.) Obviously the King is known and the others are not.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I like this because it gets rid of my main complaint about Kingdoms (that some cards like 'The Bandit' are strictly easier to win as than others like 'The Usurper'). Now they all have some sort of drawback and some sort of reward.
EDIT: Upon further review...
Rule 6 fails to account for Time Stop and Sundial of the Infinite
Rule 10 suggests you don't understand the difference between a triggered ability and a replacement effect. Abilities using 'would' are replacement effects and would use layering instead.
So our play group really likes this variant and one afternoon one of our players was joking about being the mad king.
Once the game finished our play group thought it would be really fun to have different types of kings that would be randomly chosen before the game like the other roles and so we went about making up 4 additional kings.
Now I notice that the king card has had an update and we were basing our off of the old king card. (might tweak costs after seeing new king is cheaper)
We also haven't tested these kings out to much so the numbers/effects might still need some tweaking but I thought it would be fun to shoot this out there and see what other people thought.
So here they are:
--Noble King-- (white) (Original King)
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- Target non-King player draws a card
- Target non-King player adds 3 mana of an color combination or colorless
- Target non-King gains 5 life
--Wise King-- (Blue)
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- All players draw 2 cards
- Counter target spell unless any player pays 3(colorless)
- Return target creature to it's owners hand
--Druid King-- (Green)
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- Target non-king Player gets a 1/1 green squirrel creature token
- All players may put a land into play
- Target non-King and King both gain 4 life
--Evil King-- (black)
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- Target player draws a card and loses 1 life
- Target player loses 3 life
- Target player discards a card
--Mad King-- (red)
During your upkeep roll a 6 sided dice
Choose one based on the number you rolled:
1 - Deal 3 damage to target creature or player
2 - Target creature must attack on it's controllers next turn
3 - Target player draws a card and discards a card
4 - Target player gains a 1/1 red goblin creature token that has "this creature can't block"
5 - Choose any other option
6 - Do nothing
We tried to make them each fit their color/role as well as not be too crazy in game.
Hope you like the idea and would like to hear what other people or the creator think.
I really like the fact tbatvthe roles are nlt all the same. Very interesting. I might make a variant similar. Different win condiions and such that could really be fun and interesting.
Hi, i have a doubt,
The first 6 players are, the king, the knight, the two bandits, the renegade and the noble.
When you have 6 or more players, how do you distribute?
The other questión the Queen is a noble? or is another role?
Expanded Kingdoms is a 5+ player format (though it can be played with 4 players as well), where each player is given a specialized role card that gives them unique win/loss conditions and special abilities that they can use.
Similar to the normal ‘Kingdoms’ variant, there is a King, a Knight, and two Bandit roles in each game. The King wants to survive as last man standing, and the Knight is his ally and can win with him. The Bandits win when the King dies, and all of the roles are secret, so the King can’t trust anyone.
In Expanded Kingdoms the 5th player is a Renegade with any of a number of unique win conditions that throw a wrench into the works. In addition, each Knight and Bandit has a unique randomized ability that can be used once per game.
The biggest difference in Expanded Kingdoms starts with 6 player games. At 6 players, in addition to the King, Knight, and Bandits, there is another team of ‘Nobles’. Their goal is to be the last players in the game, but they can’t let the King die until the Bandits are killed first. This leads to a tentative alliance with the King that must eventually be broken. Add the fact that players can lie and claim to be whatever role they want, and nearly every game involves an epic betrayal or two.
**Deck Building:**
Other than the role cards, the game is played with normal EDH/Commander decks. However, do note that specific rules are in place (rules list included). **The only rule that effects deck-building is that you can only win the game using the win conditions of your role card**, meaning that abilities of cards that say "You win the game" (such as Laboratory Maniac, Test of Endurance) and "Can't win the game" (Platinum Angel, Abyssal Persecutor) don't work.
The variant is very stable up to at least 9 players, and is the only way that I have personally been able to consistently enjoy such large commander games (free for all games this large generally are not fun, but in Expanded Kingdoms it works).
This variant is the result of about a year of play-testing and constant revision, balancing and redesigning. So I hope that you enjoy them as much as my friends and I do.
**Non-Commander/EDH Rebalanced Role Cards:**
A second copy of some of the role cards are also included (at common rarity and with slightly different borders) that are balanced for 60-card non-Commander multiplayer instead of EDH, these are found on the last page of the Imgur link and Print document below.
**LINKS:**
Included below are links to several files. The first file is a link to Imgur.com, where you can view the role cards within your browser. The rest of the links are to various downloads, which include a printable PDF document (that prints the role cards at the perfect Magic card size to slip into a sleeve over the top of a land or something), as well as the individual role cards as separate files.
Instructions on how to set up the game, as well as updates to the rules that are in force in Expanded Kingdoms are also included as 4 small info cards.
Also included is a link to renamed individual files that can be used in Cockatrice for online play. By placing these in the "custom" images folder for Cockatrice, they can be viewed in game, and to go with them is a text file with matching file names that you can use to make a Cockatrice deck for the role cards.
Edit: Feb 4th 2016, minor update to Start of Game card and The Illusionist.
Edit: Nov 9th 2016, minor, nonfunctional updates to The Dragonkeeper, The Executioner, and The Jester. Changes to The Kingslayer (new king now chosen at random), The Gunslinger (two targets instead of one), The Sellsword (players can bid the same amount now), and rule/start of game cards (minor changes). The Ice Lord added, snow zombie tokens added.
Edit: Nov 13 2016, minor nonfuctional edits to The Sellsword and The Ice Lord. Art change on one Zombie token, and minor change to The Impostor (Simplified by removing the ability to take the Jester card). Also added details on a stable way to play a 4 player game.
Edit: July 22 2018, Additional Knight added: 'The Paladin'. The Necromancer modified to become "The Lich". The Gambler completely revamped (still with randomness but less of a double or nothing ability, which players disliked, and now synergises with more deck types). The Queen modified to give her the ability to pay the costs of the King card if she chooses that team. The Witch was revamped to have a choice of two new abilities, with a similar flavour. The Gunslinger slightly changed to "highest CMC on the battlefield". The Dragonkeeper updated to make 2/2s rather than 1/1s. The Executioner removed (it had become apparent that there is not really any way to play around the executioner aside from not letting anyone kill anyone else, and the start of game thing was awkward). The Ice Lord was removed (too swingy and powerful, link to the PDF for the version that contained that card is [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOVGpXZE5ydXBnZEE/view?usp=sharing)). Additionally, the **Rules for the start of game have been modified**, now players choose decks AFTER getting their role cards (which helps players not get stuck with a deck that doesn't suit their role), and there is a "bandit reveal" at the beginning, where everyone closes their eyes for a few seconds and the bandits open and reveal themselves to each other briefly (the bandits know who each other are). Note that the standard is still to reveal the Noble cards before shuffling them in and dealing them out, however, I added an option to play without this option, in which case you can't play with the spymaster (too powerful if people are not aware that he is in the game).
Note: All art was borrowed from posts online, generally Deviantart.com, and is properly attributed to the best of my knowledge. These cards are not to be used for profit, and if any artist does **not** wish their art to be featured on these cards, please message me and I will update the cards to remove it.
Cclowncl
To answer your questions:
Read the 'start of game' card for distributing the roles.
With 5 players you play with King, Knight, two bandits and a Renegade
with 6 players you generally want to play King, Knight, two Bandits, and two Nobles.
The Queen is used in a 7 player game (we usually shuffle her and the renegades together and put one of them in the game in addition to the 6 noted above. It is played as a 7th player. The Queen can join either the King's team or the Nobles' team.
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Also featured over at Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/43rv6y/expanded_kingdoms_a_new_edh_variant/
Expanded Kingdoms is a custom Magic the Gathering variant based on the popular Commander/EDH variant "Kingdoms."(https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/1plyyj/kingdoms_edh_variant/)
Expanded Kingdoms is a 5+ player format (although it can also be played with 4 players), where each player is given a specialized role card that gives them unique win/loss conditions and special abilities that they can use.
Similar to the normal ‘Kingdoms’ variant, there is a King, a Knight, and two Bandit roles in each game. The King wants to survive as last man standing, and the Knight is his ally and can win with him. The Bandits win when the King dies, and all of the roles are secret, so the King can’t trust anyone.
In Expanded Kingdoms the 5th player is a Renegade with any of a number of unique win conditions that throw a wrench into the works. In addition, each Knight and Bandit has a unique randomized ability that can be used once per game.
The biggest difference in Expanded Kingdoms starts with 6 player games. At 6 players, in addition to the King, Knight, and Bandits, there is another team of ‘Nobles’. Their goal is to be the last players in the game, but they can’t let the King die until the Bandits are killed first. This leads to a tentative alliance with the King that must eventually be broken. Add the fact that players can lie and claim to be whatever role they want, and nearly every game involves an epic betrayal or two.
**Deck Building:**
Other than the role cards, the game is played with normal EDH/Commander decks. However, do note that specific rules are in place (rules list included). **The only rule that effects deck-building is that you can only win the game using the win conditions of your role card**, meaning that abilities of cards that say "You win the game" (such as Laboratory Maniac, Test of Endurance) and "Can't win the game" (Platinum Angel, Abyssal Persecutor) don't work.
The variant is very stable up to at least 9 players, and is the only way that I have personally been able to consistently enjoy such large commander games (free for all games this large generally are not fun, but in Expanded Kingdoms it works).
This variant is the result of about a year of play-testing and constant revision, balancing and redesigning. So I hope that you enjoy them as much as my friends and I do.
**Non-Commander/EDH Rebalanced Role Cards:**
A second copy of some of the role cards are also included (at common rarity and with slightly different borders) that are balanced for 60-card non-Commander multiplayer instead of EDH, these are found on the last page of the Imgur link and Print document below.
**LINKS:**
Included below are links to several files. The first file is a link to Imgur.com, where you can view the role cards within your browser. The rest of the links are to various downloads, which include a printable PDF document (that prints the role cards at the perfect Magic card size to slip into a sleeve over the top of a land or something), as well as the individual role cards as separate files.
Instructions on how to set up the game, as well as updates to the rules that are in force in Expanded Kingdoms are also included as 4 small info cards.
Also included is a link to renamed individual files that can be used in Cockatrice for online play. By placing these in the "custom" images folder for Cockatrice, they can be viewed in game, and to go with them is a text file with matching file names that you can use to make a Cockatrice deck for the role cards.
* Quick look Imgur link: http://imgur.com/a/Ax3gQ
* Printable PDF Document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOVGpXZE5ydXBnZEE/view?usp=sharing
* Role cards: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOcHBPLU5YRmgxS00/view?usp=sharing
* Role cards with names to go with Cockatrice custom kingdoms decklist (out of date-feb 4th version): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOMlRNTm1yTXQ2b3M/view?usp=sharing
* Cockatrice Custom Decklist text document (out of date-feb 4th version): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOMlRNTm1yTXQ2b3M/view?usp=sharing
Edit: Feb 4th, minor update to Start of Game card and The Illusionist.
Edit: Nov 9th 2016, minor, nonfunctional updates to The Dragonkeeper, The Executioner, and The Jester. Changes to The Kingslayer (new king now chosen at random), The Gunslinger (two targets instead of one), The Sellsword (players can bid the same amount now), and rule/start of game cards (minor changes). The Ice Lord added, snow zombie tokens added.
Edit: Nov 13 2016, minor nonfuctional edits to The Sellsword and The Ice Lord. Art change on one Zombie token, and minor change to The Impostor (Simplified by removing the ability to take the Jester card). Also added details on how to play a stable 4 player game.
Note: All art was borrowed from posts online, generally Deviantart.com, and is properly attributed to the best of my knowledge. These cards are not to be used for profit, and if any artist does **not** wish their art to be featured on these cards, please message me and I will update the cards to remove it.
Have you played a game with it? Could you report at all on the results?
I was the main developer for the role cards, and I can happily report that games of kingdoms typically last a considerably shorter time than Commander/EDH games with the same number of players. Due to players having teammates that can back them up in dealing the coup de grace, the games typically don't last much more than an hour for 5-6 players, and generally don't last longer than 1.5-2 hours even when playing with up to 9 players.
Usually the bandits either kill the King, or fail, resulting in the table quickly ganging up on them once they reveal themselves (or else when it becomes clear who they are based on other revealed cards). Once the Bandits are gone, in games of 5 it generally depends on what Renegade card is in the game, as the game might just end right there (Sellsword, Executioner) or continue. In 6 player games, either the bandits win early, or are knocked out, leading to a 2v2 game between the Nobles and the King/Knight. Larger games of Expanded Kingdoms preserve this team dynamic, adding the Queen at 7 players, who chooses whether to join the King's team or the Nobles team, and adding a Renegade card at 8. At 9 players it is a 3v3v3 (again leading to a quicker game) with two Knights and a King, three Bandits, and three Nobles.
You also don't tend to get stagnant games where no one wants to attack someone, for fear of leaving themselves open, as it is pretty easy to justify yourself in swinging at someone, and players tend to attack players not because they are open, but because of what role they think that they have. Wrathing the board is less common, because players generally won't want to clear away their teammate's board.
Yes, that is one of the best reasons to play Kingdoms, it can be awkward to make games to include everyone. Generally prior to using kingdoms we used to just play 3-4 player games and split up, but now we can have larger games without them becoming unwieldy. I hope these new role cards work for your playgroup as well as they do in mine. Have fun.
Something else, you'll probably pretty easily see that I took out some of the text that is on the cards. While I can understand the importance of that text being there, I think that it would be better handled to have the text which applies to all the roles in general in a separate reference sheets for people to easily look at as well as look at the rest of the rules. I think creating a somewhat nicely designed 5"x8.5" sheet would be able to fit all of the rules, as well as reminders nicely. And taking this text away from the cards makes them look a lot cleaner (IMO).
Yeah the PW template works fine too, not much difference. Having the win conditions on the card is pretty important though, especially for new players of the format, as having to ask a question about how, for example, Bandits work, basically gives up the surprise. Note that not all knights have the same loss conditions, Most die when the King dies, but some of them can live on if they are able to turn their card face up (as long as the bandits don't win immediately). If the 'reference sheet' contained all the relevant information about all the roles, it would be pretty damn cluttered I think and hard to find the information that you need for your specific role. It might seem longwinded specifying the win/loss conditions on each card, but in game, players will be able to work out how their role works simply by reading their card, which cuts down on "complexity creep" considerably. You also won't be able to save any space on the Renegade cards, as all of them work completely differently. By all means, try it out if you like. I can give you the magic set editor file if you are keen (it is way more work than it sounds like though, especially getting the syntax and oracle text right, trust me).
On a side note: I noticed that you changed some of the wording of the cards, and that your Priestess card mockup only activates when you have "more than 10 life" (11 or more life). Interestingly, this was how the Priestess was originally, until we realised that paying someone back for a Magister Sphinx or Sorin Markov was really funny ("10 or more life").Note also that the Priestess is considerably less powerful than it seems at first glance, as the King usually has the ability to gain the Priestess 5 life in response, effectively raising the minimum life swap to 15 most of the time if targeting the King. So much play testing has gone into little things like this.
I understand that having all the information on the cards for new players would be very helpful, but I don't really think it's necessary. Every card which has a unique ability would have it on the card that's for sure, but the win condition for Knights/Bandits/Nobles, which are all the same respectively, could easily be put to a reference sheet. I'm really big into many many different types of boardgames, and coming from a design perspective it's usually better to have little information on cards as possible, and including general win conditions in a rulebook, which are explained from the outset, and then have a handy reference for people to look at.
I've at least seen anecdotal evidence of this working because for quite some time my group had been playing a not-base game of Kingdoms which supported up to 8. I did a rethemeing, and used the Ultimate Wereworld cards that I had in order to deal out roles, so literally no one had relevant information on their cards, and I put everything about those characters on a 5X8.5 sheet, and no one had any issues with it.
As for the sidenote, I think I intentionally only changed two things, the wording on the mana ability for the king, and Kingsguard to Royal Guard. The mana ability of the king, I completely derped thinking that there wasn't wording for that kind of an effect, and there is (no surprise) I just wish that there was a more succinct way to reference colorless mana, but my font set doesn't have the colorless symbol yet. The wording screw up on priestess was completely my bad. I was doing that right before I went to bed and messed up copying it.
If you wanted to supply either the raw text, or the Magic Editor files, that would be awesome and sometime in the next week or two I'd find time to do the rest of the set as well as do up a reference sheet, and see how it all shapes up.
Note that the Slaver card has a (slightly) different win condition than the other Bandits and if you go the route you've been discussing you'll probably need to modify the Slave card so that it wins with the Slaver instead of the way I've done it.
Also note as per your previous message, a bit of interesting trivia: The Kingsguard was actually originally called 'The Royal Guard', back when this card used Brienne of Tarth in the art. Later when Brienne was used for the Oathkeeper instead, The Royal Guard became 'The Kingsguard' with Ser Barriston Selmy in the art.
Note: I have updated the cards, no functional changes, but I have reworded The Illusionist's first ability into clearer Oracle text, as well as specified on the start of game card that players should choose their decks BEFORE seeing their role card. This is very important if you want to be able to let players bulls**t each other successfully, also otherwise it significantly helps players who have more decks, and hinders those that might only have one deck. The roles are designed specifically so that any EDH deck capable of killing other players should be able to use any role (vast majority of EDH decks).
We have also a group playing this kind of variant in Brussels (Belgium). We name it "Treachery".
Our group have a website mtgtreachery.forumactif.be where you can download some additional Comprehensive Rules and, mostly, card images.
Our variant is based from .Rai's Treachery (custom set) and from the boardgame BANG!.
I can confirm that this kind of variant allows multiplayer tables of 5, 6 and even more, without increasing the playtime that much. Other advantages are bigger and deeper diplomatics pourparlers between players. The EDH format is better with this !
We are developping and beta testing since one year, and now people in our gamestore want to play EDH only with this variant.
insertcleverphrasehere: may I use some of your ideas to insert them in our "Treachery" ?
Minor, nonfunctional, updates to The Dragonkeeper, The Executioner, and The Jester.
Changes to The Kingslayer (new king now chosen at random), The Gunslinger (two targets instead of one), The Sellsword (players can bid the same amount now), and rule/start of game cards (minor changes).
The Ice Lord was added as a renegade card. This is basically the Night King from Game of Thrones and creates an archenemy for the whole table to fight, snow zombie tokens for The Ice Lord were added as well.
I didn't update the Cockatrice files, mainly because I can't be bothered, and I doubt whether anyone but myself is ever using them anyway. I'll likely update this next time I want to play kingdoms on cockatrice.
EDIT: 13 Nov, additional minor changes, as well as information on how to play a stable 4 player game.
Modern: Eldrazi CB,
On phasing:
EDIT: Upon further review...
Rule 6 fails to account for Time Stop and Sundial of the Infinite
Rule 10 suggests you don't understand the difference between a triggered ability and a replacement effect. Abilities using 'would' are replacement effects and would use layering instead.
- Rabid Wombat
Once the game finished our play group thought it would be really fun to have different types of kings that would be randomly chosen before the game like the other roles and so we went about making up 4 additional kings.
Now I notice that the king card has had an update and we were basing our off of the old king card. (might tweak costs after seeing new king is cheaper)
We also haven't tested these kings out to much so the numbers/effects might still need some tweaking but I thought it would be fun to shoot this out there and see what other people thought.
So here they are:
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- Target non-King player draws a card
- Target non-King player adds 3 mana of an color combination or colorless
- Target non-King gains 5 life
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- All players draw 2 cards
- Counter target spell unless any player pays 3(colorless)
- Return target creature to it's owners hand
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- Target non-king Player gets a 1/1 green squirrel creature token
- All players may put a land into play
- Target non-King and King both gain 4 life
Tap + Exile a card from you hand OR 4(colorless) + tap
Choose one:
- Target player draws a card and loses 1 life
- Target player loses 3 life
- Target player discards a card
During your upkeep roll a 6 sided dice
Choose one based on the number you rolled:
1 - Deal 3 damage to target creature or player
2 - Target creature must attack on it's controllers next turn
3 - Target player draws a card and discards a card
4 - Target player gains a 1/1 red goblin creature token that has "this creature can't block"
5 - Choose any other option
6 - Do nothing
Hope you like the idea and would like to hear what other people or the creator think.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
The first 6 players are, the king, the knight, the two bandits, the renegade and the noble.
When you have 6 or more players, how do you distribute?
The other questión the Queen is a noble? or is another role?
thxs.
Expanded Kingdoms is a 5+ player format (though it can be played with 4 players as well), where each player is given a specialized role card that gives them unique win/loss conditions and special abilities that they can use.
Similar to the normal ‘Kingdoms’ variant, there is a King, a Knight, and two Bandit roles in each game. The King wants to survive as last man standing, and the Knight is his ally and can win with him. The Bandits win when the King dies, and all of the roles are secret, so the King can’t trust anyone.
In Expanded Kingdoms the 5th player is a Renegade with any of a number of unique win conditions that throw a wrench into the works. In addition, each Knight and Bandit has a unique randomized ability that can be used once per game.
The biggest difference in Expanded Kingdoms starts with 6 player games. At 6 players, in addition to the King, Knight, and Bandits, there is another team of ‘Nobles’. Their goal is to be the last players in the game, but they can’t let the King die until the Bandits are killed first. This leads to a tentative alliance with the King that must eventually be broken. Add the fact that players can lie and claim to be whatever role they want, and nearly every game involves an epic betrayal or two.
**Deck Building:**
Other than the role cards, the game is played with normal EDH/Commander decks. However, do note that specific rules are in place (rules list included). **The only rule that effects deck-building is that you can only win the game using the win conditions of your role card**, meaning that abilities of cards that say "You win the game" (such as Laboratory Maniac, Test of Endurance) and "Can't win the game" (Platinum Angel, Abyssal Persecutor) don't work.
The variant is very stable up to at least 9 players, and is the only way that I have personally been able to consistently enjoy such large commander games (free for all games this large generally are not fun, but in Expanded Kingdoms it works).
This variant is the result of about a year of play-testing and constant revision, balancing and redesigning. So I hope that you enjoy them as much as my friends and I do.
**Non-Commander/EDH Rebalanced Role Cards:**
A second copy of some of the role cards are also included (at common rarity and with slightly different borders) that are balanced for 60-card non-Commander multiplayer instead of EDH, these are found on the last page of the Imgur link and Print document below.
**LINKS:**
Included below are links to several files. The first file is a link to Imgur.com, where you can view the role cards within your browser. The rest of the links are to various downloads, which include a printable PDF document (that prints the role cards at the perfect Magic card size to slip into a sleeve over the top of a land or something), as well as the individual role cards as separate files.
Instructions on how to set up the game, as well as updates to the rules that are in force in Expanded Kingdoms are also included as 4 small info cards.
Also included is a link to renamed individual files that can be used in Cockatrice for online play. By placing these in the "custom" images folder for Cockatrice, they can be viewed in game, and to go with them is a text file with matching file names that you can use to make a Cockatrice deck for the role cards.
* [Quick look Imgur link](https://imgur.com/a/wwzJ12W)
* [Printable PDF Document](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tPSK0NIb5b3FGr4Oj2IYAXYlZc3bA-h4/view?usp=sharing)
* [Printable Word document](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yOgW9EwhVS2sspEhT-xmFEaqxVUOj0WM/view?usp=sharing) (slightly higher quality).
* [Individual Role card images](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Koc3fPastC_rSOXf4Ue-7rpNDFFqWky3)
* [Role cards with names to go with Cockatrice custom kingdoms decklist] (out of date-feb 4th version) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOMlRNTm1yTXQ2b3M/view?usp=sharing)
* [Cockatrice Custom Decklist text document] (out of date-feb 4th version)(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOUG5TdnlqVXVNcTg/view?usp=sharing)
Edit: Feb 4th 2016, minor update to Start of Game card and The Illusionist.
Edit: Nov 9th 2016, minor, nonfunctional updates to The Dragonkeeper, The Executioner, and The Jester. Changes to The Kingslayer (new king now chosen at random), The Gunslinger (two targets instead of one), The Sellsword (players can bid the same amount now), and rule/start of game cards (minor changes). The Ice Lord added, snow zombie tokens added.
Edit: Nov 13 2016, minor nonfuctional edits to The Sellsword and The Ice Lord. Art change on one Zombie token, and minor change to The Impostor (Simplified by removing the ability to take the Jester card). Also added details on a stable way to play a 4 player game.
Edit: July 22 2018, Additional Knight added: 'The Paladin'. The Necromancer modified to become "The Lich". The Gambler completely revamped (still with randomness but less of a double or nothing ability, which players disliked, and now synergises with more deck types). The Queen modified to give her the ability to pay the costs of the King card if she chooses that team. The Witch was revamped to have a choice of two new abilities, with a similar flavour. The Gunslinger slightly changed to "highest CMC on the battlefield". The Dragonkeeper updated to make 2/2s rather than 1/1s. The Executioner removed (it had become apparent that there is not really any way to play around the executioner aside from not letting anyone kill anyone else, and the start of game thing was awkward). The Ice Lord was removed (too swingy and powerful, link to the PDF for the version that contained that card is [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5V6dmrzGXmOVGpXZE5ydXBnZEE/view?usp=sharing)). Additionally, the **Rules for the start of game have been modified**, now players choose decks AFTER getting their role cards (which helps players not get stuck with a deck that doesn't suit their role), and there is a "bandit reveal" at the beginning, where everyone closes their eyes for a few seconds and the bandits open and reveal themselves to each other briefly (the bandits know who each other are). Note that the standard is still to reveal the Noble cards before shuffling them in and dealing them out, however, I added an option to play without this option, in which case you can't play with the spymaster (too powerful if people are not aware that he is in the game).
Note: All art was borrowed from posts online, generally Deviantart.com, and is properly attributed to the best of my knowledge. These cards are not to be used for profit, and if any artist does **not** wish their art to be featured on these cards, please message me and I will update the cards to remove it.
To answer your questions:
Read the 'start of game' card for distributing the roles.
With 5 players you play with King, Knight, two bandits and a Renegade
with 6 players you generally want to play King, Knight, two Bandits, and two Nobles.
The Queen is used in a 7 player game (we usually shuffle her and the renegades together and put one of them in the game in addition to the 6 noted above. It is played as a 7th player. The Queen can join either the King's team or the Nobles' team.