What is the Game of Shields?
The Game of Shields is a complete system for introducing politics into your campaign.
Many players love political intrigue and would like to include politics into their role-playing games. But playing at politics in RPGs is notoriously difficult. Without a clear system, it’s hard to keep track of everything. That is why I created the Game of Shields:
Here are some highlights:
- Works with any gaming system
You can use the Game of Shields with any gaming system. It works both with systems that require preparing stories like Dungeon & Dragons or Pathfinder, and with game systems that have a ‘play to find out’ type of gameplay, like Faith Core, and Dungeonworld. - A visual system
When players do a dungeon crawl, they have maps to keep an overview. When they play out an epic combat, terrain pieces and miniatures help them keep track of everything. But when playing a political campaign there are no visual aids to keep an overview. In fact, most role-playing games don’t even have a system for doing politics. - 81 Heraldic shields
The Game of Shields uses a set of 81 Heraldic Shields that allow you and your players to instantly see what the political landscape looks like. Players will know right away who can make an alliance, and who isn’t even in the same political arena. This saves a lot of time because the DM doesn’t have to explain the hundreds of possible interactions between political parties. A unified set of rules helps players and DMs know what to expect, which helps with making informed decisions. The visual system also makes it much easier for the DM to track events. - Generate a complex political landscape
Just by placing a set of shields on the gaming table, DMs can create a complex political landscape in seconds. No two political arenas will be the same and players can encounter an endless variety of political factions to align with, manipulate, bribe, blackmail, or anything else they set their minds to.
In short, introducing politics into your campaign is easy with the Game of Shields. It’s a simple system that allows for a lot of variety.
This pack includes:
- A deck of 81 Heraldic shields.
- A page instruction manual with 4 chapters on setting up, managing a political campaign, and examples of play.
- Playing the Game of Shields card game as a separate game.
- A set of 20 Political Puzzles (and their solutions) for players to solve.
- Both in printable format for table tops and in digital format for virtual tabletops.
