Over two years of sketching and note-making
I've been brainstorming this new concept for over two years now, accumulating a significant pile of sketches and notes. Now I’m diving in to see what I can create from them.
I had planned to release this at the end of the year with some prototype pages. However, things took a shitty turn (read about it here) and I’ve decided to quickly polish these ideas into a working pre-alpha prototype pitch.
Though I find it way easier to visualise everything in my head than to explain here without the printed prototypes, but I'll try.
I have a quite clear vision already, of how this would be designed as an intriguing custom expansion for Kingdom Death. It will be my largest creation for the game to date.
Micromanagement with people, spaces and resources
The settlement management is an interesting part of the campaign, but something was missing. There is a settlement full of people who do nothing but sit on their thumbs for a whole year, until it's time to depart for a hunt again.
I wanted to give the meaning for their short lives within the community.
This new idea of micromanaging the settlement has been on my mind for a long time. We all have had dozens of intriguing survivors with tragic lives and destinies but their stories never really impacted anything. Well, maybe on a showdown lightly, but not much else.
I would like to change this. Or bring a different angle on it, at least. While keeping the settlement phase as streamlined as possible, it should be thematic and interesting as on its own. It's already a mini-game inside Kingdom Death: Monster, but it could be even more.
Roles and positions you've never played with
I’ve already spent a lot of time considering how roles and locations could work together thematically and so they make sense. And I'm quite happy already.
There will be different kind of content on each location, because all of them are different. As would be in a real village. These may be exotic cannibalistic recipes at Cooking Hut, research of a new mushroom type in Fungi Cave, or "Give a Speech" Story Event on Symposium, etc...
I have a bunch of ideas for these; too many to list here.
Most benefits will come with some risks and downsides. Otherwise it wouldn't be Kingdom Death, after all.
A layer of role-playing over the game mechanics
While the KDM location cards handles the game mechanics like gear crafting as usual, this book's location pages adds a deeper, specialised insight on them. Making them potentially more thematic and more useful.
Hobo's Settlement Villagers™ may also inspire you to explore on less-used fields in the game by requiring an innovation you’ve never bothered to develop, or inspiring you to pursue a flower you've never though to be any good, for example.
Focus on campaign play
I want Hobo's Settlement Villagers™ to be cool and interesting addition to your gameplay. Many features develop slowly during the campaign, like mental burden of the settlement leader.
You can plan to reach the most advanced features of each location or, if you prefer a lighter experience, use this book just to spice up some things up during your settlement phase. For example, you might say: “I need a survivor to keep the Lantern Oven fire going so we can generate the necessary heat for gear development. That's enough this time."
Alternatively, you could try to eventually upgrade the simple Lantern Oven to Blacksmith, and assign a survivor to work at the iron forge to recycle old lanterns into scrap metal for repairing broken weapons.
Two versions – one for a lighter experience and another for an intricate one
People have different tastes, so I'm about to design two versions of this expansion.
- Lighter Hobo's Settlement Villagers™ Expansion will have the most base-game locations, and just a couple of more in case you own the expansion monsters. While both books benefit from having KDM expansions and Gambler's Chest, I will do my best to design this book so that it can be played (at least at some level) either with the KDM Core Game only, or with the expansions. You'll find it here.
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Hobo's Settlement Villagers™ Expanded Edition is the whole concept in all-in-one package. It will include all content that comes in basic edition, plus over twice more. There will be a lot of new concepts like Fungi Cave, Courtesans and Poetry. This version will probably be most beneficial if you own most Kingdom Death expansions. Check it out here.
