Experiences with Dynasty?

[Ucalegon]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought Dynasty, because I like the idea of player-controlled political entities that (hopefully) allow for a more dynamic campaign-background. As the setting we play is basically a Diaspora-Cluster (7 connected systems), each player could choose the one important faction he wants to take over as his Dynasty "character". After looking at the rules and doing some chargen testing, I'm a bit unsure about some mechanisms that will probably come up later in the game (like dynasty goals or playing out a major war).

So is there anyone who uses/has used the Dynasty rules in a campaign and could share some experience on how that went? Any problems that I have to look out for? I'd be particularily interested in stuff from the "When dynasties clash"-chapter.

Thanks!

 

[locarno24]

We've done something vaguely similar, with each player representing a Goa'Uld system Lord from the Stargate setting.

The trick tends to be 'hiding' the stats from the players; they get to declare war, and get to define how they're attacking their enemies (that list in the 'war' table), but make it more exciting than a single die roll; I played it that whilst they may 'destroy cultural sites' or whatever, they get a bonus if they can describe their fiendish plans in suitable detail; after all, you want them feeling like they're managing a galactic empire, not a spreadsheet. If anything, it's harder to know exact values of stats for a decade-spanning, star-system spanning polity, so don't feel too far wrong if you don't actually let players know their own stats in precise terms. After all, the OTU scout service try to do that for the imperium and it's a full-time job for a small navy!

Equally, figure out what the stats mean in real terms. Because Dynasty is a generic set of mechanics, 'Fleet' means how big your fleet is compared to the biggest on the block. Fleet/5 doesn't have much of a meaning as a standalone value - figure out what it actually means to the players - does a point of Fleet represent a couple of starships or a massive task group? In that way, you can describe engagements better and can say "two battleships were caught in a cowardly ambush! Nooo!!!"

Tying in with the latter, use scenes regularly. I would recommend that a 'war' should be conflicts fought at 'dynasty' level for the 'general setting' plus at least one dynastic character scene for each major period of conflict - either players a chance to turn the tide, salvage something from the wreckage, or just enjoy crushing their already-beaten enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women.

Dynasty Goals I'm less bothered by. If you want to play dynasty-on-dynasty, I'd set things up for a specific conflict which is either running or on the verge of running at the point things break out, with the players being multiple factions on one of the sides (because that tends to work better than pvp games, at least in my experience). Create a suitable evil (or good!) empire to oppose and figure out the Dynastic characters they'll have to face in the scenes.

 

[torus]

It was more fun than Dallas but I liked the Colbys best of all.