King's Dilemma Review & How to Play | Role-Playing and Fantasy Narrative

[Music] set the wayback machine for november of 2019. our provided review copy of king's dilemma arrives from horrible games at my house and we immediately set up a recurring group of seven players who commit to exploring the kingdoms of angkist with me five at a time we played five games in total eventually having been interfered with by the holidays and then cobit since then we have not been able to regroup to play so with a resigned heart i'm presenting to you my thoughts incomplete though they may be on what's inside this box i shall endeavor to do so as spoiler free as i can let's jump right into it inside the box we're going to find our lengthy rule book but you'll note that a lot of it is gameplay examples and lore so don't be too worried right off the bat especially when you pair this rulebook with what comes next a stack of legacy stickers and a map of the realm past those are the game's 12 house mats which each player will choose one of and stick through to the whole arc of the game next up is the game board which reveals the insert all the game's narrative cards voting tokens and stickers live perfectly in here i've tucked a sharpie into my box which isn't included this is a legacy like game after all where you're going to have to make some permanent indications on some things i promised a nearly spoiler-free review so i'll set this one up for a game and i'll walk you through how it works king's dilemma is meant to be played with a full council table of five players you can play with as little as three and if you have to then you have to but the closer you get to the max player count here the better time you're going to have the realm board in the middle of the table is going to track your story from game to game there are some chronicles stickers at the top of the board which serve to track players impactful decisions in a chronological way the more recently you made people's lives better or worse the more you're going to be affected by those decisions in the current game underneath that section is the stability track this area is going to track how well your kingdom is doing in the five resources you care about knowledge welfare morale wealth and influence these will move up and down throughout the game based on your choices and they also have momentum which i'll get to in a second on the edge here is the stability tracker which will give you an overall sense on how balanced your decision making is too far in any direction and you're making either too many good or bad choices endangering your time at the king's table each player is also given their player screen a set of voting cards and some number of power and coins based on their legacy in previous games if this is your first you get 8 power and 10 coins each player will also choose a secret agenda from six available which will dictate just how they want these resource tokens to behave throughout this session one player gets the leader token which i've misplaced here it is and the other player gets the tie-breaking moderator token again based on where you are in the overall arc the edge of the board here will eventually house the story cards which you'll want to go over at the beginning of every game night in order to remind you where each of the game's six storylines are at while having all six going at once is possible it's more likely that you'll completely resolve one of them before another one begins so don't worry if you haven't found one yet it's these stories that are the long arc of king's dilemma as counselors to the king you're each charged with advising his majesty on what to do about successive current issues facing the kingdom a round begins with the bottom card of the dilemma deck being drawn and read out loud the game has trademarked what they call the dilemma system and these cards will almost always present you with a choice do you purely as an example spend money on education for your people or do you invest that money in the military the card will put a choice to you and it's up to the council to decide the path each house has an intricate backstory that will guide your choices in these matters but ultimately the decision is based on what the group wants to do and how powerful individual members are the spaces at the bottom of the board here show what is used what's used to be at stake blue is always yes and red is always known each card will give you a general idea of what's going to happen with each choice so in the case of our example if we vote to invest money in education knowledge will most likely increase and money will decline if we decide to spend that money on soldiers it will increase our influence but it will also probably suffer our morale because what kind of backwards societies puts money into their military instead of making sure their citizens are well educated once everyone knows what's at stake it's time to start voting starting with the leader players either vote i nay or pass this must be done in turn order but everyone's vote is not equal if i'm the leader and i'm voting nay i place my nay card out in front of me but then i'll also put some amount of power out with it signifying how much i'm backing up my vote with political capital the next player around the table then gets to vote as well putting power behind their vote if you put more power than the previous player than the player with leader token you'll take it from them until someone else raises it up you'll go around and around the table like this until it loops back to whoever is currently holding a leader token then the sum of all the power on the i cards is measured against the sum of all the power on the nay cards whichever has the most is the will of the council if there's a tie whoever's holding the moderator token gets the deciding vote the trick is that once you decide which way you're leaning on a topic you can't change your mind you can add more power to increase your stance but you can't vote i to start and then all of a sudden come back and change your vote to nay if it comes back to you likewise if you pass you can't all of a sudden start to care and actually take a stand you're a coward or you're ambivalent that's the life you chose passing lets you accumulate power in the round rather than spend it or you can also pass and take the moderator token whichever houses vote on the losing side take back their bidded power while the winning side spends their capital and the result is read out loud and the various resources are adjusted i mentioned earlier that these resources have momentum the direction of the resource depicted by the color on the token white means increasing and black means decreasing questionable color choices aside if an increasing token were to go up you'd add one more to the increase and add this momentum marker if it goes up again you'll add two to any future increases until it goes down and then you'll flip it over and remove the momentum apart from making the game go quicker i'm honestly not sure of what the thematic reason is here sometimes your choices will result in one of the six stories being furthered sometimes you'll get a sticker in the chronicle that will lay blame or fame on the leader of the decision which they'll have to bear in future games ultimately you're being guided by your goals of the house which are as secret as you want them to be in our games i chose the dukes of natar a house dedicated to the religious fervor of the cult of the mother a fundamentalist cult hell bent on rooting out blasphemy wherever it's found every choice i made in the game was guided by those principles and there will inevitably come a time when you are philosophically deadlocked against another house of the table the delight of this game is that you can use that as a conflict for grudge holding future choices opposing your blood sworn enemy at every turn because they crossed you once or you can let bygones be bygones and decide to move forward for the good of the realm above all since this is a narrative game those types of decisions will greatly affect future plays and maybe possibly even your friendships so make them with care you're also trying to balance the resource tokens into maximizing your end game scoring based on your secret agenda the extremists will score points on the distance between the two most highest and lowest resources while the opulent motivation wants to get as many as possible in the upper part of the board balancing a choice that fits your house's story against your game specific motivation is a tough one sometimes but that's another strength of this game making a sub-optimal short-term decision to push your agenda in the future feels exactly right for the theme and ultimately makes this game more than just what do the numbers say i should do if this all sounds like exactly your cup of wine then let me assure you you're right being late to the review game on this one means that i have the benefit of everyone else's thoughts to help clarify my own picture your favorite fantasy franchise and king's dilemma can put you right in the council chamber the included map in the box combined with all the lore you could possibly want on the back of each of the 12 house screens the absolute detail that goes into all six of the game's main story lines not to mention the stories that come out of your individual play sessions it's all a perfect crucible for carrying out the behind-the-scenes machinations that fuel every fantasy nerd's dreams it's not all roses and shining armor though king's dilemma right on the front cover of the rule book tells you that you're going to encounter some rough content choices about slavery starvation forced marriages even genocide they're all in here and you're going to be arguing with your fellow table mates about whether or not you should consider enacting them it's all fictional obviously but there was definitely a moment where i got uncomfortable lobbying to completely wipe out an entire country because that's what my house would want if we're able to play through the story here in all 15 sessions and leave that behind then by all means this just serves as a heads up overall king's dilemma is a wonderful debate simulator and the stories inside these cards are interesting and complex though admittedly a little hard to keep track of sometimes the intricate politics of the realm while definitely relevant to your motivations are also daunting to remember from session to session rereading all the story cards at the beginning of each night helps but with six stories i started to see people's eyes glaive over as they just wanted to get into the game as always your mileage may vary king's dilemma is the best game i've ever played where you aren't actually doing anything besides simply making yes or no decisions the lore the storytelling and the game's trademark dilemma card system are completely responsible for everything great about this one let's go through our checklist before i give you my final thoughts in the box rule book clear and non-gender pronouns my rule book came with an errata sheet already slipped in which promised to fix some of the game's scoring issues additionally there's 47 pages of rules score keeping tables lore and empty spots for legacy stickers finding what you want is helped a little bit by the index and the back but overall everything you need to learn how to play is encased in just 14 pages most of which are beautifully outlined with full color examples use of non-gendered language is maximized throughout and that's incredibly welcome here iconography clear yes between coins power and the five different resources you need to keep track of king's dilemma has paid attention to being able to know what you need to do without constantly consulting a table or doing complex translations no small feat for a game this in-depth packaging well done yes while there's lots of stuff in the box the insert does a great job keeping everything in place from game to game and the disposal slot emptying cards into the box bottom is mwah on the table good representation each of the game's 12 houses centers around a differing philosophy and is evenly mixed between dukes and marquises the story cards themselves have a similar split between men and women being depicted in positions of both power and poverty component quality medium there's nothing you're going to pick up in this game and say wow that feels great but you're also not going to lament anything falling apart or tearing the cards are of good thickness the tokens decent punch board and the player screens will stand up easily enough on their own additionally giorgio barone's art style throughout is really enjoyable the box art is fantastic and the overall art on the cards does a great job of evoking the feel of angkist replay value none while you're going to get about 15 games out of the box and each one could take an hour or so once you're all the way through the story that's it the box is done and you can't play it again keep that in mind if that's not your speed fun to lose yes while you are playing the other people at the table who can easily be staunchly opposed to whatever you're proposing despite how reasonable or clear-headed those suggestions may seem megan if you can keep people focused on their house's priorities versus their own petty grievances there's plenty to love even if you're losing also some houses want to lose sometimes which is just delicious at the end of the day while king's dilemma can fold to meta gaming it's a wonderful narrative experience that i can't wait to actually finish when i can get my group back together the feeling of sitting around a table in relative comfort while making decisions that can positively or negatively affect thousands of people which actual weight to those choices could be difficult for some gamers which is something to keep in mind as well keeping the game's lore in your head to provide context to those decisions can be daunting but for the right group this is an absolute no-brainer i'm nicholas reminding you to help protect the game population always leave your cards [Music] hey everyone if you liked our video please hit that sub button and ring that bell for notifications check out all of our other offerings at goodluckhighfive.com and please consider becoming a patron of the channel over at patreon.com glhfmagic it helps us keep making reviews videos podcasts and you can become a member for any dollar amount we're also always looking for new games to review you can reach us at glhfmagic gmail.com you can follow me captain n the game master at captain ngm on twitter and instagram and follow the channel at glhfmagic remember please shop at your local game store whenever possible until next time i'm nicholas and good luck high five

Channel: GLHF Board Games

Views: 32,415

Keywords: board games, board game, game, games, gamer, glhf, good luck high five, bgg, game night, playthrough, rules, let's play, how to play, nicholas, meghan, maria, horrible guild, fantasy, rpg, narrative, king's council, king's dilemma, yes or no, influence, small table, game of thrones, decision

Id: lWRyVVH5w6I

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020