Kingdom: Canada's Department of Magical Enforcement (DOME). We're the Mounties. For wizards.
Players: Jasmine, Manu, Dani, Tim, and me, with enthusiastic audience participation from two latecomers, Christy and Alex. (Yes, Ben, we played Kingdom with five. We're dangerous and we have to be stopped.)
Characters: Mal, the veteran field agent scarred by one too many brushes with dark magic (Perspective); Kate, the headstrong young field agent who takes DOME and its ideals very seriously (Touchstone); Ovide, Internal Affairs, but not an asshole about it, so people come to him with the sensitive stuff (Touchstone); Ben, the mentally unstable precognitive with the social skills of a trout (Perspective); Nicolette, the non-magic-using theoretician who has the ear of the Commissioner (Power).

Crossroads: Will DOME end the career of Etienne Helms, a politician who advocates legalizing Black Magic? Yep. Nicolette kind of accidentally planned his assassination, but felt really bad about it.
Will DOME crack down on vigilantism by some of its agents who are frustrated with the law's inability to keep up with magic crime? No- Nicolette planned to, but Kate engaged in a campaign of perjury and evidence tampering, and convinced DOME to close ranks around the vigilantes.

My review: This went great. It didn't feel like a problem to have five at all. I think that worked in part because we had a lot of multi-person scenes, sometimes with all five of us. All of us had more or less the same amount of status, so we could (for instance) all plausibly be drinking together at the local bar, or all be working the same case. I also made a real effort to make these scenes brisk, which is how we managed to check 12 crossroads boxes and still get the game done in the normal time frame. And double-touchstones was fun- Kate and Ovide had different perspectives, but never totally opposite, and that created an interesting tension in the community.

I agree with Martin. This was a fun session of Kingdom! Overall it was quite smooth. I wasn't sure how it'd work with five but totally did. (Which only serves to further confirm my belief that Kingdom is awesome.) Having two Touchstone and two Perspective players made things interesting for me as Power. There was a good balance between levity and seriousness. All the characters were interesting and everyone made excellent contributions.

Favorite moments include the scene with everyone at the bar, Ben's appearance at the trial, and the scene with Agent Smith. An observation (and not a complaint) is that this game didn't feel as neatly concluded as previous games I've played, though it totally ended in a natural and interesting spot; then again, I also feel like there would be more potential for DOME as a multi-session game than the others.


I seem to struggle to come up with certain elements (Crossroads, threats, Prices) but that is a personal thing. I think cutting down a little on everyone's expected contributions (having four threats instead of five, eight locations instead of ten) was the right move. Especially since we had such a variety. I'd totally be down to try a five player Kingdom again and see what happens! And don't worry Ben, we're totally not dangerous. Not dangerous at all.

Thanks to Martin for facilitating, Tim, Manu, and Jasmine for their creativity and energy, and to Alex and Christy for being a good audience.

- Dani, aka Dr. Nicolette du Mont

I enjoyed this gaming session immensely. This was the first Kingdom game I've been involved in where there was a role seizure, and I thought that it added a great twist to the end of the game. I agree with Dani that it felt like the game could easily have kept going, and in my opinion may have been even more spectacular if it had. The game ended at a point of major change for most if not all of our characters, so it would have been interesting to see how we related to each other in the aftermath.

I also want to thank Martin for facilitating and keeping us going in a logical and dramatically effective direction when we tried to stray, and Ben (the physical game designer, not my arguably likable but unfortunately certifiable character) for providing the framework that allowed it all to take place.

Oh my god, you guys are dangerous! Dangerously awesome!

Crossroads: Will DOME end the career of Etienne Helms, a politician who advocates legalizing Black Magic? Yep. Nicolette kind of accidentally planned his assassination, but felt really bad about it.

I like it. I think very specific Crossroads like this can really help get the game rolling. It's exactly like making very concrete Foci in Microscope.

Big thumbs up all around.

Yep, definitely a fun game. I do think it could easily have gone longer, or maybe spawn a part two. A great session for my first game of Kingdom! Thanks to all for playing.

Best Wishes, Manu "The Old Man" Mal :-)