ACKS Gaining Momentum

The Adventurer Conqueror King designers have been busy beavers these last few weeks. 

The "second-wave retro-clone" project just peaked the second fund-raising goal of $8K which means backers (now up to 155) will be getting copies of Domains of War, the mass battle rules and other goodies. The big Gen Con demo roll-out is coming this weekend, and this snazzy little “infomerical” was put out this week. 

Although there is a perverse, underdog part of me that balks a little at being part of a full-court press effort--albeit a quirky sideshow part--the more I align certain sections of the old Domain Game with ACKS in the Hill Cantons: Borderlands sourcebook the more respect I gain for the design of that system. (Barring day job demands, writing on the draft manuscript should be done by tomorrow and heading into the tightening-up stage this week before I head off to Cali.)

The “economic naturalism” of ACKS is, of course, a big winner for me, but there are little bits here and there throughout the rules that I like very much such as an inheritable reserve fund for experience points (tied to an Arnesonian spend gold for exp. option), rules for handling criminal schemes, guidelines for going from apprentice to journeyman to master in a craft guild, and more.

I am an awkward huckster even in the best of times, so I will stop short of selling you on this. Interested parties can dialogue, quibble, and otherwise put in their two cents in the open design part of ACKS evolution here and here. And if you want to see the draft rule for yourself you can also kick in $5, at the minimum, and get the draft rules as a download here.