[The King is Dead] Alpha First Alpha Draft Alpha

The King of Home is dying and all know she will be gone before many more years pass. Conquer (and hold!) places of Power, fulfill up to 20 secret Agendas, and win cold hard cash determining whose character will become the new King!

Five noble houses vie for control of Home. Shrieve, Tukwon, Ulster, Viewed, and Westerwake. For now. Referenced as STUVW.

1) Everyone read all of these rules if they have not already. Make sure you all agree to play. Find a circular table you can all sit at which has room for the Map, bowl, etc.
2) Place 20 $ apiece in a bowl in the middle of the table, alongside the Map.
3) Everyone secretly bid to get first pick of Factions. Highest bid gets it, everyone else take Presence tokens equal to 2nd-highest bid. Repeat until all Factions are assigned. Whoever has the least Presence, everyone return that many Presence to the bank and then sit in your respective places (noted on the Map). Everyone choose a name for your nation's Leader. This is your main character's name.
4) Play Year 0 (see section A).
5) Play Winter 1 (see section B), then Year 1, then repeat through Winter and Year 5.
6) Whichever Leader has the most Influence becomes the next King! Break ties by whichever Faction would win on the Star (see section C). That Leader's player takes the remaining $ from the bowl (25) and any $ which remain on the Star.

A) During each Year, Factions will attempt to expand their territory. In turn order each player may use as much Presence and place as many Forces as she wishes from her available resources.
A1) Turn order is STUVW, TSWVU, UVWST, VUTSW, WSTUV, STUVW in Years 0-5 respectively.
A2) To use Presence, take the dividers and walk a new border in pencil starting from any spot on your border to any other spot on your border. You must spend 1 Presence for each walk of the dividers. If your new border encloses any part of any opposing Forces you must pay 1 Presence per Force to create the border, then erase the Forces. If your new border encloses a Power without a penny on it that the border did not enclose at the beginning of the turn, place a penny on that Power and place that Power's production on the previous encloser's side on the Star. (If you don't have enough Presence you'll have to find a way to make your expansion smaller, and if you can't you're out of luck. If you take too long trying to make a border work the other players may politely throw things at you.)
A3) To use Forces, once you've spent all the Presence you wish, trace a penny on the map and write the number of Forces represented in the circle. All in pencil.
A4) When the Year is finished, erase all old markings including this Year's Forces. They winter during Winter. Return all Presence tokens to supply but keep all Force tokens. For each Power your border encloses, take its production from the supply.

B) During each Winter, the Factions gather for Winter Court. You will play 5 scenes in Winter, each player taking a turn to frame one scene.
B1) Turn order is STUVW, TSWVU, UVWST, VUTSW, WSTUV in Winters 1-5.
B2) During each scene one player will take on the role of Adjudicator and make judgment calls about situations that either are explicitly called out in the rules or do not seem to be covered in the rules. This player is WSTUV, WVUST, UVWST, SWVUT, STUVW.
B3) To begin a scene, whoever is current player frames a scene and declares which individual Leaders of the Factions are present and not present. The Adjudicator's character may not be present. (During Year 3 the scene framer is the Adjudicator!) For example "in Henry's bedchambers talking over wine; present are Henry and Elizabeth and omnipresent invisible servants".
B4) Each non-Adjudicator player whose Leader is not present picks one character to play who is at least a little sympathetic to her Faction, names the characters if they are new, and shares a very brief background description. "Garibaldi, Henry's personal manservant and wine taster whose daughter is a W."
B5) Each non-Adjudicator player picks an Agenda for this scene in secret from their unused Agendas.
B6) Freeplay until some character doesn't like what's happening, has the capacity to not let it happen, and actively does something to make it not happen, then go to the Star (see C). Either the character's player or the Adjudicator in the case of a Leader character about to become completely unfit to govern may take it to the Star. Also play is paused whenever someone announces that their Agenda has been fulfilled (see D), which players can do at any time when they still have an unfulfilled Agenda. You don't have to stay in the original room or wherever.
B7) Freeplay only stops once all Agendas have been announced or you've gone to the Star twice, so set up scenes appropriately! This part is a group effort and clunky and hopefully will be changed in later versions of the game maybe. When the scene is over feel free to add a few closing words but nothing more of import should happen in this scene.

C) Conflicts are resolved on the Star. In overview, the attacker and defender will choose Sides to determine who wins the conflict and how, then the attacker, defender, and Sides chosen will gain resources.
C1) The defending players are those whose characters are actively trying to prevent something from being the case. Choose exactly one player to be the Defender. Usually it will be obvious; if it is not then the Adjudicator decides. Then the Defender chooses one non-defending player to be the Attacker. Usually it will be obvious; if the Defender is trying to make a non-attacker be the Attacker you may thrown things at her. No one may participate more than once as Attacker or Defender on the Star in a given scene. So you can only get resources from choosing sides once each scene, but you can get resources from being chosen as a side several times.
C2) The Attacker chooses any Side. A Side is one of the Factions.
C3) The player opposite the Attacker and Defender if they're adjacent, or between them if they're not adjacent, chooses who will win the conflict.
C4) The Defender chooses a Side based on whether she needs to win or lose the conflict. See Star diagram for which Sides beat which. S>T>U>V>W>S and S>U>W>T>V>S.
C5) The players of the Sides chosen gain 1 Presence and then take 1 of each distinct resource present on their Side as long as there are 2 or more of that resource. Then the Attacker and Defender take the remaining resources from their respective chosen Sides. Then 1 Force is added to each chosen Side and 1 Presence to each unchosen Side.
C6) The Defender narrates briefly how her chosen side is instrumental in the conflict's outcome. Introduce poison, guards, long-secret schemes, whatever you need to make it make sense, but be brief. If it's absurd compared to an obvious alternative then other players may throw things at you.
C7) Resume freeplay unless this was the second conflict (see B7).

D) During freeplay or just after the second conflict in a scene (see B7) if you have an unfulfilled Agenda you may declare it is fulfilled. Now each other player secretly guesses which Agenda it is, and loot is distributed.
D1) If at least two players guessed correctly, any player who did not must place 1 $ on the Star. ???
D2) All players who guessed correctly gain 2 Presence.
D3) Each Agenda has different effects based on how many players guessed it correctly. Apply the effects.
D4) Resume freeplay unless this was the final Agenda for the scene or if you finishing up the second conflict (see B7).

Partial Tentative Agenda List:

Embarrass a Leader of a Side your Side beats on the Star in front of someone important.
4: Gain 5 Presence. Transfer up to all of the Presence on their Side of the Star to your Side.
3: Gain 4 Presence. Transfer up to half (round up) of the Presence on their Side of the Star to your Side.
2: Gain 3 Presence.
1: Gain 1 Presence.
0: Return 1 Presence to the supply.

Save a Leader of a Side your Side beats on the Star from embarrassment in front of someone important.
4: Gain 2 Influence and 1 Presence. Transfer up to 1 Influence on their Side of the Star to your Side.
3: Gain 2 Influence and 1 Presence.
2: Gain 1 Influence and 1 Presence.
1: Gain 1 Presence.
0: Return 1 Presence to the supply.

The Sides which beat yours or the Sides which yours beats break an agreement between them.
4: Gain 3 Forces and 1 Presence. Transfer up to all of the Forces on their Sides of the Star to your Side.
3: Gain 2 Forces and 1 Presence. Transfer up to 1 Force apiece on their Side of the Star to your Side.
2: Gain 1 Force and 1 Presence.
1: Gain 1 Presence.
0: Return 1 Presence to the supply.

The Sides which beat yours or the Sides which yours beats make an agreement.
4: Gain 2 Influence and 1 Presence. Transfer up to 1 Influence on their Side of the Star to your Side.
3: Gain 2 Influence and 1 Presence.
2: Gain 1 Influence and 1 Presence.
1: Gain 1 Presence.
0: Return 1 Presence to the supply.

Map!

[The King Is Dead] Connecting the Star to the fiction

It occurs to me that if picks aren't simultaneous interesting things happen. For example, whoever called the conflict could pick a side and narrate that they're trying to block and how. Then the other player picks a side. She can decide who wins since she picks second, but now it's quite explicit - one thing or the other will occur vis-a-vis Agendas. Better yet. The attacker picks first. That way the defender cannot decide whether to win or lose without knowing what the fiction is. But deciding to lose kinda hurts advocacy rather a lot...

There could be an adjudicator. Hm, okay... that's very intrigue-ish. In all cases not everyone may be fighting. So there is 1 player who overall beats the rest of them. Except there's not. Fine, just say the player in between them. Either opposite if they're adjacent or adjacent if they're not. So the attacker picks a side, then the adjudicator picks a result, then the defender picks a side (there are two with the chosen result) and loot is distributed. Who cares who won? A conflict can only start like this if the GM agrees an Agenda could be at stake. There must be each side of any Agenda available in the game somewhere... so if there's "start a rift between England and France" there must also be "prevent a possible rift between England and France". Defender gets narration responsibility/right. Isn't there a problem with conflicts being really juicy for players? Yes, solve this by having a GM every time, and in fact the GM for a given player's scene is predetermined. You get 5, and the... 3rd? year everyone is their own GM. (Not sure what that does.) That player won't get a conflict in the scene. Or an Agenda. So actually it turns out there are 5*4=20 scenes you get a possible Agenda in. Still fine.

So what's the difference, choosing between two losses or wins on the Star? Ah, the result is not what happens, but what it would look like happened to any hypothetical observers, which may or may not in fact be what happened. The defender's chosen side then must be the side the hypothetical observers concludes "caused" the result. This is fine for all but physical conflicts. How would another House cause you to win a fight if not present? I guess that's when you slip in guards, poison, a sabotaged weapon, etc. It may take playtesting to see if that will work.