NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.

NOTE: Anyone may join. We will not be checking stenographer cards at the door. This can be played on your computer via the Twitch website or on your phone via the Twitch app.

On March 2, 2024, at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, my personal cadre will be participating in at least one game of King of the Castle (official site). We intend to stream this and allow the audience to take part, likely through Twitch.

King of the Castle is a game where one player plays the monarch of a kingdom and a minimum of 3 other players play as nobles from the three territories that comprise the kingdom. The territories all have various traits involving things like farming, military, and trade. These are represented by a number between 0 and 10. The core of the gameplay is that the monarch does their best to stay on the throne. The nobles try to put the claimant from their territory on the throne.

There are two ways to play this game, party game mode, usually played through Discord and the kotc.app site, and Twitch mode. We’re focusing on Twitch mode here. You do not need to download Discord and do not need to log into kotc.app on your browser.

So what will this look like if you want to join?

First, you have to go to Twitch.tv and sign up for a free account. If someone needs a tutorial on that, let me know. Otherwise, I will move to the next part.

You’re going to head on over to my Twitch channel, XChrisUnknownX, and hopefully by around 5:30 or 5:45 Eastern, I will have started a live stream. You will be able to join the chat and type !join to join the game. You may also choose your preferred pronoun inside the game by typing (!join he) (!join she) (!join they), without parentheses.

When we start the game it’s going to look something like the streamer’s screen does below. You’ll be watching us through Twitch, but you’ll be playing too!

NOTE: The reason that says 30 minutes in is because there was a long period of time before the streamer actually started the game. Each game is expected to last between 1 and 2 hours, but can be much shorter.

Our Kingdom will feature and you will be placed into one of the following territories:

or my personal favorite…

Likely the first thing that will happen after we launch the game is we’ll be looking at a map of the kingdom. You’ll also see the stats of the kingdom on the left-hand side. The state of the kingdom is told through these stats. If authority, treasury, or stability falls to 0, the monarch will lose the game.

The game plays out through events and votes that impact the kingdom. The monarch will select one of the events on the map, and the audience will be taken on a magical ride to whatever the event is. Just to get some idea of how this is going to go, one of the first events is the coronation.

Either I will be narrating the dialogue or forcing my cadre to do it. But the end result is the same, we’ll narrate the event and the event will, more often than not, go to a council vote. You, as a noble of the kingdom, will be on my council.

When we go to a vote, I will get to take a monarch action. In this case, Romolla vetoed decision C so that no noble could select that option. You will vote by typing !vote a or !vote b, whatever the letter of your choice is. As you can see, the game tells you how your vote will impact the kingdom. In this case, Vote A will raise the defiance of one or more territories. Defiance allows territories to rebel and begin a civil war. If that happens during our game, you can type !rebel to urge your territory to declare war on me and whatever loyalist territories remain. If all three territories rebel at once, I lose instantly. Vote A will also lower stability and faith. Vote B will raise authority and lower stability. Vote D will raise farming and lower the wealth of the nobles. Take note that wealth of the nobles is different from treasury of the kingdom. Wealth of the nobles impacts what you can buy. “Chris, what do you mean buy? You said no purchases!!!”

At some point in the game, you will be presented with the option to purchase buildings for the territories. These buildings change the stats of the kingdom. At this point, you’ll be able to vote for what building to buy using your wealth. Instead of !vote, you will use !fund. For example, !fund c 300 will take 300 of your money and put it toward choice C, the aqueduct, which will raise farming of the Counts of the East.

Close to the start of the game, each territory will choose a scheme to place their claimant on the throne. In the picture above, it shows that the Counts have reached their scheme objective for farming and will be able to advance their scheme. This is juxtaposed against the Chiefs, who need to raise their military. As you might imagine, the buildings can help sabotage or support schemes.

Please remember that this is a social game and the monarch’s goal is to stay on the throne. I will try to be fairly forthright so that newcomers can enjoy and understand the game, but the monarch is allowed to lie and do things to confuse the players. For example, there is a feature where the monarch can use “reverse voting,” which means that the vote with the fewest council votes will win. This makes for some very interesting gameplay and sudden twists as people accidentally vote on things they do not want to vote on.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll be talking you through it every step of the way. As long as you can remember !join, !vote, and !fund, you can play this game. Just let me know when Twitch interrupts your game with commercials in the chat box so that you don’t miss out on game time.

We’ll be monitoring the chat as best we can for comments and questions at the time of the event. Please know that if you miss the start of the game, you can join at any time while the game is ongoing.

Are you ready to overthrow the King of the Castle?

P.S.

Saw Leah Willersdorf featured recently. Check it out.

Addendum:

I’ve been asked if we have a registry. No one is obligated to donate, but here it is.

You can also contribute directly to the blog on the front page of Stenonymous.com via the donation box. But this isn’t meant to be a fundraiser, it’s just meant to be fun.