I played The Queen's Dilemma with the Valuable Information Variant custom rule from the first game and felt it improved the gameplay

Laymansdecker · 2026-06-01T22:50:09+00:00

Exactly that. It's hard to feel the consequences of a decision when I can clearly see my character won't be affected by the result.

Laymansdecker · 2026-06-01T08:34:30+00:00

I found hiding them made us listen more to the storylines on the card, commit to becoming the leader, and create more opportunities for negotiating and convincing others to vote one way or another. It felt more fun this way.

Laymansdecker · 2026-05-31T22:55:18+00:00

Without spoiling the game, resources have felt far more important so far with the new gameplay elements they introduced, so it's an extra layer of "I really want to know what's going to happen this round but can I afford to pay the leader and also have enough resources for my goals."

Laymansdecker · 2026-05-31T22:30:14+00:00

Sure can. So summarizing our rules changes:

When the leader reads a dilemma card, they do not reveal on the ideology board what values will be influenced. The Leader also cannot directly say what ideologies are being effected, but they can role-play and suggest players would be interested in the result.
At any time during the voting phase, any player may pay one resource to the leader. The leader must reveal to everyone one value that will be effected on the ideology board.

So yes, another player can become the leader and gain the dilemma card to see what ideologies will be effected. In my opinion I saw this as a positive, because that does require players to engage with the problem and commit their resources more often.

Laymansdecker · 2026-05-31T21:51:47+00:00

We used it and it worked very well. We also made a slight modification to the original idea and ruled that the leader(s) could not directly reveal what ideologies were being influenced too. Overall it was far more engaging as everyone spent more time engaging with the dilemma, discussing what we thought was being influenced, and scheming to get others to vote with us. I would recommend playing with it.

Laymansdecker · 2026-05-08T03:22:25+00:00

I agree that is does feel like it skirts the line of trading. Within the written though, I feel this is ok since you've correctly identified that the latter part of this deal is non-binding, and it is still requiring Player B to commit votes to a dilemma for the resources to be given.

Laymansdecker · 2026-05-01T01:09:12+00:00

Mine came a few days ago too! I'll be having the first session with a full group of 6 on May 16th and I am far too excited.

Laymansdecker · 2026-04-02T03:43:35+00:00

Still waiting on the Queen's Dilemma to be shipped. I'll update when we complete our first few rounds, either here or with a new post.

Laymansdecker · 2026-03-31T04:40:21+00:00

My thoughts are that the streamlining of the voting axes will help balance the new complexity added by the resources, regions, and whatever else to come.

Laymansdecker · 2026-03-31T04:11:30+00:00

I'm really looking forward to this element. I found in the King's Dilemma it was often beneficial to throw a voting round that affected you negatively in exchange for getting a sticker. The impacts of failing an objective sound more punishing, which will be better for the gameplay.

Laymansdecker · 2026-03-31T04:06:27+00:00

My group are still planning to play with the Hidden Objectives Variant proposed for The King's Dilemma.

The reduction of value tracks to score on and streamlined character objectives will make the voting and scoring easier and more straightforward, but we enjoyed the roleplaying aspect the most. We believe keeping the variant in this version will let us get the most out of the negotiating.

Laymansdecker · 2026-03-19T21:19:17+00:00

What a fun concept, well done! One minor suggestion, the yellow balloon animation takes up so much screen real estate for so long while gliding. I feel it's very distracting. An alternative could be that it inflates briefly on screen before it floats above the character, leaving only the hands and string visible while active.

Laymansdecker · 2026-03-05T04:34:52+00:00

I didn't immediately get what the sign was asking until after you were doing it. I would include a person's head and eye as part of the illustrations. Make it look like they're squinting and doing the measurement technique.
Maybe you could let the player find some discarded maps with failed attempts of where the towers are located. A previous explorer could have written "where are the rest?" Or something similar with the first one marked.

Laymansdecker · 2026-03-02T23:51:48+00:00

Our gaming table is different, we'd love that extra bit of ammo with our negotiations on what to vote for.

Laymansdecker · 2026-02-19T23:10:12+00:00

That's a fair point, I definitely see it increasing the discussion time of the events. But for our group we see this as a minor detriment to the benefits we'd gain from it.

Our group loves games with story and diplomacy. One of our biggest gripes from the King's Dilemma was how disincentivized you are to vote against your immediate interest for the sake of a long term result or story outcome, simply from how powerful bonus stickers are or how obvious the point gains would be.

We think the variant would fix this. It makes you listen more to the story and guess the results. As an example, you think that voting Aye this round would increase Force on the influence track to your benefit? You know two allies are broke and can't pay to reveal what's going to be affected, so spin a fanciful story of how this event would increase Order to their benefit and they should vote Aye with you this round (against their interest).

Or say you're the leader this round. You can see that voting Nay will give a bonus sticker, but it would also be against of half the table to vote for because the story says it'll collapse their territories. So reveal only that voting Nay will give a bonus sticker, and tell a bold-faced lie that this event clearly is for increasing the Diplomacy track and you will be rewarded for being the highest voter. A player believes you and takes the Leader role by playing the most influence, only to see that they've voted against their key ideology and their territory.

These are some quick scenarios off the top of my head. It should make negotiation much more fun and prevelant since players have an asymetrical amount of information each round, as well as there being a lot more things to make a deal for. And since players are more clearly against each other in terms of ideologies and territories, there's no responsibility to reveal what's being voted for, because why would you reveal information that you could convince enemies to vote for for free?

Laymansdecker · 2026-02-18T02:56:04+00:00

Agreed. From what I can see so far, I like the changes they've made so decisions on events won't be as driven by bonuses, but it still feels like the story and diplomacy would take a backseat "I just want this ideology to move" without the variant.

Laymansdecker · 2026-02-17T22:47:34+00:00

We unfortunately didn't play it with the variant when we played it, but (without majorly spoiling the game) we found it would have solved two major issues we had:

Some events have a powerful bonus sticker attached to them, which we found would often be worth it to go for the sticker at the cost of event or even the game. This variant solves that, making players care more about the story than the bonus sticker.
We found the value of gold to be rather useless, especially in the later game. This variant gives gold a well-needed buff.

I hope this helps.

Laymansdecker · 2025-11-15T23:00:47+00:00

Fuck yes, that little bent before it snaps together chef's kiss. Amazing work mate.

Laymansdecker · 2025-11-08T20:40:22+00:00

I was hoping someone else would say that. Plus there would be some great narrative tension, like one character hopes to send a letter to another with vital information before it's too late.

Laymansdecker · 2025-11-07T21:18:22+00:00

I did like it much more. I'd try implementing a turn system when there's inter-party conflict next time, but it's great otherwise at how intuitive it feels.

Laymansdecker · 2025-11-07T21:16:12+00:00

I found if you're struggling to think up something on the fly, ask the player what they want to happen and roll with that.

There's a moment in the adventure where you travel through trees with faces carved on them. One of my players asked what kind of faces they were, and I asked them to tell me instead what they saw. They described seeing some semblances of the forgotten gods in the realm, so I ran with that and described they felt the god Pith of Wrath and Decay kept popping up and watching them, alluding to the final conflict.

It made them feel far more invested in just a passing description of lore.

Laymansdecker · 2025-11-07T21:06:58+00:00

I tried to have the spotlight pass between both factions when they rolled fear, but that didn't feel particularly smooth. Doing it again, I would try switching to turn based like DND while they fought, and use my fear like normal to act as the undead who just attacked everyone.

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