Game: King of the Tabletop

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ealdrich — 2008-10-25T23:00:56+00:00

High rez scan of cover of King of the Tabletop from Dragon #77

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pirtrom — 2008-09-05T16:00:56+00:00

I little better quality.

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pirtrom — 2008-09-05T16:00:37+00:00

I little better quality.

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pirtrom — 2008-09-05T16:00:03+00:00

I little better quality.

Thread: Re: Errata

yeeshkul — 2008-09-05T06:42:29+00:00

http://drmikessteakdinner.com/2007/07/06/download-dragon-mag...

Thread: Re: House rule: reverse initiative

Gola — 2008-09-02T14:04:02+00:00

gilbertgea wrote:
In combat, the defence is the stronger form of combat. It derives its strength from the fact that it can choose WHERE to fight.

The offence is the weaker form of combat. It offsets this weakness by being able to choose WHEN to fight.
This is a good point.

I'm going to try to run the game sometime soon, and here are the rules I'm going to use:

The attacker pays his army and lines up his units in front of the lands which they will attack. All chits are face-down except special characters. The defender then sets up his units, after which the attacker's chits are revealed. The exception is the Commando Strike Force: if the paid attacking army is no larger than half the size of the defender's standing army, the defender sets up first with his chits face-down. In either case the attacker has the option of retreating after setup, though he still loses the money he paid the army.

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barteus — 2008-08-12T18:39:31+00:00

Tiles from King of the Tabletop: top - land tiles; middle - fortifications; bottom - village, city and mine.

Thread: Re: King of the Tabletop - Hail to the King!

mtnman69 — 2008-08-11T20:55:00+00:00

I had fun dominating you and Vito at this Rob! The gold mine definately made a difference, but it is a dice rolling extravaganza and I rolled well too. Fun game for a freebie!

Thread: King of the Tabletop - Hail to the King!

barteus — 2008-08-08T20:20:47+00:00

Rob Kuntz and Tom Wham designed King of the Tabletop (KOTT); the game appeared in Dragon Magazine #77. It is a fantasy-type wargame in which the players are “landed aristocrats in a strange kingdom” where they attempt to build up their prestige until the winner is proclaimed King of the Tabletop.

Brief Overview of Rules: The game contains 276 small tiles that need to be printed and pasted to a cardboard backing. These counters can be broken down into three categories:
Support Tiles: gold, fortifications (which include towers, keeps, castles and Grand Muniments) and special characters
The Land Deck: land tiles (swamp, desert, plain, forest mountain) and instruction tiles

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Example of tiles - top row - land tiles; middle row - fortifications; bottom row - village, city, mine

The Playing Deck: characters, which are coded to specific terrains (examples include skeletons: desert; centaurs: plains; trolls: mountain, bandits: forest; ghosts: swamp and many, many more), cities, villages, mines, treasures and magic items
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Example of characters that can be part of your army

The support tiles are laid out on the table face-up, the land deck tiles are all placed in a sack, bag or cup for blind drawing and the playing deck tiles are placed in another sack, bag or cup. Each player takes a chart/mat to help keep things organized. If at anytime a player can prove he/she has 30 prestige points (discussed below) and has built a Grand Muniment, he/she has won the game. Turns consist of 4 phases, as follows:

Phase 1: players collect gold based on their kingdom’s land, fortifications, cities and mines. Prestige is calculated based on these same items, plus 1 per 10 gold and 1 per special character in his/her army. The player then rolls to try and recruit a special character, which are powerful and frequently have special abilities. Last in this phase, the player can pay gold to build fortifications.

Phase 2: Each player rolls for events. The chart is conveniently located on each player mat. These events can be really bad (forest fire, floods, smallpox, black plague, etc), good (good omen, mother lode, D6 tax law, etc) or neutral (no event).

Phase 3: This section of the turn involves acquiring tiles. Players draw from the land deck to try and increase their terrain, they may purchase extra playing deck tiles and may then draw 1 free playing deck tile. These playing tiles may be placed in the player’s hand or if it is a character, it may be placed, facedown, in the player’s standing army – if – the appropriate land tile is present in your kingdom. For example, elves are forest creatures and you must have a forest tile to place this counter in your standing army. The army counters are placed in-mass on the mat and do not have to be placed behind their necessary land tile.

Phase 4: In this phase, a player may send their standing army to attack another player. The attacker selects their units from their facedown army and must pay gold. The attacker and defender roll a die for initiative; the highest roll is the first player and must line up their army first. The attacking and defending armies (whoever lines up first depends on initiative roll) line up behind the land tiles that they are attacking/defending. Each unit has an attack number, and this is the number of dice that are rolled for that unit. All “6”s rolled are hits and kill a unit on the opposite side. Many units have special abilities, such as flying, magic and charge, which modify the die rolls, the number of dice, or the chances of being hit. Fortifications, cities and villages help to defend the land tiles they are associated with by absorbing hits and help to counter-attack by lending dice to roll for hits. If all defending units protecting a land tile are killed and the attacker has least one unit remaining against that land tile, the attacker captures that tile and places it in his own kingdom (on his player mat).

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Game in play - player mat, land tiles, standing army (facedown)

Components: The original game appeared in Dragon Magazine and it is currently available as print and play. As such, the game consists of the rules, the player charts and a bunch of counters that need to be glued to cardstock and cut out. Some of the counters are a bit hard to read due to the background colors. The player mats are black and white. The illustrations for the army units are simple, but fun and whimsical. Obviously, production values are not high, but this is a print and play game and everything is functional.

Game Play Impressions & Critique:
The Good: The general theme of the game is interesting and captures the imagination – you have land in your kingdom, you build cities and fortifications and place all sorts of strange creatures into your standing army. Because every player goes through the actions in a phase before moving to the next, there isn’t much down time unless two other players are fighting a large battle. Rolling events are always interesting, and you’ll frequently hear a player cry out when they hit the Mother Lode, sigh at a “no event” or groan when the Black Plague shows up. The mechanics are generally good (see below for exceptions), the motif is fun, play is relatively fast and the illustrations add to the flavor of the game.
The Neutral: The game does have a high luck factor. One (sometimes) frustrating example is that land tiles are gained via blind draw. If your opponent is fortunate enough to gain all the various types of tiles early, they can field their entire army. If you are not lucky enough to draw that forest or desert tile that you desperately need, you cannot field units tied to that land type and it is very difficult to attack or defend, since your army will probably be smaller than your opponent that has all the land tiles. It would seem, then, that the alternative is to go to war and take someone else’s land tile that you need. However, since you cannot use all your units (those tied to the tiles that you are missing), you often cannot field a strong attack, plus your opponent will undoubtedly figure out which tiles you want to complete your set and heavily fortify those regions.
The Bad: Unfortunately, there is one rule that breaks the game. Whoever “wins” initiative during a battle, lines up their army first. If this is the defender, he/she must commit their units to certain land tiles, then the attacker can see how many units are defending each tile and can commit overwhelming force to a certain tile or two, offering great odds for capture. Fortunately, this problem can be easily overcome by making a house rule that players alternate placing their forces.
Another factor is that once a player starts to lose, it can be very hard to catch up. If you lose a land tile, and you don’t have another of its type, you must remove all units in your standing army tied to that land type, which can make you an easy target for further attacks. Defenders can commit all their standing troops for free, while the attacker must pay, so it is in the attacker’s interest to bring all of his/her army possible. Therefore, there is a tendency for two players to battle and both are wounded, while the third or fourth player watches and waits to clean up. If one’s standing army is greatly reduced, either to battle, a bad event, or losing a tile, it is very difficult to replenish your army, as you only get 1 free playing deck tile draw per turn. There is a mechanism to buy more tiles, but it is very costly. With these factors in mind, it is likely that one or more players will limp along for an hour or two with a low possibility of victory.

Summary: Although I list a few criticisms, it is still an enjoyable game. It is important to remember, this is a print and play freebie and King of the Tabletop is better than many other alternatives that will cost you. KOTT was released 25 years ago and was truly ahead of its time. Other geeks have opined that KOTT’s mechanics are similar to and/or inspired designers of several games, including Magic: The Gathering. I haven’t played Magic; my review is for KOTT by itself, and I will let the reader and player of these other games decide how much credit KOTT gets for setting the trend.
If you haven’t done so already, print out this game and give it a try. There are a few rough spots, but it is still an enjoyable way to spend part of an afternoon.

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kwanchai — 2007-12-12T21:53:28+00:00

Thread: Re: Errata

JoshBot — 2007-11-07T11:00:54+00:00

I'm doing this from memory, so it could be way off the mark.

I recall that is was about a column and a half of rules clarifications without changing anything about the game. I remember thinking that the things being clarified were never that unclear in the first place.

I see that copies of #78 are available online for about $2. I could not find any relevant scans or other info. Also, about 8 years ago Wizard of the Coast released a CD-ROM of scans of the entire run of Dragons.

If you should track this down, would you let me know?

Thread: Errata

aledain — 2007-11-07T05:20:39+00:00

Any idea what errata were included in Dragon #78?

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MartinStever — 2007-07-28T07:31:02+00:00

King of the Tabletop appeared in Dragon #77

Thread: Re: Must defender commit all troops?

pekin2121 — 2007-07-23T16:49:09+00:00

When determining initiative, the rules state that the defender must count their entire standing army. This seems to me that you must have all your standing army in the war phase. That makes sense, if you look at it realistically, that if your lands are being attacked you would want to send everyone defend them.

Thread: Re: House rule: reverse initiative

The Warp — 2007-03-11T22:08:27+00:00

We usually play that intiative winner places first, but only places one face-down tile. Then the players go back and forth placing tiles one at a time. The side with more forces gets to add the extra tiles at the end.

Thread: Re: Poposed Variant Rule: CRT

littlemute — 2007-01-19T03:20:01+00:00

It's part of the fun of the game I think, just like Warhammer. If you could create a die that took into account all the possible outcomes between two units and rolled it once (ala blood bowl) that might work, but a chart? That's just so un-king of the table top IMO.

Thread: Poposed Variant Rule: CRT

TheChin! — 2007-01-18T18:18:40+00:00

Does anyone have an opinion on using a CRT (Combat Results Table) instead of tons of dice to resolve combat?

What i'm thinking of doing is building a table, with as much of the original odds of destroying units built into it that is reasonaly possible, to eliminate the endless die rolling in this game. I'd have to create two, one for conventional combat and one for magic. Magic and Melee losses would still be simultaneous, with ranged losses being applied first. Though I'm tempted to apply magic damage at the same time as ranged, as it would, 9 times out of ten, be some kind of ranged attack (fireballs, lightening bolts...etc) but that's a different variant.

Anyway, I was debating whether to use the ubiquitous 2d6 (two six sideds), a d12 or 20, or even possibly percentile. Any thoughts on that also?

Pros: Faster combat. Less die rolling.

Cons: Some people really like taking a fist full of dice, rolling them and experiencing the thrill/despair of many/few sixes popping up. The odds of losses cannot be exactly modeled. there is a chance, no matter how slim, that you could roll all 6's on 35 dice. I don't think I could work those odds into a CRT.

Thread: Re: House rule: reverse initiative

TheChin! — 2007-01-18T18:02:54+00:00

My only thoughts are that with a static initiative rule (smaller sets up first/last, screens...etc) that you lose a certain uncertainty when attacking. We have had games were an attacker sends an army to war hoping that the they will be able to set up last, because if they set up first they will not be able to acheive their objective. That die roll really can add drama: get your way and combat goes how you wanted, lose it and you retreat your forces and have to pay them anyway.

An example of this is, it's your turn to attack and you have a small force. You know that you need a certain land-tile in order to deploy terrain-dependent forces in your tray. A certain opponent has 2 or more of these tiles with otherwise low strategic value (no town, costruction or mine), but that opponent has a large standing army that probably could severely spank you head-to-head. You decide to pay a few lowly units to raid his lands, hoping that you can set up last. If the die goes your way, the defender has to set up not knowing exactly what your intent is (though a shrewed player may be able to guess based on your visible situation) and will probably either setup to protect his/her beforementioned strategic assets, or spread the defending army thinly to protect as many tiles as possible. This leaves you a low-risk attack on a poorly defended otherwise low-value (at least to the defender) land tile. On the other hand, your strike is a failure if you lose the ability to setup last (lose initiaitve) because now your paltry force will easily be repulsed. I don't remember if the rules say when you can withdraw your army, but we always play that you can withdraw at any time up to, but not including, when defending units are flipped over for combat. This allows your raiders to return home without being destroyed, but you are still penalized by having to pay them.

Having said all that, it does seem to make more sense to have a different method than what is included in the rules for modifying the die roll to make it fair.

Thread: Re: Must defender commit all troops?

Liumas — 2007-01-06T06:31:35+00:00

I agree with this answer. Thanks.

Thread: Re: Must defender commit all troops?

TheChin! — 2006-12-18T14:21:31+00:00

Liumas wrote:
Wondering if people play that the defender must must use all of their standing army to defend when attacked. Can the defender hold back some troops? Say, having 12 troops, may the defender commit only 1 unit and hold the other 11 back in reserve (thereby only risking losing the 1 unit)?

Interesting question and in all the time I've played, I don't think this has ever come up. The rules say that the defender has to use his/her entire army for initiative purposes, but not wether you have to use your entire army in actual combat.

First, let's say that you have a few lands and are being attacked and the attacking army has deployed and they are all bunched against one land that your opponent needs. His/her army is much larger than yours and you know you are going to get slaughtered. What we usually do, is just line up the whole defending army in lands that are not being attacked. If the defender has to setup first, he/she can evenly distribute all armies among his/her lands therefeore minimizing any losses, especially if you suspect the specific land the attacker is coming for and you can defend that tile with some relatively worthless units. Of course, that's if you decide that the defender has to deploy the whole army, and the rules are just vague enough for a rules lawyer to make that case.

Liumas wrote:
Also, after the side with Initiative sets up, must the other side set up opposite the exact same lands? Say the defender wins Initiative, and then commits units to defend 2 lands, leaving, say, 3 lands undefended - may the attacker then attack any of the 3 the undefended lands, or must the attacker line up only on the opposite of the 2 defended lands?

Obviously, from my answer above, we play that you can put armies against/for any land tiles, whether there is opposition or not. This has interesting consequences for those who snatch up lots of land, but don't have the army to defend it. It also can give pause to those who might plunder such hoarders, since they might find themselves in the same predicament. Playing otherwise would eliminate this whole strategic wrinkle.

Thread: Must defender commit all troops?

Liumas — 2006-12-18T06:54:36+00:00

We broke this out over the weekend, fun. 2 questions, though.

Wondering if people play that the defender must must use all of their standing army to defend when attacked. Can the defender hold back some troops? Say, having 12 troops, may the defender commit only 1 unit and hold the other 11 back in reserve (thereby only risking losing the 1 unit)?

Also, after the side with Initiative sets up, must the other side set up opposite the exact same lands? Say the defender wins Initiative, and then commits units to defend 2 lands, leaving, say, 3 lands undefended - may the attacker then attack any of the 3 the undefended lands, or must the attacker line up only on the opposite of the 2 defended lands?

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The Warp — 2006-12-04T21:31:16+00:00

New Counters for King of the Tabletop

Thread: Re: User Review

JoshBot — 2006-08-03T15:57:05+00:00

This game is a small classic. Me and my friend Nathan Fife spent thousands of hours playing it. There is a nice mix of luck and strategy, and the art is wonderful. It's a great simple fantasy game. It's interesting to note that what made this game so charming (the art and the simplicity) did not survive its transition to becoming "Kings and Things."

Thread: Re: House rule: reverse initiative

gilbertgea — 2006-05-03T01:09:24+00:00

In combat, the defence is the stronger form of combat. It derives its strength from the fact that it can choose WHERE to fight.

The offence is the weaker form of combat. It offsets this weakness by being able to choose WHEN to fight.

With that in mind, my suggestion is that you to have the defence set up second. This will force an attacker to commit overwhelming force when he attacks.

I realise this is overly simplistic, so you can retain the random element. However, giving a smaller force a bonus or allowing the smaller force the option of setting up second could also be seen to represent the greater agility a smaller force has.

Just thinking aloud.

Geoff

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Herr Niemand — 2005-11-26T14:10:31+00:00

Thread: Re: House rule: reverse initiative

kuhrusty — 2005-11-01T06:17:10+00:00

Oh, I like the third idea. (Or, another way to say it, is, each player rolls a d6 & adds their number of units; higher total sets up first.)

For the first idea, you could have the person with the larger army place face-down units until both sides have the same number left, then they take turns placing face-down units.

Or, maybe you have the defender put up a screen covering the bottom half of their sheet (where their standing army area is); they line up their guys behind the screen, then the attacker places his guys on the table, then the defender lifts the screen.

Thread: Re: House rule: reverse initiative

Gola — 2005-10-28T16:32:48+00:00

If the idea was to give the guy with the smaller army an advantage, the rule makes no sense at all. Even without the modifier the rule seems like a bad one, since placing second can be a real make-or-break affair and it's a little too random to leave that up to a die roll.

One idea I had was that players take turns placing units face-down, with the player with the larger force placing first. A die roll would be used only when the two forces are equal.

Another idea would be that the attacker declares which tiles are being attacked; defender sets up first, and the attacker must assign at least one unit to each attacking area declared.

A third idea would be that the high roller sets up second, but the modifier is not 1 but the difference in the number of units. This makes some real-world sense, as it's easier to see a large army coming. Evenly-matched fights could go either way, but a real one-sided affair would give a little advantage to the underdog.

Thread: House rule: reverse initiative

kuhrusty — 2005-10-24T07:09:02+00:00

According to the rules, the side with the smaller army adds one to their initiative roll, and the high roller lines up his armies first (showing which land tiles he's attacking or defending). Lining up second is a huge advantage--as the attacker, it lets you go after the more weakly defended territories, and as the defender, it lets you concentrate your forces in the territories which are being attacked), so we always play that the high roller gets to line up second. (Is there some reason it makes sense as written?)

Thread: Re: Ahead Of Its Time

Curtis Anderson — 2005-09-01T01:39:15+00:00

What I think is interesting is that some of these traits that were "ahead of their time" were likely the result of trying to accommodate a board game concept to a magazine medium that encouraged alternatives to an actual board.

Thread: Re: Ahead Of Its Time

Curtis Anderson — 2005-09-01T00:33:35+00:00

I believe Titan is an ancestor (among others) of both KotTT and MtG. I have a geeklist about it.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listi...

Thread: Re: Ahead Of Its Time

littlemute — 2005-08-31T17:13:52+00:00

Everything builds on it's predecessors, nothing is made in a vacuum. I'd add twilight imperium to the list as well (the combat system is identical).

Thread: Re: Ahead Of Its Time

Hawklord — 2005-08-31T16:55:11+00:00

I met Richard Garfield several years ago at an E3 show in Los Angeles. I asked him point-blank about the similarities between M:tG and KotTT. He is a fan of Tom Wham games and stated that he must've played it sometime in the past but didn't recall. He looked at KotTT after M:tG had already been published and realized that it probably was an influence on him but he couldn't actually remember when he had played it before.

Thread: Re: Ahead Of Its Time

Nap16 — 2005-08-30T17:52:56+00:00

I couldn't agree with you more.

Thread: Re: Ahead Of Its Time

Blackberry — 2005-08-30T17:47:51+00:00

Don't forget Magic. Richard Garfield says that Magic came from Cosmic Encounter, but the similarities to King of the Tabletop are kind of ridiculous.

In both Magic and King of the Tabletop:
- You have several distinct types of land
- You "play" land in front of you to activate its power
- You then summon creatures and cast spells keyed to the types of land you have in play
- You set up a line of creatures in front of you for defense
- Each turn, your creatures can attack your opponent
- If your creatures get through your opponent's defenses, they "hurt" your opponent

I don't think it's trivial nor a coincidence.

Thread: Ahead Of Its Time

Nap16 — 2005-08-30T17:16:10+00:00

This game was ahead of its time. You only have to look at Eagles' "Age of Mythology" (tile placement and combat), "Puerto Rico" (tile and economics), and even "Magic the Gathering" (land determining the placement of troops), for a just a few examples of works inspired by this game and its mechanics.

Thread: Re: User Review

morph3u5 — 2005-07-17T01:52:42+00:00

Now remember, this game came out of a magazine and therfore the components aren't Milton Bradley Master Series, but they do have SOUL. The images on the counters, while simple, are vintage Tom Wham (I think they're done by Jeff Dee, but I could be wrong about that) and echos Snit's Revenge and Awful Green things and Wormy.

The counters were drawn by Dave Trampier, hence the resemblance to Wormy. (I love Wormy!)

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grimstuff — 2005-05-05T15:22:11+00:00

It all fits nicely in a manilla envelope.

Thread: Re:User Review

Nap16 — 2005-03-18T22:18:30+00:00

littlemute (#3275),

Are the Rules anywhere online for download?

Thread: Re:User Review

tolendante — 2002-09-08T13:39:59+00:00

Sushionrye (#3439),

The KOTT chits are also available for download on the Wizard of the Coast site.

Tolen

Thread: Re:User Review

Sushionrye — 2002-09-03T13:26:51+00:00

Thanks for cool info, guys! My friend has the Dragon Magazine Archives, and I successfully found it that way. One thing should be noted, however. The actual chits for the game are located in issue #40 (for some reason). So if you've tried to get the game through the archives and came up short, check out that other issue also (right at the end of it, I believe).

Thread: Re:User Review

bengkohn — 2002-08-23T06:44:34+00:00

littlemute (#3275),

This excellent game is also available in a PDF format if you purchased the Dragon Magazine Archive on CD-ROM.

Thread: User Review

littlemute — 2002-08-23T00:24:40+00:00

If Richard Garfield didn't play King of the TableTop at some point before designing Magic:the Gathering, I'd be very suprised. This is a fantasy game where players compete in a race to be the first to build a Gran Monument. Gran Monuments cost gold and gold comes from Cities, Mines, Villages and treasures that are found in the games fantastic mechanic: The CUP. Everything that makes up your army, your holdings, your land and your treasure is drawn randomly from the Cup. However, in order to add creatures into your armies, you must own the land type that they are from. A lion pride could not be put into play, though owned, without the player owning plains. The only way to CHOOSE what land you get is to take already owned land from other players!

Players can bid for a small group of special Heros in addition to draws from the CUP that have some extremely powerful special abilities, but can be quite costly to recruit.

There is no map in the game, players sit across from each other with sheets of paper that have places for land tiles and their corresponding defenders or augmentations. Attacks can be made on any owned land tile on the board. In this, I think King of the Tabletop is superior to it's officially published version, the also excellent, Kings and Things. Kings and Things has a random hex map, which complicates the real issue at hand by making players move little counters around on hexes rather than just saying: "I'm attacking there!" As player's holdings increase, his ability to defend his territory fully decreases and later in the game, lands without cities, towers or mines tend to switch ownership very often. Though more abstract, King of the TableTop works very well without a map and, once you play it, you realize it was a harbringer, if not a direct influence (which can only be conjectured) on Magic: the Gathering.

Winning the game is not complicated, but it leads to a messy situation as players will oftentimes both build the required gran monument in the same turn, which means all out war until one player is able to take both.

The combat system is also simple and brilliant, and almost worthy of being a standard for dice war games. Since the defender is the one who chooses which units of his own to remove as casualties, heavy hitters can be protected, and the attachment during a game to a certain unit (either the: "damn the GREEN KNIGHT JUST WON'T DIE" or "I love my little dragon") is common.

Now remember, this game came out of a magazine and therfore the components aren't Milton Bradley Master Series, but they do have SOUL. The images on the counters, while simple, are vintage Tom Wham (I think they're done by Jeff Dee, but I could be wrong about that) and echos Snit's Revenge and Awful Green things and Wormy.

As time goes on, copies of Dragon issue 77 will disappear from the world in floods and fires and baby drools or cat shredding, but for now, if you can get your hands on one, you'll be well pleased by this Tom Wham gem.

lm