The Three Kingdoms era of Chinese History has long been a topic of fascination for me and my brothers growing up.
I’ve never really GMed my own content before, but really wanted to set up a campaign for my brother, wife, and a few friends who’ve been drawn unwittingly into my esoteric interests. Because nothing existed to support my interests, I cobbled together a combination of Cortex Prime, which is incredibly modular and perfect for the purpose, and Reign, a fantasy RPG with rules for governing interactions between groups.
For those who may not know, the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history is a massive, 80-year civil war during which 1/4 of the entire world’s population died. There are countless factions that ultimately condensed down to three major factions: hence the Three Kingdoms.
My players have assumed the leadership of the fictional Hiahe City, after the previous ruler died at the Battle of Hulao Pass. Dong Zhuo remains ensconced in power in the new capital and rumors of a powerful sorceress becoming his newly adopted daughter imply his power may still be rising.
Hiahe city has been economically devastated by banditry, it’s martial might a fraction of its former self after the battle and internal strife from various political families, many of whom have been courted by the envious Han Fu, a powerful but short-sighted nearby governor.
After spending their first session familiarizing themselves with their problems and the setting at large, the players made shrewd decisions to buy time with internal factions in order to focus on dealing with the banditry.
They located a group of Yellow Turbans (rebels from the civil war just ten years prior) and offered them supplies and potential amnesty should they help with the banditry. With some clever talking from the party’s Taoist monk and some abundantly generous supplies and the former rebels agreed to aid the players.
In an unexpected turn of events, Gongsan Zan’s emissary, Zhao Yun, arrived with an offer of aid due to the city’s former master having saved his life at the battle of Hulao Pass. I fully expected my players to sit on this marker and save it for the storms that lie ahead, but instead they called it in immediately to arrange an overwhelming attack on the Black Mountain Bandits.
The result was an absolutely devastating battle in which two of our players rode out and defeated the enemy commander, Zhang Yan, one of Gongsan Zan’s former lieutenants. With his death and the overwhelming allied might, the bandits routed almost immediately and their encampment was seized and their forces totally dispersed. Even some of the less martial players were able to serve with distinction and make a name for themselves.
Zhao Yun, a legendary warrior from this period, became close friends with the player who serves as the spymaster and for those familiar with the setting, everyone hopes to lure him to serve Hiahe.
Some players were upset at “wasting” the marker from Gongsun Zan. He was a powerful cavalry commander, think Rohan, who could have been a life saver in a pinch or the hammer to their anvil. Time will tell, but building brotherhood with Zhao Yun and completely dispersing the Black Mountain Bandits were unexpected outcomes from my perspective as the GM.
Other players felt that employing former rebels to aid in the battle would come back to haunt them and there are certainly powerful families within the city who will be very upset to see former yellow turbans in the militia.
That said, they’re flush with bandit treasure, have firmly established themselves as the new sovereigns and have laid the groundwork for renewed prosperity in the region.
Still, unrest remains within the city as various factions vie for influence and wealth. Han Fu’s reach grows longer and Dong Zhuo threatens to extend his control beyond the capital once more.
Still further ahead men of virtue and ambition, such as Liu Bei, Yuan Shao, and the infamous Cao Cao, all wait to make their move and build their name.
How do you like the system? Have you played with it before, or is this your first campaign with it? What works well about it?
This is my first with both Cortex Prime and Reign. With Cortex Prime, I wanted something like Fate, but a little meatier and no custom dice needed. Cortex delivers that in spades.
Cortex is very modular, which is a blessing and a curse. It means you can get it to do almost anything you want, but there’s a fair amount of prep to set up the campaign.
That said, rolling in Cortex is really fun. It’s fast and generally helps raise the stakes in storytelling without bogging anyone down. As an added bonus, because it’s so modular, if I need to quickly invent a new roll or challenge, all the hooks are there to let me do it quickly and seamlessly.
Reign, on the other hand, isn’t being used much from a dice rolling perspective, but its company system is the engine that powers the whole campaign.
Their city is a company that has its own stats and resources and I can generate problems for them to face. Your base company score is seldom sufficient to deal with the problem at hand, so you need to create your own missions to gain additional dice to address the problem.
For the bandits, the players went on a scouting mission to determine the best approach and attack, liaisoned with yellow turbans, designed strategies and finally brought in Gongsan Zan as allies in order to address the problem.
Outside of that last point, these were all self-directed missions the players came up with and pursued on their own.
Reign is amazing for creating player agency and quests that feel like they matter.
This sounds amazing. Do you mind sharing your Cortex Prime setup? Which traits and mods are you using?
So standard distinctions with three prime attributes, charm, intellect and war, as a throwback to Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2 on the SNES, which is where I first caught the bug. Finally, there’s the default skills as recommended by Cortex.
It’s not overly complicated and I have one power gamer that desperately wants to abuse Influence and Charm to control everyone.
That said, I’ve made it clear we’re working to tell a story together and everyone is really leaning into that to see where the adventure goes.
I love the Three Kingdoms Era! Ever since I got sucked into Dynasty Warriors. Although it’s too bad I always liked the Wu clan and the book always positioned the Shu as the main protagonists. I’m surprised no one has made an official rpg for it yet.
Wu clan are bros, don’t let anyone tell you differently. With Dong Zhuo still alive, Sun Jian is going chart a new course. He may still die in an ambush shortly or he may live on and establish a lasting foundation for his children. For now, he’s rampaging across the southlands under the guise of unifying the lands to defeat Dong Zhuo.
That’s awesome. It must be cool seeing an alternative time line.