ou may be wondering to yourself, "How does Dark Kingdoms differ from any other table-top Role-Playing Game?" or even "What is a Role-Playing Game?" Well, calm down, I'm about to explain all of that. First of all, an RPG is an immersive story-telling game that allows players to play the part of one of the characters in the story. No, that doesn't mean you have to dress up and play pretend. Some people do, but that's not really what it is all about. I believe that RPGs make for a great party game with a handful of friends, and even better with the right kinds of friends. To play, you start out by creating a character that interests you. That character gets different abilities that you choose, gaining more over time and becoming more powerful each time you play. You need to guide your character through dangerous traps, villainous monsters, and difficult predicaments to survive though.

Now you may be wondering how Dark Kingdoms differs from those other RPGs. What makes it so exciting? Fear not, there's plenty! First off, the dark and evil world of Caxtrin conceals many dangerous places; the Darkyns have made sure of that. What better role-playing enviornment than one that keeps players on guard at all times? In this world, expect the unexpected and fear the unknown! This isn't all that makes Dark Kingdoms so enjoyable to play though. Oh no. The entire system it is built on has been designed with the player's interests in mind. The rules and details of the game are very simple to learn and understand, and the game is packed full of upgradeable skills, spells, character abilities, and unique items. This game does not require you to buy 5 different books to get started either. Everything is compiled together from monsters to spells to magical equipment to a short start-up adventure in the back. Expansions will be added to the game later where you will have options of even more abilities, but it is up to you on whether you want to expand or not.

Okay, now we get to the part explaining a bit of the combat system. Strategy and cunning are a must to surpass any challenging battle in Dark Kingdoms. Here's a short explanation of it.

This is where you keep track of the time line for the battle. For the purpose of this demonstration, one character (a Priest) is battling a zombie. Both the character and the monster roll their initiative, which is always 2 four-sided dice. Everyone's initiative roll receives a modification, depending on how fast the character is. In this case, the Priest has +3 to his rolls. The zombie, however, is slow and receives +6 to all rolls. Now, the Priest rolls a 3 for initiative, and therefore places his token on 6 (because of the +3 to all initiative rolls he receives). The zombie also rolls a 3, but places its token on 9 (+6 to initiative rolls). The Initiative Bar now looks like this (Priest is green and zombie is red).

Getting this so far? Yeah, it's pretty easy. Now, since the Priest's token is before the zombie's, he has the chance to act first. This is where the Battle Dice come in (you can see a picture of them here). All characters will get an amount of these dice to roll, depending on their level, specialties, gear, and other things. More powerful characters will get to roll more. For the purpose of this demonstration, we will give the Priest 6 of them. The player grabs up the dice, and tosses them while hoping for the best, and rolls this:

When attacking, the number of swords that are rolled are counted up and noted while the shields are ignored. In this case, there are 6 hits (crossed swords count for 2 hits and single swords count for 1 hit each). Oh yeah! Try to dodge that zombie. Now the zombie has to try and defend against this attack with the Battle Dice. Characters receive an amount of these dice to defend from attacks depending on their level and abilities. Zombies receive 2, so yea, this might hurt a bit! The zombie rolls its 2 dice to defend from the attack and gets:

Hmmm, that can't be good! When defending, the number of shields that were rolled are counted up and noted while the swords are ignored. In this case, 1 shield was rolled in an attempt to block the 6 hits. This means 5 hits go unblocked. Well, that's going to hurt! In Dark Kingdoms, more damage is inflicted with more hits that go unblocked. Suppose the Priest uses a long sword that inflicts d10 (10-sided die) for damage. This means that he gets to roll 5d10 (five 10-sided dice). After damage is decided, and the Priest's turn is over, he now rolls initiative again to see how long it will be until his next action. The Priest rolls a 5 for initiative, so he moves up 8 (don't forget the +3 to all of his initiative rolls), putting him on 14 (he was on 6, and moves up 8). The Initiative Bar should now look like this:

All right, we're moving along now. It is the Zombie's turn to go since it is now the lowest on the Initiative Bar, and it wants to eat the fleshy brain of the Priest. Well, the zombie grabs at his neck and tries to bite through his skull. It rolls the Battle Dice for an attack (zombies get 5 when attacking), and gets:

Wow, 4 hits by the zombie, and the Priest needs to block it. Things aren't looking good for our hero. At least he is better equipped to block the attack. With a silent call to the Gods, the Priest puts up his block, rolls the 5 Battle Dice he receives for defense, and gets:

Now that was close. The Priest barely escapes his brain being chewed on by rolling 4 shields. The double shield counts for 2 blocks, and all single shields count for 1 block each. Since all of the hits were blocked, no damage is inflicted to the Priest. Since the zombie's turn is over, it must roll initiative to see when its next action will be. Oh, a 10. Well, that moves the zombie up 16 on the Initiative Bar (+6 to the zombie's initiative roll). It should now look like this:

Okay, Priest's turn again, and he wants to give the zombie another good smiting, but this time with a Ball of Fire spell. He now uses the Battle Dice again, but receives a different amount when casting magic, depending on his level, intelligence, and other specializations. I think you get the idea of the Battle Dice by now, so there's no need to show them again. Just like weapons, spells inflict an amount of damage for every hit that goes unblocked (in this case 2d6 per hit). Spells have their own initiative instead of rolling the dice afterwards. This particular spell has an initiative of 4, so the Priest's initiative moves up 7 after casting it (4 for the spell and +3 to all initiative). This puts the Priest at 21 on the Initiative Bar as shown below (he was on 14 and moved up 7).

Look at that, the Priest gets to go again! You got to love when that happens. The next attack kills the zombie, and the Priest gets to collect the treasure and Experience Points! Yay! Well, that's it. Your quick run through of the battle system of Dark Kingdoms.

There are a lot more mechanics and strategy to the game, such as a pool of Fate Points that let you change or increase rolls, but these must be spent wisely throughout the battle. You can even choose to use a more offensive or defensive attack strategy by sacrificing dice for a later roll. On top of that, there are tons of different battle skills for the many different types of characters to give the battles more depth. I urge you to check out the game on the Extras page so that you can try it out for yourself. Good luck and have fun trying to stay alive in the deadly world of Dark Kingdoms.