Small things make base men proud

There is an interesting article on the boardgame Kingmaker in the June edition of the Ricardian Bulletin, the magazine of the Richard III Society. It focuses on the Avalon Hill version, which makes sense, but means I don't really know whether I agree with the points he makes. I own, and have only ever played, the original Ariel version.

The article is written for an audience to whom Cluedo is a radical new departure in boardgaming and so is mainly about the theme of the game. In that sense I was a bit surprised that he didn't mention that a couple of years ago two other games with the same theme were issued in quick succession. ‘Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York’ from Z-Man Games is a game for up to four players and ‘Richard III: The Wars of the Roses’ from Columbia Games is a two player game. I have never played the former, but the latter is focussed on the military aspects and runs through a series of invasions by pretenders to the throne; the first such being Richard, Duke of York. The outcome of the opening campaign determines whether York or Lancaster is incumbent or pretender in the second and who has died and who lived determines precisely who the next pretender is. It covers the whole thirty years of the conflict so it is possible that, for example, the Earl of Rutland may end up with the crown for the House of York by counterfactually surviving while others don’t. Certain nobles, including Clarence, Buckingham etc can appear on either side at different times depending on how things pan out.