The Small Council Game is a council mechanic from the Everybody Dies megagame, where players are trying to counterbalance a chaotic ruler.
Design background
The Small Council Game was developed for the Everybody Dies megagame in 2016 and inspired by Hitler’s Henchmen by Jim Wallman (Stone Paper Scissors). The design was for a council game where councillors with diverse motivations would be trying to direct the will of the Mad King.
At all three runs of the game which contained the Small Council Game, it was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the day.
How to play
The game is designed for nine players and one Facilitator who also roleplays as the King. It takes around 15 minutes per round, although this can easily be extended to give more time for discussion.
The Small Council Game is a megagame mechanic and has not been reworked to be a standalone game. As such, it won’t be suitable for an inexperienced DM to run the game straight out of the downloaded files. Instead, it is available for playtesting, experimenting and design inspiration.
Free game materials
All game materials for the Small Council Game, including game handbook, setup guide, player briefs and matters, are available to download for free.
You are free to download and adapt the game for your personal use under a under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
This means you may share and adapt the following works freely, including for commercial use, as long as you give appropriate credit and only distribute adaptions created from the below under the same license as this one.