Divine Right - Old School Fantasy Wargaming

 

My friend "Clancy" offered to play his old and battered copy of Divine Right... And so I gathered a couple more players to give this venerable relic a try. 

You can barely make out the wonderful first edition illustration by Kenneth "Elrohir" Rahman under all the tape. This was published in 1979 by none other than TSR, so you can expect a lot of D&D flavor here, including regenerating rubbery Trolls.

Nan, mais nan, mais regardez-moi cette momie!

Obviously Clancy played this a lot back in the days... I can spot some recent efforts to keep all the tokens organized however.

Au moins il y a un effort de rangement...

The map – designed by none other than legendary D&D artist David Trampier – looks great even by modern standards, with its bright pink, teal and orange colors. The black border includes a summary of the game turn and some other nifty rules references. A turn counter sits at the bottom. Supposedly, this is played in 20 turns but we only managed 10 in our four-hour game.

Des couleurs pétantes sur un fond noir: franchement, je dis bravo au DA de TSR de l'époque (1979).

The setup for four players includes mandatory finger-food. In this age of plastic miniatures overload, it's almost refreshing to use cardbord chits to represent military units.

Règle de stratégie #1: détourner l'attention de l'adversaire à l'aide de divers appâts gustatifs.

A good portion of the game consists of attempts to forge and maintain alliances with non-player monarchs though a system of dice rolls somewhat akin to D&D's reaction rolls. Each NPC has his or her own personality and is more or less susceptible to different diplomatic tactics (diplomacy cards drawn at the start of each turn) such as threat, black magic or even mariage. 

Otherwise it's pretty straightforward move-and-roll-to-attack fare. You can stack your chits to buff up your units and try to besiege your opponents and their allies or attack their amies. In a totally retro fashion, outcomes are decided according to a die roll and a (simple) formula. There is also quite a bit of talk around the table to try and sway alliances amongst players.

Altough it doesn't quite abide by modern game design standards, Divine Right is still an enjoyable – if somewhat drwan-out – game forty years after its initial release. Its randomness would probably drive competitive gamers nuts, but it definitely adds excitement to an already flavorful game. And apparently, it is a major influence on Cole Wehrle's Oath: Chronicles of empire and Exile (2021).