ACKS II is Kickstarting on October 24

Be Sure to Back Day 1 for a Special Bonus Item!

Friends, Aurans, countrymen — the time of rebirth is at hand! Adventurer Conqueror King System™ Imperial Imprint (ACKS II) will be Kickstarting on October 24th.

ACKS II is the new edition of my acclaimed bestselling fantasy role-playing game. Within the pages of ACKS II you'll find everything you need to enjoy epic fantasy campaigns with a sweeping scope. Whether you want to crawl through dungeons, experiment with alchemy, crossbreed monsters, run a merchant emporium, raise an undead legion, or conquer an empire, ACKS II supports your playstyle.  

Built on more than 12 years of playtesting and hundreds of hours of methodical research and development, ACKS II is a three-volume D20 fantasy RPG with comprehensive mechanics that create a living, breathing world -- one in which the rules function as natural laws, and players are endowed with the agency only objective mechanics can provide. I aim for it to be the defining game of the simulationist renaissance.

Since the inception of the Old School Renaissance in 2008, there have been countless retro-clones of D20 fantasy games.  Any gamer seeking an old-school RPP has a thousand options. But ACKS II isn't like any of those games. Because with ACKS II you get:

• Endgame action that's more than just a treadmill of higher HD foes. Build and run domains, conquer your enemies in grand wars, break the laws of magic with ritual experiments,  run a criminal syndicate, even anoint yourself a god and empower yourself with the worship of your loyal subjects. The experience point mechanics integrate campaign activities into the core gameplay loop, enabling your character to level up in new ways as his temporal power grows!

• Epic pitched battles as grand as any in fiction or history. Don't settle for so-called "mass combat" rules that can't handle battles bigger than a few hundred combatants. With ACKS II you can field armies that measure in the hundreds of thousands and fight hordes that make the earth shiver.

• Integrated in-game economics that make sense. Naysayers will claim that fantasy adventure worlds can never have plausible in-game economies. ACKS II proves them wrong with a robust economic system that's easy to use because we've done all the heavy lifting for you.

• Sandbox setting design that emphasizes player agency. Our clear,  comprehensive  (and comprehensible!) guidelines, based on the top down zoom-in method in our book Arbiter of Worlds, help your world come to life.

• Fractal design with modular rules. ACKS II is designed to let you focus on what matters to your campaign, diving as deeply as you want into any area of the game knowing that it just works at every level. 

• Customizable and transparent construction tools. We open up the hood and let you see how the ACKS II engine runs. Build your own custom classes, spells, magic types, monsters, and more, knowing that anything you create will mesh well and balance properly with the canon material. 

• Fearsome fighters that can change the course of a pitched battle.  Say goodbye to "quadratic mages and linear fighters" and embrace epic heroism. Combat mechanics for cleaves, sweep attacks, and special maneuvers allow your fighters to conduct a symphony of slaughter on the battlefield.

• Thrilling thieves that lead the way in dungeon delves and urban adventures.  In ACKS II, thieves are skilled experts from level one. With special mechanics for shadowy senses, hasty searching, hijinks, and more, thieves can finally steal the spotlight.

Whatever you've ever wanted to do in a fantasy world -- ACKS II already does that. I hope I can count on your support on launch day! Everyone who backs in the first 24 hours will receive a special bonus item as a thank you for helping us fund.

The Philosophy of Simulationism

If you’ve read my substack essay “The Philosophy of Simulationism,” you already be familiar with the topic of this week’s video. That said, it has a bit of new material so even if you’ve read the words head on over to YouTube to watch the sounds:

Actual Play Reports of ACKS

There are more people playing ACKS today than at any point in the game’s 12-year history. It’s incredibly gratifying to me as a designer and it gives me hope that ACKS II will reach an even broader base. With the help of the Autarch Discordians, I compiled some links to ACKS campaigns:

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Subscribed

• Acksen Vul

• Brigadungeon

• BDubs and Dragons

• Long Florida

• The Phoenix Tome

And here’s our flourishing Substack community:

If you have a blog or third-party product that supports ACKS or Ascendant, please let me know and I’ll be happy to include you in my next round-up.

ACKS II Update

This October, Adventurer-tier backers of my Patreon will be getting a sneak preview of the ACKS II Revised Rulebook, Conqueror-tier backers will get a sneak preview of the Judges Journal, and King-tier backers will get a sneak preview of the Monstrous Manual. If you’ve been wanting to check out how ACKS II is shaping up, you can head over to the Patreon now.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel, then head over to the links below for others ways to get involved in my recently-declared Simulationist culture movement. If you’re already a fan, be kind and spread the word!

• Autarch Discord with the smartest, nicest gamers around [fixed!]

• Autarch Reddit with a sub-set of the aforementioned smartest, nicest gamers

• ACKS Patreon with sneak previews of ACKS II every month

• Ascendant Patreon with a new character and story hook every month

• Autarch Facebook page with news and updates about our projects

• Autarch Twitter channel with brief comments and witty quirks

• Ascendant Comics Facebook page with sneak previews of the upcoming comics

• Ascendant Comics Instagram page with tons of art and cosplay

• Ascendant Comics Twitter channel with short messages and quirky wit

• ACKS Forums with discussion for the game

• Ascendant Forums with FAQ and Errata for the game

Thanks for reading Arbiter of Worlds! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.