RPGs with campaign level mechanics


Other RPGs


Hello everyone, i was looking through games like Burning Empires and the Kingmaker AP kingdom system for something i am planning, and was wondering if there are more games/systems like that out there.

To formulate it a little bit clearer, i am looking for RPGs where the time between "adventures" is somehow mechanically handled or that adventures themselves are generated by the campaign mechanics.

So feel free to share what games to have come across that would fit that description :)

Dark Archive

The One Ring has a very specific downtime subsystem ingrained in basic adventuring.

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying - a Game of Thrones Edition also features in-between stuff to do - handling a noble house and its domain is no easy task.
This maybe fits better in your request, as a lot of adventuring may stem from events determined by this phase of the game.

The latest DragonAGE set (set 3) also introduces organizations and their handling by high level PCs, and it's most definitively stuff that may generate adventures.

Adventurer Conqueror King has extensive rules on kingdoms, guild, organizations and stuff to handle off adventuring.


Mouseguard - this has off-adventure time, but similar to Burning Empire, it's paced by active adventure time.

Pendragon - has manor management. The game overall has some game pacing mechanics, but it's also paced by in-game time as well.

3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars - it's a very simplistic game overall, but has between mission mechanics.


Pendragon isn't just manors, it has larger scale management, full fiefs with vassals, although that's in supplements rather than the core rules.

It's hard to say with some games whether their systems meet your criteria. Reign for instance might see a player sometimes running a single character in various types of adventure, or sometimes running an organisation (such as a trading company) and engaging in entirely different sorts of activity - but this isn't downtime so much as playing a different "character" in a different scale of game.

Otherwise, there's a whole lot of games with supplements that cover the activities involved in running organisations rather than single characters. And for that matter there are non-RPG rules that would make this easier, both simple and complex.


Ars Magica has a lot of the same stuff as Pendragon. Domain management is a major component of the game.
BECMI/RC has a lot of stuff in the core rules.
Birthright is basically an entire D&D setting about ruling kingdoms.
L5R has supplements for stuff beyond direct character interaction. Not very detailed but interesting enough


Artesia: Adventures in the known world has some. It also has the best experience system ever.


Irontruth wrote:
Mouseguard - this has off-adventure time, but similar to Burning Empire, it's paced by active adventure time.

Hmm... Also, there's the "Seasons" mechanic, where the target number for survival-based challenges changes dependent on the season, and the season is dependent on how many such challenges have been used.

Liberty's Edge

Seconding Pendragon. It isn't just an RPG its a life story.

The Exchange

Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
Mouseguard - this has off-adventure time, but similar to Burning Empire, it's paced by active adventure time.
Hmm... Also, there's the "Seasons" mechanic, where the target number for survival-based challenges changes dependent on the season, and the season is dependent on how many such challenges have been used.

I'd also add Torchbearer into the pile with Mouse Guard. Torchbearer divides the game into "phases," where you start in the adventure phase (going into a dungeon), during the adventure phase you'll probably get into conflicts and move into a conflict phase, at some point you'll retreat into a safe place for a camp phase, and finally return to town for a town phase where you rest, recuperate and restock. Every time you return to town the GM is supposed to roll for new events in town, which can be as mundane as a religious festival in town or as dramatic as the town having gone to war with another town on the campaign map.

In addition to this, there's also seasons, and Winter is not meant for adventuring, it's the time of the year when you'll just sit next to the hearth with your friends and share stories, allowing you to change elements of your character to suit their personal development.

So, while it doesn't really have mechanics for supporting Kingmaker style "from zeroes to heroes" play, it does have mechanical support for activities that take place outside of the scope of the traditional adventure setting, and those events can also affect the campaign map.


Not released yet, the kickstarter campaign just finished, but Blades in the Dark.

You play criminals, you go on a job to do whatever it is you do (steal, murder, smuggle, etc). Then downtime between jobs is regulated on what you can do and how many times you can do it. Each player has their character sheet, but the group also has a sheet, which serves partially as a tracker of what is happening in the campaign.


The Houses of the Blooded is about playing a noble and developing your land.

Liberty's Edge

2e D&D Birthright. That was all sorts of fun.

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

Exalted has the mandate of heaven rules. This is about the development of an organization (guild, kingdom, empire), how it relates to those around it (productively, covertly, or overtly), and growing the organization in the face of opposition.


In Against the Dark Yogi player characters will sometimes, live, die and reincarnate between adventurers. It's fantasy based on mythic India, so reincarnation is potentially a big theme in the game.

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