Exiles plays a lot like a skirmish wargame on the tabletop, but it’s really an RPG at heart.

It’s important to keep that in mind when you’re the Governor because, just like in any RPG, you can always kill the players.

Exiles isn’t Super Dungeon Explore. It isn’t an adversarial game designed to pit the skill of the GM against the players in a no-holds-barred death match.

The Governor can always steamroll the players because Exiles is an RPG.

As the Governor, it’s not your job to kill the players. It’s not even your job to win. Your job is to support the story and keep the game moving at a brisk pace.

The good news is that Exiles makes this painfully easy for you. As the Governor, you don’t even have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the story is supposed to be!

Every Exiles Scenario starts with a brief summery of what the fuck is going on and a little story for you to read to the players.

Each Event in a Scenario also has a trio of Betterments, which are objectives the Governor should be trying to achieve during the game. Yea, yea, that sounds cool and all, but what do Betterments have to do with the story?

Everything.

Not only are Betterments never about murder-facing the players, they’re also closely tied to the story of the game. Most Betterments force the Bad Guys to do shit that would be really stupid if your only goal was to kill all the players, but which make a shitload of sense if you think about the story.

So remember, if you’re the Governor, it’s not your job to kill all the players. Focus on achieving your Betterments and things will be hunky-dory

Next time we’ll take a look at game balance.