Have you found that numbers-heavy "domain/kingdom management" subsystems usually lead to the group ceding control over...

Sounds like you would enjoy Rogue Trader.

That works unless you just like dealing with numbers and spreadsheets. Or are actually autistic.

You shouldn't be embarrased unless other players say they would like to also have some ruling agency. Sometimes people don't enjoy domain managment and willingly cede it to others.

Everybody has their talents. See if your DM can put less emphasis on yours.

That's called 'division of labour', OP, and has been happening ever since someone was able to sit on a rock and smack rocks together until they flaked off just right to leave edges.
Quite literally, they have found sites where people were doing that. Huge amounts of waste flint in one place, along with animal bones.

You have been nominated the party accountant. If you don't like it, cut their budget.

If you do it alone, demand more of the profit.

I am playing in a game like that (in fact, I am 99% sure OP is my co-player) and I will say this is less a problem with dividing labor and more with gaining the most influence on plot and narrative. If you make all the downtime decision it is pretty easy to take the control from other players.

Just like in real life.

That is surprisingly true.

> Demand
You don't even need to demand. Just allocate yourself more of the funding on the spreadsheet, if they don't check your workings.

Do the domain management in a more narrative way.

Say "here's what happened through the year" and let each player chime in once or twice to say "nuh-uh. I was there to help, so it went better".

The problem is that "domain/kingdom management" mechanics aren't broken down in roles that seperate players could handle and then bring together for communal results - say each player was operating a company within a guild.

Basically recreate the dynamics of an adventurer party but on a larger scale.

I have no idea how to use what you said.

Not but make players have to do something other than say "We do X, so the serfs are all now reorganized into more efficient state run farms." Because in real life people have tried doing that multiple times, and the normal result is a complete cluster fuck with sabotage by angry farmers and poorly implemented leadership reducing total farm output so badly that you get a famine and death squads hanging people by quota to try keeping order.

So instead of just letting the book keeper implement anachronistically effective technology or economic plans, make the party members distribute the workload by aptitude. Have the face go give speeches to convince the unwashed masses that this state run farm thing isn't a scam. Have the rogue find out who are trouble makers and what will need to be done to get them in line or if the the party muscle will have to liquidate them. Have the orc go work on orc-human relations so there will not be a invasion during the re-organization.

If the party does a good job and at delegation to allies/henchmen, then let them now have those bumper crops. If they fuck it all up, give them a riot and long list of pissed on locals even less willing to cooperate in the future.

What game, OP?

Not many actually have sensible domain/strategic level rules, so it usually just ends up being who's best at convincing the GM their idea is good. Sure they'll make up some checks or whatever but it's pretty ad-hoc and unbalanced and essentially ends up just being disguised GM fiat.

That change of pace from the way the rest of the game works often throws players off, and so they choose not to engage with it.

Some Birthright 2e domain management, some Pathfinder kingdom-building, some Godbound.

All of these have easily gameable, heavy numbers-based, complete messes of kingdom/domain management.

To this day, I have not found a single kingdom/domain management system that was not easily gameable in some form, without also being boiled down to simple narrative-generators ala Kingdom. I was not too impressed by ACKS either.

To be fair though, I find the vast majority of RPGs easily gameable.

If you want a solid balanced kingdom building engine you should play boardgames, cause there's no RPG that does it right

I feel like the narrative stuff is fine. If you're playing an RPG it should be story driven. If you want number crunching a video or board game is the better choice.

Update when?

I agree on this count, and that is why I generally prefer it when a GM handles kingdom/domain management via fiat than via subsystem.

If you boil everything down to numbers then it is indeed very easy to game most RPGs. Their mechanics are often ill-suited for actually simulating anything and can be analyzed and exploited for optimal results in given situations. It's just a matter of reading through materials and simple math. I don't think you will find anything suiting you if you are not willing to not overlook abusable parts of the mechanics for the sake of in-game believability.

For what it is worth, my favorite family of RPGs is the PbtA family (the better ones, like Fellowship and Apocalypse World 2e, *not* Dungeon World). While they are rules-lite, they are tightly-worded and very clear on their rules, and they are rather difficult to game.

Because they concern themselves more with making sure the story flows neatly and is as engaging as possible rather than simulating anything. The math is there just to provide some random chance. They are also rather well-made in general, at least as long as you keep their philosophy in mind.

That said, did ApoWorld 2E change anything big? I wasn't paying attention to it.