|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So I'm planning out the first session for my Kingmaker game and decided I wanted to open the game with the PCs invited to a "social mixer", basically a chance for the Lord Mayor to show off the chartered groups to a mix of Swordlords, merchants, and local nobles. The goal is to give the PCs the impression how political the choice to send the groups out is, as well as to give them an impression of the leaders of the other groups. The leader of the Iron Wraiths and his aide-de-camp will be present as well as Maegar Varn and Baroness Stroon-Drelev (her husband departed early so he could time his departure with a southbound caravan headed down the East Sellen).
I'm building up the captain of the Iron Wraiths as a 7th level Ranger so they can get the impression that the Wraiths are (currently) much more experienced group. I'm setting the background of the Wraiths as a mercenary company with experience raiding into Numeria on behalf of Brevoy, and the captain has even acquired a piece of Numerian technology that has earned him the ire of the Technic League (a skymetal gauntlet that bound to his hand and functions as a ring of force shield). I'm looking forward to the PC's finding his severed arm with the gauntlet still attached during Part 5, as part of either Irovetti or the giants loot.
Maegar Varn I plan on playing up as a genuinely nice guy who is taking the opportunity to make his name. I'm not sure of the PCs backgrounds yet, but my goal is to strike up either a long distance friendship or romance with one of the PCs so that when Varnhold goes silent in Part 3 the PCs will a) have more incentive to investigate and b) be more horrified when they find out his final fate.
I'm also planning on creating a few merchants and lords to meet who will be the ones responsible for providing the gold, equipment, and manpower for the early BP that Restov awards the PCs. As the campaign progresses, the plan is for some of the merchants and nobles to fall out of favor and probably towards the very end have one effectively sell Restov out to New Stetven (I'm hoping to follow up the campaign with the Rostland Rebellion).
I think I've got most of the significant players in Restov lined up, but if anyone has any thoughts on how to further flesh out the ideas above or additional people worth including in the social, I'd love to read them.
So I'm planning out the first session for my Kingmaker game and decided I wanted to open the game with the PCs invited to a "social mixer", basically a chance for the Lord Mayor to show off the chartered groups to a mix of Swordlords, merchants, and local nobles. The goal is to give the PCs the impression how political the choice to send the groups out is, as well as to give them an impression of the leaders of the other groups. The leader of the Iron Wraiths and his aide-de-camp will be present as well as Maegar Varn and Baroness Stroon-Drelev (her husband departed early so he could time his departure with a southbound caravan headed down the East Sellen).
I'm building up the captain of the Iron Wraiths as a 7th level Ranger so they can get the impression that the Wraiths are (currently) much more experienced group. I'm setting the background of the Wraiths as a mercenary company with experience raiding into Numeria on behalf of Brevoy, and the captain has even acquired a piece of Numerian technology that has earned him the ire of the Technic League (a skymetal gauntlet that bound to his hand and functions as a ring of force shield). I'm looking forward to the PC's finding his severed arm with the gauntlet still attached during Part 5, as part of either Irovetti or the giants loot.
Maegar Varn I plan on playing up as a genuinely nice guy who is taking the opportunity to make his name. I'm not sure of the PCs backgrounds yet, but my goal is to strike up either a long distance friendship or romance with one of the PCs so that when Varnhold goes silent in Part 3 the PCs will a) have more incentive to investigate and b) be more horrified when they find out his final fate.
I'm also planning on creating a few merchants and lords to meet who will be the ones responsible for providing the gold, equipment, and manpower for the early BP that Restov awards the PCs. As the campaign progresses, the plan is for some of the merchants and nobles to fall out of favor and probably towards the very end have...
Sounds fun. My only caution is not to make Maegar Varn too nice a guy, or his war with the centaurs might not make sense to the PCs. The fact that he allows centaurs to be skinned for their hides isn't the mark of a really, really nice guy. If your PCs like him too much, they might have a harder time befriending the centaurs later.
In my game, they had very friendly relations with Varn, but he came across as very practical and just a bit ruthless, to the extent that he is willing to do whatever it takes to make his Barony prosper. My players valued him as an ally (the Baroness married a cousin off to him), but wouldn't go so far as to call him a close friend.
I did something similar, though in between books 1 and 2, for the three groups that returned as they were all gathering up colonists. Good stuff!
|
This sounds very cool, and I wish I had read your post and done something similar to this before I had them set off to Olegs post.
You might consider having your group be invited to some big galas, tournaments, or royal balls, where they can meet NPCs you might want to introduce along the way. Also, they could meet NPCs players may want to enlist for help later on, like famous mediators or diplomats, merchants, etc.
Our own Kingmaker game is influenced by my love for Westeros and Game of Thrones style play. I set up the Rostland Swordlords as non-ruling noble families who have substantial troops and levies as well as extensive land holdings (they were ruling nobility before Choral came). Issia has set up a series of Barons and Dukes (Lebeda and Rogarvi before the disappearance) to rule Rostland, and peace between the two groups varies depending on local leadership. I have the swordlords a council of 7 to make decisions and had then tied by blood to the family of one of my noble PCs.
Now the PCs have to balance between exploring and building their kingdoms and keeping track of whats happening back home, and have had to make several tough decisions about whether to go back and take care of family situations or not. Right now, there is a hearing before an incompetent, insolent lord who is likely to rule in favor of a noble who raped one of the Swordlords cohort's daughters, and probably a rebellion will ensue in that region. The party is trying to decide whether to interfere and if so which side to assist, since some are loyal to the current overall Issian regime.
Now the party is having to consider appointing NPCs to positions in their kingdom that some of the players wanted to fill and balancing the benefits and consequences, much like happened in real life. Also the ruler will likely have to decide which faction they wish to have an arranged marriage with, etc. This style doesnt work for every group, but I have several players who have conspiracy hunter, twisty type minds and like all the intrigue.
Hopefully some of this gives you ideas, and I highly recommend The Game of Thrones to help get ideas for story plots.
|
|
Hopefully some of this gives you ideas, and I highly recommend The Game of Thrones to help get ideas for story plots.
I adore Game of Thrones and am greatly looking forward to Dance of Dragons next month. That said, I'm aiming for a slightly more "heroic" than "realistic" campaign...("heroic" types don't last long in Game of Thrones).
I do not have a copy of the Wedding Knight, but I am kicking off my PbP campaign with a similar social event, regardless. My entire campaign starts off with the wedding of Peitros Aldori's daughter, Syra and Gregan Orlovsky of House Orlovsky. Since I am mashing up Rise of the Runelords and Kingmaker, I'm getting away with not having to plan much by simply modifying the games/events and other elements of the Swallowtail festival as the reception portion of the wedding. Instead of asking my players why they were going to the swallowtail festival, I asked them why/how they got invited to the wedding! The wedding will also feature a ceremony for the newly formed and chosen expeditions into the River Kingdoms and surrounding areas so I can introduce Varn and the other expeditions as well. If you want more details I made a thread here in this neck of the forums about my plans and/or you can follow my actual game and see for yourself how it turns out.
EDIT: I saw you post in my idea's thread already so a lot of this post is moot. :)
|
|
Well, yeah I agree, I'm only borrowing the Littlefinger/Varys/Lannister political intrigue from the stories really...although we did start with a 0 Level adventure based on the Wedding Knight from ASoIaF RPG, which could have resulted in a Red Wedding..How did this work out? I was just thinking about using that for a kick-off when I saw this thread again.
It worked amazingly well. Three of the players in my game are nobles, some from the Manning side and some from the Harte side. I stuck with the original story, had my female noble be a cousin to Lady Sylvia, and the other two were on the Manning side, one as a protector of Darren. The feud was able to take place because it was among minor noble houses in the territory of the Rogarvia house, who had been fighting amidst the power vacuum left by Rogarvia's disappearance. The only real thing I added in was letting the party know there was a famous poisoner spotted among the guests (a knowledge local role). Basically the noble characters were keeping an eye on things in the main castle, and the commoner characters were in the stables, kitchen, and as servants, so they got to watch all the secret comings and goings. From time to time, the two sides would meet and share info during the wedding events. Watching the 0-level druid-to-be stableboy trying to figure out why one horse was appearing and disappearing was hilarious (I am sure you can guess) and watching the nobles unsuccessfully try to follow the poisoner and lose him for stretches of time, only to have him appear again (same guess!) made for some interesting play. Since it was 7 years before the start of Kingmaker, Oleg was the knight commander of the Harte family, Falgrim Sneeg was an up and coming knight, Svetlana was a kitchen cook, etc. This meant when they first went to Oleg's, they were somewhat visiting old friends.
The party spent a great deal of energy running around trying to stop the poisoner, only to completely fail due to misreading who his target was. The female noble character also had to go to great lengths to help hide Sylvia's secret from the rest. If you would like my notes on adapting the adventure send me an email at
One very very interesting side note, is that the party is now 3rd level almost 4th and there is still a separation between the commoners and nobility that occasionally becomes an class type argument. It is completely unintentional effect of roleplaying their characters in story, but its quite funny that the noble players tend to sit on one side of the table, and the commoners on the other. In game the same thing happens when they camp, nobles on one side, commoners on the other side of the fire. This nearly led to a big party fight when a mischevious fey only messed with the commoners (the nobles were on watch on their side at the time), who took great offense at what appeared to be the nobles humiliating them.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Since one of my players is a cavalier, and one is a noble crossbow fighter who likes to compete, I added in some tourneys based out of Brevoy to add the occasional social flair to the routine of kingdom building.
Here is what I put up for my player's:
As it happens, one of my player's families "won" the privilege of hosting the tourney, which should add to the intrigue there considerably.
In case anyone is wondering, the "maze of death" is an event put on by a wizard's school, where there is a wall with two doors, each leading to the same extradimensional space. All you have to do is enter one door, and survive to exit the other door. The trick is finding the second door once you get to the other side.... the creatures, traps, obstacles, etc are completely up to the GM, depending on who goes through the door and what level they are. However, wizards don't like giving out 2500gp purses for a walk in the park :)
|
Since one of my players is a cavalier, and one is a noble crossbow fighter who likes to compete, I added in some tourneys based out of Brevoy to add the occasional social flair to the routine of kingdom building.
Here is what I put up for my player's:
As it happens, one of my player's families "won" the privilege of hosting the tourney, which should add to the intrigue there considerably.
In case anyone is wondering, the "maze of death" is an event put on by a wizard's school, where there is a wall with two doors, each leading to the same extradimensional space. All you have to do is enter one door, and survive to exit the other door. The trick is finding the second door once you get to the other side.... the creatures, traps, obstacles, etc are completely up to the GM, depending on who goes through the door and what level they are. However, wizards don't like giving out 2500gp purses for a walk in the park :)
Thanks for sharing Red I like your website.