An 18 Unrest? If they get things under control, please share the story with us. Unrest in that amount tends to be the end of a kingdom.
The above scenario is certainly pretty extreme and I can't really see how they're going to get out of it - particularly considering their penchant for mischief.
A related question that I'd be interested in knowing is:
At what point is high unrest unrecoverable?
Have people played in games that were forced to reboot (or quit) due to high unrest? What's the highest unrest that a kingdom has managed to recover from? In my game, they've been up to 5 and it took a couple months to buy their way out. Now they have very little money and a certain troublemaker has just shown up. If a poor random event comes at the same time, I don't know if they'll be able to get out of it again. If you don't have a surplus of funds, it feels like the tipping point is somewhere around 7-8 unrest.
A related question that I'd be interested in knowing is:
At what point is high unrest unrecoverable?
Have people played in games that were forced to reboot (or quit) due to high unrest? What's the highest unrest that a kingdom has managed to recover from? In my game, they've been up to 5 and it took a couple months to buy their way out. Now they have very little money and a certain troublemaker has just shown up. If a poor random event comes at the same time, I don't know if they'll be able to get out of it again. If you don't have a surplus of funds, it feels like the tipping point is somewhere around 7-8 unrest.
The death-knell for a kingdom is about 20 or so. At that point the kingdom slides into anarchy and the public chase the current administration out with fire and pitchforks. They can always go elsewhere, start a new kingdom & eventually reclaim the old one, hex by bloody hex, but their old kingdom's gone as they knew it.
My campaign actually ran into this problem, sort of. I was running a dual group (two parties building separate kingdoms in the same region) & one made the mistake of handing the rulership role over to an antagonist npc (quite possibly the same troublemaker you speak of) who promptly ran it into the ground (two-three turns to 23 unrest). The kingdom went belly up & was later consumed by the rival pc kingdom, who have since turned the capital of the defunct kingdom into a free city under control of a vassal lord (one of the pcs from the old kingdom, but not it's former ruler).
5 unrest is still quite manageable, especially with a royal assassin & some dedicated construction of key buildings to bring it down. If you keep your kingdom stats high enough, unrest really doesn't get that worrisome. It's once you hit that 10+ mark (or less, if your kingdom stats aren't up to it) that you need to sweat and get the numbers down, as random events (as witnessed earlier in this thread) can spin things out of control very swiftly.
I didnt just give them 18 unrest. They had some unrest as it is, i used one of the events in the back of the book and rolled a d6 for unrest on a 6 i rerolled and got a 4 i only gave them 10 unrest for it.
Kings destroying the home of 1000 people would make them fairly angry i think. I gave them 4 unrest because the sorcerer was seen killing 4 peasents.
I suggest having a long serious talk with your player about what the f%*~ happened. The players of the sorcerer and the bard better have a damn good reason for the trouble they startet. Unless you can take control of your group, don´t bother continuing the adventure.
Regarding the poison... why should a set amount of wolfsbane result und about a hundred times worth the poison in gold ? Maybe you need a full sack ob wolfsbane to make it into a halfway decent poison...
It doesn´t actually matter though, the bard could have used a dead bodies in the wells or similar things to much the same effect.
If they were my players, I would not allow the players of the sorcerer and the bard back at the table with fresh characters, they have to play the mess till the very end.
I think the Kingdom can still be saved, but it will be damn hard, if the groups shoots itself in the foot while climbing a mountain, let them fall.
Since much of this unrest was gained through a traitorous PCs actions that you presumably set up with him, much of this unrest should go down as the PCs deal with the disaster. Otherwise, you just set the PCs up to fail for no reason. I mean, you gave them 10 unrest for a 1d6 random roll. Its not meant to be an exploding die roll I don't think (don't have the table in front of me). That means to me you should give them some way that they can reduce the unrest by at least 4, before the kingdom spirals out of control. I would recomend something along the lines of an artifact that can revive those killed by the god who caused this chaos. An epic quest with the reward of -4 to unrest would be a cool thing. They still would need to handle the massive unrest though, and yes, they do gain the 1 unrest a turn for abandoning the hex from what I can tell. They can reclaim the hex though (I think).
Having a traitor and an easy mechanism for the traitor to succeed means that you need to have a mechanism for the other players to counter the traitor, unless you want the story to end with the traitor winning. In this case, the other players need something, otherwise you just waisted months creating something to let 1 person ruin all the fun.
That being said, it sounds like you have a new campaign of your own in the making. Why continue Kingmaker? It sounds like your PCs want to go completely off the tiny rails the game has.
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The dices do explode on certain events, which is incredibly irritating and reminds me of GW and FFG. I hate exploding dice.
Did you allow the group stability checks to limit the damage done, and loyalty to minimise the impact on morale? If not i'd suggest allowing a couple of rolls to calm things down if the situation has 'resolved'.
No i didnt have them make a stability roll. I will next week. The PCs are drunk with power. I was trying to have a story in place so if we wanted to they could go epic. It was also a subtle way of me saying here are some mysterys for you to GO OUT and solve.
They dont see a reason why they should go out and hexplore when they could send other adventures out to do the job. I was trying to gently push them out. It backfired big time and i admit it.
I have two power gamers in my group, and two rule lawyers. THe sorcerer can be a real pety player when things dont go his way, they get pissed at me when i railroad them into things and they also get pissed at me when they do bad or evil things and get punished for it.
I am not trying to stamp on them and give them free rain in this game. Its want they wanted. Ok maybe i was a little heavy handed.
I've never had a problem with villainous pcs in my games, but it sounds like it's the self destructive part that's giving you trouble. If the country is that close to going down, you might just bring in one of those bands of adventurers they like to hire to fix trouble in their kingdom deciding these bozos have to go, that they could do a better job. Even if they manage to beat them (and loot them and take their stuff), they should get the idea that they may be on the wrong side of things if they keep getting challenged by paladins & clerics of various good churches (Iomedaen Mendev Crusaders passing through, huntsmen of Erastil, etc). Point out that their not getting railroaded, just that actions have reactions & if they insist on being the villains, heroes will keep insisting on coming out of the woodwork to muck up their plans. This can still be a very valid play experience (one my group likes to stand on the edge of too, so I know your pain - Gyronna & Erastil worshipers in the same party make for some... interesting & challenging rp). Hey, for a twist, you might even give them the opportunity to run a new band of adventurers coming in to chase the villainous pugs out, and then you can run their own monstrous characters against them!
If their kingdom goes into the toilet (as it seems to be), let them know they can always start another elsewhere and work their way back to reclaim what they've lost (they may still get some extra unrest when the locals go "oh geez, not these guys again," but that's what huge armies of Kobolds or mercenaries are for - tyrannical dictatorships are still a valid form of government; even feudal governments can be pretty brutal and unjust, as history shows).
As far as extra unrest from loosing a hex goes, I'd say no. They loose a hex of their choice during the Upkeep/Unrest phase, as a result of having too much Unrest. They're loosing ONE HEX PER MONTH as long as their Unrest is above 10. This is a separate situation from them making a conscious choice to abandon a hex in the Improvement/Claim Hex phase, where the public generates 1 to 4 unrest for being intentionally abandoned. It's all a condition/choice to result issue (too much unrest = loose a hex, give up a hex = gain additional unrest).
Hope that all helps.
I didnt just give them 18 unrest. They had some unrest as it is, i used one of the events in the back of the book and rolled a d6 for unrest on a 6 i rerolled and got a 4 i only gave them 10 unrest for it.
Kings destroying the home of 1000 people would make them fairly angry i think. I gave them 4 unrest because the sorcerer was seen killing 4 peasents.
I realize I am late to the party, and I not read all the post yet, but I will assume they are 3rd level at best. I don't see why they have to be the most powerful group in the kingdom. I can even see a resistance hiring another group of adventurers to take care of the "issue".
You might also want to talk to them IRL to find out what they want out of the game. Having them work for someone else might be a better idea, because right now they seem to be terrible at ruling.