***thread title was meant to say "without" kingdom building or mass combat, sorry.
Im thinking about doing an online AP (maptools/ventrilo), Serpent Skull or Kingmaker.
Im pretty sure I could keep the Kingdom building parts in the background, but so far Ive only really read the first module in its entirety. If there are random events based on unrest, i could always add those in at certain points just like any other adventure.
Are the other modules still viable running this way?
Also, I know later there are rules for mass combat (armies). Being that im putting the kingdom building in the background, can I still run the mass combats without the kingdom building aspect?
I know the size and number of armies are based on the kingdom size etc, do the modules have some standard armies to be used without knowing the exact kingdom size? or do I need to know the exact kingdom size/scores to do this correctly.
Also if for some reason I choose to run the army clashes in the background too, will I need to replace a large chunk of a module to make up for it?
Just trying to see if this would be too much trouble running this way and any opinions are appreciated, thanks.
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Can’t speak to the mass combat part, but running this AP without the Kingdom Building aspect is specifically addressed (as “Kingdom in the background”), and there are sidebars throughout the books to support doing so. I know of a few groups that have done this, and it is a perfectly viable way to run the AP.
They do have standard armies, and they’re not so much based on kingdom size as they are on upkeep costs and whatnot. Like I said, can’t speak so much to that specifically as haven’t studied that system a lot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a way provided in print to run it without a kingdom-with-numbers.
We have played through the 1st 2 modules and are just starting the 3rd. I should think it would be easy enough to make the kingdom rulers npc's and let the Pcs be "Troubleshooters" for their npc friends.
I'm curious why you want the kingdom building to be in the background? I run an online Kingmaker game myself, and know the time constraints (and the huge amounts of time sucking that Kingdom building entails.) So I relegated Kingdom building decisions/rolls to be made via email outside of the sessions themselves.
If it's that your players aren't really interested in kingdom building...
Honestly, you might be better off running a different AP. That's kind of the fun part of Kingmaker, in my opinion. I guess if your PCs want to be rulers of the kingdom without having to actually do anything about it, you could do it. I dunno. Again, I ask the question: Why place it in the background?
I certainly think it is feasible to run Kingmaker without the kingdom building and mass combat. It is also feasible to do the mass combat without the kingdom building.
However, I join the Archmage in asking why you would want to. Taking out the kingdom building and mass combat takes out what makes Kingmaker uniquely enjoyable. It downgrades it from possibly the best AP Paizo has ever put out to merely average, IMHO. Honestly, if you or your players don't want to do the kingdom building, I would recommend a diferent adventure path.
Taking out the kingdom building and mass combat takes out what makes Kingmaker uniquely enjoyable. It downgrades it from possibly the best AP Paizo has ever put out to merely average, IMHO.
I will, in all honesty, second that opinion. Stolen Lands, Varnhold Vanishing (the important bits, anyway), and Sound of a Thousand Screams are good adventures, but the rest (Rivers Run Red especially) can get painful at times. (Edit: By which I mean, if you're not taking care of a kingdom, they can be painful.)
Archmage and Brian, I respect everyones opinion but we are drifting off course a little. I wasnt looking for a recommendation to switch to a different AP, I just wanted to know if running Kingmaker with background kingdom building (i.e. rules-lighter) would work well enough.
If this was my home game I would do in-game kingdom building, in fact thats what we planned to do. Alas, my current home group has pretty much dissolved recently after many 20+ years.
My only option atm is an online game. I really dont want to get bogged down with tedious record-keeping with the kingdom building rules. Its not like you make up a kingdom one time and you are done. The kingdom grows throughout the AP and needs constant maintenance.
I will be keeping the PCs as rulers if I run Kingmaker, but the actual development of their kingdom will be in the background. Oleg's post will stay as a trading post (didnt he leave civilization to get away from politics and people anyway) but with a few added buildings as trade trickles through. Tatzlford will become a village or thorpe, Shrikewall a small town which will eventually grow and become a capital city, etc. The players will still rule this kingdom, take care of Kingdom events, etc.
I want to keep the game moving well and my only gripe with 3.5/PFRPG was the time taken out of the game to keep it running, like stopping the game to constantly erase and set up tactical combat maps. On my PC, having the maps ready for a session and putting em up on maptools is fast.
The kingdom building rules are yet another reason to take time away from the actual campaigning/roleplaying to keep records.
When I ran the first KM module in my home game, we planned on getting together on an off night to do the kingdom building, and if we couldnt meet we'd just call eachother for it, etc.
I was also worried about the army battles in KM (part 4 or 5, I forgot which module). Id like the players to roll for their armies if its possible, if not I was wondering if I had to look for new material to substitute for that part of that module to keep their XP progression up to par. I was thinking another high level module in its place (modified Curse of the Riven Sky, maybe Verakas is an ally of the Fey Queen?), while the war went on in the background.
For an online game, Id rather run the campaign more traditionally and eventually be able to reach the end as this campaign is long indeed.
Sunderstone,
Look at the Paizo play-by-post boards. Alexander Kilcoyne (sp?) is running a pbp for Kingmaker. They are in book 2 now and handled the kingdom building portion as a separate thread.
Threads:
1) Book 1
2) Interlude (Kingdom building)
3) Book II
All I am saying is that it can be done with the right players and the right dm, but ymmv...
-- david
Papa.DRB
All I am saying is that it can be done with the right players and the right dm, but ymmv...-- david
Papa.DRB
Thanks David. :)
Just read some of the early pages. Its a pbp thread though, I was thinking online via maptools/ventrilo though. I suppose I could leave the kingdom building to a forum thread, just not sure I want to go that route either.Ill just keep reading the KM modules and make a decision one way or another. I loaded all the KM modules into my nook color two days ago, and I just started reading book 2. I was just trying to save time by asking around before I read the entire AP. The mass combat in book 5 is what i'm unsure about the most at this point. Ill find out when I read all the way up to it I suppose. :)
The Nook Color reads every paizo pdf perfectly.
Tables like the Example NPC leaders (page 5, River Runs Red) or the Greenbelt Random Encounters (page 79, River Runs Red) look fine, even better when you turn the nook itself and it auto-landscapes it. :)
To date, Ive only found one visual glitch in any Paizo PDF on my nook color. Oddly enough its also in River Runs Red, page 85. The picture of the Hodag covers almost the whole bottom half of the page with a rectangular black border that even blocks some of the habitat and society text.
I havent updated my nook color (not sure this thing gets updated as Im new to ereaders), so maybe the adobe mobile reader has an update.
My goodman games PDFs are different though. All of them are readable but some have a very thin red x on the page where pictures/borders are supposed to be. The red x also are on some full pages but oddly do not block any text. I think this is a jpeg compression issue with Goodman's particular PDF formatting as some of their PDFs are flawless like DCC 51.5.
late edit** Just updated my nook color for the first time. PDFs are still the same.
Archmage and Brian, I respect everyones opinion but we are drifting off course a little. I wasnt looking for a recommendation to switch to a different AP, I just wanted to know if running Kingmaker with background kingdom building (i.e. rules-lighter) would work well enough.
If this was my home game I would do in-game kingdom building, in fact thats what we planned to do. Alas, my current home group has pretty much dissolved recently after many 20+ years.
My only option atm is an online game. I really dont want to get bogged down with tedious record-keeping with the kingdom building rules. Its not like you make up a kingdom one time and you are done. The kingdom grows throughout the AP and needs constant maintenance.
I will be keeping the PCs as rulers if I run Kingmaker, but the actual development of their kingdom will be in the background. Oleg's post will stay as a trading post (didnt he leave civilization to get away from politics and people anyway) but with a few added buildings as trade trickles through. Tatzlford will become a village or thorpe, Shrikewall a small town which will eventually grow and become a capital city, etc. The players will still rule this kingdom, take care of Kingdom events, etc.
I want to keep the game moving well and my only gripe with 3.5/PFRPG was the time taken out of the game to keep it running, like stopping the game to constantly erase and set up tactical combat maps. On my PC, having the maps ready for a session and putting em up on maptools is fast.
The kingdom building rules are yet another reason to take time away from the actual campaigning/roleplaying to keep records.When I ran the first KM module in my home game, we planned on getting together on an off night to do the kingdom building, and if we couldnt meet we'd just call eachother for it, etc.
I was also worried about the army battles in KM (part 4 or 5, I forgot which module). Id like the players to roll for their armies if its possible, if not I was wondering if I had to look for new material...
No problem. For me, at least it was less of a recommendation than curiousity about why you would want to run Kingmaker (out of the many options out there) if you didn't want to use the kingdom-building and mass combat rules, which are what makes it unique (and uniquely appealing to me). Certainly it can thrive without using those rules, with more effort on the part of the DM to modify some sections than others (Rivers Run Red and War of the River Kings, particularly). I've never tried to run a game online, so can't really comment intelligently on that aspect of it. I do know that many folk even in traditional sit around the table games are apparently doing the kingdom-building totally outside of game time. That would seem like a natural for an online game, but if you don't want to do kingdom building, then you don't want to and I won't try and convince you otherwise.
Best of luck.
As I said - I run an online kingmaker game. It is running well enough. I've relegated kingdom building to email in between sessions (when appropriate - basically, I say "Okay, well, this is a good time to take a break from adventuring, give me a timeframe and list of stuff you want to do for the kingdom and I'll send you reports.") So they get to do both parts of the kingdom building without spending precious hours on kingdom building.
(I've also eliminated the exploration aspect of kingmaker, thus removing most of the random encounters, and switched them to the Fast XP progression. It's been a little under a year now - first session 4-12-10 - and we're still not quite halfway through book 2.)
(I've also eliminated the exploration aspect of kingmaker, thus removing most of the random encounters, and switched them to the Fast XP progression. It's been a little under a year now - first session 4-12-10 - and we're still not quite halfway through book 2.)
I think exploration is part of the allure of Kingmaker for me. Out of curiousity how often do you play?
Once a week for four hours.
We did do the exploration aspects of Stolen Lands. But ultimately my group didn't enjoy it as much.