my players early on made the decision that their kingdom would be chaotic neutral (with strong neutral evil tendencies). I've got a necromancer as magister, an infernal bloodline sorcerer as king and a privy council that thinks using undead is fine, a local demon cult is spiffy so long as they pay taxes on time (and don't eat any of their friends) and lets just say the uses they found for a lost/confused werewolf don't bear speaking about in mixed company.
i'm wondering just how far they can push the boundaries before generating additional kingdom unrest. so far, the majority of their actions have remained concealed from the population at large. But the necromancers growing legion of undead is eventually gonna get noticed, as is the Noctilla cult they've got running the local brothel. I'm finding it an interesting campaign to run...but I was wondering if anyone else running this AP has had players 'turn evil' and go do unspeakable things in order to bring peace and prosperity to their kingdom.
Oh, and the things the players did to Gregori....
*shudder*
lets just say they've little respect for spies and political dissidents.
The basic question is whether you and your players are comfortable with how this campaign is working out and whether you're all having fun. If so, then don't feel like you have to push your players in any particular direction. It's perfectly fine for consenting adults to decide to role play how evil feels, provided no one gets hurt.
To ensure that, I recommend having players write down anonymously on pieces of scrap paper where their own personal moral event horizon is. What kinds of acts will they not tolerate AS PLAYERS? What could they tolerate off-screen (not role played out) vs. what happens at the table. Then, you should read aloud this list, ask for comments and civil discussion with no ridicule. Then ask people to submit their final moral event horizon lists. Read it out at the table and that's the boundaries at your table of what evil will do.
Once you have the meta rules in play, your players know that when NPCs rebel or assassins strike, they know that you're not judging them by having these events occur. They know that it's part of the game of being evil rulers.
my players early on made the decision that their kingdom would be chaotic neutral (with strong neutral evil tendencies). I've got a necromancer as magister, an infernal bloodline sorcerer as king and a privy council that thinks using undead is fine, a local demon cult is spiffy so long as they pay taxes on time (and don't eat any of their friends) and lets just say the uses they found for a lost/confused werewolf don't bear speaking about in mixed company.
i'm wondering just how far they can push the boundaries before generating additional kingdom unrest. so far, the majority of their actions have remained concealed from the population at large. But the necromancers growing legion of undead is eventually gonna get noticed, as is the Noctilla cult they've got running the local brothel. I'm finding it an interesting campaign to run...but I was wondering if anyone else running this AP has had players 'turn evil' and go do unspeakable things in order to bring peace and prosperity to their kingdom.
If they and you are having fun, go with it. I personally don't allow evil PCs in games I run for a variety of reasons which end up boiling down to because it is no fun for me, but that's just a personal preference. There have certainly been some other threads ion evil kingdoms, and I gather it is not that uncommon, so if you search a bit I am sure you can find one.
There is no need to steer them in any direction or "punish" them for being evil. They can be all the evil they want, so long as they don't take evil actions in the public eye or take actiosn which hurt their people. It is only what they do, not what they are, which will have an impact. You, as GM, have total control over the reactions of their population to any actions that are openly evil or damaging to the populace. Unrest or penalties to Loyalty are certainly quite possible and reasonable. It might also become difficult to attract settlers, increasing the BP cost of improvements since bribes/rewards would be necessary to encourage investment. Evil kingdoms also generally make bad neighbors, so their nature, if it becomes publicly known, could cause diplomatic problems and perhps even hostilities if the neighbors feel threatened enough. Again, these aren't punishments, they are just logical consequences of actions the players may take. If they object, tell them to think about it logically. If the kingdom next door suddenly started forming a massive undead army what would they do? The classic D&D answer is hire a party of adventurers to go kill the necopmancer and his buddies and remove the threat, but calling out the army for a preemptive strike is certainy another option. In that case, you might get to test out the mass combat rules sooner than the plot calls for.
And @Klebert, I hear your point that evil kingdoms like Cheliax and Geb seem to function just fine in Golarion. My counterpoint would be that they are somewhat different situations. These were established kingdoms with people already living in them before they went to the dark side. The people were given no choice in the matter, and picking up and leaving some place your family may have lived for generations isn't always an option. In contrast, the PCs are trying to establish a kingdom out of the wilderness, and need to attract people to live there. While some minority of people might find living in an evil kingdom attractive, they probably aren't likely to be the kinds of tradesmen, entrpreneurs and so forth a growing kingdom needs.
my players early on made the decision that their kingdom would be chaotic neutral (with strong neutral evil tendencies). I've got a necromancer as magister, an infernal bloodline sorcerer as king and a privy council that thinks using undead is fine, a local demon cult is spiffy so long as they pay taxes on time (and don't eat any of their friends) and lets just say the uses they found for a lost/confused werewolf don't bear speaking about in mixed company.
i'm wondering just how far they can push the boundaries before generating additional kingdom unrest. so far, the majority of their actions have remained concealed from the population at large. But the necromancers growing legion of undead is eventually gonna get noticed, as is the Noctilla cult they've got running the local brothel. I'm finding it an interesting campaign to run...but I was wondering if anyone else running this AP has had players 'turn evil' and go do unspeakable things in order to bring peace and prosperity to their kingdom.
It takes very mature players to do an evil campaign well. I have had mature players, but never an entire table of mature players that wanted to and could do it. There was always a mix of ones that could, but did not want to, and/or those that wanted to, but I knew better than to let it happen.
I think you should run it as Tyrantmaker instead. I stole that from Mr.Jacobs if they insist on being evil. That does not mean everything should be allowed with consequences though. An army of undead will unsettle the population in my games.That is at least a -3 to a -5 to the score that determines when the kingdom collapses. It would also increase by one every month that the citizens knew it existed.
An evil here and there is one thing, but wholesale evil would not be tolerated by many, and the citizens may pack their things and relocate over time.
Less people = less money. If another nation were to find out they could try to sabotage the the party by revealing these things(evil).
In our Kingmaker campaing, I was getting ready to make it an evil city. My character who was to be king was a Low Templar, so he never suffered the penalties for cruelty or various other negatives.
And then instead of a normal population, he would invite the band of kobolds, tieflings, drow and various other "evil" races to usher in a new era of prosperity.
And as though that wasn't enough, he was even going to go as far as to making a whole race of anthropomorphic animals who would of course following him to the ends of the earth.
Then he died to a troll.. and i was sad :(
So I have to make an alchemist who will usher in the new race of anthro's even faster now.
so far, the players have run a fairly evend handed and (dare I say it?) just kingdom. they're doing all the right things - slaughtering bandits, killing evil monsters (at least the ones that won't cooperate), defending the kingdom against all enemies both foreign and domestic....they spend a lot of time making their home safe and secure. And the populace loves it! taxes are low, the economy is going REALLY well, and bandits are terrified of attacking the kingdom's farmers and herds of livestock.
Of course, the necromancer JUST now got the ability to cast 'animate dead' and nobody's figured out that the temple of Callistria is actually a front for a demon worshipping cult of the Queen of Succubi. the inquisitor is about to open up a pacthall of Asmodeus as a headquarters for his secret police force and they've recruited the will o'wisps of Candlemere to help them run the Kingmaker version of Azkaban prison....
But for the moment everything is golden! once necro-girl starts fielding her army of undead there might be issues...but she might manage to keep the common people from getting too spooked. I dunno yet. they were thinking of copping some rules/laws from the old 'Hollowfaust: city of necromancer' suppliment.
With an evil party, you'll probably find the group more likely to kill the owner of building that generates an awesome item on a given month than use it to generate build points.
actually, no - the rulers have decided they wanted to be largely amoral, and to grow their economy by encouraging greed was the best way to go about it. they skim off the top, but don't seize property unless someone is committing treason.
think 'Ayn Rand' and not kleptoracy.
I like it. It sounds like they'd be going for a 'Katapesh of the North' vibe one day. If that's the case, you may want to let them buy off unrest with BP. It should cost exponentially more though the more unrest they're buying off at one time, like the edicts.
If they run their country in a fairly amoral way, they're going to start building up unrest quickly, but as long as they're keeping the cash flowing, people will be happy.
Keep in mind the Inquisitor is building a secret police force in order to control the population. Order will be enforced.
even the demon cult is playing nice - they're busy corrupting Brevoy to the north, and are doing their best to help build up the player's kingdom....an amoral group of neutral to evil characters with revenge fantasies against their rich cousins to the north? oh hells yeah! the Abyss is ALL about that! And in the meantime nobody bothers them, they can snatch all the sacrifices they want from other kingdoms and nobody close to home bothers 'em.
i'm curious to see how their proto-Azkaban works out on Candlemere island.
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I know several DMs that would never run an evil campaign. My experience with this campaign was good. Our DM actually said we could be evil if we wanted, but it had to be lawful evil. When we created the kingdom, it was lawful neutral. I was a lawful evil Infernal sorceror who became the king. I modeled him more on Palpatine before becoming emperor, or a Good Roman Emperor, like Augustus. He was really only evil to the enemies of his coutry. And that worked. I admit he did plant evidence that Grigori was a spy from a foreign country that our lawful neutral warden found. It turned out alright as he admitted it in return for exile instead of execution. And off he went never to be seen again.
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One of my groups, the players are of a more militant evil variety, following the party leader who is a cleric of Hextor. Although he began the campaign as LN, he has eventually slid to LE.
They treat their citizens very well, but are absolutely merciless to their enemies. Any threats to kingdom stability are dealt with harshly and quickly.
Hextor has a prominent cathedral in the capital. Oleg's trading post has been converted into a penal colony. But their people love them - glory, wealth, stability, and safety are a given as long as you are on the right side of the law. But tensions are building with the Good-aligned neighbours, and the party has been accosted by good dragons on several occasions.
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Not necessarily due to the evilness of their campaign so much as the chaotic neutral-ness of it, it could make sense to modify some of their kingdom scores. THese mod wouldnt really apply if the kingdom were LE, as it would fit more in line with a good kingdom in these regards.
For instance, give them a very large buffer vs unrest, mostly because their populace would tend to be self-serving and mercenary and not expect to be "taken care of" and "treated well" by the rulers. On the other hand, you could have morale of the troops be very low, with a high rate of desertion, due to the "every man for himself" attitude.
In dealings with other kingdoms, when they are smaller, they are greatly loved by larger kingdoms as being the "big stick" that kingdoms can wield against each other. When bigger, nations would distrust them and assume they are upredictable and dangerous. Specific factions in a lot of the countries around the Stolen Lands would flat out mark them down on the enemy list (Swordlords, Abadar, etc).
They are far more likely to be "Pearl Harbor"-ed by other nations, since they can't necessarily be trusted to abide by covenants until the time is right to strike, like more good-two-shoe kingdoms.
But, they may get to have a LOT more "fun" with NPCs, monsters, and other creatures in the Stolen Lands, not to mention wielding the Eye of Abaddon. :)
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Just re-read the above notes... if there is going to be a secret police of Asmodeus enforcing the law and controlling the populace, your kingdom is probably going to end up being more LE than not, regardless of their original intent. That could change a lot of my suggestions, but it sounds like your players are really engaged and creative. That is 90% of Kingmaker, as long as everyone likes the course the boat is traveling, so to speak...