I was wondering how much to share. I was planning on just giving them a list of buildings, and have beveoy send a "city planner" who will give an abstract idea to what stats each building effects. My question is if this is enough info? Should I provide the kingdom and city sheet or should those be game master only?
depends on your group. if they like Civ style games, then they should see the lists (imo).
I let the players see the kingdom building rules. So they know what stats buildings impact and everything. I trust my players though, so they haven't worked to "min/max" the system and have been building a reasonable kingdom.
It has worked well for us so far - though really it is one player that has really run with the kingdom building rules and the others sort of follow his lead.
I'll be hitting the beginning of RRR within 2-3 sessions, so I've been preparing for this myself. My players are flavour-centric, not crunch-centric, so I'm just going to give them a list as an excel file so they can see what everything does in a handy-dandy little chart.
One of the ideas I toyed with before I really saw what kind of players make up my group was to do something similar, but instead of having specific numbers in each column (Loy +1, Sta +1), to just put a + to denote an increase (and a - for a decrease) in the column. That way they can build buildings to fix flaws in their system (they will know that if they need more stability, they should build x, y, or z) but they can't game the system too much.
One of the ideas I toyed with before I really saw what kind of players make up my group was to do something similar, but instead of having specific numbers in each column (Loy +1, Sta +1), to just put a + to denote an increase (and a - for a decrease) in the column. That way they can build buildings to fix flaws in their system (they will know that if they need more stability, they should build x, y, or z) but they can't game the system too much.
This is what I did. As they built a building I would tell them the actual numbers, and they would write it in for future reference. Seemed to work fairly well. I had a master spreadsheet for myself with actual #s, and one for the players.
This is what I did. As they built a building I would tell them the actual numbers, and they would write it in for future reference. Seemed to work fairly well. I had a master spreadsheet for myself with actual #s, and one for the players.
That's a nice way to do it.
I think the most important thing to recognize is that the more stuff you hide, the more work it is for you, as the GM. If you don't tell them the effects at all, even after they build the building, for example, then that means that you have to keep the current levels of Stability, Economy, and Loyalty secret, which means that you have to do all the calculations yourself, for example. And taking that to its extreme means that you have to track EVERYTHING yourself, lest they attempt to reverse-engineer modifiers.
Ultimately, it really comes down to the players you've got. Where do they fall on the min-maxers -- storytellers continuum? The answer to that question, I suspect, is what's actually going to determine how much you give them.
I think the most important thing to recognize is that the more stuff you hide, the more work it is for you, as the GM.
And it takes an effort. We are about size 92 after 3 ingame years and almost through the 4th module. And even with a Spreadsheet and random magic item programs to help, I find it takes an investment in time to do a kingdom turn. Keeping it secret for a little while could be interesting, but eventually you will want to let the players take over.
Yeah - the work is one of the big reasons I didn't want to hide the info from the players. One of our players has stepped up and does the heavy lifting between sessions for the kingdom building phases which would have been a fair amount of additional work for the GM between sessions if the rules had been hidden from the players in my opinion. It has been working well for us so far.
I've been doing some thinking on this over the past week. I think i'm doing to do a small overhaul of the city building process, and break the structures available into tiers. The larger/more expansive building like arena/cathedral/magical-acadamy will have to wait until the city is large enough (level, rank, whatever term i settle on) to support it. A bit more Civ-esque i suppose. but my group players like that kinda game anyways. I like the "blank numbers" sheet with only + - symbols, i think i may do that one as well. If i did 5 "tiers" to a city, i'd allow the players to see the options for their current tier and the one just above.
"we need to level the town so we can unlock the aquaducts!"
etc.
mostly posting this so i don't forget it myself ;)
I've been doing some thinking on this over the past week. I think i'm doing to do a small overhaul of the city building process, and break the structures available into tiers. The larger/more expansive building like arena/cathedral/magical-acadamy will have to wait until the city is large enough (level, rank, whatever term i settle on) to support it. A bit more Civ-esque i suppose. but my group players like that kinda game anyways. I like the "blank numbers" sheet with only + - symbols, i think i may do that one as well. If i did 5 "tiers" to a city, i'd allow the players to see the options for their current tier and the one just above.
"we need to level the town so we can unlock the aquaducts!"
etc.
mostly posting this so i don't forget it myself ;)
That's not a bad idea. It'd also help make sense of the "If you build this building, these other buildings get cheaper." Building a Tier 3 building makes the Tier 1's cheaper, or something like that.