So the party I'm running KM for just got back to their capital after a round of adventuring only to encounter Grigori for the first time. Their first meeting was tons of fun -- the party barbarian got enthralled by Grigori's oratorical fireworks, and when Grigori noticed one of the party's archers climbing onto a rooftop with his bow out, he drew the crowd's attention to it and made that work for him too. And when the party paladin (also the new kingdom's ruler) tried to speak against him, Grigori mopped the floor with him.
So far so good. But THEN things take a surprising turn: Grigori is berating the party for their horrible leadership and the crowd is getting more and more worked up, when suddenly the paladin draws his sword. Yikes, battle, right? But no, he lays the sword down on the speakers' platform and announces that he is stepping down from his leadership position until his and his fellows' leadership can be put on trial in one week's time. At which point Grigori insists that he be allowed to speak at that trial and, once he has that assurance, gets the heck out of there since this is a better outcome than anything he could have ever imagined.
So that's where things presently stand: the kingdom suddenly without clear leadership, the possibility for major upset, including the leadership of the kingdom falling into the hands of GRIGORI of all people, and I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to take all of this. If the party tries to beat Grigori at his own game of oratory, they're almost certainly going to lose, badly. (No one in the party is even remotely built for social challenges.) But I'm thinking this could make for a really memorable plot arc: Have Grigori turn the townspeople against the party, and force the paladin to keep his promise to step down. Grigori then uses his persuasive abilities to set himself up as the new top dog, and then puts his new-found powers to work subtly padding his own pockets and weakening the state from within -- perhaps even making the party his own agents, if he can manage it. And the party would have to stand there watching it happen as he decided for them how the Kingdom turns would go. (Man, I get giddy just thinking about it.) Then, when the troll problem starts really heating up, and the townspeople are finally getting wise to what a horrible leader he is, he absconds with a substantial part of the treasury and considers his job well done, leaving the party to face the trolls and pick up the pieces.
I'd love to get some feedback on this, though. What other notions do you experienced KM DM's out there have?
Grigori is the most awesome NPC in Kingmaker:)
I totally intend to leave them paths to success against Grigori, but they've sort of made their own bed so far. It was their decision to make their conflict with him play out on his strongest ground. And they haven't even tried to talk to him individually yet, so they have no idea who he is, where he comes from, what he wants, etc. They really haven't played it very smart yet. But if they start making smarter moves, I'll feed them some clues and opportunities. Even if they lose control of the kingdom, I'm going to use it as an opportunity to build up the cast of characters around them -- people who support them, people who prefer Grigori, all sorts of new personalities -- which should be useful, and I won't play Grigori in such a way that he utterly destroys their kingdom. But he'll definitely set them back a bit!
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I listened to some actual play recordings of Kingmaker by the Strand Gamers. The PCs managed to turn the Grigori scenario into a 3-session-long boondoggle, and made such brilliant decisions as having a fey creature charm Grigori into confessing to the townsfolk. This, of course, did nothing but convince the townsfolk his confession was insincere and made them even more hostile to the fey (and the PCs).
The DM ran the Kingdom part behind the screen, so I have no idea what Unrest looked like by the end of it. But I have no doubt it was very, very bad. What made it worse is the players were actually trying to be fair and even-handed in how they dealt with Grigori. But everything they did played right into his hands.
Likewise, the Gyronna business became a larger-than-expected diversion, as they'd ignorantly made the responsible NPC one of their ruling council.
I love that so much came out of those two short events, which were written as if they were supposed to be brief blips on the radar.
I'll have to look for that Strand Gamers session; that sounds interesting!
And here's an update: We played a 3 hour session tonight, and did nothing but mess around with the Grigori affair. They finally talked to him directly, and found out nothing they could use, although they were able to find out from a merchant that he had arrived in town on a horse that had been hired at a waypost to the west. At the trial itself, the paladin did pretty well defending himself, and managed to keep it pretty close, but even with the bonuses I assigned him for friendly witnesses and good speeches, Grigori's Diplomacy checks were just too strong for him to overcome. The jury's vote was close, but Lily Taskertin (whom I've been playing as a gold-digger who sees herself as queen material, and who had given up on the paladin as her future mate) cast the deciding vote for Grigori, hoping to seduce him instead.
A two-week interregnum then began, during which the Magistrate (the party's witch) set up a quick election, with Grigori and the just-recalled paladin the leading candidates. I had them decide it by a series of 5 opposed Diplomacy checks, which they could also influence w/ money and aid another rolls. When all was said and done, Grigori was leading, especially with some help from Lily, but it was close, and the rest of the party's aid another checks almost caught him up with Grigori. In fact, one party member, an archer who finds the paladin insufferable and happens to be the kingdom's spymaster, was reluctant to help, but eventually tried a few aid another rolls and, despite his low charisma, managed to persuade key members of the kingdom's underworld to throw their support behind the paladin because (the archer said) he would be so much easier to fool than Grigori. So ultimately the paladin edged Grigori by 2 points, and is reinstated as ruler.
In the meantime, Grigori is still at large and fomenting unrest. The kingdom went without a ruler for the better part of a month, and picked up substantially more Unrest than it had before. And now everyone but the paladin is plotting to have Grigori assassinated. It really has turned out to be a fun episode, so well done, Rob McCreary!
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In fact, one party member, an archer who finds the paladin insufferable and happens to be the kingdom's spymaster, was reluctant to help, but eventually tried a few aid another rolls and, despite his low charisma, managed to persuade key members of the kingdom's underworld to throw their support behind the paladin because (the archer said) he would be so much easier to fool than Grigori.
Great stuff!
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I'm of the opinion that any PC ruler who doesn't immediately challenge Grigori to defend his words in a fair combat should seriously reconsider his career choice. In a land, that is taken by swords and kept from annihilation only by swords, one should not be ashamed in the slightest of the simple fact, that power, authority and right to rule are derived from one's sword, not from honeyed words, that are meaningless in the face of trolls and worse. And anyone who fancies himself a king should be keen to protect his honor.
I like the idea... But wait for Grigoi ro make a mistake ;)
I'm of the opinion that any PC ruler who doesn't immediately challenge Grigori to defend his words in a fair combat should seriously reconsider his career choice. In a land, that is taken by swords and kept from annihilation only by swords, one should not be ashamed in the slightest of the simple fact, that power, authority and right to rule are derived from one's sword, not from honeyed words, that are meaningless in the face of trolls and worse. And anyone who fancies himself a king should be keen to protect his honor.
My game's highly-diplomacized Oracle Queen would beg to differ. Her "honeyed words" have gotten the party far more allies and out of far more scrapes than charging in with swords drawn has.
If the players are willing to let Grigori run roughshod over them, by all means let it continue. The way you're setting up your campaign is certainly a lot more interesting than is as written.
In my campaign, we actually named the tavern after Grigori because the DM made his arrival coincide with the "Celebrity Arrives" event which brought the Kingdom BP. We tolerated him for weeks before things got bad enough that we went down to the Tavern to confront him, where he promptly made a fool out of my Cavalier - who was the Baron. We eventually found a symbol of Gyronna in his possessions and tried to link him to the Witch's cult that was killing people in the town but the evidence never surfaced, so the party Ranger pushed that we all just banish Grigori and take the reputation hit (because by then he was just causing WAY too much trouble).
After he was "escorted" out of the kingdom by the guards (and after we'd found and eliminated the Cult of Gyronna) the Baron addressed the townsfolk.
By which I made a speech to my fellow players/GM about the cult and Grigori where we were going to execute with Witches for murder and placed a warrant of arrest on Grigori for the same if he ever showed up again because he was in cahoots with the Witches (even though all the PCs knew he probably wasn't).
Lo and behold we eventually encountered him later at Irovetti's festival where he'd gotten some levels of Cavalier himself and tried to defeat the (now) Duke in the Jousting contest as Irovetti's champion (which he didn't really have a snowball's chance in hell of winning). After being defeated he swore revenge on the PCs and took off with Irovetti. We encountered him one last time at Irovetti's palace, where the Duke killed him the instant he burst into combat with a critical charge that did something like 200hp damage in one shot.
Unrelated, but my cavalier debated him openly in the square where he was rabble rousing and mopped the floor with him. Like completely shut down every argument and ran out of town on a rail. Social skills go! I've heard of other groups really having problems with him though.
Yeah that's exactly what happened with my group's Oracle. They had the exact same bonus to their social skills, she rolled a 20 and Grigori rolled a 1. Social curbstomp ensued.
Unrelated, but my cavalier debated him openly in the square where he was rabble rousing and mopped the floor with him. Like completely shut down every argument and ran out of town on a rail. Social skills go! I've heard of other groups really having problems with him though.
Personally I could've nipped him in the bud early on but I fumbled one really important charisma roll.
Generally you need someone with SOME charisma to be able to oppose him and you need to roll fairly well on certain checks. Plus, Grigori sort of takes advantage of typical American mentality in that his actions fall into a category we associate as protected due to our ideological beliefs about free speech, etc. so this can make PCs hesitant to get authoritarian and deal with him as a dissenter.
this might be long winded, so i'm putting it in spoilers
my original intention was to have him sow discord from the inside and rob them stupid, however they were so professional and kind to him that i scrapped that plan, better to teach kids the good people are capable of in this situation rather then the bad (of which they have plenty of time to find that out)
hope that wasn't too long winded or preachy sounding, Grigori is my all time favorite pathfinder NPC other then Rosie Cusswell:)
also i got the idea for Grigori pointing out the flaws from
I don't think a lawful good paladin would be too keen on throwing the kingdom into chaos in that way. However, done is done, and I think now it presents some interesting challenges.
First off, I would certainly take away running the kingdom from the players, but I wouldn't do it in front of them as far as the numbers go but simply let them observe what is happening to the town, as it gradually gets worse and worse. One great thing about Kingmaker is you have lots of room for time if you want it. You could even have Grigori's reign extend into Varnhold Vanishing if you wanted. Obviously, after they reclaim their kingdom, they will need extra time to recover or the later books will be pretty difficult to handle.
The real role play that seems awesome to me though is the ex-ruler Paladin having to grapple with doing the right thing, helping the kingdom out even though it was taken by someone else. Very interesting possibilities and, it seems to me, a chance to show what being Paladin really means.
One caution though, some players really really hate 'losing' and a setback this dramatic can cause some players and parties to self-destruct. You know your players, but taking a moment to consider how they will react and making sure that the outcome will be something they can live with if you don't want the game to end is important.