so my players are more willing to go out and explore (especially,out of the greenbelt...) than stay at home and develop their country...this situation is partially due to the fact that the rules say the're supposed to stay home only for a week every month or so...
while this is logical i am worried with the impact this is going to have with the development of the events (say Kundal, Grigori...).
I have tought of letting them meet Maegarn Varn in RRR (wich we're actually in) to build up interest for his disappearance in the next module AND make a sort of agreement on how far they're supposed to travel..also since in the second month i've rolled the 'scandal' event, they've stayed home to prevent public uproar..
The last resort would be to play the 'civilization' part of the game via skype or emails in advance...
Your last resort might be your best bet actually:-)
The adventure events in town assume the players won't be around - they're set up to happen after the PCs return to town after being out in the wild. And they have to come back for the kingdom turn every month. As KenderKin notes, their continual absence is actually a good fact for Grigori to throw in their faces (not that there's any mechanical advantage to them sticking around).
I've been ensuring my players are "home" because of a monthly council meeting. The players chose an oligarchy rulership (so a council, with all officeholders having a vote, and the "king" or Chancellor getting a vote plus tie-breaker). We've wasted entire sessions on council votes without any of the players being upset by that. This requires the GM to play the NPCs, or at least have them thought out well enough to have their own personalities.
The werewolf attack, for instance, caused quite an uproar. Is a person responsible for their actions when under a magical compulsion? Lycanthropy is a forced alignment shift, and thus a compulsion. Once he's cured, is he still guilty of murder? They went round and round on this, especially since it was early in the kingdom's life. I also write down all of their decisions, because I intend to have at least one or two come back upon them later. We've had two or three sessions where council meetings took up a large chunk of the time. The players have a love/hate relationship with council meetings already, because they love the excitement, but hate that it means making some decision. I have found this also has helped tie the players to their kingdom. It makes them feel more responsible for it.
@kenderkin: yep definitely going to use that
@P.Knowsley: I'm using the rules contained in the AP, as of now they only have one city, the problem is that given the speed at witch they can explore the rule of having to stay home for just one week rapidly exhausts the exploration, leaving me with the problem of having no place where to set up the events (or at least very few moments in wich doing so)
@pennywit: by meeting Varn &co. I hope it will get more diplomatic oriented
@Spatula: the problem is, they are not coming back because they have like 21 days per month to explore, so they kinda finish the hexes, returning home only once..so Kundal got beefed up, but I don't know if I will have the time to use grigori before they're done with exploring..still, if I do, he's gone cause much of a hassle. One of my player is actually very speech oriented,( also he's an asmodean priest..->"DEVILS I SAY! THEY'RE BRINGING THRICE CURSED CHELIAX HERE I TELL YOU!"), so that's goin' to be good.
@Lee Hanna: i've told my players to play a little kingdom building in advance and they're ok with it. thanks, i'll think something up for Drelev too. The change of chapters tough...will be a little forced: telling them "two years have passed..."
@Bradley Mickle: awesome.
the next session is scheduled to be in acouple of weeks, as of now they've met the hermit, but he escaped, befriended the forest drake (sort of) and explored the candlemere tower (fighting two of the inhabitants on a boat they've built...in the middle of the night...in the middle of the lake..with just the sorceress' dancing lights lighting the area...).
Hmm. Admittedly I've slowed down how long it takes to explore hexes, but my player's kingdom has been active for almost a year and a half and they still haven't explored the whole Greenbelt map yet. Yours are going to be done in less than 3 months?
@Spatula: there are about 60 hex in the green belt. exploring 21 days a month makes it roughly 3 months to complete de hex-ploration.
They have not been so totaly crazy about it so they're like in the 6th month from the beginning of the adventure, still their speed is dangerous. Notice that since all of them have horses it takes them only one day to fully explore hexes. even forest ones. How have you slowed down the exploration speed?
@P.Knowsley: Kundal is something G. is definitely going to speak about, still, unless i make them both appear at the same time in the city, Grigori should appear the next time they get back to town.
...or is making them appear togheter exactly what you suggested..?
*together
Ok i think i will make them appear simultaneously and watch my players struggle to find a non-existing connection between the two.
I will have them be called back by one of their scouts, reporting all sort of problems..
Early in the game I introduced high level politics and economy. Essentially, my guys aren't allowed too far south since there is trade war brewing with Mivon, and any suspicious actions by PCs could result in some unneeded raids and paid bandit activity. Essentially, going south of Candlemere is provoking Mivon into a proxy war.
They can't further explore the woods, since a one of the largest backers of the colonization is a local lumber tycoon, who is has the only rights to do anything with the forest for the first year.
In other words, create artificial political borders and barriers.