My group is in the early stages of kingdom building, their first 4 turns went fairly smoothly as we got familiar with the mechanics of the turn sequence.
But last night, they had the Continuous Event "Inquisition" during their 5th turn. They had not done anything to improve their Loyalty to that point and failed the initial roll, taking the -2 Lore, Loyalty, Productivity, and Stability along with the +1 Infamy and Law.
They did some shuffling around, reassigning the Spymaster's bonus to Loyalty and built a Jail and made the second roll for the event, this time only taking an additional -1 to Lore, Loyalty, Productivity, and Stability.
At this point we had a discussion if this was the correct way to interpret the continuous event and led to a further conversation to what happens when/if they finally finish the event.
One of the players thinks that the way the Continuous Event general text reads, that when they beat the event the penalties that came along with it would go away.
d20pfsrd wrote:
Continuous Events: A continuous event's effects continue each turn during the Event Phase until you resolve the event (as explained in the event description, usually by succeeding at a kingdom check).
I'm of the opinion that the decreases in Loy/Stab/etc work just like they would for a non-continuous event. I can see where he's coming from with the "effects continue each turn during the Event Phase until you resolve the event" section, but I see that meaning that you no longer have to contend with the Event, but that any penalties/kingdom stat decreases that were incurred (that do not have a specific duration listed) would remain after the Event has been passed.
We've exchanged a bunch of emails and we're both well situated on our side of things. I respect his opinion, and I've certainly been wrong on rule interpretations in the past so I wanted to get the consensus from people who've run KM games more, and possibly even from any of the people involved in creating these rules on the topic.
This is our first use of the KM/UCam rules so I dont want to simply pull any "well I'm the DM so this is how it is".
Sorry for the wall of text. Thanks for the attention.
Hmm, good question. Given the text of the Inquisition event - "...(if a check ends the event, no penalties from it occur that turn)" - I would say your interpretation is correct. If the penalties all went away when the event was resolved, that clause wouldn't be needed. Any damage (or benefit) done by the event persists.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
I'm with Spatula on this one (and this has come up before).
As a general rule, all modifiers to kingdom statistics are "fire and forget" unless they specify a duration. Just apply them and that's the end of tracking their source. For effects with a duration, track them and their duration (since I happen to know you use the kingdom spreadsheet, this is exactly the sort of thing the comments sections on the Overall sheet and each City sheet are for).
Greetings all, so I'm that guy that is having the hearty debate with Curghann.
First, I see that side of it, he has explained the logic of it well and while I may not agree with it, I can abide by it.
That being said, there are some issues I have with it. And actually Chemlak, you hit on one.
"all modifiers are "fire and forget" unless they specify a duration."
Continuous events do specify a duration, it is just a variable one. I do agree that events that are instantaneous are permanent. There appear to be three different flavors of events.
1. W happens, and it does X
2. W happens, and it does X for Y turns
3. W happens, and it does X until Z condition is met
Continuous events are #3. Once the Z condition is met they fall in line with #2, not #1 as they are duration based events.
Specific to the Inquisition event, I likened it to a tennis match at deuce. You need two successes to "win", and the first success gives you "advantage" (halves the penalty), to try and clear.
Logically, this makes sense to me. Zealots appear, you mostly get them under control, but not quite. Their zealotry next turn isn't as bad, but is still a problem, and you have to handle it or it escalates back. By essentially making the detrimental effect cumulative you make it harder to clear it after you have already almost cleared it. That doesn't logically fit.
I don't want to make a huge wall of text so I will hold off on further discourse, but am curious on everyone's take of the above.
I'd quibble with that characterization of "flavor #3". Instead I would say,
3. W happens, and until condition Z is met, it will happen again next turn
"continuous" is just a tag placed on an event, so I would say that it follows the conventions of all other events unless otherwise stated. And looking at the continuous events in the rules, I don't see anything to indicate that the modifiers are temporary. Events that do have temporary modifiers have that called out specifically in the text of the event.
As far as the zealots go, they're still there, they just aren't actively making things worse anymore. The damage that they inflicted is still there; the community doesn't just snap back to its pre-existing state. Said damage can be repaired by doing the things that raise the affected bonuses.
Spatula wrote: I'd quibble with that characterization of "flavor #3". Instead I would say,
3. W happens, and until condition Z is met, it will happen again next turn
"continuous" is just a tag placed on an event, so I would say that it follows the conventions of all other events unless otherwise stated. And looking at the continuous events in the rules, I don't see anything to indicate that the modifiers are temporary. Events that do have temporary modifiers have that called out specifically in the text of the event.
As far as the zealots go, they're still there, they just aren't actively making things worse anymore. The damage that they inflicted is still there; the community doesn't just snap back to its pre-existing state. Said damage can be repaired by doing the things that raise the affected bonuses.
This is why the "until" portion of the continuous events text is so important. It falls under the "unless otherwise stated" of your conventions. It sets a start and end to the event, making it a duration based event and not subject to the instantaneous and permanent of flavor #1.
Also, said damage cannot be repaired, it can be modified via other means to make up for it, but there is no ability to repair that specific, ongoing modification.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
I'm still with Spatula. Continuous events are "W happens, with effect X, effect X keeps happening until Z, at which point no further X is applied".
Yes, it's a bit sucky to have your stats permanently reduced by something that happened three years ago and no way to actually remove those effects (you can only mitigate them), but it's ridiculous to think that the instant the Spanish Inquisition finished, everyone in Spain basically forgot about it.
I agree with you. Both sides feel a bit weird to me. The reason I have been on this side of this is because of the logic of the completion of these. The whole...we succeeded, but it's still harder even though we succeeded is a bit of a head scratcher to me.
I wish the rules were a little bit more verbose in this area, either calling out the cumulative and permanent effects, or specifying what riders happen when and for how long.
I am certainly going to go along with however Curghann wants to go with it, but I do find the conversation very interesting. Also, of note, we are in about turn 6, so there is likely an economy of scale here I have not yet experienced which also mitigates some of this.
Honestly, my homebrew would be to do something of a phase out period. Spitballing, something like effects are cumulative and then once the event is passed they reduce equally over the number of months the event ran times two or three. Round down. Something to that effect which then penalizes for not dealing with it quickly and produces a longer tail back to health as a result without permanently scarring the modifications.
If you are homebrewing changes, you can assign a time limit to the event penalties. aka 1 year as an offhand example. Then over time the kingdom will recover from the spanish inquisition. Or 1 year per month the event was in place. Etc etc. (to be honest i will probably do something along these lines when my players reach book 2+)
Yeah, if you want to get "more realistic", then any bonuses or penalties from events, and perhaps even from buildings, should diminish over time. For example, you get bonuses when you complete certain quests, but memories of your deeds will fade, and those bonuses should too, right? But that's adding an extra level of book-keeping on top of an already intensive system. And IMO, that extra book-keeping would give little return for the headaches involved.
The fact is that you'll keep expanding, and your numbers will go up, and soon it won't really matter that the Inquisition ran wild in your kingdom's early days. Enjoy these days of striving against the odds! Soon you'll only fail checks on a 1. :)
IMO the way to handle it is not completely separate the kingdom building and kingdom events from the story. If they make the roll successfully, then that could just mean they have the opportunity storywise for their characters to be able to fix the problem. Depending on how well they handle it on a character level, you can keep the event going, mitigate it, or worsen it. It just seems that is the best way to be fair the the party (after all, they did succeed with their roll) and yet not pretend all the after effects just disappear because the dice said so....
IMC these events have the penalties apply for all time & these are mitigated by
the actions of the rulers to balance out things - e.g. buildings or gifts etc...
I like Chemlak's Spanish inquisition example - & people do have a very long
memory...people still hate each other in our own world for wars fought centuries
ago...
As Spatula posted, if you go the way Farvin (sorry Farvin) is postulating, then
the bonuses from the buildings you build will also disappear over time...
This system is a simplification... That's all it is. If you want to make life
more complicated - go for it (with your group's acceptance), but as a GM - I
want it as simple as can be...
Build some stuff to mitigate the penalties & then build a bridge...
Thanks all, this has been very instructive. Again, I understood Curghann's starting point and position but having multiple perspectives helps see the longer game at work here.
As I mentioned before I was thinking there is an economy of scale at play that our group just hasn't experienced yet with the Kingdom building that further helps explain and justify the modifications that happen along the way. Curghann and I discussed in greater depth before we brought it here, and were even entering into economic theory somewhat, closed systems, and the like. Stepping back, and to your point Philip, it's a simplification, which then will have some oddities associated.
One of the big reasons to hash it out for me wasn't to try and prove I was right, but so I had a better understanding and stayed engaged table side. That's always a tenuous balance and I am REALLY enjoying Kingmaker so far, so it would have really sucked if this left such a bad taste in my mouth that when we hit our kingdom turns it was always needling in the back of my head.
Here's where I've landed this morning: The logic of the "win" condition of the Inquisition is still a little wonky to me, but hey, it has to be to fit into the larger ruleset. The ruleset provides methods to work the modifications to your benefit (or detriment) that are not always a one for one that is familiar to PCs (such as healing damage, restoring ability damage). Those modifications, however, can also lay the groundwork for further intrigue, quests, and events in game at the discretion of the DM.
In terms of continuous events themselves, I was encapsulating the effects of said events throughout the duration of the event, and that needs to be modified that the event is essentially capable of doing X damage per turn, so ending the event heals no wounds so to speak, just prevents the X condition from further happening, as suggested above. It's that separation that was troublesome to me, and I thank you all for providing your thoughts on it.
Now, just need a few turns to sort out some new buildings before we grab a new hex and we should be fine. ;-) If only we could come up with a Kingdom name (it took us 5 turns to finally name the capital).
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sounds like you're in a fantastic gaming group!
It can definitely be a bit tricky to recognise when necessary abstractions are taking place behind the scenes with rules as complex as these (and in case you haven't yet, I strongly recommend Ultimate Rulership from Legendary Games to expand your kingdom rules), since they seem to want to provide a deep and realistic experience, and there's a slight disconnect in some of that.
Now, speaking as a GM (and someone who has studied the kingdom rules perhaps more than the character creation rules), I'm well aware that an Inquisition event so early on can be absolutely lethal to a fledgling kingdom (the penalties for it are extraordinary). Just a suggestion: if it looks like the inquisition event is going to cause the kingdom to flounder, see if you can wrangle some sort of diplomatic aid from outside the kingdom to aid in the recovery. It might mean that you're beholden to another kingdom for a year or two, but it's a better choice than the game crashing and burning through luck of the dice.
Chem, thankfully it looks like the group is going to have a very good chance of beating the Inquisition event on the third turn, only taking the full penalty once and the half penalty once.
They stopped expanding, built buildings to boost Loyalty, nixed taxes, added holidays, moved the Spymaster bonus, and are looking to add another Leader so they can move an existing one to Enforcer and/or hire adventurers per the Event rules (they've actually been trying this for many turns, but keep rolling total crap on Diplomacy to get Akiros to swap roles and/or get Svetlana interested in politics. Please avoid bringing up other options that they may or may not have encountered yet so Farvin and any of my other players who may end up reading this thread dont get too spoilered).
They started the Inquisition event with an 8 Loyalty and failed. They boosted to 17ish (against a 26 Control DC) and made the second roll, and I think their plans for the next turn will get them around 21-23.
I will admit that I didnt fully comprehend how devastating the event would be so early in the kingdom's development. I had already been thinking about some external ways to provide some aid if they just didnt seem plausibly capable of dealing with it. Sure, there would have been some kind of "cost" for the help, but as you said it's better than the game dying and provides some opportunity for interesting diplomatic/political stuff down the line.
Thanks to everyone for the insights and advice. This was definitely a very fruitful and engaging discussion.
Curghann, out of curiosity, how are you handling the
I can see the Loyalty penalties from the Inquisition event being particularly brutal if it was.
I have not introduced that aspect yet. We're still technically in the transitionary kingdom building period suggested between the first and second module. It mentions giving the group ~1 year of kingdom building time and I assume that should occur before starting to introduce the mechanic you spoilered.
They've been using the time to tie up some of the loose ends from book 1, so it's not like the PC's have just been sitting around for 6 months in their new kingdom doing nothing.
I will likely not abide by the timing mentioned in the book because of the complications you describe.
@ Farvin...
Never worry about asking questions! :)
These boards have been incredibly helpful to me, many other GMs & Players
because we're such a supportive community.
Questions are always fair game for a variety of responses as a result, but
also, sometimes the people who answer need to be educated about the specific
forces at play in an individual game - every game is different. ;-p
Good luck on your quest!
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
+1 to what Philip said.
I certainly hope you don't think anything we've written here is an attempt to dismiss your thoughts on the rules, because none of us wanted to do that.
In fact, you've given me a great idea for a third type of event: ongoing events, which are multi-turn events whose effects only last as long as the event is active, with no permanent impact on the kingdom. Some of the existing continuous events should probably fit into this category (I don't have time right now to go through them all and figure it out). Needs a bit more detail before it's properly fleshed out, and probably needs a few new events to make it robust enough to actually be a new type of event, but it's a really solid idea for a piece of design space that's currently unused.
Thank guys, I appreciate it. And nope, I didn't think you guys were being dismissive at all.
When our group does or tries new systems, classes, etc we tend to ask a LOT of questions. It may seem tedious at first, or like we are trying to catch someone doing something they shouldn't be doing, but in actuality it's curiosity that drives it. That is what led the discussion between Curghann and I here, and to a very productive discussion at that.
@Chemlak - I am kind of honored to help plant a seed. Maybe once our group has more reps in the kingdom building I can give some thoughts on to those types of events.
In the meantime I am going to continue my pursuit of freedom and equality (Im playing a true neutral halfling druid currently serving as Marshal) atop my trusty steed Krags (my shepherd mix riding dog).
The group has tinkered with the idea of Krags as Royal Enforcer, seeing as he is already pretty adept at dispensing the King's justice. I don't think Curghann will let us though. ;-)
I'd also like to thank everyone here for their insights. I am another of Curghann's players, & I was sort of in the middle between the 2 points of view from Curghann & Farvin, though my first instinct was to follow the rule as written, like Curghann. Having read & re-read the rules, I certainly felt Curghann's interpretation was supported by the language. That said, I also certainly saw Farvin's point about things being a bit "wonky".
Much like Farvin, I think reading through the responses here has given me a bit better perspective, & like Curghann I believe we should be able to get by this soon, hopefully. Farvin's plan, which closely mirrors what I was thinking, should help us accomplish that.
As a long-time DM myself, I mentioned to Curghann on the night of the game session in question, that my prime concern in his place would have been that the severity of the penalties for this Event so early in game might be Kingdom-breaking. Again, that being said, I was Curghann's DM for a long time, & part of what I portrayed to him through most of that time was my willingness to let the dice speak in most cases, or to roll with it when a player turned one of my plotlines on its head with a trick or move I didn't see coming.
I look forward to more such interesting discussions.
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