Playing Kingmaker with my kids

[alex_van_d]

I'm thinking of running kingmaker with my 3 kids aged 7, 9, and 11.

The oldest has been playing and GMing D&D for more than a year. The others have had some brief intros when I ran some sessions of Star Wars RPG and Ponyfinder for them.

Any suggestions as I think about running Kingmaker with them?

[Cat Whisperer]

I love Kingmaker. It is, by far, my favorite AP.
That said, my best advice to you is to NOT run Kingmaker as written.

The beauty of this "sandbox" is that each DM/GM can make it their own.
Tailor it to meet the desires of your kids.
Give them something memorable.
If they like dragons, giants, faerie creatures, etc. - you can insert them as you see fit.
Making Kingmaker a custom experience for my players is what I enjoyed the most.

[Gargs454]

Cat Whisperer wrote:

I love Kingmaker. It is, by far, my favorite AP.

That said, my best advice to you is to NOT run Kingmaker as written.

The beauty of this "sandbox" is that each DM/GM can make it their own.
Tailor it to meet the desires of your kids.
Give them something memorable.
If they like dragons, giants, faerie creatures, etc. - you can insert them as you see fit.
Making Kingmaker a custom experience for my players is what I enjoyed the most.

^ This.

Be prepared to go wherever your kids want, and more importantly, be prepared to simply scrap large parts of the AP. Just as an example, there is a ton of Hexploration in the module as written. I can easily see that getting boring in a hurry. I would also probably think long and hard about how you run the kingdom rules. While the rules are pretty simple in some respects I could see it getting a bit too . . . academic? for a group of kids. If want they want is to play in their kingdom, but not worry about the minutiae of actually building it, be prepared to perhaps do a hybrid of Kingdom in the Background and actually running the regular rules. For instance, ask them what kind of buildings do they want to build then let them know it will take X months, but don't worry overly much about the kingdom turns.

Of course, all of that is going to depend on your kids and what they enjoy, but I could just see it being too cumbersome for a group of kids that just want to go out and slay some monsters.

[Indraea]

I don't know your kids, but I would scrap a lot of the math heavy components of kingdom building and incorporate as much other play as possible into the campaign. If they like Legos, for example, have them actually build their town and toss out most of the mechanics, focusing more on what sort of town they want to rule over and how they resolve 'random' events that come up.

I would especially take it as a great time to go over civics, politics, and philosophy with your kids. Something completely ignored by the game's mechanics, but which ought to be really important, is what the laws of the new kingdom are going to be. Do your kids want their kingdom to harshly punish thieves by lopping their heads off in the town square? There's also plenty of issues that can be discussed in more abstract forms than you might normally encounter, like religious freedom, how to respond to protesters, or even just racial issues. (If your kids decide to ally with the Sootscales, that's great, but how well exactly will all the Brevic settlers get along with a bunch of kobolds?)

[JohnB]

Better still - make the maths interesting and give them a reason to do it. Lets face it, the maths isn't difficult or complicated just a bit tedious.

[alex_van_d]

So far we've saved Oleg's, found the kobold's in the radish fields and stumbled across the bandits at Thorn Creek.

My kids and enjoying it and so am I!

My oldest, a boy, is enjoying being a half-orc barbarian who hits things hard.

My middle girl is playing a sneak half-elf ranger who is terrified of getting hurt.

My youngest is playing a gnomish druid riding a wolf, and she spends more time taking care of her wolf than anything else.

Two of my sons friends are dropping in and out playing an elven bard and an elven monk.