GM Tarondor's Kingmaker Campaign

Game Master Tarondor

I'll interject to say that I've invited a friend to join us. He's a new player in my home game (got to meet us twice and then we all went into isolation!)

Tim, you'll know Gary.

Gary, Tim is Alister, our Baron (bard/sorcerer).

Nick is Aristu, Alister's half-brother (sorcerer/bard).

John (not the John from our home game) is Piotr (wizard).

Thomas is Mikhail (fighter/cleric).

Gary is thinking of playing an elf ranger.

I've updated the Guide to include the Riddles of Shyka and bring "The Story So Far" up to date.

My personal preference would be to do the kingdom using whatever requires the least amount of work. Probably just using the stat and ignoring part of the Excel sheet.

But, as the person who put a 5 year plan together, I think the Kingdom in the Background might be easiest. I had a lot of fun planning out the kingdom and I do think it adds a lot of flavor to the campaign, but in theory it should be more of a group plan and that seems hard to do online.

I think online there are restrictions on how much time some of the group have to put into the nitty gritty of the kingdom building. So either one person more or less decides everything or we spend several days waiting for a reply and it messes with the flow.

If everyone is happy with the idea of a 5 Year Abadar plan then I think it makes what happens to the kingdom more real and important. But that may only matter to the people who have enough free time when we hit kingdom building sessions to really participate.

Hi Gary! Welcome!

We just made the switch over to 2e, so many of us are still getting our footing with that. We are a bit lacking on the martial front, so a ranger would be excellent.

Guys, as Scott says, Gary plays in our home/virtual game. He's excellent with mechanics and great with getting into his character's mindset. I look forward to seeing what he'll bring.

Our kingdom is still relatively small. We suffered some real losses to the troll army and now to a fey incursion. It seems like Alister has buried a lot of our NPCs friends recently. I don't know where the next book takes us, but his focus will be getting the kingdom back on it's feet.

Hi all!
I've got me a name!
And looking forward to playing this AP. I guess I'll stop playing the Kingmaker CRPG once I finish the first few books.... ;)

I've got some severe reading to do on the guide but should be able to catch up given the long weekend.

As for Kern, my mind takes me to a Elf Ranger(Fighter Dedication) wielding a Elven Curved blade. Snares will be in the bag o' tricks as well.

Sounds good, Gary. Be sure to check out the guide I wrote. It contains a questionnaire you should fill out, as well as a history up to this point.

Folks, in regards to Kingdom building, I'm okay with any option. Honestly, I think we have the best of all worlds in regards to kingdom building. We can knock out several years of building in a week of game time if I'm following a plan. We did five years after book two in perhaps a month. So I'm fine with the nitty gritty. Even with Mikhail's plan, I can pause a day after each turn to let you comment and change course.

However, I'm also fine with the "Kingdom in the Background" option. Really, I want to keep the narrative flowing, but I also want to make the Stolen Lands as real-seeming as I can.

Let's decide this weekend and hit the ground running on Monday.

- Piotr - ?
- Mikhail - Option B
- Alister - Option C
- Aristu - Options A or B, see what happens with updated Kingmaker later this year
- Kernithar - ?

- GM - Kinda leaning towards Option B, but open to any consensus. Call me the tie-breaker.

By the way, Gary's the "guy I know" who would alter the Excel sheet if we go with Option A.

Oh, and everyone needs to be 8th level, not 7th.

Mikhail, I saw your 8th level build. Can you please update Mikhail's character sheet to that?

Not understanding the kingdom rules yet, I vote for C but also would like to revisit once material is released with 2E adaptation.

I’d also be fine with Option B if the party doesn’t mind me passing on kingdom decisions until I take the time to learn the system.

I’ll have my character done by end of Monday.

Welcome, Gary!

OPtion "C", for me.

Welcome, Gary!

- Piotr - Option C
- Mikhail - Option B
- Alister - Option C
- Aristu - Options A or B, see what happens with updated Kingmaker later this year
- Kernithar - Option C

Option C carries the day. We'll do Kingdom in the Background (possibly to revisit at the time of the Anniversary release).

Finalized my Character Sheet.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iiiivoz30w473qe/KernitharFlott-Lvl8-FullyEquipped .pdf?dl=0

Would you look at that speed!
I just have to finalize what snares I have access to from the get go, and then create my profile page here on the forums.

Looks good!

Was the choice for Option C "Kingdom in the Background" because you didn't like kingdom-building? Or because you thought it wasn't working well?

I'm listening to the Paizo Twitch stream about the Anniversary edition and I'm getting hyped for kingdom building again...

I like kingdom building, I just think it's hard to get everyone's input.

I like kingdom building too. But it is hard to get everyone engaged on it and it breaks the role-playing immersion with a whole different set of rules and bonuses to learn. If everyone enjoys it, I'm down with doing it. I just thought it would be easier to push it to the background, especially with the new edition.

It's not hard. And I think it helps to make the kingdom a bit more real.

Does it break immersion? I rather thought it did the opposite.

I don't think it's necessary for everyone to be engaged, so long as it doesn't dramatically slow down play. If a player isn't interested or it's just not a turn that grabs his attention, we can move on without his input for that turn.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled game.

Listened to the Twitch stream as well...
Sounds pretty awesome. I'm all for running a kingdom but with the understanding that I likely won't contribute until I understand the rules better. (and my character could also not contribute RP wise for a bit since he'll be new)

It was fun hearing about all the challenges they had converting to a CRPG and then back to TTRPG!

Sounds like I need to pick up the GMG for the hexploration rules.

Aaaaactually, maybe not. First of all, they're outline in the Player's Guide I posted and second, we're getting close to the end of the hexploration portion of the adventures (which I expect to begin to alter a bit by the end of Book III).

I like kingdom building, too, but find that it drags a bit on the immersion. Might be the format, might just be me, but I have always envisioned the kingdom building as a "end of gaming session" or "interlude" activity. Or, maybe on the nights that everyone cannot make it but you want to do something.

And not really keen on what, basically, can be a "dump skill" for a character in order to improve a kingdom stat. That being said, I built Piotr v2.0 with the same Profession: Merchant as before.

So what would improve the immersion, then? How do I let you have some agency in the growth of your own kingdom but still keep things both immersive and flowing?

We could do it simultaneously. So when people come to post to the RPG they can give feedback on the kingdom. That might stop large segments of time where we are just building.

Sure.

A peek behind the screen, then. What I had planned was a trio of short role-playing interludes, one dealing with the various "birds" liberated from Rhoswen's palace, one where you directed and planned some rebuilding and made plans for the future, another a year or two on where you deal with some politics and then move on to Book III.

If you guys like Mikhail's idea, we could that and kingdom-building at the same time. You won't have any time for kingdom-building during Book III anyway.

Works for me! Are you going to use your own system until we have the official 2e version? It sounds like we would need it sooner than the anniversary edition is out.

Sounds good.

Good for me.

Works for me! Are you going to use your own system until we have the official 2e version? It sounds like we would need it sooner than the anniversary edition is out.

I'll adapt the 1e rules and run it somewhat loosely for now.

So, back to the Gameplay? You're up.

Aye! Loosey goosey kingdom building it is.

Hooray! First Gameplay post!
Did someone mention hunting and living off the land? I know a guy that may be good at that. Haha!

On another note, I've viewed the linked documents at the top of the forum pages, but am curious what the intent of each of the documents is? Just want to be sure I understand where I should reference for various topic and such.

My understanding here, but please help clarify/elaborate:

I'll try to elaborate, but I'm not sure if you have specific questions.

Sword Marches Kingdom Spreadsheet - GM's behinds the scenes numbers tracking of different modifiers and how it works to calculate kingdom scores. We can see just how our buildings change the kingdom and city modifiers and what events do.

Maps of the Sword Marches - This shows the kingdom and town placement of improvements/buildings. The latest iteration also shows us where damage has occurred from the fey army/what may need to be rebuilt. Not sure what the rules are on repairing buildings.

Guide to GM Tarondor's Kingmaker Campaign - The consolidated/combined rules on kingdom building, plus all the campaign descriptions of various neighbors and NPCs. If you don't know what bonuses a farm or smithy provides, it should be in here.

Kingmaker Loot! - This is the latest loot tracker, but it hasn't been updated with anything from the Realm of the Fellnight Queen. Frankly, we're not good at this.

Mikhail's 5-Year Plan - Our resident Abadarian put together this plan for the kingdom. Yes, this has to change based on the recent damage.

Further, I'll open it up to discussion on what the heck we should do based on all the damage. I don't know what modeling Winter has for the game, but I think we need to try and rebuild some of the farms closest to Stagfell. I don't know what we can plant at this stage in the season. Maybe we try to consolidate the population into the city centers. Rebuild anything that helps with food production.

This is where we have to try and bridge the gap between RP and kingdom mechanics. Does rebuilding a farm do anything in winter? Can the smaller villages sustain themselves with hunting/foraging until spring? Could the fey provide winter crops or help the farms grow?

Alister will be trying to solicit aid shipments from Varnhold, Restov, and the fey. We could even reach out to Pitax. I'm fine selling off portions of our treasure to feed the kingdom.

Other thoughts?

I may have some assistance for the party by way of hunting and foraging in the forests. After introductions, of course... ;)

I see it as a way to get in good graces with the powers that be.

With that out of the way. Kern am quite the hunter/tracker/survivalist. I would assume this skill can be used to aid in living off the land for the kingdom?

Not sure how Lore Geneology works but maybe I should send you my backstory with that roll?!

Well rolled!

I think we move on now?

D: Pick one of the NPCs who had been bird-prisoners of Rhoswen and tell me about your relationship with him or her. Alister, don't forget that you had a (potential) directed relationship with Eristhea.

Is this still something for Kern? I'm not even sure what this references, but can go back and read if it's relevant to Kern.

Kern, it references THIS. The team returned from the Fellnight Realm with many people who had been transformed into songbirds by the evil fey queen Rhoswen.

I'll leave it up to you whether you wish to engage with one or more of them.

Working on it. I'll have a post up tonight.

I have created a guide to the Second Edition Fighter.

HERE IS THE FIRST DRAFT. I would appreciate your comments and corrections HERE.

Enjoy!

We hire a new party of adventurers to investigate for us.
Every roll new stats! LOL!

At some point, I do want to be able to hire adventurers to do tasks. Defer to the GM if we get to play a mini-adventure at that point.

No, as awesome as that sounds, I don't really have the time to run another game. So if you send adventurers off to handle stuff, it'll be run abstractly. ALSO, that can't save you from the plot. You'll still need to do the main plot yourselves. But sending adventurers to go handle hexploration or random events (trolls in the Narlmarches!) sounds like a decent idea.

Yes, to contracting out hexploration and what would, increasingly, become trivial tasks.

If nothing else, we might need to develop our apprentices.

From this week to the end of the month, my posting will be less frequent/irregular. We're preparing to move and until we get to our new place, it'll be hard to stay consistent. I do plan to post when I can, but please don't be surprised I'm absent for a few days at a time.

Good luck with the move!

Good luck!

I won't say, "Have fun!" because it's moving.

Sorry for the delay folks. Was visiting family and whatnot.

And HOW DARE YOU PUT KERN ON A HORSE!! jk Lol.
I'm mildly curious how far I can take his base land speed. There's probably some Monk thing but that would be parting from his backstory and character self.

Check out Caladrel (6th level)

Mikhail,
RE: Shield spell always up

You would be using the Repeat a Spell Activity during exploration, which would allow you to only move half-speed and unable to do one of the other Exploration Activities

Shield is a pretty common one I've seen people stick with after hitting the first encounter.

Repeat a Spell Activity
You repeatedly cast the same spell while moving at half speed. Typically, this spell is a cantrip that you want to have in effect in the event a combat breaks out, and it must be one you can cast in 2 actions or fewer. In order to prevent fatigue due to repeated casting, you’ll likely use this activity only when something out of the ordinary occurs.

You can instead use this activity to continue Sustaining a Spell or Activation with a sustained duration. Most such spells or item effects can be sustained for 10 minutes, though some specify they can be sustained for a different duration.

RE: Caladrel (6th level)

Nice! Seems like lots of other good characters to choose from as well.

I'll be at GenCon Online all weekend. I'll check in here as time allows.