Lords of Themselves: A Kingmaker Adventure Path.

Game Master Red Ramage

Farm and river hex sound good to me, I also like the idea of a road to Oleg's in the near future.

I updated the map with the houses, I'll get to work on the farm and some labels today and tomorrow.

In the interest of this not turning into an impeachment proceeding or fragment our brand new nation, I will share some insights on getting through to Seraphina. It's reasonable you should have some idea of what motivates her from the time spent around her.

First off, this will be a difficult concept for her because of her religious background. It's never really defined what following "the old ways" means, but I have interpreted it as being focused on looking to the natural world for inspiration on how to live. She believes in "eye for an eye" sort of justice. You commit wrongdoing and you must be repaid in kind, if you have made someone to suffer, you must be made to suffer in return. She truly sees nothing wrong with what she did. And as her player, I don't see it as an evil act either, given her motivation. There is a time to sow, a time to reap... and even a time to corrode a guy's throat out and leave him to drown in his own blood. *shrugs*

She was created on a revenge theme, after all. She achieved her vengeance versus the Stag Lord, and while she does not really delight in causing such pain and destruction, she believes it is good and right to do so. More than that, it was her duty to hold the killer responsible. Had she done anything else, she feels she would have dishonored her slain family members. Plus, considering she is going Dragon Disciple, she is always going to skew a little scary and fierce.

But barring actually making her understand your viewpoint on what makes this act wrong, there is also the option of simply asking her not to do that again... for you. Simply appeal to her friendship to find another way to achieve her goal and she will likely honor that request. Please be specific about what offends you and why, though. It will help the character development. =)

Well, Pretty would choose a side on this battle, but only if she was forced to. Both Kivan and Sera approached this in a wrong way, in her opinion. So she will just let them solve this between themselves. This is none of her business, in her mind.

As a player I don't mind the exchange of insults, but Pretty will not watch an argument who has nothing to do with her (really, no one cares about what she did, and she knows it) nor will she intervene to make amends between the two of you, so, good luck. ^_^

So in Summary, Sera supports:

1) Claim Hex to the West of Haven, meet with fey friends and then establish a Sawmill as Terrain Improvement #1 in that Hex.
2) Build another Farm within the Haven Hex for Terrain Improvement #2. If roads count as an "extra" build, also build Roads within the Haven Hex.
3) Build a Mill as our Building within the Haven Hex as well as another House, since the first one doesn't count against the Building limit.

Is #2 legal? That is, building another Farm in the same hex? I hadn't thought of it that way, though I see the argument.

Ok, I'm getting the hang on this Kingdom Building Sheet, and I'll be able to make it perfect for us to use in Google Docs.

I would like to know one thing, for now: Are we using the optional Leadership Skills?

Also, you mentioned having the Royal Engineer replace the Viceroy, but you said he would add his FULL modifier to Economy, while the Viceroy added only half his modifier to it. Are you sure about this? I need to know that to make changes to the sheet, in case necessary.

Not using those rules at this time, may revisit later.

I'm not sure how farms stack within a hex.

I imagine you didn't read the edited part at the end, about the Royal Engineer Red. Take a look at it please.

All I have found in the rules is this: "An improvement marked with an asterisk (*) can share the same hex as other improvements."

Farms are marked with an asterisk, so I assumed you could build multiples in one hex... but I haven't found anything calling out a limit on them. A typical family farm before industrialization was about 150 acres and since there are 640 acres in a square mile, it seemed reasonable we could build multiple units in 93.53 square miles per Hex.

Did some looking on the boards and there is a LOT of house-ruling talk, but not much that is really definitive. =/

yes, royal engineer adds full int to economy

All I have found in the rules is this: "An improvement marked with an asterisk (*) can share the same hex as other improvements."

Farms are marked with an asterisk, so I assumed you could build multiples in one hex... but I haven't found anything calling out a limit on them. A typical family farm before industrialization was about 150 acres and since there are 640 acres in a square mile, it seemed reasonable we could build multiple units in 93.53 square miles per Hex.

Did some looking on the boards and there is a LOT of house-ruling talk, but not much that is really definitive. =/

When you build a farm it's not actually YOU that build it, but you organize and provide support so people could build it in an organized way. Also, having a farm in a hex would be like having most of it populated by farms, which would indirectly decrease the consumption of the kingdom by 2 BP, since it's easier to feed everyone.

I agree with the rule that allows us we build farms in the same hex as the settlement, since the latter is usually surrounded by the former. But, if we were able to build multiple farms over a single hex, kingdom building would be too easy. We could have a SINGLE hex (that consts consumption 1BP/month) to pay for the consumption of an entire city with full advertisement, armies and everything. I mean, really, why would I want to claim more hexes? I would have a sawmill in one, a mine in another, and one crowded with farms for a kingdom size of 4 and a consumption of -20.

Looking at the mechanics, each hex we claim costs us 1 BP montly. A farm grants us Consumption -2, so it keeps the hex under control and also support the city with 1 BP/turn. So, with about 5 hexes we could have a good economy supporting that city, plus of course the city's own economical capacity to sustain itself.

Were I to decide, I would say you can only build only one "FarmS" improvement on each hex, but maybe you could build two Fisheries in a single hex, since it costs a lot and doesn't really break the logic. Even having only one fishery is still acceptable, cause you would be paying its regular consumption and still having water to work with other options of buildings/improvements.

That's what I think.

I would think you can build 1 of each terrain improvement with an asterisk in a hex as long as that hex meets the requirements and only 1 terrain improvement without an asterisk in each hex. Otherwise like pretty said it would be really easy to cheat the system.

I have to agree: Just as a 'House' in a settlement doesn't comprise just a single house per se but rather comprises many houses in a residential area, a 'Farm' in a hex represents devoting a large portion of the arable land in that hex to farming, not just a single farm.

I'll post more later tonight in both threads.

Yes, I understand the farms belong to the people who work them and that one "Farm" unit is an abstract representation of agricultural activity rather than a single farm.

But even though we do not build only one house when we build a "House", we are still able to build a "House" in a settlement multiple times. In fact, we must in order to get some of the bigger builds since several require that they be adjacent to 2 "Houses".

I can see that building UNLIMITED farms in one hex would be rather broken, so I agree that there should be a limit... but it seems intentionally left to the GM to decide. Maybe it should depend on what all else is built in the Hex?

As further evidence that multiple farms are intended, look under the description of the Stockyard building. "Farms in this hex or adjacent hexes reduce Consumption by 3 instead of 2"

I am working up a post for Gameplay now... Red, I never got an answer on when our trading meeting with the kobolds was again. I'll try and look it up if you didn't have it recorded.

As further evidence that multiple farms are intended, look under the description of the Stockyard building. "Farms in this hex or adjacent hexes reduce Consumption by 3 instead of 2"

I am working up a post for Gameplay now... Red, I never got an answer on when our trading meeting with the kobolds was again. I'll try and look it up if you didn't have it recorded.

So the Stockyard would increase the effectiveness of 7 farms, but I still think more than that is against the logic.

@Sera the kobolds just invited us to talk! Take a look at the bottom of Red's last post.

You're making the assumption that you can build a farm in each surrounding hex and that's just not true. Some of the improvements CAN'T share a hex with other improvements and then there are 6 types of hexes that can't sustain farms at all! So if you establish a kingdom in a place without abundant plains and hills hexes, you just can't sustain consumption with farms? That doesn't make sense... you'd have to maximze farms in farmable hexes or you're SOL.

Actually, although there are other types of hexes, you have other options to increase your build points or decrease consumption. If it's a forest, go with a Sawmill, or build a fishery on a lake, marsh or river hex, irrigate a desert terrain with an aqueduct to create a farm on it, or build a mine into a cavern, and a quarry on hills. Of course you can also build farms on hills and desert, so yeah, you do have plenty of viable options without being farm dependent... or so I think...

I'm fine with whatever Ramage wants to decide with the farms. I do imagine that if you stack too many farms up in the same place, you might be asking for a drought or some sort of pest infestation to knock your crops out of commission, or some other frequent problem.

If you get overzealous in constructing a particular type of building in a settlement, the GM should feel free to add events to discourage this practice. For example, a settlement with too many Dumps is prone to otyugh and wererat attacks, and a settlement with too many Graveyards tends to have frequent undead attacks. This should not occur, however, if you build too many Houses, Parks, Tenements, or Waterways.

Don't forget to invite Mikmek to be our engineer folks!

Ok guys, I need some information, if you would.

Our Kingmaker sheet is on the way, and I'm gonna do the best job I can to make something WE will use. That said, I'm finding some discrepancies in the values that sheet uses.

Please take a look.

What I'm referring to is that the Holiday Edicts that we were discussing have different values from those in the sheet, probably due to a change of rules on ultimate campaign or something like that. So, I've changed the sheet to reflect the original values shown here.

Aside from that, I've included the Royal Engineer position, which now adds full int to economy.

Anyway, please take a look at the "Overall" sheet, Red and everyone else, to see if the edict rules match what we are using. It's a working sheet, at least, and I'm still improving it your expenditure history.

Good golly that is a MASSIVELY substantive sheet!

I don't think the edict values are correct. "Nominal" taxation should give us +0 to Economy and +1 to Loyalty. One holiday gives us another +1 to Loyalty for Total of +2 to Loyalty. And Token promotion gives us +1 to Stability. So it looks only the Holiday one is showing up correctly. Can the drop down selections be edited?

Yes, I've been studying it. The Holiday is correct because I fixed it, and I wanted to know if I should do the same with the other values. Apparently that sheet was made to use with the rules of the ultimate campaign and its later improvements, but we do not use all of that, so I changed quite a bit of stuff already, and I'm thinking about using what I learned to improve the sheet even more, adding the expenditure menu and linking it automatically.

Let's start by fixing Taxation and promotion, then.

Ok, two things do not match in our sheets, Red, which is not a problem, but I wanted to make sure about it first. First, Mikmek's status. Just check them to see if they are right, please.

Second, you mention that the buildings we made kinda absorb unrest, so we could have up to unrest 2 without penalty. How does that work? Unrest applies to economy, loyalty and stability, right? Could you please explain this in details? I'll modify the sheet if anything is needed then... Otherwise it's good to go!

I'm finally taking a look at the sheet. Here are the things I noticed which may or may not be errors.

Under the "Rulers" tab, Bara's stats are colored red - is that because we don't know her real stats? If so, I assume we need Red's help with that.

Under the Overall tab, should our Fame, Infamy, etc. stats be set at 0 instead of -1, or do we start off slightly backwards? Also, the Total Consumption number seems to be not added together (it says 0+1+1).

That's it. Thanks so much for putting this all together!

*Edit* - one more thing. Should our unrest be at -1 instead of 1? I'm not entirely sure how we're handling this unrest "cushion."

Under the "Rulers" tab, Bara's stats are colored red - is that because we don't know her real stats? If so, I assume we need Red's help with that.

Yes, we don't know them.

Under the Overall tab, should our Fame, Infamy, etc. stats be set at 0 instead of -1, or do we start off slightly backwards? Also, the Total Consumption number seems to be not added together (it says 0+1+1).

*Edit* - one more thing. Should our unrest be at -1 instead of 1? I'm not entirely sure how we're handling this unrest "cushion."

Well, I don't think we're using Fame and Infamy rules, so I'm gonna pay attention to that if we ever need it. The unrest is 1, since it can never go bellow zero. I still did not understand how does this cushion works too, but I'll do the changes when Red can explains it. And the consumption is just the way the formula works, I have no idea why they did it that way, but I change it to normal if need be. Thanks for the comments Maja.

I bet it's the unrest that causes all those secondary stats to be negative.

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It's not, it's just a lot of rules we're really not using for now. I'm gonna hide those to make it easier for us.

@Red please explain to me how this "absorb unrest" thing is gonna work, so I can make the proper changes.

I think I felt like I understood what we doing better before I saw the spreadsheet, lol! It looks like we need clarification on what rules set and/or optional rules we are including. Also, we need Red to rule on the how many farms per hex question.

Are those Kesten's actual stats listed, or were they inferred as well?

How do we raise our personal funds now? Do we have to go adventuring again, or do we make a certain amount of salary in our leadership positions?

I've recognized I have some degree of Evil-GM PTSD, so you might want to take this with a grain of salt but I think we need to be careful separating the party into too many groups. =/

sorry for the brief absence. Went to a trade expo to evaluate some machining tools, travel held me up unexpectedly with a dead phone. I'll get to your questions tomorrow morning.

I added some text to the Haven map linked on the campaign page. I spent way too long messing around with the fonts...

I hope everything is ok with your family Red.

Do flanking rules apply as normal to such a gargantuan creature?

flanking rules apply as normal to all sizes of critters.

been a crazy few days between work and school. Two more weeks and I'm out with my degree! I'll wall-o-text tomorrow.

Almost there! Take your time, we're not going anywhere.

Hai! Ganbatte!

Congrats on the degree!

I think Red's comments were mostly for flavor since some of our horses nearly died, but are everyone's regular riding horses combat trained? If not, Milo would volunteer to train them via handle animal.

my posting will continue to be light through the next week as I wrap up finals. After that I'll be 1)back on daylight hours 2)out of school so the pace will pick back up. thanks for your patience :)

No worries!

Good Luck on your surgery Sera!

Agreed, hope everything goes well, Sera!

Hope the surgery goes well Sera.

Best wishes, Sera!

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My computer is down currently and I'm on my phone so feel free to bot me if needed.

Finals turned in, cap and gown purchased. That's the last that schooling will steal my time away. I'm an official™ engineer™ now, and finals shall ne'er again waylay me for a solid week at the end of april.

posting to commence 1/day again. Thanks for hanging with me.

Well done!! We expected no less of you!

Woohoo! Congrats!

Great job!

Congratulations!

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We expected no less of you!

Guys, how weird is to listen to this instead of the regular "no less from you"??

Doesn't seem weird at all to me.

I never answered Pretty about how buildings that provide -unrest work.

Normally, you start to suffer penalties immediately when unrest is gained. Each point of unrest imposes a -1 penalty on kingdom checks. At 11 unrest, you start to lose control of hexes. At 20 unrest, your kingdom dissolves into anarchy.

Buildings that provide -unrest give you some wiggle room, a buffer. Each point of -unrest gives you space to accumulate unrest without taking any penalties or suffering consequences.

For example, say you have -3 unrest from buildings or hex improvements. An event occurs that generates 1 unrest. Normally, you'd immediately take a -1 penalty on kingdom checks until that unrest was removed. With your -3 unrest from buildings, this 1 unrest has no effect. It's still there, and can be removed, but you do not suffer penalties until the unrest accumulated exceeds your -3 unrest. Say you can't or don't clear that unrest, and another event happens that generates 3 unrest for a total of 4 unrest. Since 4-3=1, you suffer a -1 penalty on your kingdom checks from that point forward until unrest is reduced.

This models how having a strong and robust community with stout defenses will reassure an upset or frightened population.

As for farms, I'm going to say you can have one farm per hex. Recall, buying the farm hex improvement isn't one 40 acre farm, but rather an indicator that significant agricultural activity happens in the area. Since you can stack many other hex improvements (even a settlement, interestingly) on a "farm" hex, I don't think you'll be handicapped by one farm per hex. If it works out unfairly to you, we'll revisit it.