Megan's Kingmaker PbP

Game Master Megan Robertson

I'm not that traveled. I reside in a coastal college town currently and have lived in some other cities within the US. I've never left the country (even when I was in the Navy), much less been on a cruise, so I would have jumped on the opportunity to do what you did. Take your time and enjoy yourself.

I did - it was a great experience and one I hope to repeat with family members along. It was too good not to try to share it.

And the adjustment will be rough. Work piled up because I knew I would be gone and could not finish anything I started - and then because people added to the pile while I was away - so I know that's going to tie me up.

The temperature around here has been unseasonably warm right up until our first snow storm (and significant moisture), so I was due for a week of chills one way or another. ;-)

I'm still more than a little awed that the opportunity came my way in the first place.

Sounds like an awesome experience Rhasa. Traveled a lot for work a couple of jobs ago, but the only other country I've been to is Canada.

Everyone in my family has been on a cruise except me, one day I hope.

Sounds fun, Rhasa.

The UK has gone cold at the moment. Huddled here in my corner waiting for the weather to improve.

Cold here as well....

I would have a lot less trouble with the cold if we would just get some sort of precipitation. It's January, it's supposed to be cold, right? At least north of the equator?

Teeth are chattering, inversion setting in. Haven't seen a temp above freezing in several days.

And as Rhasa said, I would mind if it would snow, but it's just cold. And now all we can see is bad smokey air because of the inversion.

Beginning to have thoughts of a new ice age.

Imagine that roll of 1...

Gorguk just told the bandits to hail Hitler, and goose step. ; )

That is the new greeting in the Greenlands. It's all the rage, you should try it sometime.

It is actually easier than it looks to do the goose step.

I hate cold weather though, and to top it all have a toothache as well! And TWO lessons to deliver in Church tomorrow... so I shall scamper off and bury myself in the Scriptures. Best place to be :)

I need to ask you all, at this point in the adventure, how active you want to be in the establishment of the new colony?

The AP offers a choice. If you, the players, want to be involved in kingdom and city building, that's fine. Not only will you need to worry about gathering gear and strength for your own adventures, you'll need to take care of an entire kingdom's needs. It's quite a novel direction for a campaign to take, although historically valid.

However, if you would prefer a more conventional 'adventure' approach, we can make extensive use of NPCs to handle the day-to-day affairs of the new kingdom while you lot deal with the 'troubleshooting' aspects, with the evolution of the Stolen Lands into a kingdom happening in the background.

The main thrust of the AP is that you take a leading role in kingdom development, but if you'd rather not it supplies 'Kingdom in the Background' sidebars so that I can post updates of development whilst you scamper around being adventurers.

If you want a kind of middle way, we can have NPC administrators doing the scut-work, with you providing the policy decisions - you'll just have the appropriate NPC scampering up to ask you to sign off on stuff.

This is up to you. I will run it either way, depending on your decision.

Well, we could easily enough hire a sheriff/administrator or judge/magistrate to oversee construction and notify us of problems. Ultimately we would be just like politicians making poor decisions while others actually work....

And filling our time with adventures rather than illicit affairs.

I'm fine either way. I'm afraid my attention span and available time might make it difficult for me to be much help in the more detailed kingdom/city-building option, but I will happily support the rest of the group if that's what they choose.

I would like to try the more hands on approach myself. I heard that was the best part of this campaign was the rule your own kingdom and make it yours attitude. it was the reason I wanted to try Kingmaker, but if I am outvoted then so be it.

I'm willing to take the hands on approach.

Sounds good to me: must admit I am quite excited about DMing nation-building... as I said, it gives things an added realism that pure adventuring with the participants just getting more and more powerful doesn't provide.

Perhaps a decent compromise then if Barnabus and Rhasa are acceptable to this, is that Cal and I do most of the kingdom planning. Lothar you are welcome just haven't seen your opinion yet. This way those that want to try it out are responsible Andy's keep it going while the rest can take it easy if they are too busy. Plus it may make things go quicker if we only have two or three opinions rather than five.

Rhasa has never been as interested in the shape of the communities, anyway. Her primary concern with the settlement is that someone speaks for the land. She does not want to see all of the plains plowed, the forests cut down, and the rivers fouled.

As long as the natural domain is respected and accounted for in the decisions of the kingdom, she will quietly agree to the decisions. Her default behavior is to hide and watch, anyway, so the role you describe is natural for her.

I think that the area near the temple is idea for other temples as well as the one that is there.

I suspect communities will occur at some natural areas.

Someone should re-establish/rebuild some bridges or Nettles crossing and part of kingdom building will be "road" signs.

Some areas maybe too harsh for settlement and could be set aside for creatures such as the tatzyl worm and owlbears.....Which Barnabus and likely Rahsha would be interested in not being extinct from the kingdom.

Sorry.... I've been busy. My wife and I moved into my late grandmother's home a month ago. We're still unpacking. On top of that, my gaming laptop's hard drive failed and I've lost not only my pdfs (not that bad of a loss) but all of my character builds and campaign notes as well. The failure occurred when trying to back up those notes. I'm trying to rebuild what I had, but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment, as some of the notes were very extensive (my Rise of The Runelords/Way of the Wicked mashup "Heirs of Thassilon" campaign notes embody this).

I don't know know where I stand as far as this campaign goes. I love doing it, but with everything going on, I'm finding myself just going through the motions and you guys deserve better than that. Rebuilding my cache of notes has affected me in a way I hadn't thought possible and I don't know how to deal with it at the moment.

So what am I saying? To be honest... I don't know. I want to continue on with you guys, but I want to give you my best and currently I'm not doing that. Maybe I just need to take a break for a while, just to focus solely on the rebuilding process.

What do you guys think I should do?

People get busy - and you told us about the move. Major bummer about the laptop - well, all your work, actually.

I think you should not be worried. Take a step back, get your real-life stuff in order, and come back with a clear head. And hopefully fresh notes. Lothar could easily be off-stage temporarily considering the role he's been shaping up to play. Accompany the lordling back to Rostov, develop contacts and resources, stuff like that.

I want to see you back, but I don't want you worried about this - it is just a game - when you have more important stuff to do. Like unpack the boxes you want to unpack and hide the rest. When you find them in a few years, you can ask yourself why you bothered moving them. ;-)

Take care of you and yours first. My $0.02.

Sounds like a plan,

my two coppers

Take some deep breaths and relax.

Kick self for not backing up files.

More relaxing....

Agree, as long as we know and you just didn't disappear I am find with you on a hiatus. We will continue to move along and when you are ready then pop back in.

Lothar, I hope you stay in the campaign. If you want to step back for a bit, we shall arrange for a Master to come live in the religious enclave Barnabus has in mind for the area round the shrine of Erastil and you can go study with him for a while!

As for your notes &c, a similar disaster happened here Christmas 2009 - dearly beloved bought me a couple of 1.5 terabyte hard drives, installed them and then the old 'RPG disk' refused to start up to transfer everything to their new home. Sent it to a data recovery company who wanted £1000 with no guarantee of success, so I told them to chuck it out and rebuilt the collection instead. It is now far more organised, even if the pretty front end needs to be written again (I use a webpage style, click on an image of the cover of the PDF to open the file).

Rhasa' - I think folks have a mind to use the grasslands for grazing rather than farming, one or two of the former bandits are talking about breeding horses. Would that be more acceptable than taking a plough to them?

Oh, she understands that the land will have to be used and the sod will have to be broken. She just doesn't want it to be loved to death.

Grazing and raising horses sounds great, but even that can be overdone.

Thanks guys!

Your support means a lot to me. I'll take a hiatus to get things back on track in the real. I'll also pop on every so often to check on things here to stay in the loop.

Dnt worry by the time you get back, you will have a city all your own and be so rich you won't know how to spend it all. Well maybe an exaggeration but you get the idea.

Well, I take a couple of days off from checking on our game and have a book to read when I get back.

Lothar, I agree with everyone else. Just take the time you need, and we'll be here when your ready. I know how those things go, I've lost a laptop, and two hard drives in my desktop in the last year, dang machines, can't live without them, yet they drive ya crazy sometimes.

I also know about being busy as well, my new job is still keeping me hopping, and I some days just seem like it's work, eat, sleep, repeat.

Anyway, take care and we'll hear from ya when you get a chance. Otherwise don't sweat it.

Well time to stop the incoherent babbling and go to sleep, as soon as I post for Calinder.

Night everyone.

Glad to see that our game is hopefully coming to life again after a couple of weeks break. Hope everyone is well, and the sun is shining for all. I'm just glad the weather is finally starting to warm up. Soon it will be time for golf and launching rockets.

I'm fortunate to have multiple computer's and internet accessible devices, as the hard drive in our desktop decided to kick the bucket. Still rebuilding, but not very happy with Western Digital at the moment, that drive was only a year old.

Trying one of Seagate's new hybrid drives, so far I'm liking it very much. If I could just afford a higher end video card for that box then I would have a really decent computer. Not that I get to use it a lot, the kids are the one that use it most of the time.

Got to go for now, have a good day everyone.

I'm in the process of setting up my new laptop (just got it today) and hopefully before the week is up I'll be back to posting with you guys again.

Sounds good Lothar, it'll be great to have ya back with the group again.

As you can see from my post, I just got done rebuilding my desktop. Now my oldest son wants to build a Linux box, so we are going to be working on that. A neighbor gave us an old PC that we are going to try and use.

Indeed, partner, it's great to hear from you again. We took a bit of an unplanned hiatus, so you've really missed nothing. Perhaps we can retcon your traveling with the party, after all.

Don't worry about me traveling with you guys. Lothar can still make the trip back to Rostov with the lordling and establish his presence enough to begin an information network. Hopefully this will also mean he gets rid of the penalty that comes with his Bastard campaign feat now that we are taking on the role of leadership in the Stolen Lands. If not, it just means he'll have to work harder at becoming a true noble.

Up to you, Lothar - what would you like to do?

I like the way you are putting an IC spin on your options, though!

Lothar going to Rostov seems good to me and I would like to go with that for him. I'm curious to see how that goes.

I'd give almost anything for a potion of gaseous form right now, as I have the feeling I'm about to be frog food.

Dont worry once it gives it's position away by attacking you Gorguk is going to kebab the thing and have frog legs for supper.

Les danseurs? Mmmmmm....

Frog legs... taste like chicken.

Especially with ketchup. ;)

You guys seem to be having a lot of fun. Just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and keeping an eye on things.

Glad to see that your still around and keeping track of us. :)

Hope everything is going well for you.

I'll have to tell everyone about my player's experience with a frog in Age of Worms someday, they came up with quite the unique solution. I just don't have time at the moment, and I also wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone that's not been through that one.

I will be on vacation starting tomorrow until 4/29.
My posting maybe either spotty or absent depending upon the circumstances

Frog legs... taste like chicken.

Especially with ketchup. ;)

You guys seem to be having a lot of fun. Just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and keeping an eye on things.

Hey, partner. Wish you were here! Glad to know you are still around, hope things are good.

We will be back soon Lothar so hang tight. Have fun Barnabus we will just have to get along with you talking to every creature and critter we find. More might die now but some loss is acceptable.

Have fun on your vacation Barnabus. We'll hold down the fort, ha ha.

Enjoy your trip, Barnabus; and good to see you, Lothar.

Wow! What happened to everyone? All posting just seemed to stop... Is everything ok?

I'm still here.

I'm here as well, just didn't see any activity. Thought maybe everyone was taking a little break.

Sorry, had a baby girl and got busy. Didn't see any updates so never added one myself.

Really? Congratulations!