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Ok so we had Session today, stag lord was killed, his castle taken over and bandits who took players side were spared and promised new start and better lives.

My players decided after some thinking that none of their characters had any charisma or skill to rule alone. So they went with the council route and now everyone with leadership role has same amount of power in the council (this way they could all also take role that fir their characters more and sounded more fun), "Ruler" is just a person who publicly speaks and is the voice and face of this council.
i believe that this is best way how things could have gone, they still plan all having own individual villages to watch over witch is fine and good.

iam just somewhat worried about the look of this council, it consists of paladin, warrior, ex criminal, wizard elf, Undead demon worshiper, Religious fanatic, random citizen, Daemon as official executioner and its public face is mostly blind dude who has hard time walking without hitting things and on top of that his half possessed by daemon (not the bad kind but it might affect things)

well i check where all this goes and hope for best. This is bound to be super interesting and bring some strange times on my world and maybe even something that's written down on history.

So everyone failed to notice that the AP is called Kingmaker.....

well its not that they didn't notice, i warned them and told them multiple times that elfs, undead and wizards will have hard time to get peoples trust and that people will be racist and hateful toward magic, but they said that "well that will make things just lot more fun and interesting!", which is completely true, there have been tons of problem with paladin NPC who fears magic and dislikes undead (he has yet to notice that one of the players is undead, he masks it well) and at times its super hard to hide their zombie girl friend that they have with them apparently as "experiment" (they found it on way to the kingmaker campaign during "tutorial" of game mechanics).

Well i let them go how they want for now and not stop them or anything, if the elf or half elf characters become the king then i just reduce the amount of people that come to this newly found country and make citizens just not trust their king all that much and some other problems, makes things just more fun when they need to solve all those problems!

i write again after few sessions to tell how all goes down, my players have surprised me so many times that iam sure they will come up with something that i have not prepared for at all.

The PCs become heads of state but have very few duties and most of them ceremonial. One piece of advice I would give is don't give the PCs access to the kingdom building rules. Discuss things in the abstract with them and operate the rules in the background if you choose to do so. The kingdom campaign rules are so open to abuse it is untrue but they are a great springboard to campaign ideas. Just based on my experiences.

well that would be nice but my players like the rules (they have read them little) and want to actually do political things because fighting and adventuring becomes boring after a while and its nice to have something completely different. i try to talk with them more and go with the council thing (there would be something like 6-10 people who all take care of different parts of kingdom, all are "kings", players would have place in it too)

ok iam writing some more info because people asked

so first of all, we use my own made setting and kingmaker takes place in east part of the land. Players characters were given task to make the place habitable and start building village/town there because their previous country was destroyed and is slowly collapsing and some people believed that its time to start a new.

well the setting is low magic, magic is extremely scary and horrible and most people dislike it. If village has wizard and some problem then most people assume wizard=source of problem (because honestly, who sane person learns how to do fireballs?) during many hundreds of years there has also been many evil wizards and people have tendency to forget all the good wizards and remember only the bad ones.

elfs are sub-race of humans and children of those ancient humans that moved to magical forests to safety because they were hunted due to their magical abilities.There have been multiple wars between elfs and humans during last few hundred years, In other words, elfs are hated because they are human 2.0 and better in many aspects and they show it to any human they see (humans just out breed them so humans win with numbers)

now some of you readers must have realized already why iam telling all this. Here are my players characters:

Elf Wizard who is narcissistic and believes humans are trash, he only works with humans to use them.

Half-elf undead Summoner who regularly prays to demons and hates his human side.

human slayer who is hot headed killer and believes all problems are solved with shooting people with arrows fast before problems are even born. his silent and lets his bow/sword do most of talking and acts before knowing enough details (and has caused some problems with it already)

so 2 of my players are something that 90% of humandoid races hate (that 10% being elfs themselves, fairies, tree-men and elf sympathizers) and last one told me that he actually doenst want to be king because that would take too much time from his other plans. (we had some talk about this problem hour ago with him)

and as i told, players knew that many people would hate them if they made elf or caster characters (or undead, thats even more visible)

so for reasons that would take tons of writing, none of my players characters are capable or able to be decent kings. no one would like to live in cities ruled by people like them (even when some of them are good people, reason is mostly looks and lore of my own made world)

but still they all want to be kings (of coarse).
has anyone had something like this happen to them?what did you do or how did you make your players realize that they characters just couldn't be ale to be good kings and they can take some other leadership positions or lead from shadows, or do some big council of people who all lead the nation with democracy? (none of them like these ideas, doesn't fit characters and i understand that)

PS:i warned my players about this TONS of time before starting the AP and when making characters with them, they knew this was going to happen at some point.

okay, i decided to listen the advice's and i made the world map first, i have taken smaller part of the whole world map then and now that is the area where i will limit my other players when they create their characters so all characters have been born on (about) the same area and should have similar knowledge about the world.

i have also decided to flesh out the main city of the starting area (main point of all quests and the starting place of the whole adventure) and give it more history, more people and name all important (and less important) shops and other places. its the main city of all the adventures after all and my players will most likely stay there a lot.

@Jerichos story also reminded me that there needs to be some travelling caravans (and circus, i already made sidequest involving one :D) and i have taken lots of time to also plan out all kinds of possible trading routes between the cities of the lands.

Sara Douglass article also helped a lot, thanks @Cpt_Kirstov for that.

thanks guys, i have gotten lot more further with my world now, i made few towns so i have total of 1 city, 1 castle, 4 towns (one destroyed by the silver dragon). i have also at least 1-3 quest for every town, hardest part is trying to come up with different kind of approaches for the quests so that i have plans prepared if players do something differently :D

i also decided to go with Silver dragon being frost dragon, the town is now giant magical frost land in the middle of forests that never melts (with constant snow storm) and it feels more awesome than ordinary burned down village.

@Malag, i should really write more about the world and its creatures and i started to write down what kind of creatures inhabit the land and also came up with few great quests with that (i just hope that my players dont immediately just kill those spiders uh, but its probably bound to happen...)

Iron Truth and Dafyff, those are great backgrounds and i have lots of ideas already!

also, i didnt even realize that silver dragons breath frost until now, my friend might have over looked that, well this will make everything actually LOT more interesting, just need to talk to my friend first.

Stdrake: thats great idea, i hope i get something with that

thanks guys!

i believe that this is the right place for this, sorry if its not.

i have been creating my fantasy world for some time already, but it just goes nowhere, for few months i have looked at my monitor, and only thing i have gotten is 5 encounters (no battle), 1 city and nothing else. i almost gave up today, almost. because today i realized how it all works, my friend made his character and its background already (the game SHOULD be ready in few weeks) and showed it to tome, he wanted me to include his town and short 70 word backstory to my world and campaign somehow. and then it sparked, and in just one day i made more out of his cliche small background than what i had done in months, i now have 3 full quests with multiple encounters and good story, 2 new towns and multiple quests in those towns. just like a flame cant start without the spark, i just cant make a quest or story without the little inspiration story.

now the flames have run out of burning material how ever, and i would really like if you guys would help me. i would really like you to just write some small things. here is my friends character background as example:

Djarcan is hard worker who has always aimed to top, he lived in small town called Garnania, until Silver dragon swoop over the town, burning everything down to last house. only the luckiest survived, including Djarcan and his uncle.
He swore that hi will find the Silver Dragon and end its life. after many years however, he has yet to carry out that quest to its end.

i have also started to read some of the books from nearby library, mostly poetry and similar stuff, hoping some of those snap at right place. there just isn't lots of fantasy stuff there so i hope some of you guys can help me, thanks.

Please forgive my lack of empathy, but CRY ME A RIVER. Oh no! Your players are having a difficult time deciding what to do! Maybe it's because you threw a moral quandry their way and expected them to be evil, like your solution to the problem clearly was. Maybe they're new players and aren't accustomed to how an open, living story works (as many gamers aren't at first). Whatever the reason, snapping at them because they can't figure it out is silly. If your players can't figure out an acceptable course of action, then YOU need to step up your game, and I tell you this as someone who had had the exact same problem for a long time, but didn't blame his players.

if everyone wants the truth then we were not actually on that point for 1 hour.we were there for whole 3 hours and that whole time was first 30min of combat of trying to kill the fey because they decided that it was the easier way until he took their friend as hostage, then it was 2 and half hours of talking about weather they should kill the wood cutters, leave their friend and buzz of, kill the fey or talk the fey out of its house that it cant leave or it dies (and he said that at least 10 times)

also i didnt snap, maybe sounded super annoyed and looked frustrated. i might have accidentally exaggerated my own reaction. they also admitted them selfs that they dont have really good imagination (we are talking about this now on chat too) and i would like to help them on that.

also, my players are evil, only reason they didnt kill the wood cutters was because there were too many of them and they (for some reason) believed that they wouldnt get money out of it.

soni1x: sadly we all are really bad with people and would need to take just some random persons to our game (none of our other friends like this kind of stuff) and that would just make gaming harder.

1) It sounds like you had a very specific solution in mind, with the bridge. Rule 1 of GMing is "the players are NOT going to do the thing you expect them to do", so if you forget Rule 1 then you are going to get frustrated.

2) If you're not having fun, maybe Pathfinder is not the right game to play.

the bridge wasnt only solution (also i came up with it on the fly, i didnt even plan it), i had come up with multiple different out comes for what to happen, they could have just really killed the wood cutters and taken the money (and fey would give their friend back) but for some "i dont even know what" reason they wouldnt have gotten money then, it seems they have imagination where it shouldn't be and thought the money was somewhere else than wood cutters pockets.

of coarse that would have been boring, but they could have also tried to negotiate some kind of agreement between the fey and wood cutters like wood cutters get some wood and fey gets something in return but they couldnt even come up with simething simple as that. there are so many different things they could have done.

also, good idea deusvult, i might stop this game and talk with them if they liked railroad adventure more and choose one from the store that looks nice, after few of those they might indeed have better skills and imagination and stuff. i might give them one last try with this before that, maybe little talk with them about imagination first or something like that.

we have had few pathfinder games already with my usual friend group that i play warhammer 40k and other stuff with. now today i just gave up at half a point because being GM for them is just too hard.

they lack imagination completely and have really bad memory, i seriously dont know how to advice them on how the game should be played. today we played hostage situation where fey was keeping one of their friends as hostage under water(using spells and stuff) and would only give him back if they go away and butcher nearby wood cutters or hush them away.

only things they could come up were killing the wood cutters or killing the fey. but they couldnt do them (wood cutters promised tons of money for killing the fey, fey would dispell the spells on their friend and kill him almost instantly if they tried to attack him) it was 1 hour of talking to the wood cutters and the fey, they counldnt understand why fey that has lived 200 years on same lake wouldnt want to leave even when it would die out side of it fast or why the wood cutters wanted wood from there even when it was lot more better quality tree than on other places.

all that god damned time i gave them some hints on what to do and like that, also used it to give them as much info about world that i could. but then i just gave up and said "f%~+ it" and told them that they have shitty imagination.

it shocked them when i told them what i would do in that situation and that they could do that. earlier in the game they had come agross a shady bridge, they could ACTUALLY LIE that there are nice trees there and that they wouldnt need to trouble the fey if they went there. hopefully the bridge would collapse because the wood cutters are stupid to all just rush through it with all equipment. meaning that they wouldnt be coming back.

could someone give me some advice on how to explain how the game works, how to use your imagination and how to play "in character" or how to make them use their imagination more?

I'd say ... this is a sandbox. Don't "make" your players do anything. Throw a couple warning signs at them about the Stag Lord's power, but if they decide they want to attack him anyway ... then let them go to it.

Of course, if they want to take over his band from the inside, then create a kingdom from there, that's an interesting way to take the module.

yeah, "make" was a bad word, i should have used something else.

thats why to counter this i came up with the plan that they could join them. but why and how? why would the bandits let them join or want them? and how would this happen nice and smooth (or bad and edgy, thats okay too as long as its fun).

also RobREndell, thats great. i just hope my players are clever enough to come up with something like that.

so my players have decided that there must be something awesome on the location where the stag lords castle is, they said that its a place where they would build village or something so someone "Must have build home or something there". they will follow the thorn river through the forest (following the skunk river later) and will soon arrive there in game session or two.
now iam in little trouble, if they attack stag lord now they will die right away. so i had the though that they could join stag lord, with that they wouldnt die and i could push them to the right direction (away from the places of the second book)

so how could i do this? in what way could i make them join the bandits and avoid them attacking the bandits and killing them self? and how would i do it?

when did i wrote that i am not having fun? we are having blast right now, the way they took is just so different from what i expected and prepared for and the stolen lands book doenst have anything that could help me with this situation.

thats why iam asking help, how should i chance the story (other than kill all of them and restart) and what should i do with all the quests and future kingdom building?

i forgot to write why they killed oleg and burned down the place, it wasnt JUST because its fun.
they walked to the trading post, main reason was food. they already stole food from the random traveler so plan was to just eat and then sleep and after that continue journey.
how ever, the aasimar and goblin got the best idea ever to touch Olegs wife inappropriately and of coarse Oleg got mad, said few bad words. Orc got mad because of that and bushed oleg down, yelled him little and then went on to take care about his horse. Oleg was mad and said few bad words about the orc, this was mistake from my part because orc took this very personally, hi then hit oleg (but didnt damage him badly yet) and the battle started. there were few guards that i had created that joined the fight too and soon there were bodies everywhere (i really didnt believe that it would go that far). they decided that they should burn the place down to not leave any evidence about what they did. then they talked to the retarded blind man and bluffed him to think that there was little bandit attack and then convinced him to join them.

i try to talk to my players so they would cool down little and stop just killing everything they see, i could give them few advice's on how to continue (they could indeed say that bandits burned the olegs house and pillaged it)

about the characters, the orc is indeed evil, the goblin is neutral and believes the orc to be the leader of the group and was on his side on killing humans because of that, i heard that he regrets what they did which is good. last is the aasimar who just went with the flow, he doesnt want to lose his only friends (his the one that convinced the blind man to join them and the one taking care of him now)

i thought about how to continue with things, the game could continue normally, they have lost the "Home base" but i could make it so that new one is build somewhere else, they would explore normally and the first book would end with killing the bandits and stag lord.
other what i thought about is that they could join the bandits, and make the Stag lords lair the main base (they could get some of the quests there). in the end they would back-stab stag-lord and take his place as the leaders of the bandits.

i believe that this adventure might actually still become something, i will try my best to make it to the end.

an i have no idea what to do

to start, this is my forst time DMing and my players are completely new to this game, i tld them that they are free to do what they want but every action has consequences.

we had nice little 3 player party ready, Half-Orc Barbarian, Goblin rogue and Aasimar Cleric. They all are really nice people and i was sure we will have awesome campaign about exploration. But everything changed when i said "in the distance you see Olegs Trading Post, What do you guys do?"

"i set up trap and steal shit from people"
"i go an hunt for some humies and eat them"
"i go kill some animals for food"

ok, not that bad, i rolled all rolls, they found human, killed him and looted, got some stuff from him. then they go to the Trading post.

and f****** burn it down, kill Oleg and his wife, eat their bodies, talk NPC that i created to join them on their journey (the NPC is blind, couldnt see all the shit the PCs did) and now they are off to meet the bandits they heard about.

so now i have no idea what to do, most likely they will join the bandits or something, also i have no idea what to do with the NPCs that had to come to the Trading post or the bandits that were supposed to attack there. i would really like if someone gave me some options about what to do