What Ho All!
After a seven-month break from DMing, I'm back behind the screen and our new Kingmaker campaign has just kicked off. I'm going to be blogging about our sessions, so if you are interested in seeing how our stalwart heroes meet the challenges of the Stolen Lands check it out here. Every relevant post will have the "kingmaker" tab and I'll be adding one session summary a week. I'm interested to get feedback and suggestions so go take a look.
I've just posted a summary of our first Kingmaker session in which the PCs learn of their mission, meet a drunken, lecherous merchant and ferocious goblin raiders before reaching Oleg's Trading Post.
You can read all about it, here!
We had our second Kingmaker session last night and once again it was great fun! No-one died (again) but the random encounters almost spelled the doom of one explorer. A wandering worg, a rampaging owlbear, playful fey and a party of vicious bandits kept the PCs very busy this week.
You can read all about it, here!
Im reading t fyi, got your site bookmarked. We are about to start in a month or so, and its nice to read your story before I dm mine. Very well written!
Just wanted to add that I have started following as well. I am hoping your campaign stays just ahead of mine so I can mine interesting ideas as my campaign progresses. My campaign is one session in.
Also I wanted to reiterate how useful I as a dm find this type of thing... I read the first two stories in the back of the adventure paths and shrugged... not sure what they were supposed to do to improve my game. But this type of narration of what the players see provides me a simple and effective way to think about how my sessions will go. Sometimes I read an adventure 2-3 times and still dont get a sense for the flow or the things that happen in between encounters. A resource such as this helps me be a better DM. I think :)
So, thanks
Thanks for reading our adventures! I hope you enjoy them/find them useful. I find this kind of thing a very useful resource for our campaign. It allows us to easily recap what we did in a given session and provides a handy list of NPCs and such like.
I'm really enjoying Kingmaker. The really interesting thing about the campaign to date is that it's 100% player driven. Normally in a dungeon, you get one or two interesting choices at any given point. In Kingmaker, they can go anywhere at any time. While this can be a preperation nightmare (!) it's very reminiscent to me of old modules like The Secret of Bone Hill and the players seem to be enjoying the freedom it brings. I'm looking forward to next session while will be wholly exploration in nature. I wonder how far they'll get.
One suggestion I have is, though, is to pre-roll random encounters. Some of them can be horrible for a 1st-level party (four trolls, a shambling mound etc) and if you pre-roll them you can make plans to make them interesting and survivable. Pre-rolling weather is also a good way of highlighting the passing of time (as unlike most campaigns) Kingmaker is going to take game years to complete.)
it's very reminiscent to me of old modules like The Secret of Bone Hill and the players seem to be enjoying the freedom it brings. I'm looking forward to next session while will be wholly exploration in nature. I wonder how far they'll get.
One suggestion I have is, though, is to pre-roll random encounters. Some of them can be horrible for a 1st-level party (four trolls, a shambling mound etc) and if you pre-roll them you can make plans to make them interesting and survivable. Pre-rolling weather is also a good way of highlighting the passing of time (as unlike most campaigns) Kingmaker is going to take game years to complete.)
i love bone hill
i own a weather dice, so using that can add to encounters / skill challenges if you will
on the random encounter thing what i did was have a small note of how, if i roll troll, will o the wisp etc, at low level, i have an idea of why that will be a non combat encounter...so i always went with what it said, but on the presumption there would be ways to avoid a fight.
we are in session #20, and it still feels fresh every week i sit down to GM
game tme wise 3 and a half years have passed.
2 PCs have married npc's
keep up the good work kingmakers everywhere!!
I just posted Session III of Stolen Land to my blog. You can check it out here. Within you'll discover a searing tale of indecision, disturbing radish fetishes and savage owlbears.
You can check out earlier sessions by hitting the "Kingmaker" tag in the word cloud on the right-hand side of the screen. Also you in fancy seeing how our Age of Worms campaign went before it's rather abrupt and disasterous ending, you can hit the "Age of Worms" tag.
I just posted Session III of Stolen Land to my blog. You can check it out here. Within you'll discover a searing tale of indecision, disturbing radish fetishes and savage owlbears.
You can check out earlier sessions by hitting the "Kingmaker" tag in the word cloud on the right-hand side of the screen. Also you in fancy seeing how our Age of Worms campaign went before it's rather abrupt and disasterous ending, you can hit the "Age of Worms" tag.
Wow, great read. Really makes the campaign come alive and gives me an idea what to stresss. I notice that my party flies through encounters a lot quicker then yours (we do this by design...) so I am beginning to fear we will quickly outpace you. Still your stories are definetely giving me a handle on what the start of the campaign can look like
Wow, great read. Really makes the campaign come alive and gives me an idea what to stresss. I notice that my party flies through encounters a lot quicker then yours (we do this by design...) so I am beginning to fear we will quickly outpace you. Still your stories are definetely giving me a handle on what the start of the campaign can look likeI just posted Session III of Stolen Land to my blog. You can check it out here. Within you'll discover a searing tale of indecision, disturbing radish fetishes and savage owlbears.
You can check out earlier sessions by hitting the "Kingmaker" tag in the word cloud on the right-hand side of the screen. Also you in fancy seeing how our Age of Worms campaign went before it's rather abrupt and disasterous ending, you can hit the "Age of Worms" tag.
We are meandering on purpose. our last campaign folded because the DM maniaclly forced us to rattle through the adventure so much so that we didn't really know what was going on. In Kingmaker I'm conciously letting the players set the pace. Given they've just leveled, I think their exploration may speed up a bit (as they do seem to rush back to the trading post given the opportunity!)
Session four is now up on my blog, so wander on over and take a look at the party's crazy (death-defying) adventures. In this exciting episode, the party battles a shambling mound, flees from a group of trolls and get attacked by an invisible, flying tent.
I'm not sure how they are all still alive...
A very enjoyable read. Interesting that the party remained split for such a long tract of time.
Thanks! The party remaining split for such a length of time after the fight with the shambling mound was my fault (a bit). I made the druid player write down what he was going to do before the other PCs discussed what they did. Once the larger group had decided on their actions, I read the druid's actions and played them through.
Really, the druid was tremendously lucky not to die. He actually had a random encounter while he was alone with a single mite and managed to hide from the creature. I suspect if he hadn't, his fate would have remained a mystery to the rest of the PCs.
Nice website and I look forward to reading about your campaign as well, since I plan to run Kingmaker as our next AP. I have to ask, where did you get the really great set pieces on the battlemap of trees, bushes, etc? Are they from a standard kit or did you make them yourself?
The trees, bushes etc come from several sets of WoTC's Ruins of the Wild Dungeon Tiles set. Under them, I use the reverse side of Paizo's Bandit Outpost flip mat (which I also used for the trading post fight as it is identical and started the campaign on a nice note).
I've just completed the blog entry for our fifth session of Stolen Land. You can read it here. Alternatively, you can read other session logs by hitting the "kingmaker" tab in the tab cloud on the right-hand side of your screen.
We didn't get that much done this session. A couple of the guys were late (which we knew about in advance) and the players spent a fair amount of time plotting and planning. Damn them.
Anyway, enjoy!
I've just added the last installment of our Kingmaker campaign to my blog. Although the session was not longer than the others, the group really hit its stride (surprisingly as one of the players couldn't make it). They explored more territory yetserday than they have to date. I expect Stolen Land to only last another two sessions (or so)!
Very evocative stuff. My players have been playing for a good while now, but are only at the end of their first month.
My group are definitely speeding up (they took a bit of time to get used to the sandbox style of gaming). Once they got around to using the horses they captured in the first session, they also speed up dramatically.
I would recommend using some kind of weather determination system (I use the old Greyhawk tables) and that you track time accurately. Mentioning the weather and tracking time (particularly in Kingmaker) serve to add an extra sense of "realism." Also, although they are taking their time, the PCs have begun to think about the oncoming winter (which is just a few months away now).
I would recommend using some kind of weather determination system (I use the old Greyhawk tables) and that you track time accurately. Mentioning the weather and tracking time (particularly in Kingmaker) serve to add an extra sense of "realism." Also, although they are taking their time, the PCs have begun to think about the oncoming winter (which is just a few months away now).
i used one of the various random generators on the net
also have a dice
gives scope for various skill challenegey / no combat adventures
it is good when the party finally discover the 'horse'
we start session 23 next week so they wildshape/longstride/mount/fly/airwalk/waterwalk quite a lot too!!
the session log of yesterday's Kingmaker session is now up on my blog.
It's session 7 and embaressingly I still haven't killed anyone! That said, this session they contended with a veritable herd of owlbears and a night attack by a werewolf! One of the party was bitten and they didn't manage to identify the creature. Given that I make saving throws for disease and other non-immediately obvious affects, the group may be in for a rough time of it soon...
;-)
I've just added the write-up for the 8th Stolen Land session to my blog. Sadly, this will be the last session for a few weeks as one of my players is about to become a father. We don't want to continue with the story without him so we are going to run a dungeon bash adventure until be returns.
One the plus side, I'll be playing for a few weeks and I rolled really awesome stats...for once.
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I've just added the write-up for the 8th Stolen Land session to my blog. Sadly, this will be the last session for a few weeks as one of my players is about to become a father. We don't want to continue with the story without him so we are going to run a dungeon bash adventure until be returns.
One the plus side, I'll be playing for a few weeks and I rolled really awesome stats...for once.
Awww they opted to slaughter the Sootscales, how sad.