howdy all,
so I just ran the Grigori encounter last night. I enjoyed it because it wasn't like any of the other encounters to this point. My players were thoroughly frustrated by him, it was great.
basically the players stopped back home, found Grigori preaching in the town commons to a large group of towns folk. they engaged grigori in a back and forth debate about what they have done for the people and what grigori wants the people to believe that they are not doing.
eventually (after several awesome rolls by grigori, and few diplomacy wins for the PCs) the Baron decided that enough was enough and had grigori escorted to his room at his in with a stern warning to "cut the crap". the people were not too happy, but the debate ended on a minor victory for the PCs, so they didn't do or say much. the baron rolled a nat 20 for his final diplomacy and I used that as a way for them to shut grigori up for a day while he regained his courage and thought up new ways to attack the barony's leadership.
the next day, grigori stayed in his room at the in while the PCs celebrated the loss of a player (who died fighting the trolls) with a feast in town. the next day however Grigori was back out there stirring the pot. having told grigori to end the BS already, they had their Warden and town guards pick him up. they asked him some questions (to which they received no answers) and then locked him up for the night to try again tomorrow (with help from a few of the cleric's spells, like zone of truth).
the next day grigori is dragged in front of the Baron and other council members. the cleric casts zone of truth, detect evil, and detect chaos on him, and as he was locked up (and was unable to use one of his potions) they determined that he was chaotic, but not evil in alignment. though when asked questions under the zone, he refused to acknowledge the barony's right to question him.
at this point they brought grigori outside, in front of the large crowd that gathered in protest of his arrest. The PCs then asked him to tell the crowd why he is really here. Grigori, not lying, stated to the crowd that he is under a magical spell compelling him to say things he doesn't want to, and refuses to speak further, to which the crowd roars with anger.
the players, fed up with grigori, exile him with stipulation that if he return, it is under penalty of death. the crowd, not happy, lets the PCs know. and the party is awarded a total of 6 unrest (2 for the initial damage by grigori and an additional 4 for exiling him without a trial).
after the encounter is resolved I explained to the players the other options available; trial, bribery, eliminating him quietly (though a mostly good party, they didnt feel that this was warranted), etc.. they also felt, that this being a feudal society, that a trial would have been out of the norm for a community of this kind. and with no formal laws presented to the people, they used brevoy as a guide (to which I unfortunately had little info on their laws and practices).
I know it was supposed to be frustrating, and I enjoyed that fact as the GM, but their chief complaint is that a trial would never have happened if this was in feudal England for example. that the baron or king would have made the ruling on the situation (like he did in this case) and that that would be the end of it, and that the citizens were expecting too much by wanting a trial.
so I was wondering what kind of governments are surrounding this area of the world and how others treated this situation. also, did anyone else have this encounter end like this ? similar views to my PCs ?
thanks everyone,
Clammy
They want to play in a setting of feudal England, but they're importing modern western feelings. Feudal lords wouldn't feel badly about what the rabble feels and would feel free to use the guard to disperse the mob.
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they were comparing the way justice was handled in their community to that of feudal england. As for modern western feelings, the module itself tends to lead in that direction with the peasants wanting a trial and reacting poorly if one doesn't happen (not referring to the other methods to rid themselves of grigori).
they didn't want to kill him (publicly or through assassination) as he wasn't a part of the community so he wasn't charged with treason. they said he was guilty of subversion, which I decided would either be handle with long term imprisonment or exile in brevoy. and not having the means to hold prisoners long term, they exiled him.
they flat out stated that a bribe would be out of the question.
they didn't really try to run him out of town until he started his preaching for a 2nd time, and then they exiled him.
and they never really considered mind controlling magic.
they want their people to support them, and know that they are really trying to help them.
The players in my group, I believe, look to restov as an example, so knowing a bit about their laws and judicial customs would be a great insight to myself.
thanks for the reply Troubled_child,
I am currently looking through the campaign guide for useful info. hopefully I can find that bit about the magistrate.
Actually feudal England is where we start to see a return to the idea of the rule of law as we exit the dark ages.
I couldn't recall at the time when criminal trials began in England, and that is another thing I am looking up. I thought that they began during the feudal period, but at the time I was outnumbered at the table.
the group never considered dueling grigori, but knowing his ways I am sure he wouldn't "bow to the blood thirsty leaders whims" in such a way. at least not the way I ran him.
Our group (all good-aligned PCs) very nearly went the same way, as they got predictably frustrated by Grigori's manipulations. Fortunately, their ruler is a sorcerer with a very high Charisma who has been maxing her Diplomacy ranks, supported by a paladin Grand Diplomat who also has a great Charisma. They also had the great idea of spending money freely around town to help normal folks out and support the local shopkeepers as a way of boosting their popularity. So they were pretty much able to neutralize Grigori's rhetoric. His efforts were still pissing them off, though, and they had a quite a few arguments within the party about how to deal with him, including suggestions to chase him out of town, arrest him, or even beat the snot out of him in a dark alley. I made it pretty clear to them that although they were certainly free to do so, he had a following, and actions taken against him without proof of misdeed would make some people unhappy.
So they got sneaky, interviewed everyone in town who knew him, surreptitiously searched his room, and put him under 24/7 surveillance. I rewarded their efforts by having them intercept a coded message from his employers (my own invention) with additional instructions. They had trouble breaking the code, but Grigori panicked when he discovered it was missing and took action to get it back, through proxies at first and finally in a desperate attempt himself when it became apparent they were close to deciphering it. They caught him in the act, in front of witnesses, and he was discredited and fled town.
They eventually decoded the message, which only told them that somebody unidentified wanted their nascent kingdom to fail.
Very fun session. It really challenged the players, and they were satisfied with how it turned out, although they still hope to run into Grigori someday outside of town and take their revenge.
As for justice in the surrounding areas, I'm no expert. However, one thing your players need to keep in mind is that the rulers are brand new, and their citizens all immigrated to their community voluntarily. They don't have generations, or even years of tradition giving them authority over these people. People can up and leave as easily as they came, or can also agitate for new leaders. The players also don't have a larger national government to back up their authority if they run into trouble.
My PCs were frustrated as well. :) They tried to engage him in a battle of rhetoric when they found him in the city square, and lost every roll resoundingly. Eventually the Bard surreptitiously charmed some people and started a riot and they were able to accuse Grigori of inciting riot. They arrested him and then he disappeared as the guards walked him to the jail. (I'm not sure when and if I'll bring him back.)
I gave them 1 Unrest, but they handled it pretty well overall.
From an OOC standpoint, they were annoyed at the arguments I had him present, which involved things like "the will of the people" and using the word "democracy," which they felt was inappropriate for the setting. I explained to them that there are democracies of a sort in Golarion, and that we're not playing a strict Dark-Ages analog here like many original D&D modules assumed.
While I find Kingmaker to be an enjoyable and well done adventure, this conflict with Grigori is one of the few sour points in my experience.
The entire idea of how you're suppose to handle this seems to be counter to the nature of the River Kingdoms. It's far too filled with idealistic modern sensibilities in my opinion, that Grigori could stand on a busy street corner of the capital and think he could get away with preach rebellion and undermine the power of the crown.
I may well be wrong but I have to imagine that if I was to go to Washington D.C., plant my-self in front of the capital building and start screaming about corruption and fighting the government, I would at the very least get a couple of days in the local police station. I also doubt that anyone would start demanding that I get a trial or that the general stability of the government will be affected.
Yes, the nation that the character's found is much smaller and less stable but still I think most people would simple shake their head and mumble "That's what he gets for stirring up trouble."
So while the Six River Freedoms may give you the right to say whatever you want, they don't protect from the repercussions of your words. Additionally we're talking about an area that about a year ago was a lawless frontier under the thumb of bandits and monsters. Those people that lived there before the character took over most likely don't even have a proper concept of trials and law enforcement.
From a mechanic prospective the character's are given a choice of what alignment the government has as well, but this encounter only makes sense for a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral government. In a chaotic or evil government there is most likely no set or written law, or the law is simply what the character say it is with no questions asked.
Perhaps I'm just stone hearted but I don't think that I would care if someone acted the way Grigori does got punished and as long as it's not them being put to the sword, I don't think the people of the River Kingdoms would care either.
One thing that might help make the encounter seem more "realistic" is that he is a particularly talented individual when it comes to persuading people. Rather than think of him as a loony on the street, think of him as someone like Micheal Moore or any other very public figures that actively use the media to work against government policy. These people can be very successful. You might also remember that Grigori also has magic on his side and uses enthrall to help keep the crowd listening. He doesn't need everyone to believe him - just enough to sow some doubt.
As for the large amounts of unrest which can be gained - unless discredited, he does have the support of the people and his arguments *seem* reasonable (partly through magic and partly through eloquence as stated above). To have a ruler (regardless of your government type) who would execute or banish anyone who seems to have your best interest at heart would be of great cause for concern.
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I may well be wrong but I have to imagine that if I was to go to Washington D.C., plant my-self in front of the capital building and start screaming about corruption and fighting the government, I would at the very least get a couple of days in the local police station. I also doubt that anyone would start demanding that I get a trial or that the general stability of the government will be affected.
Actually, such a thing is not at all unusual, and does not result in days spent in jail. Free speech and all that. There's some things you can't say, of course - and you probably know what they are - but otherwise, you can vocally dissent with the government in front of the capital all you want.
... I may well be wrong but I have to imagine that if I was to go to Washington D.C., plant my-self in front of the capital building and start screaming about corruption and fighting the government, I would at the very least get a couple of days in the local police station. I also doubt that anyone would start demanding that I get a trial or that the general stability of the government will be affected.
...
From a mechanic prospective the character's are given a choice of what alignment the government has as well, but this encounter only makes sense for a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral government. In a chaotic or evil government there is most likely no set or written law, or the law is simply what the character say it is with no questions asked.
Just want to respond to a couple of your well-articulated points.
Actually, I do live in the DC area, and people do precisely what Grigori does every day (and I'm not even talking about members of the opposition in Congress and the opposition media) without fear of arrest, so long as they do not directly incite or call for violence. And you can get pretty close to and even over that line without serious risk of prison time. Our freedom of speech guarantees are powerful, and part of what makes our country great, IMHO.
Regarding alignment of the nation, I agree that it is harder (but not impossible) to run Kingmaker for a totally evil or chaotic group. If your group really wants to play those alignments either they should pick a different AP, or the AP will have to be extensively modified. For an evil group, in my mind the logical problems for them are motivation (why do this at all?), and being able to attract people to live in their kingdoms. Remember this is a new kingdom being populated by immigrants who have to be motivated to move there. Why would they willingly move into a tyrannical evil kingdom? I can see it might be attractive to the criminal element and certain others, but those are hardly the kinds of people who build successful kingdoms. Evil empires and kingdoms have indeed existed in the real world (if you accept the existence of real world evil at all), but they have usually occurred when someone took over an existing nation and then changed its nature, rather than being built as an evil kingdom from scratch. People who already have history and roots in a place don't have the same choices available as immigrants.
As for chaotic characters, it is difficult for me to really envision a truly chaotic government of any size. The general philosophy of chaos is pretty incompatible with the concept of government. Also, economic growth depends highly on a government that puts enough law in place (and you can certainly argue how much is necessary) so that businessmen can reasonably predict the success of their endeavors and have confidence to invest. In a truly chaotic kingdom for example, there would be no laws to protect private property, to protect against unlawful search and seizure, to guarantee contracts, to protect against fraud, etc. All these things would discourage the businessmen who will grow an economy from investing.
Perhaps that's all a little too real world policy wonky for your fantasy game, but I can't help myself. It's what I do.
I think that the Grigori encounter is easily the most challenging of the AP, at least thus far.
Our group just came back from slaughtering trolls to find this pig using his bardic tricks to rile up our citizens, and my cleric of Sarenrae and High Priestess was all up in arms. A former slave, she had extensive experience with her emotions, etc being dictated by someone greater than herself, and physically robbing her of her will, to have that done to the people who counted upon her guidance as their priestess...
So, what she did was tell the people that he was using magic to influence their opinions, which he answered in kind, insinuating that the charity which she had become known for (I told my GM that if I had spare healing, etc at the end of the day, I would meet any persons who needed blessings, and I established a network of trained and documented midwives to look after the mothers of the new nation) were also magic and thus suspect in origin.
As a player, I wanted to get in there and take the damn dude out, use our Royal Assassin Corax to make him disappear, but as a character, I recognized that antagonizing him would further call the faith into question, so I politely recused myself from the negotiations. Took about a week, but our ruler managed to talk him down and he left.
Anywho, yeah, Kingmaker is an AP that encourages bard hate.
Thanks for all the great posts everyone. keep'em comin !
prior to this encounter I didn't have access to the guide to the river kingdoms book, nor the river freedoms. I informed my PCs of the freedoms and what most people expected when they came to this new settlement. I gave them some things to mull over in the event that this comes up again (hi-jacking many ideas expressed here).
hopefully they have a better understanding of their peasants now, and I hope to expand on that in the future.
Anywho, yeah, Kingmaker is an AP that encourages bard hate.
I think that this shows where bards can really bloom. before this I never paid any mind to bards. I don't really care for the way they work, and I dislike the way bardic music works. but this guys put my PCs patience to the boiling point, and a little beyond.
I thoroughly enjoyed this encounter from a DM's perspective, thought I know my PCs were frustrated a bit. I think their main gripe was that they gained so much unrest from this guy. 6 points hurts, and I forgot they already had 3 points left from some bad rolls the last few months.
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Yeah my campaign pretty much ran out the same way as yours. With some half hearted diplomacy attempts quickly degenerating into an arrest and then subsequent exile.
Its a tough event especially for characters that are mostly martial and not diplomatic. My players were completely within in their rights to enforce their own rules how they see fit but people any people even those who are uneducated and illiterate, such as people in feudal times will still see through the BS of bad rulership. I tried to warn my players that simply arresting Gregori without a blatant just cause would create more problems. They however thought I was trying to subvert their character's ability to rule, out of game. Perhaps I was wrong to try to warn them and just let the encounter play out for good or ill, my approach only lead to some unneeded arguing.
Anywho, yeah, Kingmaker is an AP that encourages bard hate.I think that this shows where bards can really bloom. before this I never paid any mind to bards. I don't really care for the way they work, and I dislike the way bardic music works. but this guys put my PCs patience to the boiling point, and a little beyond.
I thoroughly enjoyed this encounter from a DM's perspective, thought I know my PCs were frustrated a bit. I think their main gripe was that they gained so much unrest from this guy. 6 points hurts, and I forgot they already had 3 points left from some bad rolls the last few months.
I'd like to qualify: NPC Villain bard hate. Coz most PCs are not going to build a bard to specialize in wrecking a fledgling kingdom's morale and political structure. Unless it's strictly a social campaign, it is unlikely that any party is going to let the bard character contribute so little to combat.
It's because Kingmaker made me hate bards so much that I'm running one now. Purely social. Not very effective at wrecking politics just yet, but she's learning. Chaotic alignment + low wisdom makes for pretty poor decisions and little real impact.
My campaign involves Galt, the Stolen Land's neighbour to the south. Currently, the majority of my PCs' citizens are Galtan refugees, and their Grand Diplomat is Loy Resbin, whom I've altered to make into a political refugee from Galt.
Grigori's presence was part of a strategy by a group of Galtan emissaries, to pressure the PCs into extraditing Loy to face trial for his crimes against the state. In spite of this increased pressure, the PCs responded pretty much the same as most of the others on this thread: counter-arguments, followed by exile. They're now preparing for a Galtan invasion (which probably won't come, since Galt is due for another revolution any day now).
I mention all of this because, in Golarian, Galt is a clear example of populist politics in action. PCs may look to Brevoy or the River Kingdoms for feudal models of government, but that doesn't mean that they're the *only* methods being practiced. A DM who wishes to lend commoners more agency need only seed the populace with a few Galtans, whose new-fangled notions of democracy should be enough to keep any baron, duchess, or king on their toes.
I'm a bit surprised to see that so many people chose to exile Grigori.
In my group we got together and made up a rough outline of laws for Kingdom so that everyone would have a clear idea of what was expect of civilians. We had a Lawful Neutral kingdom with a heavy focus that the law was paramount to a strong nation and there was no excuse for failure to obey the law (all but one of the characters was lawful neutral and one player is studying law so she enjoyed her-self). Each of our cities has a monument near the main entrance that had the major laws of lands carved into it.
Turned out that Grigori was breaking quite of few of those, as were those that gathered to hear his rants, and the characters had him arrested as soon as they returned (The Warden also reamed the city guards out for not arresting him sooner). The trial was fun to roleplay but didn't take that long as the laws allowed for the use of certain magic spells to produce a fair and truthful court.
So, having found him guilty in a lawful manner, Grigori got to do the gallows gig and join the not so fresh body of the previous trouble maker outside of the jail.
I wish that my players had developed a system of laws. but at the time they hadn't. but this got them thinking more about it.
I just gave them the river freedoms and asked that they set up, at the least, the more important laws of their land.
I read about Galt after Gonturan's post, and Galt alone gives the peasants reasons to feel entitled to demand fairness. government changes hands over there like gold pieces at a brothel. even if the peasants don't know the truth behind it, they would have heard stories about how the people were fed up and changed their nation.
on a side note, I just wanted to throw it out there, I did award my players xp for the encounter. they handled it pretty well, giving grigori warnings, debating him in public, etc.. also they didn't up and imprison or execute him, they told him to go blow and told him why.
I think that had I not given them something for all the stress I sent their way that they would have flipped the game table. lol. and that is no easy task as our table is 6'x8' and made out of 2x4's and 6x4 sheets of particle board. pretty heavy.
but their chief complaint is that a trial would never have happened if this was in feudal England for example. that the baron or king would have made the ruling on the situation (like he did in this case) and that that would be the end of it
On one hand, it's Golarion: the relevance to actual history is pretty well pick & choose.
On the other, it's pretty well in feudal England from whence our modern concept of 'trial' comes from, except that differences in cosmology and mass literacy make the format(s) very different. If nothing else, then Magna Carta: there is some sense of the due process of law.
...which is probably what 'trial' is getting at. It doesn't matter whether it's a despotism or an Athenian Democracy, there's a vast difference if a government official can execute, exile, or imprison an insurgent or seditionist and one where the government bears formalities. Those formalities can be weak to the point of laughable, but a Kangaroo Court is still a court. I mean, that's what I saw in why the trial check is a loyalty check - it's not so much a matter of directing out the truth (though the adventure is written as if that happens) but even (as might be historical) you had the Baron sitting as judge and guiding a foregone conclusion, the populace viewed it as reasonable enough that they weren't about to start fearing the same happen to them.
You were asking what the other governments were like nearby.
Well, to the south is Brevoy wich it a country under constant revolution, literally, for the last 60 years. So he might just be killed or he might join a mob for a while and then be killed.
To the west the River Kingdomes... He would be killed...
My monk was Lawful evil in that AP. He was the royal assassin. The upstart only lasted the first day.