Hello everyone! I'm kinda new to the forums here (I think this is my second post or so) so I apologise in advance if any of these questions have been answered elsewhere.
So I'll be GMing Kingmaker in the next months. My group of players consist of old friends of mine, we've been playing D&D since 2000, and our game sessions will mostly consist of 2 to 3 monthly sessions of 5-6 hours each. That said, after reading through all 6 books, I still got some questions:
1) How long (usually) does it take to complete a turn in kingdom building? In other words, excluding the event phase of course (which could take a whole session all by itself), how much time is usually spent per turn doing all the number crunch?
2) I'm already antecipating this, but I'm pretty sure my players won't be comfortable with only one of them being the "ruler", so I'm thinking of an alternative (something like a "parliament"), where the ruler would be more like a "prime minister", elected among the PCs every year or so. Any suggestions on how that could be done?
Thanks in adavance!
Cheers
Hi, and welcome to the forums!
1) I think this depends on how many players you have, and how many of them want to actively take part in the kingdom building process.
I would recommend that, aside from the first few times of kingdom building, you do it between sessions either through e-mail, a separate forum or what not. This is just to free up time during your sessions for the regular roleplaying.
2) I have two players with two characters each and it was natural for them that one of the characters was the ruler. Even though they both made decisions, the other characters took their part more behind the scenes.
I think my best advice would be let the players handle it. It's their kingdom, and while the rules have a set of leadership positions, nothing prevents them from saying the high priest is the one with the real power, or that it's shared among all the players, even though they bear different titles. Or they can rename the titles should the feel it necessary.
I have another group of three players who are just beginning part 2 in a few days, so I'll have to see how they handle it.
My first group renamed High Priest to Moral Affairs, for example, as they didn't follow any specific deity and allowed all in their kingdom/empire.
As long as the Crunch remains the same, the names are just cosmetic. For example:
Ruler1 = Prime Minister
Ruler = Interior Secretary
Councilor = First Speaker
General = Secretary of Defense
Grand Diplomat = Secretary of State
Royal Assassin = Chief Justice/Attorney General
Spymaster = National Security Advisor
etc, etc, etc.
Once your players figure out what positions they will take, they can design any government they like, renaming the postions, and have it ruled by 'The Council of Five' (or whatever).
If they go way outside the box, then they should have to deal with the consequences of doing so. (Democracies, for instance, run the risk of a change in rulership).
1. For my group, after the second session with kingdom turns (the first we stumbled through a little) we got them down to ~5 minutes of book-keeping. If you know what you want to do, they can be very fast. Discussion on what to do is what takes up the time. Having a plan, even if it changes due to events, speeds things up considerably. Also, the players knowing the rules I have found helps out alot. I do not advocate keeping information from the players.
Some advice for speeding them up:
1. Plan random events out ahead of time so you know which ones you want to turn into adventures.
2. Do groundwork online. Email communications to get at least plans ahead of time, even if you only resolve them at the table.
3. Keep an excel file with kindom stats. Do not try to do it on paper. There are files in the threads.
4. Feel free to give the players advice/point out flaws in their kingdom. They have NPC advisors too, and you are going to be more familiar with the rules early on and have easier access to building descriptions. Feel free to point out things they may miss, like the 1/2 off buildings. If you just give them a stack of numbers it wont matter much to them and it will be much slower going.
5. Consider changing up the magic items. Its one of the biggest issues some people have, especially if you have people who like to break systems. There are a couple recomendations on here about how to do it.
6. Read through these boards for ideas. There are some great ones. I particularly like the Fae prank ideas(1st book), Tem's alternate Candlemere Tower(2nd book).
2. I've seen a couple people do what Ramarren describes. As long as the bonuses come out to ~= to what they would get and the penalties are ~=, it does not really matter. The leader bonuses are a big factor in River Runs Red, but after that they fade off.
1- Kingdom building turns can take a while at the start. One month could take 20 minutes. As the rules and turns become more familiar, though, they take less time (5-10 minutes, say). I still haven't started the "kingdom building by email", but I've wanted to. Just not sure how all the mechanics will work. What we've done is take a half hour or so at the start or end of a session and move through a few months of kingdom building.
1a- As stated above, a spreadsheet or copious notes will help.
2- Ah, the ruler. My group picked a ruler, and she's been the Baroness ever since, but I did tell them that they were welcome to trade off as ruler whenever they liked. Maybe rule for a year, then switch roles. Oddly enough, they have yet to do that, and everyone seems happy with where they are (though this is subject to change on a whim).
Good luck, and have fun! It's a great AP.
I agree with the mob that there is no reason the kingdom building needs to take a lot of time. We can usually finish a monthly turn in 5 minutes or so, and we're doing it on paper. It might take longer if you have a group of agonizers/tinkerers who constantly want to adjust their edicts and debate what gets built next endlessly. My group has a medium to long term building strategy all laid out to be implemented as BP become available, so it runs smoothly. I haven't gone to the build by e-mail model, as my goup is enjoying the building and not everyone is readily accessible by e-mail, but it's something to think about.
As for ruling structure, the beauty of this type of sandbox game is that they can do whatever they want, and you can just adjust the fluff around it. Be careful with messing too much with the crunch, though, so better to make the structure they come up with fit the existing rules rather than try to adlib new rules. All that said, I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that there is a ruling council rather than a single ruler and still give the bonus for a ruler.
Thanks for all the input! I feel much less worried now =D
Ok, so the main reason I asked about the average time spent for each turn it's because my players all like strategy games (mostly the Total War series), although they're really not into "breaking the system" and I'm positive that they won't waste too much time in micromanaging. Now, I'm pretty sure they'll master the rules in no time, and I really liked the idea of them planning ahead (between game sessions, via email as suggested) and then we can spend about half an hour during the game session, like ChrisO suggested. Let's see how it goes!
I'm thinking of changing the ruler role to something like this: the ruler would be the head of the "council", elected from the members of the Council (High Priest, General, Warden etc)once every year (or 2 years maybe). The person elected (which could be a PC or a NPC) would fill 2 roles during that time: his original role plus the role of a ruler (applying the bonus once for each role of course). That way, the players could have an in-game reason as to why they take turns in the role of leader. Besides, that could lead to lots of intrigue within the council (Like a spy form another nation infiltraing the council and trying to become the ruler! ***evil cackles***). Of course, wether we use this ideia will depend of what my players will have in mind, when we start the campaign!
Also, I would like to thank you all for the awesome community here! I searched through the forums I found some BRILLANT ideas to expand the AP!!!
Cheers!
Be sure to grab one of the spreadsheets that have been made for tracking Kingdom Building. There are several versions in this forum, a quick search should locate them in no time. They really help in making the Kingdom building flow quick and easy.
Definitely if you are managing several cities at the same time :P
It saves on time, and going over your notes.
I as a DM currently use 5 minutes per month, sometimes 3 months worth combined or so, and write it in my little booklet. Then, when I get home, I add it to the system, and voila :)