PC Personal City BP

[Momar]

Digging through some threads on kingdom building I've seen a number of posters mention that in their campaigns each PC got their own city, and my group is planning to do the same. My question is how the PCs handled BP division. Were the players able to just kind of wing it turn to turn and be fair about it, or was there some sort of system set up to determine how much each city was given each turn? The best I've got is something like each city gets city economy bonus/5 BP per turn plus BP from item sales, with some set percentage going to the jointly controlled capital and kingdom expansion/improvement, or just kingdom expansion and improvement if the capital is considered the ruler's city. I'm not really sure how to factor a city's consumption into the tithe. Or just evenly divide whatever amount of BP they want to spend on cities in a given turn between the players/cities.

Tangent: What sort of pitfalls might appear if the players make multiple smaller kingdoms instead of a large unified one? Things that come to mind are overextending the NPC pool for leaders (easily fixed by the GM), making ruler upgrades harder or impossible, and possibly issues with army raising later. There's also a high possibility of war between the party members.

[Palious13]

I don't think you have to worry too much about overextending the NPC pool. Like you said a good DM will find people. Remember, they have a new kingdom springing up from nowhere. There will probably be people crawling out of the wood work. The problem will be at least a few will be unsavory. And, since each PC is in a different city, they can't help each other in personal combat if it comes to that.

I also don't think war between the PCs is likely. Most players will try to avoid it as such a war would devestate all, and leave them open to forces like Drevlev or Mivon to walk in and claim their kingdoms. Such a war would definitely be in the interest of many.

I think the biggest problem will be with the distribution of the wealth. The starting BPs are designed to get a good start on a single city district and one kingdom. If you divide it up 4,5, or especially 6 ways, it will go nowhere near as far. And you are right, none of them will probably make king. One or two MIGHT make Duke. This could cause some jealously as the players with less will wonder why.

A passable solution would be to make sure they have definite "sphere's of influence" so as not to step on each other's toes. Also treat it like a confederation of city states. Have one main treasury where the BPs are kept. Each player can take out so much(agreed upon in advance) each turn. Also remember, the resources of the greenbelt are very limited. About half of the hexes are forest, good for cties, but no farms can be built, thus no reduction in consumption.

All in all, they probably won't be as strong as one nation, and thus less likely to survive in an area where many have failed beforebut, if this is what they want, let them try and have fun. I say good luck!