So, I kinda of have a situation on my hands.
My PC's are just about finished with RRR (Only the Lizards, Trolls and Owlbear attack left). Last night, I decided (possibly badly) to try out the Mass Combat Rules from WoTR. I did this because I wanted to test out the rules long before we got to that module so we can work out kinks and decide how we, as a group, want to use them. So, I decided that Brevoy sent three armies to deal with PC's Kingdom before it gets any bigger, and to deal a blow to Restov (Both Restov and the PC's kingdom are staunch allies, thanks to extensive role-playing by my PC's) to ward off any potential civil war.
Bottom line, the PC's loved the Mass Combat, loved building the armies and fighting with them. And through some fancy smancy Kingdom building made a very powerful and very well-trained army that beat the pants off of the three default armies from WoTR I used. That's problem number one.
Number Two: I rolled an event on the event table a little earlier in the night, and it was an assassination attempt, so I decided it was on Svetlana (their councilor). Instead of just rolling the stability check, the PC's decided to take matter into their own hands and figure out who the culprit was on their own. Several PC's made the comment that this was something they enjoyed thoroughly, the events and dealing with the intrigue and such.
So, my question is this. Is it possible to go off the beaten path of the modules? When is comes to exploring and adventuring, my PC's seem like they are doing it only because the module says to do it. I am debating on having the civil war between the Rostland and Issia erupt now instead of later, so the PC's have both mass combat and political intrigue to deal with. I'm open to any ideas to use the encounters within the module (I obviously want them to acquire treasure and levels) to spice up the civil war...like the Trolls are hired by the Brevoian crown to attack the PC's instead of them just being random Trolls X.
If you guys have any ideas, I would appreciate it. Sorry for the long post.
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So, I kinda of have a situation on my hands.
My PC's are just about finished with RRR (Only the Lizards, Trolls and Owlbear attack left). Last night, I decided (possibly badly) to try out the Mass Combat Rules from WoTR. I did this because I wanted to test out the rules long before we got to that module so we can work out kinks and decide how we, as a group, want to use them. So, I decided that Brevoy sent three armies to deal with PC's Kingdom before it gets any bigger, and to deal a blow to Restov (Both Restov and the PC's kingdom are staunch allies, thanks to extensive role-playing by my PC's) to ward off any potential civil war.
Bottom line, the PC's loved the Mass Combat, loved building the armies and fighting with them. And through some fancy smancy Kingdom building made a very powerful and very well-trained army that beat the pants off of the three default armies from WoTR I used. That's problem number one.
Number Two: I rolled an event on the event table a little earlier in the night, and it was an assassination attempt, so I decided it was on Svetlana (their councilor). Instead of just rolling the stability check, the PC's decided to take matter into their own hands and figure out who the culprit was on their own. Several PC's made the comment that this was something they enjoyed thoroughly, the events and dealing with the intrigue and such.
So, my question is this. Is it possible to go off the beaten path of the modules? When is comes to exploring and adventuring, my PC's seem like they are doing it only because the module says to do it. I am debating on having the civil war between the Rostland and Issia erupt now instead of later, so the PC's have both mass combat and political intrigue to deal with. I'm open to any ideas to use the encounters within the module (I obviously want them to acquire treasure and levels) to spice up the civil war...like the Trolls are hired by the Brevoian crown to attack the PC's instead of them just being random Trolls X.
If you guys have...
there's nothing wrong with speeding up the civil war. All it means is that they'll have to find out what happened to Varnhold on their own. So, hopefully you've made them allies or at least good neighbors. The 'quest' to find out what happened to them will not come from Rostland.
Long post? It is medium short at best ;)
And now to the topic:
If the trolls are already active then instead of being hired by Brevoy their rampages may be reported by Brevoy spys within the kingdom, or even just the rumor may travel with merchants to north and east and prompt Brevoy to attack while the kingdom deals with troll threat.
If the player characters are bound too much into intrigue and politics and unwilling to adventure then you can consider creating second set of players for adventuring as "champions of the realm" or such, with players as rulers giving quests to their own secondary heroic characters and having alternate intrigue and politics sessions and adventuring sessions.
Have both sets of characters advance at the same or similar rate to be able to deal with opponents in further parts, or even focus advancement on heroic pcs with ruler pcs gaining levels when you deem it appropriate (but probably taking into account their overall successes).
Long post? It is medium short at best ;)
And now to the topic:
If the trolls are already active then instead of being hired by Brevoy their rampages may be reported by Brevoy spys within the kingdom, or even just the rumor may travel with merchants to north and east and prompt Brevoy to attack while the kingdom deals with troll threat.If the player characters are bound too much into intrigue and politics and unwilling to adventure then you can consider creating second set of players for adventuring as "champions of the realm" or such, with players as rulers giving quests to their own secondary heroic characters and having alternate intrigue and politics sessions and adventuring sessions.
Have both sets of characters advance at the same or similar rate to be able to deal with opponents in further parts, or even focus advancement on heroic pcs with ruler pcs gaining levels when you deem it appropriate (but probably taking into account their overall successes).
I've debated that option, not sure I want to deal with two separate story lines or not.
After reading through all the modules, it really appears to me that the modules are less about a storyline and more about just bad #*$& that happens to the PC's kingdom. There is no real storyline that spans all 6 modules, with the exception of the kingdom building process. Sure Nyrissa stirs up trouble, but its never directly at the PC's and there's no real foreshadowing, not in the sense that the PC's have any idea someone is about turn their world upside down. This would lead me to the conclusion that kingdom building should be the most important aspect of each module. The storylines that the PC's create on their own, especially when it comes to random events, should be the focus of the game. Things like the troll attacks and owlbear attack should be a secondary and less important then an assassination attempt.
Idk, not sure if I'm onto something here, or if I'm doing it all wrong. What do you guys think?
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You could have them hire scouting teams to explore and document, with instructions to leave the hex and report in if they find anything unusual or suspect danger. This way the party explores mostly hexes that have encounters or special things with only a few empty hexes.
I think you can reduce the amount of exploration the PCs directly do themselves, but you would lose some fun having all the exploration completely done in the background, even if the players arent enjoying it that much. Like candlemere isle, dancing lady, melianse, the nereid and the woodsmen, etc, some of these you really need to experience as part of the kingdom building imo. Plus they lose the chance to gain some kingdom bonuses if they don't experience these encounters.
Alternatively, you could create reasons why they have to explore particular areas of the kingdom, like someone is poisoning one of the rivers, now they have to search all the hexes along the river, etc. It might be slower, but less mundane also.
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The player driven sandboxy style of the adventure IS the key point to it all IMO.
Sure the story is there with Nyrissa - but I think that it's ancillary for most groups including mine.
My biggest suggestions are:
Civil War: bring it on. You could just leave it as a "cold war" for a while. Perhaps tensions are rising, skirmishes, propoganda, and espinoage, are happening. All the while each side KNOWS that the other is at fault, but no proof. It's just a cold war until one side tires of the charades.
Events: Don't make random events, roll the events between games and expand on them. If you roll "Assassination Attempt" have a mini-adventure all flushed out for them to become involved in.
I havent expanded on all the events, but a third at least, I've turned into mini episodes. The game has turned more into a mini-series than anything. I'm not providing XP; i'm just advancing the PCs as needed as we move the story along to another book; so the number of mini quests aren't advancing them too fast.
Robert
I am going to update this and see what you guys think with the decisions I made.
The civil war happened...sort of. In my mythos, the Surtovians(sp?) came to power with the use of demons, who captured the previous royal house and transported them to the druid stronghold of Skywatch, which closed its doors on the very same night as the previous royal house disappearing (I took all this from the Inner Sea Guide).
King Surtova sent a dozen armies or so and wiped out Restov and Brunderton in one fell swoop. This of course sent my PC's into a panic lol. They built up two armies themselves and decided to make for Eagle's Watch (which, in my world, is the stronghold of House Garrus, and one of my PC's is married to Kesten) to draw the armies that were encamped around Restov away from their kingdom's borders. To avoid being going through the heart of Brevoy, the PC's decided to move their army through the Darklands using drow scouts (the PC who married Kesten is also a drow).
Now, the current queen of the my PC's kingdom researched and made the connection with Skywatch and the previous royal house disappearing. So, while their armies were moving through the Darklands, my PC's made their way (also through the Darklands) to Skywatch to investigate. A few demon deaths later, they found the previous King/Queen/Prince and Princess still alive and freed them. They then made their way to Eagle's Watch to join with their armies. Tomorrow we are going to roll out the epic battle (hopefully epic, we'll see).
My PC's seem to be loving the game, and tell me they are enjoying it immensely. The especially love the political aspect of all of it...dealing with diplomats, making trade agreements, marching their armies and defeating other armies.
I think I'm going to try and condense the encounters in Varnhold (basically everything but Varnhold itself and Vordekai's tomb) into a single dungeon and make the focus of the module more about dealing with the Nomen Centaurs. What do you guys think?
Sorry for the long post.