Spoilers for the campaign ahead, you're warned.
Hi, everyone.
For various reasons, our Kingmaker campaign has ended before it was finished. I'm not going into too much detail here, but we lost 3 out of 4 players, went on with 3 new players, one of which is extremely unhappy with the way we play, two are completely unfamiliar with the world and one is a ninja, which is just going on my nerves by being constantly invisible. Well, we talked and decided we were to stop the running campaign.
But we all like the Kingmaker campaign and want to begin anew. Needless to say, I don't want it all to be the same, but I also want to incorporate familiar faces. For example, the Levetons, the Stag Lord, and a few others, I guess.
But going the same way as before will be quite boring. First of all, at least one of the players has seen it all (though a year ago..). Secondly, we'd all like to progress a bit faster. So we are either going to use the fast XP track or level by story.
So, in this thread I hope to get ideas on how to give old faces and encounters a new twist, tips on how to fasten play, especially exploration, which we want to have, but which also tended to be boring at times, and ideas for new encounters and side-stories.
I'll begin with what I thougt of so far.
For speeding up, I'm going to roll random encounters up front and have all hexes around the players prepared before a session starts. However, since we are going to play bi-weekly and I don't have too much time, ready-made encounters you found or created will be extremely appreciated.
As old faces go, I definately wanna keep the Stag Lord. But this time around, I'd like him to be more than what he was. Maybe the rumors about the animal demon cult are true? Or he has some more sinister control about the zombies. I could imagine making Kressle the boss of the bandits and to use the Stag Lord as the first threat to the player's kingdom.
Then I'd like to start in Brevoy, at some sort of ceremony for the new Charta-bearers to meet the opposition, introduce some NPCs and so on. I'd like Brevoy to play a bigger part in the beginning, maybe there could even be a bit of a war of independence.
Also I'd like to have a bit more forshadowing of Nyrissa. As it went, my players didn't catch any of the clues, as they were to small to stand out among all the other things going on. I don't want to eliminate the more mundane threats, like other kingdoms or bandits, but those I'd rather have at the early levels with the highter level threats now occupied by Drelev and Irovetti, to be rather mythical. Maybe a few new lieutenants of Nyrissa.
Anyways, I am open for any ideas and suggestions. Next Wednesday we are going to meet, talk about what we all expect from the relaunch and create characters with a common background.
In my campaign, we skipped Varnhold Vanishing completely, treating the PCs' nation as the only charter from Restov. The party ended up getting very involved in Brevan politics. For the rest of the campaign, I'm planning on expanding the Tiger barbarians as the main bad guys, finishing with a large scale invasion (mass combat) by the barbarians. I've ignored the First World aspect entirely.
I think KM can be almost whatever you want it to. I use the general plot points but switch stuff around based on where the PCs go, their interests, and generally what feels "right". Be careful with this, though. I've made some mistakes which have annoyed my players in getting to the point we're at.
Skipping Varnhold sounds like a good idea, especially since that was the first event every player now in the group has played.
Involvement in Brevan politics is exactly what I'd like to be a big part of low to mid-level play. Can you go into more detail on what you did? Do you have any interesting sources beside the Kingmaker books themselves?
I do not, however, want to ditch the first world part. With good forshadowing it is a great finish to the campaign as I don't really buy "mere human" politics and war at high levels. The characters are almost demigods, after all.
It may or may not be what you're looking for, but the rules behind Kingmaker work as excellent transplants into any number of adventures and settings, so you really should not feel limited to the AP itself.
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Spoilers for the campaign ahead, you're warned.
Hi, everyone.
For various reasons, our Kingmaker campaign has ended before it was finished. I'm not going into too much detail here, but we lost 3 out of 4 players, went on with 3 new players, one of which is extremely unhappy with the way we play, two are completely unfamiliar with the world and one is a ninja, which is just going on my nerves by being constantly invisible. Well, we talked and decided we were to stop the running campaign.
But we all like the Kingmaker campaign and want to begin anew. Needless to say, I don't want it all to be the same, but I also want to incorporate familiar faces. For example, the Levetons, the Stag Lord, and a few others, I guess.
But going the same way as before will be quite boring. First of all, at least one of the players has seen it all (though a year ago..). Secondly, we'd all like to progress a bit faster. So we are either going to use the fast XP track or level by story.
So, in this thread I hope to get ideas on how to give old faces and encounters a new twist, tips on how to fasten play, especially exploration, which we want to have, but which also tended to be boring at times, and ideas for new encounters and side-stories.
I'll begin with what I thougt of so far.
For speeding up, I'm going to roll random encounters up front and have all hexes around the players prepared before a session starts. However, since we are going to play bi-weekly and I don't have too much time, ready-made encounters you found or created will be extremely appreciated.
As old faces go, I definately wanna keep the Stag Lord. But this time around, I'd like him to be more than what he was. Maybe the rumors about the animal demon cult are true? Or he has some more sinister control about the zombies. I could imagine making Kressle the boss of the bandits and to use the Stag Lord as the first threat to the player's kingdom.
Then I'd like to start in Brevoy, at some sort of ceremony for the new Charta-bearers to meet the...
As long as you all are having fun ... all is good. Congrats!