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Hey all, as a GM about a year and a half into Kingmaker, I just wanted to share some reflections of what has transpired so far.
I would really love for other GMs to post their own "off the rails and out into left field" stories or approaches to running their kingmaker games, and maybe this thread can turn into something really helpful for GMs who are just getting started with the AP.
Why I am making this post
Based on our last game session, our Kingmaker game is about to become a completely different game. They seem to be getting heavily involved in the beginnings of a multi-faction civil war in Brevoy, which is likely to end up with the Queen of Vallis also being the Queen of Rogarvia and possibly Mivon. I just couldn't hold them back any longer from leveling, so I finally let them make 8th. I was holding them at 7th hoping they would settle down so I could start Book 3, but apparently warrior-queens are not a cooperative lot. Now it appears will have to mod the heck out of some crucial events in Book 3 and shove them in somewhere along the way as well as parts of Book 4. Book 5 may now become a completely different animal, where the BBEG allies with and later treacherizes the PCs while they are in the process of solidifying their hold over neighboring countries.
At first I was stressing out over how the hell to fit this into the rest of the AP. When I finally let go of the idea that I HAD to fit the rest in, I realized it was okay. The players are having a great time, totally stoked about conquering the world and experiencing many epic film moments, so why mess with a good thing? This leads me to:
Six Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Kingmaker
1. Read all the books, digest the whole story. Then come to the boards and explore some other GMs creative twists on the storylines. There have been some truly incredible add-ins, mods, and side quests, including some by the very writers of the original APs. Then review the PCs backgrounds (you did make them take backgrounds right?) and see where you can tie them in and what changes you might need to make to the existing flow of events. Now you have the raw materials to start sewing your own Kingmaker campaign together.
2. Ed Greenwood once said that he tried to create a rich immersive world full of changing current events and lots of interesting NPCs for his players to explore. The rest of his games came from the players as they investigated, fought, and adventured due to these current events and NPCs. This method requires a lot of work upfront laying out the world, the unfolding event threads, and then maintaining "the rest of the world". If you have the time and energy to do it, I highly recommend this approach for Kingmaker. The open "sandbox" nature of the AP practically begs for GM content and your players will love you for it.
3. If you do #1 above, you will save yourself enormous headache later on when your players ask you things like "Are there bees in the Stolen Lands? Who is the major exporter of honey?" or "How many deerskins can I sell in Numeria? Are the prices better for them in Galt, Brevoy, or Mivon?" or my all time favorite "Where is the best market for dire sheep dung?" In this game more than ever, the weather, weird market trends, shortages of things like copper pots, wax, or yes even sheep dung, could seriously affect what is going on in the players' kingdom. If they ask you these things, it is a GOOD THING. It means they are immersed in running their kingdom, so you better have great answers for them or they will go back to hacking and slashing in dungeons and you may end up with a "kingdom in the background" if they lose interest.
4. Don't be afraid to totally change the AP. This includes tossing out entire books. If you don't believe me, check the boards. Some of the most successful GMs have done this.
In particular, there are some huge empty spaces in a few books that will need filling. There are also some problems in tie-ins and foreshadowing that really require GM intervention for a smooth game experience. Don't like the premise of Book 4? Toss it out. Don't like the BBEG race in Book 2, change it to something you do like. One of your characters is a samurai? Make Mivon a Tien influenced kingdom, perhaps due to the presence of a magical portal between realms. Outside of a few crucial clues and events, and of course some very memorable and iconic encounters, nothing is absolutely required for the AP to work well.
5. Dont be afraid to change level advancement and rewards. Grant skill points, bonus feats, bonuses to their kingdom, in-game accolades and titles, etc in lieu of leveling the players. Hero points can also work well if you use that system.
As an example, my party is 8th level, and probably should be around 12-13th level based on actual earned experience. So far I have handed out about 8 extra skill points, two extra ability points, gave everyone at different times (when most appropriate) the leadership feat, and everyone a bonus feat. They have achieved glowing reputations in some kingdoms and among some groups, and are absolutely hated in others. Several members have become knights, be awarded senior arcane recognitions, been visited by their deity's angelic host and received the praise of their deities for their accomplishments.
This has not unbalanced my game at all, but it has allowed me to level the party slower than normal without letting the players feel frustrated. Sometimes to let the party reveal their story and let things unfold in a natural fashion, the "rocket to the moon" rate of leveling gets in the way. Plus the focus changes to the game world and off of questing for the next metagame mechanical shiny.
6. Don't wait for a random kingdom event to happen by dicerolls. I set up a whole year worth of kingdom events, and then put them on a schedule either based on a calendar date or something like "right after a player dies" or "right before the next big battle". These things are too important to toss in and have a few dice rolls clear them up. These are the experiences unique to being a ruler and IMHO a big part of what this AP should be about. Flesh them out, plan them out, detail the NPCs, and watch your rulers earn their keep!
I see a lot of GMs worrying because certain optimal mechanical builds have started dominating their game. Here is why: almost everything in Kingmaker is a 5 minute work day. Once smart players figure out they can "nova" every combat, opponents start getting steamrolled. This is a difficulty with this AP, so as a GM, you sort of have to adjust for it. Either start stacking encounters back to back to encourage them not to go crazy every time, or challenge them with non-combat and non-mechanical problems.
Don't let the players fix things or address all their problems with mechanics. Don't let them appease an angry Mivonese lord with a few diplomacy rolls. Instead make them either RP the encounter of use their spymaster to investigate and find weaknesses for them to exploit. Don't let them have easy wins stacked on top of each other. Make them choose whether to save the village being flooded and facing a food shortage or build up their army to fight off a threat. This game should be all about hard choices rulers have to make.
Other examples:
Send a crazed horde of barbarians into their lands, big enough they can't just melee them to death. Now they have to strategize, plan, use tactics, and if you do it right pray a little in order to get them out of their new kingdom.
Send a grumpy dragon to go live in their new fort on the outskirts of their kingdom. Make him old enough that they have to work to get him out, and be persistent if they really want him gone.
Have a plague spring up in one of their settlements, slow acting enough that the party can respond but too widespread for a cleric with a wand of cure disease to yawn while fixing the problem.
After Book 1, these are the sort of dilemmas that players should have to deal with.
So fellow Kingmaker GMs... What are your Top 6?
I can really only think of two.
1. I found as the Kingdom Building progressed into the third book, the players were tired of exploring. I'd say ditch exploring and use the Exploration Edicts, only having the PCs go out to specific points of interest.
2. Going hand-in-hand with #1, I wish I used more urban adventures that took place in the kingdom. This would've been very fun for the players to explore the city that they themselves have built. Definitely do this more!
I'm currently running my third "Kingmaker" game, only it is a completely different setting. It takes place in a colonial, Psuedo-Caribbean chain of islands, with the PCs colonizing an island the size of England. It is a new style for me, doing Commonplace Guns, updated Incantation, and the new Kingdom Builder rules, but it'll be fun.
It is best, from my own campaign, to have the players with both inclination and ability to handle kingdom/city-building to do so away from the table. I hand-waived the kingdom events (since they are all basically a wash) and really wished UCa's systems had been in place.
Excising the "magic item economy" is critically important to keep the budding kingdom from buying their way to undefeatable status in short order. UCa is a must-use for a new KM campaign as it solves the most egregious problems. The added bonus is that the rate of growth should be considerably slowed down, permitting a generational campaign at long last.
At the table is when you run the entire group through any events that you wish to deal with and whatever weirdness you've cooked up (owlbear the size of Connecticut is pooping on a border fort, spies in the capitol, politicking, zombie plague outbreak, etc) and perhaps grapple with becoming parents. ;)
Since it's literally impossible to fail stability checks early on, I've made it that the events simply happen now without needing a check. I will most likely customize the events further later on, alternating with good and bad ones depending on what the players have been going trough.
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Similar threads pop up ever once in a while (which means it's a good, high-interest topic). Here's an excerpt and link to one I started a year or so ago: Random thoughts on Kingmaker.
1) I'd fudge the map and make Restov farther away. Oleg's is only a couple of days away by the highway. I'd want it to be a week or two. I might even double the size of each hex, making them 24 miles across (about 500 sq miles.). I'd also sprinkle a couple of existing settlements, thorps really, around the Stolen Lands.
2) I think starting off, I wouldn't make the PCs the center of attention. They'd be hirelings for a more notable petty-noble who was setting off to conquer the Stolen Lands. I'd ramp up the expedition-member roles some of us have played around with, like cartographer, naturalist, medic, etc. More focus on just how hard exploring really is, effects of terrain and weather, more random encounters, etc. Then this leader guy would turn out to be a looser and might hide from combat or might just die early in the story, during or soon after the first couple of bandit encounters. Might be cool to make him die by the Stag Lord's hand. Give the PC's a moment of ... uh, what do we do now? Then they have to nut up and finish the job without the boss. Restov might be in a bind and might not want to recognize the PCs claims to the territory but not have any choice. facts on the ground.
3) Before the PCs leave Restov, I'd have a party or something where they'd meet Meager Varn, Drelev and the Iron Wraiths. They just knew too little about their neighbors until it was action time. I'd want them to know what's going on and have relationships (good or bad) with these folks from the beginning. It's would make later events more meaningful.
4) Pretty soon after establishing their kingdom, say the end of Ch 2 or after exploring the west side of the mountain in Ch 3, maybe level 6 or 7, I might have the players create 2nd characters. It just seems odd to me that the duke/duchess is running around doing odd jobs like gathering eels and roc eggs. Not very dignified. Also, my players obviously want to be at the center of all the action, but would a real ruler really be out there fighting and exploring like that? It also means that the base-line encounters have to scale up with the PCs, so by Ch 3 and 4, just walking around the Stolen Lands is potentially pretty epic deadly from the perspective of an NPC commoner or warrior. If players rolled up a second character, 1st or 2nd level, the second string could work for the original PCs, the rulers. The new guys could continue exploring (at lower levels of danger, making the Stolen Lands a bit more even) and the ruler characters could engage in political stuff and come out of "retirement" to deal with the really hard stuff.
5) Find ways to elongate the timeline, especially in the beginning. They've risen in levels in 2 or 3 years. I'd like to see them age a bit more before they become rules of a huge kingdom.
6) Work in more hints about the final BBG earlier. I tacked on the Fellnight Queen module between Ch 2 and 3, and I think that kept the fey theme going a bit more. Actually both of my groups used the Fellnight Queen's scrying mirror to survey the surrounding lands and discovered the surprise in Ch 3! They had to hightail it over there.
7) I'd like to lower the magic level quite a bit. Moving Restov helps with that a little (limiting access to purchasable magic items), as would limiting or eliminating Craft Magic Stuff feats. I'd be hesitant to completely ban them, but maybe require unique components they'd have to side-trek to acquire. Jack up the cost of special materials like adamantite and mithril. Replace the Magic Item Economy in kingdom building with some other means of generating regular BP. Consider limiting travel magic like teleport, or making it a ritual that takes hours to prepare or something. Be a lot stricter on scrolls they can find for purchase.
I offered it to my players to make a second set of characters hired by their main guys, but that didn't want too. They do only go out for the big things nowadays because well they only see themselves as the only apt people in the region along with the other people forming part of the council.
I'm removing quests and shifting stuff around in the land and reworking events. I'm making most monsters have the fey template to enforce the fey world leaking over this one and I also had the BBEG of the last campaign give buffs to the owlbear in chapter 2 as a basic attempt to kill the adventurers. She will notice it failed in a while but it really surprised my players to see the enraged purple huge owlbear see their invisibility. Not that it mattered one player had a magical beast bane battle-axe (my fault for rolling it on the item table) and they flooded the field with rock elementals to keep the bear from moving or doing anything relevant.
The key weakness seems to me that everything as of now except like 4-5-6 things has less then 20 AC. With a bomb alchemist, boosted summoner sorcerer and scout ranger with +11 (or 13 sometimes) to hit, they miss on such a rare basis its harsh.
4) Pretty soon after establishing their kingdom, say the end of Ch 2 or after exploring the west side of the mountain in Ch 3, maybe level 6 or 7, I might have the players create 2nd characters. It just seems odd to me that the duke/duchess is running around doing odd jobs like gathering eels and roc eggs. Not very dignified. Also, my players obviously want to be at the center of all the action, but would a real ruler really be out there fighting and exploring like that? It also means that the base-line encounters have to scale up with the PCs, so by Ch 3 and 4, just walking around the Stolen Lands is potentially pretty epic deadly from the perspective of an NPC commoner or warrior. If players rolled up a second character, 1st or 2nd level, the second string could work for the original PCs, the rulers. The new guys could continue exploring (at lower levels of danger, making the Stolen Lands a bit more even) and the ruler characters could engage in political stuff and come out of "retirement" to deal with the really hard stuff.
I offered it to my players to make a second set of characters hired by their main guys, but that didn't want too. They do only go out for the big things nowadays because well they only see themselves as the only apt people in the region along with the other people forming part of the council.
Same here. I let my players know that they were the last line of defense, the only really capable people when these kinds of threats would come up - their council and allied NPCs could aid them, but they'd never be able to keep up with the PCs' power, and without them leading they'd likely be doomed to failure and, possibly, death and the ensuing problems dead councilors cause.
They were all pretty cool with that idea - they like being "royals that actually do something" and have no interest in just sitting in their capital and commanding lesser servitors to handle problems. Which is exactly what I was going for: the people of the Stolen Lands like and respect rulers who are willing to tackle these problems personally rather than hiding behind their soldiers and their castle walls.
The key weakness seems to me that everything as of now except like 4-5-6 things has less then 20 AC. With a bomb alchemist, boosted summoner sorcerer and scout ranger with +11 (or 13 sometimes) to hit, they miss on such a rare basis its harsh.
My advice on this: don't be afraid to rebuild everything. The AP chapters are written with a bare minimum common denominator in mind; every group is going to react to it differently. Be ready and able to react to how your party plays, and to adjust the stuff in the books as necessary to compensate for their tactics... both to give them an advantage from time to time when they've earned it, and to give them a challenge when they need it.
The only thing remotely keeping with the Pc's power is Mikmek, the Marshall. He was given the job seeing as he just wanders around the region with fellow kobolds hunting and killing everything in his way anyway. Marshall forces are 75% kobolds 25% everything else. Mikmek is 1 to 2 levels behind the PC's while everyone else is 2-3 depending on their usage. If it ever becomes relevant, Maegar Varn is at the pc's level and his own adventuring party has a wizard 2 levels under, a cavalier 3 levels over and maybe a fourth depending.
My group is level 10, will be level 11 after the final RRR encounter, and Mythic 1. I've been slowly leveling up the NPCs with reasons to do things that would gain them XP in the background. The next closest NPCs they have are Akiniyi, their Diplomat (a level-9 Sorcerer) and Belle, the ex-Dancing Lady (now a different CR-7 creature with 3 levels of Bard, due to shenanigans). The rest of their NPC allies and Councilors are between levels 6 and 8, with a few lower-level ones like Jhod who don't do much adventuring or anything on their own with which to gain levels.
How did they even convince the dancing lady, a humanoid murdering vampire faerie?
Long story short: the Dancing Lady was, several centuries past, a human girl who, due to a wish gone very wrong and a pissed-off Summer Court princess, became the Baobhan Sidhe she is in the encounter. Over those centuries she became a vain psychopath, and the party happily slaughtered her and the grimstalker when they fought them. My Dancing Lady had a thing for botany, and regularly used the remains and minds of dead female humanoids (the males she would eat) to create templates for plant creatures she made - for example, the boss fight with her she had Topper Red and Kressle from the Stag Lord's bandits turned into Kelpies to fight for her. Her crowning achievement was an incomplete Alraune the party found in her tower.
After they killed her, Rigg - who in my game was horribly infatuated with her - tried to bring her back from the dead by tossing her in the Alraune. On the one hand, it worked and managed to revive her... on the other, it erased the years of her memory as the Dancing Lady and brought back her original human personality. This pissed Rigg off to no end, who wanted the evil fey he'd served and been smitten with back, but it provided the PCs with a new ally once they found her thanks to a report from Perlivash and friends ("Za-Forest Guard", and basically minions and snoopers for the Spymistress) about a "giant flower thing walking around the Dancing Lady's castle".
This is actually far from the most bizarre thing that's happened in my game >_> We've taken fey weirdness well beyond 11.
Run with what the players want to do. It's their kingdom; if they want to do something, let them, and wing the rules for it. Run related sidequests, and throw out ones that don't make sense. (KM is very modular this way; most of the sidequests are easily replaced, and players will be more tied in if they end up doing stuff that's triggered off what they do.)
Roll up kingdom encounters well in advance (I did a year's worth for each map), and then work out a few plots based on that. Tie in sidequests to the events. Make it feel like the kingdom is a living, growing, thing. Some NPCs will continue to exist and become important later; others will just fade into the background. Bring back older NPCs when possible.
I would recommend the following:
1. Believability
Getting rid of fetch quests all together. Nothing in my right mind can tie any degree of verisimilitude to the idea of a taxidermist asking leading council members (at 15th level and serving one of the strongest nations in the region) to bring back a monster from another plane just so he can gut it and stuff it, all while the nation is suffering from such an incursion as what takes place at that time.
2. Weather
I wish I could remember to incorporate weather more.
3. Unity
Drop hints throughout about something happening behind the scenes. The surprise of book six should be 'Oh yeah!....remember...' and not 'What?... but wait...'
4. Keep them on Their Toes
There is a difference between letting your PCs feel powerful and an experience grind. When book four hits, don't be afraid to throw some serious baddies their way. I'm not saying get rid of all the low level encounters. Just give them something to fear. As stated before, don't hesitate to throw back to back encounters at them in a day, even if the books say not to.
5. Incorporate a recurring villain.
In my campaign, Gaetane "The Swamp Naga" Fallvarrow is an assassin who the group encountered at Ft. Drelev. He also attempted to assassinate the PCs during an ambush in the Slough. Since that time the PCs have hated him. Then they were forced to look him in the eye under a banner of peace as he represented Pitax in the Torchlight. While competing, he threw a note on the ground at the feet of the PC that detailed the death of that PCs parents and apologized that the note never reached her. His death is imminent but it ties books four and five together extremely well. Recurring villains help to incorporate intrigue, drama, hidden alliances and genuine hatred towards the BBEGs. They also help to compound the anger. Whether the PCs know it or not, their hatred for Drelev transferred to Gaetane and once he is dead, and another alliance revealed, it will again transfer to Irovetti.
6. Don't Nerf
This campaign is awesome for leadership, archery, mounts, item creation, and being that powerful individual in a sea of commoners. Don't undermine the structure of the campaign because you feel that your cavalier and his mount is destroying everything and don't change the rules on crafting because the PCs have started to created everything in the Core. Allow for this to happen. I guarantee it will only add to the memories told by the group about this campaign.
7. Kingdom Building
I haven't seen the UCa's Kingdom Building rules but the ones in this AP are sorely lacking. If you have the time and inclination, try playing with different rules. Specifically the 'Top-down' aspect of the rules are horrible. The magic item economy should also be entirely forgotten. Rolling for magic items brings the entire session to a halt. Instead, try having a minor item slot worth Xgp towards the city's base value, a medium worth Ygp and a major worth Zgp. Trust me, you will save time and effort.
(Edit: for spelling)
The new Ultimate Campaign rules removed the magic item economy. I'd suggest using them instead.
Yeah, we are in book five now so I honestly don't think we will be changing. Good to know for the future in case I run a game with another set of Kingdom Building.
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1. After reading everything, (and you must read all of the books at least once before running this,) look at the BBEG and work on her story and involvement. If you understand her and how she fits in you can foreshadow her early and not have to worry about the players being caught off guard by sudden events in the last book.
2. Look at the AP as telling the story of the kingdom, not the PCs, and you will have a much easier time dealing with some of the events. In fact, in later books you may want to ask the party to forms cohort party to go out and tasks that are below the main party just so you can keep telling that story.
3. Don't over do it just because you you think you need to. This AP, more than any other, can quickly have you juggling a half dozen different systems, tables, charts, and maps all at once. If you can simplify things you will save yourself a great deal of work. Pre-roll weather, encounters, and events. Have a large list of NPCs, or use the NPC Codex, for random NPCs. Use kingdom spreadsheets. Find a way to manage the kingdom maps that takes as little time as possible. Last of all, if a player can do it you should assign them the task. You do not need to be the one that keeps track of quests, for example, or the one who records the introduced NPCs.
4. Steal everything you can from other games. Use modules, systems, and player created content. Spend as much time as you can looking in the forums for stuff. Just from me alone there is a huge list of NPCs, a big write up on two BBEGs, a list of custom kingdom events, and a castle modification system. Other GMs have posted political systems, how to turn the fey influence up, how to make Brevoy more prominent, a list of hexes and what they look like, and custom backgrounds on many NPCs. Look into Kobold Publishing's Tales of Margreve and the bestiary that suplements it. Look at Paizo modules and consider how to implement them.
5. Build a tool box with the suggestions above and let the players go where they want. As they tell you what they do you can pull from it with little effort and just go with it.