For a sandbox AP, Kingmaker seems to make the exploration mechanic pretty necessary for the AP to advance. My party is nearly done with Book 1, and I think that they're not so keen on combing through even more hexes when they'd rather be doing things that relate to the part of their kingdom that already exists. Plus, I run Kingmaker as a play-by-post campaign, which already takes a long time. If I can advance part of the AP in the background in a way that doesn't make the players feel like they're missing out on things, even better.
So once they've founded a kingdom, I'd like to set up a basic system where the country's borders could expand slowly but automatically. The point of this isn't to replace the exploration mechanic entirely; it's to make it more or less optional -- something that the PCs can do when they want (and probably even do so more efficiently than the auto-exploration), but if they focus on kingdom events or sidequests, their kingdom doesn't stagnate.
Here's some of the ideas that I'm mulling over. I'd love to hear some criticism or refinement:
1. The auto-exploration rate is population based. It would start off slowly at first, so a starting off population might gain the nation one hex per year, but the rate of hex accumulation would increase as the nation's population grows. Obviously, this rate will increase exponentially and could easily get out of hand, so perhaps some sort of diminishing returns should be put in place. Another thought is that after a certain point, instead of a new hex being discovered, a Hidden site within the nation's borders that was earlier passed over is discovered, instead. (See point #3 below.)
If anyone who has experience with actually seeing a KM nation that's up and running wants to suggest the math for this formula, you will get a virtual high-five from yours truly.
2. The GM picks the hexes. This allows for the GM to steer the nation's growth as the story dictates, and can potentially save the hexes with more interesting encounters for the PCs to discover themselves. Hexes without any planned encounters would naturally be the easiest for citizen explorers to claim, and resource hexes could be added if the GM feels the nation could use a boost.
3. Hexes with landmark/standard/hidden sites should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Sites that are not related to the overall plot can be skipped or saved for when they're more appropriate. Hidden sites would not be discovered immediately to allow the PCs to discover them later if they're passing through, but they could be discovered later when the nation is larger and it's assumed that the earlier hexes have been more cultivated.
4. Dangerous encounters stop the auto-exploration. I've really liked the "lead from the front" philosophy expressed on these boards for why a nation's rulers would be the ones to go forth and conquer new frontiers. The populace shouldn't be the ones to go out and take care of a tower full of will-o-wisps, for example. This allows for the PCs to be driven to take care of some of the AP's encounters that aren't directly tied to the overall plot. Another thought is that random encounters are still rolled when the citizen-explorers enter a hex, and any dangerous encounters rolled will have the same effect as the planned encounters.
I'm really interested to hear others' thoughts on this.
I've pretty much regulated the exploration duties to background stuff in my game, and notify the players if their explorations - or the explorations of their underlings - unearth something they need to investigate personally. They've gone on a few recent missions prompted by stuff they'd found - we just wrapped up RRR - but most of the time it's been straight there, straight back, and are otherwise focused on building up and interacting with their colony and its people than exploring the wilderness in-depth.
I've pretty much regulated the exploration duties to background stuff in my game
Do you just add hexes to the kingdom as you feel like it, or do you have some sort of system for how many and which hexes you add to the kingdom?
and notify the players if their explorations - or the explorations of their underlings - unearth something they need to investigate personally. They've gone on a few recent missions prompted by stuff they'd found - we just wrapped up RRR - but most of the time it's been straight there, straight back, and are otherwise focused on building up and interacting with their colony and its people than exploring the wilderness in-depth.
This is how I anticipate my campaign going, also. I imagine that it gets easier to overlook the exploring in the later modules.
I've pretty much regulated the exploration duties to background stuff in my gameDo you just add hexes to the kingdom as you feel like it, or do you have some sort of system for how many and which hexes you add to the kingdom?
I go by the original limits of hex claiming based on kingdom size. How many and which ones I just leave up to the players based on which hexes they want to grab and how much BP they're willing to spend.
We just leave off the time-consuming RP of "you walk around, explore a bunch, maybe find nothing, maybe find a few random encounters".
and notify the players if their explorations - or the explorations of their underlings - unearth something they need to investigate personally. They've gone on a few recent missions prompted by stuff they'd found - we just wrapped up RRR - but most of the time it's been straight there, straight back, and are otherwise focused on building up and interacting with their colony and its people than exploring the wilderness in-depth.This is how I anticipate my campaign going, also. I imagine that it gets easier to overlook the exploring in the later modules.
Pretty much. The bigger the kingdom is, the more people you'll have available to do that for you. Leaving the PCs to focus on the main things, like running their kingdom and dealing with major challenges.
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What Orthos said. My party hasn't quite given up on hexploration yet, but they are now talking about hiring it out to lower level adventurers. I will still make them hexplore certain areas like Orthos' model, they just don't have to slog across the entire landscape.
As far as adding kingdom hexes, my players are still very involved in kingdom building and dictate everything themselves. This is primarily because I have threatened their kingdoms resources, automony, or security by having neighboring kingdoms passively agressive venture into their forests, raid across the border, etc while they developed into a larger entity and gained a solid reputation. Apparently it worked as they are building forts, blocking out access to certain natural resources, etc as they expand :)
Sorry, my questions are confusing two different processes: the act of exploring a new hex, and the act of incorporating that hex into your kingdom.
Adding an already-explored hex to your kingdom isn't a big deal. It's mandated by player decision and the BPs that they have available.
But how do you hand wave the exploration? Is there a drawback for having too many hexes explored for free?
Not that I've noticed.
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The updated Kingdom Building rules in Ultimate Campaign have rules for sending out exploration expeditions. It's pretty good and personally, I wish I had them when I first ran Kingmaker. I plan on using them in my current Caribbean Kingmaker campaign once my players get tired of exploration.
In my campaign, the PCs contracted the Narthropple Expedition (the Gnomes in book 2) to do almost all exploration for them
This is likely to be the case for my group as well. Narthropple is currently helping them clear out the trolls (since the information he's looking for is in their hideout) and will then be able to complete his current commission and come back to work for them.
I'm thinking that equipping and paying him should probably just be a straight +1 or +2 to consumption, and he'll map everything he can but avoid major encounters.
I rewrote the character as an archivist bard with ranks in Cartography and gave him a low-level utility sorceress assistant, so he's quite well suited to the job.
I was really hoping he might have a shot at marrying the gnome Baroness, but I don't think that's going anywhere. That might change if he's working for them over the long term.
I'm starting that in my own game. Leaving it to the marshall's rangers to explore the land and alert to certain scenarios they think the state should take care instead of them.
They also contracted the gnome explorer and his crew to make a perfect map of the greenbelt for the cost of 2 BP per year + food expenses. While food for 10 people for 1 year would be a lot I simply waved it for 500 gp to pay for the crew's food and needs. I hope they will then send them out to the other zones and thus automatized some of the process. It will leave more time for them to do their own thing while bringing the fun to them.