So, we are mid-RRR, I'm about to run some of the forum's ideas on the lizard chief and Hargulka.
My players' kingdom is incredibly stable right now, and it seems to stem from their lack of expansion. They have 12 hexes total, and have all but filled their capital with buildings, many of them upgraded to their highest version.
Their Control DC is 34 (12 hexes, 2 districts), Economy 45, Loyalty 33, Stability 37.
Is this normal? They can't fail any of the rolls, unless I count a crit fail on Loyalty, and even then they reach it.
I've built a kingdom sheet in google spreadsheets here:
LINK
(I could have used one of the ones already on these forums but by the time I found them, I was half done my own)
The first tab is the Kingdom Sheet. The top is a reference, and if you scroll down a bit you can see all the calculations. (There's also the settlement magic item slots, which should be on the settlement sheets, but to keep the reference easy, I left it here).
The next two towns are settlement sheets, merely to calculate any buildings and building bonuses in those towns.
Really, the players could just be doing very well, focusing on keeping their kingdom stable before expanding, but at the same time, I worry that I'm not challenging them enough when any possible bad event can be defeated regardless of difficulty.
Yep, that's pretty normal. My group as of the beginning of VV has a DC around 75 but their scores are all above 100.
Do note that a Nat 1 on the d20 still fails.
We were using the KM rules up until UC got released, and we've been slowly converting over. So most of the buildup was with the magic economy included.
When we next sit down to do a building session I'm going to request dropping that, if only because
A.) The PCs never buy any of the items that come up - either they can't afford it or they don't want/need it.
B.) It takes the longest out of all the segments of the building process.
We started using UC rules, and events are done pre-rolled by myself and tailored to the kingdom. I'm doing 1 event per month with a chance of 1 extra event. Might have to fudge in a few more bad events to keep it interesting for them.
The magic item economy (I'm assuming this means being able to purge item slots for profit) isn't in my game. That said, I've pre-rolled a bunch of items to put in (the wizard rolls the chance that an item slot gets filled), and I fudge it to include items the players will find interesting if not useful for their concept; the idea being that the PCs are well known in the kingdom and may have spoken to the crafters about their desires.
Right now, it seems that the players have a lack of interest in expanding. They don't mind saving up a few months to gain enough BP for the expensive buildings, and make enough with their super high Economy and piles of mines, that it doesn't make sense for them to expand further and increase their Control DC and Consumption.
I'm definitely going to expand upon the story and drama elements of the kingdom, but my party is definitely interested in number games as well as the story.
I've searched the forums a bit more for ideas on how to change this, and I think I'm going to do the following:
- Increase the Control DC by a factor of 1.15 or 1.2. This will increase their current DC from 40 to 46; still a 95% success rate for every save except Loyalty. Currently they keep their Loyalty and Stability at the minimum for a 95% success, and boost their economy as much as possible. Increasing the DC by such a small amount will at least force them to think about Loyalty and Stability a bit more, and will help to counter the snowballing of their kingdom.
- More Save:Partial events. Currently only a few bad events have Unrest even on a success. I'm going to have a minimum of 1 Unrest on any bad event. This will at least make the Stability check at the beginning of the kingdom turn less useless.
What I don't want to do is increase the DC based on size, since I imagine it won't really change much; they'll just turtle at their current size longer.
I like the idea of certain hexes being claimed by other groups, but I wouldn't want to do that too often, or it will just become tedious to continuously clear out squatters (which is what my PC's will consider them).
I'm currently running some custom events that require more than just kingdom rolls. It's a mystery subplot, involving the cultists of Gyronna in the books. Using the PC's custom NPCs like family and friends, and going to have a medieval court system where important NPCs can discuss things with the party. The King's brother is incredibly charismatic and has gained the love of the public and become a darling of the court. He acts as a devil's advocate in court, pointing out inconsistencies in their theories and such. His metagame role is essentially to countermand the complete authority of the King, as the King can rule anything, but ruling against his brother's arguments will force Loyalty checks as the public is generally convinced the brother is right. Although, unless Loyalty checks mean something, that's not going to change much.