Now that my game has gotten into book 2 proper, I'm curious as to how other games handle the kingdom events.
Do you just say, "Slavers are stealing your citizens. Make some kingdom checks and maybe they will stop."? Do you roleplay the PCs taking an interest in/trying to solve the event - and then make the kingdom checks? Do you turn it into an encounter or mini-adventure? Or is there some other way? Do you vary methods based on player interest?
It just seems like the "make some kingdom checks, done" method (i.e. the RAW) is rather bland and boring. An exercise in die-rolling and number-crunching. And since the PCs have 3 weeks off each month, why wouldn't they be looking into ongoing issues in their kingdom?
Please help me figure out how to run this. My group hasn't hit its first proper event, yet.
I try and turn them into encounters or adventures, but some of them will turn into, "roll a Loyalty check, that you'll only fail on a 2, and it's OK."
For me, it depends on the event-- can I make something out of it?-- and the timing-- are we in a time when we can work on this, or am I just putting the game on fast-forward because it's winter and I want to get to the next big event?
I suggest rolling events out in advance, putting them on a calendar for you to think about between game sessions. I printed off a blank spreadsheet with a half-dozen columns:
Date/weather Random Events PC actions local NPC actions faraway NPC actions Other
and 12 lines, so I can do a whole year, 1 month at a time. I can pencil in what I think will happen, what I plan to happen, and what actually does happen. I use the same blank to plan out what should happen during adventures, too.
Right now, I'm looking at a few REs, like slavers and bandits, that I think could be linked to point a hostile finger to the noble family that lives around the Wyvernstone Bridge (added by me).
First, slavers are far apart in the River Kingdoms, remember the River Freedoms!
As for events, I tried making more of a story out of it at first, but my players were more focused on the "real" events (the storyline, can you imagine?), than these random rolls. I played it by ear and now mostly use the events as call-backs to previous events, which is also great fun, and probably doesn't slow the game half as much.
My best one, in RRR, followed the eradication of a cell of Gyronna cultists, which the PCs handled on their own in the dead of night, without alerting their city guard (fearing infiltration, for some reason). The next day, I rolled "death of a notable figure". I asked all the players to roll bluff checks to keep straight faces at the funeral ceremony. Good times.
In addition to player feedback, also look at the time you have. If your group gathers on a bi-weekly basis, you have time to make events of the events. If it's more like bi-monthly because everyone but you seem to have children or weekend jobs, make anecdotes of the events instead, it's faster, and can be a good way to remind the players of the many things they failed to handle without leaving loose ends. Instead of making a separate story-line about every fled worg and brigand, integrate them in the events, so you and your players can get closure in a manner that makes the setting more alive.
I also second Lee Hanna, make a calendar. I made mine with the Golarion months, columns for Build Points, and a Y/N box for Events.
Actually, in place of "slavers", I am tempted to have one (or more) lonely fey charm some logger or hunter into staying with her, and the PCs can negotiate or fight through that.
Back to the original question, it might also depend on how often you play and how interested your group is in the running of the kingdom. Right now, I have 1 player who loves to run the spreadsheet and plan out buildings and hexes, 1 who is willing to contribute and roll dice (but plays the actual ruler), and 4 who could care less about anything not bashing monsters. So, nearly all of the kingdom things are handled away from the table or around food breaks during game sessions. Thus, if I don't turn an event into at least an encounter, it's going to get handled as some emails and die-rolls during the inter-game period.
Lee Hanna wrote: Actually, in place of "slavers", I am tempted to have one (or more) lonely fey charm some logger or hunter into staying with her, and the PCs can negotiate or fight through that. How about the Old Beldame?
pennywit wrote: How about the Old Beldame? While there's options there, I preferred playing her as just a cranky old, green-tinted lady. We're up to Blood for Blood, and as yet none of my players have managed to roll a knowledge check well enough to determine whether or not she's a hag.
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My group's a little daffy. They set up a fishery in her hex, and they decided to use her likeness to market the fish. I'm tempted to sic a level 20 IP Attorney on them.
"Slavers" was just an example event. It could be anything. I was just curious as to how other groups handled events, how well it worked, and why. I guess if most of the players don't actually care about the kingdom, just making the kingdom checks makes sense. Although that strikes me as an unfortunate circumstance - running "Kingmaker" for players who don't want to be kings.
In a somewhat related note, I rolled the "Land Rush" event (using the UCam rules) and it doesn't really make sense to me.
Quote: Settlers claim an unclaimed hex and build a farm, mine, quarry, or sawmill. Make a Loyalty check. Success: +1 Unrest. Failure: +1d4 Unrest. -1 kingdom Productivity & Society, -1 Stability. Construct identical improvement in adjacent hex next turn to remove penalty. Why does building a mine (or whatever) in the hex next to the settlers' mine remove the penalties? What is that supposed to represent?
Seems like it would make more sense for the solution to be that the kingdom has to absorb that hex and impose some law & order in it.
I wondered about that too, but just wrote it off in my head as the kingdom
supplying jobs for people who wanted them, rather than them having to
travel to go to work... (or something to that effect.)
Well, after thinking about this for a bit, and rolling up the future events for the PC's kingdom, I think that for most events, stuff will happen and be dealt with (or not) before the PCs learn of it. So that'll be the initial kingdom check(s) for the event. "There was a feud, m'lord, but we handled it." If the event then becomes continuous, the players can get involved if they wish, and I may give them a bonus (or penalty) on the kingdom check depending on how their efforts pan out.
For the Land Rush event, I think I will just require them to claim the hex and buy the improvement off the settlers.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
I think first you need to decide if you are going to handle kingdom events as a phase of the kingdom turn (kingdom building subgame) or part of the rest of your Kingmaker game. If part of kingdom building, then yes make some rolls, carry on.
I recommend moving it out of kingdom building and integrating kingdom events into your storyline. First off, you have to give your players regular "news" updates so there is useless gossip, useful gossip, fractured stories, and hard facts all mixed up each month. If you are not doing this, then your party can just focus on whatever the event is, knowing it is for sure "real and serious".
I suggest rolling up a year or two worth of kingdom events and looking at your list. Feel free to move stuff around and brainstorm. Often times due to serendipity, events line up into cohesive story threads all on their own. See if you can link several events logically together, then assign groups, NPCs, and places to them and voila, you have both kingdom events and new story threads. Mix in a few story threads that come from your character's backgrounds, a few of your own devising, some outright lies and false claims, shake vigorously, and serve in monthly doses to your players. You now have a much richer tapestry than you would get from random rolls countered with some hard to fail kingdom checks.
Not sure this will help anyone at all, since I run my game very differently, but I thought I would post my calendar of kingdom events out in dropbox for others to get ideas from. When I say I run it differently, I use the Ed Greenwood-Forgotten Realms style of GMing, where the world is full of active NPCs, factions, and ongoing events, and the players can interact or stand by and watch as they like. Due to this, I have a LOT more plotlines and events going on than most games, which sometimes confuses my players, but always results in something interesting going on in or near their kingdom. Here is the link...EVENTS Clearly, some of it won't make total sense to anyone but our group, but you should be able to get an idea. Greyed out events have already taken place. When I started, I made a list of events for each plot thread, spaced them out chronologically, and then sorted on date order to get the current list.
As an aside, I almost never let random events be settled without direct action or at least orders to underlings on the part of the players. If they do sent underlings, there are almost always consequences, even if it is nothing more than bad feelings between that NPC and a faction. This is part of the headache of being a ruler.
redcelt32 wrote: See if you can link several events logically together, then assign groups, NPCs, and places to them and voila, you have both kingdom events and new story threads. Mix in a few story threads that come from your character's backgrounds, a few of your own devising, some outright lies and false claims, shake vigorously, and serve in monthly doses to your players. You now have a much richer tapestry than you would get from random rolls countered with some hard to fail kingdom checks.
When I say I run it differently, I use the Ed Greenwood-Forgotten Realms style of GMing, where the world is full of active NPCs, factions, and ongoing events, and the players can interact or stand by and watch as they like. Due to this, I have a LOT more plotlines and events going on than most games, which sometimes confuses my players, but always results in something interesting going on in or near their kingdom. Here is the...
This. Especially that last part. There are a number of potentially friendly NPCs in the AP. Unless you have a lot of players or decided to allow double tasking for ministers, presumably some of them are already serving in government, or as generals in the armies, or maybe just living well on the growth of a new kingdom.
In my own game, one NPC required a Noble Villa as residence for signing up, he's living it up in a mansion, while the king and the crew crowd a single castle. As such, people consider him second to the king, rather than assigning that respect to a PC, the others of which are perceived as being less favored by the king.
That's a potentially significant mechanism if they ever decide to demote the NPC. I might not let them, see what happens. In the case of other events, his involvement can make a big difference.
Set up a quick flowchart with your NPCs, rating the relationships of those who know each other by friend-ally-acquaintance-rival-enemy. Remember this chart when something happens that could potentially involve any of them.
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