To give you a little background...
My group is still in the opening of Rivers Run Red. We use a rules set for the kingdom part, which is mostly UC, with a little customization. What happened:
The PC tanked the economy check and couldn't pay the upkeep. The also tanked the following stability check and had 1 Unrest before that. So, after one round, they went down to 5 Unrest. The next round they had a little money and build a wall to reduce the unrest...
Few months and a few very, very bad rolls later (almost every roll was way below 10) they had no money and an unrest score of 8.
As the GM I let the NPCs (Oleg and Svetlana, for example) suggest, that maybe they could loan some money in Restov. They went there and got money. But they also got the annoying aunt of one character as a diplomat and the baroness had to marry an old noble from Restov. At the moment, the swordlords have no interest in destroying the kingdom, but they certainly want to control it. Both agents (the new baron and the new chief diplomat) know that most people on the council are not their friends.
So, what should they do? My ideas were:
- Try to disgrace Lily Teskerton
- Try to disgrace Khesten Garess
- In some way destroy the Levetons marriage (Divide and Conquer!)
- Bring up the background of Jhod
How should I give my players signs of things to come? Especially the information gathering about the council members?
And I'm still not sure how to incorporate the coming doom named Grigori... That will be funny. I hope my girlfriend (the baroness) won't kill me then. ;)
I can think of a couple things:
First off, are there diplomatic relations with Restov? If you're using those, I suggest setting the "treaty" between Restov and your players' kingdom at "advantage: Restov." They just loaned a bunch of money, they get the advantage out of the deal.
Second, are you using Vassalage Edicts? If so, then I could see the new Restov noble (now a co-ruler) carving out pieces of the players' kingdom and giving them to some nobles to whom he owes favors. In this situation, the vassal states would technically owe allegiance to the players, but would be entities unto themselves ... and your players would lose the direct benefits from some of their hexes. This could be particularly interesting if the Swordlords' proxy awards vassalages to lordlings from opposed houses in Restov. The Sworlords would be awarding these holdings to curry favor with those houses ... but the lordlings would likely feud with each other in the Stolen Lands, creating headaches for the players.
Third, you might want to study the Player's Guide to Kingmaker as well as Redcelt's Game of Thrones thread. This will give you some ideas for the personalities, politics, and factions within Brevoy ... and some adventure seeds should sprout.
As far as existing council members, would this new Swordlord noble attempt to disgrace them? Would he attempt to subvert them? Would he attempt to move them out? I could see a very interesting scenario in which he offers the ambitious Lily Teskerton marriage to a high-ranking noble in New Stetven. She leaves ... and he just happens to have a great candidate to fill her spot on the council. After a couple messages by raven ... House Garess suddenly needs Kesten to come back home. Do any of the council members receive disrespect from the players? The Swordlord proxies are these council members' new best friends.
As far as foreshadowing and such, I think things should start small, then work their way up. To start with, the Swordlord rulers will bring their own households with them -- servants, personal guards, and so forth. I think conflicts ought to start there, particularly between (say) a pompous minor Swordlord and a particularly volatile "native" NPC.
If you build it slowly, players may have trouble realizing their kingdom is being taken from them until too late.
I might also work in a "Swordlord veto" over certain actions. The baroness and her adventuring companions may want to, say, build a waterfront pier, but Hubby prefers to plow BP into a gambling hall. Don't do it so often that you're railroading, but Swordlord Hubby ought to make things really ... ahem ... annoying.
If you REALLY want to build paranoia, start having random "accidents" happen to the baroness. They may or may not be attributable to her Sworlord Hubby ...
Great ideas! I read a few times in Redcelts thread, I will have to do that again...
pennywit speaks wisdom, I can't come up with much more.
See also the thread around here, "Deals with the devil", or something like that.
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First off, it appears your party's kingdom suffered a semi-collapse primarily due to some supernaturally bad rolls. If I have this fact wrong, then it does change my suggestions a bit to make them a bit more consequence laden. If bad luck is responsible for most of this problem, I suggest not further punishing your players by sticking an annoying oversee on them. Because unless you are a stickler for random suffering and consequences in a Gary Gygax type mindset, then having your PCs kingdom tank due to random bad luck is not something you want, as it is extremely disheartening. If however, they made poor or stupid choices and then compounded them, carry on :)
You don't say it explicity, but have the NPCs taken over the kingdom now? I assume that is why you were asking about disgracing them?
If you are looking to involve the party more into Brevoy/and or River Kingdom politics, then this is the best thing that could ever happen.
What a perfect opportunity to align them with a political/religious faction of your choosing! Pick a smaller faction with good prospects and an inspiring leader, and let the party's kingdom help pay him (or her) back by rising to greatness and backing their benefactor in Brevic politics. of course, this also makes them the target of their benefactor's enemies! Congrats, your PCs have now won a free vacation in a viper pit, er I mean Brevic politics. :) If they start to do downhill again, their original benefactor (or perhaps an additional one!) can step in and stop their slide. My golden rule of Brevic politics is every request for aid comes with two favors owed back, and every ally brings two enemies with them.
If you want them to dig out of a hole on their own, align them with said benefactor, but make them prove their value by winning back the kingdom. Give them some gold, two spies, a diplomat, and let them work for it. Let these minions find weaknesses, desires, needs, key information, or opportunities to engage the NPCs again. Then they can either set out to win back the NPCs loyalty by their actions, or destroy the fledging NPC government and reclaim their kingdom. Or of course, a mix of the two :)
or
Have the swordlords or their benefactor simply come south and annex the kingdom, then turn it over to be governed by the PCs. This does give them a freebie of getting their kingdom back, however disgruntled NPCs could be very interesting come the time a certain bard wanders into town :)
If you are looking to keep the party in their own little fishbowl, or more like the AP canon, then this is a chance to extend a helping hand to your unfortunate players and give them a fresh start.
In this case, have a sympathethic NPC, either from Mivon (assuming you have a swordlord friendly PC) or Brevoy (Rogarvian noble) step up and offer to basically re-fund the PCs kingdom again. Give them enough BP to basically start over, a mulligan if you will. Perhaps even secure them against further bad luck, by saying that their citizens are so uplifted by the heroes ability to secure this type of support that it overcomes 1 point of unrest for the first 3-6 months. This should give them time to get back on their feet. Otherwise Book 5 will basically be a frustrating doom-laden campaign-ender.
Either hand wave the NPCs welcoming back the PCs as rulers, or make them work for their loyalty depending on your level of mercy.
For something completely different, have Varn offer to help them regain their kingdom right before the events in Book 3 take place, then when the party goes there to meet with him, Book 3 begins. Let them start over in Varnhold instead of the Greenbelt.
Redcelt, is it true that we can summon you to a thread by looking in a mirror and speaking your name three times?
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pennywit wrote: Redcelt, is it true that we can summon you to a thread by looking in a mirror and speaking your name three times?
Hehe, it probably seems that way...I tend to lurk a lot :)
I probably should write a Kingmaker style book, or run like three Kingmaker games going just so I can use all of my plots and schemes in rather than waiting of opportunities to make recommendations. I tend to get a bit carried away and be overly verbose sometimes :P
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
redcelt32 wrote: pennywit wrote: Redcelt, is it true that we can summon you to a thread by looking in a mirror and speaking your name three times?
Hehe, it probably seems that way...I tend to lurk a lot :)
I probably should write a Kingmaker style book, or run like three Kingmaker games going just so I can use all of my plots and schemes in rather than waiting of opportunities to make recommendations. I tend to get a bit carried away and be overly verbose sometimes :P
I've been thinking of making something Kingmakery myself. There's so much material I had to cut or downplay in order to keep progressing through the story.
As to the OP's post, I'm with Redcelt, don't punish players for bad luck. An in-game mulligan and an opportunity to enmesh them in Brevic politics would work.
Besides you can have Grigori make fun of the PCs when he shows up later.
redcelt32 wrote: pennywit wrote: Redcelt, is it true that we can summon you to a thread by looking in a mirror and speaking your name three times?
Hehe, it probably seems that way...I tend to lurk a lot :)
I probably should write a Kingmaker style book, or run like three Kingmaker games going just so I can use all of my plots and schemes in rather than waiting of opportunities to make recommendations. I tend to get a bit carried away and be overly verbose sometimes :P
No worries, some of us enjoy all your little ideas and file em away for future use. ;)
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DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote: redcelt32 wrote: pennywit wrote: Redcelt, is it true that we can summon you to a thread by looking in a mirror and speaking your name three times?
Hehe, it probably seems that way...I tend to lurk a lot :)
I probably should write a Kingmaker style book, or run like three Kingmaker games going just so I can use all of my plots and schemes in rather than waiting of opportunities to make recommendations. I tend to get a bit carried away and be overly verbose sometimes :P
I've been thinking of making something Kingmakery myself. There's so much material I had to cut or downplay in order to keep progressing through the story.
As to the OP's post, I'm with Redcelt, don't punish players for bad luck. An in-game mulligan and an opportunity to enmesh them in Brevic politics would work.
Besides you can have Grigori make fun of the PCs when he shows up later. Are you kidding? I keep on coming up with ideas, too, although I haven't gotten as deep in as either of you has.
PS. I don't advocate punishing players just for a run of bad luck with the dice. But I also think there's something to be said for using those bad die rolls to create opportunities.
It's a common hope of failing governments that a foreign war can salvage things by uniting the populace. Or a desperate last throw of the dice to go out in a blaze of glory, YMMV.
Maybe (if they have the levels), you can use the Troll War in Dudemeister's RRR variation. If they win, the BP captured could be a big help, and you could slip in a positive modifier to some die rolls for a few months, such as when they complete some of the quests.
Some of the other quests might be reskinned as offers by outsiders to help them out of trouble.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Lee Hanna wrote: It's a common hope of failing governments that a foreign war can salvage things by uniting the populace. Or a desperate last throw of the dice to go out in a blaze of glory, YMMV.
Maybe (if they have the levels), you can use the Troll War in Dudemeister's RRR variation. If they win, the BP captured could be a big help, and you could slip in a positive modifier to some die rolls for a few months, such as when they complete some of the quests.
Some of the other quests might be reskinned as offers by outsiders to help them out of trouble.
I wouldn't recommend starting up Hargulka's Monster Kingdom until you have a decent BP engine running in your kingdom. Even low level armies are expensive to build and maintain for a little duchy. Plus if you've got some unrest already at such low levels a few poor dice rolls might see your army stomped, and that leads to more unrest and the spiral might start again.
Yeah Dudemeister's expansion is awesome, but also a bit more skirmish-oriented than the regular version. Not sure how that would play with the party as one small solo army.
You could try discussing things with your players and see what they think their characters might do next, and then mushroom out from there as far as how you drive the storyline.
At the moment, my players decided to deal with their unwanted "help". They will work quietly to build themselves a good, solid power base and then move to dispose them much later, when they can deal with the fallout.
At the moment they have OOC to deal with the coming withdrawal of one PC council member and the new character of this particular player. After that, I will try to let them have a few extra months before starting bigger events and before introducing Hargulka's Monster Kingdom. Which was already planned... ;)
Either way, I will try to follow a dual storyline with two enemies:
One, the easy to hate Hargulka and two, the much more difficult to capture Restover noble.
I think it could be nice to gradually build his influence up (with the opportunity for the PCs to counter that by dropping hints) and then either the PCs will confront him during the months after Hargulkas Fall or he will make a power grab during Book 3. Either way, solving VV could go a long way to soothe any difficulty with Restov about what they did against their noble.
What I have planned, in detail:
1. A few kindom turns in peace to let them gradually build up everything and get their feet on the ground.
2. They hear about an inquiry in the background of one NPC they like. If they don't stop it, slandering in the council is the first consequence. If they don't stop it there (social encounter), the council member loses standing. I'm thinking about a scale to be a little less arbitrary, but I'm not sure yet. If the council member loses all standing, they get ousted. So they have a few opportunities to stop everything.
3. Another opportunity is blackmail against the council members. For example, Jhod could maybe be blackmailed. I would build it like before, first an inquiry, than a few social encounters.
4. The whole time Hargulka will loom. In the face of this threat, their co-ruler will argue for a more human-centric barony/duchy (considering he already mentioned his disgust with the Idyllkin (aasimar) baroness because of her little fur) and will argue against any friendly overtures to various monsters like the kobolds or the fey. In this way he can be the voice of a legitimate part of the population...
5. All this will cumulate in a power grab, which will came down to social encounters, kingdom checks and, I think, a fight between baroness and baron. Like in classic fairy tale, the hero vanquishes the foe. :)
6. Oh, and don't forget Restov. It will loom in the background, always helpful if the PCs align themselves with them. I forgot at the moment, what the timetable for the civil war was, but if they come near that, Restov will get much more demanding over time...
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Hey, just thought of another idea that will both help & then hinder...
The Church of Abadar could offer to fund some BP for the kingdom with a
few possible & different payoffs: -
1. The Kingdom has to build a church to Abadar within (x) years; or
2. The Kingdom must shift to Abadar as the official Religion (repayment
of the loan commuted so long as the official religion stays that way, but
massive repayments based on principal plus time elapsed if official religion
is shifted elsewhere); or the most simple
3. A basic loan. Say 10 or 20BP, with repayments over a number of years
with a decent interest rate.
I just thought that any of the above would be a way to inject capital into
your PCs realm (which still seems to be an issue), with which they could
dig themselves out of a hole...& still not have it all their own way.
Abadar is the perfect god for that.
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