I have now run two sessions of our Kingmaker campaign, and so far it's been a blast. I ended up with six PCs, so I'm heavily leveraging the fabulous six player conversion documents found here.
One thing I'm loving is my players really latched onto the stop banditry language in the charter are totally diving into their role as frontier sheriffs. At Oleg's they set up an ambush for the bandits and thanks to a well placed color spray they managed to capture all the bandits alive. They locked them up in the barracks and headed immediately to the Thorn River Camp.
Once there, they had a pitched battle and managed to capture (not kill) ALL of the bandits there. Even to the point of tying up the ones that were at the camp, then laying in wait for the bandits out on patrol to trickle back in so they could capture them as well.
With the increased numbers, they now have 18 bandits in custody. They just got the Thorn River prisoners back to Oleg's.
Now they've got to figure out what to do with all of them. I'm pretty sure Kressle is going to fall into the "unrepentant" category, and I thought I'd have Kesten recognize Happs as an ex-guard wanted for various crimes in Restov, but I am not sure what to do about the other 16 generic bandits.
I am so thankful to be running a game for a bunch of Not Murder Hobos.
Sounds like a good group of players, and I'd love to hear more about what they do.
As for your problem ... See what the PCs do.
If they assume their job is done, then have Oleg ask to be reimbursed for all the effort he goes into feeding them, reinforcing the barracks, watching it to make sure nobody breaks out during the night, etc.) If the PCs still do nothing, maybe some of the bandits stage a jail break (are the PCs busy guarding them?)
If they just want to lock them up and let "the authorities" deal with them, then Kesten Garess will probably want to either hang the lot, or impress them and haul them off to Restov (though guarding them for the trip would be a pain, but it would give you an excuse to make the PCs worry about the safety of Oleg's).
If the PCs make an effort to recruit the bandits, or judge them -- work with it.
One of the bandits might offer to snitch on the others, and be attacked by them. Some might be amenable to taking new jobs under new bosses (the PCs), though policing them might be a problem.
The Stag Lord might be tempted to stage a rescue if things get delayed too badly.
@pennywit - I love the idea of having Kesten and Jhod disagree on their fates. That's a great source of conflict and I think I'll be yoinking that one.
Unfortunately, with the holidays coming up it is going to be about four weeks before we get to the next session. On the plus side it will give me lots of time to prep upcoming events...
Having politics enter early is a great idea.
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In case it's of any use to you, here are some random ex-bandit tables I made up to help me when my players kept capturing generic bandits alive and giving them the chance to repent.
Alignment: Start at CN, roll d6. If the roll is 5 or 6: alignment is one step away and roll again. If the second or subsequent roll is 6: alignment is another step away and roll again. Otherwise stop.
Random traits: roll d12 for physical and d12 for mental/personality
1. Big nose/ears/feet
2. Scarred
3. Bald or hairy
4. Short or tall
5. Clumsy or dextrous
6. Fat or thin
7. Particularly young or old
8. Bad eyes or striking eyes
9. Tattoos
10. Missing limb/finger/eye
11. Brawny or scrawny
12. Smelly or very clean/neat
1. Opinionated
2. Witty or crude
3. Religious proselytiser
4. Dishonest or gullible
5. Artistic or skilled
6. Impatient or enthusiastic
7. Bitter or stubborn
8. Cowardly or brave
9. Lazy or hard-working
10. Silver-tongued
11. Hot tempered or wise
12. Clever or stupid
Why did they become a bandit? roll d6 twice, pick most plausible result.
1. Didn't have any other way to earn a living for some reason.
2. Wanted for a crime in their country, fled here. May or may not be guilty.
3. Came to the Greenbelt to escape something other than the law.
4. Local (hunter or trapper?) who was recruited under duress.
5. Career criminal.
6. Infiltrator from another organisation.
---
My players began paying their ex-bandits ("The Greenbelt Rangers') a wage, and encouraging them to patrol the land or take up a trade. They made a repeated point that they were big believers in second chances... but not third chances. In other words, they didn't want to know what circumstances had driven these men to banditry originally, but now that they are free men they have to toe the line from now on.
I think that Kesten Garess will definitely have problems with so many ex-bandits if they're in the fort with him and the Levetons. IMC, once they began to outnumber him and his three men-at-arms, he started complaining to the PCs that he couldn't protect the trading post if they rose up.
In order to keep Kesten happy, my players did things like getting them to build housing outside the fort's walls, sent working bands to occupy the Thorn River camp to keep it looking lived-in while the Stag Lord was still around, and repairing the bridge at Nettles' Crossing once that particular situation was resolved. They even floated Fat Norry 2,000 gp to fulfill his dream and build "Fat Norry's Feed House". Now that we're just starting RRR I've given them additional free buildings at the trading post as a result.