My group just started the third book and so far so good mostly. The groups paladin was placed in the Ruler role but he was hesitate about giving orders and members within the group thought his hemming and hawing would be seen as a sign of weakness an thus invite invasions from other countries (meaning pitax and the river kingdoms). So they convinced him to be more authoritative. Fast travel to two months later now the same players who thought him weak are now claiming he is a dictator and overstepping his authority. They have formed a faction and a planning a coup.
They assume they can used the armies to overthrow him and claim the throne themselves. What they failed to realized is the general is completely loyal to the Ruler and when he says the armies do. Their coup will only end in their death. I would like to stop this coup before it starts but they players who are involved are stubborn and i haven't been able to convince them yet. I would like to get them to stop this without saying Hey stupid if you do this it will only end with your deaths.
Thanks for your help in advance
If the Non-Ruler PCs want to "Protest" the Ruler, why not have them deliberately not fulfill their Leadership Roles, thus forcing the Vacancy Penalties.
Depending on which of the Ruling Councillors, or whatever you have, go on strike, it could create enough of a check on the Ruler.
Having the "Great Lords of the Realm" dig in their heels might help. These "Lords" may also be such that the Ruler may not remove their "Titles", he may only do so for the other, lesser, Lords of the Realm - the NPCs.
A Civil War in KM is not a good idea for most games.
I, on the contrary, think a civil war is a great idea in a Kingmaker game!
I would talk to the players about the risks of a fledgling nation at civil war, and ask if they're okay with intra-party conflict. If they're willing to accept the risks and can be friends (or at least not enemies) in real life, I don't see a problem. It could make Big V a bigger threat, since he'll have more time to learn about the world and begin carving out his own niche in it, but that's just the way it is.
Some potential options for what happens as a result of this civil war include the return of our favorite bard (assuming you guys didn't kill him), An increase in outlaws in the kingdom/barony/whatever you have, and attempts at intervention from Brevoy. Instability on the southern front is bad for both factions in Brevoy, so it's possible that they could set aside their differences to go crush the stupidity to their south.
If you're absolutely looking to prevent it, I would have an NPC raise grievances with the ruler. You make it sound like no-one's told the paladin he's being heavy-handed, and just informing him might defuse tensions. Alternatively, you could spring the trouble at Varnhold immediately, and put more pressure on the PCs to investigate. While they're away taking a look at Varnhold, your NPC councilors could do something to defuse the situation.
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My 2 cents:
If your players stage a coup, have several factions in Brevoy, possibly Mivon, and Pitax get involved. At the very least Drelev and Varn are going to have opinions etc. If they are staging a coup without acquiring outside allies, they are completely clueless. Its going to be damn hard otherwise based on how the rules work.
What someone said about vacant penalties is a very good idea up above, I second that.
All that being said, if my players started a civil war, I would have opposing outside forces break both sides, take over the kingdom, and exile the party. It would truly be like Game of Thrones then lol...
So, Kaedian, if you really want to stop it, pick Lebeda, Mivon, (I would save Pitax for later), Surtova, Galt, or any other River Kingdoms that floats your boat and have them start making aggressive overtures, tradewise, resource grabbing wise, and staging military troops along the border. Nothing brings a party together more than an outside threat. If you have an NPC advisor make it clear to one side or the other that an outside faction plans on taking over everything, hopefully they listen. And if the ruler really has been a tyrant, then maybe the smallfolk are supporting the outside enemy...now that is something the players should be concerned with!
In an nutshell, unless you are running a very non-political, hospital corners type Kingmaker game, a coup is a Bad Idea. If you provde extensive building and downtime after the coup and don't have any enemies interfere, they might have a chance to recover.
Too many forces are already aligned against your players, this would likely not end well at all, no matter who won. At the very minimum, their kingdom economy is going to be jacked all to hell trying to field armies and conducting repairs. Those lost months could be crucial to kingdom survival later on. So if they insist, yeah let them TPK themselves early, then wait to see how long it takes before they notice its already over.
Well i will see how it plays out but bringing grigori into this would be bad. When they got back to the city the groups reaction to grigori speaking against them was to kill him on the spot in front of a large group of citizens. They had no idea he was hired and was committing sedition against the crown. As far as they knew he was a citizen voicing an opposing view point.I advised against their reaction due to the unrest it would cause. So bringing Grigori back would likely make them lose their minds lol
Thank you all for the advice
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What I said about the smallfolk...yeah bad move unless they plan on building up armies and becoming a police state.
BTW, the reason I said I would have outside forces break my party's kingdom and exile them is that it would probably be easier for them to recover if they had to conquer the kingdom back from scratch than otherwise. Besides now they would have to work together :)
Let them try their coup. Have the characters fail. Tell the players "okay, now hand me your character sheets. You're going to roll up new characters and these are now your enemy." (The Paladin keeps his character sheet.)
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I'm curious, what did the Paladin do in his role as ruler that has the rebel players all up in arms?
Murdering Grigori in front of the whole town is a pretty extreme reaction - I hope they got lots of unrest. In fact, if the Paladin was involved in that, I'd have been looking at the Paladin's Code of Conduct section.
IMC I had Grigori poke around town for a bit asking questions before he started his smear campaign, so the rulers had already got wind of him. The first time they got back from adventuring and found him rabble rousing in the town square, the party's witch rode forward and Slumber Hexed him unconscious right in front of everyone, and they dragged him away for questioning. I was ready to smack them with lots of unrest, but after questioning him while using Detect Thoughts they just ended up exiling him - he was stripped of his gear, publically denounced as a foreign spy (they didn't actually know whether this was true or not, but they had their suspicions) and declared him to be under sentence of death if found within their realm again. He was ridden out of town in front of everyone and delivered back to Fort Drelev. His magical gear was sold and the proceeds were distributed to the poor. I felt the PCs had done some clever things to moderate the rather extreme initial reaction, so the barony only ended up gaining 1 unrest out of the whole deal.
With your rebel councillors, are their characters so politically naive that they'd just walk up to the General and openly talk sedition and rebellion when they don't know where his loyalties lie? Note that I'm talking about their characters who have lived all their lives in a feudal society, not the players. Assuming they're a bit more subtle, perhaps allow them some Sense Motive checks to realise that the General is loyal to the Baron and will not join their rebellion *before* they blurt out their treacherous intentions.
If they're unable to get the General on side, perhaps they could ask that nice Mr Hargulka down south to help them overthrow the Baron? I understand he's building up some armies too...
But seriously, if the rebel players are actually pissed with the Paladin's player IRL due to his behaviour, it might be time for a bit of an out-of-character round table discussion to make sure that all your players are on the same page. Inter-party conflict can be interesting and result in truly unique emergent play, but only if all the players (including the GM) are happy to go for it - otherwise it can seriously break the implicit social contract of the game.
That's what I said lol. If you want to run a police state we will call the game Tyrantmaker and it will be a vastly different game.
The Paladin wanted to arrest grigori the cleric, the soulknife and the rogue wanted to just kill him. As for the paladin he would would make decisions and immediately go back on them or take forever to come to a decision. He did this quite often and the group found him to be wishy washy. The cleric and soulknife wanted him to become more authoritative and when he did the claimed he was becoming a dictator and overstepping his authority by making decisions for their leadership role.
To be honest i think it started when the paladin allowed other religions into the country the cleric was pissed off by this. So he and the soulknife started planning a coup. They are in talks with the dwarven city to aid they in taking over the kingdom. I talked to the player of the paladin to tell him how he was overriding the decisions of the characters leadership role. I explained that their leadership roles are their job within the kingdom and if he is doing it then they have nothing to do within the kingdom.
As of last session things are calmed down but the group is split into factions.
Faction 1
Paladin
Rogue (who serves as the paladin's body guard and royal assassin)
Faction 2
cleric
Soulknife
Neutral
illusionist
barbarian
sorcerer
Actually they haven't walked up to the general yet I think they plan on determining his loyalty and doing the same with the other npc Charter Lords (their name for the leadership of the kingdom)
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Sounds like they want Sons of Anarchy: Kingmaker:-D
Hopefully they don't vote for the Paladin to meet Mr. Mayhem:-D
Spymaster is an NPC as is the General, Councilor, Treasurer, and the Warden. The Sorcerer is a recently added player to the game as of last session and I have no idea what role to put him in as they are all currently filled. Are there any home brewed leadership roles?
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We have a bunch...
- Lord of Hammers (master builder) - responsible for city planning and recommending to PCs what to build next or why not to build certain things. I give them a discount in BP if they listen to him and consult him.
- Lord of Fleets (Admiral) - responsible for protecting trade and building and maintaining military presence on the rivers in the PC kingdom. Think Marshall role, only for rivers and lakes.
- Lord of Commerce (master trader) - Tells the party what to buy and sell and who is offering the best trade opportunities. They hired him after I kept throwing lots of "tasty" trade partners and opportunities at them and a few backfired on the kingdom big time. I allow them to procure hard to find items or items that are scarce easier with him in office.
- Lord of Resources - I created this role for a wilderness loving, city hating druid PC when none of the other more civilized roles suited him. I let the PCs carry over any farm BP as positive earned BP each round if his roled is filled. He is responsible for animal herds (he gets a say in where cities are built so it doesnt interfere with migration patterns, etc), resources like fangberries and radishes, guardianship of magical pools and fey areas, etc.
- Lord Justicar (Chief Judge) - the party is getting close to needing an organized judicial system and someone to be in charge of this branch. No idea what the role will entail or benefits given as of yet.
- Lord of Homeland security (spymaster of counterspying) - I had two PCs that really wanted to be the spymasters, so I split the role into active spying on foreign soil and internal counterspying in their own kingdom. The first month the new Lord of Homeland security was in office, the party used a Commune spell and one of the questions had to d with enemy agents. Since he found out there were 18 active foreign spies in his kingdom, he has been busy :)
Also, every major settlement has a Lord Mayor, though these are less likely to be desired posts for a PC.
Hope this helps!
Thank you that helps a lot. I did something similar I expanded the councilor role into Councilor and High Councilor. The mayor of every village serves as a councilor and for the capital there is a High councilor
We have only added one to the Council...
High Swordlord of Moreland
Current Aldori Master of our Aldori school. Responsible for promoting the Aldori fighting style through the proper use of the Aldori Dueling Sword throughout the Kingdom. Also responsible for ensuring all duels are bound by the Rules of Dueling. The High Swordlord is required to prove his/her skill within the Great Hall of Castle Staghart.
Benefit: As Spymaster. Add DEX or CHA modifier to chosen attribute.
Vacancy Penalty: None.
We also added a second NPC to each position, not so much as an assistant, but as a spare tire to automatically replace any Council Member if they are unable to attend the Council (like a vice-president of sorts). We have not played up any of their ambitions yet. They are...
Lord High Councilor - Lord Councilor
Lord General - Lord Captain
Grand Diplomat - Lord Diplomat
Lord High Priest - Lord Priest
Lord High Magister - Lord Magister
Lord High Marshal - Lord Marshal
Lord High Bailiff - Lord Bailiff (The Royal Enforcer)
Lord High Spymaster - Lord Spymaster
Lord High Treasurer - Lord Treasurer
Lord High Warden - Lord Warden
Lord High Swordlord - Lord Swordlord (the #2)
We also have 4 Lord High Sheriff's (N, S, E, W), a Lord of the Mines, and a High Druid.
Each town also has a Lord Mayor, and each Shire (hex) has a Sheriff.
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Woah... inter-party fighting??? @_@!
@Kaedian,
Could I ask what is the current party's race make up and religion? Like other then the Dwarf cleric, what are the races and religions/alignments of the other characters?
Would having other religious or community leaders step in help defuse the situation?
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Off hand if my party ever does something like this in our game, I planned out a contingency plan.
1) The Visiting RelativeS (En Masse)-
Grab every sibling, Aunty, Uncle, Cousin, Grandma, Grandpa and parents of your party's characters you can grab your hands on and have them all visit the kingdom at the same time.
Flood your party's time (and energy) with encounters of Aunties demanding to be brought out for shopping, complaints of grandaunties on the horrible living conditions, young cousins disrupting the spellcaster's prayers or precious rest, Parents demanding when their child will get married and have grand kids. Have parents of fellow party members thrust their unmarried members into marriage proposals with fellow party members!
Top it off with relatives comparing them with their (more successful) brothers and sisters. "Why they are happily married with successful careers and children! Whey are YOU going to get your act together and do the SAME???"
No one will want to have a coup when it involves confronting their nagging moms and aunties over why they are wasting time fighting, when they should be courting so and so, earning more money or having babies.
And no one will be planning an attack on a city when their whole extended family is staying in it.
Drown their ambitions of rule in the siege of family and relatives.
Advice... Play Guns and Roses Use Your Illusion 2 Track 1 on repeat when it goes down.
Have you tried chatting with the paladin about it OOC maybe he can tone down the chain of command a bit.
@Secane
They party is comprised of the following
Human Paladin of the Silver Flame
Human Rogue of House Denieth
Changeling Soulknife (who started out as human then was killed and reincarnated into a changeling)
Gnome illusionist (who started out as human then was killed and reincarnated into a gnome) (both were killed at the same time)
Elven Archery Cleric of the Silver Flame
Human pyromaniac Sorcerer (new player who joined two sessions ago)
@GM_Solspiral
I have he said he will be less heavy handed. I also took the time to write out the rights and responsibilities of each leadership role so their would be less confusion as to whom is in charge of what in the future.
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Honestly, this type of situation is exactly why I made my Kingmaker very political and have had outside factions after the party, their resources, and their kingdom. They are so busy facing off against "everyone else" that they have very little time to argue about stuff or do anything other than keep a unified front. It also serves to keep the over analyzing wafflers in my group from dithering about decisions too long. :)
Still you and the players could have fun with this as long as the unspoken social contract at your table is not breached by the coup.
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Wait a min... both the Paladin and the Cleric members of the Silver Flame???
Having read the Silver Flame themed novel Legacy of Wolves, I do know the members of the Silver Flame church don't always see eye to eye... so there is only one way out...
Deploy the Keeper of the Flame! aka Jaela Daran! aka Loli-Pope!
The highest authority in the church's hierarchy. Let the head of the church sort them out!
Have an inquisitor or high ranking member of the church come under the personal orders of the Keeper of the Flame to investigate them. Keep them in line... :)
Actually the cleric has a problem with the church. His character name is Aramis Vol as in mark of death and blood of Vol. the church council against the wishes of the Keeper sent him rejects of the church to test him to see if he could turn them around and thus prove himself. The player is something of a drama queen and flipped out even though I told him exactly why they were sent. He was like how dare they not intrinsically trust me even though my name is Vol. so having the church step in will be problematic at best.
This is increasingly sounding like a Player problem (or, more to the point, a problem player). Inter-party fighting could be fun if people are mature about it. This doesn't strike me as such.
(Just as an aside, if they really are intent on overthrowing the ruler... why the heck are they wasting time raising armies? Just hire a couple of assassins - it's way cheaper and would get the job done without nearly as much bloodshed, especially if they can keep their involvement hidden...)
Honestly though, given how big the Stolen Lands are, I'd recommend to the Paladin to buy off the Cleric with some BP to start his own vassal kingdom somewhere else. He can call the shots there; meanwhile, the Paladin's kingdom will always have the head start. But I fully agree with Redcelt - outside forces must intervene. The further down the road of civil war they go, the more forcefully outside forces will act. Consider what would happen if King Surtova offered to "mediate" the warring factions, much as King Edward I of England did when the Scots were leaderless and fighting over the throne? Could be interesting.