I am running a Kingmaker campaign online and I am starting to feel some mental fatigue in running it due to its massive open-ended nature. I don't want to stop just because of the additional amount of randomness in it that could be important on any given day in the game (i.e., generating weather, generating new npcs for the pcs to interact with because they decided on a plan of action that I was not prepared for, or they are looting random things that I didn't think would qualify as treasure but can serve as a memorable souvenir, and it needs a cool description).
So I was looking for useful tools and a friend of mine mentioned this:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gametilewarehouse/squareware-rpg-dice- tools-for-sparking-the-creativ/description
(I would have used the link format but it doesn't seem to be working on my phone.)
This seems like a worthwhile GM toolkit but I am still curious about what else other Kingmaker DMs here have used to minimize the workload for them, whether online or in person. Please feel free to share whatever you think helped you with running Kingmaker (especially when you add in modifications and other adventures to fill in gaps in the overall plot or to make a more memorable campaign for your players).
Cheers!
CB
I'm using the weather generator that someone on here posted, that's really good. For NPC's, I used a random name generator and created a list of first and last names for various races and both genders, then as I need them, I'll just cross them off the list. Saves a lot of time and headaches. You can do the same thing with inns, taverns, shops, ships, etc.
This forum is the best resource of all.
I've used a weather generator for Windows that I found somewhere (maybe here?) that I really like. It lists the high/low as well as conditions for morning, afternoon, and night for each day. I used to generate the weather for a year in advance, but the campaign has gone on for so many years (in real life and in the game!) that I just have one year's worth of weather now that I refer to as needed.
Online random name generators. The NPC names in the AP are almost all Slavic-ish (at least for Brevoy) so I've used ones that allow you to select particular countries to generate names from.
The Kingdom Manager application probably hasn't been a time saver for me, since I've spent a ton of time working on it. But that time was much more enjoyable than wrestling with the kingdom numbers, so I suppose it's a win either way. And I hope others have gotten some good use out of it in their games.