| Devo |
I've played in three - maybe four - Kingmaker campaigns so far. One got as far as Book Four before fizzling out. Most of the others didn't get past Book Two. Each time, no one was really interested in the micro-system of kingdom management.
My Mummy's Mask campaign just ended, so I asked my group if they'd like to give Kingmaker a go again. We were all enjoying the last iteration, but our GM was pulled away by health and family issues. I'll be GMing this one, and I'm really looking forward to it.
I want the whole group involved in building up the Kingdom, as I think the Kingdom itself should be a character in the game. I also want to encourage players to express their characters through the kingdom, e.g. give the warpriest of Sekhmet the opportunity to fulfill a lifetime goal of building up an invincible army or build a massive temple to her goddess that doubles as a huge bloodsport arena. To encourage this, I'm recreating the kingdom building rules as something more akin to a card game.
The general principle is that instead of Build Points, Influence is used to purchase kingdom and settlement improvements. Influence comes in three flavors: Economy, Stability, and Loyalty. Each role (Treasurer, General, Warden) is associated with one of these attributes. In the Income phase of each turn, each player has the opportunity to earn Influence based on the result of an Economy, Loyalty, or Stability check.
It behooves each character, then, to not only improve the kingdom as a whole, but to focus on improvements that benefit them personally. The higher the Economy score, the more Influence the Treasurer will receive. The goal is to get players to negotiate what improvements are made to the kingdom based on what their character would want. In theory, though, if they have enough Influence they can make purchases for the Kingdom independently of what others want. Encourage cooperation, but allow for individuality.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
We are a month away from starting the campaign, which means we are at least six months from playing this system. We've tried one test-run, though, and it feels like it will work.
I'll come back and share how it's going as the play tests continue - and how my players do when they eventually get to that point.