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This week my group finally got to Founding Day and by the end of the session everyone felt fairly blah about the idea of kingdom management when they realized that their skills and abilities don't have any impact. It felt like they were just playing a board game instead of interacting with their new kingdom.
Since then, one idea I've been thinking on is what if a character in a certain role is trained in a given skill, it lowers the DC of checks they make related to that training by 1 or 2, similar to having an appropriate lore during a recall knowledge. This way it is a completely bolt on system that doesn't interfere with other bonuses provided by feats or other kingdom activities. It should also be fairly easy to remember for the player.
So far I'm thinking give each leadership role 3-4 kingdom skills they are associated with and then match each of those kingdom skill with an appropriate character skill. This could even include Lore skills where appropriate.
The easy example is let's say the Emissary is associated with Statecraft and that is linked with Diplomacy. If the player in the Emissary role is trained in Diplomacy and Sends a Diplomatic Envoy to Pitax the DC is 27 instead of 28, or if they are a master in Diplomacy the DC is 26.
Obviously not all skills will link up so cleanly and there will probably be a handful of Character Skills that get used a lot while some get used very little.
But overall thoughts?
I would do whatever you need to do to make the Kingdom Building as entertaining as possible. I would look at the rules as a beta test.
I've had to change so much to make them work remotely well, that I can't imagine they will be released in this form in any other book until they have more work done.
My player that did the kingdom building last time gave up. Now I do all the kingdom rounds during DM prep time with some input from the players. They want next to no part of the kingdom building rules due to the unnecessary complexity, the excessively high skill rolls, limited skills that act as a block on activities they want to do or structures they want to build, and too few skill ups and skills compared to what you need to do much or build much, slow advancement, and feats that provide next to no bonus and don't stack with leader status bonuses.
I would look at this as a beta, provide information on fixes you use, and try to make it fun for your players so they engage with the process enough to help the narrative.
A good idea.
I am reminded of how the pc game did it, and that every character seemed to have a way to contribute to the kingdom, and pass the checks that fit their class and ability scores.
It needs to be smooth, and they need to be able to succeed. May also consider failing forward if they really struggle (they do get a positive outcome, but some negatives as well).