| stirles |
Hello paizo forums!
I am starting prep for my first time running a full AP. The basic premise of kingmaker is too cool to resist, even if I have read that it is a lot for a first AP. I am enjoying reading through the book, and I feel confident in the more traditional adventure parts. But the kingdom subsystem feels so separate from a normal rpg session, and the narrative concept of founding a kingdom is so big that I am having trouble picturing how it actually goes down at the table. I have also never incorporated "downtime" into my games before, and while I think it will be a great addition, I have similar questions with how to actually do it at the table. What is the rhythm of being with the characters moment-to-moment and then stepping back for long periods of in-game time and dealing with things more abstractly, and then returning to normal play?
1. After the players defeat the staglord and return to olegs, they get the charter and then what? do we break out of the fiction entirely at that point and make the kingdom sheet together, or are you assigning that as player homework?
2. the book then recommends a few months pass to let the kingdom build up and says to feel free to roleplay as much of this as you want. Are you going around the table and asking players "what will you be doing over this month?" and then zooming in on a scene if it is interesting? and then how to return to regular play? Do you just declare "thats enough kingdom turns for now, do yall want to do some regular adventures?" Or do you do the kingdom and downtime stuff between sessions and then do the more traditional play at the table?
3. this is probably in the book, but I cannot find it: where do the citizens of the kingdom come from? do the various hunters and trappers of the stolen lands just move in? are they shipped in by jamandi from brevoy? are there open advertisements across golarion: "new kingdom opening soon"?
Any other advice would be appreciated! This will be a very different GMing experience for me, and Im looking forward to it, but I want to sit down at the table confident and competent!
| demlin |
1. You run 1 or more kingdom turns. My tip: let the players learn the system, then quick level their kingdom to level 4 and guesstimate how many hexes, settlements and buildings they've constructed
2. That way you avoid that dreaded question. Your players should do quite some adventuring, then return back to the capital to run the kingdom turn. That's why you should not handwave travel time. Don't forget that they need an additional week of downtime or they'll incur the vacancy penalty
3. Jamandi wants you to claim these lands for restov sort of, so that's where most of the qualified personnel will come from