Advice wanted: taking over a Kingmaker campaign

[Maggan]

Hello!

Pathfinder + Kingmaker + Maggan as DM = True.

I am taking over the DM chair after our resident DM is doing a doctorate in another city, gearing up to running Kingmaker. I have played as a player up until half the second adventure, and am now trying to wrap my head around the whole thing from a whole other perspective.

So, do any of you have any advice to offer regarding running Kingmaker successfully?

The things I'm wondering most about is the ruling vs the adventuring. Did it work, or did it take some working to make it work? Having the rulers gallivanting the countryside instead of ruling, how did you explain that?

And how did you work with the players to keep track of all the subplots?

Stuff like that. Any advice?

Cheers all!

/M

 

[Crothian]

We are somewhere in the midst of book 5. Let me warn you now the mass combat rules leave a lot to be desired and you might want to look for alternatives now before you get there.

One thing I would do is be prepared to do more with NPCs especially the ones the players eventually have to help them rule. If the players like the ruling side of things then you could come up with additional complications. We did things very much by the books. We explored for three weeks out of a month and then went back and did the kingdom building. Somewhere in book 4 the exploration really started to seem more tedious just because it is the same thing over and over. We never needed to explain why the rulers are out exploring, we just excepted it.

 

[Maggan]

We are somewhere in the midst of book 5. Let me warn you now the mass combat rules leave a lot to be desired and you might want to look for alternatives now before you get there.

I have Fields of Blood (Eden), War (AEG) and Cry Havoc (Malhavoc). I'm tempted to test Fields of Blood.

One thing I would do is be prepared to do more with NPCs especially the ones the players eventually have to help them rule.

Ah, yes. Very good advice! I've been feeling a bit non-attached to the NPC's so far as a player, so I need to put some more work into that.

Thanks!

/M

 

[Alzrius]

I've been GMing a Kingmaker campaign for a while now, and I want to echo the part about playing up the local NPCs that are helping to rule. Several of my PCs have formed relationships with NPCs they've met; two are now married.

I've also found that the players were much more focused on improving their cities than they were on claiming more territory. This was because, at first, they were very cautious of increasing their Kingdom's consumption score, whereas buildings upped their kingdom's Stability, Economy, and Loyalty.

I also made sure to white-out the listings for the building costs that I gave my players, making them have to role-play their choices for what should be built and why.

Also, be prepared to think on your feet regarding kingdom events. Some of them will seem to come from out of nowhere, but most of them can be tied back into the main plot with some creative thinking. That part will likely be a lot of fun for you as a GM when you get around to it.

Finally, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I've posted about running a Kingmaker game more on my blog:

Hail to the king, baby (a gag rule about the kingdom effects of the ruler maintaining a harem)

Walkin' in a Winter Wasteland (because weather is a big thing when low-level characters go exploring)

The Antisocial Network (Kingdom-based rules for spying)

Are you still Master of your Domain? (thoughts on how to de-emphasize combat and focus more on politics)

It's the Magic Item Economy, Stupid! (addressing a point regarding the sale of magic items in the kingdom for Build Points)

 

[IronWolf]

I run the campaign Crothian is playing in. His advice is good.

Our campaign has had a couple of out of game hurdles that have impacted some of the things I would have liked to have done during ours. I think Kingmaker is a great campaign, but there are certainly areas where more GM preparation can help make it excellent.

NPCs. As mentioned before, really take time to develop the NPCs and make sure you get them interacting with the characters. Do this from the beginning. Unfortunately, the NPCs in the campaign I am running are there, but they are very cardboard like. I just haven't developed them as much as I should have. More time and attention spent here would have probably had the single greatest impact at improving our Kingmaker campaign in my opinion.

We just went through our first mass combat experiences. The mass combat rules are meant to be fun and are really light. It seems the players in my campaign wanted more depth to them and some of the ways they participated in the mass combat portions were not designed for.

I was going to drop in the warpath rules for our mass combats. It had some more depth, though still easy to run. It would have had a bit more movement tracking, flanking and other things to add some spice. But, somethings outside the game put our campaign on a hiatus for about three months and when we came back to it a lot of my time was spent just getting the campaign underway again and I fell back to using the canned mass combat rules.

With that said, I almost think some of the players would have been happiest with full on, in-depth mass combat, war game type rules for this portion. Certainly out of scope to be included in the AP and not sure I as a GM wanted to invest that much time in learning a set of wargaming rules for this portion of the AP.

Exploration gets a bit monotonous after awhile. I think increased NPC depth would help some of those hooks be intro'ed better though. So the exploration and questing portion could be improved by virtue of that.

And finally, make sure you read the whole AP. You will want to drop hints and tie-ins along the way or the final installment will really come of out of nowhere. I am really looking forward to the final installment of the AP as it is full of awesome. But you need to know what is in there to better be able to drop some tie-ins along the way.

Kingmaker is a fun campaign and despite some of my shortcomings in running it, I think the players have still had a good time. I have learned some things for my next campaign and what to look for in my next campaign as well. This AP is probably one of the APs that requires more work for the GM to really be successful.

 

[Maggan]

I run the campaign Crothian is playing in.

Thank you for your advice.

I will get going on the NPC thing from the next session. I want to make sure that the PCs build up relationships with the NPCs that are helping them run the lands, and I am thinking of having some of that happen between sessions, via mail or something like that.

I'll have a close look at the mass combat rules, and discuss how deep the players want them to be.

I'd give you XP, but alas, I am not allowed to dole out more to you without first gracing a lot of other people.

/M

 

[Crothian]

Another thing that could be fun if you have the time is to create more NPCs then you need for the different ruling positions to give the players options of who will fill what role. Also, make sure the NPCs have their own agendas and conflicts. They don't have to be evil and eventual traitors but petty bickering and political maneuvering.

 

[Maggan]

Also, make sure the NPCs have their own agendas and conflicts.

Great idea, I'll try to do a little bit like I do for my WFR campaign. Hadn't thought that much about the importance of NPCs but now that it is mentioned, it seems like a natural focus for me.

Thanks.

/M

 

[KiloGex]

We are somewhere in the midst of book 5. Let me warn you now the mass combat rules leave a lot to be desired and you might want to look for alternatives now before you get there.

Completely agree here. I've used the Warpath mass combat rules and they work like a gem!

 

[IronWolf]

Completely agree here. I've used the Warpath mass combat rules and they work like a gem!

Yeah, those were the ones I was going to run for our Kingmaker game. Even playtested them a bit at home with IronPup. But then some outside issues came up and it took more time/prep to get the campaign back on track after a hiatus and I ended up sticking with the as written rule. Warpath seemed like a nice set of rules, but I'm not sure they would have satisfied our group either.