Looking for advice/ideas on running Kingmaker

[enrious]

A module that has often been recommended as a "break" during the game (that provides foreshadowing) is http://paizo.com/products/btpy80op?GameMastery-Module-E1-Carnival-of-Tears

Let's see, here's what I would have done differently, were I to run it again.

1) Ditch the kingdom building by the end of the 3rd book. For us, the numbers and time-consuming minutia dragged it down.

2) Provide more foreshadowing - read the 6th book first so you see what the BBEG is - and it won't come out of left field.

3) Ditch the hex-exploring if the players think it drags things down.

4) Under no circumstances use the mass-combat rules - use the system from Heroes of Battle.

5) Don't rely on the players to map - the idea of laminating the map is a good one, especially if it can be written on with non-permanent markers.

Those are the lessons I took away from, from my own observations and after discussing it with my players.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun AP with a great story and plenty of opportunity for role-play, exploration, and combat.

What more do you need?

 

[Crothian]

The Kingdom building worked great for us all the way till the end. We did it between game sessions and it never dragged.

Foreshadowing is good and the AP could use more of it. Carnival of Tears can help with that.

The Hex exploring got old for us in book 5, but worked very well in the first few books.

The Mass combat rules are some of the worst things Paizo has printed and that's saying something.

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

So I am about to play in kingmaker as well. Trying to help my DM find stuff to make it as full as possible before we start. In what way does carnival of tears help?And should it be played with the kingmaker characters or a separate group?

 

[IronWolf]

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I used Carnival of Tears to help foreshadow what was coming in book 6 to some degree. I also made sure to emphasis a few other things along the way and introduced "blooms" very early on as well to show the First World breaking into the Stolen Lands to some degree.

Essentially, I tried to play up the fey element during the course of the entire campaign so book 6 (which I thought was awesome) didn't come from left field.

We used the normal kingmaker characters for Carnival of Tears and held the carnival in the player's capital city.

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[IronWolf]

I am the GM that ran for Crothian and he is right. The best thing to do to really make the Kingmaker campaign stand out is to put a lot of time into the NPCs.

This is something I struggled with and was what I took away to improve next time for my future games. Better NPC development. I think a lot of campaigns can be made better by deeper NPCs, but Kingmaker really can see improvement.

Give the players lots of NPCs to care about and make sure those NPCs are doing fun things behind the scenes to keep the player's interest over the course of the campaign. Adding in the political aspects that are crying for attention will also help improve a Kingmaker campaign in my opinion.

It will take a lot of work to get to this level of detail, but I think it is what makes the difference between just a fun Kingmaker campaign and a really great Kingmaker campaign.

 

[blargney the second]

Judging by the level of Carnival of Tears, I guess you use it between module one and two?

A friend of mine likes to run adventure paths with an interesting twist. He suggested letting the PCs be fey, and go to town with the seelie/unseelie thing.

 

[IronWolf]

Judging by the level of Carnival of Tears, I guess you use it between module one and two?

Looks like I ran it at the tail end of Book Two.

Another one I also inserted later into the AP was Realm of the Fellnight Queen.

 

[Crothian]

A friend of mine likes to run adventure paths with an interesting twist. He suggested letting the PCs be fey, and go to town with the seelie/unseelie thing.

That would be really cool if you can pull it off. It would also be a lot tougher to run and there will be parts of the AP that would be a bit different with fey PCs.

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

So separate characters for that module? Kind of a (Meanwhile back at the hall of justice) type deal?

 

[enrious]

Which module?