Rules For Kingmaker?

[Bobbyjackcorn]

Okay, so I love the idea of a Kingmaker type game, but I'm not sold on the actual AP. I would like to run a game using their rules, but I can hardly justify spending the umpteen dollars on books that I'm just going to pick apart for the skeleton of rules behind the AP.
That said, is there any cheaper compilation of the rules that I could purchase or free compendium somewhere on the basic rules of having PCs running a kingdom, and recommendations on how to build adventures around it?

[Elder_Basilisk]

There's the kingmaker players guide which is free. The second generation of those rules is in ultimate campaign and PDF prices are quite reasonable

[Bobbyjackcorn]

There's the kingmaker players guide which is free. The second generation of those rules is in ultimate campaign and PDF prices are quite reasonable

Groovy, thanks. Do you know if anyone has made threads or guides for practical advice for running a kingdom-building game? Thinking more along the lines of DM-to-DM advice.

[CharonsHelper]

Groovy, thanks. Do you know if anyone has made threads or guides for practical advice for running a kingdom-building game? Thinking more along the lines of DM-to-DM advice.

I'd check the Paizo board. They have sub-forums for each of their AP lines. From what I recall (though it's been awhile) Kingmaker was one of the more active due to how different it is.

[exelsisxax]

the PRD and PFSRD both have the kingdom rules, so you can get a look at them before buying if that's your plan. Personally, they're overly crunchy and don't gain a lot of interactivity for the bookkeeping and all the rolls to go through turns and perform actions. But you can strip things down pretty quickly if you need to (the rampant redundancy in city buildings is a big one).

[Florian]

Kingdom and Mass Battle rules are up on the PRD, Ultimate Campaign section. The 3PP Legendary Games has some good support material that adds both, more depth and flavor.
Ultimate Wilderness has some some graded hex crawling rules that´re actually quite nifty for exploration. Sadly, that is not up on the PRD yet.

[Quarian Rex]

As has been mentioned, the Kingdom Building (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building) rules are on the PFSRD. They are the ones from Ultimate Campaign which were just the Kingmaker rules but polished up a bit. I find them to be overly abstract (not in a good way), in that if you are trying to build a kingdom from the ground up you will reach a point where you need to scrap everything that you have been doing and start all over with brand new mechanics that have nothing to do with your previous efforts. I find the disconnect jarring and unpleasant.

Take a loot at them, see if you like them. If you don't, and want kingdom making rules that make the same kind of sense regardless of what level you are currently playing at (anything from running a thieves guild, to a trade caravan, to a village, to an empire) then I might recommend ACKS (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99123/Adventurer-Conqueror-King-System). It is a reinvention of 2nd edition but you can safely ignore that. It has domain rules that are compatible with anything that uses gp, and they are brilliant. It covers everything from the foundation of your wilderness fort, to increased taxation on your traitorous grand-nephew ruling a backwater splinter of your kingdom. From how much the Rogue made orchestrating the flow of contraband through the city, to how many converts the Cleric got after a month of proselytizing and charitable works. From how much your trade caravan will net you after some good haggling, to how much loot you plundered from your neighbors during the last raid. And all this crunchy goodness is contained in only 20 pages (that is the Domain section, there is much more book though I don't use it). And that includes the section on player made dungeons (the mage has to farm those rare spell components somehow, now doesn't he?). The way I go on about this you'd think I held stock in it or something. But it is just that good.

Anyway, you have some options. Look through, see what you like. Remember, as the DM you're the one who will have to monkey about with these rules the most. Make sure that they work for you.

[Florian]

Oh, the rules work fine when you understand "building a kingdom from the ground up" to mean "right from the very start of the campaign" in this context, so maybe beginning at around level 3 or so, once you have found a suitable starting location to begin with.

What is needed, tho, and not very obvious from reading the rules themselves, is a constant struggle. Both, expansion by conquest and diplomacy, trigger phases of civil unrest and economic instability and those are a big part of the overall rules framework.

[Quarian Rex]

What is needed, tho, and not very obvious from reading the rules themselves, is a constant struggle. Both, expansion by conquest and diplomacy, trigger phases of civil unrest and economic instability and those are a big part of the overall rules framework.

What you mention here is just purely fluff consideration, something that can be applied to any ruleset. What I was talking about was the clunky mechanical implementation. Things like the unnecessary abstraction of Build Points and the like. It's like going to Disneyland and being forced to go through currency exchanges to use Disney Dollars (because it's fun!) but never being able to get your money back out of it. It just gets in the way any time you want to do something at the character level like dealing with embezzlement, or raiding a warchest, or deciding if you want to disband your army because it is bankrupting the kingdom.

I think I just find the Kingdom rules too far removed from the actual game. It's like going over to play D&D and having the DM break out Backgammon. You ask, "What's this? I thought we were playing D&D.", and the DM replying, "We are. These are just the Kingdom rules". Thus was spent a lovely evening playing Backgammon. Not D&D.




Oh, the rules work fine when you understand "building a kingdom from the ground up" to mean "right from the very start of the campaign" in this context, so maybe beginning at around level 3 or so, once you have found a suitable starting location to begin with.


And sometimes you aren't playing the Kingmaker AP. Sometimes it starts out as something else and the players start getting ambitious. Maybe they want to open a church, or set up a side business selling excess loot so they can stop getting cheated by greedy merchants, or form up a mercenary company. What do you do? Bust out the Downtime (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime) rules? Sure, lets deal with four types of Capital for no reason, adding absolutely nothing to the game. What's that? Your merc company is now the last one standing in a war with the regions biggest powers and you decide to take the kingdom? Well, throw out everything that you've been working with so far (it's useless to you now) and get used to a completely unrelated subsystem. How does this relate to your character? It doesn't. Besides you or some of the party members contributing an attribute bonus on a roll somewhere in there, it is a completely arbitrary and abstract system that heavily penalizes any interaction between it and you! Aren't you having fun? Don't you feel like this kingdom is yours? Are you having fun?

Yeah, good luck with that.

I think that kingdom rules can add a lot to a campaign, even if the PCs never touch it. It can add a level of realism that can lead to all kinds of emergent gameplay. Say the PCs manage to pull off an ingenious (or stunningly lucky) attack on one of the Mad King™'s keeps (that holds the gold to pay for half of his army), looting it completely and razing it to the ground (shattering supply lines to the west). A DM who has a good set of kingdom rules can just look at some notes and realize that it will take @3 months to rebuild the supply lines but the majority of the western army will turn bandit at the end of one month (the Mad King™ doesn't earn loyalty, he buys it). It will take another 3 seasons to replenish his ranks through mercenaries (at double the cost because he already emptied the market to fill his barracks previously) so now he decides to immediately raise conscripts and taxes at once to cover his losses and quell the brigands in the west. This brings the kingdom to the brink of anarchy (and throws most of the DMs plans out the window). An act of vengeance by the PCs gets to have far reaching consequences that neither the party nor the DM saw ahead of time. The party gets to see its actions effect the the game world in a way that is completely earned. These are some pretty cool possibilities.

Another benefit is that something like the above can help curb the tendency to hand-wave on the part of the DM. How easy would it have been for the above DM to just shrug and say that it doesn't change anything. The army is loyal (of course they are, why wouldn't they be?), the kingdom has enough gold (of course it does, it's a kingdom!), and the kingdom remains in the Mad King™'s Mad Grip™ (of course it does, why would the peasants revolt?).

Mechanics like that provide the opportunity for a sort of campaign integrity that can be really beneficial. Those mechanics need to be something that makes sense at any level of the empire, not Backgammon.


P.S. Backgammon was a game of kings and I hold it no ill will.