Kingmaker-lite

[The Heretic]

As I alluded to elsewhere, I am running a kingmaker-lite game. Currently the PCs are employed by their retired PCs to be acting agents out in the world. The campaign for the original PCs used Kingmaker rules, but they proved to be unwieldy and they ultimately got vetoed by the players.

I am trying to come up with some 'kingmaker-lite' rules to run the current campaign, particularly since that aspect of the game has been heating up. Instead of gp=xp, I'm granting XP for maintaining and expanding the demesne, among other things. It seems to be paying off.

I hated that Kingmaker was hex-based, that you'd explore and claim hexes one at a time. Instead, I'd like to use a province/region based approach, something like what you might see in games like Nobunaga's Ambition or the Total War series. They could 'claim' provinces as a first step, but actually taking control of a province would take more time. There might be hexcrawling and exploration involved for that region. Maybe a few key areas in the province would need to be pacified. I'm not sure yet.

They would have their own hex map for exploration, unburdened by the province map. If you have any tips on how to use Roll20 to let players make their own maps (hex or otherwise), I'd appreciate hearing them.

I'm not sure yet how I want to present the provincial maps to the players. Show the whole thing? That might give too many clues. Maybe create a dm version and a player version, and update the borders of the provinces on the player's version as they explore and interact with them?

There's also an action economy and 'challenge rating' to figure out for actions that they might want to do, like building towers, starting trade routes, or going to war. That's all to be determined later. I think player actions through their characters will take precedence over domain actions, but I'm not sure yet how they will interact.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions on how to do things.

The Heretic

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Hexes are just chunks of land, albeit uniform and perfectly geometrical; Provinces are also chunks of land, and if there's no downsides to showing the whole Province in one go, then why not do it? Definitely use a player-version map if you intend to keep locations discoverable, especially within an already discovered Province.

I'd have a DM copy of the realm on hand (everything noted), and a few iterative copies of Provincial maps to release as the game progresses. But this depends on the approach - if your players are meant to do the actual walking of the land and discovery of new Provinces, then the iterations will need to be made by them (this might be tedious, as you'll need to explain wonky border shapes and landforms and whatnot, and no doubt the scale would be way off). If instead you plan to slow-trickle new Provinces into their domain automatically via cartographer's expeditions, visiting envoys, or through establishing trade routes, then you can do a bunch of iterations up front yourself and disseminate as the game unfolds. The third route is having the high-level Provincial maps being very sparse on detail (the original explorers' went around but not through, for example), so just an outline that the party gets to fill with landmarks in as they explore the land. All three ways are perfectly viable.

When it comes to domain vs. non-domain actions, I think domain actions should be measured in time and money (and left to be actually worked by NPCs), while the party maintains a list of adventure-like opportunities to enhance their domain through direct action. For instance, say a neighboring army threatens to invade the domain - in domain play, this could mean making choices like building a series of watchtowers, hiring mercenaries, or seeding spies into the enemy army. NPCs will do this, the party just needs to budget time and money for it. Though at the individual level, actual activities that party could undertake are things like assassination missions against enemy commanders, sabotaging neighboring supply depots, convincing a local dragon to enter a defensive pact, etc. Those can be accomplished in the traditional D&D gameplay sense involving action economy and encounter balancing, while still serving the domain's goals as a whole.

Generally adventuring is still needed, as there are still objectives too important to entrust to NPCs, bills to be paid beyond what taxes can generate, and missions too small to send in the entire army; that's where the party is going to be doing most of their gameplay, while the rest of the domain management is more like a downtime activity with decisions made in between adventures and developments happening over the long term.

 

[Beoric]

They would have their own hex map for exploration, unburdened by the province map. If you have any tips on how to use Roll20 to let players make their own maps (hex or otherwise), I'd appreciate hearing them.

Do you want them to do their own mapping because there is the possibility of getting lost and screwing up their map? Or do you want them to get an accurate map, but just learn it one hex at a time? If the latter, can you have an area hex map that the players can access, maybe have a token that represents the whole party, and then slowly peel back the VBL/fog of war? I'm not sure of Roll20's capabilities.

 

[The Heretic]

Thank you for your responses. I am still digesting all the different ways this could go.

I'd love to combine the province map with the hex map the PCs will be generating, but I don't know if that will work. Too complex and prone to problems. I think I might forgo having them do an overview map and instead have them map the provinces individually as they claim them. In addition, as much as I'd like to keep some of the province borders hidden for discovery, I don't think that will work out well. I'll provide them with a full province map.

The PCs already have a couple of rough maps for the area, so that can give them a base idea as to where things are. Once I start to work on the campaign maps I'll have an idea how feasible this all is.

As for the action economy, I'm thinking of giving them five action points per turn. Big things, like mobilizing for war, would cost five points. Sending out a scouting party might cost one or two. Originally I wasn't going to allow that, but I think this gives me a way to convey how dangerous the different provinces are. "The scouting party you sent to Anzir did not return, and you haven't heard any messages from the party either. What do you want to do about this?"

The fun thing with the province map idea is that at the end I could make it into a board game similar to Axis and Allies or Greyhawk Wars. That might be fun.

The Heretic

 

[The Heretic]

Do you want them to do their own mapping because there is the possibility of getting lost and screwing up their map? Or do you want them to get an accurate map, but just learn it one hex at a time? If the latter, can you have an area hex map that the players can access, maybe have a token that represents the whole party, and then slowly peel back the VBL/fog of war? I'm not sure of Roll20's capabilities.

I am not sure of Roll20's capabilities either. *sigh* I'll need to try to learn it. Everything seems so temporary and limited that it feels like this might ultimately be a waste of time.


The Heretic