All Along The Watchtower
Another chapter in our Kingmaker campaign: The party, having consulted with their local druid about the situation, proceeded to the lizardfolk hex to try and defuse a warmongering king. Now, as I mentioned before, the original story had King Vesket influenced by a will-o'-wisp who was masquerading as one of the lizardfolk's blessed ancestors. This would not have been a bad story, if it hadn't felt so very much like the kobolds from last book (who - for those who don't know/remember - were being manipulated by a hate-filled kobold sorcerer who was actually a reincarnated gnome). I stripped down the story and redid it a bit.
Vesket had traveled to Candlemere several months prior on a warrior pilgrimage. While on the island, he released something of the evil of the Old Cults that stills exists in the shadows of that place, and Yog Sothoth corrupted his mind. In short, he failed a san check, drastically shifting his alignment from true Neutral to CE. His return bewildered his people. He evicted the residents of one of the huts in the village, forcing them to overcrowd the other huts, and declared that the new "spirit hut" was where the ancestors would speak to him. He spent hours every day in that hut. The lizardfolk could hear him talking, but no could make out no responses. Vesket was actually just talking to the voices in his head, but those voices were urging him to blood and war. He began to decree that previous alliances were null. Several local fey were killed on his orders. He spoke of the glory that would be his when the lizardfolk brought down the "Larder Kingdom" to the north. Some followed him blindly. But whispers and ambition wore away at the foundations of his reign.
Sketmit was the best of the lizardfolk braves, smarter than his companions and chosen by the spirits of the wild (Spirit Ranger variant). Not only did he already envy Vesket for his harem - the fiery Latskix in particular - but he also knew that the plan to overtake the pinkskin kingdom was folly. He had swum the Tuskwater and seen both the castle at the heart of the town and the sheer number of citizens. The couple of dozen lizardfolk would die in the attack and barely make a dent in the defenses. But even as the lizardfolk began to split into factions, Sketmit worried that attacking Vesket would end poorly. If only he had allies...
What I really wanted to do here was give them two options, and reward them greatly for choosing the diplomatic tactic rather than the wholesale slaughter tactic. While they did discuss just firebombing the whole village, in the end they chose to make contact with Sketmit and see if anything could be worked out (in part resulting in Sketmit's new-found love of arm wrestling, thanks to the recently arrived inquisitor). The battle ended up being ridiculously easy for them in spite of some bad dice at the table, because they had Sketmit's faction on their side in the fight. Had they taken on the entire village, things might have been altogether different.
But after that went very well, I made a tactical error.
In the aftermath of installing a new lizard king, the wizard asked, "By the way, you don't happen to know where we might find some trolls, do you?" I had a split second to make a choice, and I gave them the information. Problem was, I hadn't finished prepping for the trolls. I figured (Silly GM!) that the party would finish the lizards and then go back to town. I had prepped the next town event, as well as a monster I added to an empty hex, but I had only gotten about halfway through the trolls. Having finally gotten a hex location for the trolls however, and fearing the unrest on an upcoming Kingdom Building Turn, the party almost unanimously said, "Let's do that!" Of course.
The trolls contained both good and bad for the party. For the first time they were really coordinating their approach. Between the team tactics and an intelligent method of attack, they were hauling pretty well through the dungeon... right up until they weren't. At which point, I killed my second character. Even then, the PC death was primarily the result of some bad dice on the party end; the enlarged inquisitor was betrayed by his dice pretty badly and, although he tried valiantly to save the wizard, he just couldn't get a hit off, even against the fairly low AC of standard trolls. The trolls are a bit of a vicious series of encounters, with the potential to TPK if approached badly, I think. But the party came in with fire damage at the ready and good party tactics. Now, of course, they are down a PC (who was the source of part of their fire damage) with a CR 6 and a CR 8 still ahead of them. On top of that, they haven't had time to completely burn the troll corpses behind them. The clock is ticking on regen.
I don't feel too bad about this PC death, though. I gave the players the option of swapping out characters if they were unhappy with what they were playing at the end of this book. (It sucks so much to be stuck playing a character you're not enjoying for whatever reason.) This player, incidentally the same one who lost the first character, had already planned to swap out. The only real problem is that he has to wait for the party to get back to town before he can rejoin the group, and they still have at least two decent CRs to get through first. My solution for this will be to hand over those last two monsters to him next session, so that he's not twiddling his thumbs through 60-90 minutes of game.
...
You didn't think I was going to go through a whole GM log without bitching about the books, did you?
I have done my first thorough read-through of the next book, and I have two major beefs. First, why the hell are the PCs going to leave their map quarter? Two of the hooks are someone showing up to say that Unimportant-and-previously-unknown NPC X has disappeared into the Nomen Heights. Great. Surely somebody should check this out. But half the government? No. That makes not an ounce of sense. Now, the book acknowledges this a bit, suggesting that any lesser aid the PCs send along should also disappear, presuming that eventually they'll feel the need to go check it out themselves. But only a party blindly grasping at any story hook is going to go do this thing without more pressing incentives. The third hook is the Swordlords again. Pretty please check this out for us, because we don't want to can't right now. Restov is right there, guys, a couple of days ride away. Sure, political bubbling with Issia makes the Swordlords nervous about further overt forays into the Stolen Lands. So, don't send an army. But surely you could send somebody. You have a city treasury and a whole city at your beck and call. In addition, there is only so far Rostland can push the new, theoretically sovereign nation to their south. (My party has actually continued to pledge their allegiance to Brevoy for the moment, for the political safety of it. That will fall apart eventually, I suspect.) Surely some parties will already be past the point where they really care what an Aldori asks of them? So, why do they go to the Narlmarches?
I have a couple of ways I'm thinking of dealing with this. The incoming new character has ties to the Aldori, so I'm going to make it a personal contact that sends the request at the beginning of book three directly to him, rather than to the government in general. I'm also going to go ahead and seed some of the NPCs from book three into the town, so that it's possible they'll actually get to know one of the disappeared, again making it personal. Beyond that, I'm looking for ways to add other connections between Varnhold and Ursundova. I can see little urgency as the text is written, and that needs to change a bit.
I plan to give them about 2 years of downtime between books two and three. If I figure out some rumors that will work to increase tension without disrupting the story (or sending them off prematurely) I may start feeding those.
My second problem is vaguely related to the first. We're working in a medieval-ish society. Until you get to teleport levels, travel time should be a fairly big factor. Presuming that roads reduce hex travel to its minimum of three hours (in good weather with people moving full speed on mounts), a PC-established city on the site of the Stag Lord's fort is about five hard days' ride away from Varnhold. (This is also presuming that the PCs have connected their city to the South Rostland Road, but they really ought to have done so by the start of book three.) So we're asking the government of the nation to leave their seat of government for at least two weeks to chase rumors. To keep the time that brief, they have to forgo any hexploration and they cannot be waylaid by any other encounter. They also can't follow up on what they find. Chances are more likely that they will be gone a month or two. Restov is two easy day's ride from Varnhold. The established city has more resources and more reason to care what's going on so close to them. This, to me, is really stretching things, even acknowledging that the threat of civil war makes the Swordlords cautious about sending their people south.
I think that establishing personal ties to Varnhold will help a little and, to be fair, the book does suggest that the GM "engineer a link" between the two settlements - although the notion that it should be a needed magic item irks me a little, as it seems to presume a pretty mercenary party. Not that those parties don't exist, but your choices as given by the writers seem to be either mercenary or so Neutral Good as to be stupid in the way they run a country.
Done writing for the nonce, as it's time to go submit myself to torture exercise.
Vesket had traveled to Candlemere several months prior on a warrior pilgrimage. While on the island, he released something of the evil of the Old Cults that stills exists in the shadows of that place, and Yog Sothoth corrupted his mind. In short, he failed a san check, drastically shifting his alignment from true Neutral to CE. His return bewildered his people. He evicted the residents of one of the huts in the village, forcing them to overcrowd the other huts, and declared that the new "spirit hut" was where the ancestors would speak to him. He spent hours every day in that hut. The lizardfolk could hear him talking, but no could make out no responses. Vesket was actually just talking to the voices in his head, but those voices were urging him to blood and war. He began to decree that previous alliances were null. Several local fey were killed on his orders. He spoke of the glory that would be his when the lizardfolk brought down the "Larder Kingdom" to the north. Some followed him blindly. But whispers and ambition wore away at the foundations of his reign.
Sketmit was the best of the lizardfolk braves, smarter than his companions and chosen by the spirits of the wild (Spirit Ranger variant). Not only did he already envy Vesket for his harem - the fiery Latskix in particular - but he also knew that the plan to overtake the pinkskin kingdom was folly. He had swum the Tuskwater and seen both the castle at the heart of the town and the sheer number of citizens. The couple of dozen lizardfolk would die in the attack and barely make a dent in the defenses. But even as the lizardfolk began to split into factions, Sketmit worried that attacking Vesket would end poorly. If only he had allies...
What I really wanted to do here was give them two options, and reward them greatly for choosing the diplomatic tactic rather than the wholesale slaughter tactic. While they did discuss just firebombing the whole village, in the end they chose to make contact with Sketmit and see if anything could be worked out (in part resulting in Sketmit's new-found love of arm wrestling, thanks to the recently arrived inquisitor). The battle ended up being ridiculously easy for them in spite of some bad dice at the table, because they had Sketmit's faction on their side in the fight. Had they taken on the entire village, things might have been altogether different.
But after that went very well, I made a tactical error.
In the aftermath of installing a new lizard king, the wizard asked, "By the way, you don't happen to know where we might find some trolls, do you?" I had a split second to make a choice, and I gave them the information. Problem was, I hadn't finished prepping for the trolls. I figured (Silly GM!) that the party would finish the lizards and then go back to town. I had prepped the next town event, as well as a monster I added to an empty hex, but I had only gotten about halfway through the trolls. Having finally gotten a hex location for the trolls however, and fearing the unrest on an upcoming Kingdom Building Turn, the party almost unanimously said, "Let's do that!" Of course.
The trolls contained both good and bad for the party. For the first time they were really coordinating their approach. Between the team tactics and an intelligent method of attack, they were hauling pretty well through the dungeon... right up until they weren't. At which point, I killed my second character. Even then, the PC death was primarily the result of some bad dice on the party end; the enlarged inquisitor was betrayed by his dice pretty badly and, although he tried valiantly to save the wizard, he just couldn't get a hit off, even against the fairly low AC of standard trolls. The trolls are a bit of a vicious series of encounters, with the potential to TPK if approached badly, I think. But the party came in with fire damage at the ready and good party tactics. Now, of course, they are down a PC (who was the source of part of their fire damage) with a CR 6 and a CR 8 still ahead of them. On top of that, they haven't had time to completely burn the troll corpses behind them. The clock is ticking on regen.
I don't feel too bad about this PC death, though. I gave the players the option of swapping out characters if they were unhappy with what they were playing at the end of this book. (It sucks so much to be stuck playing a character you're not enjoying for whatever reason.) This player, incidentally the same one who lost the first character, had already planned to swap out. The only real problem is that he has to wait for the party to get back to town before he can rejoin the group, and they still have at least two decent CRs to get through first. My solution for this will be to hand over those last two monsters to him next session, so that he's not twiddling his thumbs through 60-90 minutes of game.
...
You didn't think I was going to go through a whole GM log without bitching about the books, did you?
I have done my first thorough read-through of the next book, and I have two major beefs. First, why the hell are the PCs going to leave their map quarter? Two of the hooks are someone showing up to say that Unimportant-and-previously-unknown NPC X has disappeared into the Nomen Heights. Great. Surely somebody should check this out. But half the government? No. That makes not an ounce of sense. Now, the book acknowledges this a bit, suggesting that any lesser aid the PCs send along should also disappear, presuming that eventually they'll feel the need to go check it out themselves. But only a party blindly grasping at any story hook is going to go do this thing without more pressing incentives. The third hook is the Swordlords again. Pretty please check this out for us, because we don't want to can't right now. Restov is right there, guys, a couple of days ride away. Sure, political bubbling with Issia makes the Swordlords nervous about further overt forays into the Stolen Lands. So, don't send an army. But surely you could send somebody. You have a city treasury and a whole city at your beck and call. In addition, there is only so far Rostland can push the new, theoretically sovereign nation to their south. (My party has actually continued to pledge their allegiance to Brevoy for the moment, for the political safety of it. That will fall apart eventually, I suspect.) Surely some parties will already be past the point where they really care what an Aldori asks of them? So, why do they go to the Narlmarches?
I have a couple of ways I'm thinking of dealing with this. The incoming new character has ties to the Aldori, so I'm going to make it a personal contact that sends the request at the beginning of book three directly to him, rather than to the government in general. I'm also going to go ahead and seed some of the NPCs from book three into the town, so that it's possible they'll actually get to know one of the disappeared, again making it personal. Beyond that, I'm looking for ways to add other connections between Varnhold and Ursundova. I can see little urgency as the text is written, and that needs to change a bit.
I plan to give them about 2 years of downtime between books two and three. If I figure out some rumors that will work to increase tension without disrupting the story (or sending them off prematurely) I may start feeding those.
My second problem is vaguely related to the first. We're working in a medieval-ish society. Until you get to teleport levels, travel time should be a fairly big factor. Presuming that roads reduce hex travel to its minimum of three hours (in good weather with people moving full speed on mounts), a PC-established city on the site of the Stag Lord's fort is about five hard days' ride away from Varnhold. (This is also presuming that the PCs have connected their city to the South Rostland Road, but they really ought to have done so by the start of book three.) So we're asking the government of the nation to leave their seat of government for at least two weeks to chase rumors. To keep the time that brief, they have to forgo any hexploration and they cannot be waylaid by any other encounter. They also can't follow up on what they find. Chances are more likely that they will be gone a month or two. Restov is two easy day's ride from Varnhold. The established city has more resources and more reason to care what's going on so close to them. This, to me, is really stretching things, even acknowledging that the threat of civil war makes the Swordlords cautious about sending their people south.
I think that establishing personal ties to Varnhold will help a little and, to be fair, the book does suggest that the GM "engineer a link" between the two settlements - although the notion that it should be a needed magic item irks me a little, as it seems to presume a pretty mercenary party. Not that those parties don't exist, but your choices as given by the writers seem to be either mercenary or so Neutral Good as to be stupid in the way they run a country.
Done writing for the nonce, as it's time to go submit myself to torture exercise.