Pathfinder 1E Kingmaker: How to Make Kingdom Building More Exciting

[Remus Lupin]

In my Kingmaker campaign, we spent last session beginning to work with the Kingdom Building rules. Things went a bit slowly since we were all still learning the rules. Plus we spent a bit of time just making some basic decisions about the kingdom. At the end of the session though, some players claimed that they were a bit bored.

Some of this may be a matter of getting to know the rules, after which I'm sure things will go along a bit more smoothly, and some of my players are already strategizing about how to building their kingdom most efficiently. But I am wondering how best to make the Kingdom building portion of the game exciting for everyone involved.

I'm also wondering if there's a play style somewhere between ordinary kingdom building and the "kingdom in the background" option, as I want my players to get the kingdom building experience, but I also don't want them to be bored with it.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Keldin]

Well, first of all, you might want to look at the Downtime and Kingdom Building rules on the Pathfinder SRD (sourced from Ultimate Campaign). The latter is an updated set of rules from what's used in Kingmaker.

More than that, I can't really help with -- we haven't gotten to the kingdom building part of the adventure path yet.

 

[MerricB]

My feeling is, having run all of Kingmaker, is that you can't. It just isn't an interesting system - there are painfully few decision points that actually matter. It's very easily dealt with by just one person (who has to be good at adding up numbers), and most of it comes down to "Which of the three attributes do we need to increase? What's the most cost-effective building to do that with?" Sadly, there are few trade-offs in the system. You're not going, "If I build this, I can't do that", which is what it needs. Instead, you can indeed have it all. The only real trap to avoid is not growing too quickly.

The *interesting* things of running a kingdom need to be added by the DM, which means interactions with NPCs and other kingdoms. There's not that much of that in Kingmaker, alas. Sadly, Kingmaker is mostly written as if the rest of the world doesn't exist.

The fun part of Kingmaker comes from actually exploring the world and adding bits of it to your kingdom. As the DM, it works best when you keep the important NPCs relevant and have them interact a lot with the PCs. When they add the witch's hut to their kingdom, keep her interacting with them.

In our game, the kingdom-building system itself was interesting only when we were learning how it worked. Once it was solved - and that wasn't hard - the interest was gone. The Ultimate Campaign upgrade might help, but I think there's a fundamental flaw at the heart of the system: it needs to be playable at the table whilst not taking too much time away from the rest of the game. For a "game" that is ultimately without an opponent, that's a tough task.

 

[Derren]

It also depends on what bores your players.
If some/many of them are just itching to get into the next fight for phat loot then you have already lost as there is no way to make kingdom building interesting to them.

If you players on the other hand enjoy role playing and are able and willing to follow politics you are in luck. One important aspect of kingdoms which often gets overlooked in D&D/D20 is the political system. In such RPGs a kingdom is nearly always portrayed as absolute monarchy, but that was not the form of government used around the technological level D20 games usually represent. Instead kingdoms used a feudal system and kings had not much direct control over most parts of their kingdom. Instead they had tho rely on their vassals to govern them and do what they are told (as far as the laws allowed to king to interfere).

Having to deal with vassals, each with their own agenda while not having direct control over the kingdom can be a source of many types of adventures.
Wiki about feudalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
If you are interested in PC games, Crusader Kings 2 is about building a feudal dynasty and at least the manual or some guides for it can give you some ideas.

And this is just my opinion, but I think it is more interesting to have a more realistic representation of medieval life than the romantic/disney version usually found in D20 products. That means low literacy, especially for the common people, and a general low quality of life.

 

[Crothian]

Make it more interactive. Have the people of the city complain or write petitions about different buildings they want. Have the named NPCs all offer different opinions and what the Kingdom should do and make it more meaningful. If they continue to ignore the suggestions of some of the rulers you can then have dissension and problems arise from that. Don't just make the Kingdom Building numbers on a page make the choices matter more in game.

 

[Starfox]

Having played Kingmaker, the system does feel like it can engage 1-2 players at the most. For the rest, it is more "I want my temple/guild/academy/palace/whatever" asap, please build one. I am becoming more and more sceptical of these mini-games within adventure paths and scenarios. Either they are not involved enough (in which case they bore people) or they are too involved (in which case they steal to much game time, or both. I'd say playing Carcasonne (the boardgame) might be time better spent than kingdom building in Pathfinder. Unless they relate directly to the RPG accomplishments (like they do in Jade Regent & the infamy system in Skull & Shackles), they cost more in time and energy than they give back. Skull & Shackles also has a ship chase system that we just agreed not to use.