Magpie Kingmaker

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Magpie RPG group is starting a Kingmaker campaign for Pathfinder. A Magpie campaign is a bit of a contradiction in terms, but it sticks with our theme of trying a little bit of everything, even if that includes a full campaign.

We're actually just committed to the first scenario or two. After that we'll judge how everyone liked it, and continue if the consensus is that it's worth going forward. I'm really excited about it so far. The Pathfinder rules seem to be a solid evolution of the Advanced D&D lineage, and Kingmaker's combination of sandbox play and empire building is pretty close to my ideal campaign.

I'm also pleased with the group of characters that the players have decided on. Some of the details are still being fleshed out, but so far we have the following: Neutral Good Gnome Oracle of Heavens, Lawful Good Elven Alchemist, Chaotic Neutral Elven Air Wizard (although I believe this is being changed to a Half-Elven Sorcerer with an Elemental bloodline), and Chaotic Good Human Ranger (I believe he's planning to multi-class with Fighter). Most are still tweaking their characters, so the exact composition is still up in the air.

We've got three of the four classic roles filled, and the fourth role of rogue doesn't appear to be that important in the Kingmaker campaign. The only question mark for me is the Alchemist, as I'm just not sure how he is going to fit into combat, but it should be interesting to find out!

I've already put more preparation into this game than any of my previous Magpie undertakings, even if you just count reading the massive Core Rulebook. In addition to that I've read the first Kingmaker module and assembled a collection of tools, including the following (note that this is a list of assembled stuff, not necessarily stuff that I went out and bought just for this game, although there's a lot of that in the list as well):

The Pathfinder hardcover books: Core Rules, Gamemastery Guide, Bestiary, and Advanced Players Guide
Pathfinder Gamemaster's Screen
Gamemastery Flip-Mats: River Crossing, Forest, and Bandit Outpost
Gamemastery Map Packs: Ruins and Ancient Forest
Gamemastery Item Cards: Kingmaker
Gamemastery Combat Pad
Pathfinder Adventure Paths: 31, 32, and 33
Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to the River Kingdoms and Kingmaker Poster Map Folio
Chessex Battlemat
Staedtler Lumocolor non-permanent markers
Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The Dungeon
Dungeon Tiles: Harrowing Halls, Streets of Shadows, and Caves of Carnage
Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set (for the tokens)
Hero Lab software
Index Cards
A small netbook

In retrospect, that's a lot of stuff for something I'm not even sure is going to go beyond a few sessions, but some of it I already had (for example, the battlemat is something I've had for over a decade, yet has seen very little use), and most of the rest is stuff that I'll eventually find other uses for if this doesn't work out.

I plan to enter all the characters, and possibly NPCs, into Hero Lab so I can at least print out pretty character sheets for everyone, and possibly use the software on the netbook to keep track of NPCs during the game.

The netbook may end up becoming my control center for the campaign, as I'm thinking of playing some with theme music run from it as well. We'll see about that though, as my previous experiments with using music in RPGs just tended to annoy and distract the players. I'm thinking for now of just using an opening theme to let everyone know that we're starting and leaving it at that.

I've also created a campaign wiki on Obsidian Portal. I've been wanting to try out this tool for a while, and this gives me an excuse to do so. I don't know how much we'll end up using it, but I've had fun putting together the background material on it.