I have spent a while thinking about this game, and how I can change things for the better, next time I run a game.

https://blog.baileymail.net/stolen-lands-revue

If you have any thoughts on this, or have seen something I have missed, I would be interested to hear about them.  You could post here, or on the blog.  I don't mind either.

I have really enjoyed this game and got right into the heart of a number of aspects of the campaign.

I had one entourage NPC (Brother Florin) and certainly could have had more but I just didn't want to take on the responsibility of running even more NPCs. I am glad that opportunity was taken up by several other players but it just wasn't for me.

One frustrating thing about the three adventuring parties operating in parallel is that I never did find out the details of what happened in some of those adventures. Places like Tatzleford and Old Keep suddenly appeared on the map and I don't remember hearing about what happened there. It may well be described publicly somewhere and I have simply missed it, as I admit I didn't get around to reading everything.

The Campaign System rules became very detailed. That's a good thing, as long as you can find what you are looking for. Planning the development of Tusk City each campaign round needed to cover a very wide range of topics. Sometimes it became difficult to find what I was looking for as different topics were on different web pages. In 2021 I actually copied and pasted all of the text from all of those pages of Campaign System rules into a Word document (73 pages!) so I could search them more easily to find the rules I needed. Then next year some of those rules had changed and my set was out of date. Maybe a downloadable text file of the rules would solve that problem, if you are open to sharing all your hard work that way?

I applaud your dedication to developing and running such a huge and wonderful campaign for so many years.

Unfortunately, the campaign rules got too big to be easily managed :( the next set will be more compact and easier to manage.  By uing the published building lists, I can concentrate on single page rule sets for different aspects of development, which should keep things a bit more organised.

TBH, I didn't really envisage somewhere the size of Tusk when I started.  And then the rules kept getting modified as people used them I ways I wasn't expecting.

But, in part, that was part of the game.

I ran a similarly scaled sci-fi campaign and the roughly monthly 'campaign budget' ran to ~200 projects, which was madness. I found that scaling out the "altitude" of the campaign worked for a while, but folks went in multiple different directions. As you say, part of the game and tricky to handle

*grin*  I've learned my lesson now. :). Next time, development will be slower.

 I have to echo the campaign rules issue. I enjoyed a lot of the campaign stuff I did, but a large part of why Vova never got anywhere even after he started to get somewhere was based in my complete inability to parse the rules for development - definitely, utilising the published stuff from Pathfinder would be a damn' sight easier but of course, it may not do all that you want it to.

I agree.  Tha campaign rules starts out ok to work through and reasonably well structured - but they grew as people tried to do more, and used rules in ways I wasn't expecting.
  And they grew into a monster. :)

I have already started work on rewriting the build description using the buildings from the downtime rules, and checking that they fit the costs published for components in 'rooms'.

The castle in downtime, when you draw the plan, works out more like a small western cavalry fort, rather than any sort of castle that we would recognise.  Recently, I have been building 'upgrade' packages to turn it into a small shell keep cum motte&bailey affair, more active builders will be able to use the rooms rules to build their own upgrades.

 It may be worthwhile to draw a distinction between stuff with hard rule effects and 'fluff', but include a note about 'fluff' being important for some projects.

 So while a castle that's a border fort or patrol base can probably manage with bare-bones resources, an otherwise identical defensive structure that's a lord's garrison should likely require a minimum 'fluff' investment - sort of paralleling the way that courtier and noble clothing require jewellery to be effective.

 Then your 'fluff' can be investment in anything from statuary to fancy servants to painting it to unusual cultural designs, giving some freedom for creativity which you may then utilise for gameplay without necessarily having to.

Good idea.  I'll think about how to make that work.  Currently, I am only at the shell keep stage.

But not for a few days.  Been sitting out in the rain (for much of the day). At a folk festival
  Last act of the night.  Should be sunny tomorrow :)

 I think I put it forward because it gives you a whole massive category that's... that's... Actually, now that I think about that's how settlement building works in Fallout 4 or No Mans's Sky. Here's your (very small) list of buildings that do things, and here's a (far larger) list of buildings that can be made to make the first lot look interesting.

 Couple of weeks later, you're looking at videos of people who build Rapture or exploited a bug to make satellite stations or who recreated the Starship Enterprise entirely in timber and bits of old car.

Bah. Campaign round is easy. You give me material and I build great stuff. :)

Although it is admirable to want to streamline and possibly even expand the process. I am not sure how (or if) it would work with your last proposed game idea of privateers, or if you have a similar system in mind for shipbuilding (something to think about). But overall, ai can say that it is the best opportunity and world building that I have ever had and would relish the chance to do something similar in another of your games if you decide to go that route.

Really, I think you did a tremendous job of expanding on the basics of the kingmaker system. I understand that the bookkeeping got more than a little out of hand, but honestly, I think that part of the process could be streamlined without any detriment to the fullness of detail to the building itself.

Thank you.

Most of the same stuff will be in the new system, just organised differently and coated in GP  rather than BP.  However growth will be slower and more based around personal holdings, rather than town and city Building.

As for ships, I am running Skull & Shackles for my Table Top group.  You can have a shop built from scratch, which is time consuming but can have modifications built in.  Or you can buy a standard vessel, and have some modifications done later.  I Have already added a few home brew mods to the design plan modd and taken out a couple of strange items that I will never allow :)

However, privateering would only be relevant early in the game.  After that characters might want armed merchantmen ...

In reply to DM (msg # 12):

 We're playing that here on RPol right now. Just attacked our first ship and it is... Not really going well.

Man's Promise? Or have you got past that part yet?

Loved Skull and Shackles AP. Played 2 games on RPoL, never got much past ghoul island.

It is an interesting AP.  Large chunks of stuff that could be Role-Play or Roll-Play, and politics from fairly early on.

Ironically, the actual pirating and taking vessels for plunder got very formalistic very quickly, and is only really significant in the second book.  It took some work to put a couple of mini story arcs together around that.  We are into the third book of the AP now, and it is very much a traditional style Patron-led set of scenarios -  just set at sea.

Don't get me wrong, it is a still a very good AP, and will keep the party interested until the end.  Just that, as most things, it becomes more 'traditional' the higher up the levels you get.

Also depends on PrCs they decide on.

In reply to DM (msg # 14):

 We've taken the Man's Promise (now renamed the Queen's Maid, for Besmara) and have been to Rikkety Squibs (where I ran a giant murder boar off a cliff) and are now trying to take a ship and are kind of getting our asses kicked a little. Fingers crossed!

In reply to Vova doMedvyed (msg # 18):

Good Luck :)

Admittedly, I piggy backed on Domitius for a fair bit of the campaign stuff.  Though I did learn the rules over time, had a plan for where my character was going as a religious figure, and goals as part of Solanus too.   I was more hip to the enpc side of it, even if I only had two, and felt the entourage rules were a major plus point of the game.    Both in terms of fleshing out my own, and interacting with those belonging to other players.

Fuzzy threads, also a very cool feature.

Honestly, I hate to admit it, but I've grown more fond of D&D 5.   Though you lose some customization, it's a lot less system overhead than PF.  I wanted to keep advancing Alisa, but I don't much like PF above level 6, or so.   Too much sifting through rules, especially as a caster.

Albeit, PF does offer a better skills system, and facilitates npcs and closer-to-normal characters better than D&D 5.   Entourage would've sucked under D&D 5, probably, without a bunch of homebrew.

 I enjoy playing 5E, but I vastly prefer Pathfinder and the reason why is summed up in a single anecdote:

 We're playing the bastard sons of a ship captain who leaves us all a share of his ship (except me, I'm the grown-up cabin boy).

 I've been on the ship my whole adult life, so has the (new) captain. Everyone else was dragged from the land to the ship.

 After (several) adventures, the new crew receive proficiency: water vehicles (or whatever it's called).

 Suddenly, the guy who's a mountain town cleric who's never seen the ocean before is a dramatically better sailor than my fighter who's lived on a ship his entire life - because he has a better set of mental stats and the same proficiency bonus. Because 5E.

 It wasn't even that I needed to be good at it, we didn't roll it that often but the fact that there was no way (at all) to granulate things irked me beyond words.

Alisa - Yeah.  I'm not sure, either.  When I started playing Pathfinder, with just the CRB on the table,   it was a straightforward game.  Now there are way too many options that complicate things.

I might use some of the time I have available now to look at D&D5 and PF2  *shrug*  However, I'm still not sure that I will run another campaign on here.  I might just go back to writing NWN persistent worlds for a while.

Vova - Ugh!

Yep, I feel you on that, Vova!   That is pretty stupid.   I've not had it happen, so wasn't thinking about it.    It's mainly the adventuring/combat part of 5E I like better.  It's more fluid and fun, and I can often just look at my sheet, rather than forever going back to the book.  Or, pdfs or website, these days.

Truly, by my roots, I'm a Chaosium fan.   Where there is no class, your skills advance independently, based on how often you use and train in them.   Yes, that system too has its warts, but I find them easy enough to fix with a few house rules.

Also, there was a variant PF called E6, or sometimes E8, at one time.    Where you stop advancing at 6th (or 8th) level, and just gain new feats from that point on.   That wouldn't bother me at all, but realize many would feel different.

Hadn't heard of NWN, had to google.  Keep us updated on any new works, GM!  We're all fans for life now.

Be careful what you wish for :)  My latest world development bits are here ..

http://rp.baileymail.net/doku.php?id=finaroka:start

In reply to Alisa Solanus (msg # 23):

 E6 was fine, as was the Bell Curve variant where you use 3D6 instead of 1D20.

 I like that 5E has used Concentration to rein in spellcasters and attunement to address magic item bloat, managing to simplify a lot of things, but on the whole Pathfinder's just a better system (in my humble opinion).