Advice for Kingdom and Commonwealth

[Butters]

Hello, has anyone run K&C and if so do you have any general advice or handy information about any obvious pitfalls you encountered? 

Cheers.

👍

[Questbird]

I started Kingdom and Commonwealth, but only got a session into it. Unfortunately my players didn't 'get' the historical era and basically we went back to bog-standard fantasy (with a different GM). I felt a bit bad that I wasn't able to make it fun for them. One player was a bit more adventurous and enjoyed the religious debates etc. but it wasn't enough to sway the group. I'm still hopeful that we can dust it off again some day.

[Butters]

Sad to hear that and I must admit its a fear that I have as well as there are so many crazy factions that add so much to the setting but which are so bizzare and to be honest their appearances catch me out and I really need to get the hang of the righteous mechanic.

[Questbird]

I found the many factions appealing, but it makes first-time character generation take a long time. I allowed a fairly free-hand with the factions and ended up with some odd combinations in the party. However we didn't get far enough into the campaign to find out their impact.

[Firebird01]

Ran K & C, all four printed volumes over a period of about two and a half years (we alternate GMs and games so it broke up nicely into manageable chunks which kept it fresh and interest up). Character creation was fairly open and I did not limit it to just Renaissance set professions but let people mould their characters into something they had investment and interest in.

We ended up with a Cavalier Fop and Bon-vivant, a Scottish Presbyterian Alchemist, a Highwaywoman who ended up turning into a good(ish) Witch as well and an Alchemist Samurai exiled form Shogunate Japan as the core team joined by, at various times, a Paracelsan Healer toting a blunderbuss and an eccentric independent clockwork engineer.

I used the printed adventures as a framework for the adventure and as the campaign wore on, more and more off script events took over.

I tried to run a story based adventure with less strict appliance of the rules than some and as far as factions/righteousness points etc. went tended to use this when players started to push the limits of their characters outline a bit too much or when they insisted their character would act in such and such a way because of their religion or background and it was needed to focus their minds.

The campaign seemed to go down well (it lasted a good length of time and we have now moved onto more Cakebread and Walton stuff with Pirates and Dragons - which campaign will be entirely of my own devising this time)

As far as hints, tips and problems goes here are a few off the top of my head -

1. I used lots of visual props and handouts such as copies of woodcuts, old paintings and wonderful clockwork monsters (there is a wealth of 17th century stuff out there for you to use) and used old fashioned fonts for handouts to players, which really helped to set the scene and give the sessions a flavour of the period (attached a couple of examples).

2. Also ran a written log (with spellings and phrasing in mock 17th century style) which the players liked and I could also slip in items of info. I had forgotten to give them in the heat of play to see if they noticed.

3. Spell use - lots of the spells, particularly the witchcraft ones and those that stack can get a bit powerful at times if the caster puts a lot of MAG into them so encounters have to be tailored carefully.

4. On reflection I think I was too generous with improvement points and hero points which tended to mean that characters got quite good quite quickly and the risk of character death was remote.

5. The K&C books are written with a fair bit of humour and that I carried on into the campaign as I was running it which seemed to go down well and fitted a swash buckling, heroic style of campaign.

 

If I think of anything else will let you know

Jacks hanging.docx Cross Dressing.docx Witchfynder Procalmation.docx