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[Jimmy]

...

As a fellow DM, I advise to plan for unexpected complications.

1. What happens if the players capture your assassin alive and attempt to intimidate the name of his employer out of him?

As a player, if I saw a bard get assassinated out of the blue, I'd wanna know why. I'd chase down the killer, deal him a bit of nonlethal damage and knock him unconscious, then strip him of his weapons and tie him up. Once I've got him somewhere safe, I'd squeeze him for everything he knows to chase down what's really going on here. Prepare a good backstory for your assassin if he ends up getting caught instead of killed.

2. What happens if the players decide the dagger is too much trouble and try to sell it instead?

If I was given this magic dagger as a player but it was so troublesome to maintain, honestly I'd just sell it and cut my losses. Sure, it might have cool magic stuff, but if it's gonna give me a hard time I'd rather get a few copper and be rid of it than face the trouble of it stabbing random people in the street and getting me thrown in jail. Magic items should be stuff your players want to keep, otherwise they'll toss them as soon as they turn out to be annoying.

If I can give you one piece of advice, it's that you wanna give the players a clear goal and an incentive to reach that goal.

For example, my current game, I opened with a choice of three different adventure hooks. The first option was a dwarven merchant that was offering a bounty on a group of orc raiders that had attacked a caravan on the road near town. The second was a local businessman that desperately needed a band of hired mercenaries to transport sensitive cargo to a nearby town. The final hook was a local nobleman that needed hired thugs to clear his silver mine of a kobold infestation. I left it to the players which job they wanted to take, having prepared all three encounters. This let them start with a clear goal and a reason they would work together. They ended up taking the orc job, discovering the ruins of an ancient castle where the orcs were camping, clearing out the orcs and then working to take the castle and rebuild it to make it their own stronghold. The dwarf paid them their commission, then mentioned the reason he'd moved into town was that he was seeking information about his brother who had founded a dwarven outpost nearby but suddenly stopped writing home, etc. Once they're working together, you've got a clear reason for them to continue.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Edit: Pathfinder Kingmaker might help with settlement building.

Just a heads up, Kingmaker is essentially Spreadsheets: The Tabletop Game, unless you use a digital tool. There are a few floating around, like this one. It's a bit rough around the edges, especially with the map editing, but it will get the job done.

[Cruxador]

Edit: Pathfinder Kingmaker might help with settlement building.

Just a heads up, Kingmaker is essentially Spreadsheets: The Tabletop Game, unless you use a digital tool. There are a few floating around, like this one. It's a bit rough around the edges, especially with the map editing, but it will get the job done.

I believe he's referring to a recently kickstarted computer game, not a pathfinder update to the old tabletop classic.

Mind you, I only reached this conclusion after being pleasantly surprised at the implication that the latter existed, and searching for it.

[andrian]

kingmaker is a pathfinder adventure module with rules for kingdom building.

[Tack]

Uh, yeah, kingmaker is both.
I was referring to the adventure module

But boy am I keen for the computer game.

[Cruxador]

Huh. Is there a way to access just those new rules without having to pay for the whole adventure path? I've been using cribbed rules from Adventurer Conqueror King for that sort of thing, plus some house rules for specific resource effects, which works but I'm not certain there's no better way.

[My Name is Immaterial]

This seems to be the complete set of Kingmaker rules.

[Cruxador]

This seems to be the complete set of Kingmaker rules.

Thanks a lot, I'm obviously not used to locating pathfinder resources. And holy fuck, you weren't kidding about spreadsheets. I'm going to read through the whole thing and see what I like, but from a brief peek into the beginning it's already looking like a lot of things would need to be pared down. And it's not super compatible with what I've been doing since it's made from a post-westphalian perspective of nation-states rather than feudalism.

[hops]

PTW

[RoseHeart]

It may be worthwhile OP to link to this thread.

[GiglameshDespair]

Last post was 7 april.
Maybe not so worthwhile.

[Rolan7]

Three months is barely a necro in the worst circumstances, much less something so specific.

[RoseHeart]

Three months is barely a necro in the worst circumstances, much less something so specific.

This. And really to be frank it is the thread where people will meet up for tabletop play by post games. Really relevant.

[Cruxador]

If it's relevant, though the title (who wants play by post) is one that inspires dissent, since my first reaction is to go "uh, not me". PbP has been obsolete for as long as irc has existed, and with the launch of roll20, PbP is a needless downgrade even if you're planning map or grid based games or are technologically impaired.

[milo christiansen]

Yeah, really old and outdated. Also the only real way to play if everyone is in different time zones or no one can make a strict schedule...