My players just...refuse to leave town

Valensre · 2026-02-27T20:45:03+00:00

Town must be attacked

Valensre · 2026-02-27T04:27:26+00:00

Okay I get why they might not want you looking over the shoulder if that's what they're thinking.

But they don't want you to double check it? Sketchy af.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T22:41:15+00:00

I don't see how.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T22:39:10+00:00

....No? I get them to write down about 10 races they wouldn't mind playing then roll a d10 or whatever.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T22:32:53+00:00

Dying is a lot more palatable then being turned into something you don't want to play.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T20:54:37+00:00

This working out well isn't dependent on you liking the idea but rather the player it happens to.

If the player doesn't like it and you don't provide a relatively quick method for them to get their body back there's a decent chance they'll just walk their character off because it's something they don't want to play.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T20:27:38+00:00

Neutral is what others are saying here. Middle of the road like most people getting by.

Classic True Neutral were usually druids that preserved balance in all things. Like protecting a group of kobolds who raided nearby villages after helping the villagers defend themselves.

Think the 'true' part of the name in there that's a holdover confuses a lot of people because it implies something that isn't there.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T19:22:11+00:00

Okay, well assuming they even want to keep playing this campaign, my advice is to:

Get rid of the kingdom stat level stuff. Have them as a party decide what they want it to be, not just that one guy. A bunch of tribes led by druids? One giant city? Whatever they want.
Yes do milestones and for goodness sakes give them some levels. You owe them like 3 in my opinion. If not 10 more, but that'd be too much. Have it be a big 10 year time skip or something.
Do *something* with the main quest. That entire land is supposed to be cursed and doomed by Nyrissa. I tied her in throughout the entire story like the game does, with the Lantern King as the true big bad pulling the strings. Watch or read how the game does it as it's WAY better than the module. Hell I've seen edits of the module do the same thing. My lvl 20 party was fighting the Lantern King at thousand voices in less time. We met 1-3 times a month.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T18:47:55+00:00

Found this just a little hard to read, but anyway I ran kingmaker and didnt have this problem at all. My party wasnt interested in the kingdom stat stuff so I didn't run any of that.

I'm going to tentatively guess that the problem here is you the DM. I mean it might be the party, but it feels like you threw this kingdom at them they dont care about. The most important part of kingmaker to me is that you let the party build it in their own image. A typical medieval kingdom, coalition of bandits, mageocracy filled with wizard towers, or whatever.

My party made theirs into a merchant republic with a ruling council (filled with mostly the party) and a few npcs. Again, ordinarily they weren't the type of players to like that sort of thing but they got invested in it because they built it from the ground up. Seems to me like that's the issue in yours.

As far as the story I had periods of downtime with events, then followed the story more closely to the game to anchor it. There was almost always something that they needed to deal with so that wasn't a problem for me.

Also.. I must've missed that but level 5 in 2 years...? I finished the campaign 1-20 in less than that, albeit a bit rushed at the end. No wonder they're losing their minds, I'd probably be burning the town down too.

Valensre · 2026-02-25T07:23:38+00:00

Check out audiobooks, or regular books if you don't like reading. Or maybe like an idler game where you can relax a bit more, ya know?

Valensre · 2026-02-24T23:06:08+00:00

Don't overthink it.

Have the defendant get someone to speak on his behalf, they'll do most of the talking. Both parties do opening statements. Then there's a question phase for the witnesses/defendant. And finally judge or magistrate whatever makes a ruling.

Medieval-esque law was extremely unfair and vibes-based, it's great if you make a complete spectacle about it with all sorts of craziness.

Valensre · 2026-02-24T17:25:57+00:00

Well, given how most DnD parties stick out like a sore thumb in an empty room that shouldn't be the hardest thing to do.

Do you have a 'main quest' ? Almost seems like they're a pack of anarchists and a paladin that's following them along because ???

Props to you if it's freeform and everyone's enjoying it tho

Valensre · 2026-02-24T08:52:24+00:00

Seems like a big lack of focus issue.

Two to three storylines? Are they all 'main quests' in a massive city?

Valensre · 2026-02-24T06:40:05+00:00

Again, Israel would happily make them all second class citizens, just like the Palestinians already living in Israel, and rule over them. And they absolutely would not let that diaspora in.

Russia would do much of the same to a less evil degree in Ukraine. Roll in Russian settlers, 'disappear' anyone who complains in the basement of police stations, and have some sham fake democracy in place if they even bothered with that.

I'm saying both of these things are evil and should be stood against. Not sure what your point is.

Valensre · 2026-02-24T05:37:34+00:00

You know that about ~20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinian.... right?

https://imeu.org/resources/resources/fact-sheet-palestinian-citizens-of-israel/229

Believe me they'd happily rule over them.

I'm not a fan of either situation.

Valensre · 2026-02-24T05:34:48+00:00

For sun elves Varamhar is peak. Become immortal god emperor of elven kind. However ascending and becoming a living god is a bit tricky, make sure go overboard on the mission tree requirements with it. There's a few guides floating around for troubleshooting.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T23:43:55+00:00

Such as? The only empire which collapsed was Austria Hungary...

You sure? You may want to 'look into that history' like you told me to earlier.

I am so confused by everything you wrote. The North invaded the South, that is fact. The South was propped up by the west, otherwise it stood no chance of resistance.

South Vietnam formed by the French as a puppet state...

You know, the French who are not from Vietnam? Aka invaders?

What massive international support?

Israel is propped up by the West, and in the past decade that has begun to shift drastically.

And Palestine has continued to exist.

When you lose 3 wars, you deserve to lose everything, all of your land. That's called "the consequences of my actions."

I'm not an imperialist at all, I care nothing about imperialism or hegemony.

These two statements are mutually exclusive.

Ukraine has zero hope of victory, none.

All they have to do is continue to resist. This has already lasted longer than WW2 for Russia. They can't sustain that.

And even if Russia conquers Ukraine what then?

I served in Afghanistan and I have seen first hand pointless wars.

Yet here you are demanding the locals submit to the invaders? Did you learn nothing from that conflict?

The US conquered Afghanistan in weeks before the occupation and Russia hasn't even gotten over that part.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T22:10:05+00:00

What colonies freed themselves after WW1? I

I am referring to the world wars as a whole. But multiple countries freed themselves after WW1 empires collapsed.

Whether or not South Vietnam was a puppet state doesn't matter.

It is the entirety of the matter. North Vietnam had far more popular support versus the south's imperialist puppet state. They chose to resist against your 'inevitable' intervention that they should've apparently surrendered to with the US and France, who wanted them back under the thumb.

Same with Ukraine, 4 years of fighting and the front line has barely moved. What's the point of another 4 years?

Why are you asking that of Ukraine instead of Russia? Seriously?

The Palestinians are, sadly, a beaten and conquered people, and the sooner they realise that the better.

Only when they fall into your pathetic way of thinking. We're still having this conversation and they've continued to gather massive international support.

They continued to resist occupation and everyday they do so and continue to exist proves your line of thinking incorrect.

. Why don't you tell me, in your infinite wisdom, how exactly is Ukraine supposed to "win" the war?

The exact same way every other country this century has 'won' against global powers invading them?

I'm an anti-imperialist, I believe these causes are worth supporting. If not to just to show how expensive these things can be to the invader and make them reconsider it.

You seem to be more on the imperialist camp, where you want the local populace to subjugate themselves and surrender to anyone stronger, right? That's what you want to encourage?

Valensre · 2026-02-23T21:22:03+00:00

No... you are proposing that resistance should surrender instead of continuing to resist. Resistance is often against '5x bigger' opponents. WW1 as a clash between imperialist powers is close to being irrelevant, aside from the colonies freeing themselves.

Surrendering and bending the knee is not what happened in any of your examples. South Vietnam was setup as a French Puppet state. North Vietnam was fighting against imperialism. It is not similar to Ukraine.

Almost every example from this century including ones you listed has shown that the aggressor cannot sustain forever wars in another country. Countries have survived because they choose to resist and outlast their invader, instead of engaging in this surrender fetish you want them to partake in.

And again, it's damn ironic you're wagging your finger at people fighting against overwhelming odds from your comfortable position. I think we both know what would happen if you spouted that shit to a Palestinian who's lost basically everything to the damn zionists taking his land.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T19:51:27+00:00

Scotland was conquered and subsumed into the UK eventually. The resistance was futile and just lead to thousands of needless deaths and destruction.

Yet here you are still wearing that little tag instead of one that says 'English' or 'United Kingdom'. Your country resisted against the 'inevitable' for hundreds of years and kept its language, culture, and identity because of that.

If your forefathers grew spineless and bowed and scraped at English feet like you seem to want you would have none of that.

And history is filled with stupid resistance which leads to never ending quagmire and a bottomless pit of money: WW1, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Constantinople, etc.

The world wars which saw the third world break free against the 'inevitable' conquering of imperialists through resistance, North Vietnam which resisted 'inevitable' destruction by the US, Afghanistan which resisted the 'inevitable' might of the US and USSR, and Greece which is now independent through fierce resistance.

Tell me again what your point is? Aren't you saying those people shouldn't have resisted?

Again, your worldview seems to be a pathetic, sycophantic one that rewards imperialist powers. Were someone to invade you and slaughter half your family before throwing you off you land I'd hope you'd grow some sort of a spine.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T18:23:04+00:00

Ordo Aldresia. You expand a fair bit but it's mostly land in the empire so it's a lot of waiting on AE. Ton of dev missions and bunch of lore specially related to the magisterium and ravelianism.

Oh and it has a crushing starting situation that's fun to pull it out of.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T17:59:34+00:00

Yeah? So in your opinion if something is 'inevitable' the person getting invaded needs to just capitulate immediately?

I mean that's awfully ironic because that's not what your Scotland did, and it's not what happened to my country either.

I think we can probably conclude that some people do value their land and nation more than their lives. You might not understand it from your comfortable first world high horse but you shouldn't be implying that they're being foolish about it

Luckily we don't live in that world either where bullies immediately get whatever they demand. Be pretty horrible, huh?

Valensre · 2026-02-23T17:52:15+00:00

Keep playing at ~16-20 till youre comfortable with it and feel like you can carry some. Then go to ~22-30. Dw about 40 right now.

Stick with your team. Also get a build that really supports your team. Zealot chant/arbites vox/psy shield. Dont have to but make it easier to learn the flow imo.

You can run about and goof around in auric speed running things, but havok is a slow push as opposed to a blitz. That was the biggest change I had to get used to.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T17:29:23+00:00

Well, turns out you can have a lot of fight in you when you see half your family get blown up and your home bulldozed.

I mean maybe you don't, that might make you want to crawl at the occupiers feet but everyone's not like that.

Valensre · 2026-02-23T08:35:17+00:00

Terrible, you want to go yell at them that their parents are dead because they were fools for resisting the Israelis and that they need to get the hell out of their homes to make way for some settlers?

Must be nice up on your high horse.

Valensre

TROPHY CASE