Is Kingmaker's story too open?

[Dale McCoy Jr]

NSpicer wrote:

It all hinges on how you want to run your Kingmaker campaign.

This. I cut my gaming teeth on Exalted and our GM ran it like a sandbox. This campaign is probably the closest I've felt to "home" since I got back into D&D 3ish years ago. Its nice to play in a game again where the PCs are the real driving force behind what is going on.

But like James said before, this type of campaign is not for everyone.

[Evil Lincoln]

I think the notion that James mentioned, of having one "traditional" and one "experimental" AP per year is a Good Thing. Even subscribers who don't run KM can probably use it as an encounter bank for their other campaigns.

[Neil Spicer]

DMcCoy1693 wrote:

But like James said before, this type of campaign is not for everyone.

Absolutely. It's not even my preferred style of game and I wrote chapter four. :-)

However, if I ever run Kingmaker as a campaign, I already know how I would adapt it to be a little less sandbox-y and a little more story-driven to match my preferences. But that's why I say it's all about you running your version of a Kingmaker campaign however you want. And that's where the sandbox elements keep things very open-ended for you.

It's like a recipe with all these ingredients, many of which could probably stand on their own as a nice little bit to snack on. But, however you combine them and in what measure will determine how the overall dish comes out to suit your specific tastes. And, honestly, a fair amount of that is also determined by the players and the reactions of their PCs to what's presented to them in the course of the campaign. As long as a GM remains flexible, he or she can turn up the heat or put things on simmer for some of the sandbox elements until the time is right to bring them back up to a boil.

Okay. I'm done with the cooking analogy. But I think it's a fairly relevant comparison to draw for this style of gaming.

My two-cents,
--Neil

[roguerouge]

I'd argue that it's also about what the players want, to a far greater degree than in other paths.

In short, it comes across as us running our Kingmaker.

[Jason Nelson]

roguerouge wrote:

I'd argue that it's also about what the players want, to a far greater degree than in other paths.

In short, it comes across as us running our Kingmaker.

That's the phrase that pays.

The idea of this campaign is that the PCs are the ones writing the story of Kingmaker. THEY decide the path they take to glory, not the writers.

The events they happen to encounter, and the order they do them, will have a great deal to do with how they experience the "story" of the campaign. "Remember when our capital city got hit with the plague and we had to hunker down for months to keep all the people well. And remember that blizzard that hit, and all those worgs were attacking, and we chased em back into the forest and found their den and there was that barghest behind it all along. That guy SUCKED!"

*NONE* of that is scripted in the adventures, but *ALL* of it could happen depending on some random encounter rolls, some kingdom events, some flavor texting by the DM, and some creative approaches to problems by the players. The players in my group have already acquired at least one nemesis not in the official adventures, but he's every bit as big a deal to them as any of the "named villains" in the book. He won't even exist in other peoples' Kingmaker campaigns.

Sometimes you want to write a story so that you can see how players follow that storyline to its conclusion.

Sometimes you want to give creative people a tool without an instruction book and see what they do with it.

Yeah, Kingmaker has background plot elements that will bump up and smack the PCs from time to time, but ultimately the story of Kingmaker is whatever your players make it.

[Jason Nelson]

Stephan wrote:

NSpicer wrote:

I would counsel patience on the Kingmaker storyline. Like a great campaign, the early going doesn't always make the prime storyline readily apparent right away.

I´m a strong believer in the quality of Paizo products. :) And I´m very much looking forward to the coming chapters of Kingmaker. One thing´s for sure: I will GM this campaign, because I like the Sandbox style and I know that my players will love it. But I still think that "Stolen Lands" is a little underwhelming. Anyway, we´ll play it. Maybe I get a different verdict when it´s played. :)

@Jason: Thanks for the advice!

Happy to help. Amusingly, btw

Spoiler:

... the Stag Lord himself went down like an absolute punk. He got one bow attack in. I think he hit with one arrow. The druid's animal companion immediately moved over to him and successfully grappled him, and 3 rounds of failed CMB checks to escape the grapple later he was toast.

Hey, sometimes the PCs win. What are you gonna do? :)