AP #31, the first of the Kingmaker AP got an Ennie nod. I remember reading James's intro to it when I first got my copy. James was worried about how it would take off and be received by the players, fans and casual onlookers.
Well, I'd say that this puts that worry to rest in a lot of different ways.
Creative Director
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AP #31, the first of the Kingmaker AP got an Ennie nod. I remember reading James's intro to it when I first got my copy. James was worried about how it would take off and be received by the players, fans and casual onlookers.
Well, I'd say that this puts that worry to rest in a lot of different ways.
"Stolen Land's" nomination is very gratifying. Kingmaker was a pretty huge risk, but not one that was made as a shot in the dark. I was pretty sure that folks would react well to things like hexes and city building and being kings for a lot of reasons—the popularity of George Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" stories, nostalgia for the old days, feedback on boards, the "sandbox vs. railroad" debate, and so on. I wasn't sure that those concerns necessarily translated into the same group of people who buy Pathfinder Adventure Paths, though... I thought maybe it did, and it looks like I was right. Which is a load off my shoulders (which is good because there's a lot more loads waiting in line to hop on!).
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I take 40-50% of the credit for b~!@!ing so much about sandbox campaigns. The high quality writing, art, layout, editting, etc. are entirely incidental.
Hmmm...that's pretty modest, now that I think about it...
Just put my avatar on volume 6 of Kingmaker, and we'll call it even.
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Creative Director
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I take 40-50% of the credit for b~&~#ing so much about sandbox campaigns. The high quality writing, art, layout, editting, etc. are entirely incidental.
Hmmm...that's pretty modest, now that I think about it...
Just put my avatar on volume 6 of Kingmaker, and we'll call it even.
Alas, Kingmaker #6 has been at the printer for a couple months already and is about to go out to stores. Way too late to put your avatar on it, alas... unless we recall the print run and redo it. Which might be worth the trouble, just to stay on Sebastian's good side! :-P
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Alas, Kingmaker #6 has been at the printer for a couple months already and is about to go out to stores. Way too late to put your avatar on it, alas... unless we recall the print run and redo it. Which might be worth the trouble, just to stay on Sebastian's good side! :-PI take 40-50% of the credit for b~&~#ing so much about sandbox campaigns. The high quality writing, art, layout, editting, etc. are entirely incidental.
Hmmm...that's pretty modest, now that I think about it...
Just put my avatar on volume 6 of Kingmaker, and we'll call it even.
Huzzah!
"Stolen Land's" nomination is very gratifying. Kingmaker was a pretty huge risk, but not one that was made as a shot in the dark.
I'm awesomely psyched and happy that this is happening and that the reward here was worth the risk. Kingmaker is so far my favorite AP and one I looked forward to for a long time.
Kingmaker is so far my favorite AP and one I looked forward to for a long time.
Same for me here. I hope this isn't the last of sandbox style APs, but only the beginning.
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Creative Director
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Kingmaker is so far my favorite AP and one I looked forward to for a long time.Same for me here. I hope this isn't the last of sandbox style APs, but only the beginning.
Serpent's Skull part 1 and part 3 are VERY sandboxy. Part 3, "City of Seven Spears," in fact, may be the most sandboxy adventure we've ever done.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Serpent's Skull part 1 and part 3 are VERY sandboxy. Part 3, "City of Seven Spears," in fact, may be the most sandboxy adventure we've ever done.Kingmaker is so far my favorite AP and one I looked forward to for a long time.Same for me here. I hope this isn't the last of sandbox style APs, but only the beginning.
What's the status for the covers of those...
Serpent's Skull part 1 and part 3 are VERY sandboxy. Part 3, "City of Seven Spears," in fact, may be the most sandboxy adventure we've ever done.
Same for me here. I hope this isn't the last of sandbox style APs, but only the beginning.
:)
I'm also a big fan of Kingmaker and especially the sandboxy nature, and the new kingdom and mass combat rules. My gaming group also seems to enjoy it (we are half through Stolen Lands).
I will definitely vote for it on the Ennies.
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Creative Director
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What's the status for the covers of those...Serpent's Skull part 1 and part 3 are VERY sandboxy. Part 3, "City of Seven Spears," in fact, may be the most sandboxy adventure we've ever done.Kingmaker is so far my favorite AP and one I looked forward to for a long time.Same for me here. I hope this isn't the last of sandbox style APs, but only the beginning.
The status is "Not ready for public viewing."
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I do think on the whole Sandbox vs. Metaplot debate that it is easy to go too far with the sandbox element in an AP, imo.
There still needs to be a compelling story and good characters. I personally feel that the sandbox elements of Kingmaker were taken a *little* too far, and the story was downgraded a *little* too much. Characters and plot seeds that were introduced in earilier volumes were not picked up on later volumes as initially intended. GM's can compensate for this in their own campaigns, sure, but my sense is that the intended design balance between sandbox and metaplot that was initially intended when the overall Kingmaker outline was conceived of was altered in favour of "more sandbox" as execution of that outline over the course of the series progressed.
And I'm not sure (yet) whether that's a good thing, overall. Jury's out.
I approve of the concept, I just think that getting that balance "right" is a challenge - and I'm not sure that the balance in Kingmaker's middle stanza is where it ought to be.
Still playing through it so personal experience may prove different than theoretical (and deliberately hazy) observations from afar.
I do think on the whole Sandbox vs. Metaplot debate that it is easy to go too far with the sandbox element in an AP, imo.
There are multiple different ways of doing sandbox too. For example, I think one of the weaknesses of Kingmaker is the relatively atomic nature of the various elements. #31 was pretty good (mites&kobolds and Olegs&banditcamps were nice groupings) but then #32 just felt like a collection of things that had nothing to do with each other. Sometimes there were thin strands holding things together, but it felt fragmented. They just seemed to sit there, and wait for the PCs to interact with them, and didn't really care if anything was happening outside of their little bubble (hex). Really, the most "tying" that occured was from the cartoony wanted posters inside the covers.
#33 was a pretty linear adventure, with then a collection of unrelated atomic bubbles lying around. More effort could have been made to tie these to each other, or have been influenced by the main plot.#34 is an interesting dichotomy. On one hand, you have the setup and backstory for it that's very well put together and integrated. But then once execution starts, Armag doesn't care if you go after Drelev and Drelev doesn't care if you go after the Boggards, and nobody seems to care if you won/lost Tatzlford, etc.
And then once you get to #35/36, it starts to become a somewhat more linear plot (I think so at least; I have yet to analyze how they'd play out).
I would like to see sandbox be more like a domino rally. Such that partaking of certain activities make it impossible to partake in others. Or that some changes have wide-spread effects. I'm sure this would drive some people nuts ("you mean I can't do/see everything because certain actions will close off content?!") but for me it's what really makes the world alive and organic, and makes me feel like I'm out changing it. So these changes would have to be visible, and not "behind the scenes." Albiet, if this is taken too far, it starts to feel more like videogame design than anything else, so there's an art to it.
So I hope there's more sandbox in the future. Lots of it. But I also hope that other types of sandbox are explored as well.
(and please don't take this post too negatively: I'm loving this AP and telling all my friends about it ;-) )
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Creative Director
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The thing with a Sandbox style campaign is that we not only don't make any presuppositions about where the PCs will go or what order they'll encounter things in, but we also don't hard-code many NPC interactions either. We present an NPC, give his personality and his goals and provide him tools... but how things go from there is 100% up to each GM and his/her group. That's why we don't have Armag having any pre-scripted reactions once the adventure begins—we only present things how they are in a sort of "snapshot" of frozen time when the adventure begins. How the PCs interact with it all sets things in motion.
It results in a game that's quite a bit more difficult to run, especially if the PCs are prone to doing REALLY unpredictable things. And I know that it's not everyone's favored method for presenting an AP... but it's a method we've been neglecting for too long. We'll get back to more linear/story-driven APs eventually. Serpent's Skull, for example. Or to an even GREATER extent, Carrion Crown.
To be honest it was the description of Kingmaker that got me back into P&P games after a three year hiatus.
Now I'm hooked worse than ever
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Remember to vote for Kingmaker for Best Adventure!
And don't forget to vote for Mark Green for 2011 ENnies Judge!
-Mark
My judge profile
I just want to reiterate what other posters have said: the combination of sandbox adventure and Paizo's great writing is phenomenal in Kingmaker! I really hope that more sandbox style adventures are in the works just to see what else you can do with this type of adventure - especially in other settings (I'm thinking an urban campaign, which you've already highlighted your writing chops in past more linear Paths). My old gaming group would have really enjoyed this AP.
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I do think on the whole Sandbox vs. Metaplot debate that it is easy to go too far with the sandbox element in an AP, imo.
There still needs to be a compelling story and good characters. I personally feel that the sandbox elements of Kingmaker were taken a *little* too far, and the story was downgraded a *little* too much. Characters and plot seeds that were introduced in earilier volumes were not picked up on later volumes as initially intended. GM's can compensate for this in their own campaigns, sure, but my sense is that the intended design balance between sandbox and metaplot that was initially intended when the overall Kingmaker outline was conceived of was altered in favour of "more sandbox" as execution of that outline over the course of the series progressed.
And I'm not sure (yet) whether that's a good thing, overall. Jury's out.
I approve of the concept, I just think that getting that balance "right" is a challenge - and I'm not sure that the balance in Kingmaker's middle stanza is where it ought to be.
Still playing through it so personal experience may prove different than theoretical (and deliberately hazy) observations from afar.
I have six players. Five of them are *loving* Kingmaker and the whole sandbox and kingdom building element. Then there's player #6......HATES, and I mean HATES, sandboxiness and thinks kingdom building is a waste of time. Loves final fantasy, disliked Oblivion and Morrowind.... Also hates character sheets and would be just happy writing 'the important stuff' down on an index card. I'm constantly being asked, 'where's the plot and what are we doing other than wandering in the wilderness?' for Kingmaker by this player and 'who's the main bad guy?' is another question i get alot too. But this is the player likes to play in games where they are given missions by some nobleman or wizard, they go do it, and return back to town for their reward and get their next 'mission'. So i guess it's six 'yay' votes and one 'meh' vote for Kingmaker in my group....not a bad statistic.
I have six players. Five of them are *loving* Kingmaker and the whole sandbox and kingdom building element. Then there's player #6......HATES, and I mean HATES, sandboxiness and thinks kingdom building is a waste of time. Loves final fantasy, disliked Oblivion and Morrowind.... Also hates character sheets and would be just happy writing 'the important stuff' down on an index card. I'm constantly being asked, 'where's the plot and what are we doing other than wandering in the wilderness?' for Kingmaker by this player and 'who's the main bad guy?' is another question i get alot too. But this is the player likes to play in games where they are given missions by some nobleman or wizard, they go do it, and return back to town for their reward and get their next 'mission'. So i guess it's six 'yay' votes...
I have noticed this sort of dichotomy (FF-type vs. MW-type) amongst gamers. Rarely do you find folks that -really- like them both. Side note, I think MW is the best sandbox example of a game I have ever played. Great example of the combination of a meta-story and serious sandbox elements.