Karlgamer:
I am one of your players in this game. In fact, I am the one who sent you the email that you quoted.
First thing first. You are our friend, Karlgamer. We've known each other for years and played with each other for years. Our friendship is what's most important and I hate to see you angry or hurt. So, no matter what, let's make sure our friendship endures.
Secondly, I hope I can clear things up for you about your game and why we decided we didn't want to play in it anymore. I hope this isn't too rambling of an email.
After the three or four sessions we played, the game was becoming the same old thing over and over. "You go to the next hex. You encounter these creatures. They attack you." Because of the non-linear layout of the game, it was hard to feel that we were inside a story or a narrative. The game seemed like it was just a glorified board game to us.
We were hoping that another adventure path, one that followed a more linear storyline, would help you create the feeling that we were the heroes of an exciting fantasy tale, rather than just moving pieces around on a board.
Here's another bit of advice meant as constructive criticism and not as an attack. It was obvious you had done a ton of prep for this game. But you spent more time trying to get your laptop to work, trying to get the map up on the screen, and trying to get your spreadsheets to work, than paying attention to the actual game.
I know from experience that GMing is a learning experience. Different players like different things. I've run more than one game that my players didn't like and they quit. It never feels good.
But in our case, we all still want to play with you. And we all still would like you to run us in a game. We just feel that the Kingmaker adventure path does not play to your strengths as a GM just yet.
I suggested you run us in Second Darkness because I already own it and I didn't want you to have to spend money on a whole new adventure path. As a downside, I have read the first two books and know the general overall story of the rest, but I don't remember enough to know every detail. So, although, I would have to "play dumb" when we got to a part I remembered, I thought it would be helpful for you not to buy a whole new set of books. But if you'd like to buy a whole new set of books, then by all means go ahead.
Here is the bottomline. The reason that we quit. We tried to tell you what was bothering us about the game, but we feel you didn't listen. For example, when we went to go see John Carter together, I told you that everyone was not enjoying the game. You basically said that you didn't care and that you had put in a lot of work into the game and you wanted it to succeed. We got nowhere.
When I initially sent you the email quoted above, you said that if we didn't play in your Kingmaker game, you would find new players. You were basically telling us, "it's my way or the highway." We took the highway. But, we share some of the blame too. We should have tried harder to tell you what we wanted as well.
Why don't we do this? Why don't we get together in person. You can tell us what you would like to see from us players. We can tell you the things we enjoy when we play. We can work together to create enjoyable games in the future. All of us in this group love roleplaying games. All of us in the group enjoy each other's company. Let's put aside bad feelings, celebrate friendship and try to make this all better! And even if we can't save your game, let's make sure that we all still remain friends!
Your friend,
Pharmakon, aka Charles