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My party started Kingmaker in March of 2012; tonight we finally completed our Kingmaker adventure. The party slew Nyrissa (who went from OP to chump in the span on one Anti-Magic Field spell) and saved the Stolen Lands! The Kingdom of Anatoray is safe and free to flourish.
Did I enjoy this campaign path? Very much so. Although it's my first Pathfinder campaign, so only 4e to compare it to. (I could make a whole thread comparing the two systems, but that is another idea)
Was this the campaign path I wanted? ...Yes...but no.
There were two things that Kingmaker was selling me on in the players handbook. One, you get to BUILD A KINGDOM. Two, there's a civil war which happens, and it's going to be a BIG DEAL. As it turns out? The latter is a Red Herring and the former is a broken mini game that honestly started out cool but rapidly became unfun.
Here are my three major complaints about this campaign which I think Paizo should have done.
1) Nyrissa. I don't like her as a BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). She detracts from the 'Kingdomesque' setting, and she's entirely too passive a villain for my taste (though I recognize there was much foreshadowing of her through various 'agents' she cultivated to harass the PCs). I think she should've been removed entirely, and book 6 should've been replaced by the Brevic Civil war, with Surtova being set up as the BBEG. The party could've spent a lot more time going back and forth between Brevoy and their Kingdom, having to deal with the political games of the different houses, the issue of their Kingdom's fealty to Brevoy, and the Rostland independence movement.
I think that this Nyrissa plot would have worked MUCH better imo if the party were stuck exploring in the River Kingdoms, and having to deal with the various River Kingdom governments, the impending coming of Nyrissa, and trying to unite a lot of people who don't like each other to deal with her.
Over all. Kingmaker made me think I was going to get Game of Thrones, I didn't get that.
2) Lack of reoccurring characters. Personally, I dislike how Kingmaker treated its NPCs as throwaways who were only ever around for one book. The fact that characters never seemed to STAY relevant severely stymied my and my party's seeming interest in them. The only exceptions were those engineered specifically by our DM to be brought back. (Grigori for instance, became a great nemesis for the King to deal with) I think this case in particular highlights just how much the fun of this campaign depends on the effort put in by the GM.
3) Kingdom building is broken. As a minigame, it's entirely too easy to game and become ridiculous. Plus, the amount of tracking and dice rolling that goes into it sucks up far too much time except for only the most dedicated of micromanaging parties. Not to mention, the actual "mechanics" of the Kingdom matter very little in the course of the campaign, and I felt that the way we shaped our Kingdom did not dramatically affect how things were played (hence the Yes but no earlier). Overall, until Book 5 it felt like our Kingdom existed in a bubble, and only seemed to serve as a base of operations.
Personally, I think the Kingdom building needs to be made more relevant to the story (ie doing certain things unlocks quests or causes unforeseen issues, potentially with other Kingdoms). And that the whole Kingdom building process needs to be taken off the rails as much as possible, maybe one or two dice rolls once in awhile (I did like the Event generating mechanic). In this instance, I think Free Form roleplaying would have made the Kingdom building much more fun.
Granted, the Path did very well in what I think it set out to do, which was to create a wide open sandbox for the party to explore. The campaign offered a GREAT deal of freedom in terms of development, and I'm glad that our DM took as much advantage of it as possible.
There is also one other point I'd make. Vordaki is a Red Herring that I think needs to be deflated. I would prefer the Varnhold Vanishing to be, well...rewritten, so that the players and thrust into the center of a war between Humans and Centaurs, who have to deal with moral quandaries. Vordaki I feel could have been a good villain who could've perhaps united everyone against a larger threat, or perhaps drew the attention of Brevoy, or something. Overall I feel he's a character that's just nipped in the bud so early that he accomplishes nothing.
PS. Some of these mini quests are just insulting. Why are kings and lords still getting fetch quests after book 2?
PPS. Don't put cool powerful artifacts in the campaign with the implicit intention of trying to make them unusable by the party. I was tempted to make my character NE (he was the LN ruler of the Kingdom) just to use the Oculus. Seriously.
Personally, I think that some day if I can get a party together, I would like to GM this campaign path, but change/rewrite it into what I want it to be.
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My group is playing Kingmaker for 4 years now. We love it. I'm GMing and yes, it's a fantastic skeleton for a campaign. I think you need to know that going in you will need to do work. You will need to adapt to your players and make the villains your own.
Go see my profile for how I've done it.
It's super important to remember that in Kingmaker it's the first time the players can be completely proactive. Everything the PCs do is the story. The world reacts to them. It's important for the GM to remember to update the reactions.
Along the same lines as dudemeister's thoughts:
Don't be afraid to tie things together that weren't tied together. Build some names by having recurring villains. Play with what your group knows about the kingdom building rules and use it to your advantage. I once rolled a visiting celebrity event and feigned an improv Irovetti visit. He made friends with the PCs kingdom and even granted them an allotment of BP. (He surmised the BP would find its way back into his coffers one way or another) This made his betrayal even better.
As far as the fetch quests, I couldn't agree more. Throw more challenging/numerous encounters their way and ignore the quests. I haven't given my group a fetch quest since book three.
I agree with your sentiments regarding the Brevoy red herring. I would have loved for the campaign to take a trip up there. But that also serves to surprise the group for the ultimate BBEG. It's up to you as the GM to drop hints of her that make the PCs say "holy cow we shoulda seen that coming!" instead of "where the heck did this come from?" The thing is, how you drop those hints isn't really up to the writers because each group has its own level of 'storyline perception'. Some groups are great at ferreting out a plot and can ruin the fun for the GM, some groups are a bit more in the 'here and now'.
The kingdom building rules also have a tendency to slow things down. If your group doesn't seem to be interested in them past book two or three, just ignore them. The books have suggestions for doing just that. Again, it's up to the GM to gauge the interest of his/her group.
The DM from CommandoDude's campaign here. Thanks for the kind words! I had a blast running this for you guys. Just shy of 2 years (48 game sessions!) This was my first Pathfinder experience and while we all made some missteps/mistakes I think it turned out pretty good for our first Paizo outing. Looking forward to "Rise Of The Runelords" next.
Two things I would like to address about our campaign.
First, the Pathfinder rules. Most of the problems I had with the rules stem from the game differences in 3.5/4th design philosophy, or house rules based on misunderstandings of how things worked. So the problems are not with the rules per se but with my approach to them. In keeping with the Kingmaker theme, I allowed fairly open Leadership, crafting, magic item purchases, etc... This was absolutely not a problem from the player's perspective, as it allowed for great flexibly when shaping their characters. But from the DMs side of the table, tiny problem, as it was quite an arms race to keep up with you guys and provide a challenge for the party, still quite fun however and that is what is most important. But I don't think I will allow that level of freedom again, I plan to pay more attention to WBL and use the settlement rules to help guide what is available, also minimal crafting, and no leadership (unless it reeeeealy fits with the game, so no for RotRL). I think Pathfinder benefits from some heavier DM management and restrictions (that is what I mean by differences in 3.5/4th design philosophy – with 4th edition it seemed like DMs were encouraged to provide the widest breadth of options available to players (very player focused) as the system had a higher focus on balance to keep things in check. This balance is ultimately one of the things that led to my boredom with the system and eventual switch to Pathfinder. I don't want to get into edition discussions, but I mention it as it frames my state of mind when I began to run Pathfinder. Also these "problems" are not really problems if everyone is having fun. But now that we have "been there and done that", I look forward to seeing how round 2 (Runelords!!) turns out with a bit more DM input. Also misunderstanding how "command word" magic items work (speaking is a free action right?!?) ... .yea ... .standard actions from now on!! I found the pathfinder rules to be a blast, I look forward to running Pathfinder for many years to come.
Now Kingmaker (and I know I am starting to ramble, I will try and make it short). The revised kingdom building rules in ultimate campaign came too late for us, but I am not sure it would have made that much of a difference. I think from the start our expectations of the kingdom building rules were out of line. Part of this is our inexperience with Pathfinder in general (and knowing what I know now, I might have picked a different AP for "our first one"). But really I think it stems from our expectation of the Kingdom rules as a "game within a game". They don't really work that well for that. What they do quite well is act a story aid to further role-play situations. That was missed expectation one. Missed expectation number two is the story as presented in the framework for the AP. I agree with what my player stated above. But would also add that the player guide for Kingmaker being so focused around the civil war in Brevoy sets up, either a disconnect with what the AP is actually about or a TON of work from the DMs part to manufacture the civil war. Kingmaker is perfect for shoehorning in whatever the DM feels like, and as a sandbox it works very well. I did sandbox it around and add my own stuff (I especially like what I did with Candlemere), but one of the reason's I choose an AP over doing my own adventure is - time. We ran the story written in the AP with added sandbox stuff added by the DM. We didn't take the game completely off the rails, but part of that also was my appraisal of the group (how often were you guys proactive on your own ... or was there LOTS of DM coaxing?) Was Kingmaker the "Game of Thrones" story I hoped it would be? No. But the awesome thing is that the AP is written for the DM to make it what ever he/she wants. I chose to make it what was written. And while not "Game of Thrones" there were plenty of awesome moments. Ditto what you said about hexploration/side quests/NPCs. But I also think (except for side quests) that we did pretty good job modifying those things to our group and I tried to bring back all the relevant NPCs in the last book ... .but then again, being "relevant to the over-plot" is not the same as Svetlana worried about ettins attacking Fort Oleg. I hear you and will do better next time.
I gave a lot of thought when I picked our next campaign. Given the type of game you guys seem to like (50% combat, 25% roleplay, 25% CSI) I think that Runelords will be a good fit. Lots of room to move so as to not appear too "railroady" but linear enough that you guys wont get lost with "what should we do next?"
Criticisms aside, Paizo, thanks for two great years of gaming. My quibbles with Kingmaker's structure do not discount that it is a well written and fun adventure to play. And I would say, the best "campaign" I have ran to date. Thank you.
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Glad to hear you guys finished, it sounds epic even if there were a few let downs!
I agree with Dudemeister and BornofHate about the GM investment of time required. I find it interesting in my own local area to hear discussions of the Kingmaker AP. Half the folks seem to love it and half seem disappointed. The ones that seem to enjoy it the most had the games changed by the GMs to suit their group preferences or let the game go where the players took it, rather than the AP. Sounds like the successful parts of your game came from your doing just that.
As far as Game of Thrones, heres my take on that. GoT is about politics, power games, secrets, ruthless ambition, and lies. The rest is just dressing and tools. The real problem IMO is that DnD/Pathfinder magic items and spells completely break this model after about 9th-10th level, and it gets worse the higher you go. There are no secrets, hard to compete powerwise with a high level solid party, and when can summon up angels, djinn, and demons for info, scry, read minds, and raise dead till your hearts content, much of the gripping part of a GoT style tale is lost. I have a thread somewhere in this forum about my thoughts on how to fix some of this if you ever run the AP again.
I would really love to hear more about what you did with Candlemere, so if you don't mind sharing, please elaborate!
It was epic, and the letdowns were more nitpicks (for me). The campaign will be fondly remembered.
As to Candlemere...
Having just read RoTRLs I wanted to try and introduce very basic and vague references to the Thassilonian Empire. I also wanted Candlemere to be something dark, mysterious and otherworldly. Also my group had put off candlemere for a while so I actually had the opportunity to put some truly terrifying critters in the place. My basic idea was that there is a planar rift on the island that connects to someplace very evil (probably the abyss somewhere) it is not a full tear, but evil, fear, and general nastyness bleeds through. This is what attacts the wisps (they are basically feeding off it) as well some other nasties. Some nameless wizard (possibly a Runelord?) had found this far flung location and built a laboratory here to study the rift. This allowed me to introduce the idea of ancient Thassilon to my players. But with the Runelords long gone, and Thassilon now in ruins the rift was still active and attracting things. One the surface there were a few variant wisps (even some witchfires), as well as 2 Hounds of Tindalos. The self proclaimed ruler of the island was a Moon-Thing attracted to the rift.
The whole thing had a Cthulhu, very creepy, ancient ruin, powerful magic best left alone feel. Eventually the PCs found a way to close the rift, and the wisps dispersed (its own problem) and the party cleric built his own outpost on the island to keep an eye on things.
I have conflicting opinions on the kingdom-building. On the one hand, I think it's a great tool for book 2 (and maybe part of book 3), but by the time you get to book 4, will players really be interested in whether to build a smithy, dance hall, or alchemist's guild in Shrike Crossing?
This was definitely the case with my party. Everyone was interested in the mechanics for book 2 and we were all in on the steps the kingdom was taking (although I was clearly leading the effort) by the middle of book 3 I think, that stopped and basically I was running the kingdom building stuff myself inbetween games while giving people 'updates' about what happened.
Still though, everything was SO broken that the kingdom became so bogged down by 5th book I basically just 'quit' (our Kingdom got big enough that I was satisfied anyways)
Here is a map of the kingdom
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x135/CommandoDude/Anatoray.jpg~original
(Icons were stolen splash art I cut and paste, while the background map was taken from Paizo print outs, I applied roads, names, borders, terrain editing myself)
As you can see, it was pretty damned bustling. We had numerous 3+ district cities, I think our capitol was on 5. (I flat out just did not map out the city grids, too much work tbh)
One notion I'm toying with: By the time the kingdom gets to a goodly size, I'll switch to a "mayor model." Each town will have its mayor. Players interested in the nitty-gritty of town-building, will, in addition to their positions on the ruling council, be settlement mayors. PC mayors will continue to make decisions about their settlements. On the other hand, settlements without PC mayurs will have NPC mayors and I, the GM, shall keep track of what goes on in those settlements via a spreadsheet or HeroLab.
My goal would be to leave behind the nitty-gritty detail and let players make higher-level ruler-type decisions, like whether to ally with a neighboring kingdom, negotiating trade agreements, that kind of thing. I want the kingdom's stats (Unrest, Economy, etc.) to continue to matter, but I don't want to get bogged down in CivPathfinder.
Does anybody else think this approach will work?
Seems like a good idea, unfortunately in my party nobody seemed at ALL interested in participating remotely in the process past book 2.
We did something very similar. The PCs were heavily involved in the initial design of their first city - I drew out an area map with building plots and they chose locations for the buildings they wanted to build.
Over time we have moved part way to a "kingdom in the background" model. Every so often (about every six (in game) months I tell the PCs how much they have to spend - They tell me what sort of developments they want, and which areas of their kingdom they want developed.
For example one part of the last instruction was 'Build up and civil Silverstep with the rest of the money'. It got them a 'House of Ill Repute', a jeweller, a Smith and a bit more housing.
In our campaign, Silverstep finished up as a bit 'wild west' frontier town. Loads of casual miners, gem hunters and big fisherman :)
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I think that's a really good way to handle it, the Kingdom Building stuff is important in Book 2 and 3 when the Kingdom is relatively new and fragile so the PCs are invested. Once the Kingdom becomes self-stabilizing it's better to move it to the Background.
I'm working on a little thing called "Simple Kingdom", which reduces the Kingdom down to 6 stats that are used as sort of bonus skills the PCs can take advantage of like Espionage, Lore, Resources. That way the Kingdom still matters, the PCs can use their Kingdom to help on adventures slightly but it takes less time away from the adventure/role-playing stuff.