Am I changing the story too much?

[Secane]

So in the current version of kingmaker I'm running, I made a lot of changes to help bring the story to life.
Most of these changes are fine and don't divert too much from the story, but I'm worried about an up coming change to the story that I'm planning.

The Planned Changes:

The War of the stories

Both the Kobolds and Mites tribes are changed to be unusual tribes of their respective races that love stories and tales. Accept they love them in different ways.

For the Kobolds, the role of the Kobolds shaman is given to the best "story-teller" among them. I changed them to be addicted to stories and whoever can present the best story among them, becomes their Shaman. They LOVE to CHANGE stories to make them more interesting and basically make up things as they go along.

The mites on the other hand, are presented as "stick to tradition" story tellers that refuse tell the stories in any different way other then how they were originally heard. (yes heard, they don't write stories down.)

So the whole "war" between the Kobolds and the Mites is going to be a change into an "ideological war". They are basically fighting because they disagree over how certain stories actually goes and how to tell such stories.

The party is to notice that the corpses of kobolds and mites they found actually died from exhaustion. They are basically trying to out shout each other to death over a story.

The ideal is for the party to try to resolve this peacefully, by getting them to agree to certain stories, kill off 1 side or take control of both tribes, by becoming the best story tellers around.

Currently, the mites have attacked the party once outside their lair and failed. When the party investigate the mite's lair they will find the mites with captured kobolds. The mites trying to "brainwash" the kobolds to see things their way.

On the Kobold's end, they could care less about the boring Mites and just wish that the Mites would be less boring and not so stuck up about what goes where in stories, as long as they are fun.

The Mites are presented as the aggressors here and the Kobolds as the ones who started it (The Kobolds keep pranking the Mites by changing the stories in the middle of a telling.)

Would this be too much changes? Am I pushing my players too far by possibility changing a series of combat encounters into RP ones?

[pennywit]

It's a neat idea. A few random thoughts:

1) Do the kobolds change reality by changing the stories? If fey are shaped by stories, then it makes sense that mites would not want those stories changed.

2) I would implement this only if storytelling and the theme of "stories" return in future installments.

3) BofDM has some great ideas re: stories in this thread

4) If you're going to challenge your players to be storytellers, you might want to adapt the Skill Challenge rules from D&D 4th edition to resolve the encounters.

[LoreKeeper]

I play in a fantastic pbp for Kingmaker run by DM Barcas here on these forums. It started in January 2011, so we've got quite some history. I've previously played in a real-life Kingmaker too that was very much "by the book".

I can tell you that DM Barcas is running his story very much off the railings. It takes broad inspiration from the AP, but really he's doing his own thing - and I'm loving it. You can look at the campaign info for the details, especially the timeline at the bottom gives a great idea of what has been happening.

To give an indication of how open-ended DM Barcas runs his campaign: not captured in the time line is how my character (Jemini, paladin) spent about half a year real time in her own independent sub-thread after dying to the Staglord (but taking him with her in the process). (The main thread continued as normal and the other characters did not know what Jemini was up to in that time.) In the afterlife she got to know some details about the Staglord that relate to the over-plot of Kingmaker (and are part of DM Barcas re-imagining of the AP); in this discovery Jemini decides that she cannot leave things as is and she follows the Staglord to Abaddon and drags him with her via the Styx to eventually reach Pharasma's realm and petition the goddess to allow *both* to return to life. Jemini barters her own afterlife in the process, linking her (lawful-good) soul with the (evil) soul of the Staglord to have the leverage for Pharasma to allow their mutual revival.

The former Staglord is now a PC played by one of the new recruits to the campaign.

[Secane]

@pennywit, Thanks for the ideals!

I never did thought of it that way... the ideal of adding an extra layer of complication with the mite's reality being affected by the kobold's story telling is a very interesting ideal!!!

And I do have a Paladin Judge in the party. This should help give the party more ideals.

I may just want to limit the story telling effect to these hexes or that such story effects only affect lower level and certain fae types. I want to avoid the party becoming overly concern or try to influence the nature of fae npcs with story.

To that end, I think I may just make it a first world effect that affects this particular tribe of mites.

@LoreKeeper, thanks! It look very interesting.

I'm going to dig through it for ideals.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

I think you're fine.

[Philip Knowsley]

Secane,
I think this is a brilliant idea! I wish I'd thought of it...
The only thing I'm not really 'down with' is the respective roles of
the Mites & Kobolds...
To be honest I see the Kobolds more as the lore/law keepers, & the
Mites as the 'fey' pranksters...
However...that being said, it really won't matter, so long as your
portrayal of it all is laid out to your PCs in a believable way.

[Orthos]

I can see it and understand it, as Mites are Fey creatures (and thus would be more prone to be affected by changes in such stories if Belief Shapes Reality as Pennywit mentioned) while Kobolds are Humanoids. But I could also easily believe it in the reverse, especially if the Mites are trying to use that Reality Warping belief-change to alter things in their favor somehow.

[Philip Knowsley]

Good points Orthos!

[pennywit]

What if you swap the roles as Philip suggested -- that the kobolds are lorekeepers who don't change stories ... and the mites are at war with them (a storytelling competition, even!) because the mites are actively trying to change their story?

What would they want out of this? Perhaps they want to change their story because they're afraid Nyrissa will enslave them. Perhaps they're trying to alter the story so fairies can more easily take over the Greenbelt ...

Or maybe it doesn't have to be Nyrissa at all. The 6-player conversion at one point refers to Grabbles as an ineffectual comic relief villain. Overall, that's how SL treats the mites -- as little more than comic relief. What if the mites are trying to become more?

[DM Barcas]

Kingmaker is extremely malleable. Make it what you want it to be and don't look back.

[Odraude]

No such thing as too much.

My Kingmaker took place on a tropical island and the Candlemere tower was actually a ruined ancient space elevator.

[pennywit]

DM Barcas wrote:

Kingmaker is extremely malleable. Make it what you want it to be and don't look back.

Indeed. I've already decided that if I run it again, it will be Kingmaker in the Old West.

[Secane]

Some more nice ideals here.

lol, I might go with an extra layer to the story, where the Kobolds love of story is due to reality warping by the mites in the first place... :P

Kingmaker is truly malleable.

My version of Kingmaker's background story:

My adventurers are actually handpicked agents working for the 10 Guilds of Ravnica (yes as in the Magic the Gathering plane of Ravnica.) Who are sent to Golarion via a 1-way portal to help the guilds maintain their control over the organization that they (the guilds) formed over 400 years ago to explore and catalog the world of Golarion.

10 guilds for 10 Decemvirate. And you wonder why the Pathfinder Society is so active in knowing everything there is to know.

The whole Kingmaker story is to help them set up a base for adventures in other parts of the world.
We are using the slow advancement system. It allows me to keep throwing stuff at the party, and every leveling up feels like an achievement.