I am not familiar with the details or setting of Kingmaker.
My group has been plodding along in the Ashes campaign and I am frustrated with how little hook there is to get the group interested in 'going thru a portal'
The 3rd AP leaves very little reason for the party to investigate the dreamgate...my bias aside....>
We are considering starting a new campaign and a player suggested if i was going to do a more free form campaign to use the Kingmaker setting How different is this setting from the one currently established for Pathfinder 2E Lost omens?
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No reason I can think of for it not to be. You will need to do some conversion work on monsters not listed in the bestiary and probly funds a few checks here and there as 'flat checks' are new to 2nd ed etc. There is, if I understand correctly, a 2nd edition update do out in '21 some time but no idea when it might land.
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No reason I can think of for it not to be. You will need to do some conversion work on monsters not listed in the bestiary and probly funds a few checks here and there as 'flat checks' are new to 2nd ed etc. There is, if I understand correctly, a 2nd edition update do out in '21 some time but no idea when it might land.
Yup, it's the only pf1 adventure that's getting an official conversion.
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I usually have the occasional talk with one of my groups.
I'll tell them, look... you either want to play this AP or you don't. If you want total free-form, give me a few weeks to come up with plot hooks that could come into play at any time. And we'll sandbox it.
But if you want to play this AP, let's just frickin' play it, and stop giving me a hard time about making you go along with plot hooks.
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I'm running a Kingmaker game using PF2E, and have just about reached the half-way point. Conversion has been pretty straightforward - there's a lot of monsters already converted, and the GMG covers the rest. I started off being fussy about trying to convert loot 1:1, but got over that. Now I just use the expected loot by level and scatter it around where seems narratively appropriate (e.g. defeating a powerful spellcaster will give them items that a wizard might want, a dragon's horde will be full of gems and gold, etc).
If you do run KM, check out the specific forum on this site. There's some fantastic advice on how to run the game, and how to adapt and change it to overcome some of the weaknesses in the original. My campaign is also very influence by the cRPG, as I really like how they adjust the overarching villain's role.
If you have more specific questions, I'm happy to answer. You can also see the session log for my game here .
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I agree with Ched - adventure paths require a bit of buy-in from your players to work. Although Age of Ashes is a bit weaker in this than some other APs.
By definition, adventure paths are path-like, they're trying to go on a direction. If the players aren't interested in that direction at all, then the AP isn't a happy choice for your group.
If the players are interested, but their current characters aren't, then it's time for a shakeup, either of characters or the adventure path or both. This is a problem that sometimes happens; players get sold on the idea that in RPGs, you can make any cool character you can think of, and that the rules allow. Yes, and no.
If as a group you've decided you're going to run a particular campaign, then all of the players should make characters who are into that. If they can't or won't, you should return to consider if you're going to run the campaign that everyone really wants to play.
So when you're going to play an adventure path, you're buying into some basics: that there's gonna be a six (maybe three) book series of adventures all leading up to something big. There's going to be some overarching themes (portals, dragons, lots of fire).
There's the basic agreement that the GM is going to try to dangle reasonably appealing adventure hooks, but also that the players aren't going to play overly "hard to get" and bite on those hooks, going to far as to maybe contrive some reasons themselves. "Oh, that other PC wants to do it and we're friends so I'll come along" will do in a pinch.
If you can't get such a basic agreement, then no other "directional plot", "adventure path" style campaign is going to work very well either, it's not really Age of Ashes then.
That said, I think Age of Ashes is a bit weak precisely because (and I'm just speculating, I'm playing this in book three) every book you happen to find the key to gate X+1 on the rapidly cooling corpse of the BBEG of the adventure behind gate X. What an amazing coincidence. And behind every gate happens to be someone connected to the same metaplot, what another amazing coincidence.
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That said, if your players just don't like this quite linear mono-metaplot structure, you could run a different campaign. Going full sandbox exploration is an option. But just picking Kingmaker off the shelf isn't going to solve your problems. (Spoiler: Kingmaker also has a metaplot. You might be better off taking the exploration and kingdom building rules and ignoring most of the metaplot, if the players aren't into it. Just tell the story of the kingdom the players built.)
You still need to have that conversation with the players. Where you agree on what campaign you want to have as a group, and they commit to making characters that are into that.
What Ascalaphus said :)
On the GM side: I have been playing RPGs for a long time, and DnD/Pathfinder for the majority of that time, and I have found that it doesn't matter whether you create everything yourself, or you use pre-made materials. What matters is how you use the material you are using. You could take a module that has a reputation to be a railroad, and turn it into freeform, or vice versa.
On the player side: Ascalaphus said it quite well: "You still need to have that conversation with the players. Where you agree on what campaign you want to have as a group, and they commit to making characters that are into that."
That doesn't mean there cannot be an intricate multi-layered plot that integrates players into the campaign, but the foundational reason why they are an "adventurer" has to be a given. If the answer to events in the world is always, "I go rent a room at the inn, and drink a frothy beverage", then that probably won't work =) Unless the campaign is about leisure time.