Kingmaker AP by Paizo..

[Treebore]

I think I highly recommended this AP a number of months ago. Unfortunately I need to make a bit of a retraction. The AP starts off really full of awesome, but as you get towards the end for some reason Paizo becomes very heavily railroaded. I don't mean reasonable kind of things, I mean really bad. The worst being the wrap up to the whole story arc, where the PC's will pretty much HAVE to sell their souls to a demon to win the day.

So if you have been eyeballing this AP, or have even bought it, be aware you need to thoroughly read it over before you start running it, because there are some seriously bad RR tracks in this thing. The last of which will require some pretty major rewriting to turn it into the reasonably free form adventure that it should be.

I left a post over on their forums about how disappointed I am in this, and I am betting they will use the "there is only so much you can do in a written module" excuse, but seriously, if they were too stumped on how to do this better they shouldn't even have published it.

Yes, I am very, very disappointed with Paizo doing this. All the more because this starts off with so much awesome potential, and then they commit ugly seppuku to ruin it. Paizo knows how to do this much better. Unfortunately they pretty much completely failed on this one.

[Omote]

Thank you for your thoughts on this. I had considered getting Kingmaker because of how great it sounded and the early reviews. While I'm not a Pahtfinder player per se, I always want to like their APs, but ultimately do not. Granted, I've only read the first two APs, both of which which have lots of promise, but ultimately need some rewrites on my end to become less railroady for the types of games I run. Oh well. I had figured that Kingmaker would go this route, but I was waiting to hear others say so. *Frowny Face*

~O

[Treebore]

Yeah, I usually find their RR's easy to split up into multiple routes, but this one might take some serious rewriting on my part to fix. I need to think about it a bit more, I may see some easier ways to deal with it.

[GameOgre]

All of the Adventure Paths are railroads. I mean its Adventure PATH! Haha

The first few in the Kingmaker are fine and will work just fine with a tiny bit of reworking. I love all the adventure paths but then I could really get into a railroad adventure as long as I know that going in.


In all of them you follow there narrow path through the stories that just often don't work out. If you take them as each one its own adventure they can stil hold a lot of worth. Well other than they use Pathfinders Heavy arsed bulk rules of death. I started just C&C everything now. Running them with C&C just removed the crap and left with the buttery goodness.

[Treebore]

Well, most of it is not a real RR, Paizo does give you alternative ways to do things. The only part that really bugs me is the whole deal with the devil and selling your soul part. To avoid using that you have to do some major changing of things, and therefore major rewriting. I've been reading this from my PDF copies, so I am looking to see where I stuck my print copies, because I tend to miss things in PDF format, and not put things from separate sections together as well. So when I read the print version I am hoping to see things come together better.

But others are complaining about this AP, calling things a RR that I wouldn't, claiming you "have" to do things when you don't, but what really bugs me is if you don't want to do it Paizo's way, your left doing a lot of work to do it in a way you like. Like the Demon thing, if your good with it, great, but if you don't want to use it (like me), your left with a pretty significant hole you have to fill. One I think I am going to be able to fill pretty easily, but initially it is a really big turn off.

[TheMetal1]

Man, I liked the Paizo Kingmaker adventure path, of course I don't remember the ending now, so I'll have to go back and read it again.

But besides that, why does having the characters do one thing to complete the adventure a bad thing or make the AP bad? Why is railroading even a bad thing? If we take the Lord of the Rings as an Adventure Path, well, there isn't really an option other than destroying the ring in Mount Doom. I hear what your saying about other options and the work up involved for a Game Master, especially using the Pathfinder Rules Heavy stuff, so having another way of completing the objective would have been nice. I'm curious what bothers you about the whole demon thing. I'm not judging mind you, if you hate demons, think the ideas just plain stupid, or is against the style of heroic play, hey that's cool.

Plus I'd like to know what alternate ideas you've come up with so far, so I can use 'em!

[GameOgre]

Railroading is a bad thing if you expect freedom to do whatever you want. Just like Sandbox is a bad thing if you expect a nice tight story driven plot.

It's all about expectations!

Also often the railroad issue is that it requires characters to act out of character!

Lets say my character is some young tough street thief who's family was killed off by Demons who still chase me. I HATE Demons ect ect ect (Supernatural anyone) and the only way to finish the adventure path is to work with a Demon! guess who is NOT going to finish that adventure?

[finerion]

Thanks for the heads up about the ending. I've purchased the first 2 or 3 volumes, though I really haven't read much into them yet. I was really intrigued by the sandbox concept they were shooting for. Can't say I am surprised that it got very narrow focused in the end.

[Treebore]

Thanks for the heads up about the ending. I've purchased the first 2 or 3 volumes, though I really haven't read much into them yet. I was really intrigued by the sandbox concept they were shooting for. Can't say I am surprised that it got very narrow focused in the end.

Yeah, if you like where they went with this, you'll probably love it. If you don't you may end up doing so much of your own work you may end up regretting it. Definitely a lot of good stuff in these, so I don't want people thinking this sucks, but there are going to be potential problems, and the more you don't like, the bigger they become.

[finerion]

Yeah, if you like where they went with this, you'll probably love it. If you don't you may end up doing so much of your own work you may end up regretting it. Definitely a lot of good stuff in these, so I don't want people thinking this sucks, but there are going to be potential problems, and the more you don't like, the bigger they become.

I've been a big fan of the Paizo AP's from the very beginning. Unfortunately it seems that I am finding less and less use for them in preference to my own material. I do like the supplementary articles and fiction in each book, but at $20 a pop I better like the adventure as well.

[Joe]

[quote="GameOgre"]All of the Adventure Paths are railroads. I mean its Adventure PATH! Haha quote]

Treebore likes the quality of the publications and can find ways around the railroad...or path and more power to ya!

Don't be surprised it has been like that for as long as I remember them.

I'm not sure why gaming is so limited to a formulaic approach but it seems the norm these days.
Linear adventure paths...sandbox gaming...wth? We created these boxes and labels only to complain about them later.
Whatever happened to games of the imagination?
Just build a village, place some dungeons nearby, and allow the story to create itself.

I find myself looking to Keep on the Borderlands for adventure inspiration instead of any of these new shiny modules.

Any path implies it is desired to follow one path to one one destination. Sure you may have trun left or turn right options that end you up in alternate preconceived endings like the old endless quest books but as far as open destiny and fate of heroes I found the books restricting even as a 12 year old kid.

I game for the infinite possibilities it offers. I always resent when my infinity becomes infringed upon.

Sorry to hear it was not to your liking.

[Omote]

I find myself looking to Keep on the Borderlands for adventure inspiration instead of any of these new shiny modules.

Too true. Recently I found myself thinking along hte same lines, and decided my answers lay within the Keep on the Borderlands!.

~O