Anyone run the Pathfinder Kingmaker series?

[Hallack]

I've been looking at and reviewing the Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path and it looks pretty intriguing.

I'd love to play in it I think and that is what first drew me to look at it but it also looks like it could be real fun to run.

Have any of you run or played in this module series and if so what are your opinions?

Yes, I have been reading other sites and forums seeing discussions there.

[Slaughterhouserock]

I'm currently playing it and am only a short way into the second book.  The first book was fun, but the city building has been a bit of an annoyance(mainly due to the rules design).  Apparently your supposed to spend a year building your kingdom before moving on to adventuring again, but our DM said fuck that and is just having us do it every other game session(usually from thirty minutes to an hour).

Some advice if you do run it.  Take the hex map and just cut and paste the hexes onto the blank sheet when the players explore a hex.  Unless you've got people who're really into drawing it out, this will save time and frustration.  I know it's made the game a hell of a lot easier on us to have a decent map to look at after exploring all over.

[Cain314]

The city building rules suck, you can't beat the checks unless you focus on magic items. Its just a good beta, most likely they will work on it some more, than re print it. Any specific questions just ask.

[Slaughterhouserock]

The city building rules suck, you can't beat the checks unless you focus on magic items. Its just a good beta, most likely they will work on it some more, than re print it. Any specific questions just ask.

My group's only ever failed one check and we're three books in.  I still agree, though, that the city building rules do suck.

[Sunic_Flames]

Well, it's a Pathfailure module. Take everything that means and add to it that this particular module is heavy on the fiat, which is license for bad DMs to fuck you over, and unskilled DMs to do all kinds of random stuff. Then consider that because it's a Pathfailure module, bad/unskilled DMs are a huge majority.

Things like randomly encountering Trolls at level 1 for example. Plenty of herp derp to be had there.

[Kajhera]

Well, it's a Pathfailure module. Take everything that means and add to it that this particular module is heavy on the fiat, which is license for bad DMs to fuck you over, and unskilled DMs to do all kinds of random stuff. Then consider that because it's a Pathfailure module, bad/unskilled DMs are a huge majority.

Things like randomly encountering Trolls at level 1 for example. Plenty of herp derp to be had there.

I had my party encounter trolls at level ... probably first.

The troll was asleep at the time, and rather soundly.

It wasn't a TPK entirely...one or two escaped...

[Cain314]

I have a good group, and a good dm. No issues with the adventure part of the mod.

[Whisper]

fiat, which is license for bad DMs to fuck you over, and unskilled DMs to do all kinds of random stuff.

That's kind of a strange sentiment.

Fiat is what differentiates RPGs with a human GM from video games. To try to eliminate fiat is to turn games from a sandbox with infinite possibilities into a dull decision tree which "eliminates" bad GMing by reducing every GM, good or bad, to an automaton.

Games or systems without a healthy amount emphasis on fiat end up playing a little bit like a tabletop version of World of Warcraft, only less fun (if the notion of something "less fun than World of Warcraft" doesn't make brain implode from sheer cognitive dissonance). Think fourth edition D&D, or something equally inane.

There is no in-game defense against an incompetent or malicious GM. It's a social problem that has to be dealt with outside the game.

While it is certainly true that a healthy amount of suggestions and structure can help a GM perform better, the notion that fiat is somehow ipso facto bad is a bizarre one indeed.

[veekie]

I'm thinking theres a difference between fiat and guided fiat, the latter being fiat within certain guidelines an expectations. Finding something that COULD fit in a scene but which wasn't built into it originally for example, is guided fiat, something which is within the expectations of the game. You need fiat like this to deal with practically any puzzle scenario, as player thinking will not too often match DM thinking close enough.
On the other hand you have fiat that falls outside reasonable expectation of the game, to the extent that character decisions and abilities don't matter, because things will happen regardless.

[Sunic_Flames]

fiat, which is license for bad DMs to fuck you over, and unskilled DMs to do all kinds of random stuff.

That's kind of a strange sentiment.

Fiat is what differentiates RPGs with a human GM from video games. To try to eliminate fiat is to turn games from a sandbox with infinite possibilities into a dull decision tree which "eliminates" bad GMing by reducing every GM, good or bad, to an automaton.

Games or systems without a healthy amount emphasis on fiat end up playing a little bit like a tabletop version of World of Warcraft, only less fun (if the notion of something "less fun than World of Warcraft" doesn't make brain implode from sheer cognitive dissonance). Think fourth edition D&D, or something equally inane.

There is no in-game defense against an incompetent or malicious GM. It's a social problem that has to be dealt with outside the game.

While it is certainly true that a healthy amount of suggestions and structure can help a GM perform better, the notion that fiat is somehow ipso facto bad is a bizarre one indeed.

No, no it's not.

This is a Pathfailure module. It is designed so that you can only succeed if the DM allows you to succeed and likes what you are doing. Since Paizils are, by definition mouth breathing fuckwits of the highest order, this means they only like what you are doing if you are doing exactly what they want you to do. Which means the fiat, and not the lack thereof works in the precise manner you describe. A bad video game.

[Cain314]

Kingmaker is based on a hex map were you can movie anywhere you want, yes are dm said gutter south you go harder the encounters, but that was all. The adventure mod is very open, I don't have any problems with it. Only part I don't like is the kingdom builders rules.

[Whisper]

fiat, which is license for bad DMs to fuck you over, and unskilled DMs to do all kinds of random stuff.

That's kind of a strange sentiment.

Fiat is what differentiates RPGs with a human GM from video games. To try to eliminate fiat is to turn games from a sandbox with infinite possibilities into a dull decision tree which "eliminates" bad GMing by reducing every GM, good or bad, to an automaton.

Games or systems without a healthy amount emphasis on fiat end up playing a little bit like a tabletop version of World of Warcraft, only less fun (if the notion of something "less fun than World of Warcraft" doesn't make brain implode from sheer cognitive dissonance). Think fourth edition D&D, or something equally inane.

There is no in-game defense against an incompetent or malicious GM. It's a social problem that has to be dealt with outside the game.

While it is certainly true that a healthy amount of suggestions and structure can help a GM perform better, the notion that fiat is somehow ipso facto bad is a bizarre one indeed.

No, no it's not.

This is a Pathfailure module. It is designed so that you can only succeed if the DM allows you to succeed and likes what you are doing.

GMing is, in essence, a cooperative task. It isn't a GM's job to like or dislike what you're doing, and any GM worth his salt knows this.

The measure of a good prepackaged adventure is whether it gives the GM a good structure to help him balance his fiat rulings, not whether it somehow controls him to prevent him from using fiat. It's just a piece of paper, and cannot make him do anything.

Since Paizils are, by definition

You use that phrase a lot. I do not think it means what you think it means.

mouth breathing fuckwits of the highest order, this means they only like what you are doing if you are doing exactly what they want you to do. Which means the fiat, and not the lack thereof works in the precise manner you describe. A bad video game.

I'm sorry, I guess I assumed you would know something about how video games are put together.

Video games run on computers. Computers contain IC chips that can follow instructions very precisely and quickly, but are not as complex as the human brain, and aren't capable of making complex judgments based upon the weighing of competing factors. Thus, video games must be scripted in every detail, as they are very bad at producing acceptable emergent behaviour.

Your complaint appears to be that if (or when, since you appear to regard this as inevitable) you must deal with a GM who is incapable of more sophisticated judgment than a script, there is no script for him to follow.

But one cannot fix a bad GM with a script, whether good, bad, or indifferent. A GM is hardware. A script is software. That's not a metaphor, it is the literal truth. A piece of software, however well written, cannot increase the processing capacity of hardware.

In other words, a well-written prepackaged adventure does not, cannot improve a poor GM. What you do about a poor GM is teach him to do better with feedback, or, if that doesn't work, find another.

Characterizing fiat as a bad thing is counterproductive, because it's not the problem. Bad GMing is. Eliminating fiat just cripples good GMs while failing to repair bad ones.

[Cain314]

Sunic_flames what kind of adventure path do you like?

[veekie]

Eliminating fiat just cripples good GMs while failing to repair bad ones.

So it's just like nerfing everyone down to Tier 4!

[Whisper]

Eliminating fiat just cripples good GMs while failing to repair bad ones.

So it's just like nerfing everyone down to Tier 4!

Not quite.

It's like nerfing everyone down to Tier 17. And then locking them in an office building full of cubicles, and corporate "morale-boosting" posters, where everything is painted beige. Then they wander through these beige cubicles, and in each one, a bored automaton reads aloud a multiple-choice question, listens to their answer, and directs them to another cubicle.

And they try to comfort themselves with the notion that at least that automaton is fair. At least it will not capriciously favor one soul damned to this Kafkaesque nightmare over another. At least it has no dangerous original ideas, or capricious discretion with which it might make a mistake, or disappoint you.

[Sunic_Flames]

Sunic_flames what kind of adventure path do you like?

The kind you make yourself. Even the good published modules (assuming such a thing even exists) aren't usable as written. And since the whole and only reason to buy a published module is because you cannot, or will not come up with an adventure yourself...

There are however different gradations of bad modules. Anything made by Paizo is heavy on the fail. Things like RHoD are comparatively light on it, but still full of fail.

fiat, which is license for bad DMs to fuck you over, and unskilled DMs to do all kinds of random stuff.

That's kind of a strange sentiment.

Fiat is what differentiates RPGs with a human GM from video games. To try to eliminate fiat is to turn games from a sandbox with infinite possibilities into a dull decision tree which "eliminates" bad GMing by reducing every GM, good or bad, to an automaton.

Games or systems without a healthy amount emphasis on fiat end up playing a little bit like a tabletop version of World of Warcraft, only less fun (if the notion of something "less fun than World of Warcraft" doesn't make brain implode from sheer cognitive dissonance). Think fourth edition D&D, or something equally inane.

There is no in-game defense against an incompetent or malicious GM. It's a social problem that has to be dealt with outside the game.

While it is certainly true that a healthy amount of suggestions and structure can help a GM perform better, the notion that fiat is somehow ipso facto bad is a bizarre one indeed.

No, no it's not.

This is a Pathfailure module. It is designed so that you can only succeed if the DM allows you to succeed and likes what you are doing.

GMing is, in essence, a cooperative task. It isn't a GM's job to like or dislike what you're doing, and any GM worth his salt knows this.

The measure of a good prepackaged adventure is whether it gives the GM a good structure to help him balance his fiat rulings, not whether it somehow controls him to prevent him from using fiat. It's just a piece of paper, and cannot make him do anything.

We are discussing Paizils. They are, by definition not worth their salt, or their weight in hot air, or anything really. More than that though the point is that it does not do that. It in fact encourages him to just make up whatever. And given their target audience, that is a walking disaster, but even if you assume a competent DM who for some reason is using Paizo products there still remains the fact it completely fails to illustrate the victory conditions in a clearly defined way. As such it is designed so that you can only succeed if the DM allows you to succeed and likes what you are doing. Granted, the Paizils would ignore any rules that did exist. It's what they do. But if they at least tried, the designers would not be to blame for this.

I'm sorry, I guess I assumed you would know something about how video games are put together.

Video games run on computers. Computers contain IC chips that can follow instructions very precisely and quickly, but are not as complex as the human brain, and aren't capable of making complex judgments based upon the weighing of competing factors. Thus, video games must be scripted in every detail, as they are very bad at producing acceptable emergent behaviour.

Hi Welcome

In a bad video game, you can only do exactly what the designers want you to. Not only is the adventure itself a railroad, but your available means to defeat encounters also is, either because there really aren't that many ways to deal with things or because all of them suck but one.

Now let's bring this back to what I said.

...this means they only like what you are doing if you are doing exactly what they want you to do. Which means the fiat, and not the lack thereof works in the precise manner you describe. A bad video game.

So the basis of whether or not you succeed? Based solely on if the DM likes it or not. Just like a bad video game. Which means I am exactly right. If it actually told you things, that'd be different. But it doesn't. It doesn't matter if the DM can, or cannot make up victory conditions on his own. The fact Paizil DMs cannot is just a side effect. It does matter that if the DM wanted to just make stuff up, he could have saved 30 dollars and just did that.

[Whisper]

We are discussing Paizils.

You might be. I was discussing fiat.

Quite frankly, your obsession with "Paizils" is getting a bit tedious.

there still remains the fact it completely fails to illustrate the victory conditions in a clearly defined way. As such it is designed so that you can only succeed if the DM allows you to succeed and likes what you are doing.

Puzzling.

Listening to what you wish to do, assigning a probability of success, and determining a result is what GMs are for.

Relegating this role to the writer doesn't make it go away. It just moves it thousands of miles away, to someone who isn't sitting at the table, and must work through scripts. He may be better or worse at it, but he is also working at a considerable handicap, since his feedback loop is either broken or, at best, very large indeed.

I'm sorry, I guess I assumed you would know something about how video games are put together.

Video games run on computers. Computers contain IC chips that can follow instructions very precisely and quickly, but are not as complex as the human brain, and aren't capable of making complex judgments based upon the weighing of competing factors. Thus, video games must be scripted in every detail, as they are very bad at producing acceptable emergent behaviour.

Hi Welcome

In a bad video game, you can only do exactly what the designers want you to.

You failed to understand what I was trying to teach.

In all video games, you can only do what the designers and engineers anticipated you might try to do. Every action you have available to you must have code written to support it. The measure of how flexible a video game appears is how well it hides this fact, both by presenting lots of options, and by allowing those actions to be combined in novel ways.

What you are mistaking for a characteristic of bad video games is a characteristic of all video games. But good video games have successfully hidden this fact from you. Now, a good flowchart-heavy pre-packaged adventure might be able to fool you in the same way, although it's less likely because a flowchart is a hell of a lot less sophisticated than 500,000 lines of C++ and 50,000 lines of UnrealScript.

But a live GM doesn't have to fool you in this way, because he has a capability that no other system, not a script or flowchart, nor game designer of any stripe, nor a video game, has. This is the capability to design a response to an action after that action has been declared by the player. 

A video game or script might give you a few options, or many. But only a GM can respond intelligently to anything you might declare you wish to try.

Naturally, this requires skill. And some do not possess it. But you seem to be advocating the substitution of a tool for that skill, because you focus on those who don't have the skill. But a tool does not, can not ever, possess that skill. So you haven't fixed the problem.

The solution to bad GMing is good GMing, not the removal of GMs from the equation.

[Sunic_Flames]

Reading comprehension is your friend. It's not one you've made yet though, but you should.

[veekie]

What you are mistaking for a characteristic of bad video games is a characteristic of all video games. But good video games have successfully hidden this fact from you. Now, a good flowchart-heavy pre-packaged adventure might be able to fool you in the same way, although it's less likely because a flowchart is a hell of a lot less sophisticated than 500,000 lines of C++ and 50,000 lines of UnrealScript.

But a live GM doesn't have to fool you in this way, because he has a capability that no other system, not a script or flowchart, nor game designer of any stripe, nor a video game, has. This is the capability to design a response to an action after that action has been declared by the player. 

A video game or script might give you a few options, or many. But only a GM can respond intelligently to anything you might declare you wish to try.

Naturally, this requires skill. And some do not possess it. But you seem to be advocating the substitution of a tool for that skill, because you focus on those who don't have the skill. But a tool does not, can not ever, possess that skill. So you haven't fixed the problem.

The solution to bad GMing is good GMing, not the removal of GMs from the equation.

The DM also has a massive advantage here, he only needs to be able to foresee the rough general direction his players will take. In fact, from actual GMing experience, any 'closed' system adventure path is going to need players to follow along what the expectations are(a difficult proposition, given that the best players are lots of fun at finding lateral solutions), while a more 'setting-like' adventure path will have greater success, but require much more DM adaptability.

[Whisper]

What you are mistaking for a characteristic of bad video games is a characteristic of all video games. But good video games have successfully hidden this fact from you. Now, a good flowchart-heavy pre-packaged adventure might be able to fool you in the same way, although it's less likely because a flowchart is a hell of a lot less sophisticated than 500,000 lines of C++ and 50,000 lines of UnrealScript.

But a live GM doesn't have to fool you in this way, because he has a capability that no other system, not a script or flowchart, nor game designer of any stripe, nor a video game, has. This is the capability to design a response to an action after that action has been declared by the player. 

A video game or script might give you a few options, or many. But only a GM can respond intelligently to anything you might declare you wish to try.

Naturally, this requires skill. And some do not possess it. But you seem to be advocating the substitution of a tool for that skill, because you focus on those who don't have the skill. But a tool does not, can not ever, possess that skill. So you haven't fixed the problem.

The solution to bad GMing is good GMing, not the removal of GMs from the equation.

The DM also has a massive advantage here, he only needs to be able to foresee the rough general direction his players will take. In fact, from actual GMing experience, any 'closed' system adventure path is going to need players to follow along what the expectations are(a difficult proposition, given that the best players are lots of fun at finding lateral solutions), while a more 'setting-like' adventure path will have greater success, but require much more DM adaptability.

Ah! Wonderful! You get it. I was concerned that the whooshing noise of the point passing over Sunic's head would be the last sound of this conversation.

That's exactly what I was trying to express. There is always a GM. It's either the GM... or it's the script writer, who programs the GM like a computer.

But the GM-on-the-spot has a massive advantage. He is in an interactive feedback loop with the players. A script writer is not. He may be oh-so-clever, but he can neither see nor hear the players. The trick to writing a good scenario is to give up on bad GMs right out of the gate, and concentrate on providing helpful suggestions, and reducing the workload, for good GMs.

After all, the usual reason good GMs might use a pre-packaged adventure is time and workload. (Not every gamer is a basement dweller with copious free time.)

D&D is especially prone to prepackaged adventures precisely because building effective challenges requires great knowledge of a random assortment of trivia, and a great deal of building challenges out of it. If I had a better opinion of RPG writers' intelligence, I would surmise that they had made the rules a mess on purpose so that they could sell more stuff... but they are too dimwitted to be that sly.

Regardless, in GURPS or Fantasy HERO, building an appropriately challenging fight takes five minutes, tops... leaving GMs plenty of time to build plots, puzzles, settings, interesting personalities for major NPCs, etc. This makes practitioners of these games more prone to building their own stuff.

While I certainly agree that dumping an inexperienced GM in a formless void of vague suggestions is not the best way to teach good skills, training wheels must eventually be discarded if one is to become skilled. Scripts and contingency trees are only crutches that are at best a prop for the inexperienced, and at worst a burden to the agile.