That's an interesting point, which I think highlights a difference between tabletop and computer RPGs. For tabletop RPGs, it is normal for each player to control and develop 1 character. Any NPCs that join the party tend to be more temporary and at least partly controlled by the DM, in terms of when they join/leave and what their motivations are.

However, for CRPGs, it is common for the player to choose NPCs to join their party quite early on, which they then control and develop throughout most of the rest of the game. If the player is putting several dozen hours into developing those companions, I think there is a strong argument that those companions are effectively also player characters, rather than just being another NPC.

I don't know P:K treats companions - perhaps they are treated as being more 'temporary' or 'disposable' than in other CRPGs. Still, if the game is arbitrarily killing off companions late in the game, which the player has invested many hours in developing, that would seem pretty harsh. It's true that in Baldur's Gate 2 there is a well-known companion who turns against the party at one point and you have to kill them. So, it's not unprecedented; however, if i had started a 6-character custom party in BG1 and then BG2 killed off a couple of those once they reached level 16 for no good reason, I would be pretty pissed off.

Yeah, I think it depends on how it is done and having not played the game, I can't comment on that. i just see people like Darvin saying it is 'extremely obnoxious'. If characters die because of bad decisions made by the player, I agree that is fair enough, provided there is adequate warning and the game is giving the player the information they need to be able to make properly informed decisions. If a character is being somewhat arbitrarily killed off, which the player has invested time in developing, without giving a chance to save them, I would agree that is obnoxious.

I think it comes back to my comment about whether the game is giving the player the information they need to be able to make informed decisions. Based on things I've heard, it sounds like it might not be (at least in some cases).

As for spoilers ... right now I'm pretty much on the fence about whether I will try it anyway. So, if the game is doing some things that are rather controversial, I think I would rather have some indication of that in advance, so I can factor it in to whether I want to play it or not. I do like the way they are trying to 'break the mold' and do things differently to other games in the genre. It sounds like if you approach it with the right expectations and mindset, it could be a fun experience.

But, I am put off by the devs describing themselves as 'sadistic DMs'. It suggests they have an intention of trying to spite the player on purpose, which to me is not equivalent to 'fair punishment' for the player making bad decisions. I.e. there is a rather big difference between 'harsh but fair' and 'sadistic'.

See, this is where we are going into the territory that for me is absolutely subjective. I have not ever had the feeling even remotely close to what you're referring to; but again, those are just feelings.

So my suggestion would be to buy the game on sale and play. Or... not buy and play. I don't want to disrespect one of the best games I have played in 20 years by spoiling plot twists.

And speaking about "sadistic DM's" - it's about encounters, not about the whole plot. The learning curve of the game is steep. The difficulty levels do not comply with the "inflation of values" that is so prevalent in Western games. Hard difficulty is really hard. Unfair is almost unbeatable on the first run. Even Challenging will force a player to read, think, and probably do some arithmetic calculations in the range from 1 to 100.

Apparently, for modern Western gamers it is too much.

Yup; I am a gamemaster for a Pathfinder group, and the key requirement for my job is to make sure everyone is having fun. That doesn't mean you can't throw curveballs at the players, or have there be legitimate consequences for their actions, but if you want a long narrative campaign with a powerful payoff at the end you actually need that campaign to build up. Arbitrary and capricious deaths tend to do the exact opposite.

That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what made that old-school style work. Yes, that style of adventure had a very high mortality rate for players and deaths were normal. However much of the way the game was structured was meant to facilitate that style of play; character creation was expected to take only a minute, your backstory should be one to two sentences, and you weren't supposed to get emotionally invested in your characters until they'd actually survived to like 5th level, at which point you were encouraged to retire and roll up a new 1st level character. Having major story arcs for specific characters just wouldn't happen; when characters die frequently and have short adventuring careers, the over-arching narrative can't hinge on any specific character, and any story point that is specific to them needs to be small-scale. This original style of D&D inspired a game called "rogue", and it can be said that rogue-like games are a direct successor to the old-school D&D style.

Modern gaming's "no one left behind" mentality came to be as a necessity due to shift towards more narrative-focused adventures. If the story is going to revolve around the player characters such that they specifically are instrumental to the story arcs, then any death will at very minimum cause severe disruptions to that narrative. This isn't a bad thing, it's just a completely different structure of game with different pros and cons. This happens to be the style of campaign that Paizo's official adventure path produces (including Kingmaker) are designed around, and the kind of campaign that seminal CRPG works like Baldur's Gate are designed around.

I'd disagree; most of the game is a traditional narrative-focused RPG where there is a consistent cast of NPC's with story arcs and an expectation that all of them will survive to the end-game. If you're actually after a capricious game that kills off companion characters at a whim, 99% of Pathfinder Kingmaker doesn't actually do this. In fact, I probably would see the merits if the companion deaths were spread throughout the campaign and were more immediately associated with the outcomes of their companion quests. Instead they just sorta happen arbitrarily at the very end.

Yeah, I think this is the root of my concern. I am a bit confused by what you've said, because you said previously that they are 'sadistic DMs', but then it seems like you're trying to justify that by saying it's 'harsh but fair'. To me, those two things ('sadistic' and 'harsh but fair') are very different and the game overall can't really be both - it is either one or the other. So, overall, would you describe the game as 'sadistic' or 'harsh but fair'?

Because, harsh but fair I am perfectly ok with, but 'sadistic' (i.e. just downright harsh), I am not. Tbh, if the game is that close to the line between the two that some players will think it is one and some people the other, I'm not sure that is a great place for an RPG to be.

Looking at that other example that Darvin mentioned, where characters are being forced into 1-on-1 combats and being told 'fight or die', with no possibility of escape ... I find it hard to see where the 'fair' is in that. In general, can the party flee combat, if they get in over their head? In tabletop, most reasonable DMs would give the party a way out.

It's obvious that something is going to happen to the three characters that get named (one of them is basically guaranteed to be your main character), but you don't know what. If you knew it was going to be one on one fight where no one else can interfere then you could prep for that, but you don't know this coming until it actually happens. In a game where combat is entirely a team-based effort, having a character that's not suited for combat get tagged for this is just nasty.

I would say that the vast majority of the game falls into "harsh, but fair". You can reload if you encounter a fight that's too strong for you, and the most powerful enemies are actually optional fights. The big major boss battles actually tended to be on the easier side. It's really just the soul eater fight and the surprise plot deaths at the very end of the game.

Yeah, something that requires metagaming to overcome it is not generally a sign of great design.

Ok, thanks again for your input. It sounds like, for the most part, the game is really good, except for a couple of places where it is maybe more harsh than fair. I think I will give it a try, as I can probably put up with that, if the rest of the game is well done. What I'll probably do is buy the base game on a sale and give it a try, then if I like it, I will buy a couple of the DLCs at full price to help support the devs.

The game looks very interesting and I particularly like the fact they support Linux as well.