Review: Kingmaker – Paizo – Pt. 1

Overview

Running Kingmaker for Pathfinder 2 in Shadowfinder. Playtesting Shadowfinder rules with official Pathfinder material.
The Pathfinder 1 Kingmaker adventure path is only available in PDF, the physical books cost a fortune and are very rare (maybe due to Owlcat’s Kingmaker computer RPG)
I describe Kingmaker as “Oops, all side quests,” at least for the first 2 books. There’s a rough outline or sequence, but it’s not mandatory, unlike a lot of Pathfinder APs.
I was hoping for stronghold and domain play, but I’ve ended up just basically replicating Bastions or Free League’s Strongholds instead of a domain-level campaign.

Having played some of Owlcat’s Kingmaker, I have a good idea of the plot and direction to take for the first 12-20 sessions.
I can easily add more plots, hooks, my own plot direction, and extra side quests without changing the base plot/story.
My players seem to enjoy the open-world nature of the Stolen Lands (which I’ve renamed as the Swordlands)
Less is more with domains. So far, I’ve managed to handwave the domain aspect (the group just took over the Stag Lord’s fort). I don’t know how this will complicate later in-game events.

Pathfinder 2 is a weird conversion, it’s not a clean system to convert into or out of. My experience with PF2 is that it’s not a d20 OSR system, it’s a TTRPG board game with specific, codified rules for all in-game actions.
My players have obtained a stronghold, and I’m left befuddled by Kingmaker’s stronghold building rules. It’s like playing Sid Meier’s Civilization but with a communal team trying to build the civ.
I think that, after reading further, Kingmaker is likely to be more difficult after Book 3, when the Pitax conflict boils over.