My group just played the opening of Kindred Fire last night. We lost (Ironbound are brutal for heroes with starting equipment), so we went back to town to shop and recover morale. There were three weeks left on the story quest when we went to town, and now there's two weeks left. That means we can either do one side quest and go back to town, or two side quests and then straight to the story quest without spending any gold or recovering morale.

Is this how the campaign is supposed to progress? Did we get screwed because we lost the first encounter? I don't really see how a group can do more than one side quest. You could do the intro and then two side quests right away, then the quests probably won't go well (all starting equipment and skills). If you have a bad start like my group did, then you have to go back to town. If you do two side quests after that, then you don't get to buy new equipment, and you will likely go in with less than full morale.

Am I missing something? This seems like a really short campaign if it's only intro -> side quest -> story -> side quest -> finale.

Am I missing something? This seems like a really short campaign if it's only intro -> side quest -> story -> side quest -> finale.

Yep - there's more "story" (and more opportunities for side quests before the finale).

There are eight story quests, of which you will play through six in any campaign.

In short, it's more like this:

intro -> side quest -> story -> side quest -> story -> side quest -> story -> side quest -> story -> finale

Personally - I'd like to see a "for funsies" campaign where you can work your way through all available side quests only...

Pro tip - if you ace your first side quest (I.e lose no moral) to straight onto the second one. If it gets dicey and looks like you'll lose moral just quit the quest for no penalty. We got 2 extra sides in last play through with this method.

I find it really frustrating to lose a week when you visit Tamalir as well. I didn't expect it and while I understand why - and I know that it's possible to do the starter missions without visiting it's still a pain to feel like you're missing out.

The way I see it in a normal game you get one shop and one side between quests, so in RTL you get this minimum, plus either an extra shop, an extra quest or even an extra xp! Either way you're quids in