Help with Kingmaker: "Where are we going now?"

[Kalirren]

While Kingmaker is a d20 module, I'm putting this in the general forum because this fundamentally isn't a question about d20 so much as it is about group management in a geographical sandbox campaign.

I'm running a Kingmaker game on this forum. Kingmaker is a sandbox module series. The modules start with the premise that the PCs are chartered to explore and chart certain wilderness. As such, it's up to the players to decide where they're going, and it's got rules for making distance over terrain, a hex grid...nice things.

Problem is, I'm trying to run this over PbP. If you were sitting down with a group, running this over a table, you could just pose the question, "Okay, where are you guys going?", and the players would probably decide in less than five minutes and give you an answer they'd be willing to run with. But as it stands, time zones are an issue. It takes my group at least one iRL day to even begin the discussion, and the process of deciding where they're going has evidently become a chore to them.

How should I manage this? My group already has membership problems, but this might just kill the game.

[Anxe]

My advice: Get used to disappointment with PbP games. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

[Kalirren]

I am used to disappointment in PbP games. At the same time, I am interested to know if there is something I could be doing differently to make things move smoother without detracting from the necessary player-driven-ness of the game.

For example, do people think I could get away with moving entirely away from the map? Instead of giving them a map and asking them where they want to go, perhaps I could suggest the two or three most obvious options for them to bounce off of, and just describe places between places? There's little reason to feel constrained to looking at the landscape of the Stolen Lands on the scale that was given.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Here's an idea that might be workable: Let each player decide what hex they decide to explore next and fill the map out like normal. The first time a player runs into an encounter, assume the entire party happens to be there so they can all participate.

This lets players get through the empty hexes way faster than they otherwise would, but that's sort of the point. This approach also assumes you're not really bothering to track food and water.