Here are a few kick-starters that I’m backing and that you might want to check out:
Uncharted Worlds: A Space Opera Roleplaying Game (ends March 20)
A space opera tabletop rpg of exploration, combat, politics and commerce across the stars. I’ll cover this one first as it’s ending very early. Generally, I’m hesitant to buy into new game systems without knowing them, but this one is powered by D. Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse Engine, a favourite of mine. Then again, games using this engine are quite common these days (it being such a good game system). So, my reason for backing this one is the character creation that allows you to pick a couple backgrounds and then build up your character from that. I like the concept and, although I doubt I would play the actual game, is worth exploring for my own design work for the $10 entry fee.
Dwarven Forge’s City Builder Terrain System (ends April 2)
This is the heavyweight champion of RPG terrain kickstarters, the third outing of Dwarven Forge in their unique durable yet light terrain material, Dwarvenite. I’ve previously discussed my thoughts on this kickstarter and other city 3D terrain, but I’ll repeat that I’m impressed with their offerings and look forward to more of their excellent offerings. Unfortunately, it’s expensive. For just one unpainted building it’ll cost you $35, but if you have the money, for $220 you can get in at the hamlet level and get access to the many stretch goals that have been achieved.
Blades in the Dark (ends April 9)
Blades in the Dark is a tabletop RPG about a crew of daring scoundrels building a criminal empire in a haunted city full of thieves. Again, I don’t usually jump into entirely new RPGs, but this one is by John Harper, creator of Lady Blackbird (one of my favourite designs) among many other great games. It’s also an idea that I explored back when I first discovered DungeonWorld, the concept of a group of thieves in an urban fantasy setting. There’s also a quick start that you can download that shows you how the game works and I’m intrigued. It has me thinking of switching my Deadlands Reloaded game out for this one. You can get in on this kickstarter for $10 for just the pdf, but if you want the stretch goals, you’ll have to pledge at least $20, which is a good deal since they’ve unlocked at least a dozen extras that expand the game into new settings and new playbooks.
Honourable Mentions
I’m not backing these (yet), but they caught my eye:
WITCH – a dark, modern fantasy role play game (ends March 31)
A tabletop role play game where you play a member of the Fated, a witch or warlock who has sold their soul to a demon for power. It’s been featured on the One Shot podcast, which is a favourite of mine. It looks like a d20 type game system, which is of less interest to me, but if you’re into witches, this could be worth checking out.
Curse of the Yellow Sign (ends April 5)
A trilogy of Call of Cthulhu adventures linked by the Yellow Sign. All written by Origins Award winning author John Wick. The adventures were all previously published and I had picked up one of them before. Apparently he’s adding material to each of them and it’s just $10 for the pdfs of all three of them, which is a great deal. I’ve always loved the Yellow Sign in the Mythos lore, so this is very appealing to me.
Shadow of the Demon Lord (ends April 10)
Tell tales of dark and horrific fantasy with your friends using Robert J. Schwalb’s thrilling new tabletop roleplaying game. Chris Stevens has posted his reasons to support it here. It’ll cost you $24 to get pdfs of the books, but it sounds like quite an intense game and the previews look gorgeous.
Justin Schmid
Justin started tabletop gaming in 1983 with Basic D&D (red box) and never looked back. He runs and plays in a wide variety of games, including Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu and many, many more.
He also writes professionally for role-playing games, including writing and creating Night's Edge an Alternate Reality Universe for Cyberpunk 2020. He went on to write eight more adventures and sourcebooks in the Night's Edge line, adding vampires and other supernatural perils to the already dangerous world of Cyberpunk.
As a freelance writer, he wrote The Bermuda Triangle for Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of the Mind, and Psi Wars for Conspiracy X and contributed to Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG, as well as to Cybergeneration sourcebooks, and many other games.
When he's not creating imaginary worlds for his daughter, he's running games for his friends and writing new adventures or designing new game systems. He currently lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.