Tag: Kickstarter

I’ve just completed my 13th Kickstarter. It’s a location-based adventure called Gamma Turquoise: Santa Fe Starport. So, just wanted to dispense a little more wisdom from my wealth of crowd-funding experience. You can read my previous article here.

The following is a checklist of things you should keep in mind before you kickstart an RPG project of your very own…

• Assuming you’ve created an outline for what your gaming thing entails, break the parts down into bite-sized chunks. For instance, if you know that you’re going to need a random table for determining exotic uses of guano, set a day aside for that. The introduction? That’s going to need a day. Same thing with every new monster, magic item, piece of high-tech gear, spell, etc. By “day” I mean at least a solid hour of uninterrupted writing time. If you can’t devote at least an hour of time to your project each weekday, then maybe you shouldn’t be launching a new project?
• Find art early! Sometimes, I wait until the last minute and that can be a painful, stressful prospect. More and more these days, I’m getting out there ahead of time, looking for artists and artwork. Since I’ve been doing this awhile, I have 3 or 4 artists I regularly use. I’ll usually send them an email a month or two before I need their illustrations, asking their availability with some general notes about what I’m looking for, art-wise. Above and beyond that, I’ll lurk on artist hangouts like DeviantArt.com where there’s tons and tons of galleries full of interesting stuff. If I find something I like, I’ll contact the artist and ask if they’re willing to license a specific piece for $25, $50, or even $100 if it’s something super special or full-color.
• Towards the project’s end, get feedback! This could be in the form of playtesting, proofreading, reviews, or gaming friends. If I’m in unfamiliar territory (like when I was writing my vampire RPG Blood Dark Thirst), playtesting is a necessity. If it’s a one-shot scenario, playtesting is merely a good idea. Typos happen to the best of us, so I ask Kickstarter backers if anyone wants to look the document over before I send it off to layout. Invariably, I get a few people who offer their (free) proofreading services. Even if they only find one little mistake, that’s a win. I also try to showcase bits of content on my Draconic Magazine site. These little previews give me a chance to see what people think of a particular random table, NPC write-up, optional rule, or whatever it is I’m trotting out for the gaming public.

Hope this helps! I look forward to hearing from you. So, if you’re about to launch a new crowd-funded project, keep your old pal Venger in the loop. And good luck! 😉

I’m currently engaged in my 10th Kickstarter campaign at the moment. It’s a project called Trinity of Awesome Returns!

A lot of people have asked me about what all goes into my Kickstarters; like, how do you get from the initial idea (step A) all the way to fulfillment (step Z)? Well, as you can imagine from the space between the first and last letters of the alphabet, there’s a lot that goes into it. This article will focus on the beginning of the process. Step A, if you will. Continue reading “Part of my Kickstarter Process”

Instead of a regular Kickstarter round up, I’m going to focus in on one of the two kickstarters I’m backing this month. The first, which I won’t spend much time on, is the Reaper Miniature Bones III kickstarter. I’ve backed the two previous ones and this one is again looking to be a blockbuster. Check it out if you like minis and have time to paint them (I don’t, but am backing it anyway).

The one I did want to talk about is The Warren.

The Warren is a tabletop role-playing game about intelligent rabbits trying to make the best of a world filled with hazards, predators and, worst of all, other rabbits. It is a game about survival and community.

This game takes inspiration from classic rabbit tales such as Watership Down, Fifteen Rabbits, and Peter Rabbit. It uses a heavily-modified version of the game mechanics from Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World.

I first saw The Warren at last year’s Gen Con in the Games on Demand area, but didn’t manage to get into a game of it. I loved Bunnies and Burrows ages ago, running it at least a few times. There’s just something incredibly enticing about playing actual rabbits, not anthropomorphic ones, but real bunnies facing a harsh world without opposable thumbs.

And, it’s Powered by the Apocalypse, one of my favourite game systems. How could I resist?

I found an early playtest and was excited by what I saw, but now this kickstarter is bringing the game to full publication and will also feature at least a couple custom worlds in which to play your furry friends.

I can’t wait, only now I have to figure out which of my gaming groups would be willing to indulge me and play rabbits for a change…

The kickstarter ends on August 4th and just $10 will get you the pdf. Check it out!

It seems like the number of RPG Kickstarters that interest me is declining. Not sure if that’s because there’s less RPG kickstarters generally or I’m becoming more picky. This month there’s only two, both ending shortly, be sure to check them out.

Custom Pro Tabletop Audio Background Loops
(Ends June 16, 2015)

This Kickstarter is for professionally-produced audio backdrop loops for tabletop gaming. Each professionally designed and mixed track is ten minutes long, loops seamlessly, and is delivered in both Mp3 and FLAC formats. All you need is your favorite audio player, such as iTunes, to use these tracks.

I backed one of their previous Kickstarters and can attest to the quality of the background audio, but right now I am running most of my games at a game store, so it’s hard to make use of it since background noise generally is too loud to use it. But, I’m hoping in the future I’ll have my own space to run games, at which time, these will come in handy.

The tracks cover a wide range of settings and genres, leaning most heavily toward Fantasy (which makes sense). For $25 you get 30 tracks including an outdoor café, gritty city streets, a fantasy tavern, a merchant square and many more. For $45, you get those, plus a bunch of unlocked tracks (busy mall, elemental temple, etc.). I’m looking forward to them unlocking the jungle firefight.

If you game in a space where you play music in the background, these tracks are useful in setting the mood and worth checking out.

No Thank You, Evil! a Game of Make-Believe for Families (Ends June 17, 2015)

No Thank You, Evil! is tabletop game of creative make-believe, adventure, and storytelling designed especially for families (especially the kids).

I’m impressed by the components and watching the video on game play, it looks like it’ll be fun for the kids in my life.

A pledge of $40 will get you a colourful box full of everything pictured here, but if you up it to $70, you get a bunch of Kickstarter exclusives such as a bigger box, extra tokens, pad of character sheets and a cloth map of Storia.

If you have kids, this Kickstarter’s worth backing as it’s the first real kid-oriented RPG box set I’ve seen and will likely spawn a new generation of gamers. For that alone, it’s worth it.

 

That’s it for now, stay tuned for next month’s wallet-emptying extravaganza known as the Reaper Miniatures Bones III Kickstarter.

There’s only one Kickstarter that I’m currently backing this month and I haven’t seen any others that have caught my eye enough to warrant an honourable mention. So, I’m going to cover the one I am backing and then review how Kickstarter has worked for me over the last few years that I’ve been backing projects.

RPG Card Decks: NPCs, Creature Ecologies, Adventures (ends April 21)

RPG card decks: one with a mini-adventure on each card, a deck of NPCs & a deck of ecology info creature cards. I backed their last Kickstarter, the Creature & Encounter RPG Card Decks, a couple years ago and received pdfs of about 270 creature cards and 108 encounter cards for $15. A pretty good deal.

I enjoy in particular the creature cards, which, like Paizo’s Face cards, I use extensively in my games to show players what a particular NPC or creature looks like. My players love them and I’m always searching for more, especially since Paizo seems to be slowing on producing Face card decks.

For this Kickstarter, Inkwell is producing another creature deck, another encounter deck and an NPC Portraits deck. Woo hoo! For $5, you get a pdf of one of these decks or all a pdf of three for $14. That works for me!

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Kickstarter Retrospective

I came to the party late with my first Kickstarter pledge in late 2012. It was the first Reaper miniatures Kickstarter, in which nearly 18,000 backers pledged almost $3.5 million. Most pledges were for the $100 “Vampire set” and after all the stretch goals, backers received about 237 figures, which works out to about $0.42 per figure. Can’t beat that deal and so it hooked me into the stretch goal addiction that is Kickstarter.

That year, I backed five more Kickstarters, one for terrain products, two RPGs, one RPG supplement and a documentary about D&D. I didn’t do great that first year, as one of them failed (Cairn), only later to be picked up by SoulJar Games (who amazingly finished the game and provided it to backers, well done!) and the other one, the D&D Documentary, has become embroiled in a major legal battle, remains unfinished a year after its planned release date and has no end date in sight.

Nevertheless, the next year, I leapt into Kickstarter with both feet backing 31 projects over the course of the year. Mostly they were new RPGs (10), RPG supplements (10), gaming terrain (8), as well as a couple for miniatures (including Reaper Bones II) and one art project that I couldn’t resist (Dogs Playing D&D).

None of these have failed yet, but I am waiting on five of them still, which are all late, some up a year and a half late. I’m only worried about one that might fail though. I should note that they have all tried to keep their backers up to date through the various delays to varying degrees.

Out of these Kickstarters though, I have gained some amazing terrain for my games, I launched a campaign in the world of Weird Wars Rome and have some great accessories for my games, as well a great poster for my wall. I’m happy with all of them. If not for Kickstarter, I most likely might have bought one or two of the RPGs through a brick and mortar store or through DrivethruRPG and probably would never have seen the terrain or RPG support materials for sale unless I attended a major convention like Gen Con. The deals on Kickstarter were good enough to draw me in to check out products that I normally might not have given a second look.

In 2014, I backed 28 Kickstarters. They were mostly RPGs (12), RPG supplements (8) and terrain for my games (5). I also backed a card game for my daughter and a toy for the kid in me (Spawn of Cthulhu action figure). Out of these, fifteen have been delivered, six are not due yet and the remaining are late by around six months or so.

Again, these Kickstarters introduced me to some great new games and provided a forum to purchase terrain for my games otherwise unavailable and some great material about gaming. None have failed yet, but I’m not expecting any to fail. They’re all keeping me updated regularly and are fairly close to completion.

Now, we’re mid-April 2015, and I’ve already backed twelve Kickstarters. This time five are for RPG support materials (adventures or support materials for adventures), three for game terrain, two for RPGs, one board game and one card game. Only one has been delivered (on time!), the rest are due later this year or early next year. I’m excited about them and pleased with my pledges. Again, I’m feeling confident that all of them should be fine, though some may be a little late.

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Evaluation

Overall, Kickstarter has allowed me to access more for my games for my dollar. Yes, I’m probably spending more than I would normally, but the stretch goals generally result in the value of materials I have received for that money far and away outweighs it.

I have been luckier than some with only one partial failure out of 77 projects. The average delay has been about six months so far, which will no doubt climb as releases continue to be pushed back. I also suspect that at least one or two of the outstanding projects could fail. That’s not the end of the world to me though, as RPG releases have always been unpredictable. It is more so with Kickstarter, but not unbearably so.

My luck with RPGs and RPG support materials might have to do with picking companies that are either established, present as professional or already have the product ready and only need lay-out and art. Or it could just be I’ve been lucky.

Terrain and miniatures are a little trickier. There have been some great deals offered by new companies that are a lot riskier. The amounts involved tend to be higher and, especially when their Kickstarter is too successful, producing the product quickly enough can be overwhelming for these new entrants.

In this respect, I have seen one Kickstarter deliver its rewards and then promptly go out of business, another is struggling to complete its backer rewards over a year later and I suspect may also go under before or immediately after completion (hopefully after I receive my rewards though!). Others have struggled to get their products out, but did manage to do so and are now doing fairly well, either having further Kickstarters or maintaining a business providing their products. And then, of course, there’s Dwarven Forge, which is rocking the whole industry.

I haven’t ventured far outside of tabletop RPGs and related products, so can’t comment on those, but in this industry, it is definitely the way to go. There is a risk to it, but overall, it’s been quite a successful way to get more bang for your buck and to expand your gaming horizons in ways that I could never have dreamed of three years ago.

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.

Here are a few kick-starters that I’m backing and that you might want to check out:

Wilderness Adventures 28mm Scale Fantasy Gaming Terrain (ends Feb 23)

I love Fat Dragon Games’ stuff and have backed their kickstarters in the past. This one is for a whole lot of 3D outdoor terrain for your game. For just $60, you can get deserts, swamps, highlands, woodlands, forest ruins, a sphinx, a goblin camp, a volcano, a campsite, tents, tree creatures, a wagon, sci fi textures, a desert oasis, swamp tentacle monster, dragon turtle, dice tower and more as further stretch goals are reached. These pieces will definitely be hitting my game table in the future.

Deadlands: Stone and a Hard Place (ends March 5)

This is the third Deadlands Reloaded Plot Point campaign. While it looks pretty cool, I’m more interested in the extras that I could add to my existing game. Pinnacle’s kickstarters are always great deals and should be snapped up when you can. For $20, you get a pdf of the campaign book, which includes expanded rules on playing Harrowed characters as well as the following digital stretch goals: enlarged maps of Tombstone, Tucson and Cochise County, an extra adventure featuring Stone and the Cackler, figure flats pdf and most importantly for me, scaled combat maps of Western buildings and key locations from the plot point campaigns. A great deal, don’t miss it!

Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion for Call of Cthulhu (ends March 10)

If you’re planning on ever running the most famous Call of Cthulhu adventure of all time, this is the kickstarter for you. Well, the second one. The first would have been the Masks of Nyarlathotep Prop Set, but that one is over now. This one is for a comprehensive guide to help you run that amazing campaign and I am very much looking forward to doing just that later this year when I get the finished Companion and Prop Set.

Ghostbusters: The Board Game (ends March 11)

This one is not strictly a tabletop RPG, as it’s a board game, but maybe you’re like me and are always on the look out for good miniatures and maps for your games. Particularly ones for rare categories. In this case, I’m excited to see some intriguing minis for this board game that would be great props for running InSpectres  (a ghostbusting RPG). This one is expensive though, with a pledge of at least $80 to get the game and stretch goals. For $125, you can get some extra stuff, like more game tiles and… the super-sized Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! I skipped the Conan blockbuster, but this one has some great minis that would be good for other horror settings as well. I love that they describe them as 28mm scale minis, obviously realizing that the RPG gamer market is keen on minis.

Honourable Mentions

I’m not backing these (yet), but caught my eye:

Dungeon Worlds (ends March 4)

Not to be confused with Dungeon World the RPG, this is durable urethane plastic 28mm terrain. It’s pretty affordable with a starting pledge of $50 for fifty pieces, but you need to pledge at least $100 to get the stretch goals. It looks good and has many interesting pieces, but I’ve already invested heavily in Dwarven Forge and prefer buying my terrain pre-painted where possible. Still, very cool pieces.

Time Cellist (ends March 7)

This time-travelling game was created by a couple of the hosts (Megan Pederson and Todd Nicholas) of the Jank Cast Podcast (a round table discussion podcast about gaming). It focuses on kids stopping an evil villain from taking over the world with help from the Time Cellist. I find the concept of the game mechanics (rock/paper/scissors & other kids games) very intriguing, but I’m not big into time travel games, the last one I bought was Pacesetter’s Timemaster back in 1985. Nevertheless, I do like their podcast and would like to see the rules. Just $5 gets you a pdf of the rules, so I’ll likely cave on this one. As an aside, up until the kickstarter, every time they talked about the game on their podcast I thought I heard them say “Time Chalice” and developed a very different concept of the game in my mind. Now, the Cellist seems odd to me.

Packs! A Fluffy Horror RPG for Savage Worlds (ends March 11)

Finally, what we’ve all been waiting for, an RPG where you play rats! I guess MouseGuard wasn’t enough for the rodent RPG field, now there’s a dark Savage Worlds option for all you furry aficionados. I’ll stick with MouseGuard personally, but you might want to be a rat. And it is Savage Worlds, so the temptation is always there for me.

Tavern Dungeon Decor 28mm Miniature Scenery Terrain (ends March 31)

I like the look of this and I always love more dungeon terrain, but between Reaper’s kickstarter and a few other terrain ones, I have more than enough tavern decor. It’s a bit of a saturated market for anyone who’s been following the dungeon dressing for a while. This set is pretty cool, and the price is right ($35) if you’re looking for such stuff.

 

If you’re backing something cool on kickstarter or have your own kickstarter that you think we should check out, let us know!