Tales of the Valiant Kickstarter for Player's Guide 2

 

Well they have finally gotten around to a new book of major interest. I know monster books are a Kobold Press signature but I was hoping the first add-on to the line would be a character supplement, not a monster book, but at least now that is being corrected.

The preview PDF looks pretty interesting:

• More subclasses - I mean, this was pretty much a given and I would say necessary given the ridiculous number of subclasses in 5E. It looks like we are getting at least 3 new ones per class giving everyone 5 subs per class which should be enough variety to keep multiple campaigns fresh for a long time. Good.
• More Talents - good, they need to expand this area to some degree
• More Boons - this is an area I assumed they would expand in my initial review and I am glad to see it happening.
• Base building - My players are specifically interested in this as they are contemplating building a base in or near Hommlet (yes possibly pushing Rufus and Burne aside) and so this has direct relevance to what they are doing in-game. This is also a potential good outlet for all of the gold coming out of their temple-trashing expeditions so yes, please - bring it on.
•  New Classes: looks like we are getting the Theurge, the Vanguard, and the Witch. I haven't seen much about the Theurge yet but from one of their other 5E magic books:
•  "... the new Theurge class, an Intelligence-based spellcasting class capable of casting both cleric and wizard spells!" and I believe that was the point of the class going back to the 3E Mystic Theurge so sure, OK. Will this mean it gets to pick from both the Arcane and Divine lists? That's a lot of flexibility if so.
• Looks like the Witch is going to be the new second Wyrd caster which is fine - might as well even that out. I don't have a Warlock in my campaign so I don't have much experience with those spells.
• The Vanguard is the most interesting to me - a ToV take on the 4E Warlord, a martial leader/support type character. I had one of these in my 4E campaign and it was a real eye-opener. I've hoped we would get one of these for some newer version of D&D and it looks like we finally might be there. There was a lot of granting another character a free move or a free attack with the 4E version and it looks like that is continuing here. The banner thing also feels a lot like the Pathfinder 1E Cavalier which had a similar ability so this is definitely one I will be watching.

So yes I'll be backing this one and hoping for an early draft of the thing so we can use it in the campaign this year. We might finish out the Temple with just the existing material then if we move onto a new adventure open it up to the new stuff. Not sure and it doesn't really matter until it's available in some form anyway but we will be crossing our fingers here.

Kickstarters These Days - The 2023 Report

 

In 2023 I backed 20 Kickstarters/BackerKit efforts by game companies. Some were bigger, some were smaller, but all of them were things I was interested in enough to lay some money down in advance. Most of the time it works out. In fact it almost always works out ... eventually. There are hazards however and some red flags that can inform decisions in advance. I've been doing Kickstarters since 2013 so I've seen some ups and some downs. Since it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon I thought I would walk through these last two years and present my thoughts on how my tabletop game crowdfunding experience has gone lately. 

For 2023 here's what I backed in rough chronological order:

• Cities Without Number - Sine Nomine cyberpunk (Hardcover Book)
• Battletech Mercenaries - Their third big boxed set (Boxed Set)
• Pew Pew No Disintigrations - Fainting Goat's light RPG of space bounty hunters (Softcover Book)
• Stickman Battlegrounds - a card game of fighting stick figures (Card Game)
• Tome of Essential Horrors - OSE monster book from Necromancer Games (Hardcover Book)
• Comic Crawl Classics - superhero game based on DCC (Softcover Book)
• Tales of the Valiant - alternate 5E rules (Hardcover Book x2)
• Dolmenwood - OSR game and setting from the OSE people (Boxed Set)
• Dragonslayer - OSR game from Greg Gillespie of Barrowmaze, etc. (Hardcover Book)
• Worlds Without Number (Reprint) - Sine Nomine fantasy (Hardcover Book)
• Deadlands Night Train - An update of a classic Deadlands adventure (Boxed Set)
• MicroDungeons Halloween - a set of small 5E adventures (PDF only)
• Necessary Evil - an update to the classic campaign run through Pinnacle's "Game Changer" (Boxed Set)
• Old School Tactical Vol IV Italian Theater - An expansion for one of my favorite wargames
• Fever Swamp - An OSR big adventure (Boxed Set)
• Scientific Barbarian Magazine #6 - An ongoing supplement series for MCC (Softcover Book)
• Adventurer Conqueror King 2E - An update of an OSR game I liked a lot (Hardcover Books)
• Reaper Dungeon Dwellers - Reaper Miniatures' OSR RPG rules (Boxed Set)
• How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox - A supplement on D&D style fantasy campaign building (Softcover Book)
• Dungeon Domains Riven Catacombs - another set of small adventures (PDF only)

I included some non-RPG games in there to show how some other options have gone in comparison. Bold means I have it in hand. Italics means I do not have it yet. More on that in a minute.

First up a few things about me we can draw from this:

1. I have 7 of these that are directly related to some kind of D&D style game. Sure. That's a lot of what we play here.
2. I do tend to be more interested in new things from people I already know. Two of them are Sine Nomine, 1 Necromancer, 1 Greg Gillespie, ACKS 2E, OST v4, 2 Pinnacle, 1 from Fainting Goat, 1 from Jim Wampler for MCC - these are all things I have some version of already or companies/people I have done business with before and I am confident they will deliver. There is a risk in any crowdfunding endeavor and track record matters.
3. Some of these were fairly pricey as far as gaming items. ACKS, Dolmenwood, and OST v4 were all up there in the $200 range with 3 others in the $100 and while I get the "it's not a preorder" clause I am expecting to get something for my money - these aren't charities and I am not making a donation.

A couple of kudos:

• Kevin Crawford's Sine Nomine campaigns are the gold standard for RPG Kickstarters. he delivers on-time-every-time and the books are great games and tool kits for running a campaign in a given genre even if you use a different set of rules.  One of the ways he does this is by limiting stretch goals. His runs are typically one nice hardcover book with maybe a supplement of some kind - one supplement. No miniatures, no bags or t-shirts or mousepads, no multitude of adventures that need to be written by freelancers ... he is a one-man operation who runs focused consistently successful crowdfunding campaigns and more people running their own should look to his as an example. He is in the "I will back anything he starts up" club and that's a pretty small group for me.
• Pinnacle - the Savage Worlds people - continue to knock them out like clockwork. I admit I am not really a fan of crowdfunding almost every book they release but they do get them out consistently and without drama so they are doing a good job. I don't back everything they do because they do some licenses or genres I don't care about but if it looks interesting I am in.
• If you're interested in board wargames the Old School Tactical team (Flying Pig Games) gets these out as promised and pretty much on-time and also drama free. They make big, nice games and have several lines going from WW2 to Vietnam to ACW to an occasional foray into SF or alternate history. 

The less happy stories:

• Dolmenwood: Estimated delivery date Sept 2024. Considering it funded in Sept 2023 that was a year to get this one out. Exalted Funeral, the creator, had been doing Kickstarters for 4 years and had at least ten prior projects under their belts including Old School Essentials which is one of the big dogs of the OSR scene. So this is not a case of someone new to the process being overwhelmed by success. No, this is a case of too many add-ons. Extra books. Maps.  Dice. Miniatures. A record album. Some of the main books were described as 99.9% complete in March of 2024. They didn't even start printing the books until November of 2024. 
  
  Now sure, the PDFs have been available in draft from since early on and final - as much as an RPG PDF gets to be final - since late last year. But I didn't pay what I paid for PDFs - I paid for books and those are still not here 6 months after the projected date. 
  
  The good news is that according to the latest update they are shipping the things to the U.S. now - the containers are on their way at least. So maybe by June we will have this stuff in hand. So yes, many of those "estimated dates" are simply anchors of potential disappointment. People have to keep waiting, updates become less frequent, people get frustrated, companies start to get defensive - it's a fairly common story. This team has done a good job of keeping their cool but it has still dragged out a long time.
  
  
  

• Adventurer Conqueror King 2E: Estimated Delivery November 2024. I am not as upset with this one as shipping has begun on it and so it will not be as late as Dolmenwood. There were not a lot of add-ons here though the one obvious indulgence - a wooden slipcase at the higher pledge levels - did hit a snag late when it was cut to the wrong size. Extras that add nothing to the actual game are just a hazard waiting to be tripped. This one still took too long.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Reaper Dungeon Dwellers: Funded November 2023. Estimated delivery July 2024. That was probably way too ambitious but a) it was implied that the rules were already written in some form as they were showing beta playtest videos and b) IT'S REAPER! They do huge miniatures kick starters every year! Well even if they've gone well in the past these things can fail. Let's play Kickstarter Bingo:
• Illnesses? Check.
• Death in the family? Check.
• Facilities change? (Warehouse or factory or something)Check.
• Other obligations? (ReaperCon) Check.
• Prior Kickstarter Entanglements? (Had to finish shipping Bones 6) Check.
• Had too much material so the books got bigger? Check.
  
  The only thing missing there is "Depression" which comes up on a remarkably high number of Kickstarters. Thank goodness for that at least. 

 The March 21st, 2025 update declares the Players Book "done". That's good. Considering that July 2024 original date it really should be. 

Then it mentions work to be done on the adventure(s), the GM Book, the Monster Book, some other text they want to include ... and then they mention hoping to get it all out the door by the end of the month. March, presumably. 

At some point you need to stop digging. Stop writing new material, stop expanding the adventure, stop the proofreading cycle and ship it! 

Anyway that's probably enough for today. We can take a look at 2024 in another post. Please feel free to share your KS war stories if you're so inclined.

One of the winners!

 

 

Kickstarter for D6 System Second Edition

 

Link is here if you're interested. I'm a fan of these mechanics and have been for a long time. It's been a while since I ran it but it's always on the list. Primarily this is because of Star Wars for me and I suspect for most other people that would care about a new edition of these rules but I can totally see it usable for a variety of campaigns. Any pulp-ish type game would be a decent enough fit. Savage Worlds fills a lot of this niche for me but a cleaned up and refreshed set of rules could mix in nicely.

As far as that Second Edition part I'll let their own words cover it:

Why "2e"?

Wow, that's a good question. When we were talking with WEG regarding this project, for a long time, we struggled with the name. D6 System books often were just defined by "eras" or the systems they supported. 

Finally, we realized that even though numerous iterations and previous publications had existed, few (or none, really) of them had consistently presented themselves as an "edition", but more as an evolution or iteration on previous releases. 

Together, the teams felt that calling this corebook "2e" would mark a new era in the game's publishing line, and would help to codify and communicate clearly where we are aiming to take the game line in the future, while also using language that existed in the tabletop rpg spaces common vernacular. 

Works for me!

There is about a week left for the KS as I post this so if you're interested give it a look! I have no vested interest or connection to these people - I just like the prior versions of the game in its best-known incarnation.

New Month, New Games

 

I see a few new Kickstarters of interest popping up so I thought I would share them here.

13th Age Second Edition

I thought 13th Age had some interesting ideas but I admit I've never run it or played it because it was always squeezed out by something else. I like it but I couldn't get a consensus to run it at the table. Now it's been a while since we've had a fantasy game as our main thing and with a shiny new edition coming along it might be time to finally give it a chance. 

Some of my earlier takes on the system are here and here. How has it been over a decade since I wrote those?

The most significant line from the publisher link above is that "The Kickstarter campaign begins on May 7th and runs until June 6th." if you are interested.

D6 System Second Edition

The article on ENWorld mentions a coming Kickstarter campaign and discusses the plans for the game in some detail. It sounds like a good approach and it is good to see someone making an effort to get this wonderful system back in print and in the public eye. It's a legendary system that's been left by the side of the road for years in my opinion. 

I'll say the same thing I've said for a while now - a generic system needs a compelling setting to really make it stick, both as a draw to new players and as an example of what can be done with the game. Savage Worlds has this with Deadlands and a fistful of additional options from Pathfinder to Rifts to Necessary Evil to 50 Fathoms and has been thriving for the last decade. I feel that d6 as a system should be doing at least as well but its two best settings were licensed and when the license ran out the game just died. I know they tried to make it generic in the early 2000's but it felt directionless and just never took off. Honestly it was probably too soon because most people knew it as the Star Wars system as that's what it had been for more than a decade. Now maybe they have a chance to make a fresh start with a newer audience and establish as its own thing.

Heroic The Roleplaying Game

This is a superhero RPG that takes the old FASERIP system and adds some interesting things to it - namely things from the MWP Marvel Heroic system of a decade ago, in particular the Milestone system. This was originally done in Astonishing Super Heroes and has been carried over here - with the blessing of that author - where it is the "Calling" system. You pick a "calling" at character generation which is a set of conditions or action that can grant Karma - an example:

Beast Within – Your hero has a savage side that must be kept in check. He or she must struggle to control these feelings or give in and lose control.

• +5 Karma when you first declare a character as your emotional ally, and when you assist or gain assistance from them.

• +5 Karma when you power creates unforeseen consequences.

• +5 Karma when you first describe losing control in a scene.

• +10 Karma when you start trouble by punching a bad guy in the face or inflict Stress on a hero who is over-thinking his problems to convince them to get over it.

• +10 Karma when you do something in the presence of your emotional ally that you already know they do not approve of.

• +15 Karma when you decide that your emotional ally has helped you all that they can, or you believe they have rejected you in terror, and either way you move on from this stage of the relationship.

I like the potential for this mix. 

Another important change is that Karma is strictly the Bennie/Fate Chip/Force Point mechanic. Advancement is handled via a separate system which on first glance looks workable. 

The rest of the system is very much the system you remember with percentile dice rolled against a particular column looking at color-coded results with column shifts as modifiers and specific outcomes often tied to achieving a specific color result. It works.

It's interesting that all of the games catching my eye at the moment are updates of older systems - but not all of them. D&D 5.5 (or whatever we're going to end up calling it) doesn't really excite me yet and Star Trek Adventures v2.0 doesn't either. Regardless, I'll keep an eye out for The Coming Thing and probably talk about it here. 

My Mutants and Masterminds Kickstarter Conundrum

 

So Green Ronin is running a kickstarter to get a bunch of M&M 3E books back into print. That's a good thing, happy to see it. One complication is that I already own all of the books, including multiple copies of the main rulebook. Well maybe they're putting out something new too as part of this ... (looks through campaign description and stretch goals) ... nope. Wait - they are publishing two new novels -set in the M&M setting I guess? This creates a bit of a conflict for me.

I really want to support this - the game, the company, and the creators have all done a great job and have been doing it for 20 years now. I like the rules, I like the setting, and I like the presentation. I think it's the best all-around supers RPG you can buy.  I figured I was contributing by picking up a copy of everything they cranked out as it was released. I've even bought a few extra copies over the years and handed them out to friends when I was getting ready to run a game. 

Not kidding here- that's the M&M shelf

This kickstarter though ... I was in on the 10th anniversary book ten years ago and it was excellent. It was also something new and significant. It's still one of my favorite RPG books ever. Unfortunately there is nothing like that in this effort. It is all reprints of existing material. Well, except the novels -let's talk about the novels.

They've put out a couple of novels previously. I don't own them. I am truly not that interested in superhero novels. If you were going to take that approach how about a novelization of, say, Centurion's story? Maybe the Terminus Invasion? The birth of the Freedom League? These are all background events of significance in the Freedomverse's history and would probably make for a decent story. Instead we get characters we don't know and it sounds like, at least partially, settings we don't know ... so why are these the only new effort in an M&M kickstarter? What do they have to do with the setting and the game? 

Continuing the questioning, why are we doing novels at all? For a superhero game why are we not doing some comic books? A graphic novel? Champions had a limited series  30+ years ago! City of Heroes had several comic book runs! It's the preferred medium for the genre, the dominant one, and a successful one for over 80 years - doesn't that seem like something worth exploring? Maybe even one worth its own KS initiative!

Tier pricing is a little iffy to me too. At 15$ you get one of the novels and for 25$ you get both. The game books start at 40$ for one and but at 100$ you get the three main ones they want to renew which is the core book, power profiles, and the gadget guide. That's not a terrible deal and that may be where I end up if I jump in. There's no PDF-only option - all the game books are for print and PDF both.

So I'm a little torn here. I know superhero RPGs are a niche of a niche and there are a ton of challenges in making them. I want to help but I'd really like something new to spend money on as the incentive. 

Anyway they're getting close to hitting their goal and if you're at all interested the Deluxe Hero's Handbook is definitely worth picking up if you don't have it. I'll probably post here again when it's over and share what I end up doing.

Sentinels of Earth Prime and Kickstarter

 

Well, look what finally arrived on my front porch over the weekend! I say "finally because, well ...

Yeah ... that's straight from the Kickstarter page. That was set for a year after it funded, which seemed entirely reasonable. Actual delivery date: End of February 2022.

This really seemed like a slam dunk - see my original post on it here. See? I thought this sounded cool. Ask me how I feel about it now ...

Slam-dunk-wise this idea was to take the mechanics from Sentinels of the Multiverse - a well-known and well-liked game - and the setting from Mutants and Masterminds - another well-known and well-liked game with 15 years of development at that point - and make a new flavor of something cool. Both of these companies had been steadily releasing material, it looked like they had a plan - how did this crater so badly? How was this anything but a straight-up win? I don't know for sure but I have some ideas.

Splitting the effort across two small companies may have complicated things way too much. Greater Than Games was doing the mechanics even though Green Ronin was publishing the project overall. GTG got bogged down in finishing up their big finale module for SoTM (which ended up being 18 months late) and that pushed the rules work on SoEP back. Here's a KS update from 2018 where they already know the game is going to be a year late. Then here's another update from later in 2018 where they announce that the rules are finished. Alright, if the rules were done three and a half years ago why are we just now seeing the game?

Art is apparently hard. Like really hard. M&M has really good art and they wanted to maintain that standard - and I get that - but apparently they were not going to use any existing art ... they wanted it to be all new. 

Also the art had to wait for the decks to be designed to make sure it made sense for the card. I get that ... to a point ... and here is a 2019 update where the delays and the approach and the process are described. At that point they mention that they are in the final art order and yet that was still two and a half years ago. Then, more than a year later (Nov 2020) - hey! The art is done! So it took TWO YEARS to get the art for this game done after the rules were finished. I mean, I love M&M's art style but ... does it take two years to make the art for even a big book like Freedom City? And that was on top of the original year-long delay getting the rules written. 

At some point one starts to wonder if they couldn't have just written, tested, illustrated, and published their own card game in quite a bit less than five years time. I know, once you've made the deal for Sentinels with M&M characters and taken people's money you can't just change the deal but hopefully some things can be learned form this.

And no, I'm not giving allowances for the pandemic because this should have been done well before the pandemic ever started. That is a good example of why you don't want to get behind by a year or more on these kinds of things - sh*t falls out of the sky sometimes and disrupts your plans. Those first few years of delays though were all self-inflicted. Something that funded in 2017 and was due in 2018 doesn't get to claim "Covid". 

Side note: In the time between the start and finish of this project SoTM designed, launched, and published a second edition!

Second side note: In the time since I paid for this I backed 19 additional kickstarters, mostly RPG stuff. Only one of them came anywhere close to this kind of delay. 

The counterpoint in some ways to this is that I paid $40 for all of that - the listed price is $50 just for the main game. Remember when Kickstarter was kind of a deal? Nowadays it seems like it truly is a preorder system for things that would have been made anyway, particularly with Card or Board games and RPG's. I'm pretty sure Munchkin Batman would happen regardless of KS funding levels. I doubt Pinnacle is going to stop making Deadlands books anytime soon. And you typically get to pay the equivalent of full MSRP! And then not get your product for another year! Well, maybe a PDF ... but that's not what you paid for is it? I've cut way back on the number of Kickstarters I join - only 1 of those 19 I mentioned above was in the last two years. It really has changed and given a few experiences with things like this my policy is "let me know when I can buy it in a store or online" - I'm looking for finished products these days, not hope and promises. I'm happy to pay for things that interest me and look like they will add something to a game but I'm a lot less interested in paying up front for "someday"

To wrap up: Lots of mixed feelings on this one. 

• Still like the concept - but I liked it more 5 years ago. We haven't played SoTM in a few years here. Our M&M campaigns have never focused on the "book" heroes so that's not a huge thing but just having it Freedom City themed with those locations and villains is still cool. Co-op board or card games can generate some of that RPG energy and that's a good thing. 
• The price was a good deal but ... then it took 5 years to get here. 
• Both of these companies seem like they know what they are doing  - but this one damaged my view of them in some ways. 
• I did not back SoTM Definitive Edition - no way that's happening when I was still waiting on this one. I did back the RPG - we were only two years into this at that point -  and there were some delays but it still started and finished in far less time than this one did. 
• Green Ronin has since gone to a Patreon model for a lot of their M&M work and for some "extra" type products that's probably OK but if the entire line is dependent on it I don't know. I just do not care about livestreams and voting options and most of the rest of what's listed on those pledge levels. What's the next book? When is it coming out? That's what I care about! 

I know there's a lot of crankiness in this post. I like to think these are real issues in the tabletop games industry right now - how do you fund your projects? How do you keep them on track? How do you keep small game lines alive? I would not claim to have big answers - all I can do is relate what I'm finding along the way.

 

Rifts Savage Worlds Kickstarter - Atlantis!

 

Well it's time for another Savage Worlds Kickstarter, in fact another Rifts Savage Worlds Kickstarter. The first run was in 2016, then another one in 2019 to expand the books with Magic, Coalition, and regional stuff books, plus an upgrade of the original to the new Adventure edition of Savage Worlds. 

This time it's for Atlantis for this version of Rifts. I always thought Atlantis was one of the cooler areas of Rifts and one of the cooler books for it as well - magic items, races, tattoo magic, plus all of the worldbuilding and backstory that came along with it ... it was a very strong early entry in making Rifts Rifts. 

Now I never did much with it in my games as far as the region. It seemed horrifically dangerous for most characters to approach, much less enter, sort of like going to the Nine Hells in a D&D game. It was more an "aspirational" destination than a likely one at low to medium levels. With the Savage Worlds version of the game levelling the playing field a bit I can see where it might actually get used at some point. 

The short version is that the original Atlanteans look very much like humans but they were driven out or enslaved when the Splugorth invaded a long time ago.  The city magically TARDIS-d out when magic diminshed on Earth but it returned when the rifts opened up and magic flooded the world again. This is one of the major evil powers of the setting so it's a dangerous place but there is a sort of underground rebellion of True Atlanteans active there as well. Oh and it's also full of dragons. 

It's awesome but deadly. I've used Atlantean slavers several times as a campaign opener so maybe next time they won't go somewhere else - maybe they will go back to the big island.

The good news is that Pinnacle knows how to run a Kickstarter and I am absolutely sure this one will run smoothly and deliver what it promises pretty much on time. 

The part that bothers me a bit is that Pinnacle has a ridiculous amount of KS experience because pretty much everything they publish these days is done via Kickstarter. I know I know, it's rough for small publishers out there these days and doing it this way makes sense. Doesn't it seem like today, though, with 5E doing this record business for several years now, that the RPG market should be better? There were a ton of smaller publishers in the 80's and 90's and early 2000's who supported game lines for years before crowdfunding ... shouldn't it be easier now? Shouldn't an experienced, respected, well-liked company be able to sustain their main game line without having to crowdfund?

Who knows, maybe they could but they know this is just better - more predictable at least. 

The downside of doing it this way is that you can't just buy a $30 book like you can with many other games. No, you are going to get the book, some character cards, and a poster map. Now the basic digital-only version is pretty reasonable but if you just want a printed Savage Rifts Atlantis Book you're in for the $45 package. If that's all you want your best bet is to wait until after the campaign, whenever it's printed and shipped and you can buy it at the FLGS or online for the cover price or less. 

The other stuff in this campaign include a set of cardboard stand-up pawns, like Pathfinder pawns apparently, and a couple of map packs along with the book and the cards and the poster map. It's all cool stuff, it's just the forced bundling that itches just a bit and granted that is a temporary state that will only last until it's all released separately, likely early next year given what they are saying on the KS page.  

So yes, I will probably back it at some level - Rifts is a great setting and Savage Worlds is a great set of rules that works well for it. I like a ton of what Pinnacle does so I try to support them directly like this when they make something I like. If you have some similar inclinations then go check this one out. 

 

Steve Jackson Games - Part 2

Steve Jackson Games recently put out their annual report to stakeholders and I saw some things I think are problems. Yesterday I talked about the problems I see with GURPS. Today let's talk about Kickstarters. From the report:

The 2012 Ogre Kickstarter project is still not completed. We made big steps forward on all of the various commitments, but we're coming up on five years after the project closed, and we are still sinking time into the project. The good news, though, is that we're seeing real progress; several outstanding pieces of the project are finally coming to a close. Whew.

Wait, what? Five years on and they still haven't finished this thing? Damn! This is the kind of mistake that hurts a company's reputation, especially when they plan to keep doing other kickstarters! Clearly that project was beyond their capabilities to handle. I would add "at that time" but they are still struggling to get it done from what I see there. I'm glad they didn't just walk away like some other problematic Kickstarters have seen but this is still not a good situation.

Their KS profile shows 5 projects (oldest to newest):

• Ogre
• Car Wars Arenas
• GURPS Dungeon Fantasy
• Ogre Miniatures - Set One
• Munchkin Shakespeare

(note: I did not back any of these)

From the GDF "Risks" section:

Risks and challenges

The greatest risk of all is completing the artwork, layout, and manufacturing of the game. The text for the box set is 100% complete, and artwork and layout have started, but there are always opportunities for things to go sideways during a creative project.

None of the stretch goal PDFs have been written yet, because whether we even get to do them depends on you! However, we've produced high-quality PDFs every month for years, and we feel confident in our ability to deliver on our stretch-goal promises in a timely manner.

We believe we have taken all of the steps necessary to bring the game to completion and ship on schedule. Our last Kickstarter project -- Car Wars Arenas in 2015 -- delivered on schedule, and we think this game will also ship on time. As always, we will update backers throughout the entire process and deliver as close to on time as possible.

First paragraph, fine.

Second paragraph - that was a red flag to me because the KS projects that seem to do the best are the ones where the material is written and basically what it needs is editing and art. Once you make those stretch goals that stuff becomes a commitment  just like the core stuff and stretch goals are where a lot of KS efforts hit the rocks.

Third paragraph - I think there's a fine line between "Marketing" and "Deception" when you mention that your last project went great even as you're still trying to finish the one from before that - three years before that! I don't like that at all.

Now from the report:

Ogre Miniatures Set One - This expansion to the new Ogre Sixth Edition game was another Kickstarter project last year, and we've again caused delays that have pushed the release back later than we had planned. The problems here are less disruptive to our schedule than Dungeon Fantasy's ongoing "Destroy all deadlines" crawl to the finish line, but the lateness of the project is a source of frustration and many sleepless nights. Lesson learned: Finish all CAD work and miniatures tooling before launching any more Kickstarter projects involving minis. This is risky -- what if a project fails to fund? -- but it is worth taking the risk.

Really? There's more:

Dungeon Fantasy - Our Kickstarter project to create a GURPS introductory box set has run into more troubles and derailments than we would like. A game that was meant to go to the printer before the end of 2016 is still clogging our pipeline and causing constant distractions. The project was not as far along in the process as it should have been, and miscommunication regarding the game components ballooned our costs. At the moment, barring a miracle, what would have been a profitable project is rapidly turning into a loss. This is becoming an ongoing problem for GURPS projects (see Discworld and Mars Attacks, below, under Failures).

Sheesh. I like these guys. I've bought a lot of games from them. Besides all of my Car Wars, Ogre, and GURPS stuff there are at least 7 different Munchkin games floating around the house. That said this is not a great place to be. Out of your first 4 Kickstarter projects (over a span of 4 years) three of them have had problems and you are still working to complete them! How is that smart? Why do you keep doing it? Why are you making these same mistakes? How much is this impacting your non-crowdfunded projects? And what about that "the core text is 100% complete" yet somehow "the project was not as far along in the process as it should have been". That's not good.

They keep talking about doing a Kickstarter for the new edition of Car Wars when it's ready and I would normally be an hour one backer on that but now after looking thru all of this ... I don't know if I can. I think my first question will be "are you done with the Ogre Kickstarter from 2012 yet?" and the answer will have a big impact on what I do.

I've been worried about other companies biting off more than they could chew with multiple open Kickstarters, mainly Pinnacle. They like to run several Kickstarters a year but they haven't fallen behind on any that I've been a part of or that I have heard of and they seem to have the whole thing figured out.  That said I think it is a huge risk for a small company to have multiple simultaneous unfinished Kickstarters in play. The failure of one could cascade into the others as your talent is exhausted and it could impact cash flow severely, not to mention your reputation.

Business-wise a Kickstarter is an unusual situation in that you're getting paid for the product before creating, printing, and shipping it. That helps with cash flow but it does mean you have a fixed pile of money associated with the project. If costs go up, you're eating into the margins and you have zero recourse like you would with a more traditional project - say, raising the price or just cancelling it altogether because it's not economically viable given the costs. No, once you've funded, you have committed and you have to produce it or else face the lovely scenario of refunding 100% of what people paid with only 90% of the funding - KS keeps their cut regardless of your ability to produce.

So I am worried about one of my favorite game companies. One reason they might keep doing the KS thing is that their structure has become dependent on it. I hope that's not the case but I wonder about it. That would be bad, because if they keep overloading themselves and running into delays and ongoing problems then at some point people are going to stop spending money on them and the whole thing will fail. I hope that doesn't happen. I also hope they don't start any more KS efforts until the ones they have are complete.

They do end the report on what I think is an appropriately somber note:

  A Brutal Year

We expect 2017 to be a difficult time for our team. We must complete our Kickstarter commitments; every day that the Dungeon Fantasy and Ogre projects run late is another day of stress for all of us in the office. (Fortunately, our team has the Munchkin Shakespeare project humming along wonderfully, and there's a strong chance that the project will deliver on schedule.) We will get through the year, we will complete the projects that are weighing us down, and we will do all we can to close 2017 on a high note and set everything up to make 2018 a year that makes us proud.

I hope they do, I hope 2017 is the year this sh*t stops, they clean things up, and set the company up for a solid 2018. We don't want to lose you, and we don't want to see your name tarnished! Please set things in order and lets move on.

This Week's Kickstarter: Scion 2E

Well this week's Kickstarter is for a second edition of Scion, once from White Wolf, now from Onyx Path. I'm a little interested as I always liked the concept, but I never bought it as it was another White Wolf game and I've never really liked the mechanics in those games. I'm a little more open minded these days so this one is on the "maybe" list.

Note about me and White Wolf: When Vampire came out we were heavily into the still-new D&D 2E and still having fun with Hero, GURPS, Mechwarrior, Rifts, Shadowrun and some other end-of-the-80's/ start-of-the-90's games. Playing a Vampire? Could be cool. Everyone playing a Vampire? Not nearly as cool. They always seemed to promote the game as playing all of the same kind of being even after they had 4-5 options. The all-dwarf party in D&D is something you never see - why play an all-werewolf party when we could have a wolf, a pair of vampires, a mummy, and a "created" - that seems like a lot more fun!

I know, I know.

They had the branching off of Adventure/Aberrant/Trinity which I wanted to like but could not. The setting had potential but the mechanics were just too blah. We're going to give up Champions for this? No!

Scion came out roughly 10 years ago and I liked what I read but not enough to dive into the game. No one else I knew jumped on it so it just floated out there as one of those "maybe someday" games.

Looks like they're changing up the mechanics for the better. The concept and setting seems to be the same.

The biggest difference now is that with the Apprentices I think I could pitch this as "Percy Jackson the RPG" and get some instant buy-in.  That means we would make some time to play and that makes it worth considering.

Bonus content
How I would run a traditional World of Darkness campaign: Hey, you want to play a bunch of vampires secretly running the city? We need something like Reign  to handle the various organizations/power groups. Heck, we could use the ole Illuminati card game to track this. Now we have a framework for something besides superpowered fist fights. Should be fun.

Two Deadlands Kickstarters

Pinnacle is busy outdoing itself by running two simultaneous kickstarters: One for the 20th anniversary edition of Deadlands and another for the fourth and final big metaplot campaign book for Deadlands. Pinnacle has a really good track record in running and delivering on their Kickstarters so I assume they can handle these two just fine.

First observation: Deaadlands is 20 years old! I tend to think of it as a "newer" game. It is, compared to D&D and RQ and Champions and  V&V and Traveller and all of the other original generation games. I suppose this is only going to keep happening as I get older.

OK the cards do look good - I may have to spring for those

The 20th anniversary edition: I have to admit I was a little surprised. I thought this was going to be one of those fancy leather-cover things for Deadlands Reloaded. It's not - it's a new printing (presumably full color) of the original Deadlands rulebook! Well, the second edition of it anyway. It hadn't occurred to me that this might be a thing until I read through it. I mean ... I liked the system when it was new but it is really clunky compared to Savage Worlds and I honestly do not expect to ever run Deadlands in its original form. That makes this book for me ... probably a no-sale. It would be a pure "collector" buy as even if I did want to run original recipe Deadlands again I have a couple of copies of the old rulebook sitting on the shelf right now. I was all fired up when I saw the headline and I love what the Pinnacle guys do but this is just not something I will ever use. 

Now the other KS ... I am 100% on board with this one. It's #4 of 4 and of course I already have the first 3 so I am right there. Why 4? Spoiler: The big bad things in the background of the DL setting number four and each has a primary servitor. Each of the first 3 campaigns deals with one of them so this one finishes the set. I actually do hope to run these one of these days and they are not sequential - theoretically you could have four different groups running all of them in parallel. I think that would be awesome but I'd settle for two teams, or even one at this point.

So anyway, there's the big fun time RPG Kickstarter update for the week. People keep doing interesting things, this may turn into a regular thing.

 

Villains and Vigilantes 3.0 Kickstarter

Jeff Dee and Jack Herman, the original creators of V&V are running a Kickstarter to produce a 3rd edition of the game. I know new editions are often painful but considering it's been 24 years since the 2nd edition I don't think anyone can say it's "too soon". I shared my thoughts on the game in a post about 5 years ago and to update that: haven't played it since then, still have the books. One of the best things about V&V is that it came out of someone's home campaign - it wasn't written to fit a specific universe, it wasn't written as a "product" - it was a game first and then a book on the shelf.

I do like to see original creators coming back to a game, especially considering the legal fight these two had to have to get here. It will be interesting to see how their perspectives have changed in 30+ years. Considering they were in high school when they wrote it I suspect there will be some notable differences.

The one disappointment: The book is in black and white. They are saying it's to save time and get it out there and that does make sense. Still, it's a comic book RPG - I'd love to see it done in full color. A future project, perhaps?

There is a pretty reasonable set of pledge levels, starting at $15 for the PDF. It's already funded so it's going to happen. Jeff Dee has run a few Kickstarters for other things previously and they've been playtesting the rules for a while now so I'm confident it will come out in a timely fashion. No uncertainties here - I'm in on this one.

Anyway, I was pretty happy to see this happen and thought I would share for anyone else out there who's a fan.

The GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Kickstarter

So there's a Kickstarter for GURPS. I shared my experiences with GURPS in a post a few years back and to be honest I haven't added anything new in the six years since I wrote that. It's just not a game my players are interested in playing. I've actually sold off a lot of my books because they gathered dust for ten years and with the Great Internet Attic of eBay I can always go get them again if there's a sudden outcry for GURPS again.

Part of the lack of interest I think is because there have been a lot of new editions and new game systems that have come out, many for specific genres, while GURPS has been pretty much the same thing since 2004 (4th edition) which is really not dramatically different from 3rd edition (1988). So feel comfortable blaming some of the disinterest on Steve Jackson Games (insert smiley here). The 4th edition version of GURPS Traveller was a prequel setting, a lot of the more interesting books and concepts for books from 3rd never made the jump to 4th (Discworld, Myth, Atomic Horror, Rome, Greece, Autoduel) and while 4th involved the usual re-purchasing of the same books you probably owned in 3rd it never really went beyond that for me. They did branch out some with PDFs (full list here) but that was a few years into the new edition and I just was not interested by the time the PDF machine was really rolling.

The other problem with GURPS in the last decade especially is "what is the flagship GURPS game"? It's a great toolkit game for GM's who want to do their own thing but settings are what get attention and keep the interest levels up even when not actively running or playing a game. Of the universal multigenre games Hero has Champions, BRP has RuneQuest and Call of Cthulu, Savage Worlds has Deadlands, GURPS has ... what? For a while it was the alternative system - there was a GURPS version of Vampire, Werewolf, Deadlands, Castle Falkenstein, Conspiracy X, Prime Directive, and of course Traveller. Those are all licensed settings and while that's a totally solid way to go it seems like after 30 years of GURPS there should be a go-to setting for the game, something it's known for that is not a Plan B version of someone else's game.

• "Banestorm", formerly GURPS Fantasy, is a cool idea and one I fell in love with a long time ago but I've managed to run all of 3 sessions of it because non-history buffs don't get excited about it and would rather play Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms or Middle Earth given the chance.  
• "Ogre" is another one SJG owns completely but is a little bigger in scale to the point that there's not a ton of opportunity there to do RPG things with the flagship entities. Battletech has good-sized war machines but they each require a human pilot, keeping characters right there in the middle of things. The whole point of Ogre is that the giant tanks are autonomous and don't need human control. At one point I thought playing the ogres themselves was the key to making it work but with no free will, no emotions, and no manipulatory limbs there's just not a whole lot to build on there. 
• "Autoduel" seems absolutely perfect as a setting for an RPG. It's semi-post-apocalyptic so there's room to roam and ruins to explore. It's near future with lots of higher-but-recognizable tech floating around. There are obvious and well-supported options for playing duelist types in the big cities, lesser duelists in the smaller towns, or roaming the wastelands in between as adventurers or truck drivers (all of which have been covered in supplements for the boardgame to some degree). There were adventures in Autoduel Quarterly that were effectively RPG adventures, some of which were pretty interesting. It's just never really taken off and I'm not sure if that's lack of a big push by SJG, the declining interest in post-apoc RPG's in the 90's and 00's, or what exactly but it's a setting with a lot of potential. 

I spent a ton of time playing through this solo and with friends

So GURPS has been around but not really a big part of the RPG scene for the last few years. It's been supported, but not really promoted outside of the existing player base. Now SJG is launching this Kickstarter to re-ignite/gauge interest in the game and I have truly mixed feelings about it.

I'm really glad they're doing a KS for GURPS. It's about time!

I'm disappointed that it's for "Dungeon Fantasy" - the most generic kind of RPG. The kind of RPG I already have at least ten other systems for and so do many other players!  From the site:

Sometimes you want an intricate fantasy setting that encourages roleplaying and characterization – one with lovingly detailed cultures and plots, enabling you to give each hero a past, a family, and a home town. Sometimes you want to use every rule, making the game richer and more realistic . . .

. . . and sometimes you just want to play a combat-monster warrior who stomps monsters and takes their stuff!

Many – perhaps most – gamers started out playing simple dungeon-crawl RPGs or hack n' slash computer games. Some of us still recall that time fondly, but pretend to have "outgrown" it. But if you love the smell of fireballs in the morning, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is for you.

No - D&D is for you! or Pathfinder! Or Swords and Wizardry! Or Labyrinth Lord! Or Dungeon Crawl Classics! Or any of the other umpteen dozen dungeon crawling RPG's on the market!

GURPS was the game we played when we were tired of dungeon crawling! because D&D was built for that and has always been better for that kind of game! 

GURPS is a great game for so many other genres, why did they choose this specific subgenre of fantasy for the "GURPS litmus test kickstarter"? If it fails or just barely funds I suspect we won't see renewed support for GURPS in a big way and that would be a shame. I know fantasy is the big dog in RPG's but its also the most crowded pool and dungeon crawls are the most crowded part of all. 

Also, from what I am reading, GURPS DF does not have any particular setting associated with it. It's sort of generic D&D type fantasy without any well-defined world. So there's no setting hook here and  the playstyle is certainly not unique - the pitch is pretty much "play D&D using some of the GURPS rules" and that's a shame. I suppose you could adapt one of the D&D settings over for it but if you;re going to play this style fo fantasy game and set it in a D&D setting why not just play D&D?

So I don't know if I'm going to back it. I kind of want to because it's GURPS and I'd like to see more from them, to see what a new generation of designers could do with the full game. 

Sidetrack: Imagine if they had an easy 3rd-party licensing setup like Savage Worlds or Mutants and Masterminds or Pathfinder - we might see a new wave of some pretty cool material come out for the old game. If an announcement of that kind of thing was part of the Kickstarter I'd be at least a little more interested too. 

That aside, it's $65 (with shipping) for yet another dungeon crawling game using a different system. Why not put that money into games we're already playing which include several other dungeon crawling type games? Why not build on what I already have instead of starting a new project? Heck, why not go buy a copy of Descent ($60 at Amazon as I write this) and get plastic mini's and cardboard map tiles?

What are the odds it will have support at the level of Pathfinder? D&D? DCC? Based on the track record I'd say it's pretty slim as it's been awhile since SJG really got behind a particular part of the GURPS line and really pushed it. Looking at what's available DF might be the best-supported GURPS sub-line but if the new set covers a lot of the core material, well, there's not a ton left over. Looks like there's all of one published adventure and no real setting material so it's mostly short books on mechanics. Whee.

The other question, if I did back it, is "when are we going to play it"? When are we going to choose this over D&D, Pathfinder, DCC - the usual suspects. What makes this better than those games for dungeon crawling? "But it's GURPS" - well that makes it different but not better. What hook does it have besides "GURPS"? How do I sell it to my players beyond "it's GURPS" because most of them have very little experience with that system and are pretty happy with the last 3 versions of D&D and Pathfinder. 

So I don't know - I'm still undecided. Leaning towards "skip it" but undecided. The KS runs for 23 more days. If I do jump in it will probably be late in the run and it will mainly be because I want to see GURPS get another chance at growth and not because I expect to play it much. I'll force a session or three on the Apprentices if nothing else if it goes that way but it will be more about future possibilities than the actual game in the box. 

Savage Rifts Kickstarter Ends Today

If anyone is still thinking about getting in the Rifts Savage Worlds conversion Kickstarter ends tonight, around 9pm Central. I backed it because I am interested in both the Rifts setting and using Savage Worlds to run it and I believe the answer to my "Will I ever run this?" question is a definite yes!

Anyway, just a PSA for anyone interested but not yet committed.

Rifts for Savage Worlds - We have a date!

Two Weeks!

I have to say I'm pretty happy to see that logo and that image combined. I think we will get to pay more attention to the setting with a decent system that's a lot less tied up in mechanics and one that plays a lot faster than what we've had for the last 26 years. It's definitely a chocolate meets peanut butter kind of development for me.

I'm slightly less happy to see that it's another Kickstarter but Pinnacle has delivered on every single one and they've run quite a few these last few years. For some reason I was thinking this would be a traditional release which they still do occasionally. The kickstarter will get plenty of attention and probably let them do more with it than the traditional approach but it means a month of escalating hype and stretch goals and I don't get quite as excited about that as I used to.

Anyway I'll be getting on board for this one and I'm looking forward to seeing what Savage Worlds can do with the Megaverse.

Well, I'm interested ...

...just get it out there!

ICONS Kickstarter - Against the Axis

Another Kickstarter and this time it's World War II Superheroes! The setting is Stark City, an ICONS setting which was Kickstarted a while back and delivered on all of its promises. It's written by Steve Perrin whose main fame is tied to Runequest and other BRP games but he's done some interesting work with superhero games as well. There will also be Supers and Savage Worlds conversions as fairly easily reached stretch goals too. I like ICONS, I like WW2 superheroics, and I like the people working on this one, so I backed it and I thought I would share.

Scarred Lands Kickstarter

There's a kickstarter running for one more week to update Scarred Lands to both Pathfinder and 5th Edition D&D. I was a huge fan of Scarred Lands for 3rd Edition D&D so I backed it and thought I would post it here in case anyone else was a fan too. It's funded so now it's just a question of stretch goals.

Kickstarter is here.

It's a great setting for D&D or any kind of epic fantasy game. There's a mythic feel to it that In haven't seen since Glorantha for Runequest - but I like this one better. I'm looking forward to seeing it in a new form.

Around the Tower

We've spent a lot of time getting ready for Christmas this year and work is still a daily thing until Christmas weekend so there have not been a ton of updates this month.

• Movies:
• I saw Force Awakens last week and I'm still trying to decide how much  I like it. No spoilers here - I'll likely post about it next week while I am off.
• New trailer for Batman vs. Superman - Well that is a new wrinkle. Still not feeling Affleck as Bruce Wayne but I did like the snarky comeback in his conversation with Clark. Call me old school but I am also not thrilled about this interpretation of Lex Luthor either. I like Jesse Eisenberg but I am not liking what I see so far of the character.
• X-Men Apocalypse - Like what I see so far. 
• Independence Day - no idea. I liked the first one, not sure what this one is going to be but the trailer didn't really give me a "wow" feeling like the blowing up landmarks trailer of the original movie did.
• Star Trek Beyond - Looks like we lose the ship right off the bat - great. Then we have Kirk or someone jumping a motorcycle - great. Lots of jumping in general - it's the X-games edition of Trek! And as much as I like the Beastie Boys I will say I never expected to hear them as the backing music in a trailer for a Star Trek anything! Very mixed feelings about the next Trek movie.

• Games
• Next session of Wrath of the Righteous will happen in January so all quiet there
• Played another session in Paladin Steve's Kingmaker campaign - still having fun with that
• Will be running another sesison of Marvel Heroic after new years to hopefully close out the arc we started a couple of years ago in this very occasional campaign. 
• I've been focusing on 40K in the meantime so I will probably have some posts about that in the near future too.

• Kickstarters
• I was one of the many backers of the MST3K Kickstarter. I pretty much had to be as that was one of the mainstays of the 1990's for me. I'm glad that it did well and hopeful we will see something awesome out of it. Reality check: Yes, I will be watching everything they send me, old or new.
• I backed the Battletech computer game Kickstarter and I am hopeful that we get something out of that's awesome as well. More 80's -90's nostalgia there too but the computer games were usually pretty fun and the guys doing this one have some experience and the right leadership to make it happen. Reality check: Yes, I will be playing this.
• I backed the 1$ mystery RPG project Kickstarter  because ... what the heck - it's a dollar! I am curious to see what comes out of it - no specific hopes or wants on it, I am just intrigued enough to follow it. Reality check: Whether I play it or not really depends on what kind of game the creator makes. Regardless, I only spent a dollar, so even if he makes a game about nuns doing chores around the nunnery I won't feel too bad.
• Finally, I joined the Runequest Classic Edition Kickstarter, partly out of nostalgia, partly out of collector-itis, and partly to keep a good thing going. I played a fair amount of Runequest in the 80's and into the early 90's and while I was never one of the fanatics about it I did think it was a good game with an interesting and original mythology paired up with mechanics that were just different enough from D&D to keep it lively. I sold off my last copy of RQ3 years ago so the opportunity to pick up a hardback copy of RQ2 and some supporting material at a reasonable cost was very attractive. I also like that the plan is to keep the game in print and supported and even though it's not my "main" game and never has been, I like it and respect it enough to help out there too.

That's it for now - more to come!