Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-away Kickstarter

Dark Realms 1 Million RPG Give-Away Kickstarter


The Guild of Blades Publishing Group is happy to announce the launch of the ambitious 1 Million book give-away Kickstarter project for its new

Dark Realms Epic Adventure Game line. The goal of this kickstarter project is to garner the support needed to fund the printing and distribution of a million copies of a give-away edition of the Dark Realms Epic Adventure Game. A short, d6 based, easy to learn role-playing game designed to be an ideal introductory game for new role-players.

Not since the early 80's and the fad-like expansion of Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition has anyone put a million copies of any RPG into the market in a fairly short time frame, and none with the specific intent of targeting potential new players. So this project aims to serve as a grand experiment at rallying segments of the hobby and industry together to set forth and try and recruit new blood to gaming.

In addition to copies of the "Give-Away" edition of the Dark Realms, contributors to the kickstarter will be able to select from the commercial version of the Dark Realms core rules, 11 different game supplements, the World of Chaos Campaign Setting Box set, custom dice and more.

For more information, the Kickstarter campaign may be view at:

Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-Away by Guild of Blades — Kickstarter

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More than one way to support the project:

1) Direct Contributions

Direct contributions are always helpful. Contributors will find they will get a good deal on actual Dark Realms books and products plus a number of the "Give-Away" edition of the book to spread around. Contributions go to pay for those rewards and will help fund the printing of the 1 million give-away books and their broader distribution.

2) Help Spread The Word

A project of this scope is going to need as much support as it can get. A big part of that will be getting the word out to as many role-players as possible. You can help by letting your friends know about the project. Post it on your facebook, your gaming discussion forums, etc. Tell your local gaming friends and maybe your local retail. The more people who know about it, the more likely we'll be able to get these printed and distributed and see if this i a viable approach to spreading the hobby.

Thanks,
Ryan Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - Great Games since 1994.
GOB Retail
GOB Retail - Great Selections for Your Gaming.

We've had a number of people request a lower entry rewards tier, as they would like to support the project a bit but are most interested in following its progress. As such, we have added an additional rewards tier, this one at just $4.

You now have the option to support the Dark Realms give-away project with just $4 and receive a PDF copy of any of the 11 available sourcebooks.

Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-Away by Guild of Blades — Kickstarter

Thanks,
Ryan Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - Great Games since 1994.
GOB Retail
GOB Retail - Great Selections for Your Gaming.

It sounds to me like you want people to fund your kickstarter so you can deliver what amount to advertisements for a more complete game. Judging by the accessories listed on the kickstarter, it seems like you'd need at least a few supplements to have a full, playable, reasonably complete game.

Dark Realms: Weapons and Equipment
Dark Realms: Creature Compendium I
Dark Realms: Professions
Dark Realms: Character Backgrounds
Dark Realms: Skills and Abilities[/B]
Dark Realms: Mystical Creations
Dark Realms: Taverns & Bar Brawls
Dark Realms: Undead
Dark Realms: Magic
Dark Realms: Technology
Dark Realms: Space Pirates

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A good deal of that sounds nearly essential for a playable RPG. Releasing what amount to generic rules without some of this stuff won't bring new people into the hobby. It might drive your supplement sales, but I'm not interested in funding that.

-O

Everyone can decide for themselves how useful the game itself can serve the role we are attempting to assign it. The complete core rules are available for free in PDF. A link for such can be found in the kickstarter text.

The game does have a lot of plug and play supplements, but none of them are required for play. The system in purely EXP based and provides a means for players and Realm Masters to create their own Skills and Spells, so those sourcebooks are purely optional a as player or Realm Master tools.

Sure, if you wanted to, you could compact all of that optional material into the game's core rulebook, but then you wouldn't have a light 32 page game that is quick and easy to read and get started playing. Our retail store recently had a parent buy the D&D 4th Edition players and Dunegons Guide for their their 12 year old, then returned it the next day because they said there was no way their 12 year old was "going to read all of that".

What new players and veteran players need can be quite different. The Dark Realms delivers a short, easy to grasp game with the core rules, then lets players plug and play any of the add ons they might find useful.

Thanks,
Ryan Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - Great Games since 1994.
GOB Retail
GOB Retail - Great Selections for Your Gaming.

Where are you distributing them to, though? Are you targeting gaming stores and comic book shops? Not to be captain obvious here, but that's not going to get any more people into the hobby. Everyone who is in a game store or a comic book shop either plays RPGs or knows of them.

Maybe if you could partner with Barnes and Noble or another major retailer you might have a hope of pulling people in who don't normally game, but I don't see any plans to do that, and without that you're pretty sunk. Even better, if you could get your material into schools or other areas kids frequent you might have a shot at this, but again, no plans.

Also, and this is not to be mean - your website looks like the worst form of 90s cruft websites. Painful text at top of page, check. Random logo in corner not related to your company or anything, check (two crossed fiery blades). Your main page has links to purchase things, news articles, about your company, a history, and random YouTube videos. You. Tube. Videos. It has so much cruft it's not even funny. To contrast with the vast effort getting this exercise in nested tables working, you didn't even get the font on the menu right.

Your font on your little services banners (which are across the top of the page... why are they not part of the menu system above them, why haven't they replaced the menu system, what is going on) feature black font on dark blue background. They're nearly unreadable, and they don't pop in any way. Ironically, they advertise graphic design and webpage design as two of your services (do you also do plumbing? IS THIS A GAME SITE OR NOT, I CAN'T TELL!).

I'm running at 1080P and it STILL has too much stuff on my screen. What does that even do on laptop monitors? I don't know. I don't want to know. Smartphone screens? They're a joke. I couldn't buy something from your site on a smartphone if I wanted to. And then there's what happens if I actually read your site.

From its inception, GOB Retail was created to launch and expand Print on Demand services for games; to bring new production and distribution vehicles to market for independant game designers and publishers to utilize. GOB Retail POD operations began in March of 2008 with the first die cut POD Playing Cards printing service in the USA. GOB Retail quickly expanded the POD card market until it hit max production capacity based on existant finishing equipment and has since been in development of new die cutting machinery to take POD card and board game production to the next level.

Click to expand...

From it's inception, GOB Retail was created... really? At the inception of most things I figure they've already been going on for a while. Department of Redundancy Department?

More damningly than mere grammar (which does not raise my trust in you as a company, btw) is the POD stuff. What is POD operations? POD games? I don't know. Your site has failed to tell me. Anything you can't bother to tell me about isn't very interesting.

I mean this stuff is all over:

The vast majority of hobby games, new and used, stocked at GOB Retail is also available online to order.

Click to expand...

I'm not a grammar nazi. If you were writing in an internet forum, I wouldn't care. But if you're trying to make me spend my money with the idea that you will do something useful with it, well, that website is making me scream. How do I know there aren't enormous grammatical errors all over your text? How do I know you're sending out a million copies of something people could read and use?

I don't. All I know is that your site inspires zero confidence.

Hi GreyIce,

Let's see. Where to begin.

I guess, first, wrong website. The website you obviosuly don't like is actually that of GOB Retail's. While I am a partner / co-owner of GOB Retail, its the Guild of Blades Publishing Group that publishes games and is running the Dark Realms kickstarter. Guild of Blades Publishing's website is at:
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - Great Games since 1994.

GOB Retail is a brick and mortar game store and POD (print on demand) company. Its website is not much geared for e-commerce. Very different needs and purpose than the publishing company.

>>How do I know there aren't enormous grammatical errors all over your text? How do I know you're sending out a million copies of something people could read and use?<<

The complete Dark Realms core rules are currently online in PDF format. If you actually want answers to those questions, the means are within your reach. You can find a download link to the game through the kickstarter text, on the Guild of Blades Publishing Group's website or we also have it as a free download on RPGNow.com

As for distribution...that is the most challenging part of all of this. We are hardly the first company to produce an "introductory" RPG, but likely the first to design one specifically with this sort of project in mind. We have a fairly decent plan for the distribution of the game book, but I am sure there is room for improvement there. Plenty of room for improvement. But distributing a million game books costs more than actual printing of those books, so keep in mind cost is a factor for every distribution option. Getting Barns & Noble on board...not likely within the project's cost structures.

The distribution plan currently calls for a mix of putting the game into current gamers hands and into venues where interested newbies can also get it. We plan to lean on getting books out through our contributors, who can also help to distribute the books to a mix of other current games and hopefully to locations within their community where newbies can get them. The same is planned for have a presence at Gen Con, Dragon Con and the San Diego Comic Con, where we would give bundles of books away. We also plan to distribute them through game and comic stores, through libraries, boys and girls clubs and to active duty military personnel.

Oh, as someone who runs a fairly successful game retail store, I very much disagree that sucg stores aren't reaching potential newbies. The truth is, we see "potential" newbies all the time. The challenge is presenting them with a $50 to $105 purchase (Pathdinder core rules or D&D4th 3 core rule books) and hundreds of pages of reading and expecting that doing so will take them from the "interested" category into the gamer category. It doesn't work very often. Connecting them with an existing group that is willing to teach them has far more success. But its hard to always find veteran groups willing to take on complete newbies. Newbies need to be handed a game (or sold perhaps) that is low cost or free which includes a simple game system and light reading that can let them get started. Keeping in mind that most newbies we see are 12-17 year olds who've heard about this whole role-playing thing and are curious, but that is about it.

Ryan Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - Great Games since 1994.
GOB Retail
GOB Retail - Great Selections for Your Gaming.

I am curious about something.
As you have printing abilities in your shop, why not slowly print up the Dark Realms starter books over the next 8-9 months and then send them out to all the stores that support Free RPG Day?

Desh-Rae-Halra said:

I am curious about something.
As you have printing abilities in your shop, why not slowly print up the Dark Realms starter books over the next 8-9 months and then send them out to all the stores that support Free RPG Day?

Click to expand...

Hi. The thing is, our printing capacity all sit with the realm of digital printing. On demand type stuff that is great for shorter production runs, but runs a bit on the more expensive side than traditional printing.

With the proposed kickstarter, the volume of the "give away" version of the game that would get printed is so large that it can be printed on web offset presses and where it might cost us $.30 to $.50 per unit to print them here (not counting labor), we can get the give-away printed for a bit under $.10 cents per unit. Its that print volume cost efficiency that makes the project cost feasible. It does require more up front, but that is why we've gone to Kickstarter for this one.

Almost all the funds that we would recieve fromthe Kickstarter go towards the printing and distrbution of the free edition. The production of the commercial version of the core rules we would be doing the printing for here, for the most part. We might outsource a bit of that printing only if the volumes that need to be printed reach a level where its most practical to use traditional printing rather than digital. That would only become an issue if the kickstarter attains enough to support to reach fund all 1 million of the give-away or more.

Ryan Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - Great Games since 1994.
GOB Retail
GOB Retail - Great Selections for Your Gaming.

Ryan,

First off, I would like to disclaim my comments with the fact that I hope you are successful and I think it would be great if the hobby grew.

I followed a banner ad to your Kickstarter. As a 33 year veteran of tabletop role playing games, an active member of my community, and a successful business person I could not fathom spending $1 on your Kickstarter. I had to stop and ask myself 'why is that?' It seems to have all of the right ingredients for something I would normally support. This is what I reflected on:

It seems poorly planned and tersely put together. I see no viable outlet for the sheer number of prints, I see no demand for the product, and I see no mechanism to promote the demand for the product. Similarly, I think you have seriously misjudged the reason for the decline of product sales.

There is no absence of availability in the RPG market. There is a large amount of product with a large range of cost and quality. There is a low amount of traditional promotion based on the niche market it represents...not a lack of effort. A tabletop RPG represents a quality product: not an impulse item. Meaning it isn't disposable and it surely isn't a purchase that will happen simply because it is there. It isn't salt, or water, or coffee...the supply doesn't dictate the revenue: it is purely demand. So, you want to create demand: I don't see a 32pg d6 game that no one asked for increasing demand in the RPG market.

$50-$100 is not too much for initiation. Simply look at the video game market. The fact is, people aren't playing as many board games, kids aren't playing with as many toys, and virtual environments are replacing more traditional social interactions. While many would like to spend less, and it can be a stumbling block, 3-6 people can easily share the books--thereby curbing the cost. What it can't do is compete with online and console games...it needs to be a separate market highlighting the significant differences, strengths and weaknesses, so that you can create demand through quality products...that people want.

Kids read more today than they did in the 80s. They just read differently and interact differently. You need to tailor your marketing to the way kids think and react...not to how you think they should. The influx of a pamphlet on role playing games will be received in the same way a pamphlet on colon health would be: not very well. What is it about your D6 game that appeals to contemporary kids...and it can't be the quick rules and ease of play because that is something only a current gamer would care about. Don't you see? That only means something if you have already played a game that was too long or complicated for you to begin with. You don't think D&D lost some first time buyers in the 70s and 80s because it was too long and confusing right off the hop? It was successful because it was new and relevant in its time...not because they printed a million copies.

Yes, there is a current of immediacy in young consumers currently; but, the difference is between the immediate results of a video game versus the protracted result of a role playing game: changing 300pgs to 32pgs won't change that. That is why you should market them very differently.

I think you quite possibly have a great product here; but, your pseudo-altruism is bound to fail in this capacity. You would be far more successful developing a network of like-minded people who make concerted efforts at recruitment. Carefully solicit the integration of product into readily available media sources...and then slowly work the idea of role playing games into a popular undercurrent of a chic underclass; thereby giving it a new flux of interest and visibility. Then...then introduce a solid, accessible, product that speaks to the people you are trying to sell it to...making reference to the media that spawned its new interest.

Lastly, focus...just plain focus. What do you have, what are you selling, why do I want it, and how do I get it? This Kickstarter is a rambling mess of hopes and dreams sprawled over a history lesson sprinkled with some hints of a product and some namedropping of future product. Focus. I have no ambition to even read the Kickstarter let along contribute to it. I'm sure you want to cover your bases but you are soliciting people for $45 000!!! People need to know you can be trusted with that kind of money. A rambling post on a casual idea of perhaps kickstarting a slumping retail industry (but with a vital online industry...just look at kickstarter) by flooding...I have no idea how and where you will distribute...with 32pg pamphlets doesn't inspire people.

I think some regrouping is in order. Again, I do wish you success, and pray that the RPG industry grows and remains strong; but, I just had to say something...and I couldn't do it on the Kickstarter unless I contributed.

I just read Wild Gazebo's whole post, which I found well thought out, but the sentence that sticks with me is comparing his game to a pamphlet on colon health. LOL. I dont think it was meant to be mean like that, but it cracks me up.

Also, the writing really needs some help. In the creature section: "Mutants are very ugly, strong, dumb, and smelly". Come on man, that looks like a 5th grader wrote it.

I just dont think you are going to get this into schools or libraries.

The idea is great, but I dont think the product is.

It seems like you are going for a cheaper gamer version of GURPS.

Also, as you already have the PDF, why cant you just use that and send out a million copies that way?

I like your store (website not so much), but I cant get behind this Kickstarter.

At $25 you get the Starter rules, and 2 supplements (so I would choose Weapons and Equipment and Professions), so I am still missing the monsters (Creature compendium). Your version says I can build the game myself, but if you are going entry level gamer, dont you want to hand them a full product? One must learn the game first before tweaking it. Plus 10 copies to "generally"(??) give out to anyone else.

At your $45 pledge level, you have "a package of 40 character sheets (a $51 value)"
What kind of paper are you printing them on that they cost a printing shop $1.27 a copy? It is just a 1 page B&W sheet.