RPG Crowdfunding News – Mystery of the Cursed Statuette, ADVENTURE PARTY, Horror Epics, and more

This week’s RPG crowdfunding review samples the campaigns ending between June 29 to July 5. These campaigns offer Sherlock Holmes inspired content, new options for your familiars, an RPG party game, and more.

It’s Free RPG Day this Saturday, June 24. I’ll be at Kapow! Comics passing out dice and games including the sampler for ADVENTURE PARTY discussed below. Check this Free RPG Day link to find a participating location near you.

The Mystery of the Cursed Statuette (5e) from Midnight Tower

• END DATE: Thu, June 29 2023 2:59 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventure
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £8 for the PDF copy of the book
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? With Silver to Platinum selling adventures based on the works of Poe, of Lovecraft, and the novels of Jane Austen, it’s time for Midnight Tower to add Sherlock Holmes to their catalog. Think foggy city streets, clues, witnesses, twists, and 5e to give you the inspiration behind their concept. There’s a mystery, a book of the unlocked stretch goals, characters, VTT tokens, maps, and more. Coming in at 80ish pages, this is designed for level four characters, but is scalable as needed. If you need a mystery for your gaming table, this is worth exploring.

ADVENTURE PARTY: The Role-Playing Party Game from Smirk & Dagger Games

• END DATE: Fri, June 30 2023 11:59 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): An original system
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $35 + S/H for the boxed set
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? “Part guessing game, part role-playing adventure. Guess their roll based on the description of their character's success.” RPG and party games, that’s a rare combination. How does this work? This is a GM round robin RPG where the role of GM rotates around the table. The player rolls their attack against a static chart, but does not tell the GM or the table the number that they rolled. Instead, they describe the results and the GM asks a clarifying question before the GM and other players guess what number was rolled. The better each individual does at guessing the number, the more XP the characters get. It’s a party game, so expect more comedy than drama. If you’re interested in a demo of this game (including a free sample quickstart), it is one of the options available at Free RPG Day on June 24.

Horror Epics: GrymWyrd Omnibus 5e from STONEworks Gaming

• END DATE: Sat, July 1 2023 10:00 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $40 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book and music
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This campaign offers new GrymWyrd Tales. Horror Epics collects and expands on the prior four volumes of GrymWyrd Tales with two new volumes and so much more. Does your 5e campaign need monsters and adventures advertised as “absurdly fantastical” and a mix of Poe, Lewis Carroll, William Blake, and Lovecraft with 80's B-movies and LSD? Expect black magic spells, occult artifacts, new classes, and a bestiary across six adventures. If you’re looking for something to make your 5e campaign as gonzo deadly as a Mörk Borg campaign, this may be the right book for your campaign.

Rescue Rainbow City for Pf2e & 5e - LGBT+ adventure from Awfully Queer Heroes

• END DATE: Sat, July 1 2023 11:58 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and Pathfinder Second Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventure
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £15 for the PDF of the 5e or PF2e version of the rules
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This Pride Month campaign from Awfully Queer Heroes offers an adventure and the restoration of a safe haven. Set in Rainbow City, the city is just as it sounds, a metropolis where each district is a different hue making mapping and visualization of the city easy to relay. It many ways, it expands on the colors we already associate with cities such as the red light districts or green districts with greenways and parks. A great creature has taken over the city and you must save it. This adventure is for levels 3 to 12 with 50 monsters, dozens of locations, and NPCs plus rules for 5e or PF2e. If you want to rescue a city, this one is worth the effort.

Ultramodern5, a 5E universal sci-fi sourcebook + Campaigns & Adventures by Dias Ex Machina

• END DATE: Jul 3, 2023 at 12:00pm EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Backerkit
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $53 for so many PDF files and POD discount coupons for the Ultramodern5 books
• ADDITIONAL REPORTING: I spoke to Chris Dias about the project here
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Ultramodern5 is the Mithral bestselling book on DriveThruRPG combining 5e rules with a modern/near future rules, gear, and options. This crowdfunding on Backerkit brings a prestige reprint of the 380-page core rulebook along with new adventures, campaigns, and settings. If you want cyberpunk, deep space, urban fantasy, old west, retro future, sci-fi horror, and more, there are gaming options in this campaign for your table. If 5e rules and modern settings appeal, this campaign supports the oldest non-fantasy 5e system out there.

UnFamiliar: Release the Tiny Beasts from Jerry Joe Seltzer

• END DATE: Tue, July 4 2023 4:21 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $12 for the PDF of the book and the VTT options
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? UnFamiliar: Release the Tiny Beasts imagines a world where the 5e version of the Find Familiar spell has been modified to free the familiars, allowing them to adventure on their own. Without a wizard to answer to, what will these small animals do? This campaign updates the UnFamiliar 5e sourcebook with new material and options including a new class and more animals. If the campaign reaches 800 backers, the aquatic animals from the spell will be added to the list. If you backed the last campaign, there’s a special discounted tier specifically for you. If you’re new to this project, you can jump on and play as a familiar of your choosing.

Roleplay Relay from Nerdy Nightly

• END DATE: Wed, July 5 2023 12:05 AM EDT.
• PROJECT TYPE: RPG livestream
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: CA$50 + S/H for a signed poster, access to the stream, $5 merch coupon, and an NPC will be named after you in the stream
• WHEN & WHERE: “Live From 5pm July 29th - 5pm August 5th” on Nerdy Nightly Youtube and Nerdy Nightly Twitch
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Would you roleplay a 5e campaign non-stop for a week? 12-hour shifts, bio-breaks, and roleplaying without pause, that’s Roleplay Relay’s plan. Two teams roleplaying in 12-hour shifts from 5:00 to 5:00 from Saturday to Saturday. Each character will be played by two different players (one during the day, one player at night) across the campaign, on-camera for 168 hours worth of fun. The results of this experiment may answer the question of whether a 24 hour a day roleplaying campaign would appeal to fans or not. If you’re interested, check out the campaign page to learn more.

Maximum Mayhem Dungeons #0: Village on the Borderlands from Dark Wizard Games

• END DATE: Wed, July 5 2023 8:26 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons First Edition, Fifth Edition, and OSRIC
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventure
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $35 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book plus PDFs of maps, adventures, character sheets, posters, and more
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This is a 64-page module for characters that are levels 1 to 3 designed for AD&D 1E, 5E, OSRIC and other OSRs. This is a full book featuring a hamlet, 100 NPCs, 45 locations, NPC location charts, 25 encounter areas, and mini-bosses. Basically, this booklet is crammed with scenarios for your characters to encounter. This kicks off with ogres and hill giants and rolls from there. If you’re interested in an old-school adventure printed in a vintage format, this is worth a review.

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Egg Embry participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Associate. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Games, and Amazon.

 

[chaoshead87]

I like the idea of the roleplay relay, may back that. I actually like kickstarters like this, its sort of a novel idea, sort of dumb but that's my kind of entertainment.

 

[Egg Embry]

I like the idea of the roleplay relay, may back that. I actually like kickstarters like this, its sort of a novel idea, sort of dumb but that's my kind of entertainment.

I'm with you. It's a cool idea and I hope it leads to more RPG streaming opportunities!

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

Thanks for the coverage. We're about to cross $35K

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Agreed, kooky concept the relay. I played some epic sessions back in my youth, but this is next level

I also like the idea of UnFamiliar

 

[dave2008]

@Egg Embry, I'm not sure how you come up with your list of projects but I was sniffing around Kickstarter today and found this one that you might look to feature in your next article: God of the Eastern Sky. I like the idea at least, but I am not sure of the details (a preview would help too).