RPG Crowdfunding News – Out-Gunned, Army Men, Devilry, and more

This week’s article features RPG crowdfunding projects that end on May 25 and 26. May 25 is a very popular date to end campaigns and I almost did an all May 25th article. I don’t know why May 25th, but the numbers were high for that date.

Alchemy RPG: A Reimagined Virtual Tabletop

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 10:01 AM EDT.
• PROJECT TYPE: Virtual tabletop
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $50 for a backer account, 6 months unlimited account access, and a content deck
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? A new virtual tabletop, this one focuses on a range of official publishers offering dedicated support for their game engines. Calling their setup a “scene-based structure”, the online experience includes “animated environments, particle effects, ambient sounds, and music.” They’ll have “officially licensed first-party support for 12 game systems,” as well as modules from a variety of games. They’re building the platform for systems like 5e, Free League’s Year Zero Engine, PF2e, Call of Cthulhu, Vampire: The Masquerade 5e, Kids on Bikes 2e, Magpie Game’s version of Powered by the Apocalypse, Modiphius’ 2d20 System, Mörk Borg which includes Vast Grimm and Pirate Borg, City of Mist, and more. The publisher support for the project makes it a standout. If you need a virtual tabletop, this campaign is worth looking over to see if the license and feel meet your needs.

Limitless Lands of Darabok (5E) from Limitless Adventures

• END DATE: Fri, May 26 2023 6:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $35 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Limitless Adventures is back with a book that offers 5e crunch and a cool setting. You’ll find new 5e feats, monsters, spells and spell options, and some novel ideas in these pages. More interestingly, the setting of Darabok is built around a shattered multiverse, with floating islands of different worlds drifting nearby. Each land has unique properties that influence the player character’s class and abilities. It allows you to pull together desperate locations into one massive setting. Combine that with the utility already mentioned as well as non-combat class options and this is a good 5e sourcebook to have.

Devilry For Old-School Essentials from Appendix N Entertainment

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 10:04 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Old-School Essentials
• PROJECT TYPE: RPG zine
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $14 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the zine
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This is the second book in Appendix N’s Heaven and Hell trilogy. The first book was all about Old-School Essential demons, this book and campaign are about OSE devils. There are lesser and greater devils as well as classic archdevils and new ones. If you need some devils in your OSE, this campaign is waiting for you.

Army Men from High Level Games

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 10:59 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $40 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book
• DISCLAIMER: I freelanced for High Level Games. I am not involved in this project
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? You remember plastic toy soldiers, the green army men that were a staple of many a childhood? Did you create a fiction for yours, one that made all of the different eras and units of soldiers make some sense together? Army Men brings together all types of armies and factions combined into one massive military fiction. This project is meta in the best way: You’re the GM who is effectively a child with a huge collection of mismatched plastic soldiers, the kind you still see at Cracker Barrel chain restaurants and the pharmacy toy aisle. Combined together, there’s a forced logic that justifies WWII GIs and aliens in one battle. This project gives you 5e rules and a narrative to pull out your toy soldiers and go to war!

Wyrmlings RPG - A wholesome, all-ages fantasy TTRPG from Lone Colossus Games

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 11:00 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): An original system
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $20 for the PDF of the book, character sheets, and coloring sheets
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Keeping with the idea of kid’s stories, let’s try an RPG that leans a little less militant. Showcasing inspirations like Steven Universe and My Little Pony, this project has you playing as young dragons. That idea feels like a kids show as you try to solve problems with the power of friendship and breath weapons. Offered as a low-prep simple system, you’ll be dragons on adventures and learning the value of teamwork and definitely not eating the farmer’s goats. Definitely not. Designed for all-ages, this RPG may spark interest in the young people in your lives.

Mini-Dungeon Tome II from AAW Games

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 4:10 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventures
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $49 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This book includes 124 adventures at the time of this writing. 250 pages of drag and drop dungeons and encounters for levels 1 to 20. 38% of the mini-dungeons are for levels 1 to 4, 49% are for levels 5 to 10. With so much of the book given to the highly played character levels, there’s a lot of utility for GMs since most campaigns don’t get into the double digits. If you need more encounters from AAW Games, check out the campaign page for a preview pack to determine your interest.

Outgunned - Cinematic Action RPG from Two Little Mice

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 5:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Director's Cut
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: €149 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the three books, GM screen, dice, cards, and more PDFs
• TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: Outgunned – Quickstart is PWYW at DriveThruRPG
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Think James Bond, Atomic Blonde, Ocean’s Eleven, John Wick, or any franchise where suits and silencers are proper attire and you’ll have the foundations of this RPG. Modern day action and heists as an RPG. The core book is over 200 pages of rules, the setting book is over 150 pages of locations and jobs. Outgunned is by the Ennie Award-winning authors of Household and Broken Compass, so you have some reference to their level of quality. If the idea speaks to you, try out the quickstart and the campaign page.

What Is Light Without Dark RPG from NerdBurger Games

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 7:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Roll-Track System
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $22 + S/H for the PDF and softcover of the book
• ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Check out my interview with Craig Campbell about this project (here)
• TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: Good Strong Hands Quick Start is free at DriveThruRPG
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Good Strong Hands, the whimsical fantasy RPG that is the core rulebook for the What Is Light Without Dark sourcebook, was nominated for an Ennie Award in 2022. Inspired by movies such as Legend, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and The Neverending Story, this book gives you more material to create worlds of childish wonder. With this campaign, Craig is adding the first sourcebook to the game. This sourcebook adds more generals to support the evil force that threatens the realms, adds new folk such as the clockwork, dragonet, patchwork, and gives more history to the world. If you need an RPG that gives the feel of fun fantasy movies from the 1980s, this campaign page is worth your time.

Monsters of the Dungeon for 5th Edition and other RPGs from Cawood Publishing

• END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 9:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition as well as Pathfinder Second Edition and OSRs
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: CA$47 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This is the sixth book in Cawood Publishing’s Monster series. With a focus on what you’ll find in different dungeons, this book gives you creatures, quest ideas, and some related magic items. Since the book breaks down the monsters by dungeon environment, it makes them good additions for your random encounters. Coming in at over 160 pages, you’ll get more than 100 monsters. If you’re looking for the next creature around the corner, this book has a variety to choose from.

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[aramis erak]

See SPI. Arguably it was on the way down the drain anyway, but there might have been products that could have survived if sold off to anyone but TSR.

SPI had multiple issues...
Pretty much no one else in the industry could have gotten the core rules out and into book channels the way TSR did. Waldenbooks, B. Dalton, and a few other booksellers.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And yet SPI's RPGs and other games are dead letters now, even though there's still extent fans. That looks a lot like buy-and-kill.

 

[aramis erak]

And yet SPI's RPGs and other games are dead letters now, even though there's still extent fans. That looks a lot like buy-and-kill.

TSR probably didn't make back cost on the DQ 3E core. If they'd bought it to kill it, there would have been no 3rd ed. getting it into big box book stores was basically a long shot that, had it worked, could have been a new line. DQ was SPI's best selling game. Universe was largely unknown, save by the adverts in Dragon and Dungeon.

Not that I've ever seen ANY expansion material for DQ. There appear to have been about 10 supplements from its SPI runs, but I never saw them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

TSR probably didn't make back cost on the DQ 3E core. If they'd bought it to kill it, there would have been no 3rd ed. getting it into big box book stores was basically a long shot that, had it worked, could have been a new line. DQ was SPI's best selling game. Universe was largely unknown, save by the adverts in Dragon and Dungeon.

Not necessarily. It would have been much more obvious if that edition never existed. In addition, as has been noted in other things TSR and WOTC has done, their sense of a viable game and what pretty much everyone else in the hobby considers to be one are vastly different; this came up with the Alternity situation, where the game would have been an amazing seller by anyone but WOTC's standards.

Not that I've ever seen ANY expansion material for DQ. There appear to have been about 10 supplements from its SPI runs, but I never saw them.

Physically? Because by the time they came along it was hard to find most of SPI's output. They were already contracting.

 

[aramis erak]

Not necessarily. It would have been much more obvious if that edition never existed. In addition, as has been noted in other things TSR and WOTC has done, their sense of a viable game and what pretty much everyone else in the hobby considers to be one are vastly different; this came up with the Alternity situation, where the game would have been an amazing seller by anyone but WOTC's standards.

TSR wasn't noted for buying the competition to kill them.
They were noted for not thinking about market effects before going to print, let alone before going to development...
It's simpler and kinder to attribute it to low market demand than to any form of malice or ill intent.

 

[Thomas Shey]

TSR wasn't noted for buying the competition to kill them.
They were noted for not thinking about market effects before going to print, let alone before going to development...
It's simpler and kinder to attribute it to low market demand than to any form of malice or ill intent.

I'd buy that more if the timing and way they bought SPI wasn't what it was. Seriously, look up how that played out. You don't loan someone money then abruptly insist on them paying it back immediately if you're making a deal in good faith.