Welcome back to our weekly look at tabletop roleplaying game, and accessories, crowdfunding roundup! Each week we’ll be looking at a few campaigns currently running that have caught our eye as well as occasionally speaking to some of the creators about their campaigns, or looking at some of the ‘behind the scenes’ business aspects of putting together, launching, operating and then delivering a crowdfunded project. If you have anything you’d like us to cover, or questions about anything we talk about, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me directly.
[h=3]Aventuria Almanac – The Dark Eye RPG by Ulisses Spiele[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 21st November 2016; 14:59 UTC)
Back in June Ulisses Spiele ran a very successful Kickstarter to publish Germany’s #1 Fantasy RPG The Dark Eye into English. Now it’s the turn for Aventuria Almanac to be successfully Kickstarted and translated.
Aventuria Almanac explores the world of The Dark Eye, the lands, the races, the tumultuous history of Aventuria, trade and economies, the empires, the gods and so forth, as well as introducing new monsters and the archdemons for the first time.
Your group has read the Core Rules and created characters, and your heroes have fought their way through several challenging adventures. But what does their future hold? To escort the royal envoy of the Horasian Empire, the heroes must plan the travel route, but are the roads passable at this time of year, or should they risk a voyage by sea? The Cyclopes posses ancient secrets of the forge, which they sometimes share with fellow smiths, but would a curious dwarf be welcome on their island home? The last of Borbarad’s lieutenants has been defeated at tremendous cost, but does this mean the heroes may safely explore the Shadowlands, or does some malignant force still hide there, biding its time and waiting for the world to grow complacent once again?
The Aventuria Almanac answers all these questions and more!
[h=3]Castles & Crusades Adventurers Backpack by Stephen Chenault[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 23rd November 2016; 04:00 UTC)
The Adventurers Backpack for Castles & Crusades builds on the C&C Players Handbook in a similar way that the original Unearthed Arcana did for AD&D back in the day. You’ll find loads of new player content, classes, spells, equipment, actually, here’s a list for you…
· 13 new classes
· New Non-derivative spells
· A new approach on counter spells and canceling spells
· 34 different backpacks offering an easier and faster way to equip
· A fresh easier to use approach to Unarmed Combat
· Magic Items for classes who have few to choose from
· A look at the Archetype
· The End Game, why old characters never die
[h=3]Dialect: A Game about Language and How it Dies by Thorny Games[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Friday 9th December 2016; 07:00 UTC)
Dialect is a tabletop roleplaying game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. It’s a GM-less game for 3-5 people that runs in 3-4 hours. Ge game’s core spark comes from gradually building up elements of language among players, who gain fluency in their own dialect over the course of play. Words are built off of the fundamental traits of the community, the pivotal events that have defined their lives, and how they respond to a changing world/ Players use the language and explore both their characters and the world by asking what this new language really means to them. A new word is made, the language grows, and the community is tightened.
From age to age, the isolation changes and we see those changes reflected in the language. In the end, you’ll define how the language dies and what happens to the isolation. Players take away both the story they’ve told together and this new language.
David Peterson, the author of The Art of Language Invention and the language creator for HBO’s Game of Thrones is writing a chapter giving insight into how language is invented and a host of game writers are providing ‘backdrops’ that you can use to help get started.
[h=3]Follow by Ben Robbins[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 17th November 2016; 03:00 UTC)
Follow is the new game by Ben Robbins, who has previously designed the indie hits Microscope and Kingdom. Follow is a very story orientated affair which allows the players to choose, modify and develop the style of quest they want to go on. It’s not set anywhere or anywhen, leaving the group to select one of the default ideas or tailor one entirely to their desire, so no preparation is needed – you can just get the book out and start playing.
“So how does Follow work? The backbone of the game is the quest you pick. It gets everyone on the same page about the kind of story you’re creating so you can start playing quickly.
‘People working together to accomplish a goal’ covers a huge range of possibilities, so Follow quests do too. You can settle a new planet with the Colony or try to rocket your band to the top of the charts in the Music. Win an election and get the Candidate into office or put on your lab coat and fight a disease in the Cure. Play the Gods and make mortals worship you or try to unite the Superheroes as a team to protect society and bust some heads.
Quests are built to be flexible and powerful. Each has a default setting, but the game is designed so you can take one and drop it into whatever environment you like. Want to play Rebel spies stealing the plans to the Death Star? Whip out the Heist. By default it’s a modern-day robbery, but you could just as easily go after Imperial secrets. I’ve seen the Posse played as UN investigators tracking down a rogue artificial intelligence, the Dragon as Norse seafarers hunting a kraken, and the Rebellion with plucky 4th graders fighting back against the 5th graders who bully them. So long as the goal of the quest stays the same, you can jump into any setting that interests you.” writes Ben.
[h=3]Star Ascension – A Gritty Sci-Fi RPG for Open D6 by Stuart Yee[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Sunday 20th November 2016; 09:25 UTC)
Star Ascension is a new science fiction roleplaying game using a slightly modified version of the popular Open D6 rules system.
Set in the late 23rd Century, the Star Ascension Project resulted in one of humanity’s greatest achievements – star drive technology. Having spent the previous two centuries crawling through space at fractions of the speed of light, humanity could now travel even further and quicker than ever before through deep space.
Your characters will seek out new riches, explore new planets, defend against space pirate attacks, encounter hostile cyborgs, fight in interstellar wars and hopefully survive it all. Your characters will fight against injustice, fight for money, or maybe just fight because they can.
There are two rulebooks available on the Kickstarter (and a free 47-page Quick Start book is available to download on DriveThruRPG). The Recruit Edition is a 100-page beginners rulebook containing easy to customize Character Templates, Starship specs and layout, easy to master rules and a starting Adventure. The Star Ascension Core Rulebook clocks in at 320-pages and is a comprehensive rulebook, including more Character templates, character creation, advanced combat rules, full listing of Perks and Flaws, gazetteer of prominent planets, corporations and factions, expanded equipment list, more ship spcs and layouts, detailed guide for campaign play and another adventure.
[h=3]Papers & Paychecks by Lev Lafayette [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 24th December 2016; 07:13 UTC)
Papers & Paychecks is inspired by an illustration that appeared three decades ago in the Dungeon Masters Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It showed a group of fantasy characters sitting down to play “a great new fantasy role-playing,” where the characters “pretend we’re workers and students in an industrialized and technological society” illustrated by Will McLean (who sadly passed away a year ago to the day when this campaign launched). The rulebook one of the characters is holding is “Papers & Paychecks” and now Lev Lafayette and the RPG Review Cooperative are creating a 128 page actual game of it.
Papers & Paperchecks posits a world that is downright hostile to the player characters using the metaphysical foundation of resistentialism. This is a supposedly joke philosophy based around the widespread anecdotal evidence of an apparent malice of inanimate objects against people: “Les choses sont contre nous” (“Things are against us”).
Add this to the regular mix of cringeworthy managers, bumbling technicians, mad scientists, scheming administrators, wacky researchers, dodgy tradies, and brutish labourers, and you have the ingredients of the tragi-comedy that is “Papers & Paychecks”, inspired by such TV shows as Drop The Dead Donkey, Corner Gas, The IT Crowd, The Office, Utopia and Interns.
**********
If you like what we do here at EN World (the Forums, Columns, News, ENnies, etc) and would like to help support us to bring you MORE please consider supporting our Patreon. Even a single dollar helps Thanks!
**********
If you have a forthcoming Kickstarter, or see one that excites you, please feel free to drop me an email on angus.abranson@gmail.com You can follow me on Twitter @ Angus_A or on Facebook where I often post about gaming.
Until next week, have fun and happy gaming!
Angus Abranson
[h=3]Aventuria Almanac – The Dark Eye RPG by Ulisses Spiele[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 21st November 2016; 14:59 UTC)
Back in June Ulisses Spiele ran a very successful Kickstarter to publish Germany’s #1 Fantasy RPG The Dark Eye into English. Now it’s the turn for Aventuria Almanac to be successfully Kickstarted and translated.
Aventuria Almanac explores the world of The Dark Eye, the lands, the races, the tumultuous history of Aventuria, trade and economies, the empires, the gods and so forth, as well as introducing new monsters and the archdemons for the first time.
Your group has read the Core Rules and created characters, and your heroes have fought their way through several challenging adventures. But what does their future hold? To escort the royal envoy of the Horasian Empire, the heroes must plan the travel route, but are the roads passable at this time of year, or should they risk a voyage by sea? The Cyclopes posses ancient secrets of the forge, which they sometimes share with fellow smiths, but would a curious dwarf be welcome on their island home? The last of Borbarad’s lieutenants has been defeated at tremendous cost, but does this mean the heroes may safely explore the Shadowlands, or does some malignant force still hide there, biding its time and waiting for the world to grow complacent once again?
The Aventuria Almanac answers all these questions and more!
[h=3]Castles & Crusades Adventurers Backpack by Stephen Chenault[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 23rd November 2016; 04:00 UTC)
The Adventurers Backpack for Castles & Crusades builds on the C&C Players Handbook in a similar way that the original Unearthed Arcana did for AD&D back in the day. You’ll find loads of new player content, classes, spells, equipment, actually, here’s a list for you…
· 13 new classes
· New Non-derivative spells
· A new approach on counter spells and canceling spells
· 34 different backpacks offering an easier and faster way to equip
· A fresh easier to use approach to Unarmed Combat
· Magic Items for classes who have few to choose from
· A look at the Archetype
· The End Game, why old characters never die
[h=3]Dialect: A Game about Language and How it Dies by Thorny Games[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Friday 9th December 2016; 07:00 UTC)
Dialect is a tabletop roleplaying game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. It’s a GM-less game for 3-5 people that runs in 3-4 hours. Ge game’s core spark comes from gradually building up elements of language among players, who gain fluency in their own dialect over the course of play. Words are built off of the fundamental traits of the community, the pivotal events that have defined their lives, and how they respond to a changing world/ Players use the language and explore both their characters and the world by asking what this new language really means to them. A new word is made, the language grows, and the community is tightened.
From age to age, the isolation changes and we see those changes reflected in the language. In the end, you’ll define how the language dies and what happens to the isolation. Players take away both the story they’ve told together and this new language.
David Peterson, the author of The Art of Language Invention and the language creator for HBO’s Game of Thrones is writing a chapter giving insight into how language is invented and a host of game writers are providing ‘backdrops’ that you can use to help get started.
[h=3]Follow by Ben Robbins[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 17th November 2016; 03:00 UTC)
Follow is the new game by Ben Robbins, who has previously designed the indie hits Microscope and Kingdom. Follow is a very story orientated affair which allows the players to choose, modify and develop the style of quest they want to go on. It’s not set anywhere or anywhen, leaving the group to select one of the default ideas or tailor one entirely to their desire, so no preparation is needed – you can just get the book out and start playing.
“So how does Follow work? The backbone of the game is the quest you pick. It gets everyone on the same page about the kind of story you’re creating so you can start playing quickly.
‘People working together to accomplish a goal’ covers a huge range of possibilities, so Follow quests do too. You can settle a new planet with the Colony or try to rocket your band to the top of the charts in the Music. Win an election and get the Candidate into office or put on your lab coat and fight a disease in the Cure. Play the Gods and make mortals worship you or try to unite the Superheroes as a team to protect society and bust some heads.
Quests are built to be flexible and powerful. Each has a default setting, but the game is designed so you can take one and drop it into whatever environment you like. Want to play Rebel spies stealing the plans to the Death Star? Whip out the Heist. By default it’s a modern-day robbery, but you could just as easily go after Imperial secrets. I’ve seen the Posse played as UN investigators tracking down a rogue artificial intelligence, the Dragon as Norse seafarers hunting a kraken, and the Rebellion with plucky 4th graders fighting back against the 5th graders who bully them. So long as the goal of the quest stays the same, you can jump into any setting that interests you.” writes Ben.
[h=3]Star Ascension – A Gritty Sci-Fi RPG for Open D6 by Stuart Yee[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Sunday 20th November 2016; 09:25 UTC)
Star Ascension is a new science fiction roleplaying game using a slightly modified version of the popular Open D6 rules system.
Set in the late 23rd Century, the Star Ascension Project resulted in one of humanity’s greatest achievements – star drive technology. Having spent the previous two centuries crawling through space at fractions of the speed of light, humanity could now travel even further and quicker than ever before through deep space.
Your characters will seek out new riches, explore new planets, defend against space pirate attacks, encounter hostile cyborgs, fight in interstellar wars and hopefully survive it all. Your characters will fight against injustice, fight for money, or maybe just fight because they can.
There are two rulebooks available on the Kickstarter (and a free 47-page Quick Start book is available to download on DriveThruRPG). The Recruit Edition is a 100-page beginners rulebook containing easy to customize Character Templates, Starship specs and layout, easy to master rules and a starting Adventure. The Star Ascension Core Rulebook clocks in at 320-pages and is a comprehensive rulebook, including more Character templates, character creation, advanced combat rules, full listing of Perks and Flaws, gazetteer of prominent planets, corporations and factions, expanded equipment list, more ship spcs and layouts, detailed guide for campaign play and another adventure.
[h=3]Papers & Paychecks by Lev Lafayette [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 24th December 2016; 07:13 UTC)
Papers & Paychecks is inspired by an illustration that appeared three decades ago in the Dungeon Masters Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It showed a group of fantasy characters sitting down to play “a great new fantasy role-playing,” where the characters “pretend we’re workers and students in an industrialized and technological society” illustrated by Will McLean (who sadly passed away a year ago to the day when this campaign launched). The rulebook one of the characters is holding is “Papers & Paychecks” and now Lev Lafayette and the RPG Review Cooperative are creating a 128 page actual game of it.
Papers & Paperchecks posits a world that is downright hostile to the player characters using the metaphysical foundation of resistentialism. This is a supposedly joke philosophy based around the widespread anecdotal evidence of an apparent malice of inanimate objects against people: “Les choses sont contre nous” (“Things are against us”).
Add this to the regular mix of cringeworthy managers, bumbling technicians, mad scientists, scheming administrators, wacky researchers, dodgy tradies, and brutish labourers, and you have the ingredients of the tragi-comedy that is “Papers & Paychecks”, inspired by such TV shows as Drop The Dead Donkey, Corner Gas, The IT Crowd, The Office, Utopia and Interns.
**********
If you like what we do here at EN World (the Forums, Columns, News, ENnies, etc) and would like to help support us to bring you MORE please consider supporting our Patreon. Even a single dollar helps Thanks!
**********
If you have a forthcoming Kickstarter, or see one that excites you, please feel free to drop me an email on angus.abranson@gmail.com You can follow me on Twitter @ Angus_A or on Facebook where I often post about gaming.
Until next week, have fun and happy gaming!
Angus Abranson
