What Happens If CODENAME: MORNINGSTAR Doesn't Fund?

With 2 weeks to go, and only 13% of the $425,000 raised, and those two weeks being Christmas, the odds are that Codename: Morningstar won't fund. There might be a last-minute turnaround, of course, but the prognosis right now does not look hopeful. Trapdoor Technologies leader Chris Matney addressed the possibility, saying that "not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo."
[lq]...if there does not appear to be a sufficient market interest our continued investment in the gaming industry is not assured.[/lq]

Below is what Chris Matney said on the subject. You can find the Kickstarter here.

What If We Don't Fund?

Yesterday, I addressed the question about why Trapdoor needs $425,000 to fund the completion of Morningstar. Today, I want to chat briefly about what happens if we don't fund via our Kickstarter campaign. The answer is somewhat more complex than you might imagine, so please bear with me.

First, we need to assess whether the gaming community has a real interest in our technology. The response to our Kickstarter is part of that answer - and I won't deny that the role player in me will be disappointed if we don't fund.

Our decision to jump into the gaming market was not made lightly. Trapdoor is a software company that builds interactive publishing applications. This technology is at work in commerce, education, and other fields. Role-playing games are complex and thus a perfect showcase for our interactive technology which simplifies prep and play. This is a greenfield opportunity for us and the industry. No other gaming company provides digital distribution beyond PDFs.

Your pledge to our Kickstarter campaign is the best way to express interest in bringing a remarkable, captivating and new experience to our hobby. It is the only way to 100% guarantee the success of Morningstar.

If we don't fund (and assuming there is demonstrable interest in the technology), we will need to reevaluate the current gaming ecosystem: looking for publishers who are interested in leveraging Morningstar into their gaming system, assessing the OGL for D&D 5e (if any), combing the feature set in Morningstar to see what can be pushed back, etc. With $1.2M invested in the project to date, we would obviously like to see Morningstar launch. However, as with any business if there does not appear to be a sufficient market interest our continued investment in the gaming industry is not assured.

The community and you have some decisions to make in the next two weeks. If you share our vision, pledge. Even if you don't think we will fund - throw your support behind our cause. Kickstarter collects pledges only if the funding is successful. It's a no risk proposition - at worst, you will show your support. Not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo. Hopefully, you elect to be on the ground floor of a truly remarkable journey.

Respectfully submitted.
Chris Matney
Managing Director
Trapdoor Technologies
​

[lq]...not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo.[/lq]

​

 

[Jester David]

Man, if it's one thing Codename Morningstar is teaching me it's that being open with all the behind the scenes stuff is a mistake apparently. This community sure is turning on Trapdoor Technologies fast!

Their honesty is nice. Refreshing. The problem is their attitude and the lack of details regarding the actual program.

For example:
"Not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo."

No. Not pledging might mean you have no interest in Pathfinder. Or can't justify the cost pre-Christmas. Or won't be able to get all your players to invest. Or are just unwilling to invest in a failimg project.
Plus the details of what you can do with the program are a tad vague.

 

[SharnDM]

I didn't read that quote with the venom everyone else did. It's just a stark truth. So to me there isn't this "attitude" everyone else seems to see.

To me the program also seems pretty understandable. Not sure what people are missing.

I really would like to have this, and certainly would like to see it in the hands of a company that actually cares about the community the way TT appears to.

 

[dungeondude]

I enjoy the open communication they seem to have regarding the project. Kudos! I don't even have anything against the amount of money they are seeking, though it is the holidays and like most of us, cash is tight.

What pretty much just killed my vibe for this was the "Not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo." Oh, that comes across wrong on various levels to me.

And, I don't play Pathfinder. I was hoping there could be other benefits for my game, but I'm sort-of off the "happy wagon" now with regards to this.

 

[fjw70]

In fairness, that quote mainly sounds bad when taken out of context in the pull quotes. "Kickstarter collects pledges only if the funding is successful. It's a no risk proposition - at worst, you will show your support. Not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo" isn't nearly so bad.

It's not good either. Maybe people do want something even if they don't think Morningstar is it.

 

[Hollow Man]

It's not good either. Maybe people do want something even if they don't think Morningstar is it.

What some of us want are the 5e rules in digital form. While Trapdoor was planning on providing this when the product was still DungeonScape, now the status of this is unknown. Even if WotC releases their rules in some OGL form, some aspects of the 5e rules will still be under copyright, and thus not able to be put into Morningstar.

So much appeal of the product went south once the partnership with WotC ended.

-HM

 

[dd.stevenson]

Maybe people do want something even if they don't think Morningstar is it.

That's my point: the full context limits the scope of the claim to people who are considering backing, but are reluctant to put money down because of doubts about whether the kickstarter will fund.

 

[SharnDM]

But now they are free to persue other gaming systems in the future. They are just starting with 3.5 BC it's the most similar to 5e. Thus a pivot, not a full restart.

 

[Jessic]

Trapdoor - we don't care about Pathfinder. I don't want to fund your Pathfinder app. Give me 5e.

 

[lkj]

Everything else aside, I agree with them that pdf's are a limited 'technology' when it comes to gaming material -- a activity where you are regularly accessing reference material in the course of playing the game. Whether you are creating a character, making an adventure, running an adventure, etc., you are regularly flipping through material in a book, or more often several books, to get all the information you need for a given task. That's because the pieces you need for a given activity are never all together. And there's no way to avoid that in a paper book. If you are building an elf fighter with a charlatan background you have three different places to look. And you can't change that without severely limiting options or creating an absurd tome with incredible duplication.

Pdf's don't much improve that situation. They offer increased portability and a search function. But you're still 'flipping' around various parts of your tome trying to get all the information you need.

What you really want-- in this age of digital information-- is a content management system in which all the pieces of information you need are always one touch away. Essentially you want all the information you need in one place all the time, no matter what you are doing. And, finally, we have sufficient technology to make that possible. Of course you need a well designed interface and a well designed database structure to back it up. No easy task to be sure. But heck, I was helping my kids design characters today, flipping back and forth through my beautiful player's handbook while also trying to clean the house, and I would have loved (killed for the opportunity?) to hand them an app where they could just click on various parts of a screen to get the info they need rather than what I did have to do. Don't get me wrong-- I love the physical books and it's the way I want to learn the game. But once I'm using it, the tool would be great to have. The same is true when I'm running an adventure. Need the map? Don't flip a page, just press here. Need the monster stats? Press here. Running a combat and want info on that spell the evil dude is casting? Click here. It's all about the design and usability. And pdf's just don't offer anything like that. Not even close.

And I think-- however well or poorly they've articulated it-- that is what Trapdoor is trying to achieve. It's not just a character builder or a campaign management tool. It's a system which serves you the information you need for any given gaming task easily and intuitively. And as soon as you buy content, it immediately gets integrated into this system and is suddenly at your fingertips. Then they layer on things like game table aids-- dice roller, messaging, etc. Do other tools get at some of this? Maybe. But I haven't seen anything I could easily hand to the least intense of gamer friends and see them just use it. The snippets I've seen of the Morningstar app seem to indicate this is what they are putting together.

But here's the rub for Trapdoor, and it's been articulated in this thread a lot. The value of the tool is intimately tied to the availability of the information. If you can't plug the info into the tool (5e in my case) then the tool loses most of its value. Sure, you can still use some of the features for a 5e game. You might be able to design your own adventures with it and have sweet maps and such. But that's not what is going to sell me on it. What sells me on it is that the content management works with the system I'm using.

Ultimately I can't blame them for not having access to 5e (you can try but it's all pretty much extrapolated speculation with likely little bearing on the reality). But it is what it is. In order to sell this thing, they have to have content a lot of people want. They might be able to do that for PF and create a tool that rocks enough to convert people from various other less slick apps. But to do that will require a demonstration, and again-- it is what it is-- they just aren't in the position to do that.

I really do want this app, as I believe it's envisioned, for 5e. I'm just skeptical that there's a path to get there. The OGL (if there is one) should help clarify that. Unfortunately, the timing is awful for Trapdoor.

My two cents (bloated to about the size of a buck).

AD

 

[BoldItalic]

I won't be funding Morningstar because I don't play PF and I don't own a tablet. *shrug*

If I did, I would think about it long and hard and probably come to the same conclusion as other people, namely, "It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it" and give it the thumbs down.

The status quo, where life goes on being fun and interesting without Morningstar, is fine by me.

*walks away*