Discworld's Headed For A Million Dollars!

462302133_980373100772117_2733285369634613216_n.jpg

Launched on Kickstarter just a few hours ago, and already over half a million dollars, Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork (now that's a mouthful!) looks certain be be the next million-dollar TTRPG Kickstarter.

For £50 you can pick up the core rulebook and dice, or for £100 the full set for gamemasters (with cheaper PDF equivalents, of course).

The game is powered by Modiphius's brand new Narrativium system, which is a rules-lite narrative game system based around telling silly stories; it doesn't feature combat rules, choosing to place the emphasis on storytelling rather than mechanics.

As with most million-dollar Kickstarters, there's a ton of fun add-ons--dice, collector's editions, an adventure book, a dice tray, and more.

You can also watch a livestream of the game being played or grab the official quickstart for free.

662c5fdf6b1e0bca6025fb5f577f851c_original.jpeg
 

log in or register to remove this ad


log in or register to remove this ad

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of great stuff on offer. It just wildly expensive. I mean $82 for a thin hardback and a set of dice. Yikes. (Yes, that includes shipping.) And that's the cheapest physical tier. And you don't even get the rest of the books as PDFs for that. You have to shell out another $52 for the rest of the PDFs. I'd rather wait for the later products to be already shipped and available locally or via an online retailer with reasonable shipping.
Overnight Modiphius came to their senses and added free PDFs to all tiers.
 

Overnight Modiphius came to their senses and added free PDFs to all tiers.
I'm sure there are business reasons for not including them by default -- most of the work and expense involved in creating the books goes into what appears in the PDF -- but not doing so is wildly unpopular with fans. Even if they have to tweak the costs of pledge tiers, it's just borrowing trouble to not sell them together.
 

I'm sure there are business reasons for not including them by default -- most of the work and expense involved in creating the books goes into what appears in the PDF -- but not doing so is wildly unpopular with fans. Even if they have to tweak the costs of pledge tiers, it's just borrowing trouble to not sell them together.

(It's one of the things that puts me off from buying Kobold Press books from their online store, for instance.)
I get it to a point but as someone who’s worked in publishing it drives me crazy. Yes, there are costs to the production of PDFs. I’ve been a line item in that tally. I get it. But you literally have infinite copies to sell. If supply and demand actually mattered, the price of PDFs would be minuscule.
 


That is a very impressive amount that has been pledged... Especially as I am pretty certain this is "merely" going to be licensed reproductions of the existing official art work, and a rearranged copy of the discworld encyclopedia. (still worth it in my opinion).

I really hope they have access to the OLDER version of the encyclopedia, as after like book 3? I think? they seemed to have stripped all the warmth/heart off out those books.

(Here's also hoping they shy away from the self righteous arrogance that was the science of discworld... Though, that is likely too big an ask).

(I have definitely invested and am looking forward to it... I just think it is sensible to be realistic on what is on offer).
 
Last edited:

Last edited:

They posted an update with the magic system for Discworld today. Without even reading the final version in full or playing it yet, I can tell it's going to be one of my top two favorite magic systems. I cannot wait for this to drop.


$2,323,422 pledged of $129,892 goal. 12,598 backers. 71hours to go.
Cut-My-Own-Throat-Dibbler weeps a tear of joy.

And then sells said tear as an exclusive collectible.
 

I can't imagine Disc World as a functional RPG setting, but then again Toon was a thing.

But then again, I never played Toon.

But then again, if you are going to go this route, it seems to me that Toon is perfectly functional here. Certainly, "If it is funny, then it happens", should be a rule.

The underlying problem with such games is that they only work with a player group composed entirely of stand up comedians. Humor isn't an ingredient that just magically appears out of a rule set. You can't say, "And it was funny" and it be funny. At least, not more than once.
Discworld is presented differently in different parts of the series.

On some occasions it's presented as a serious world but where madly comedic things happen to the protagonists, but in the background it's pretty much a standard fantasy world (especially prevalent early on, when Ankh-Morpork is almost completely a reskin of Lankhmar).

In some books, the world is absurd but the protagonist is the Only Sane Person around and is having to deal with the world being insane whilst they're relatively sensible.

In others (particularly the Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax books), the protagonist has a great understanding of the world and has to use that knowledge to overcome problems, with varying degrees of comedy.

But quite a few times, the world is kind of dark and threatening, and Pratchett doesn't pull his punches on treating the world as a more threatening place. There's still comedy, but its a bit bitterer and angrier. Arguably his very best books - Small Gods, Night Watch, Monstrous Regiment, and Nation for his non-Discworld books - fit into that category.

So there's plenty of different approaches you can take. I'm actually regretful that Ed Greenwood and Terry Pratchett didn't follow up on an idea they once mooted of doing a comedy D&D adventure with the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (or light reskins thereof) getting jobs in the "proper serious fantasy city" of Waterdeep and seeing how they'd fare, possibly as a charity project.

Pratchett's biography is also worth reading for the sections when he was running D&D games after work in the local pub whilst working at a nuclear power station. Some proper bonkers stuff, including Pratchett roping in passing drunk visitors to play NPCs and getting so annoyed by players losing track of their arrows and treasure that he spontaneously created a magical TARDIS chest running around on little feet to carry all their gear.
 

Remove ads

Remove ads

Top