Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter is live!

The Kickstarter for Magpie Games' Avatar: Legends RPG has launched and is hurtling towards $1M in its opening hours. Set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Legend of Korra, this tabletop roleplaying game includes a free quickstart which you can download today.

Update — it hit $1M in the first few hours, making it the fastest ever TTRPG Kickstarter to do so.

Update -- after less than two days, it has made over $2.3M, already making it the biggest TTRPG Kickstarter ever (with nearly a month yet to go!)

Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game

An officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

www.kickstarter.com

Avatar Legends: The RPG is a heroic fantasy game set in the universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra in which you and your friends take on the role of young heroes from across the Four Nations who have joined together to make the world a better place. It’s a game for people of all ages who want to look at the world beyond the scope of the existing stories and explore the meaningful actions heroes take for the good of others.

 

[darjr]

Indeed. It is telling that it was Paizo/Pathfinder that became the "custodians" of "proper" D&D, and not things like Arcana Evolved or Trailblazer.

Both of the companies behind those efforts, at the time, were a lot smaller than Paizo and had a lot fewer game designers. Not to mention that list of Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscribers.

After wotc and Paizo I don’t think another company was anywhere close to their position in the gaming industry at the time.

was there such a company?

 

[Staffan]

Both of the companies behind those efforts, at the time, were a lot smaller than Paizo and had a lot fewer game designers. Not to mention that list of Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscribers.

After wotc and Paizo I don’t think another company was anywhere close to their position in the gaming industry at the time.

was there such a company?

The only one that comes to mind is White Wolf, but I can't recall if they were still going strong at the time or if they had been eaten by Icelanders yet. But they certainly didn't have the ties to D&D that Paizo had.

But my point is: at the time of 4e's release, there were a few different "3.75s" going around. There's a reason Paizo's was the one that won out, and it was not just the subscriber list – that certainly helped, but if their stuff had sucked things would have turned out differently.

 

[Panfilo]

Before the the Star Wars TTRPG IP headed over to Fantasy Flight in 2012, the most recent edition was not only hailed as a promising 3.75E D20 game, but was explicitly cited by Wizards as a heavy influence for 4E D&D. It had stuff like defenses rather than saves, and reduced skill complexity. I wonder how much of that confidence was misplaced based on the Star Wars IP inheriting the prequel generation as they came of TTRPG age around that time.

 

[darjr]

@Staffan oh I agree that if PF had been bad it wouldn’t have been good for Paizo.

But if PF had been bad and one of these others was good (not saying they weren’t good) these other companies were in no position to capitalize on it and wouldn’t have been able to replicate anything close to Paizos success.

At least not nearly as quickly.

 

[darjr]

Seven million is close. I wonder if it’ll be tonight?

 

[TheAlkaizer]

All the money coming in must be nice. But the idea of having to handle 55,000 pre-orders seems like a nightmare. I've seen the behind the scenes of much smaller Kickstarter campaigns and even a few thousands backers is a lot to manage. And they have physical products to receive, store, ship, etc.

 

[darjr]

Yea.

I'm am both VERY happy for them and very concerned.

 

[Aldarc]

I've enjoyed some PBtA games (and moreso the spin-off Forged in the Dark system) but what I've read of the system on the Kickstarter page doesn't really pique my interest. It feels more like I'd be playing an attitude or a personality trait than a fully-formed character.

It seems that you are playing something akin to an archetype, stock character, or trope which feels pretty "at home" for a TTRPG based on a children's television series. Of course it's not fully-formed: it's the player's resonsibility to flesh it out to their liking.

Indeed. It is telling that it was Paizo/Pathfinder that became the "custodians" of "proper" D&D, and not things like Arcana Evolved or Trailblazer.

It's much as @darjr says. Plus, Malhavoc Press and its properties mostly got dropped like hot cakes by Monte Cook as a result of a divorce.

PF1 was very much boosted as a result of an appeal to essentially play 3.75 edition, particularly as supported through its adventure paths. Despite its innovations, AE was honestly a bit closer to 3.0 in some ways (e.g., Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting being two separate feats), and APs were not really all that supported as part of AE. The only adventure that I recall for AE off the top of my head was Ruins of Intrigue by Mike Mearls.

 

[Morrus]

All the money coming in must be nice. But the idea of having to handle 55,000 pre-orders seems like a nightmare. I've seen the behind the scenes of much smaller Kickstarter campaigns and even a few thousands backers is a lot to manage. And they have physical products to receive, store, ship, etc.

That’s what fulfilment companies are for! Exactly what they’re set up to do for you.

 

[Staffan]

PF1 was very much boosted as a result of an appeal to essentially play 3.75 edition, particularly as supported through its adventure paths. Despite its innovations, AE was honestly a bit closer to 3.0 in some ways (e.g., Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting being two separate feats), and APs were not really all that supported as part of AE. The only adventure that I recall for AE off the top of my head was Ruins of Intrigue by Mike Mearls.

Adventure paths were very much a part of the success formula for Paizo. They had a solid adventure rep after doing Dungeon for a couple of years, including two adventure paths that came out of the magazine (Shackled City and Savage Tide).

Conventional wisdom in the game industry was that adventures don't make money. I think Ryan Dancey once said that adventures, and to some extent the rest of the D&D product line, essentially were ads for the Player's Handbook that paid for themselves. Paizo instead made a product line focused on adventures, and to some degree the Pathfinder RPG was made because it didn't make any sense to publish adventures for a "dead" game. It seems to have worked out well for them.

I think the adventure path concept is central here. With traditional adventure publishing, you make shortish adventures that the DM can drop into their campaign, whatever that may be. That means that as a DM, I am interested in buying an adventure that both has the correct level range, fits into my setting, and is otherwise appropriate for my campaign. That's a lot of requirements. But an adventure path instead provides me with a full campaign experience, from level 1 to wherever it ends up (20 in PF2, usually about 15-18 in PF1), and usually comes with a player's guide on things to consider in order to make appropriate PCs. That means that as long as I buy into the path's core idea, I'm sure to have use for the rest of it.