Did You Back a Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter? How's The Game?

From this list, I’ve only backed MORIA, which probably hasn’t shipped to my house yet, but I’m starting a campaign for it. It’s one of the few on the list where I feel the property that is being described has a naturally good fit to the system, and the system is one I enjoy.

I’ve played one shots of several of the others and have typically felt that another system might have been better, or just generally that I could run them just as well using media books and something like FATE. Others I had hopes for, but didn’t work out as well in practice.

The kickstarters that have worked out best for me have been expansions or campaigns for systems that I know are good and suitable. The only big exception to this was Numenéra, which I took a risk on and ran two very successful campaigns; definitely got my money worth from them. Moria is in the safer category; I like the system, so other system is better for Tolkien, and as a bonus, the lead writer Gareth Hanrahan, has been consistently stellar in everything he has done.
 

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timbannock

Hero
Supporter
From that list, I only backed:
  • Shadowdark
  • Humblewood

Shadowdark is my go-to D&D game now, enhanced with Knave 2E, Errant, Pirate Borg, and the Hexcrawl Toolbox to extend it beyond the dungeon.

Humblewood was really cool in theory, but by the time I got it in my hands I was burnt on furries, and none of my players were into the esthetic either. I have a group with younger players and they didn't seem that taken by it, either, so I fear it's just something to skim through one day for ideas, but otherwise will gather (virtual) dust (as I only backed the digital versions of everything).
 

I don't think the Monty Python stuff shipped yet? So no go there.

Right, just the PDF of the core book and some bonus digital stuff is available. The last email update said physical stuff may start shipping out in September, or about a year later than originally promised. I was expecting to easily have everything by Christmas 2023, partly as a present for someone, so this has really turned me off to Kickstarter.
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
Right, just the PDF of the core book and some bonus digital stuff is available. The last email update said physical stuff may start shipping out in September, or about a year later than originally promised. I was expecting to easily have everything by Christmas 2023, partly as a present for someone, so this has really turned me off to Kickstarter.
Don't let it turn you against Kickstarter. Just be wary of campaigns that are promising to ship 10,000 different products as part of one, especially if they're clearly coming up with new add-ons and stretch goals they haven't even started work on yet.

You can absolutely get stuff that ships on time (or early!) from Kickstarter by sticking with projects that are near completion before the campaign even begins, and there's plenty of them out there.
 

aramis erak

Legend
I am just curious: if you backed one of the Million Dollar Kickstarters, and assuming the game is either out or being developed transparently for backers, how do you like it? Do you play it? Do you think it warranted the hype that drove up the KS final tally?

For my part: the only one I backed (and late) was Shadowdark and YES, that game is awesome in every way.
  • 7th Sea 2e: I backed for the 1e PDFs. I cannot read the script used in 2nd ed. From the bundle view, a bit high. From a new game view of 2e, I can't tell without more effort than I'm willing to give if the game sucks, or just the layout does.
  • Coyote and Crow: it was on time, looks nice, but I got kind of pissed when certain options were restricted by player ethnicity. (If you have to do that, you shouldn't have even mentioned that element in the rules.)
  • TOR 2E: I ran it as soon as the backer PDF hit. It was, for my group and my GMing style, absolutely worse in almost every way it changed from 1e. The only improvement was layout... but improved layout of an inferior edition still sucks.
    • I'll note that my books didn't arrive, so I contacted FL. They sent out a new set, upgraded to a collector cover. The tracking went dead somewhere between regional and local delivery service nodes... I will not fault FL for the quality of service. I'll leave the core in shrink until 3rd Ed TOR... then sell it to some completionist.
  • Blade Runner... The game and starter are awesome, but my players didn't appreciate it. As in, they easily grasped the mechanics, and it played well, but they don't want to play cops.
 

Thomas Shey

Legend
Don't let it turn you against Kickstarter. Just be wary of campaigns that are promising to ship 10,000 different products as part of one, especially if they're clearly coming up with new add-ons and stretch goals they haven't even started work on yet.

You can absolutely get stuff that ships on time (or early!) from Kickstarter by sticking with projects that are near completion before the campaign even begins, and there's plenty of them out there.

Its one of the reasons I think I've had a better time on the whole than a lot of people with Kickstarters; I almost never back anything with a physical product.

(Though with computer games, being entirely digital only gets you so far. I've made a hard rule not to back those anymore).
 


ART!

Deluxe Unhuman
I backed Shadowdark and Tales of the Valiant, both at the print level: Shadowdark is just one book, and TotV I backed just for the Player's Guide.

Shadowdark is as great as you've heard it is: clear, straightforward, simple, and a great cross between 5E and OSR.

The TotV PG borders on underwhelming, but there's enough bits and pieces I really like that I'm glad I have it.
 

From the list, I backed Coyote & Crow and MCDM, but MCDM, despite saying they'd have stuff for us in about a month over a month ago, still haven't shown anything to actual backers, so I can't talk about that.

Re: Coyote & Crow, it's sort of better and worse than expected. The setting is extremely cool, and well done, and whilst it is utopian, it's no more utopian than, say, Star Trek, and indeed, I'd go as far as to suggest it actually has quite a similar setup to Star Trek in some ways. One thing I think some people struggle with is that the main culture detailed is sort of anarchist-adjacent, but without being libertarian, and I think a lot of players (of all cultures around the world) don't have a good mental model for how operate inside such a culture. The Federation from Star Trek is more straightforward, like a sort of "What if there were routes to do what you wanted, whatever it was, but you had to apply and train and work" and so on, whereas this is looser and more open and more family/connection-oriented.

There are some silly criticisms made like "Omg non-native people can't play it", when even my dumb white ass could parse the paragraphs about that, which amount to "If you're non-native, please pick one of the fictional cultures/tribes", and that's easy because like, they're the majority of the what the setting is about - other tribes are basically elided to allow native players from those to do what they think is right!

I would say that it works so hard to portray the utopia that whilst it is extremely obvious that there is major, warlike friction (and actual wars etc. in the recent past) between the big cultures, it doesn't really explore how that would translate into actual adventures in a serious way, and the supernatural elements don't entirely jive with the rest of the setting (which makes sense given their seemingly-external origin, but still), and seem less inherently interesting than the conflicts between nations etc.

The biggest problem is the rules, which are kind of bland d12-based dice pool system. Yeah it works, but it doesn't have any flavour. Because they haven't really defined the conflicts of the game - i.e. it's not primarily a game about subterfuge, which it could very easily be with all the spies, smugglers, private investigators and so on who are around, and all the "cold wars" or competitions between nations and so on, it's not primarily a game about monster hunting, despite there being monsters/demons to hunt, it's not primarily a game about doing any specific thing, and because of that, it's not a tight and focused game, and the rules don't follow the message/ideas of the game. I mean, for example, they make an awful lot out of the cultural rituals and so on, and the way people behave (which is cool - it helps to avoid assumptions that things work the same way as our world), but there's not really any rules support for that, it's just generic stuff (it's hardly the first RPG to treat points in cooking or music as valuable as other skills, and doesn't really do more than others to justify that). The special/magical abilities are largely well-worn low-end superpowers with a slightly psionic vibe, that you've seen in a million games before, and don't really further the setting.

I kind of feel like what they should have done, in my infinite wisdom (or complete lack thereof), is worked out the setting, and then made a more specific and focus RPG within that setting. Focused down on specific elements, then supported that all with the rules. Given out some powers with a bit more bite and specificity.

Because the rules are so "meh" and I no longer have time in my life for games with "meh" rules (as a DM, anyway), I don't think I'd run it with these rules, though I could see using the setting.
 


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