D&D General I am so done with kickstarter

[WarDriveWorley]

Anyone buy through amazon and not have the corners smashed on their books? I hate that, it's like someone threw them on the ground on purpose.

It's hit or miss for me. Unfortunately with no good FLGS I'm stuck with them for the most part

 

[DarkCrisis]

Ive been burned on a few projects and only one "made it right". Still use it because I still received 90% of the items.

BUT I tend to now stick to only established sellers. Some guy/group Ive never heard of... no thanks.

 

[Reynard]

and Kickstarter makes you agree to delete the original reports once you've used them, so technically it can be tricky to resolve)

Wait, what?

 

[Morrus]

Wait, what?

Data protection stuff. Plus you lose access to the backer report after a while. Can't recall how long offhand. A year, maybe two?

 

[ART!]

I HATE that bigger companies that could put this stuff up for pre order use kickstarter (if you have the money you don't need the kickstart) but I have found I have to ONLY back those or risk the companies going belly up, and that sucks.

I work in printing, so I don't hold it against bigger, established publishers to run Kickstarter projects; printing is very expensive, especially given the (mostly) pandemic-induced paper shortages. If a company can avoid over-investing in a product, more power to them - that's just them being smart. If you want them to keep making cool stuff, they need to be smart about their business.

I'm cool with Kickstarter more than Amazon. I just wish more creators would have a bigger gap between releasing PDFs and printing physical books. Give the hundreds or thousands more people a chance to put eyes on the text and spot mistakes so they can be fixed before going to print. Even books with professional editors need as many eyes as possible. I recently backed a project, got the PDF, and in the first dozen pages spotted about a dozen mistakes. But...the text was already finalized because they'd hired a professional editor and the few passes they did was considered enough. Nope. Still mistakes galore. Inconsistency of word usage, art covering text, simple spelling and grammar mistakes...on and on. It's really disheartening. I was really looking forward to the book. Now I think it was a waste of money. I won't be able to read the physical book I ordered without cringing. Maybe that's the curse of having been an editor.

I feel your pain! It's one of the great mysteries of editing that no matter how many sets of eyes you have on a document, errors will slip through. Art cover text is a doozy, though - I've rarely if ever seen that.

What type of product (in general, not details) are you wanting to get started with? Because almost every RPG product can be done for a very low initial investment. For example;

An RPG book (rules, expansion, adventure, etc) can all be done with zero cost before a KS project is launched. You can have everything written and then just do the KS to pay for art (if needed) and then deliver it digitally. Or use a POD service to print the low quantity books if you feel a physical product is required, which again doesn't require a large number of sales). Sure, POD is much more expensive, but works well for limited quantities.

Just to niggle: none of that pre-crowdfunding work is done at "zero cost". One or more people are investing their time, labor, work-related materials and bills, and the further investment of time, labor, materials, etc that got them the experience to know how to do what they do.

What has been more alarming is the number of kickstarter creators who developed health issues at some point in the process. It seems like running a kickstarter can take its toll on you once things start going wrong.

In some cases, "health issues" could be a way of saying "lost interest", "didn't know what they were doing", "ran off with your money", etc.

Yes. Though, I would argue that Zinequest is too much. It's a veritable flood now and I'm sure lots of stuff gets lost in the noise. Also, some of these zines (not all) are the kind of content that used to be freely spread out over several posts on a blog ten years ago. Hard to get excited for that section of the things.

I have no problem backing a project that consists of updated versions of what used to be several free blog posts. If the content is something or the creator is someone I want to support, I'm happy to compensate them for their work.
EDIT: Sorry if that sounds snarky - I don't mean for it to.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I feel your pain! It's one of the great mysteries of editing that no matter how many sets of eyes you have on a document, errors will slip through. Art cover text is a doozy, though - I've rarely if ever seen that.

I personally experienced this with my last KS (not the cover, but the body text). Had sets of eyes look it over, but once released, whoo boy. A lot of grammatical errors pop'd up. Even things that aren't really errors, but still not good to use (like overuse of "will" and "would").

I can't speak for all small indie publishers, but you can't really afford several editors or hundreds of reviewers/playtesters/contributors like the big companies can, so the chances of things getting through increase.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I work in printing, so I don't hold it against bigger, established publishers to run Kickstarter projects; printing is very expensive, especially given the (mostly) pandemic-induced paper shortages. If a company can avoid over-investing in a product, more power to them - that's just them being smart. If you want them to keep making cool stuff, they need to be smart about their business.

I don't mean I mind preorders... Hasbro has it's own preorder system where if something doesn't make enough they don't produce it. That on it's own is kind of like kickstarter (to the point I hear people in the GI Joe and Transformer communities ask 'why not just use kickstarter or indegogo?) my thing is I like them doing it that way better because Hasbro being on kickstarter itself dilutes what kickstarter is... and again I know i am a hypacrit for my opinion.

the thing is people in this very thread say it isn't a store, you should KNOW it has risks as if people are being dumb expecting the company they back (if it goes through) to produce the product... but when Enworld publishing, or Reaper Minis (or in theory hasbro) does it they set up that it IS going through, they ARE making it. same with WoD. now when someone sees a smaller company and compaires it to one of them it has set up a fake comparison... but one I see people make. "I backed 5 WoD books and 3 sets of Reaper minis and this one independent guy doing a campaign setting and they all deleivered, so when I back this independent guy making a 4e retroclone its the same..." but it isn't the same is it. that 'risk' comes with ones that can't afford to do it and may over extend (and I am also sure some scams).

Yes we can say that you can educate yourself on what the risks are but look back at this thread how many people say I backed X number and all of them or all but 1 came through... without ALSO saying how many were by bigger companies and mid size companies already established...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I personally experienced this with my last KS (not the cover, but the body text). Had sets of eyes look it over, but once released, whoo boy. A lot of grammatical errors pop'd up. Even things that aren't really errors, but still not good to use (like overuse of "will" and "would").

I can't speak for all small indie publishers, but you can't really afford several editors or hundreds of reviewers/playtesters/contributors like the big companies can, so the chances of things getting through increase.

Also I am a writer (not published yet) and I work with other authors (mostly published ones) and some publishers... and I can tell you profesional editor that have someone double check things STILL miss things

 

[Ghost2020]

Dungeons of Drakkenheim was set to deliver by the end of April 2022. They're currently only 9 days late and according to the Kickstarter page shipping containers should arrive on May 19th in the US. With all the delays from COVID, supply chain, and more, that SEEMS pretty darn good. Have they failed in some other way? How could they have done a better job for you?

Also, the PDF came out really fast, if not within a month of the KS ending. I've had it since Dec 11th 2021. PDF maps came out as well.

 

[embee]

this sounds good but the web does a HORRABLE job at showing this... just look at Morus, he IS using it as a store and you get it right away.

That's not to say that he's the rule. He may be an exception.

Knowing that Kickstarter is a way to crowdfund unrealized projects and not a place to buy finished products, I have backed precisely 5 kickstarters.

The best was Other Magic a 5e expansion to include magic based on civilizations from Antiquity (Mesopotamia, Babylon, Egypt, etc.). It was $5, which to me, was the sweet spot. That's Coffee Money. If I got something, fantastic. If I didn't, whatever. I got it and it was quick.

The worst was ages ago for a lockable trunk/boot for a bike. It took years because the company screwed up the prototypes, didn't have everything lined up with their manufacturing, and had several other logistical screw-ups.

The other two were OSE:Advanced, which was fine because I knew that they knew what they were doing and Survivalist's Guide to Spelunking for 5th Edition, which I was comfortable with because the author is an old hand who I felt probably knew his way around the TTRPG publishing industry. Basically, these were both projects that needed funding to get over the finish line, not to get going. And the latter had its books shipped and delivered less than six months after launch.

I did, on a lark, back Gods of Metal: Ragnarock because it sounded cool. Estimated delivery date: October 2021. Last update: March 8, 2022, saying they hope to get it to the printer by end of June. This, I think, is more of the rule and not the exception.