Monte Cook Games' Darkest House Is Designed For Online Play

Monte Cook Games' newest Kickstarter has just launched. It's a plug-in horror location/interlude designed to work with any game system, and built for online play.

The house itself can fit in any game by simply placing a door -- they give examples of the apartment at the end of the hall or a strange unit in the station quarters sector. In that sense, the house exists in all worlds.

As a digital product, everything is shareable and formatted for the screen, with plenty of handouts, images. It has been deigned with VTTs in mind, as well as Zoom or Discord.

The house itself has several dozen rooms. You get two an app, and two PDFs -- the GM's Secrets of the House, and a Player's Guide. The GM downloads The Darkest House (mac or windows ZIP files) -- you can actually download a little demo, which is the intro page.

It's $45, or $85 with exclusive additional content.

The Darkest House

A descent into horror for 5e or any RPG that will make your campaign and characters better—optimized for an awesome online experience.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Mistwell]

Here in the United States, a $45 price tag for a role playing game supplement is well within the norms of industry pricing standards. Even the upper tier at $85 is easily within reach of the vast majority of gaming adults. So I don't agree with your assessment that this Kickstarter is just for the wealthy.

Well to be fair, this isn't really that either. It's a one-shot which explicitly isn't a campaign. The market for one-shots certainly isn't typically anything close to this monetary range. It's definitely in the "premiere product" price range and intended for more than just typical buyers of RPG kickstarters.

 

[MNblockhead]

I'd be interested if it were truly VTT ready with walls, lighting, npcs & monster tokens and stats all done for me. But to pay this much and still have to do all the work myself makes it not for me. But I could see it being useful for those that run their games on conferencing systems rather than full-blown VTTs. This could be a great product for running a game in Role or Owlbear Rodeo, or even just Meet/Zoom/Teams/Discord.

I'll download the preview because I'm interested and may just be missing the point. Maybe it will win me over.

 

[MNblockhead]

Downloaded and played around a bit and quickly determined that while it is well designed, I don't want to have to run an app, still have to refer to a DMs PDF, and if I want to add maps to my VTT, I have to download them from this app, put into my VTT, and prep. I wish them luck. The TTRPG can use more innovation. But I'm having trouble understanding the demographic this product is targeting.

 

[imagineGod]

Here in the United States, a $45 price tag for a role playing game supplement is well within the norms of industry pricing standards. Even the upper tier at $85 is easily within reach of the vast majority of gaming adults. So I don't agree with your assessment that this Kickstarter is just for the wealthy.

I am sorry to disagree. This is one reason we have the hobby splintering into cheaper Indie projects and the elite Monte Cook range. Too many times Monte Cook Kickstarters no longer offer lower price ranges. Even the Ptolus one annoyed me with $150 a pop for the 5e book. Paizo sells their 600 page full color Pathfinder Core book for less than half of what Monte Cook demands, almost twice the rates in the hobby ftom others. Basically, Monte Cook is driving away financially struggling Players. That is gate keeping to me.

 

[MGibster]

Paizo sells their 600 page full color Pathfinder Core book for less than half of what Monte Cook demands, almost twice the rates in the hobby ftom others. Basically, Monte Cook is driving away financially struggling Players. That is gate keeping to me.

We've had many threads here at En World where we've heard about the realities of those involved in the production of RPGs having a difficult time making a decent living at it. And the sad truth is that most writers can't make a decent living so RPGs become a part time gig for them or they abandon the field altogether for something more lucrative. Even a big name like Mike Pondsmith (Cyberpunk, Castle Falkenstein, Teenagers from Outer Space), turned his business, R. Talsorian Games, into a part time operation in the 90s to seek more lucrative work elsewhere.

Even the Ptolus one annoyed me with $150 a pop for the 5e book. Paizo sells their 600 page full color Pathfinder Core book for less than half of what Monte Cook demands, almost twice the rates in the hobby ftom others.

I imagine Paizo expected to push a lot more units of Pathfander than Monte expected to for Ptolus. I imagine how many units Monte expected to sell and how much profit he needed to generate to make his efforts worthwhile factored into the price. And why are you cutting Paizo a break here? If $45 is for a rich demographic isn't $75 also for a rich demographic?

It's okay to look at the price of something and decide it's not a good value for you. I've seen $20 Fate products that I decided not to buy because the odds of me using them were rather low. But to look at the price of something and decide the producers are gate keeping is not only unfair but indicative of a sense of entitlement. And Monte doesn't owe either one of us anything.

It's okay if you look at the price of something and deide

 

[orangefruitbat]

Downloaded and played around a bit and quickly determined that while it is well designed, I don't want to have to run an app, still have to refer to a DMs PDF, and if I want to add maps to my VTT, I have to download them from this app, put into my VTT, and prep. I wish them luck. The TTRPG can use more innovation. But I'm having trouble understanding the demographic this product is targeting.

It looks like a really useful product for people who game online with basic setups like Zoom/Discord. It doesn't look like a convenient product for people who are using a full VTT like Roll20 or Foundry.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am sorry to disagree. This is one reason we have the hobby splintering into cheaper Indie projects and the elite Monte Cook range. Too many times Monte Cook Kickstarters no longer offer lower price ranges. Even the Ptolus one annoyed me with $150 a pop for the 5e book. Paizo sells their 600 page full color Pathfinder Core book for less than half of what Monte Cook demands, almost twice the rates in the hobby ftom others. Basically, Monte Cook is driving away financially struggling Players. That is gate keeping to me.

I suspect Paizo has a lot more operating capital and they are likely selling the core book at a lower profit margin since it's required to drive all their other sales. I would also be surprised if the Pathfinder book had the same sort of expensive binding as Ptolus.

Whether that's worth the extra money to you is one thing, but I don't think they're strictly apples to apples comparisons.

For the record, I do think there's probably a way to sell Ptolus split into smaller parts to make it more affordable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It looks like a really useful product for people who game online with basic setups like Zoom/Discord.

You people are talking me into backing this.

 

[Morrus]

I am sorry to disagree. This is one reason we have the hobby splintering into cheaper Indie projects and the elite Monte Cook range.

The hobby has not splintered into cheaper cheaper Indie projects and the elite Monte Cook range.

Basically, Monte Cook is driving away financially struggling Players. That is gate keeping to me.

This is nonsense.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

As someone who loves Cypher in all it's forms, I've found the prices of the Cypher books completely in line with other RPGs, notably the physical releases. They books have been well made, the art is fantastic, the editing generally really good (more so than a number of other RPG books I own). So while I do see Monte Cook Games releasing some high end stuff like this or Black Sun, their "regular" line seems completely in keeping with standard RPG products. 40-60 bucks for a well made hardcover.