RPG Interest Remains High

Late last summer, I threw up a post noting that the recently released Dungeons and Dragons 5E Player's Handbook had shot into the top 10 sellers at amazon.com.  I'm a pretty prolific Kickstarter backer and had been really impressed with the way people were queuing up to throw money at a lot of projects, specifically Legendary Games' Mythic Mania and Kobold Press' Southlands projects.

But, lately I'd noticed the Kickstarter projects are losing steam.  Kobold Press' Advanced Race Compendium didn't raise nearly as much as I'd expected and Legendary Games' current Legendary Planets Kickstarter, though quickly funded, hadn't picked up as many people as I'd thought that they might.

Title	Date Closed	Total Raised	# of Backers	Funding per Backer
Mythic Mania	May 6, 2014	$69,362	461	$150.46
Southlands	October 18, 2014	$97,728	1,044	$93.61
Advanced Races Compendium	May 17, 2015	$51,040	797	$64.04
Legendary Planets (as of 7/14/2015)	Ongoing	$35,938	275	$130.68

Similarly, I've felt a little more gaming fatigue myself lately.  I mainly focus on Pathfinder and 13th Age.  In the Pathfinder world, the RPG line is moving into more and more niche products with this month's Occult Adventures and next spring's Ultimate Intrigue.  I'm enthused about both of those releases, but they don't have the wide appeal of something like an Advanced Race Guide, Ultimate Combat, or Advanced Player's Guide.

13th Age remains something I love, but right now we have only the core book, 13 True Ways, and their Bestiary (which is up for an Ennie--vote for it!)  There's a lot of room to expand in the 13th Age universe, they've got Glorantha and Midgard-related products from Kobold Press, among others.  But, there's not a lot of space to really expand on the 13th Age default setting simply because it's designed to be so free form.  Fire Opal and Pelgrane Press have put together something awesome, but pinning things down in their world means that it loses some of it's freeform power.  That said, my reviews of the their 13th Age Monthly releases this year show that there's endless space to expand, if not necessarily in a large, hardcover release.

I'm considering picking up Eyes of the Stone Thief at GenCon this year (gotta use that discount for GMing 13th Age at GenCon on something fun!)--especially if the group of test gamers I've lined up for this weekend decides that they really like playing 13th Age!  But, it just doesn't seem like there's a lot coming out right now.

So, today's notice from ENWorld that voting for the Ennies is up over 18% this year came as a wonderful surprise!  There's still a whole day left and they've already received 19,000 votes, which is 3,000 more than they received last year.  We could see an increase of up to 25% if heavy voting happens on the last day.

So, it seems like people are interested, but might also just be spending less money.  What does everyone else think?

Blue Rose Kickstarter Launches

Green Ronin's Blue Rose Kickstarter has launched.  First launched in 2005, Blue Rose has always focused more on romantic fantasy and has always been GLBT-friendly--which has had some mixed reception.  The Kickstarted launched earlier this week.  Green Ronin will be using its Adventure Game Engine (AGE) system for mechanics.

I haven't made a decision about whether to back or not yet.  On the one hand, I want to back something inclusive.  On the other, I've got a lot of setting books and already have dropped significant funds on Kickstarters this year.  I will likely star this one and make a game-time decision with 48 hours left.  It's already funded, so I don't feel like I'm holding them back.  Anybody have thoughts on this thing?



In addition to the setting and mechanics themselves, there are some cool stretch goals.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• $22,500: Designer Crystal Frasier will detail the laeyvel, embodied souls beyond the more common expressions of male and female in Aldea.
• $27,500: Designer Jeb Boyt will write a series framework called A Game of Thorns and detail the Pirate Isles.  
• $33,000: Designer F. Wesley Schneider will write the Orchard of Tears micro setting.
• $50,000: The setting book goes hardcover.

Crystal Frasier and F. Wesley Schneider are two of my favorite Paizo staffers and have good perspective on making products GLBT-friendly, being GLBT themselves.  I don't know much about Jeb Boyt, but I love all things involving pirates.  And a hardcover is obvious why it's good!

Green Ronin is also promoting the return of Blue Rose with a T-shirt design contest.  Those want to help design artwork that demonstrates "Blue Rose RPG’s world & theme of diversity and inclusion" and invited to do so before July 18.  (Actually, the official rules say the contest runs from June 18-July 18 but that entries must be submitted before June 18, but this seems like a typo).  Winner gets a copy of their shirt and a free copy of the RPG book.  Second and third places get their choice of a free shirt (winner's design, not theirs) or the RPG book.

EDIT: I'm told that winner of the t-shirt design contest also gets a cash prize of $300!

Legendary Planet Adventure Path

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Legendary Games or that I'm a fan of Kickstarters.  What I'm really excited about is Legendary Games' new Adventure Path, Legendary Planets!  They are planning 7 linked adventures that take characters across space (and time, even if it's only forward) in a space and swords craziness in either 5th edition or Pathfinder rules.  Best of all, they are going to make lots of use of all the ridiculous Pathfinder Mythic stuff they've been working on for the last couple of years!  Since the last of these was a well-funded and well-executed Kickstarter to fund Mythic expansions for every feat, spell, and monster in the game...I'm looking forward to them getting to use their proven track record to make some awesome stuff!

Don't just take my word for it.  Visit the page or watch the video:


As of today, just the second day of the Kickstarter, they're already funded for 3 (really 4) of the books.  Here's a quick rundown of titles and authors to whet your whistle:

The Assimilation Strain by Tom Phillips and Neil Spicer
40 pages long for a party of 1st level adventurers
Already written and run a few times at PaizoCon by the Legendary Games team.
Presumably it's introducing the PCs to space.
Neil Spicer wrote the first installment in Paizo's Iron Gods Adventure Path.  It was an excellent introduction to technology for fantasy RPG characters and this promises to be a good next step.

To Worlds Unknown by Jim Groves
Jim Groves is all over the Paizo boards as a poster and all over Pathfinder products as an author.  I've enjoyed everything he did, including the opening adventure in the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path.  Since The Assimilation Strain is supposed to be a sort of pre-quel to the space adventure, Legendary Games has done something smart by placing another good AP-opening author on their official first adventure.
It's already 96 pages long (64 adventure, 10 Bestiary, 10 page planetary gazetteer, and 12 pages TBD) because of stretch goals.
This one is designed to cover levels 2 through 5.


The Scavenged Codex by Mike Shel
Another experienced adventure writer is jumping on board here.  This one has also funded to be a 96-pager (same format for all modules).  It will cover levels 5-8.

The Dead Vault Descent by Matt Goodall
Another experienced hand.  This third adventure has also funded at the 96-page level.  So, if nothing else, we can expect to get three amazing adventures post haste.  The Legendary team has promised to finish the AP even if their Kickstarter stretch goals for doing so aren't all met...it will just take them much longer to do so.  This adventure covers levels 8-11.

The Dead Vault Descent is the most recently funded item thus far.  From here on out, the formula works as follows:
+ $2,000 beyond last book: New book written at 64 pages
+ $2,000 more: 10 page Bestiary is added
+ $2,000 more: 10 page planetary gazetteer is added
+ $2,000 more: 12 more pages bonus content for 96 pages total

+2,000 more: another book is opened and the process starts again.

The rest of the series is:
Confederates of the Shattered Zone by Richard Pett for 11th to 14th level player characters.
The Depths of Desperation by Steven T. Helt for 14th to 17th level player characters.
Mind Tyrants of the Merciless Moons by Tim Hitchcock for 17th to 19th level player characters.
To Kill A Star by Jason Nelson for 19th to 20th level player characters.

What more could you ask for?  Maybe all of them bound together in a single hardback book?  Well, that's happening.  Plus, as more people sign on, more content gets created.  Jason's being coy on the Paizo.com boards, but it's pretty clear that one of these sharing or people joining on goals will be a free player's guide.  So get out there and get signed up!