$200 for the lowest tier is crazy talk. $172 more for “beta access” is crazy with a side of insanity. I’ve backed plenty of RPG kickstarters at twenty bucks or less that give you previews of the draft rules, often while the kickstarter is underway. In fact, I tend not to back RPG’s that don’t give you a look at the rules.
As far as the components go, I’ve also backed some big box boardgames with much nicer tchotchkes for much less.
I guess he’s got his audience, and I’m sure it’ll be a success, but in a couple of years there will be a bunch of folks with unused (and very expensive) big black boxes in their closets ('cause lord knows it ain’t fitting on their game shelf).
After being thoroughly unimpressed with Numenera, I can’t fathom giving Cook $200 more or less blind, even if I had $200 to blow so frivolously. But best of luck to the man, I guess!
Yah, Kedaha. This seems to be his attempt to maybe break out of that space? But what a bizarre way to do it.
Nice shout-out to Unknown Armies and Over the Edge! Two of my favorites. I’d also put Kult on there, as well. I’m actually in the middle of a project, hacking UA together with another couple games (The Magicians RPG and a card game called Serpent’s Tongue). Probably never play it, but fun exercise.
I was starting to get concerned about my continued lack of a Burning Wheel Codex, since I knew they were shipping, but no tracking info or notifications were being issued. But hey, I opened my door just now and there was my Codex (along with my foil hero cards from the Sentinels of the Multiverse: OblivAeon Kickstarter and a couple things I’d ordered recently elsewhere). And it’s gorgeous.
I’m jealous! I got a random email saying some guy had created a shipping label for me on August 13th and some googling says it’s the Burning Wheel folks, but haven’t seen any movement on it at all. I know they’re shipping stuff in batches, but now that I know it’s coming eventually I’m eager for it to show up.
Mine was on the 12th so I’m basically in the exact same boat. Seems like they’re taking them down for shipment once a week or so, but they generate the labels well in advance.
Super jealous. I got to play a really awesome one-shot of Mouse Guard at a local RPG event a year ago or so and have been super intrigued by Burning Wheel et. all ever since. And the new book really did look gorgeous. Enjoy it!!
Monte Cook is one of the most established names in the industry, and has consistently delivered on a number of prior Kickstarter projects. I 100% expect it to be fulfilled. I can’t imagine it will end up being remotely worth the money people are putting into it, but presumably they’re much bigger fans of his than I am.
I am sure he is reputable and all that. But it just sets off alarm bells when top tiers sell out like that. Kickstarters can be manipulated to give the appearance of “demand”. Especially when it can easily gain/lose tens of thousands in a day without anyone really noticing. Putting in money early to drive the appearance of demand, then pulling it away. I am not saying this is the case. I am saying caveat emptor.
Certainly does look like he has enough whales though. Already reached the goal.
I guess I don’t understand why anyone would back a project just because it looks like it’s popular with other people. I’m either interested for the price or I’m not.
I don’t think he’s saying that that would happen; he’s suggesting that the people backing at the top tiers aren’t real backers, maybe they’re friends of the designer or alternate accounts of his, in order to make sure they hit their goal and get the money from everyone else. I agree that I don’t think Monte Cook needs to do that, but it’s something less reputable KSes have done in the past.
Invisible Sun is sort of perfect for kickstarter though. It’s a high cost, limited appeal sort of thing that he probably shouldn’t do at all if there isn’t enough of an audience for it to do it.
I am debating jumping into the abyss with “Gods War.”
Same guy as Cthulhu wars, which is a setting I’m exhausted of. The reviews of Cthulhu wars suggested it was a solid, maybe even a great game, but came with enormous, overproduced miniatures. Hence, a to high price tag for most.
Well, the Gods War replaces Cthulhu with myth inspired dieties from a setting I’ve not heard of called Glorantha. I get serious Dominion vibes from this one. The gameplay seem reminiscent of Chaos in in the Old World, but perhaps more streamlined.
Of course, this game also comes with a ton of expensive miniatures. The current asking price for just the base game is $125, which comes with 4 factions. You can pay double to get the expansion and another 4 factions.
As some one who is on record as preferring wooden pieces to plastic, I guess there is something about the theme in this one that appeals to me in a way Vikings, Cthuhlu, Star Wars, and WWI inspired Mechs do not.
Of course, I haven’t pulled the trigger, and probably won’t… but its like Dominion board game!
Glorantha is one of the classic settings of roleplaying, dating back to the mid-70s and the centrepiece of RuneQuest and HeroQuest (not the boardgame, mind, the RPG). If you’ve heard of King of Dragon Pass, that’s set in Glorantha.
It would make Gods War tempting to me if it weren’t for the fact that it’s ridiculously expensive. I mean, the base set is cheaper than Cthulhu Wars was, but that just means it’s merely 25% more expensive than the most expensive MSRP I’ve seen widely used ($100, mostly for giant miniature-heavy FFG titles), instead of double. And there’s hundreds of dollars more to be spent if you want a complete set, which I invariably do.
Finally got word that my Burning Wheel codex shipped from New York today. While I sympathize with poor Andrew having to ship out an entire truckload of books personally, I kinda wish they’d budgeted some help for the poor soul into their fulfillment allocation.
Hey, me too apparently. I’ve been trying to put it out of my head since I received my tracking number way back on August 13th. Luke Crane being a generally opaque asshole in the Kickstarter comments and a more straightforward asshole on twitter makes me ornery, so I figured I’d just be excited when it showed up on my doorstep someday.
Edit: I hope I don’t get my pledge refunded for saying that this is kind of a jerk way to communicate as a creator.
I guess I should be glad that the Kickstarters I’ve backed most recently have been awesome about shipping stuff out and keeping backers informed (in a polite way) every step of the way.
To that end: both Tiny Epic Western and Ultra-Tiny Epic Kingdoms are on boats to the US right now!
On the RPG kickstarter front, I backed the Dark Eye RPG as a gift for my son (English edition of a venerable German RPG), and the box showed up 2 and a half months after the Kickstarter closed. And, boy howdy, I can’t imagine how they made any money off my 50 bucks. Full color 400 page hardback, like 5 or 6 printed adventures, a pile of printed character sheets and reference materials, color cards, dice, printed pre-gen characters. I didn’t pay much attention to the kickstarter and didn’t realize everything they were sending, and didn’t really understand when a huge box showed up on my doorstep. Kudos to them for the super-fast fulfillment.
I also got the 2nd volume of the Simon Stalenhag art books this summer, which closes that kickstarter out. They are gorgeous. They had some fulfillment issues with Vol 1, but Vol 2 went smoothly by most accounts. If any of you guys are into SF art, you should give his stuff a look. Pastoral art of a re-imagined 80’s with strange machines, aliens and dinosaurs. So awesome. The books are available on Amazon.
