Kickstarters Thread

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Malrex said:
Thanks for checking it out! Give a holler if you have any questions about the project.
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Is there any way to get a rough estimate of the shipping costs to Europe for the 50$ hardcover?
 
3rik said:
Is there any way to get a rough estimate of the shipping costs to Europe for the 50$ hardcover?
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Man...I feel for you guys. Shipping costs suck!! I was amazed when looking into it a little bit. My best guess, around $37. I'm basing it off of Hyperborea's cost estimates (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1806106772/hyperborea-otherworldly-tales?ref=user_menu) which has like 30 hours left and looks cool!

When the time comes, I'm really going to look into it and try to deliver the best deal I can on shipping to those across the drink. It's just hard to give a concrete estimate until the book is complete and I get the weight sorted out.
 
Islands and Aswangs is a book of Filipino folklore for D&D 5e. Looks cool with very nice art and production, my wife is Filipino-Canadian so this is a no-brainer for me. And it is a Canadian project so I don't have to worry about excessive shipping fees!

www.kickstarter.com

The Islands & Aswangs Book

An illustrated Filipino folklore book for Dungeons & Dragons.
www.kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com

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Cities of Harn buy in at $19 will net you quite a bit of Harn PDFs with the stretch goals.

www.kickstarter.com

Cities of Hârn

Cities of Hârn is a medieval RPG setting. All seven cities will be updated, colorized, with more content than ever before!
www.kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com
 
Voros said:
Islands and Aswangs is a book of Filipino folklore for D&D 5e. Looks cool with very nice art and production, my wife is Filipino-Canadian so this is a no-brainer for me. And it is a Canadian project so I don't have to worry about excessive shipping fees!

www.kickstarter.com

The Islands & Aswangs Book

An illustrated Filipino folklore book for Dungeons & Dragons.
www.kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com

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Another one of your despicable Canadian plots to get my money I see!
 
Dumarest said:
Can't blame them for trying to make a fistful of dollars. I've seen all kinds of Western games: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Imagine what you could get for a few dollars more.
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A fistful of dynamite?
 
Tommy Brownell said:
Everyone finished Red Dead 2, and then got through enough of their manuscript that they felt ready to launch their Kickstarters?
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Playing Red Dead 2 had me going on a western romp myself. Watching Deadwood now, heating up for Hatfield & McCoys and tryin to get a DitV game running.

By the way, just stumbled with this movie "Bone Tomahawk" with Kurt Russell. Any good?
 
Warmaster is highly regarded as one of the best game systems developed by Games Workshop, and continues on to this day with both a substantial fan community and the rebirth of the system for historical games as Black Powder/Hail Caesar. Unfortunately, though 10mm is a much cheaper scale, as the official models from GW are discontinued, it can be insanel expensive on the seconday market to put together an army, especially the later releases that were only ever available through special order from the GW site.

The small Skaven army I put together a few years ago cost me about $3000 overall

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Hence when an online friend of mine from the Warmaster community expressed interest in putting together a new 10mm Ratmen army I was pretty excited. I've been following the progress of the sculpting for the past year, and the project launched earlier this week for a new Samurai-themed Ratmen army.

www.kickstarter.com

Cromarty Forge 10mm: Samurai-Ninja-Warrior-Monk-Ratmen Army

Beautiful, highly detailed, lead free pewter and resin, rat-men army for 10mm tabletop wargaming.
www.kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com

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Barbarians of the Ruined Earth is back up and really close to its goal.

Btw the card-based Fiasco is looking to be the most successful storygame KS ever with currently over 4,000 backers and nearly $300,000 CAD.

Along with the runaway success of Old School Essentials it seems the predictions of the death of rpg Kickstarters were premature.
 
Voros said:
Barbarians of the Ruined Earth is back up and really close to its goal.

Btw the card-based Fiasco is looking to be the most successful storygame KS ever with currently over 4,000 backers and nearly $300,000 CAD.

Along with the runaway success of Old School Essentials it seems the predictions of the death of rpg Kickstarters were premature.
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The industry- aside from WotC and Paizo - IS Kickstarters. Shane Hensley admitted recently that without Kickstarter, Pinnacle would have ceased publication.
 
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Tommy Brownell said:
The industry- aside from WotC and Paizo - IS Kockstarters. Shane Hensley admitted recently that without Kickstarter, Pinnacle would have ceased publication.
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That kinda seems like a vicious cycle then - especially those companies just running KS to pay off the previous KS ( more common than one might think). All it takes is one KS disaster and everything crashes and burns.

That just doesn't seem to me how KS should be used, and the more dependent people become on it the more it becomes a preorder service with no customer protection in place. How many more Whitman's can the platform take before everything implodes?
 
On a more positivenote Triumph of Death II is set to hit on the 10th. The guy behind it from Skull & Crown is a personal friend, and if you missed the first one it's worth googling. I'm on my cell so can't link a bunch of pretty pics at the mo, but it's essentially an army of skeletons based on Renaissance paintings and woodcuts at VERY good prices. More info forthcoming
 
TristramEvans said:
That kinda seems like a vicious cycle then - especially those companies just running KS to pay off the previous KS ( more common than one might think). All it takes is one KS disaster and everything crashes and burns.

That just doesn't seem to me how KS should be used, and the more dependent people become on it the more it becomes a preorder service with no customer protection in place. How many more Whitman's can the platform take before everything implodes?
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I don’t think, in Pinnacle’s case, they are using one to pay off another: I think it’s that their non-KS presales got so low that it wasn’t worth the investment without running a KS. I remember back during their Lanhkmar preorders, they had people asking for a KS. And when they later did a stretch goal-free KS for a Lanhkmar book, it blew away the funding goal in part because of people adding on the existing books, even though they wouldn’t be shipping until the KS shipped.

The whole customer mentality seems to be changing.
 
TristramEvans said:
How many more Whitman's can the platform take before everything implodes?
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I feel like reputation is becoming more important. I am always skeptical of first-timers or previous failures. I've never been burned yet, although I'm still waiting for Jason Sholtis to put out the Odious Uplands supplement to the Operation Unfathomable.
 
Tommy Brownell said:
I don’t think, in Pinnacle’s case, they are using one to pay off another: I think it’s that their non-KS presales got so low that it wasn’t worth the investment without running a KS. I remember back during their Lanhkmar preorders, they had people asking for a KS. And when they later did a stretch goal-free KS for a Lanhkmar book, it blew away the funding goal in part because of people adding on the existing books, even though they wouldn’t be shipping until the KS shipped.

The whole customer mentality seems to be changing.
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Any hypotheses for this? It seems very odd how customers won't buy it through a store, but can't shell out money fast enough to back it on Kickstarter. Is it a case of one stop shopping winning over individual stores? Is it a case of more robust payment processing on Kickstarter?

Taken at face value, why is it that they can't reach their customers through channels outside Kickstarter while Kickstarter allows them to connect effortlessly? And if that is true, isn't it pretty damning about the current distribution methods and sales?
 
Gabriel said:
Any hypotheses for this? It seems very odd how customers won't buy it through a store, but can't shell out money fast enough to back it on Kickstarter. Is it a case of one stop shopping winning over individual stores? Is it a case of more robust payment processing on Kickstarter?
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I think there's a lot more to it than that, psychologically speaking.
 
Gabriel said:
Any hypotheses for this? It seems very odd how customers won't buy it through a store, but can't shell out money fast enough to back it on Kickstarter. Is it a case of one stop shopping winning over individual stores? Is it a case of more robust payment processing on Kickstarter?

Taken at face value, why is it that they can't reach their customers through channels outside Kickstarter while Kickstarter allows them to connect effortlessly? And if that is true, isn't it pretty damning about the current distribution methods and sales?
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I know it can’t be more robust payment options through Kickstarter. I can pay by PayPal through most stores, which gives me debit options, using my PayPal balance, or charging it with PayPal Credit.

Kickstarter provides less flexibility in that regard.
 
I think I mentioned this in another thread about KS but the economics of KS are substantially better for publishers than traditional channels. With a KS publishers get essentially a zero interest loan from the customer to print a pretty precise quantity of books that will sell.

The traditional channel of publish a guess of the correct number of books to sell to a middle man and finally a retail outlet put most of the financial risk on the publisher. If the middleman goes under you don't get paid and might not have your books either. I believe this has twice happened to the RPG industry causing multiple companies to go under.
 
Gabriel said:
Any hypotheses for this? It seems very odd how customers won't buy it through a store, but can't shell out money fast enough to back it on Kickstarter. Is it a case of one stop shopping winning over individual stores? Is it a case of more robust payment processing on Kickstarter?

Taken at face value, why is it that they can't reach their customers through channels outside Kickstarter while Kickstarter allows them to connect effortlessly? And if that is true, isn't it pretty damning about the current distribution methods and sales?
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Because when you have a Kickstarter, you've got the FOMO thing going for you. Also if you're ordering through a store you have to speak to an actual human being, which some people have issues with. But mostly it's probably the fact that it's a limited time thing. What if I don't back it now? Will there be enough later? I don't know! Fly, credit card, fly!
 
Edgewise said:
I've never been burned yet, although I'm still waiting for Jason Sholtis to put out the Odious Uplands supplement to the Operation Unfathomable.
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3rik said:
So am I, and I didn't even back the Kickstarter.
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I'm not sure if Edgewise Edgewise backed the Kickstarter, but there was an update earlier this week noting that the Odious Uplands manuscript was finished.
 
Simon Hogwood said:
I'm not sure if Edgewise Edgewise backed the Kickstarter, but there was an update earlier this week noting that the Odious Uplands manuscript was finished.
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Yup, saw that, too; that's why it came to mind. It's been so long that I'm only cautiously optimistic. Fortunately, I'm happy enough with the base product that I don't feel burned.
 
Edgewise said:
I feel like reputation is becoming more important. I am always skeptical of first-timers or previous failures.
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Don't get me wrong, I agree with your attitude, but it's a real fucking shame because first-timers are the ones that kickstarter should be there to enable, according to their own ideals.

But, truth doesn't lie in their mouths; as much as they may claim otherwise, Kickstarter clearly has no issue with being used as a pre-order store.
 
Ladybird said:
But, truth doesn't lie in their mouths; as much as they may claim otherwise, Kickstarter clearly has no issue with being used as a pre-order store.
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Despite their claims to the contrary, it has always been partially a pre-order store. That doesn't really bother me, though, since some companies might not have put out certain products if it couldn't be used that way.
 
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Video up featuring the print preview of Barbarians of the Ruined Earth.

 
Gabriel said:
Any hypotheses for this? It seems very odd how customers won't buy it through a store, but can't shell out money fast enough to back it on Kickstarter. Is it a case of one stop shopping winning over individual stores? Is it a case of more robust payment processing on Kickstarter?

Taken at face value, why is it that they can't reach their customers through channels outside Kickstarter while Kickstarter allows them to connect effortlessly? And if that is true, isn't it pretty damning about the current distribution methods and sales?
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Most stores that carry rpgs in the U.S. only stock the really big ones. The vast majority of printed rpgs never make it into more than a handful of stores. Online sales are where the money is for them, and Kickstarter provides a platform for pre-sales, generating interest, advertising, and gauging the market.
 
Tommy Brownell said:
The industry- aside from WotC and Paizo - IS Kickstarters. Shane Hensley admitted recently that without Kickstarter, Pinnacle would have ceased publication.
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DriveThruRPG and Kickstarter are definitely the biggest marketplaces and distribution panels for most rpgs these days. I would guess that 99% of my new rpg purchases over the past 5 years have been from those two sources and Lulu.
 
carpocratian said:
DriveThruRPG and Kickstarter are definitely the biggest marketplaces and distribution panels for most rpgs these days. I would guess that 99% of my new rpg purchases over the past 5 years have been from those two sources and Lulu.
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Don't forget Humble Bundle they gotten some seriously good bundles for pdfs over the last couple of years. Pathfinder 1ed bundle was huge, the Vtm sampler was amazing (even came with real VTES promo cards), and the Dark heresy 1ed was just fine for completing the collection
 
FeralToaster said:
Don't forget Humble Bundle they gotten some seriously good bundles for pdfs over the last couple of years. Pathfinder 1ed bundle was huge, the Vtm sampler was amazing (even came with real VTES promo cards), and the Dark heresy 1ed was just fine for completing the collection
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Humble Bundle and Bundle of Holding are fantastic, but - after the discounted bundle prices and the charity and site operators getting their cut - are they really propping up publishers the way Drivethru and Kickstarter are?

My GUESS is not, but I'm happy to let anyone who knows better than me say otherwise.
 
Tommy Brownell said:
Humble Bundle and Bundle of Holding are fantastic, but - after the discounted bundle prices and the charity and site operators getting their cut - are they really propping up publishers the way Drivethru and Kickstarter are?

My GUESS is not, but I'm happy to let anyone who knows better than me say otherwise.
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Dollar for dollar, no. But most of the time the games in those bundles are old games whose sales have stagnated.
 
Jetstream said:
Dollar for dollar, no. But most of the time the games in those bundles are old games whose sales have stagnated.
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I agree with the above. In purely commercial terms probably not a good idea to bundle huge swathes of a gameline for 18 bucks but as a way to get a old game back in the public eye again (like with Vtm and Dark Heresy) or even get new gamers (like with Pathfinders) Humble Bundle is a powerful tool.
 
I dropped a link to this in the main thread, but don't think I properly...uh, pimped it...

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The Triumph of Death II: Apocalypse Kickstarter is, as the name implies, the second such KS, a follow-up to the quite successful Triumph of Death from 2017. The creator, Thomas Foss, is an online friend, very active in several online wargame communities I belong to, such as the Oldhammer and Oldhammer Sculpting groups. I've been bugging him about doing this KS since the first one ended.

When I first started talking to Thomas online, about 3 years ago, I was actually completely unaware that he was a bit of a "Name" in the videogame community, I guess best known as the Lead Designer on Neverwinter Nights. Like myself, however, he comes from a background in tabletop RPGs and miniature wargames, and he originally started his small side business, Skull & Crown miniatures, to market an inexpensive alternative for Napoleonics based on the classic 18th century wooden "flats"...

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The Triumph of Death project came about out of nostalgia for the classic Minifigs Valley of the Four Winds miniature line "The Living Dead" circa 1979. The Living Dead Line is treasured among collector's today as it was unique in taking inspiration from Renaissance woodcuts & paintings, specifically of the "Memento Mori" tradition.

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Foss dreamed of recreating this line, a dream that was made reality when he teamed up with sculptor Drew Day Williams of Satyr Art Studio.

Drew has a talent, not just for bringing Foss's design sketches to life...

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...but also for inserting unique designs of his own...

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And while some figures from the minifigs line were faithfully recreated...

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...primarily they went back to the original artwork for inspiration

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The first Kickstarter was one of the best I ever took part in, with Thomas very communicative and enthusiastic every step of the way, and I believe my substantial order arrived earlier than estimated. See the thing is, 99% of the minis in his Kickstarters are already sculpted and cast, barring a few stretch goals, and Thomas and Drew, both longtime professionals, are absolute workhorses. What this means is for almost the last year I've been seeing Thomas post to groups pictures of sketches, greens, and then final casts of the miniatures making up this new KS. All the stuff you might expect to start seeing after the KS is done? Well Thomas gets it all ready before the KS drops.

This is actually the 4th Kickstarter he's run, each successfully funded and promptly completed. In between this Triumph of Death and the last he and Drew did a set of miniatures based on the illustrations of rabbits found in medieval illuminated tomes...

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Anyways, figured this was a significant enough project that I have enough faith in to strongly recommend to anyone who might share my tastes in minis that I'd give it it's own thread. \I mean, where else these days can you pick up the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

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