Observations of the Fox

I'm finally using the tower, and that means I'm finally getting the chance to put together the next three issues of Beneath the Glass and Steel. I'm putting 3 potential story hooks on every floor of the Bronzewing Tower complex, which means the first 34 stories will have the potential for 102 stories. More possible stories if you combine them with one another, but shorter possible campaigns if you do this. The whole thing about the tower is that I could add more detail to each floor, but this reduces the possibility for someone to use this as a game resource and add their own details to the setting. Still a lot more work to do on this, but on target to get the next three issues out on schedule for the Kickstarter.

I've finally wrangled the crew into line, the words have come in and have been sorted into a 32 page layout. It's going to be sent out to the Kickstarter backers shortly, then in a week will be made available on DrivethruRPG, Itch, and any other source where BGS is currently available. This has given us three issues that set the tone for the Sprawl. There's a lot to it, and far more that could be added to it, but now we're gettng to the point where further detail starts taking the setting away from being a generic cyberpunk, and toward something that is more focused. The next three issues will provide a specific setting within the Sprawl, in this case a residential tower, which might be utilised as a specific "mega-dungeon" campaign setting.

We're getting closer with the Kickstarter... ...but what is more important at the moment is some background work I've been doing to reach out to a number of designers around the world who might be interested in providing feedback on the current progress of Familiar. It seems that some of these designers are similarly interested in seeing the concepts underlying the system done right. Others have too much on their plates already, but are also interested in seeing how the project pans out. In a few weeks, once things have settled down work-wise, and the kickstarter campaign has run it's course, I'll get stuck back into the magical world of the familiars.

It's been a decent start to the campaign. After a few days, we're two-thirds of the way towards funding. Not setting the world on fire, and certainly not one of those campaigns that reaches their funding in a couple of hours...  but I'm generally happy, and confident that we'll reach the funding goal. It was always meant to be an interesting experiment, and something to push boundaries a bit. The kind of thing that I'd work away on for a while, then move on to other stuff... at which point some "big name" designer would do something very similar, then they'd receive accolades and kudos for their innovation. It will be interesting to see if we get some new potential contributors to the project from this campaign.

We've gone live As a part of the current 'Zine Quest campaign on Kickstarter, I've decided to offer the first few issues of Beneath the Glass and Steel, and hopefully get a bit more momentum for the next few issues. Life over the past couple of weeks has been pretty chaotic, with the moving of house, the settling in to a new job, and assorted other stuff happening. Between life, work, and getting this Kickstarter ready, Familiar has taken a back seat... but I'm hoping to get back to that shortly.

A while ago I was commissioned for some cartography work, looking back through the blog I can see that it was 18 months ago . Now it's available. You can visit the Kickstarter here. I'm not posting about it because I haven't been paid for my work.  +Sean Nittner  was great to work with, knew what he wanted, and it was a great project to be a part of (...and yes, I was paid). I'm posting because it was such a fun project, and because I'd like other people to see my stuff in print so that I can possibly get a few more commissions later from various people across the industry. Anyway...go and take a look. There probably aren't many more physical copies of the product available.

I've had a soft spot for Rifts since I first saw the advertisement hinting at its arrival in a TMNT game book many, many years ago. It was one of those games I really wanted to get into, but almost every experience with it fell flat, and the only time it really started to sing was when we left the Palladium system behind and went freeform. I like the ideas in the Savage Worlds game system, but I'm not sure how good a fit it is for the gonzo inherent in Rifts. I wasn't sure how well the combination of the two would work, but was happy to see a bit of development, and some innovation finally applied to the setting. Here's the link I certainly didn't expect the project to fund in under two minutes, nor reach the level it's now achieved. It will be interesting to see where things head from here.

Bug Hunt has been sent for proofing. Roughly $35 manufacturing cost, roughly $40 to get it sent from the US to my place in Australia. I really wanted to get the game ready as a Kickstarter or Indiegogo project, but with those costs and the way the Australian dollar is going at the moment, that works out to $100 a game in this part of the world. I'm looking at maybe running with a $50 retail for the game, with free shipping to the US. Then adding an extra $20 for shipping to Australia, which hopefully means I'll break even on the games shipped to Australia. I'm told shipping inside the US will cost $6-10, so I'll make a little bit of profit on those games. This project will only make me some money to cover a minimal level of additional stock to sell at conventions (and give to playtesters as a reward for their services), if bulk discounts kick in. According to rough estimates, by the time I've sold 10 units, I'd be able to cover the cost of an extra ga...

Why didn't I hear of this earlier? I don't usually spruik Kickstarter projects, I don't know if I've ever done so here on the blog. But, when I was contacted by Andreas Walters to have a look at his new project, I was instantly intrigued. Here it is. I'm just as bad at backing Kickstarters as I am at publicising them, but I've got a bit of spare cash at the moment (after completing some map commissions) and am seriously thinking about dropping some green on this. There's still a long way to go on the funding, but I'd like to see it happen. In other news, it's nice to be considered influential enough in the gaming blogosphere that people consider you a reputable source of gaming goodness.

I tick ever closer to 4000 downloads for my game FUBAR (many on RPGNow, plenty on 1km1kt, a decent number through my own website when it was active). With that many ephemeral copies of the game floating around, I would have expected more responses from players across the world. I've had a few, but not many. I can only imagine that a lot of people have looked at it and have said "Nice, but this is a monster to print out". So it's sat on their computers, maybe used as inspiration for ideas to integrate into other games. Perhaps it needs a physical copy to make the transition from "interesting but academic text" to "awesome gaming action". But I certainly can't afford a print run at the moment, especially not the print run FUBAR deserves. So, I'm thinking of taking the crowdfunding route. Anyone interested?

I guess it's too late to advertise it now, but I've been bust over the last couple of days. I'm happy that the Wyrd Miniatures Kickstarter project "Through the Breach" has done so well. The miniatures game is great, it's been a part of the inspiration for a few of my recent projects. I hope the roleplaying game is just as good, and certainly hope it's worth all the money that everyone has pumped into it. I've got pretty good faith that it will be a good game based on the other work put out by Wyrd, I've just got my nagging doubts based on the forays of other miniature companies into the world of RPGs. They've now got until September to produce something awesome.

In my house live six ferrets: two males and four females (one of whom is blind). We are also a house of gamers. So when I heard about  Kingdom: A Pen & Paper Space Exploration RPG , my interest was instantly drawn. I saw the words... + Erik Tenkar  on space ferrets: I think it is because one is and individual, two is couple,  three is invocative of the entire race, more then that is just clutter.  ...on a Google+ thread and had to take a closer look. I looked at the Kickstarter (as linked above). I don't have high hopes for it. Maybe it's not a game about ferrets after all. Maybe it's just a single persons attempt to create another generic sci-fi game that looks like a hundred other generic sci-fi games that I've flicked through at my local game store and put down because nothing really grabbed my attention in a positive way, and the few things that did stand out were the kinds of things that really irk me abo...

Over the past few years I've used this blog to look at RPGs from a variety of angles. I spent a year going through game mechanisms, one per week. Looking at how they might be used, the effects they produce within the play environment and methods for using them in unconventional manners. This was a great exercise to see what sorts of play mechanisms exist within the RPG community, beyond simply rolling a d20, comparing it to a nmber and interpreting the result. I spent the better part of a year developing my own metaphor theory for how RPGs actually work. A lot of work has been done by numerous people to describe how players interact with the mechanisms and pushing into the social theory behind roleplaying games, but this project had the aim of describing the fundamentals of play...when is story told? when are decisions made? how do these two options feed back into one another? What types of play experience tend to manifest when...

Daniel Solis is releasing Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple via Kickstarter . And the success of this project has basically gone viral for the purposes of indie games. It even got a shout out on Wired . It looks like it's going to be a great game, and Kickstarter looks like an awesome way to fund a project. ...but it can't be used to fund projects outside the USA. I've been looking for similar funding forums that do work outside the US. My searches probably haven't been as thorough as they could have been, since I've always come away with a generally negative response. But now I've found IndieGoGo , and I might be able to put together a project of my own. I'm thinking about putting together a physical copy of FUBAR, now that I've written up a second edition of the game...maybe putting out a proper version of Walkabout...or something new. I haven't decided, but they'll probably all get a run at some stage. mjnh