February 25

Kickstarter – Scavengers

I’ve always enjoyed games about space exploration and I was pleased to hear about Scavengers by Andreas Walters a game of:

A quick, easy, humorous RPG about exploring derelict space ships and getting rich off the loot!

The project has funded and the closing date is Sunday 15th March .

I may have to back this one 🙂

Category: RPG, sf | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 24

Kickstarter – Laser Etched Miniatures for Table Top Games and RPGs

One thing I have always liked when playing games is to have a physical representation of a character and the monsters on the board.  I guess this stems from the ill fated Cyborg Commando game where my perception of things didn’t match the players perception of the situation.

Even though I do love miniatures I’m a terrible painter and I just don’t have the skill or patience to do them justice.  Playing online is a different matter as I can make use of tokens and I discussed that in this post.

Which brings me to this Kickstarter by Daft Concepts: Laser Etched Miniatures for Table Top Games and RPGs .

These sets of laser cut, laser etched, wooden miniatures are the perfect blend of detail and affordability.

The images they have certainly look good and the bases have a slot into which status tokens can be inserted.  What puts me off is the shipping costs, so perhaps I’ll stick with my current method of play, paper tokens stuck to coins so they don’t blow away.  🙂

The funding period ends on the 10th of March, so you have time to decide if they’re right for you.

February 23

Kickstarter – Shadowstar Corsairs

The first boardgame from Ryan Wolfe called Shadowstar Corsairs has just launched with the tagline:

With space ship miniatures & ground troops; commerce, politics, & combat. Only one corsair can rule the Shadow Star Expanse!

It looks like an interesting game but like I said before about getting boardgames for the group I think I shall give this one a pass as I don’t want to shell out the money for a game we’ll never play or we’ll play once before it gets forgotten about.

The funding period runs until the 25th of March and the creator’s website can be found here: http://0-hr.com/

February 21

Kickstarter – Don’t Turn Your Back

The latest Kickstarter from Evil Hat is Don’t Turn Your Back described as

A worker placement/deck-builder board game set in a city of Nightmares. Play. Betray. Survive. Build your deck. Escape the city.

As I’ve mentioned before I have backed Evil Hat’s projects and they have always delivered on time and with quality products, I expect that this game will do very well indeed.

I’m not going to back this game though, getting boardgames for the group is a tricky thing and the last game I got wasn’t well received by them.  In fact it never got played and I gave it away to a good friend as he was going to be able to get more use out of it than I was.

February 20

Kickstarter – The Monster Alphabet, with GM Gems

Goodman Games is Kicstarting another project, this time for a pair of system neutral books The Monster Alphabet, with GM Gems described as:

Designing monsters is as easy as A, B, C! Illustrated systems-neutral RPG supplements for creature creation and GM idea generation.

I already own PC Pearls and the Dungeon Alphabet so I’m sure that these two projects will both be first rate.

I’ve backed Goodman Games before and they delivered the goods before so I’m confident that they will make this happen.  As usual, all Kickstarter risks apply so don’t blame me if it doesn’t work 🙂

The deadline for the Kickstarter is 11 March so you have plenty of time to go and become a backer.

Category: fantasy, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 19

Kickstarter – Dungeon Desk Pad

This is another old idea but one that hasn’t been around for a while and not in this size; a premium A3 Desk Pad custom printed for tabletop game adventure creation.

I remember going and purchasing a pad of 50 sheets of not quite A4 graph paper which was labelled as blank dungeon geomorphs and they did do the trick but I never got around to using all the pad as I gave up on the rather time consuming method of drawing your own dungeon on gridded paper.

I’ve previously backed one of this creators projects for a pad of Savage Worlds character sheets and I was very impressed by them; however since they were A5 I appear to have lost them somewhere.  This project runs until the 1st of March so you have a few days to get in on it.

 

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February 18

Kickstarter – Epic Hero and Villain Feat Cards

The creator of this project contacted me directly and asked me to have a look at his Epic Hero and Villain Feat Cards Kickstarter.

I’ve seen this sort of card gimmick in the past used by games like Torg and also recently Savage Worlds; the idea is that by playing a card you can take advantage of a bad situation and free yourself from the tyranny of poor dice rolling.  I do like systems like this as it gives the players a chance to shine and succeed at critical moments.

Would I back it?  Possibly if I was going back to playing a game like DnD where it might be useful but recently I’m playing more indie stuff or Call Of Cthulhu where a large bonus to a d20 roll may be aweseome but peanuts to a percentile system.

The good news is that the project is going to be backed as it has achieved it’s funding goal and it should be delivered in June or so.

I’ll mention that like other projects I have mentioned in the blog, I haven’t benefited in any shape or form by this post.  I just wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention as mentioned in my last post.

Category: Reviews, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 17

RPG Kickstarters

A little while ago I discovered a Tumblr account which tracked all the new RPG Kickstarters and I followed it until they stopped updating.

It was a worthy cause as there have been so many projects I would have loved to have backed but missed out on because there was no way of knowing what was out there.

Recently I have been contacted by people asking me to look at their Kickstarter projects and that got me thinking, could I take over from where that Tumblr left off and keep people updated on the new projects that were coming along.

So I’m going to give it a whirl and try my best to find new projects and alert the community to what is out there.

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January 25

Kickstarter: Darkraven Soundscapes:Redux + Cthulhu-Fantasy & Horror Music

In my post Gaming with an iPad I mentioned before that using a tablet has many advantages to tabletop gaming but I was reminded that I had forgotten one; music and ambience.  While this is within the realms of using an iPad to play atmospheric music the inability to multi-task may hinder the smooth running of a game.

I’m not against using music to create atmosphere and improve the ambience at the table and I have done so in the past using sound effect or soundtrack CDs and even went as far as to purchase a set of sounds designed for gamemasters.

That’s where I had been in the past, left with a CD on loop which didn’t really help as there would be a second or two until the track restarted.

This was until Jay Nunes contacted me about his Kickstarter, Darkraven Soundscapes:Redux + Cthulhu-Fantasy & Horror Music .

So I finally got my act together and had a listen to the video on the page and was very impressed by what I heard; so much so I went and backed it.  I’d love for this to become a reality so pop over and listen for yourself.

I feel I should also make it clear that apart from the initial email I haven’t received anything in the way of compensation from him.

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December 18

Designers & Dragons

Last August I backed a successful Kickstarter for a series of books called  Designers & Dragons, a four volume set detailing the history of the tabletop gaming industry.  So why am I bothering to mention a four month old completed Kicstarter?

Because I was able to furnish the author with scans of books he was after and when I got to the ’90s book I saw my name listed among the people who scanned their books for him to use.  So if you have a copy of the book, find page 381 and you can see my name in Appendix II.

Besides blowing my own trumpet for a few moments, the books are very well written and take a different approach than say the academic route taken by Playing at the World, another excellent read but it can be heavy going in places.

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