Kickstarter - The Encounter Brick Construction System for Tabletop Games (More Gaming "Lego")

You know what I hate? When a Kickstarter omits any pictures at all. See the above? That's a screenshot of the initial video.

I like when Kickstarters have a video included. I do not enjoy it when I'm forced to watch the video to even have a clue.

And yes, The Encounter Brick Construction System for Tabletop Games is more "Gaming Lego." More affordable and slightly more attractive than the last bit we saw. Still pricey.

Surprisingly, this isn't being done by (or used to fund) a 3D printer.

We would do this by milling a set of cold steel dies to be used in a state-of-the-art, hot-runner, injection molding process at Epsilon Industries in Dallas, Texas.

I guess that's why they look better.

I'd still opt for Lego, or even better yet, a cheap Lego knock off. I may not be the Frugal GM, but even I need to pinch corners at some points.

Kickstarter - Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure (DCC RPG Setting)

Yet another reason to give up drinking. She looked fine at the bar...

Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure is a DCC RPG setting (but should be fairly easy to convert to other OSR flavors) that being Kickstarter by +Mike Evans . If you are an OSR styled gamer and are active on G+, you've probably stumbled across Mike or his blog. Actually, his blog has some of the more raw entries and thoughts that led to this project.

So, what is Hubris? According to Mike, it is:

Hubris is a weird fantasy setting inspired by various things, such as: Alice in Wonderland, Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard, HP Lovecraft stories, Vornheim by Zak Smith, Lamentations of the Flame Princess RPG by James Raggi, Labyrinth, The Thing, Hellboy comics by Mike Mignola, Hellraiser, Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, and not to mention the awesomness that is Dungeon Crawl Classics and the whole DIY RPG community!  

My favorite description by a supporter of Hubris is "Hubris is like a high octane meat-grinder!"  That captures Hubris amazingly.  Hubris is brutal, epic, and weird.  Players will not know what to expect at any given moment and it keeps them on their toes. 

During the playtests, my players were brutalized in the wilds and sought shelter in the safety of civilization of Fairweather, thinking they were "safe"...  However, they quickly realized that the city was just as weird, brutal, and horrific as the wilderness (if not worse in some ways). 

The buy in for the PDF is 10 bucks. That appears to be a bargain and a half. The print version is POD.

I must say, Mike has assembled an "A Team" to work on this.

Hubris is 100% written by me (Mike), but I have bribed, blackmailed, begged, or paid off some serious kickass talent for this project!  I have the amazing Alex Mayo as the layout man, David Lewis Johnson, Jez Gordon, Doug Kovacs, Jeremy Duncan, and Jason Sholtis have done (or will do) some kick ass illustrations, and the incredible Dak Ultimak will be doing the final Hubris edits.  Oh and Doug Kovacs will do one of his amazing dungeon pieces for Hubris as well!

I'm in for the PDF myself. I may opt for the POD version later.

So, I'm Working on an Article About Crowdfunding...

I've been working on a crowdfunding article (not blog post) off and on since the beginning of September. It's died on the vine more times than Far West has had release dates.

That's a joke, son ;)

Anyhow, my main issue is that I find it often goes off on tangents of Kickstarter failures. Which is fine for later articles, but I seriously find that Kickstarter is more boon than bane, and I want to reflect that.

I want to showcase the +Kevin Crawford s, the +Joseph Bloch s, the Frog God Games' and the like that know how to run a Kickstarter and deliver on what they promise.

I also want to give some examples of Kickstarter "Do's" (and some "don'ts, especially when paired with the "do's")

Give me some positive vibes and thoughts please. I'll take the negative ones, but they may be held back for a later article.

Yes, I'm crowdsourcing an article on crowdfunding ;)

A WTF Kickstarter - Project Laghima (a perpetual motion space engine)

What can I say about Project Laghima?

It has attempted funding twice before. Failed miserably both times. So, what do you do when you can't raise $6,000? Ask for $20,000 the next time.

Yes, they need $20k to build a mockup of something that is bound to fail.

No, trust me. It will fail. Science says so.

But at least their Kickstarter page has lots of animated gifs. (and watch the damn video, I beg you)

So, what kind of education does Masud Harouny have that qualifies him to ignore the laws of science? None that he mentions. This is from his website.

For the past few years, I’ve been reading about the physics of propulsion and promising new technology that strives to break free from old conventions such as the rocket or airplane models that are clunky, and require massive amounts of fuel to be hauled. In doing so, I have understandably come up with some of my own ideas.

Sadly, he's using the wrong platform to raise his funding. Indiegogo would have been more than happy to allow hi to use flexible funding to bilk the few fools he could find.

Who Was Asking for SciFi Themed Header art at The Tavern?

I'll be adding this to the rotation soon.

See, The Tavern spans genres ;)

Huge thanks to Eren Arik.

I'll be putting together artist links in the next week or so.

Tavern Chat Tonight - 9PM to 11 PM Eastern - Bright Eyed & Bushy Tailed

Thursdays are sleeping day for me now that I'm working the midnight tour at work. Slept from 9 am to 1 pm and from 330 pm to 7 pm.

Hopefully I'll be cleared of any cobwebs before tonight's chat ;)

9 to 11 PM, right here at The Tavern. All you need to do is follow the chat box on the right side of the page.

What are we going to chat about?

Damned if I know :)

Coming Soon From Frog God Games - Rogues in Remballo (Free - Urban Setting / 1st Level Adventure)

Looking for an urban setting to kick off your next Swords & Wizardry campaign? Look no further. Rogues in Remballo will have you covered. Sure, it hasn't released yet, but it exists and it is good. How do I know? Because I have my copy and I'm reading it already.

Did I mention that Frog God will be offering this for free? Think of it as an enticement to check out the forthcoming The Lost Lands: Borderland Provinces "sandbox campaign resource" (quoting +Matt Finch directly there.) Rogues of Remballo is over 20 pages of sandboxie urban adventuring, and it will be coming your way in about a week or so. No worries, I'll remind you when it does release ;)

For those wondering where the Borderland Provinces lie, it's the area that contains Rappan Athuk and the Lost City of Barakus, and Cyclopean Deeps. Yep, it's adventure central.

Now, just to be clear, Rogues in Remballo might be a 1st level adventure but it is written for experienced players, or at least an experienced DM. Herding cats is hard enough in a sandbox. When you make that sandbox an urban environment with lots of interesting locations it may be hard to keep the party's attention on the adventure at hand. Me personally? I wouldn't worry too much. My groups tend to have a knack at finding their own trouble, er... adventures.

I do love the way this adventure can be resolved (or not resolved) with many different outcomes for the future of the campaign. One little adventure. Many ripples.

I'm not supposed to give too much away before it actually releases in a week plus time, so I've been more vague than I'd like to be but Rogues in Remballo really is a nice product. As an urban setting it it very likely it will be used in your campaign multiple times and at the awesome price of "FREE" it would be foolish to not grab a copy and at the very least strip it piece by piece for your own ideas.

Oh, as an aside, it will also be available in Pathfinder and 5e flavors. I guess WotC doesn't need to worry about a 5e OGL anymore as no one else seems to be worried...

RPGNow Deal of the Day - Book of Lairs (ACKS / OSR)

Holy crap!

I almost missed this, and if I had missed it y'all would have been screwed. Or at the very least, out of luck.

+Simon Forster 's very own The Book of Lairs in on sale for $3.08 in PDF. It might be a weird price point but the Book of lairs isn't weird, it's simply awesome. Did I mention the art is my the magnificent +Jim Magnusson and his wife?

Need something to throw at the party at a moments notice? It's all here. One page for the map, another page for the creature themed encounter. Approximately 70 pages of such goodness. So easy to print out what you need, when you need it.

And it's dirt cheap. At least for the next 15 hours or so.

Kickstarter - Table Top Blocks - 3D RPG Terrain

"Man, I wish I had some versatile building blocks to use with my gaming mats."

"Why not use lego, or even better, one of the cheaper knockoffs?"

"No! I can build uglier, more expensive blocks on my own using a 3d printer! Kickstarter, here I come with Table Top Blocks - 3D RPG Terrain!"

Really, is there all that much more that needs to be said?

Here's what you get for the basic $25 pledge:

Now, what could you get for about 25 bucks from Lego?

Well, for 30 bucks (shipping Prime from Amazon, so you get it in 2 days, not 4 overly ambitious months) you could get this:

Where's your bang for the buck going?

Kickstarter - Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game (Yep, Stand Alone RPG)

I'm sure most of The Tavern's readers have at least heard of Delta Green. It is / was a supplement / setting for the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Modern day secret society fighting the forces that man is not meant to know about. Or something like that.

Now Delta Green is all grown up. Not content to be an add on to CoC, it is now a stand alone RPG "based on the Basic Role-Playing rules engine, which is available under the Open Gaming License."I thought it was Legend / MRQ I+II that were OGL, not the Basic Role Playing rules engine itself. OpenQuest builds off of Legend if I recall correctly. Ah well, not that it really matters.
(edit - just checked my copy of the BRP Rules Quickstart - there is no OGL attached to it)

Delta Green has always been of the highest quality in the past. I never ran the material, but it was so rich in story hooks and plots and subplots I probably could have run a campaign for years. Not that the characters would have survived that long - heh.

If only I could make heads or tales of the Kickstarter backer levels. Why is there a maximum amount of backers at the $100 "All new in PDF" level? It's in PDF - it's not like they have to worry about a print run. If I was an international backer, this is just what I would want. Sorry, all gone with 23 days of funding left to go.

Talking about funding, they had a goal of $40k, which is fairly rich for a Kickstarter (especially one where most the the rewards are in PDF - only the core book is in print.) Where are they sitting now? $137k and growing.

I told you Delta Green was good. I'm just afraid it's too rich for my blood in it's current incarnation. If I wanted to go in at Hardcover and all of the new PDF releases, it would set me back 150 bucks. Not that it's causing all that many to blink, as they already have over 270 backers at that level. I need to work more overtime...

Nice and clear...

Do PCs and Their Adversaries Operate Under the Same Set of Rules in Your Campaigns?

Some DM's handwave based upon likely results. Some DM's have a roll for everything with success or failure depending on that roll.

Today's question is two-fold:

Do you prefer to handwave, roll or some combination of the two?

and

Do the PCs and their adversaries operate under the same set of rules? If not, why?