Welcome to the Crowdfunding Carnival for June! This month I’m trying something a little different, though the outcome will likely be similar to how the series has always gone. On Kickstarter, there is a pretty significant bifurcation between small independent outfits and larger, established companies, both in terms of overall success as well as campaign size. Now, as much as they don’t need the help, big campaigns are important to the hobby and are driving more of the self-sustaining fanbases across the RPG landscape. Still, listing them alongside a one, two, or three person effort seems a bit disingenuous. As such, I’m going to be breaking out the ‘big campaigns’ from established names (and serial crowdfunders) and then keeping the ‘indies of note’ in their own section. Whichever sort of campaign you’re looking for, you should be able to find it more easily now. Beyond that, there’s still half a year left in our first five year retrospective, and as more articles were written, 2018 kept on getting more interesting. To start, though, let’s talk about three campaigns from existing companies; we have entries from Steve Jackson Games, Evil Hat Productions, and Kobold Press.

Big Campaigns

There are several campaigns of note from established game companies this month. First, Steve Jackson Games is campaigning a remake of the game Tribes, originally written by Steve Jackson and David Brin and released back in 1998. Not long left on this one, so you’re going to have to jump on it today (Wednesday the 7th) if you want to back. Also coming from a major publisher is Andrew Gillis’ Girl By Moonlight, being campaigned and supported by Evil Hat Productions. Girl by Moonlight is Magical Girl Forged in the Dark, with the additional enhancement of ‘Series Playsets’, rules and setting frameworks which help support different aspects of the genre. The game should slot in nicely to the Evil Hat lineup between Apocalypse Keys and Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

The big one, of course, is Tales of the Valiant, Kobold Press’s ‘5e with teeth’. The game takes the Creative Commons basis of 5e and adds additional content…while still looking exactly like 5e. This is a good option if you really like 5e but don’t want to support Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast; I’m personally most excited about the potential for new and interesting flame wars to occur, as we all know that the fights are fiercer the more similar the games are.

Indies of Note

Nasty, Brutish and Long is a short Forged in the Dark game about living through revolution. Write characters belonging to one of three different economic classes, and use random tables to generate your revolution, where it takes place, and the inciting event behind it. The game was originally released on itch.io, but the campaigned version is nearly twice as long with improved content and layout.

Penumbra City is a setting-driven game that focuses mostly around its eponymous city. While the mechanics look to be unique, the vibe and intent of the game feels very Blades in the Dark in a way that can’t easily be ignored given the themes and conceits of the city. Still, with new mechanics it’ll be interesting to see another take on the ‘dark city’ subgenre of games which includes Blades, Spire, and Heart.

Aether Nexus is a hack of The Mecha Hack, taking the game back towards fantasy by way of anime like Escaflowne. The game has some unique takes on a fantasy setting, which automatically makes me more interested. I’m looking forward to seeing Aether Nexus and more fantasy mecha content crop up in the old school world.

Slav Borg is a very specific Mork Borg hack. I’ve gone on the record saying the well is running dry for Mork Borg hacks, but I think this proves that if you go weird enough you can buck a trend. Ostensibly fantasy and ostensibly centered on goblins, Slav Borg takes place in a post-Soviet country and deals heavily with street racing. There’s also a roguelike mode in case your characters aren’t dying quick enough when they try to face the big bad, the necromancer.

In This World is the latest game from Ben Robbins, designer of Kingdom and Microscope. Designed to be narrower than those titles, In This World starts the play group with a topic they’d like to explore, then asks them to look at norms and assumptions they make within that topic. Play is pushed forward with one question: What if one of these assumptions wasn’t true? How would things look different? Described as a ‘brainstorming machine’, In This World looks like a fascinating way to world-build and dig deep into unquestioned assumptions.

We have a couple games which are trying to bring caltrops back; yes, two different campaigns focused around the humble d4 have come out of the woodwork this month. Luncheons and Dragonflies is a game of tiny woodland creatures, albeit heroic ones which walk on their hind legs. The dice mechanics involve swapping, swiping, and otherwise manipulating dice pools after the little pyramids are down on the table. On a completely different note, Triangle Agency is a paranormal investigative RPG, although here the investigations are bankrolled by a mysterious corporation that may or may not exist. Think the Laundry Files meets Cyberpunk in a Paranoia cloning tank, and you’ve at least got the vibe right. The system is also a d4 dice pool, though you’re trying to roll 3s (because it’s a triangle! Get it?).

The Last Caravan is a roadtrip RPG, with the slight wrinkle that the world is ending. The campaign claims a mix of Forged in the Dark and No Dice No Masters (or Belonging Outside Belonging), though the game is still dice-based. The tech from Belonging Outside Belonging here is the tokens, though adding tokens into a game with a randomizer kind of does mean something completely different. No matter, the idea of a pan-American roadtrip and encountering newly formed factions along the way is a campaign arc which intrigues me.

Five Year Review

June of 2018 was an interesting time for crowdfunding! There were several major campaigns that went on to make major splashes; here I’m mostly talking about Dream Askew and Tachyon Squadron. Avery Alder’s Dream Askew is notable for starting Belonging Outside Belonging, and is probably the most noteworthy indie campaign of the month. Also worth noting is Stephen Dewey’s Gather: Children of the Evertree, though the Ten Candles designer never completely finished the game. That said, the most recent update is from January of 2023, meaning it is in a coma instead of completely dead. On the completely dead side is The Mountain Witch, a campaign for a remake of the celebrated indie game that utterly collapsed. I backed the game, and let me tell you that money is gone. Probably one of the biggest Kickstarter flameouts covered in this series, at least so far. On the more successful side of the ledger, June 2018 was the campaign month of Quest. While the outsider campaign did fairly well and the game saw modest success, it faded into the background once it was clear that the designer’s media history had no real cross-applicability in RPGs. The original version of the game has been made free to play, so you can check it out if you’re still interested. There was also Champions Now, a new edition of the original Hero Games title that did modestly well, but despite its pedigree never really made a splash. Still, it and several other editions of Champions are available on DriveThruRPG if you want to check it out.

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May and June are good months for campaigns, there’s a bit of time before GenCon creates a shift in focus that causes July and August to be a little thinner. The OGL fracas has shifted many eyes onto Kobold Press; though the campaign isn’t record-breaking it still feels like it’s sucking the oxygen out of the room a bit by trying to play the 5e tune. No matter, there are still a bunch of good campaigns out there, including some interesting supplements and revisions that I didn’t cover. See if anything piques your interest, and I’ll see you next month for another Crowdfunding Carnival!

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