^Torchbearer

Shiny.

Foiled title aside, it has a weave textured cover not unlike the old (read: original) 1E manuals. The paper used is even a non-glossy cream, instead of the slick, stark white of more recent game books. And a Mullen cover, in case the look and feel of the book wasn't enough to invoke the games of old. Nice nods all around.

Received Torchbearer earlier this month, but hadn't the chance to mention it. According to the Kickstarter page, estimated due date was September, received in October. I count that as on time, especially seeing as the PDF was sent out way before that.

I'm willing to given more than a two or three months leeway for Kickstarters and that's not even due to the chronic lateness of projects. I'm used to the pace of patron projects like Open Design where the design and discussion is laid open to participants who are integrated into the process. As long as the communication and interaction is sufficient, I'm even good for time table changes on the scale of months or a year.

It feels good to back a prompt Kickstarter. Good on Luke Crane, Thor Olavsrud and the Burning Wheel team for running an efficient project (and wisely choosing to limit the project scope by eschewing stretch goals). For every project that crashed and burned, I've probably participated in at least two that were good (or made good). We'll do an actual count someday.

Also, huzzah for game designers and game companies in New York.

Unleash the Kickstart!

The Torchbearer Kickstarter is up. Powered by the Burning Wheel system and designed by Thor Olavsrud, Torchbearer is described as Advanced Mouse Guard RPG (AMGR?), or to put it another way D&D Basic on Hard Mode.

Honestly, they had me at "murder hobo" in an earlier description of this game. I have no experience with the Burning Wheel games, but did come into recent possession of the Mouse Guard hardcover. The blasted boxed set is still far out of my budget range due to the intense bidding on that out-of-print cardboard beast.

For Torchbearer, Luke Crane and company are keeping it simple, just the 200-page black & white interior hardcover with four color cover. Letter-sized unlike the other digest-sized Burning Wheel books, cause it's a nod to AD&D. Aww, now they're just getting sentimental.

It's good to see a Kickstart keep it simple, no frilly add-on stretchy bits. As always, I get home too late to grab one of the signed copies. Anyway, pretty cheap to buy in and coming from an established entity, this should be relatively safe. Oh look, it's already funded.


In other Kickstart news, Joseph Bloch, the Greyhawk Grognard, has launched the KS project for the next component for the Adventures Dark and Deep RPG, a massive ADD Bestiary of 900(!) critters. Adventures Dark and Deep (or "ADnD", heh, but seen it as ADD mostly for differentiation purposes I guess) is the "What if Gary Gygax wrote 2E" role-playing game. As this blog has started to become 2E-centric, I'm interested in all things 2E, actual, tangential, or theoretical, which this falls under.

I backed the first supplement of this alternate universe AD&D 2nd Edition, A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore, and the book ended up at my doorstep before I knew it was done. It's full of neat ideas and classes (all OSR compatible). I missed the Players Handbook, which I hear shipped early. Now I expect this book to deliver before I realized I wanted it.

This latest project for the ADD Bestiary has tiers with baked-in Players Manual and even the forthcoming Game Masters Toolkit, so slackers like myself can play catch-up.


And last but not least, this one actually went live yesterday by George Strayton is the supplement to The Secret Fire RPG, The Way of Tree, Shadow & Flame. It has a nice modest goal of $3000, but it's the stretch goals that have my attention. It's basically a list of who's who of RPG art and design luminaries and freelancers, running the gamut from Old School to newer school (and many who exist in all worlds). They've got names like David "Diesel" LaForc, Stan!, Brian Berg, Owen K.C. Stephens, Bruce Heard, Ed Greenwood, Matthew Finc, Tom Phillips. It's not just all contributor names, peppered through those stretch goals are support for Swords & Wizardry, Pathfinder, more adventures, stories, miniatures.


Heck, let's throw in one more ending soon, Shadowlands Campaign Guide headed by Chris Merwin. The Shadowlands is a campaign setting for Pathfinder, now with a Fate Core supplement from the stretch goals. Contributors include (the Ubiquitous) Ed Greenwood, Colin McComb, and potentially Tracy Hickman (stretch goals permitting).

All of these companies have delivered product before.

One more thing. These four projects have authors/designers/creators/companies centered within the Tri-State area, three from New York, one from New Jersey. Odd little coincident I noticed while writing this up.

Whew!

(Disclaimer: As always, backing a Kickstarter project involves risks. Exercise judgement and fiscal responsibility at your own discretion. I have no vested interest or relationship in these projects, other than as a project backer, some previous ones, and most likely these current projects.)