RPG Crowdfunding News – Crooked Moon, Deadlands, Deck of Many Things, and more

This week’s article is a sampling of TTRPG crowdfunding projects, both regular and quickstarters, that end between November 2 and 8. Pulled from Kickstarter, Backerkit, Crowdfundr, GameFound, GameOnTabletop, IndieGoGo, and more, as I've been doing I want to shout out the third party Mörk Borg crowdfunding projects here. This site is a good resource to track Mörk Borg crowdfunding campaigns.

The Crooked Moon: Folk Horror in 5E from Legends of Avantris

• END DATE: Thu, November 2 2023 12:00 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $65 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book plus a MP3
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Another million dollar TTRPG crowdfunding campaign, and this one is right for the season blending folk horror with a Halloween feel. At 400 pages for the book, you’re getting a 13-level adventure, many monsters, subclasses, Halloween-themed ancestries, curses, multiphase boss fights, and a new RPG mechanic, the Fateweaving system. Among these, I’m most curious about the Halloween-themed ancestries and what they’ll include. The Fateweaving system is meant to tie the character’s backstory and motivations directly into the larger campaign plot. I’m interested in seeing that as a system. If you’re looking for a campaign setting that helps to tie-in your characters to a folk horror world, this is worth exploring.

The Fablemaker's Deck of Many Things from Hit Point Press

• END DATE: Thu, November 2 2023 3:01 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: RPG accessory
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $50 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the deck, a community copy, and the rogue STL file
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Need a physical 5e Deck of Many Things for your campaign? This campaign offers the cards in two formats, full-color and grayscale to allow the GM to present the deck as they see fit. With artwork by Yoshi Yoshitani, an Eisner nominated artist, this project gives you a 100-page book about how to use the deck as well as the cards and more. The first campaign I played in involved a 1e Deck of Many Things. It was used a few times, each pull to devastating effect. While we had to roll on a chart, this would have been a more immersive option.

Deadlands 𝗡𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 25th Anniversary from Pinnacle Entertainment Group

• END DATE: Thu, November 2 2023 8:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (Deadlands Version)
• PROJECT TYPE: RPG boxed set
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $50 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the boxed set and dime novels
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This campaign brings John Goff's Night Train back into print along with the Wendigo Tales collection of Deadlands Dime Novels. A train rolls across the West, stopping at night at certain towns to unleash its passengers, starved vampires. Offered for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, this project offers the original adventure, it’s sequel, a new adventure, and notes and memories from John Goff. There’s more but I want to shout out the Dime Novel collection that gives you stories from Shane Lacy Hensley, John Goff, Matt Forbeck, and John Wick. Vampires, a locomotive, and Deadlands, if you haven’t played this adventure, you’re missing out on one of the best.

Fever Swamp from Melsonian Arts Council

• END DATE: Thu, November 2 2023 2:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): OSR
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventure
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £36 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book, adventure, and cloth map
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This campaign updates and reprints the Ennie Award winning hexcrawl OSR. You’ll get 15 hex maps, 2 full dungeons, plenty of forces to encounter, and some river boat rules in keeping with the setting and system. If you have the original, this book adds a new dungeon location, swamp witches, new art and rules. If you’re an OSR fan and want a swamp adventure, this campaign may be for you.

Tower of the Mind - A Lv 1-20 campaign location for 5e & PF2 from Awfully Queer Heroes

• END DATE: Thu, November 2 2023 11:59 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and Pathfinder Second Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £12 for the PDF in the system of your choice
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This 20 level campaign gives you 45 locations to adventure through along with 25 new monsters. There are ancient towers, each promising adventure and unclaimed loot mostly because they’ve driven others to madness when they attempted to plunder them. If you need a full campaign with a lot of setting options so, even if your players lose the narrative thread there’s still enough content to keep you gaming without having to start from scratch, check out the campaign page to download a sample of the product.

KING BEOWULF from Handiwork Games

• END DATE: Tue, November 7 2023 12:00 PM EST.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventure
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £36 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book plus additional PDFs
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This book takes Handiwork Games’ 5e BEOWULF duet and provides rules to change it from a monster slaying adventure to a story of ruling a land. A duet is an RPG for one GM and one player, in this case using a variant ruleset built on 5e. The original 5e BEOWULF made you a monster slayer. This 240-page version of the rules lets you rule the lands that you’ve saved, giving you new political challenges to address. If you’re interested, check out the preview on the campaign page.

The Hotel Exorcist from Ham and Egg Publishing

• END DATE: Sat, November 4 2023 9:57 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): 3,2,1...Action! RPG
• PROJECT TYPE: RPG zine
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $20 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the zine plus the PDF of the rule zine
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? You’re an elite paranormal investigator come to a town to save it from supernatural forces. Check into the hotel to start your work, only to discover the hotel is a part of the problem. Using a horror version of the 3,2,1...Action! system, this RPG zine is right for the season. If you’re interested, there’s a preview via the campaign page.

Worlds to-go! The Elysians (Level Up Advanced Fifth edition) from Homebrew and Hacking Tabletop RPG Design

• END DATE: Fri, November 3 2023 12:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Level Up! Advanced Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £15 for the PDF version of the book
• DISCLAIMER: PJ Coffey, the creator of this project, co-hosts Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk. This project is not published by EN Publishing
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Do you need sword-and-sandal Ancient Greece, but one built to be used by you, not built to force you down a specific path? Imagine an Advanced 5th Edition toolkit that provided you with a setting so you can pick and use only what you want. New heritages, new backgrounds, new cultures, all ready to be used, and you aren’t forced to include them all. From one of the creators behind Advanced 5th Edition, this is a good toolkit to add to your set of campaign options.

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Egg Embry participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Associate. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Games, and Amazon.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Thanks as always for the write ups. My wallet says I should stop reading these posts. My RPG-lovin' soul however is in control - thank goodness!

Question for you @Egg Embry - in my head I assume you keep a list of crowdfunds somewhere; but have to be quite selective each week for your articles, and only discuss 8 or so of all the crowdfunds out there. Maybe at the end of each week's post you can provide links to all the crowdfunds that didn't make the cut for a full paragraph? Or is that too much work?

 

[Egg Embry]

Thanks as always for the write ups. My wallet says I should stop reading these posts. My RPG-lovin' soul however is in control - thank goodness!

Question for you @Egg Embry - in my head I assume you keep a list of crowdfunds somewhere; but have to be quite selective each week for your articles, and only discuss 8 or so of all the crowdfunds out there. Maybe at the end of each week's post you can provide links to all the crowdfunds that didn't make the cut for a full paragraph? Or is that too much work?

That's accurate. For tracking, I use each website's tracking tools.
My editor and I discussed sharing links to every campaign years ago, but there are reasons we don't. Because I turn this in days before it goes live, I'd miss some. There's the STL file campaigns and dice campaigns that I don't give much focus, but they are on my radar. Would they count? The format would prove difficult (should we do contextless names or some sort of information? Our mission is to add context, so the names wouldn't cut it). Among the many valid projects there are sketchy campaigns that we don't want to share. And, as you mentioned, the work involved. So, because of all of those considerations, 8 to 10 projects a week is what I can share. ;-)

 

[talien]

That's accurate. For tracking, I use each website's tracking tools.
My editor and I discussed sharing links to every campaign years ago, but there are reasons we don't. Because I turn this in days before it goes live, I'd miss some. There's the STL file campaigns and dice campaigns that I don't give much focus, but they are on my radar. Would they count? The format would prove difficult (should we do contextless names or some sort of information? Our mission is to add context, so the names wouldn't cut it). Among the many valid projects there are sketchy campaigns that we don't want to share. And, as you mentioned, the work involved. So, because of all of those considerations, 8 to 10 projects a week is what I can share. ;-)

Editor here! The column isn't an automated list but a curated one, so the human element (that's Egg!) is what makes our column unique. While we aim to be comprehensive, we don't have the space or resources to be exhaustive.

And to Egg's point: not every project should be front page news on EN World, so we try to be choosey with what makes it into the column. It's a big responsibility and Egg handles it with aplomb week after week, year after year!

 

[thullgrim]

Deadlands Night Train backer. The original is a good but brutal adventure. I’m hoping this is just as rough for SWADE.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Fever Swamp will be a real winner. Glad to see an updated enhanced version.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Fever Swamp will be a real winner. Glad to see an updated enhanced version.

Yeah, the original is very well regarded in the OSR community.

 

[Jon Hodgson]

Hey Egg! Thanks for the mention for KING BEOWULF! Appreciate it - I think the book is going to be packed with so much cool stuff for high level 5e play and some really useful and fun stronghold management stuff.

And we just broke 17k, which is great!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Speaking of King Beowulf. @Jon Hodgson posted this to the Handiwork Blog. Talk about a wild series of events!
Honestly, this feels like it could be a nice ENWorld News Item. Maybe @Egg Embry @talien pass that along to the powers that be?

The tl;dr: Handiwork sent a bunch of books to the US to fulfill a kickstarter, as well as a bunch of backstock for distributor / FLGS sales. The pallet "disappeared" somewhere in shipping. And then copies started showing up on eBay. And through the efforts of various heroes, most some of the stock was recovered! (And also insurance companies are evil). It's rare to get a theft story with a relatively happy ending. The entire post is worth reading.

The Loss of the Trials of the Twin Seas Pallet

Hello. Jon Here. A few people have asked questions about this topic, and there are some heroes in the sorry tale which I would like to highlight. It also feels like a story that should be told defi…

handiwork.games

 

[Bill Zebub]

Fever Swamp sounds really cool, but I'm getting tired of converting to Shadowdark, even for things that are already OSR. Hit points, AC, attack bonuses, etc. are easy, but it's the spells and special abilities that take some hand-work, and it's just hard to find the time.

I know other people do conversions, but I hate having to constantly cross-reference adventures with conversion notes.

I would love to see more authors/publishers convert for other systems. I would pounce on Fever Swamp (and Dolmenwood!) with a Shadowdark conversion.

That said, I'll probably break down and get it anyway....