Deck100
If you’re tired of using dice (which I will never understand), Deck100 provides a new way for you to get a dice roll. You draw two cards – at the top of the first card is a dragon, and the color of that dragon indicates what column you use for your result on the second card. There’s also extra features on the bottom of the cards…but I still haven’t figured out what the Dragon icon means.

“Yes, we know. Gamers love their dice, and we’re asking you to use something instead of dice. Well, we love dice too. Dice are special, and generate special results for us when the need is great, right? Well, cards can be just as special (an individual’s Tarot deck is a very personal possession).

Why would we ask you to cards instead of dice? I offer four good reasons by way of example: 1) these cards provide the same numerical results as dice but also create opportunities to impact a game in other, simultaneous ways, 2) sometimes you play RPGs in an environment not conducive to rolling dice and cards don’t spill as easily, 3) younger players who might be a bit, uh… exuberant with dice can more easily flip over a card, and 4) gamers love new mechanics and experimentation, so why be limited to dice?

With the easy flip of a card you can generate a random result for any die from d100 to d2, including combinations of d6 results. Each of one hundred Deck100 cards has columns and rows for individual polyhedral dice results d20, d12, d10, d8, d6 and d4. Instead of merely replacing the function of dice in your RPG, Deck100 cards provide the same results as dice, but these cards augment this aspect of play in order to provide more options and opportunities for Gamemasters and players alike.”

Narrative Encounters for FATE Accelerated
These books offer quick encounters, loot, and monsters for your high fantasy game.

“If you enjoy worlds of high fantasy, and if you appreciate the “grab-and-go” qualities of a role-playing game like Fate Accelerated Edition, then rest assured Narrative Encounters will provide you with everything you need to play a game of swords and sorcery and without much preparation. That’s because Narrative Encounters complete dramatic, cinematic scenes that give your players reasons to act and to interact with the world around them, and they’re easy to jump into. Drop Narrative Encounters into your campaign for added flavor, use them as supplemental material for an existing scenario, play them out individually as stand-alone scenes, or use them as inspiration for fleshing out your own adventures.”

Reliquary Redux
These classic games are gorgeous. The board is etched leather and the markers are stone or wood.

“After the success of the Reliquary Collection on Kickstarter, we set to work researching even more games that we could add to this collection! We’re back with 6 classic games that you already know and love! We just had to “Bibelot-tize” these definitive games to add luxury, durability, and portability. *smiles* They are hand-crafted and LASER etched on our hallmark suede leather pouches with real marble pieces and natural wood dice. And instead of paper rule books that can get lost or damaged, we’ve accented them with amazing black metal tags displaying the name of the game on the front, and a QR code (and the hyperlink text) to the rules on the back. Just scan the code, or enter the hyperlink into a browser, and you’ll be able to access the rules, with variations and history of the game, anywhere!”

Littlest Lovecraft: The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Do you want a cute picture book of The Shadow Over Innsmouth? Now’s your chance!

“Hey everyone! We’re back again with our new Littlest Lovecraft book – this time it’s an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth (one of our all-time favorite Lovecraft stories!). As always, it will be a full color, fully illustrated book, written in verse, right around 64 pages long. We’re starting off aiming for softcover, perfect bound printed books, but our first stretch goal is to upgrade to the matte hardcover we’re so fond of!”

Still active!

Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG
Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion
Adventure Scents
Three Monkeys pt. 1: Into the Abyss
Scavengers
Dice Day Monthly: Unique RPG Dice to your Door
Board Games for Troops Overseas
Dagon by HP Lovecraft and Ben Templesmith
RPG Pencil Dice
Entropy: Thematic Fast Paced Game of Risk and Deception
Halfsies Dice
DEAD SCARE: An RPG of Blood Splattered White Picket Fences

RPG Pencil Dice
I know, I hear you saying “Megan you posted pencil dice like two weeks ago.” These are different! Well, you can still get pencils that will function as a d6, but these also let you roll class and race, hit location, magic answer, direction, treasure, and alignment.

“With the success of Pencil Dice, we asked you the BACKERS, what you would like to see, and RPG PENCIL DICE were born.

When you are playing a tabletop RPGs, you have to make a lot of decisions, and some of them are pretty tough. So why not have a few RPG PENCIL DICE hanging around that help you with snap decisions. ”

Entropy: Thematic Fast Paced Game of Risk and Deception
Once again, the artwork is what caught my eye for this game. I think it’s stunning. The game also looks interesting, with lots of chances to screw over your opponents.

“Five parallel worlds have collided and you play as one of five characters jettisoned from their world into a place called the Nexus. Through the use of unique character abilities and special actions, players must find fragments of their reality and be the first to piece them back together in order to find their way home.
Entropy is a fast-paced competitive card game of risk and deception, combining simultaneous action selection mechanics with order resolution.”

Halfsies Dice
Dice! That’s pretty much all that’s needed to make me look at a Kickstarter, and these are very pretty. They have a ton of colors they’re working to unlock as stretch goals.

“These all-new dual-colored dice feature one color on one half, and another color on the other half, with a smooth blend where the colors meet. Aesthetically pleasing and well balanced, these dice will make a great addition to any collection.

All Halfsies Dice are two-toned, semi-translucent, have a pearlescent swirl effect, and are professionally manufactured in high impact resin with smooth corners for a clean and balanced roll every time.”

Beam: The Smart Projector
I’ve always loved the idea of using a projector to make a map to play on in tabletop games. This one is small and just screws into a light socket. Too bad I can’t afford it and play most of my games online!

“Beam can turn any flat surface into a big screen. It is a powerful projector equipped with a smart computer, all inside a beautifully designed casing.

You can play games, watch movies or share content from your smartphone or tablet. Beam will assist you in your daily activities, like wake you up in the morning with the latest news and your agenda or show you your social updates when you come home.

Beam is easy to set up and control with the Apple or Android app. You can screw it into any light socket or use the included power cable to place it on any flat surface.”

DEAD SCARE: An RPG of Blood Splattered White Picket Fences
In this RPG you play as the women and children of the 1950’s, defending your home and surviving the zombie apocalypse. And one of the stretch goals is a postcard story written by Shanna Germain – co-creator of the Cypher System. I like that this game limits the PC options to women and children and forces creativity in defending what’s theirs.

“It’s 1953 and the United States is under siege.You, your family, your neighbors, and your friends have to fight the shambling dead as they trample your begonias and drag ichor all over your new front porch. They’re clawing at the door, and it’s not just because they want your apple pie recipe.

DEAD SCARE is a tabletop roleplaying game that explores an alternate United States in the early 1950s. It’s Powered by the Apocalypse and combines subverted 1950s American idealism with a blood-spattered zombie apocalypse.

It began when President Truman was the first public target of a Russian bio-weapon the Russkies designed to turn people into flesh-eating zombies. Everyone watched it on TV that night, and nothing in the good ol’ US of A will be the same ever again.”

Still active!

Numenera: The Strand
Death Saves: Fallen Heroes of the Kitchen Table
World of Darkness: Dark Eras Prestige Edition
Ako Dice – Now available in multiple colors and as Fudge Die!
Pencil Dice – Now available in multiple colors and as Fudge Die!
Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG
Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion
Adventure Scents
Three Monkeys pt. 1: Into the Abyss
Scavengers
Dice Day Monthly: Unique RPG Dice to your Door
Board Games for Troops Overseas
Dagon by HP Lovecraft and Ben Templesmith

Dagon by HP Lovecraft and Ben Templesmith
The art in this book is what attracted me to it initially, and I still think it looks gorgeous. I would love to have this book on my coffee table or somewhere to peruse at length.

“DAGON is a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft in July 1917 and one of his earliest published works. The story is the testament of a tortured, morphine-addicted man who plans to commit suicide over an incident that occurred early on in World War I when he was a merchant marine officer. It’s an amazingly powerful and visceral story whose concepts and creatures directly connect to Lovecraft’s later and far more famous Cthulhu works.

DAGON will be adapted and drawn by Ben Templesmith, New York Times best selling comic book artist who is Co-Creator of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT with Steve Niles and FELL with Warren Ellis, as well as Creator of WORMWOOD: GENTLEMAN CORPSE, THE SQUIDDER, and WELCOME TO HOXFORD. This story has preoccupied and haunted Ben since he first read it 20 plus years ago, a time before he’d published any of his own work or knew that he ever would”

Board Games for Troops Overseas
A lot of the cast we have on TRF is in the military, and this Kickstarter will help those overseas have some board games to fill in their spare time.

“I am currently stationed in Okinawa, Japan, a place were low ranking military members are not allowed to own cars or drive and must either pay cab fares to get into town or resort to entertainment found on base. This can get quite costly so most do not leave the base during the week and are limited to the entertainment found on the base.

My goal for this fundraiser is generate enough money to buy and maintain three current, diverse board game library that I can provide at three local military bases in order to provide another source of entertainment to those lower income, restricted service members.”

Dynamic Colored X-Wing/Attack Wing Template Sets
This Kickstarter helps you bring more fun and color to your X-Wing or Attack Wing miniature games.

“As you can see want to bring you the best in gaming accessories. We want to provide the best gaming templates out there. So we are bringing you Full Color Gaming templates. These templates will have full color dioramas with laser cut/engraved numbers and feature. They will also have velvet backing to protect the images and prevent slipping while in play.”

Dice Day Monthly: Unique RPG Dice to your Door
I have a couple monthly subscriptions and it’s always exciting to get that box, open it up, and see what new thing you’ve gotten. Now there’s an option to get new dice this way!

“Goal: To deliver you unique dice each month. Yes, we keep track of which dice you receive each month, insuring you will never receive the same dice twice.

You should also not receive the same dice as your friends or many other backers, as we will choose from hundreds of unique dice sets each month. Although it would still be wise to tell your friends to back the project as well so you have the ability to trade each month!”

Boss Fight: Hand-printed Video Game Posters
I wasn’t allowed to play video games when I was growing up, but some things are just so much a part of popular culture you can’t help but know about them. Theses prints would look great in any gamer’s home and celebrate the greats among classic boss fights.

“This project consists of three illustrations that recreate the nervous excitement that meant reaching a game’s hard earned final moments. A testament to the hours spent building skills, solving puzzles and defeating all the minions that stood in your way towards the game’s final confrontation.
The Boss Fight!
A tense and beloved moment shared by everyone who had the determination to see a game to it’s triumphant, visceral end. Boss Fights were a big deal. So much larger than what a dozen flickering pixels could ever represent, this art project hopes to interpret and capture that fleeting feeling and make it physical.”

Scavengers
This RPG lets you play as scavengers, finding space hulks, and clearing out all the loot you possibly can.

“Scavengers is a fast-paced, good-humored roleplaying game about space salvagers trying to get rich during the turmoil of galactic war. Here at Metal Weave Games, we want to raise enough funds to publish both a print and digital version of Scavengers, with enough high-quality art to make the game world come alive.”

Still active!

Numenera: The Strand
Death Saves: Fallen Heroes of the Kitchen Table
Mt. Hood: The Oregon Pint Glass
World of Darkness: Dark Eras Prestige Edition
Ako Dice – Now available in multiple colors and as Fudge Die!
Pencil Dice – Now available in multiple colors and as Fudge Die!
Unspeakable Words
Rise of Cthulhu: A Card Game of Influence and Horror
Exploding Kittens
Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG
Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion
Adventure Scents
The Miskatonic: A Lovecraftian Horror Comedy
Pinblock: Revolutionary Piece of Engineering
Three Monkeys pt. 1: Into the Abyss

Here’s my picks on what you should check out on Kickstarter this week-

Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG
This RPG uses cards instead of dice, giving it a unique spin on the genre. The background story about living with gods among the players in interesting and the art is gorgeous. Plus John helped playtest the game!

“FAITH uses a unique system that replaces dice with cards. Each player has a poker deck and a hand of 7 cards. Most actions the characters attempt are successful by default, but when another character or the Game Master tries to stop them a confrontation will arise. In that case both sides will be able to play a number of cards from their hands depending on their attributes and add their value to their skills. The highest final value will determine who succeeds and who fails.

These confrontations make the gameplay feel dynamic, allowing characters to perform actions outside the more traditional and constrained initiative rounds and letting them use their resources as they see fit instead of being subject to the sheer randomness of a dice roll.”

Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion

“Ever since its release in 1984, Masks of Nyarlathotep has been considered one of the finest supplements for Call of Cthulhu, a roleplaying classic. Countless players have dared to thwart the machinations of Nyarlathotep and plumb the mysteries of the Carlyle expedition. Keeping this globe-trotting campaign is unfortunately rather a challenge, with scores of NPCs, dozens of locations, hordes of cultists, and at least one very angry Outer God. Needless to say, even the best Keeper could use a little help.

That is where The Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion comes in.Drawing on the wisdom and experience of the members of Yog-Sothoth.com, the première site for Lovecraftian role-playing, the Companion gathers together tips and advice for Keepers wishing to run Masks of Nyarlathotep. Within these pages are detailed nearly every imaginable facet of the campaign, from starting play to ending things with a bang, explaining, exploring, and expanding the classic work. There is something for everyone, from novice game masters to Grognardian disciples of Cthulhu.”

Adventure Scents
So I haven’t decided how I feel about these, though Aser is opposed. I think it would be a lot of fun for campaigns to be able to close your eyes and imagine you’re sitting around a campfire, and the room actually smells like a campfire. Though you won’t find me using the Fishing Docks scented ones.

“These products are meant to be special effects, designed to heighten the immersion of things like roleplaying and video games, books, TV, and movies. You can also use them enhance a costume – adding a whiff of realism to your favorite persona. And don’t get me started on all of the possibilities for these products around Halloween!”

The Miskatonic: A Lovecraftian Horror Comedy
This game looks super cute and like a lot of fun. I’m 100% pro-enormously huge shotguns.

“Plunge headlong into the writhing depths of The Miskatonic, a side-scrolling, horror comedy visual novel, packed with bizarre and hilarious dialogue, a cadre of warped and damaged students and faculty, and an intriguing, devious narrative! Chat jovially with the local abominations, scout revolting locations for occult expeditions, and investigate the innate strangeness within!”

Pinblock: Revolutionary Piece of Engineering
They claim these don’t hurt to step on, so I think that already puts them ahead of Legos. But more seriously, this design looks like it gives you a lot of flexibility to build what you want to build using one style of block instead of hundreds.

“We’re two best friends who had a single childhood passion – building epic things. We loved the idea but the tools with which we had to work had limitations.

When we grew up, even though severed by time, Shijun came up with an idea to not just reconnect and rebuild one of our old childhood constructions but to create blocks of our own that would be simple enough to overcome common limitations and complex enough to be able to build anything we wanted.”

Three Monkeys pt. 1: Into the Abyss
Aser and I are always on the look out for games that are accessible for him to play, and this looks like an amazing audio game. The plot sounds awesome and they are putting a lot of work into making the audio the highest quality they can

“Three Monkeys takes advantage of Binaural Audio techniques to immerse you in a highly reactive 3D world – meaning you’ll need a pair of headphones to really get the most out of the game. The mechanics combine timing-based responses, relying heavily on human reactions. For example, if you hear a sword swinging towards you, you have a number of choices about how you choose to respond. The game provides the player with the ability to react in the way they desire.

Exploration is handled in the form of a zonal open-world format. This allows the player to get the maximum thrill from exploring the world of Byzantia, whilst enhancing the quest in the story. There will be a range of environments, including villages, forests, mines/caves, abandoned cities – the acoustics in each zones can be utilised to provide a rich gameplay experience. Unity will be used to develop the game alongside WWise Audio Software and Astound Audio Plugins to achieve the best audio response and flexibility.”

Still active!

Numenera: The Strand
Death Saves: Fallen Heroes of the Kitchen Table
Mt. Hood: The Oregon Pint Glass
World of Darkness: Dark Eras Prestige Edition
Ako Dice – Now available in multiple colors and as Fudge Die!
Pencil Dice – Now available in multiple colors and as Fudge Die!
Unspeakable Words
Rise of Cthulhu: A Card Game of Influence and Horror
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Exploding Kittens

–Megan

Numenera: The Strand
Numenera! Kickstarter! A movie! All things I love, and I really can’t wait to see the Ninth World brought to life in this short.

“A drifter/scavenger roams a desolate beach in the Ninth World looking for useful items and stumbles upon an artifact of the Numenera. This starts a chain of events that leads to an experience that changes the very essence of his being.”

Death Saves: Fallen Heroes of the Kitchen Table
A collection of comics about the times things just don’t work out in an adventure. I can’t wait to read it.

“‘Death Saves: Fallen Heroes of the Kitchen Table’ collects 16 all-new comic book stories about what happens when fantasy gaming characters run out of hit points. This book will be a 132 pages, full-color, perfect bound softcover printed in digest format (5.5″ x 7.75″) and features an original cover by artist Jared Morgan.”

Mt. Hood: The Oregon Pint Glass
I really want to get one of these for my dad – he collects pint glasses and grew up in Portland. But I want one too! They’re a bit pricier, but I think they’re beautiful and unique.

“In making The Oregon Pint, we’ve combined modern technology with the old world craft of blowing glass to make a beautiful and relevant new product. With our design concept in place we took USGS topographical data of Mt. Hood and converted it to a digital 3D model. We then made 3D prints of our designs for design evaluation and prototyping. Once we were satisfied with our design, we created molds for our first blown glass prototypes. With our design finalized, we’ve ordered our first production mold and are almost ready to start production.”

Binary Dice
I love dice and these are pretty cool. They’re a bit more then I want to spend on a pair of d6 though.

World of Darkness: Dark Eras Prestige Edition
A bunch of adventures set throughout the ages for nWoD. They look pretty intriguing and the book they’re planning is going to be gorgeous.

“nWoD Dark Eras starts out presenting a chapter for each of nine historical eras; one for each of the New World of Darkness game lines. The sections are written for the currently available edition of the game line, but they are designed to be usable with any edition. Each terrifying time period and location is examined through the supernatural creatures that dwell there”

Ako Dice
These metal dice look pretty awesome. They’re available in two colors and are made out of aluminum.

The Last Days of Anglekite
We haven’t played any Dungeon World games for TRF yet – but this setting looks like a lot of fun.

“The Last Days of Anglekite is a Dying Earth-style weird fantasy setting for Dungeon World in which you play members of the Anglekite Adventurer’s Guild, the last line of defense for a dying world threatened by catastrophic powers. The Last Days of Anglekite has everything you need to play out an epic struggle to save a world at the end of its time, drawing from weird sword and sorcery tales and over-the-top fantasy by authors like Jack Vance, Clark Ashton Smith, and Michael Moorcock.”

Nefertiti Overdrive: High Octane Action in Ancient Egypt
So many RPGs are set in a medieval European setting, so I think writing one in Ancient Egypt is pretty interesting.

“Defying physics and common sense, you are legendary heroes protecting the royal house of 25th Dynasty Egypt from both internal enemies and the marauding Assyrian army. Do you want to leap from crocodile head to crocodile head before planting your sandaled foot directly in the face of an Assyrian giant bearing an axe bigger than you? Do you want to rebound off the side of a pyramid and fly into the centre of a mob of badguys, whom you then lay low with your lightning-fast fists?

Then you are our kind of people. Nefertiti Overdrive is a role-playing game of crazy wire-fu action set in Ancient Egypt. This is a game about kicking badguys in the face, or using a fallen foe as a step to get your character high enough to drive her knee into another bad-guy’s face.”

Heal Dice!!
These dice are intended to be used by your party’s healer so that you can get a visual just how much good you’re doing.

Pencil Dice
Just in case carrying around a d6 is too arduous, you can just use your pencil to make your rolls!

I spend a lot of time looking for cool new things to get on Kickstarter, and this is what I think is worth looking into!

Unspeakable Words
They played this game on Tabletop and it looks like a lot of fun – plus there’s all kinds of Cthulhu tokens.

“Unspeakable Words™ is the Call of Cthulhu Word Game designed by James Ernest and Mike Selinker. In the game, you and your opponents will attempt to form words from the letter cards in your hand. Each letter is worth points – the amount of points is determined by the number of angles in the letter (where the hounds of Tindalos are lurking!). You may try to make the highest scoring word possible, but… you’ll have to test the strength of the word against a roll of the 20-sided die. Roll equal to or higher than the value of your word and you’re safe… but roll less than the value of your word and you lose a precious piece of your sanity, represented by an adorable Cthulhu pawn!

Each letter is uniquely illustrated with a horrifying character from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, which adds to the dark whimsy of the game.”

Rise of Cthulhu: A Card Game of Influence and Horror
The cards in this game are beautiful – I love the artwork.

“In Rise of Cthulhu you play as the leader of a cultist faction wishing to awaken Cthulhu and the other Old Ones to rule this world. But a competing faction races against you to be the first to awaken these chaotic masters.”

Shadowrun: Hong Kong
This video game is fully funded and looks like it will be a lot of fun, especially with all the stretch goals being met.

“HONG KONG. A stable and prosperous port of call in a sea of chaos, warfare, and political turmoil. The Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone is a land of contradictions – it is one of the most successful centers of business in the Sixth World, and home to one of the world’s most dangerous sprawl sites. A land of bright lights, gleaming towers, and restless spirits where life is cheap and everything is for sale.

The lure of a quick payday draws you from Seattle into the neon glow of Victoria Harbor… and into a corporate conspiracy nearly thirty years in the making. A terrifying threat looms on the horizon – a supernatural force that corrupts and consumes everything it touches. Dragged into the shadows of Kowloon City, you will need to forge new connections and gain “face” to survive.

Hong Kong contains fantastic elements for a new Shadowrun setting: an underworld of triads, tongs, and gangs to navigate, wild magic to harness, and bleeding edge cybertech to equip. Plus, Hong Kong’s culture is steeped in “guanxi” – a network of influence and relationships based upon a combination of social status, and prestige. All of these elements add up to a great new setting for running the shadows.”

World’s Toughest Chainmail Dice Bag
In case you need a sweet new bag to contain your dice!

Exploding Kittens

“Exploding Kittens is a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. Players take turns drawing cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. The deck is made up of cards that let you avoid exploding by peeking at cards before you draw, forcing your opponent to draw multiple cards, or shuffling the deck.”

Here are some projects on Kickstarter I think look promising!

Cephalovepod Letterpress Valentines Card

I got the previous card made by this group for the #CreeperXmas2015 gift exchange, and can’t wait to get another piece! I had to get two so I’d have one to give to my Valentine and one to keep for myself.

Lovecraftian Science
“Since September 2013 I have posted numerous articles discussing how Lovecraft used science in his stories.The first series of articles was an expansion on some of the ideas and concepts I presented on the Biology of the Old Ones at the NecronomiCon.Subsequent articles have included investigations on a story-specific basis, as well as on specific subject matters, such as the solar system, the use of Einstein’s theories in Lovecraft’s stories, the role of fungi in Lovecraft’s fiction, and how Lovecraft would actually modify his stories to agree with emerging scientific ideas and discoveries.Some more academic and philosophical subjects were also discussed such as how Lovecraft attempted to use science to justify some of his racist views and how his materialism philosophy impacted his work.”

Real Precious Stone full 16mm polyhedral dice sets
“We have made a few samples of these using hand carved techniques. However, for mass-production, we will need to invest in a quality steel mold that will guide the stone carving into more precise shapes, which will later be hand polished to finish the manufacturing process. Using this steel mold to guide the process will also help with the precision of our stone dice.

This is where KickStarter comes in. The steel mold to make the dice more precise is costly; the materials themselves (being semi-precious stones) are also very costly. This KickStarter will help us make the mold and start with manufacturing 4 different stone materials: Clear Quartz, Hematite, Synthetic Opalite, and Red Jasper.”

Necronomicon Horror RPG
“This is a horror themed sandbox, storytelling game steeped in demonology and the occult. It can be played extensively for missions, experience and quests…or as a Halloween/horror themed party as a one off. It is a frightening game that requires team work, cunning, strategy and a great deal of imagination. This isn’t just a Cthulhu mythos game but links the horrors of Lovecraft to medieval deadly sins and modern horror. It creates a horror tailored to the player’s deepest fears.”