There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

The Nightmare Gallery
The Nightmare Gallery is a horror movie written by Rob and Jhan of Orpheus Protocol (look for an interview with Rob later this week!). The movie follows a professor of anthropology who receives some cryptic messages that claim to be from a TA that went missing three years earlier, and the path that pushes her and her wife down. What’s really cool is that this professor is played by Amber Benson, aka Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the goals of this movie is to develop a horror movie with fleshed out LGBTQ characters, and I’m really excited to see a movie that is really thoughtful about this. Plus if you’ve listened to Orpheus Protocol you know the horror is going to be amazing. It’s only $15 to get a digital copy of the movie, and you also get access to a lot of amazing additional material from Seraph Films, including a short film, your name in the credits, and an exclusive episode of Horror Haiku. This is a movie that I never knew was missing from my collection, and I can’t wait to see it!

“Amber Benson stars in The Nightmare Gallery as Professor Rand, an anthropology professor whose life is turned upside-down by the sudden, suspicious disappearance of a star pupil. But when a package of paranormal artifacts arrives on her doorstep three years later, the professor embarks on a nightmarish journey into mystery that will shake her and her wife to their cores. Through a terrifying, Lynchian lens, the film follows Professor Rand’s horrifying loss of self in pursuit of an extra-dimensional truth that could doom the world.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Cthulhu Dark
Cthulhu Dark boasts of only two pages of rules, make it a very compact game for you to bring to your table. The rest of the book gives advice for building and running the mysteries for your scenario, creatures and objects, and four very different settings: London 1851, Arkham 1692, Jaiwo 2017, and Mumbai 2037. Most of the material is already written, and will be ready to head to layout as the kickstarter ends. However, you can also pledge for a Season Pass, which gets you the material as it’s finished so that you don’t have to wait too long to begin your game. Aser especially is a fan of the bleak storytelling style of this sort of game, and the futility of fighting against incomprehensible horrors. If you enjoy the mythos, this game looks like a great place to try something a little different.

“Cthulhu Dark is a tabletop roleplaying game of cosmic horror, in the style of H.P. Lovecraft. It’s about the things we fear, amplified until they are unbearable. It’s about stories that genuinely creep you out, not well-worn tropes and creatures you’ve seen hundreds of times before. And it’s about bleak horror, in which humans are powerless when confronted by hyperintelligent alien horrors. You can’t beat them. You can’t fight them. You can only watch, run, hide and fear.

If you love Cthulhu games already, then this is Lovecraftian horror at its most intense. If you’re new to them, then Cthulhu Dark is a great place to start. You’ll enter a world of stories that are both terrifying and terribly human. The rules are incredibly short: they’re tightly focussed on horror and they drive the game.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Untold: Adventures Await
I got to talk to one of the creators of Untold last week, and I think this looks like a great fun game to play when someone can’t show up for a session. Or with people who are nervous to try RPGs, or even to introduce your kids to them. You use any combination of Story Cubes you want to build a setting, and then develop characters and a narrative. The games are quick and can be different everytime. Michael recommends combing Clues, Mythic, and Voyages story cubes for your investigative horror game.

“Untold: Adventure Awaits is a customisable storytelling game powered by Rory’s Story Cubes where you play the heroes in your own adventure series. Think of it as throwing you and your friends into a favourite TV show, but rather than passively watching, you’re caught up in every scene and make the decisions on which way the plot will go. Each adventure-packed episode takes less than sixty minutes to play from start to finish and requires no preparation – you jump straight into the adventure! All it takes is a copy of Untold, a set of any nine StoryCubes of your choice, and the combined imagination and inquisitiveness of the players. From there on, anything can happen…”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Cortex Prime
I’ve played a lot of Firefly, and sort have a love/hate relationship with the Cortex Plus system. Cortex Prime uses the same base mechanics, which means it should be backwards compatible with a bunch of games you already love. The great thing about this release, is that it’s setting neutral, and can bring it into any world you want to. You’ll even be able to publish your own setting material on Drive Thru RPG, using the Cortex Creator Studio. I’m really interested to see the changes that Cortex Prime makes!

“Cortex is an award-winning tabletop roleplaying game system that traces its origins back to the Sovereign Stone System in 1999, and the Serenity RPG in 2005, from which it takes its name. Over the next five years it appeared as the engine powering a series of other licensed RPGs, at which point it was rewritten from the ground up as Cortex Plus. Various iterations of this newer system were used in RPGs based on Leverage, Smallville, Firefly, and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.

Cortex Prime is the newest version of this much-loved set of game rules, refined and redesigned by Cam Banks under license from Margaret Weis Productions. It embraces its roots as a means of adapting your favorite movies, television shows, and comic books, while emerging finally as a truly multi-genre modular roleplaying game in its own right.

Orc revolutionaries! Giant mecha! Swashbucklers of the far future! Hard-boiled police detectives! Whether you’re a fan of genres and genre mash-ups, any of the older Cortex-powered games, or you’re just looking for a tabletop game system you can customize to your own specifications, Cortex Prime is primed for you.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Eclipse Phase 2e
I’ve only gotten to play Eclipse Phase a handful of times, but I really love the world and especially the resleeving. There’s so many cool morphs that you can play as, and it’s really cool to be able to swap into a new one when you need to. This new edition promises that character creation will be faster, which is great news, I used a pre-gen when we played and I’d love to be able to customize my character more. They’ve also updated the gameplay to make it work a lot smoother, and streamlined resleeving to make it easier to swap morphs. I’m hoping with this edition I’ll finally be able to play as an octomorph. Most of the setting material from the first edition will still be compatible, so your collection won’t go to waste.

“Eclipse Phase is the game of transhuman survival. Technology puts the tools to defeat death, emancipate from need, and reshape bodies and minds in the hands of everyone, but it also provides the means for oppression and mass destruction. After losing Earth in a war with AIs, transhumanity disperses throughout the solar system and beyond, struggling to survive. In a typical Eclipse Phase game, characters belong to Firewall, a secret, cross-faction organization that protects transhumanity from extinction threats. Alternate campaigns involve traversing the mysterious Pandora gates to explore extrasolar worlds or navigating the treacherous terrain of high-tech criminal cartels.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

AcadeCon 2017
The RPG Academy has hosted an amazing convention in Dayton, Ohio the past few years, and they’re going to continue to top themselves this year. The convention focuses on playing games with other cool people including Kenneth Hite, James D’Amato, Jim McClure, and all of the Fandible cast. I wish I could make it this year to meet up with all these great people, but you have a chance to get your tickets now! It will be held November 10-12 this year, and there’s all kinds of great swag if you sign up now.

“AcadeCon is specifically designed to be a smaller, non-traditional convention. We are not trying to (nor do we want to) compete with or replace the huge conventions that attract a national audience. At our convention, you’re going to get access to 24-hour gaming hall, a better chance to play in the games you want, the opportunity to spend time and game with special guests, and time to hang out with some of the best gamers in the world—the fans of our show!”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Noir World
Noir World is an Apocalypse World game that allows you to play your own Noir game. Which sounds amazing. A femme fatale seems like she definitely would have a place in a game PbtA. You’re not limited in playing in the 1920’s, it’s extensible to near future settings as well with 10 decades available. There are 20 roles you can play, which is great for having lots of options. I’m interested to see how this game will work with no GM, but I definitely want to give it a try.

“Noir World is film noir as powered by the Apocalypse. Around your table you’ll choose from 20 Roles, create relationships between them, build a City, and maybe solve a Crime, all while trying to create the best Movie possible.

It’s powered by the Apocalypse, the same mechanics found in Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Headspace, and Monsterhearts, but it’s different – there’s no set single person acting as a GM. Here, everyone will have a chance to be the Director, everyone is the GM.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

FAITH: The SciFi RPG
I wrote recently about FAITH’s starter set, A Garden in Hell. This core book expands the rules for FAITH, deepens the background for the world, and adds miniatures to your game. As always with Burning Games projects, the book is visually stunning. I’ve had the opportunity to look at some of the mock-ups for the core book and it will be a great addition to your gaming collection. I love that they will be expanding character options, and it’s really great to finally have the gear collected in a book, instead of just on cards. You can of course get the beautiful cards they’ve produced to go with the game in the kickstarter. I think FAITH is one of the more interesting SciFi settings to come out in recent years, and you should look at adding it to your collection.

“The FAITH campaign is one of valiant space travelers, remote uncharted stars and bizarre alien technology. But it’s also a realm of mysterious, invisible forces – the Gods and the outlandish, supernatural powers they grant to those mortals who believe in them. In FAITH, you can be a star explorer, a soldier, a scoundrel or a mystic believer, using a mix of technology, training and god-given powers to survive the untamed regions of wild space against rival factions, alien perils and ruthless bandits.

The book covers the rules and mechanics of the game, the setting and story of the universe, and everything in between. Beautifully illustrated, it will allow you to dive into a sci-fi setting with political intrigue, high octane action and strategical gameplay.”
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