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

Stars Without Number, Revised Edition
Stars Without Number has a really amazing set of rules to help you generate a sector of space without too much effort. We’ve used it to create in the past, and it’s really amazing. This revised edition expands that system, as well as expanding character options, ship options, psionic abilities and more. It’s 100% compatible with the previously released books, which is wonderful, and you can just add all of this new goodness to a current campaign. This is an incredible system and worth having on your shelf.

“Stars Without Number: Revised Edition is an expanded, refined, full-color revision of the original edition. It adds more character options, more hardware, more ships, and more psionic options- but expanding the mechanical breadth of the game is only part of the goal. Just as importantly, Stars Without Number: Revised Edition is crammed with new GM resources, with new world tags, new adventure creation tools, and new support for sci-fi sandbox adventuring. And all the while, I’ve kept to my original goals of portability and modularity, so that GMs who want to use different systems or different settings can lift out useful pieces and use them directly in their own home games.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Spire RPG
I’m really interested in Spire, an RPG where you play as part of an ongoing revolution, fighting for freedom and against your oppressors. The worldbuilding that has been done for you looks incredible and I love their redesign of character classes. The game uses a d10 system and as the game continues your character will accrue stress, which can cause them trouble when their luck as a member of the resistance turns. I really think this game will be a meaningful one, and I can’t wait to play it.

“You are a dark elf. The touch of the sun burns your grey skin, and you hide from the light in twisting corridors, crumbling temples and the lawless undercity of the metropolis known as Spire. The high elves, rulers of the city, alien and capricious, allow you to live here as an underclass forced to beg for scraps.

Your religion, your culture, and your people are being destroyed all around you. You have seen your fathers, your mothers, your grandparents subjugated by the high elves, and you have had enough. You have joined the resistance: the ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, worshippers of a forbidden goddess. You have sworn in blood that the high elves will fall, that you will destroy them through subterfuge, and insurrection, and terror.

Spire offers players a chance to take part in a fantasy revolution, and to fight back against those who oppress you. Unlike many games, the monsters aren’t out in the wilderness; they’re living above you in obscene luxury, dominating your people in the aftermath of a brutal war. Spire tasks players with changing the city, whether for good or ill, and that’s how they gain experience and new abilities.

We’ve taken the common tropes of D&D (and other fantasy mainstays) and adjusted them to mesh with our own world, so while there’s plenty that’ll seem familiar to any seasoned roleplayer, there’ll be something in there to surprise everyone, too. ”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Dungeon Dome
James D’Amato is bringing a multimedia RPG experience to a screen near you! Instead of doing a campaign, Dungeon Dome follows teams that fight for fame and glory in a gladiatorial arena. All of this will be livestreamed, and also followed in podcasts. I really like that the audience is an important part of the story, and by cheering for their favorites they can give their chosen heroes access to special abilities. Plus James has rounded up an amazing group of people for this first season to compete for victory, including Kat Kuhl and Aram Vartian.

“The Dungeon Dome is a multimedia actual play project that aims to offer a new experience for audiences who love to watch role playing games. James D’Amato and the team at ONE SHOT took inspiration from sports and professional wrestling to create The Dungeon Dome. A fictional gladiatorial arena where teams of over-the-top heroes battle for wealth and glory, and the audience actively shapes the world.

Instead of telling the story of a single party adventuring in a fantasy world, The Dungeon Dome will follow several teams of gladiators as they face each other in death matches and challenges. We’ll follow these characters in and out of the ring through live streams and podcasts. Season 1 will be at least 15 live streamed episodes that follow two main storylines.

Viewers will be able to affect the world of The Dungeon Dome by cheering for their favorite teams, which gives them inspiration and the ability to perform special moves in the game. Backers will be able to take their participation a step further by submitting ideas for items, relics, characters, and matches that will appear in the story.”

DCC Scratch-off Character Sheet
DCC has kickstarted scratch-off character sheets before, and it still looks like a really fun way to experience the character funnel. I really love that you learn what you’re capable of as you play through the game. These character sheets will work with any DCC game, so you can buy a pack of them ready to go for your next session. Plus, the more they order the more sheets each pack will have! Make sure to pick some up for your next game.

“The zero-level character creation funnel is one of the most popular aspects of DCC RPG play. Now we are thrilled to present an even more exciting improvement on that gaming experience! Instead of rolling up 20 0-levels before the game, you can now save time by using these scratch-off character sheets! Yes, scratch-off, just like the lotto. Each character sheet comes with a scratch-off box for each ability score and other key statistic. Before the game you distribute them to your players. They use a coin to scratch off the appropriate boxes, then you let the dungeon diving begin!

This Kickstarter funds the printing and production of generic DCC 0-level scratch-off character sheets. After the popularity of our 2016 holiday module featuring custom scratch-off character sheets, there is clearly an interest in this topic. While the holiday module featured scratch-off character sheets that were specifically designed for that adventure, this Kickstarter instead funds 0-level sheets that can be used in any DCC funnel. They utilize the standard 0-level character creation tables in the DCC RPG core rulebook.”

Saga World Builder Modular Tiles
Taking the time to draw out maps for my Pathfinder games was always a pain. These wonderful tiles allow you to easily piece together your dungeon without worrying about spacing or coloring in where PCs cannot go. The tiles are of different shapes and designs so that you can easily customize your dungeon, and even just hook in a whole new section rather than drawing as you go. They also have lots of detail, like environment, and are even double sided so you have even more options. Even better, they work with both wet and dry erase markers and are easy to take with you on the go. This is something I wish I had when I was running dungeons, and you should definitely look into picking up.

“Saga World Builder is a highly modular game-building system for creating gaming maps and environments. The System consists of a large number of double-sided modular map tiles and features hundreds of environmental objects, magic items, weapons, decorations, and equipment.”

Clink
This interesting game about drifters uses a coin as the sole dice mechanic. When you want to attempt something risky you flip a coin and the result determines how well you succeeded. If you fail, you keep going, until the third flip where if you fail again you’re really up shit creek. You can spend your coins to get flashbacks, which allow you to flip an additional coin, and can succeed no matter what, but if you get two tails there’s still a negative consequence. The game has a real wild West tone to it, but I think it would be fairly adaptable.

“Clink is a tabletop RPG about drifters, the creeds that bring them together, and the history that drives them apart. Tell a story inspired by spaghetti westerns, ronin tales, and shows like Firefly or Supernatural. Whether you’re taking down the Crimson Dusk gang, uncovering the Oracle’s mysterious treasure, or saving your partner from the lawbot’s gallows, you’ll have to expose the secrets of your past to overcome the dangers of the present.

Clink tells a non-linear story, crisscrossing between your characters’ flashbacks and the risky business of the day. It’s a flexible system that can support nearly any setting, so long as there’s room for folks who aim to misbehave (six-shooters and door-kickin’s encouraged too).”

Pathfinder Kingmaker cRPG
I haven’t played through Kingmaker, but what I know of it makes a perfect fit for adaptation to a computer game. You can build your kingdom in the downtime between adventures, so it offers a little bit of everything to the people playing. They won’t be following the AP exactly, which means you can still be surprised by what happens. It is a single player game, so you can choose to fill your party with a really nice assortment of NPCs. If you haven’t been able to find a group to find Kingmaker or want to relive the glory, this is your chance!

“Pathfinder: Kingmaker is based on Paizo’s award-winning Pathfinder Adventure Path of the same name. You certainly don’t need to be familiar with the story, but if you are, you will encounter characters you know and love. Either way, you will experience a host of brand-new events, companions, allies, and threats that expand and enhance the original Adventure Path. With help from Paizo and their authors, the story and quests have been expanded by RPG writer Chris Avellone and the Owlcat team, allowing for even more adventure in the already rich narrative of the Stolen Lands.

While Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a single-player game, you won’t be adventuring alone. Pathfinder: Kingmaker features a diverse cast of companions and NPCs, including iconic characters from the Pathfinder setting itself. You’ll need to decide who to trust and who to watch carefully, as each companion has an agenda, alignment, and goals that may differ from yours. Your journey will become their journey, and you’ll help shape their lives both in the moment and well into the future.”

Still Active

The Tablebreaker d20
The Yellow King RPG
Plush ConTessa Mascots
Arcana Note 5e Leather Journal
Top Secret: New World Order
The Spirit of Dice

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

Arcana Note 5e Leather Journal
This journal is beautiful. It almost makes me wish I ran 5e so I’d have a reason to use it. This journal has everything you need to go with your game, including a dice tray, cards with useful information, and a GM screen. As a player or a DM, you could put this journal to use for your campaign. Plus it’s in leather! You should really give the Arcana Note a look if you want to make sure your game is organized and stylish.

“Arcana Note is a portable, rugged leather notebook filled with 5E tools such as character sheets, cheat sheets, a collapsing dice tray, a ruler that measures game feet, a mini GM screen, grid paper, condition/spell/item cards, card pages and more. The inside pages contain templates for tracking sessions, NPCs, organizations and locations within your campaign.”
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There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

The Yellow King RPG
Aser and I backed this kickstarter without even looking at all the details of the campaign. The King in Yellow plus Robin D. Laws? You know it’s going to be good. It features four setting books you can wind your campaign through as the effect the Yellow King has on the world is realized and people band together to fight back. The settings are Belle Epoque Paris as the play is first released, an alternate reality 1947 where soldiers fight in the ongoing WWII while the Yellow King and his daughters make things much more complicated, a 2017 that exists in the same reality as the 1947, where people are trying to rebuild their lives after a vicious civil war, and a 2017 more reminiscent to now, though reality isn’t quite as solid. The game uses the Gumshoe system, but expands some of the combat and health systems based on the recently released GUmshoe One-2-One. The books are going to come in a beautiful slip case, part of which will unfold into a GM screen. There are, of course, deluxe versions and even some super limited versions that you can get, as well as a sourcebook, a novel, and a gaming roll.

“Pelgrane Press is terrified to announce The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, an innovative new GUMSHOE core game written and designed by creator of the system Robin D. Laws. YKRPG takes you on a brain-bending spiral through multiple selves and timelines.

Inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ influential cycle of short stories, YKRPG pits the characters against the reality-altering horror of The King in Yellow. This suppressed play, once read, invites madness. Or a visit from its titular character, an alien ruler intent on invading and remolding our world into a colony of their planet, Carcosa. Four books, served up together in a beautiful slipcase, confront your players with an epic journey into reality horror.”
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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.

The Skirmish Box
Dog Might Games has another beautiful product for offer with the Skirmish Box. It’s available in all the beautiful colors, woods, and carving options we’ve seen before, but this box includes a metal plate to make it magnetic. This makes it a great way to transport your miniatures without worrying about them moving around in transport or being damaged. You can get also get the box with compartments to store dice, pencils, cards, and whatever else you need to take with you.

“Crafted by the insane Lumberjack Vikings at Dog Might Games, the Skirmish Box is the ultimate mini transport for your next head-to-head battle or campaign encounter. The Skirmish box uses an embedded metal plate that allows your minis with added magnets to stand apart from one another, ensuring safe transport. It also offers a variety of wells to hold cards, tokens, dice, or anything else you need for your game and holds up to 25 minis. Every Skirmish Box is available in a variety of woods and interior designs, just choose the one that works for you. We offer over 30 exterior designs which are sculpted directly into the hardwood lid. Each Box is created from hand selected hardwoods and comes with a Lifetime Guarantee.”
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