Easter Versus Istar

Neat little picture.

This article says nonsense.

Religion is a funny thing. It has to adopt to the times to survive.

I remember when I was in a particular religious study, they were discussing that Jesus was not accepted by the Jewish at the time because they were waiting for two kings; one a religious figure, which Jesus fit, and the other, a warrior king to throw the imperial rule of the Romans off them. It wasn't something I had heard before then, but they had a wide body of literature and theories to back their belief.

Since then I've seen a lot of studies that discuss how saints and angels are actually the incorporated gods and goddesses of the various countries that the Christian Church has occupied.

Time has a way of changing things in order to be more appealing to the people that practice it. Slavery for example, isn't something we have as a legal entity. Sure, we could argue the semantics of it back and forth in terms of having to have a job, and having to have enough money to survive and not work 80 hours a week, but hopefully no one has to worry about being whipped or beaten to death at work. Although boxers and people who work in the S&M may have something else to say about that.

Anyway, in terms of slavery, unless I"m really misremembering my bible, it's in there. There's even a whole section in there about how to treat your slaves.

Not something that comes up in every day conversation about the bible I'm sure.

It is one of the reasons why those who don't necessarily follow the bible, often want more than just "the bible says so" in terms of convincing arguments. The bible says a LOT of things. It's a very old book. It tried to cover a lot of ground for its time and still has a lot of relevance to many millions of people.

But as you can see above, in the whole Ishtar and Easter bit, we've still got a lot of theories on how things all work out.

In role playing games, it can be more difficult to do this. Many games have modern sensibilities despite their technological backward settings.  Any race or religion or culture that endorses slavery? Probably not going to be on the good guys side. Drow, orcs, and hobgoblins aren't traditionally the good guys and this is reflected in the evil things they do like have slaves.

But in terms of having symbolism and deities have all of these different culture elements incorporated into them, it can be more difficult in a setting like the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk say, where the deities are actual entities. Would you put up with the dilution of your church in terms of someone changing your portfolios, symbols, and other elements? It's pretty much an bypass in terms of games that do this. It's not dungeon crawl enough.

When setting up your own campaigns, think about the impact that the deities and the social norms have on the setting not only in terms of adventure, but how they interact with the rules. Dungeons and Dragons, despite being the backbone of the industry (or Pathfinder), has its simplicity knobs in alignment and when acts are evil, like slavery, despite their widespread use in the ancient world, and parts of the world today, the two do not mix unless you have a lot of buy in from the players.

Someone playing a paladin for example in a culture where slavery is normal? Is that really a lawful good person? It's best to discuss what the appropriate roles and opinions of such elements are and how they can impact the players enjoyment of the setting and how they interact with it.

For those who celebrate the holiday, enjoy it! For those who don't, enjoy, what is turning out in Chicago at least, to be a beautiful day.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Movie 2013)

I've been hanging out with my amigos being a mildly disruptive presence with both beer and rum. This week however, a few of the regulars couldn't make it and a very irregular did. So with that rare crew in tow, we went and saw G.J. Joe Retaliation in Imax 3-D.

The evening started off with some fast food at Dear Franks. It used to be, I believe, You Lucky Dog You but... times change. It's a good place for burgers though and their seasoned cheddar fries are fantastic. After we dogged down that food, we ran over to the Half-Price Books. I had a box of used paperbacks and cooking magazines to get rid of. While they don't pay you anything for them, well, hardly anything, I figure it's better than tossing them out right? Plus a 10% off coupon! I wound up picking up about ten $1.00 CD's. I figure it's cheaper than buying the single MP3 song I want right? Like Peter Gabriel Security for $1? Oh yeah.

My amigos headed off to Best Buy. Honestly, I rarely have any use for Best Buy. It's not that it's not a neat store but with a possible move in the future, the only thing I'd be interested in, a computer, laptop to be more specific, isn't on the menu. I'd already hit up the music so I was good there and well, movies are taken care of by Nexflix. So instead I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and picked up some material for the kitchen and some snacks. Very manly eh?

They called from the theater. Apparently Best Buy wasn't for them either. Who would have known that a place known for selling DVDs and CDs wouldn't be entertaining to a group of 40 year olds? Anyone? Bueller? The Imax tickets are a bit more expensive than the regular ones but I was glad to see the glasses were very light. Hell, I was more surprised that the theater was only modestly filled. It wasn't empty by any means, but there were seats in every row. I don't know if that's because word got out about what type of movie it was, the extra price of the glasses, or what have you but hey, I'm a fan of the only partially crowded theater.

The Show was supposed to start at 7:00 PM. It started, after reviews and special peaks and lord knows what other type of mind control, about 7:20 PM it finally started.

I'll be discussing some specific spoilers so if you don't want any of that, read no further. If you want a thumbs up or down, for me, the 3-D experience, my first, was a bit strange. The movie wasn't bad. The costumes were good. Many of the fight sequences and action sequences made good use of the environment but a few of the scenes were too CLOSE to the characters. If all I can see on that massive Imax screen is a dude's elbow swinging, you're doing it wrong. Difficult to enjoy the cartography of the fight if you know, you're just seeing some blurry crap. Some of it does require a massive brain shut off, but it's G.I. Joe and if you didn't know that going in...

Anyway...

1. The Outfit Makes The Man: A huge part of the appeal of a movie like G.I. Joe is how the characters look. In the first movie, we didn't really get to appreciate Cobra Commander or Destro's unique features. In Retaliation, Cobra Commander is here looking like a semi-modern day Darth Vader with the heavy breathing and all. Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes also make their appearances and look impressive. One of the new characters, Jinx I think her name is, initially looks like a complete Electra rip off.

 

Oh well, it's not like it's a bad look or anything right? Still, the visuals can be an important part. I have several friends who bring illustrations of popular characters to get across the point of what their characters look like. Games Workshop and back in the day, the guys doing Confrontation, put a lot of time, effort, and money in the visuals which have had huge payoffs. As a GM, don't be afraid to scrounge around for such tools.

 

2. The Characters: This may sound strange, but to me, the first movie had a much larger 'feel' to it. Don't misunderstand me, the stakes here are equally high if not more so, but by cutting down the cast to a smaller level, there is a bit more focus on the specifics of the characters. In many ways, a role playing game is set up like this to begin with as the characters being the main focus of the 'story' if you will.

 

3. The Toys. Stormshadow, Snake Eyes, Jinx, and Roadblock, all have very distinctive weapons. You know when they're in the room. King Arthur and Elric, among others, also have very famous weapons. Giving characters distinctive weapons, sayings, and other bits that cement them, like the Thing's catch phrase, "It's Clobberin' Time", can give characters quick recognition both for the players and when specific NPC's are in play. Some of Batman's most famous villains have specific 'calling cards' that they use to torment Batman. When the players see such a calling card, they may be aware of what the problem is while others don't initially know.

 

4. Killing Them Softly... Well, okay, not softly. I mentioned that they were able to focus on a smaller cast here, and they do that by essentially killing off all the other characters in the start of the film. If you're campaign is getting so clogged with characters and back stores and other bits that its no longer fun for you or the players, never forget the Godzilla option. A big shake up can provide the characters reason and motivation to keep adventuring when things may seem to be at a point where that's no longer necessary.

 

5. Action Sequences: There are a wide variety of action sequences that occur here. One of them involves Snake Eyes and Jinx kidnapping Stormshadow in a snow covered treacherous mountain region while being chased by the Hand, I mean, Cobra Ninjas or something. They use numerous zip lines across various mountain ranges, bouncing back and forth with swords clashing not only at each other, but the equipment allowing them to navigate these paths. It gets into one of the things I think 4e tried to do more than most editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and that's make the environment a part of the combat. If there are opportunities to bring the background into the game, use them.

 

6. Introducing New Characters: When I was running the Shackled City in my 3.5 days, well, fatalities were not unknown. It can be difficult to bring in new characters ahead of time. In theory, the G.I. Joe setting is rich with history. In this case, they bring in  General Joseph Colton (aka Bruce Willis) one of the original Joe's so to speak. In a campaign that's long in the tooth, the characters may have many allies and friends, and those allies and friends may have patrons or associates who can be used to do a logical fill in when necessary.

 

G.I. Joe Retaliation is a no-brainer at best, but it's one filled with enough explosions and glamour to provide entertainment for its run.

Freeport Versus Kickstarter

Green Ronin has been around for over a decade at this point. Their initial module setting, Freeport, was one of the first adventurers for the SRD back in the day. Now they're working on a massive update to the book on Kickstarter.

One might think that with their longevity in the game and their plethora of products, that funding would have been easily hit and made right? Apparently not. I'm not saying that it won't fund. There is still time. But let's look at some reasons why they might be having difficulty.

1. No Pathfinder brand loyalty. This may sound like heresy as Green Ronin, as I mentioned, was one of the first companies to get on the SRD bandwagon in a HUGE way. They made settings, class books, race books, and a ton of other goods including cross promotions with Paradigm Press and others. But when 3.5 died, they didn't jump on the Pathfinder band wagon. They had something like d20 age or d20 forever branding so that they wouldn't have to update their catalog. Sounds a lot like Necromancer Games before they came around ala Frog God Games. Having said that, you have no build in Pathfinder base.

Oh sure, we can get into the whole, "It's all the same!" arguments that happened with 3.0 and 3.5 and with 3.5 to Pathfinder, but if you didn't go and do the branding, getting the Pathfinder crowd to automatically leap into the frey isn't something that's going to happen easily or overnight. Am I saying that Green Ronin has zero Pathfinder products? Don't know to be honest. When I think of Green Ronin, d20 gaming isn't what I think of. Instead, we have Game of Thrones, Dragon Age, Mutants and Masterminds, and the DC comic game.

2. Goal is Too High. For a company that hasn't been backing Pathfinder since the start, and isn't using one of its licensed settings, the minimal goal here seems high. I'm not saying it's not needed for what they want to do. But when you're setting a higher bar than one of the most popular OSR projects, Dwimmermount, managed to achieve at the start of the Kickstarter craze, you might be overstepping realistic expectations.

3. Eastern Front Miniatures. This one is just a casual observation. Eastern Front as a few successful Kickstarters under their belt. But those projects are late and some of the backers are vocal about it. This may not have been the best partner for Green Ronin.

4. Pirates are played out. Well, can pirates ever really be played out? Probably not. However, there hasn't been a really popular pirate movie like the old pirates of a certain Caribbean for a while AND more importantly, people just shelled out a lot of cash for a Frog God Games pirate, in part, based project. That one had trouble funding too. Also for a similar sized product. Also for premium product. And that was by a company that has been doing Pathfinder fans right for a while now.

5. Kickstarter Sucks. Well, not really. But a lot of people are getting weary of the continued lateness of Kickstarter projects and are taking their money to actual stores and buying things. Or just downloading illegal PDFs. You know those damn kids today and their internets. When I do my next Kickstarter update, I'll actually have a few that have fallen off the list but most will not. As Kickstarter continues to evolve, people will continue to decide where their money goes in a manner that reflects not only companies, but product types as well.

I hope Green Ronin is able to pull this one off not necessarily for Freeport, but I would love to see them do compilations of their various Races, Classes, and other material that never got compiled thanks to the d20 meltdown, into hardcovers for Pathfinder.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Art

Dungeon Crawl Classics gets a lot of 'play' from the old Internets. It's already gone through a printing and two special edition covers. While offered a PDF for review purposes, I opted to wait until there was a sale as my reviewing patterns, thanks to my old job consisting of working seven days a week an an ill mother have converted to a new job that I'm still learning and a still as yet ill mother.

But a sale?  I figured that it probably wasn't going to get any less expensive than the GM's Day Sale. Ah, then I can just poke around when I want to and not have to worry about it. One of the things I did first was 'page' through the PDF.

Let me say that art is highly subjective. Some are going to love one specific type of artist over another, one specific type of style over another, and so on. Overall, the whole book feels like a 'retro' effort with some emphasis placed on modern design. I say some mind you.

In terms of art, the company wasn't afraid to use full page spreads which to me, is a good thing. The bad thing is that in going to 'capture' that old school feeling, it's all internally black and white. Not necessarily a bad thing but this isn't an inexpensive book. On the third hand, for a PDF, I wouldn't want a full color book. It's so armature when companies put out these PDF's that are saturated with color and would look great as a professionally printed book, but as a PDF take forever to open, flip between pages and even thinking about printing it makes you shudder and lose 1d6 SAN. If only there were a way to include multiple types of files so that you could have one for printing and one for on screen reading... hopefully one day... one day...

Anyway, I like the cover. It's a simple piece in that it's the lone adventurer getting ready to enter the unknown. Good use of color. The similarity between the cape and outline of the door makes some nice symmetry.

The first interior full color piece is also like a trip on acid but a pretty one. Full out dungeon crawl madness there brothers!The gods, one from law, chaos, and neutrality, waiting in the upper left hand corner as a group passes through some strange dungeon with massive worms devouring and attacking the party. Great stuff. I had to point out to one of my friends the neutral deity had a tentacle coming from his mouth. He thought maybe it represented something from the sea, while I was thinking of the Twain's mentors and the weird things they often had hidden under their cloaked hoods.

When it comes to those full page pieces, Mullen does several I enjoyed right off the bat. His style is of the 'old school' vibe. For example, there is a picture of a dragon that appears to be possessed by a demon burning a group of adventurers not with his fiery breath, but with fire shooting forth from his hand even as some strange type of winged minions wait for orders while a fighter type is commanding more soldiers into the fray.

Another great Mullen piece is a wizard among his patrons, or what I assume is a wizard among his patrons, those who grant him his dark powers. It's a great piece as all these strange and alien things of anathema wait on the cloaked stranger's words.

Another nice nodd to the old school bits are the various joke comics. Some feel that newer editions of Dungeons and Dragons take themselves too seriously. I can see it but I'm not quite so sure every book needs a Bigby's Back Scratcher bit in it. Here it works well because it's part of the genre they're trying to capture so when you see such jokes, they work.

Some bits though? Well, on one page talking about languages, you have this dark picture on top taking up about a quarter of the page and it's an intense looking situation but then on the bottom right hand corner you have a clear line illustration of some dude that looks like he's be the morning page delivering the news before getting a tomato in the face. It's distracting and cuts into the flow of the text even thought it's not a bad picture, it just doesn't 'jive' with the rest of the page in my opinion.

Another example is the table with the cleric information. We get a break down of the cleric names from first through fifth level, one for law, chaos, and neutral, and another one of these clear lined illustrations. It's already in a box separate from the rest of the text. There's already a table there. Would too much white space be a problem? Possibly. Maybe some more cleric names as opposed to random cleric?

But hey, speaking of old school art, one of the artists is Jim Holloway, a real old school artist whose works range all over the industry but include TSR. Jim does some great stuff here but, and this is going to sound weird, his art isn't necessarily 'old school' outside of it being well, original old school. If you compare him and Mullen for example, completely different styles and while both solid, I'd still say Mullen's is far more old school to my eye. Mind you for me it's not an issue but I can see someone whose knowledge of OSR is from forums wondering what's up with all the different styles of art.

Lastly, when discussing nods to old art, ranging from style and you know, actual artists of the time, there are also several homage images to the original book and its a nice nod to the AD&D you might have played once upon a time.

Now I just need to start reading the book eh?

And that's another impressive thing. There is a lot of art here. While I think the book could actually use some purging and removal of art to make it a cleaner looking book, especially on the old PDF side, if you don't like one particular style of art, there should be more than enough variety to keep you going through the book.

Game Masters Versus Technology

So life continues to beat me soundly across the face while sneering, "You like that." My mother, who after having her foot amputated and spending months in physical rehab, because she also had leg bypass surgery at the time in order to do the amputation, has a kidney infection and was running 103 fever and is back in the hospital. My job was supposed to change in January and is only now starting to take effect and while I'm grateful for the opportunity, there are so many things that are off in the way the reports are run and so much to learn in terms of the data sources, that I'm a little over whelmed.

Having said all that, I decided to go hang out with my friends who were playing Mage the Awakening. I myself didn't play, I just wanted to hang out with some of my peers and crack some terrible jokes, drink some Svedka , enjoy some tostados and some Cuban style bean dip. The Svedka was interesting as it was their new pina colda version and the bean dip was all sorts of excellent.

As I was just there as a noisy guest though and not playing, I noticed that everyone had a laptop or a tablet. These devices were being used to house character sheets and the core book and supplements. They were also being used to play music and other bits.

Now I'm not saying Game Masters need to put a ban on technology at the table, but the lure of technology is strong. On a blog about writers I follow, the author was discussing one of the potential reasons for e-book sales being flat, is that as full range tablets, not readers, continue to grow, people have better things to do with those tablets than buy a $14.99 e-book. For that price, have many variants of Angry Birds can you get eh? Well, for a PDF reader, how many other aps might a player be using when they should be paying attention to the game itself. And how many times if you need to reference the book during game play, should they have read it ahead of time?

There are no short cuts. Reading has to be done at some point. Doing it at the game table because you don't know how your abilities work, how the game system works, or other issues, can be a potential heat death of the game as every time it comes to your action, you now have to look it up. It's a bit of a clutch in that aspect. Mind you, I understand that people are busy. I understand that games tend to be larger in volume and more complex than they were thirty years ago.

But read the book all the way through at least once and make your notes from there because at the end of the day, you're still going to have to read it, but now you're doing it on other people's time.

Which, if everyone has a tablet, can be a bad thing because now those other bored people are... yes, surfing the net, reading a book, playing music, using IM, watching a movie or playing a game.

That was in part my experience yesterday and hell, I thought I'd be the disruptive one, but I can't hold a torch to technology gone wild!

How about other people? What have you experiences with tech at the table been?

Django Unchained (2013)

Rare is the day I go to the movies. Still, I enjoyed the original Django. The imagery of an unknown man carrying around his own coffin, only to have the contents of that coffin be iconically used in mediums many years down the road, still lurks in my mind. Add to the fact that we have a great cast here including Jaime Foxx as Django himself and Quentin Tarantino making movies that I usually enjoy and well, I'm glad I was able to see it in the theaters.

I'll be discussing some specifics from the movie that will include spoilers. If you wish to avoid those, read no further.

Mentor: Django is seen initially as a slave whose freedom comes from an outside source that then proceeds to arm and train him. Django has natural talents that fall into place with this new profession of bounty hunting though and excels at it. Django is not alone in having a mentor. Many characters ranging from Rand from the Wheel of Time to Vin from the series Mistborn, have senior characters whose skills and experience are a stepping stone for the other characters to rise above their, often low and humble origins.

Flaws: Despite being a mentor and a man who hates slavery, Dr. King Schultz is seen several times having such issues with slavery, that he finds himself on the verge of 'breaking' character. Indeed, is it Schultz failure to control his anger that he winds up getting killed and putting Django in danger. This is not necessarily mirrored well in games like Dungeons and Dragons that are more concerned with combat matters and spent hundreds of pages detailing hot to engage unique abilities in combat, but other game systems have various triggers that can be used to force character behavior ranging from Disadvantages in Champions to bits in Gumshoe.

Slavery: A huge issues in and of itself, slavery is one that is ripe with roleplaying opportunities. These range from pitting the players into gladiator roles such as in the movie gladiator, trying to change the social situation of slaves, such as in Spartacus or the Ten Commandments. These classics of the cinema deal with slavery as a bit of a story telling element in that they are used to get the action going or keep it in place.

Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator is a slave because it puts him in a situation where the audience can then enjoy various spectacular combats. Spartacus the TV show takes that a step further and puts in various characters and cast to make it more of a drama with fighting than the slave rebellion the original movie was.

It can be a powerful field though so if your unsure of what your players think of the subject, check with them first.

The Quick Talker: In one scene, Django is about to be taken to a mining camp to serve out the rest of his days. Some quick talk puts him in possession of weapons that enable him to deal quick death to those who were about to take him in. While it is a scene of violence, the act of getting to that scene would work well as a Skill Challenge in 4th edition requiring some fast talking and some ability to convince. Fortunately for Django, in this case he has his bounty sheet from his first kill as a 'good luck' charm and witnesses to his status as a bounty hunter that allow his false story to ring true.

Django does a good job of moving quickly despite its length and can be a great example of a con gone wrong among other bits.

Kickstarter Updates and Review and Rambling

Time for the pre month Kickstarter observations. One of the comments from a previous update of this nature asked me to note why I backed the Kickstarter as opposed to just buying it at my local game store. I’ll cover that here as well.

For me, I’ve cut way back on supporting. For one, few of the companies or people I’ve backed seem to have any idea on what the realistic delivery date of their project is. For another, some of the companies I’ve backed are doing new kickstarters without delivering the material from the first. I’m not saying “fool me once shame on me” or anything but if you’re running another KS and haven’t delivered on the first one, why on earth would I support it? This is especially true if the new KS is in a very similar vein as the first.

It would seem that the whole concept of the kick start, to give something a boost at first, to give someone a hand up, a ledge to stand on, is not what companies are using it for, and instead, using it for full out financing. Good luck with that.

Another thing is my own person situation has changed. Because I’m not personally in the same situation I was when I backed a lot of these projects, my whole outlook is different. Most of this stuff I wouldn’t even buy in the store now. Sourcebooks for Pathfinder when I’m not in a regular game? Pass. Miniatures when I’m not painting? Pass. It’s taught me the value of actually buying stuff off the shelf on an as needed basis.

Hell, it’s JIT (just in time) buying! Mind you, I’ve always known that backing many of these projects would require patience. I’ve noted several times that RPG companies whose very livelihood is at stake, are notoriously late on their delivery. I’ve been to too many Gen Con conventions where product was being sent overnight to the convention so that the company could try and make its cost back. Thinking that material prepaid would be delivered is foolish.

On the other hand, I can’t help but think the quickly accepted meme of “no KS is on time. It’s standard.” Is the way I want to vote with my personal finances? For many people it’s not an issue and for me, if it wasn’t because part of the standard, it probably wouldn’t matter that much but it’s becoming a little blasé in companies just giving what I have to assume they know, are false delivery dates.

Red Box Games: I was a backer at a high level for the first Red Box Games KS. I found some of the levels to be a little confusing but not confusing enough that I didn’t pledge. I figured if I was reading some of the charts wrong, I’d simply get some bonus material. Red Box Games is one of those miniature companies that is bouncing in terms of its popularity. Sometimes they are carried at a wide variety of locations and sometimes there are huge sales that empty the stores of them.

I had three factors in backing them. One, I didn’t know if Games Plus would be carrying them. Two, there were some good deals to be found here. Three, I was in an ‘excited’ phase about the whole Kickstarter process. I was feeling as a consumer that I was making a real impact on projects that might not have made it. I was ‘high’ from the Bones project if you will. That it was part of the big community.

Then the deadline passed last October and continues to pass. Part of this was the success of the Kickstarter. Part of it was failure of some of the molds on the caster’s side requiring several of the molds to be worked again and again. Some of it probably lack of project management on this scope. Still waiting as of this moment.

On a side note, Tre decided to launch another Kickstarter to continue the funding switch over from metal to plastic. This was after several people informed him that they would not be supporting another KS while the goods from this one were outstanding but apparently he’s receiving such great deals from the caster that if he doesn’t jump on it right away, his long term business will be hurt.

From an outside perspective, it appeared to have been a disaster. Its initial goal of five thousand was met and for a time was even at fifteen thousand. Somewhere along the lines though, the stretch goals, which were all visible at the start of the campaign, were swapped out. In addition, the funding and number of backers never got as high as the first one. Some of the backers were in for stretch goals and as the stretch goals never got closer, they dropped their pledges. Then it was cancelled. Despite making its funding, mind you. Does that mean the initial goals were too small and it was counting on getting as high or higher than the first one? Again, to me, to a customer, to an outside, seems that the process isn’t being used as a Kick to get things going, but as a new business as usual. Mind you, it might have been a good thing as the campaign was below its highest levels and dropping.

Some very interesting discussion over on the Reaper forum about the how and whys of running a ‘good’ Kickstarter and I hope that Tre is able to learn from both the campaigns. Some of the stuff I thought might have been lacking, like surveys to the backers, were indeed there but may not have had enough depth. Showing all the stretch goals may not have been a great idea. Listening to the people who reply to those surveys may have tainted the silent majority may have just been thinking it doesn’t matter what happens until I get my original order I won’t be ordering again. Another potential problem is supposedly Tre lost money on the first KS so the ‘deals’ on the new one were not as exciting as the old one.

I think there are a lot of factors that are outside his control thought. For example, the ‘dumping’of a few companies Red Box Games stock before the campaign. If you’ve already bought the exact same miniatures in metal for pennies on the dollar, your need for a material you may not have seen yet is not necessarily going to be that high.

Tectonic Craft Studios: I was a backer at a high level for the KS. I did it because it appeared to be a good deal and as this is a brand new company, their presence at my FLSG was unknown.

The owner has done what several companies have. Smaller rewards at lower dollar pledges have gone out. In the meanwhile, the owner has been trying to expand the company by opening the store and selling material that’s not even been sent out to those of a higher pledge because you only get one shipment unless you want to make a separate order and ask for your items to be delivered at that time. The owner has also been working with other companies and expanding the business that way. In the meanwhile, those who initially paid to have product delivered are not getting it.

Some back and forth on the comments section. For one, the owner has spoken of getting instructions up. Hasn’t happened. At one point the owner mentioned that we, the initial backers were getting a deal. I had to call him on that one. A deal is only a deal if its delivered on a timely fashion. Don’t be almost a year late on your own estimated delivery date and tell me how lucky I am to be getting the product. Just don’t do it. You’re late. Suck it up. Don’t try to pacify me by letting me know that man, it is just so awesome of you the creator to give me this great deal. Sheesh.

I did place a separate order and have spoken of the material a few times on my miniature blog. Some nice stuff but I think its retail price is going to be too high for what it is and that his best bet will probably not actually be in the terrain but in the movement trays and tournament trays. When looking at companies like Games Workshop, who are known far and wide for their‘outrageous’ prices, their terrain compares very favorably to Tectonic and hey, is much more detailed and usually has some sort of instructions and lots of painted examples.

Steampunk Musha: The company doing this has been lax in its updates. This one was due last September. It could just be me but I’d prefer more than once a month, especially if that once a month only comes after being prodded with a public request for information. Because this is another small company, I didn’t know if it would be carried in retail stores so backed it. My whole feeling on it is m’eh. I understand that the person doing it is having or has had some issues. And these things happen.

The frequency in which they appear to be happening to Kickstarters is a clear indication to me at least, that one man operations are bound and determined to be delayed. The same goes for companies that aren’t actually following up on the individual projects within them, making these one man operations in all but name.

It Came From the Stars: Due last June. Updates about once a month. More frequently recently. The updates are generally the same and indicate very little progress done in my opinion. Still waiting on art ten months after the project was supposed to be in people's hands. What?

I’ve been hearing its almost done for quite a while now. This is another one, that due to the small size of the company, I was unsure of it being in the store. In addition, this one was not a runaway success so I felt that there was a real impact of being a patron of this project. At least the people doing this one just appear to be late as opposed to having suffered some illness or family related issues. Hoping that the book blows me away because at this point my attention has wandered away again. It would be nice to get the book and go, “Man, I need to play so I can use this!” as either a GM or a player. I suspect thought that onto the shelf it will go.

28mm Demons & Devils: I backed this at a high level. I did so because I’ve never seen the figures at the FLSG before. I also own one of the figures, the dracosilk and it’s a solid figure. I thought, what the heck. Now some time ago, I posted a thread on RPG.net talking about the end of metal in figures. The price is apparently very violitale. This doesn’t count the weight of the material and the extra shipping costs this can incur. Center Stage initially went with an all metal cast but some of these figures were very large, this might have meant some sever issues in terms of shipping cost and material cost. So a resin option was offered. Some grumbling on and off about it but also some cheers. Resin, despite some potential health issues, does have its fans.

Fast forward to some odd questions from CSM about what type of figures they can provide in terms of resin and metal and apparently some concerns about quality control in terms of the resin resulting in people getting the metal, or at least, that’s how I understood it; Some unhappy people about it and some happy.

Fast forward again and they’ve now acknowledged that they won’t make their estimated delivery date and that they never ‘promised’ that it would be out in March but that they would most likely manage to ship everything out to the lower level backers.

And bam, there’s the pattern. People who ordered small amount of material or existing material get covered before those who are putting down larger sums of finance. Mind you it’s a bad situation either way.

If you have enough smaller orders to make the fans happy, it’s a good thing. Mind you you may not get larger orders from the same backers next time because you decided it was better to make them wait,

but the majority of people are happy. If you make everyone wait till everything is ready, then the people who backed you and thought they were going to be getting it at X time will be unhappy, and if you’re late anyway, its not going to make the higher ended backers happy anyway.

Companies need a lot more clarity in terms of what they’re offering and if necessary, if they know that things will break down into different categories, to start including shipping and handling charges for those separate shipping events into their tiers.

On a separate note, they’ve started another Kickstarter despite again some minor vocal protest that people weren’t going to back until they had their previous goods. It has passed its required funding level but is nowhere near the level of the first KS.

Mind you this could be a wide variety of reasons. People may be waiting for the first order. People may have no interest in the subject matter of the new material. The pricing on the new material may not be attractive, especially after the good ‘deal’ on the first KS. To outside appearances, it has a little bit of the appearance of ‘scrambling’ as stretch goals have been changed and its momentum seems to have halted or peaked. Some interesting figures in the new KS but as I’m feeling rather ‘blah’ about the whole thing and having the company tell me that the material is not going to make the estimated release date and getting defensive about not ‘promising’anything, yeah, they’re not getting any more of my money.

 

Midgard Tales: Another one I'm basicaly M'eh at this point. Updates about once a month? My own situation has changed, the project is late, seems pretty par for the course for an RPG product. Maybe March? 

Tentacles and Eyeballs: Let’s see…. Good deal in terms of what you get for the price? Check. New company whose availability to the FLSG is not known? Check. Supposedly soonish shipping date initially? Which was last October? Check. This guy was hit with a C&D by WoTC for infringement on several of the figures. WoTC also hit the CMS guys but they able to deal fairly quickly.

Dark has been working to put together replacements for the larger figures that were lost. Bad news is that again, the smaller orders have been shipped out so the people who again, paid the most get the sharp end of the stick. Can anyone see why I’d be thinking, “Yeah, this backing isn’t for me.” Communication isn’t bad but I personally feel that the replacement sketches, at the very least, are overdue and that this should have wrapped up already in terms of what we higher end backers will have the option of getting.

Pirate Goblins: Another one that’s late as it was due last October. The guy running it has claimed personal issues. Other people are not quite so willing to believe as he’s been posting on facebook at times when he’s claimed to have no internet access. In addition, he’s claimed to have sent out many a package but no one that’s backed it has claimed to have received them. There’s essentially nothing the guy can do at this point to get me to pre-order from him again. Buy in the store? If I see it and it looks cool, sure. Buy direct and support it? With the level of communication we’ve seen and the lack of actual product in hand that simply isn’t going to happen.

 

1650s Rulebook: If I saw these figures in the store, I'd still buy them. They impress me that much. Communication from the guys running it? Not so much. The core book in PDF format has been sent out and we have been seeing some updates but chances of me actually playing this once it comes out due to various factors is down to wiff factors.

 

Dwimmermount: Too much drama to really go into here. Shame too because it seems like a solid concept. The thing I found most interesting is when I asked Tavis if he's actually spoken to James the answer was no. So remember, we've seen two 'updates' from 'James' that Tavis actually hasn't gotten in person. Hope James is able to get his spirits in the right order soon.