Administration

Still working the kickstarter, of course! Things are going well, and the KS is trending to roughly hit the “full color” stretch goal. Of course, in my Update #11 I promised to deliver full-color anyway, but having all of that art fully covered would be nice, and if we overfunded my team could get bonuses. I’d like that, and so would they.

I was on Shane Plays radio last weekend, and we had a great talk about gaming in general. You can find it on podcast here. That was my first time doing live radio, so new experience for me.

I also recorded a session with James Introcaso on his Round Table, and we spoke for quite a while. That podcast should go live Monday, and we spent a great deal of time getting into grappling and game design, and why Dungeon Grappling scratches that particular itch better than other rules may have. It was a great conversation, and I hope you can make time for it.

Dragon Heresy

I realized earlier this week – talking to James, actually – that I’d made significant improvements in the grappling system in Dragon Heresy by virtue of refining the game rules and play for Dungeon Grappling.

Pretty soon I’ll be returning to regular work on this, and I have to integrate the refined grappling rules, update the Book of Deeds for monsters, and get back to work on writing more. Once I finish the monster writeups, I will need to print the thing out in a vaguely laid-out format (mostly for easy reading) and read the darn thing cover to cover, taking notes on inconsistencies, correcting poor writing, and ensuring that such a long book is reflective of the latest versions of the rules, the history, and the cosmology.

Then a return to The Book of Heroes, and some questions that came up when I gave the game to a friend to run for his group. They made characters, identified some points of munchkinism, and I got a list of questions and concerns. It was interesting to me to see which of those were inherent to Fifth Edition, and which I had caused myself. Bit o’ both, really.

Dungeon Grappling

Since last week, the project has brought in approximately $500 more, which puts us at around $2,350 total funds. There are still 17 days to go, so if it keeps up and we also get a spike on the last three days or so, I’ll pick up another $1,000 to $2,000. Split the difference and it looks like about a $4,000 funding drive. That won’t pay up front for everything I want to do, but it surely will pay (and then some) for everything I need to do.

The book is slowly getting better looking, too. I’d picked out a map from Dyson Logos for a background, but since then I am a smidge away from getting four new maps, which will make a unique background image per chapter. I’ve also started getting sketches from my artists – Rick Troula has emailed me five wonderful concepts that I cannot wait to see fleshed out. As per Gaming Ballistic standard business practice, he got an advance, and then when he turned in his concept sketches, he got paid that day for the progress.

I was also forced/encouraged to work out a different agreement to licence existing images, which meant another contract template from Ye Olde Law Firm. Cost of doing business, and I only need it once. I will also need a retail contract soon.

From this point on, other than the art, as far as I can tell the things required to finish the PDF are nearly considered as “housekeeping.” Some of them may be tedious, but none are really uncertain, and it’s uncertainty that kills these things, I think. But this one? Gaming Ballistic is committed to deliver a great product on or ahead of schedule.

And then I’ll do it again for Dragon Heresy.

Print, Print, Baby

I’m still convinced offering print was the right thing to do. As it stands, printing and shipping costs for the orders placed will run to about $550, and of course another $205 in KS and Backerkit fees. Nearly all the orders are for a single book.

How can you help?

As before, if you read the blog, or if you’re interested in more interesting combat options for games from the OSR and the “Original” editions all the way through to 5e (with a stopover at the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game land), you can, of course, pledge.

But even more important than that is to get the knowledge that the Kickstarter is out there into the hands of folks that I can’t yet currently reach. A social network reshare can go a long way.

As always, thanks for reading, and if you’re in on the Kickstarter, thanks for your support!