Today is an unusual “GURPSDay.” Unusual because there are two Kickstarters going on that influence the future of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG specifically, and GURPS more broadly.

So this is going to be a bit of “rah, rah” and a tetch of hard sell.

Let’s start with the big one.

Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2/Boxed Set Reprint

This one’s important. It’s being used to judge latent demand for the game, and the boxed set does that. The Monsters book is something that we’ve all been asking for. For a long while. If you’re neither following the campaign nor pledged, please do one or both.

The Citadel at Norðvorn

Thanks to beautiful synergies with the DFM2/DFRPG campaign, we got a much-needed and much appreciated kick in the pants these last few days, and are only $1800 from funding. There are 275 folks following the campaign who have not yet pledged. If 60 come in and pledge, we fund. If you ALL came in and pledged, we’d hit two stretch goals and the book would be 128 pages. We’d need 150 people past that to hit the offset print run goal.

The common denominator for both campaigns is (a) they haven’t funded yet, and (b) early funding is actually really important. Once you fund, you can start confidently writing checks for things.

In my case: while I took a financial risk (but not a competency one!) doing so, I hired an editor last night. More on her in an update later today. But for my art, which is the lion’s share of the cost of my book, I am not reaching out to artists, and committing their time, until we’re funded. If we funded tomorrow, I’d start talking with my artists – and especially my cartographer! – immediately.

From SJG’s perspective: I can’t say. But once it funds, I have to assume that there’s a bunch of folks that can be put on duty making the game happen. For now, they’re working other things. Or so I speculate.

In either case: early funding is always important, and if you can manage to throw in early, please do so.

Share Early, Share Often

As noted above, the key to success for both campaigns is new folks. In particular, retail stores and bulk orders are really key. They are more likely to bring in new players, and they tend to order many copies, which helps push up the numbers for print runs, and large print runs are better on a marginal cost basis. That means more financial success for the line, which means we want to do more, better, and faster.

So, what can you do?

Reshare this post. Seriously.
Jump over to this thread on rpg.net, and let folks know about Citadel (the new set discussion starts on p. 88). Tell them about Hall of Judgment, if you have it or have played it, or point them to reviews if you haven’t.
Share this Facebook or this tweet. The more folks see it, the more attention, and the more backers we can get. This has knock-on effects! More than one site, like Kicktraq, uses the number of comments and the general buzz about a project to decide how to feature it.
Do the same thing for the Boxed Set. I can’t stress this enough: without the Boxed Set and continued interest and support from both backers and Steve Jackson Games, there’s no product line for me to support. Share play stories. Talk to your local game stores this weekend. Both the Boxed Set and Nordvorn have retail levels where you can get more than one copy of the game at a significant discount.

Back to GURPSDay

GURPSDay is starting its sixth – GURPSDay started in February 2013, a year after I started Gaming Ballistic. Things have slowed down a bit, and I’ll be considering how to revitalize this weekly activity. I’d like to see an average of 100 posts here per week – one per blog, ish – so we’ll see what we can do to get creative juiced flowing.

If you just started a GURPS blog – and I know that some of you have – email me and get on the list! With the advent of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, Powered by GURPS, there’s even more reason to write.

How? Two action items: post more, recruit more. It’s really that simple. More posters is more posts, and more interest in GURPS.

Below you can find the blog activity for the last week. There’s a whole lotta awesome GURPS going on. Read all the posts.

Not every blog posts about GURPS every week, but some are ridiculously prolific! The list is randomized, so different bloggers will be highlighted at the top of the post each week.

As always, if you’re interested in having your blog consolidated here, navigate over to The Instructions Page and drop me a line. Take special note of the RSS Settings Fix if you’re on WordPress.

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Gaming Ballistic (Douglas Cole)

Citadel – Meet the Editor: Emily Blain (3/08/19)
Thursday is Back the DFRPG Kickstarters Day (3/07/19)
Nordvorn is #6 on Kicktraq’s Front Page! (3/06/19)
Citadel: Two Great Days: Time to share! (3/05/19)
Citadel at Nordvorn: Two-thirds Funded! (3/03/19)
Fantastic Dungeon Grappling Bookmarks! (3/01/19)
GURPSDay: Feb 22 to Mar 1, 2019 (3/01/19)

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Above the Flatline (Timothy Ponce)

Automating Architect of Worlds (3/08/19)
Architect of Worlds PDFs (3/06/19)
Monster Lists & Mapping (3/04/19)
Map of the Region around Alnwich (3/02/19)

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Armin’s GCA 5 Blog (Armin Sykes)

One primary bit (3/04/19)

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Dark Paths and Wandered Roads (Jason Woollard)

Sundered Lands 55 (3/03/19) – The heros make the acquaintance of Sindri the Gnome, a thief and stowaway. They search more of Kraken’s Cove, hoping to find some more clues as to the whereabouts of Vanthus. The newest adventures in the Sundered Lands of Palladium, our GURPS: Palladium Fantasy campaign.
Wandered Roads 52.5 (3/01/19) – The missing Pathfinder is saved and returned home. The heroes then return to Wartle and get back on their way to Kaer Maga. The ongoing adventures of the Heroes of Sandpoint in our Wandered Roads of Varisia GUPRS campaign.

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The Gaming Musings of a Mad GM (Ken DeLyzer)