Ballistic's Report for Week Ending Nov 5

Wow, this week flew by. But here we are again, and my efforts have nearly all been directed at the Bestiary.

FnordCon4, digital convention, starts today! Look for panels, games, and more from casual hanging out and some panels this evening, to panels and games Saturday and Sunday.

Some key events (pursuant to my interests; all times are Central time):

5pm Friday: Discord Server goes Live
What’s New at SJGames: 6pm Friday
RPG (GURPS, TFT, Girl Genius) with Sean, Steven, and me at 10am Saturday
Covid Economy and Game Biz with Phil: 11:30am on Saturday
How to write professionally for SJGames RPG properties: GURPS and TFT Line Editors, plus Gaming Ballistic 11am Sunday

Gaming Ballistic this Week

Huge progress on the Bestiary

The text got a full revision for the first 48 pages of creatures, maybe 60 variants of 40 monsters.
I wrote some nifty rules on horses
All monsters in that first of five parts have some stats
The spreadsheet got updated a bit, and that’s the big task today
I distributed that draft to my Patreon Subscribers on Thursday, for feedback and playtest
Not only did I get a KS temp page up and approved, I’m revising it.
I took a hard look at the art budget and revised it downward. Of the 200 monsters, on the average I think 70 will be new illustrations, 50 look to be stock art, and 80 I either already have or can use photoshop filters to render photographs into painting-looking images. That is only for animals, under the presumption of “everyone knows what a bear looks like.”
What this means is I can get started on art right away. It ALSO means that instead of the first volume being only 48 pages and a VERY complicated hardcopy pricing scheme, the first volume is now going to target 128 pages, and stretch goals shall take that to 240 pages without having to change the pledge.

Basically, I really want The Big Book of Monsters. I think Powered by GURPS wants it, I hope my backers want it. Between Delvers to Grow and the Bestiary, that’s a LOT of work taken off a GM’s shoulders.

It’s still going to be a big lift, estimated at 600-650 backers to be successful, and well over 1,200 in order to hit 240 pages. But this is a full-color hardback, in every form. I hope you’ll help me get there.

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.

Membership status: 55 patrons and $370 per month.

Special Content: Got the revised Bestiary “volume 1 of 5” document out to Patrons, plus a spreadsheet link.

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Projects where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

Nothing new this period. GB is current with fulfillment and shipping.

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

The Girl Genius RPG is on fire on Kickstarter. The PDF is available there and also for immediate download on Warehouse 23.
Please, please, please indicate interest in the DFRPG Bestiary by clicking the “follow the campaign” link even if you normally follow Gaming Ballistic in general. The closer the number of followers gets to 650, or even the big goal of 1,200, the faster I can place orders for art, and the bolder I can be on the production decisions.
I hope to launch the Bestiary KS in the next week or two; it is likely to run for three weekends.

Product Announcements

Nothing new this week.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

Inns and Taverns, by Marshall LaPira. Systemless. First draft submitted, feedback returned, formatting discussion (way more important than it sounds) on Oct 25.
Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. Outline stage and writing, but on hold as I blitzkrieg the Bestiary. Still aiming for at least one, if not more, of these systemless settlement books to appear at the same time as Inns and Taverns.
Nordlondr Bestiary, Volume 1 by Douglas Cole. Dungeon Fantasy RPG. Preliminary text of first 48 pages, spreadsheet for data import being filled out. Monster samples should start seeing coarse layout this weekend.
Other ready-to-go support for systemless and the DFRPG. I’ve got several ideas on this one, but they simply MUST wait until I have Bestiary 1 and 2 closer to ready so they can go towards launch before the year is up.

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

I can’t get a quote from one of the printers I want to trial because the actual page count and delivery dates aren’t set; that’s not a catastrophe because the other printer gave me just what I needed.
Things never quite go as smoothly as one likes, and this last week was no exception

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

I got a great and thorough quote on hardcover books from 48 to 240 pages from one of my printers; I built a mathematical model of that quote that allows me to know what they’re going to ask for any combination of copies and page count accurate to within $7 in all cases, and on the average it’s off the actual quote by $1.26.
Revising the art budget was a necessity I think, but it wound up allowing me to plan to vastly simplify the campaign. It also means that the basic print+PDF and PDF pledges will not change or increase as stretch goals are added.
Time to get crackin’ on the spreadsheet, the end result of which is going to be a minimum 3/8 of the book going into preliminary layout.
I discovered I have excellent data merge templates for both full-page and half-page monster layouts from Krysuvik that will be just perfect for this book. I think most critters wind up getting full page entries (and some of them may wind up needing two pages; the krabbari from Hall of Judgment was one such).
As of today, 358 people are following the campaign after all of two days. I’m hopeful this number continues to grow. If it exceeds 600, I’ll start to feel really good about fast funding; if it goes beyond that, I’ll be very excited.
The second and third episodes of the GMShadow actual play set in Nordlond dropped over the last week or two.
GURPS Mega Dungeon is having a “design a character” contest following the pattern set by the sample characters from Delvers to Grow