It’s been a pretty wild two weeks. First and foremost, my family and I went on a nice long vacation, for the first time in something like 8–10 years. The Bestiary went out on schedule and by this time we’re really only tracking stragglers and damaged books. The TFT Kickstarter closed at perhaps double what I was expecting, and is moving along in a spritely fashion. I’m also making simultaneous progress on multiple fronts. Really tired though.

• As noted, we’re down to stragglers on the Bestiary deliveries, and I’m likely to send out a “download your files now if you haven’t already” note combined with a “let me know if you haven’t received your stuff” and then formally close the project.
• Till Death was a really successful project. I mean, not “life-changing,” but it had a lot going for it.
  • Funded on Day 1, and that was a big deal for multiple reasons
  • Very rapidly thumped the only real stretch goal
  • Had only a single day of no pledges, which means the campaign was well timed to avoid the painful “doldrums”
  • Had a nice uptick at the end as folks came in in the last 48 hours, closing at 572 backers, the second-highest number for my TFT works
  • About 5% of backers also got the In the Labyrinth softcover book, which means we added players to the game. Starter sets are
  • See below for a bit more analysis with more numbers.
• I got the translation work done for Combate Épico em Masmorras, the translation of Fantastic Dungeon Grappling into Brazilian Portuguese, and got a preliminary graphic design and layout done.
• Progress continues on the two Powered by GURPS projects.
• I’m starting to cast my eye on Old School Essentials work for the KS after next. That one is important to Gaming Ballistic this year.

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: 62 patrons and $571 per month.
• Special Content in June: VTT Premium content release, Till Death previews including basically-final text with hyperlinks, and a complete preview of the new Portuguese version of FDG, which is probably of interest to Patrons mostly for the updated graphic design.

Took a hit as my top donor left, but perhaps that was too good to last anyway. Still solid.

Gaming Ballistic in Media

• James Eisert at Castle Archon read, played, gave feedback, and reviewed Till Death on his YouTube channel.
• Not exactly media, but I gave two RPG adventure and publishing seminar at a middle-school RPG camp run by Andrew Roy. Each session was a little different, but both were a lot of fun. And they used the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, Delvers to Grow, and other of my stuff to help the fun along!

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

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

Nordlondr Ovinabokin: Bestiary

• All books are in the mail, and tracking information was re-sent yesterday. No, this was not duplicate books being sent, but I think the initial send of the tracking info got messed up.
• I got one of the best reviews/comments ever on the Bestiary.
• By and large, reception of this book has been everything I could have hoped; the cards have been far, far better received than I could have predicted as well, which is interesting to see.

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

Till Death Do Us Part

• Closed at $22,093 and 572 backers, making it my second most-backed TFT project ever (best was 608 backers).
• I ended with a new-record 966 followers, of whom about 1/3 came over to pledge in the end (315).
  • It actually hit 985 followers at the peak, which was 240 more than my prior record on the Bestiary. So more folks came by and were “in my circle” than any other campaign
  • I typically looked for 300-350 people to come in and pledge directly without following; this time it was 250. It is likely most of these followed the campaign, as I feel that we had a pretty good early placement of the “follow the campaign” page.
  • SJGames pinged more than 10× my usual mailing list number with the link to the campaign early on. This was responsible, almost certainly, for the fast that about 5-7% bought the softcover ITL book, which means “new to TFT.” Many of those opted for the $95 “all the solos” pledge level. It was also likely responsible for the large number of followers.
  • Conversion was not up to snuff, as I usually get 40-52%. That would have been another 75-200 backers
  • In the end, 572 backers was “typical” for a TFT project. What we did in this campaign that surprised me was (a) doubling my predicted per-pledge average of $19, due to some high contributions on the $70, $95, and $250 tiers, (b) actually attracted several new retail backers, and (c) got a lot of the milestones done very early in the campaign, in fact before I left on vacation.
  • Oh, and the campaign also moved 121 more copies of Tower of the Moon, bringing total uptake to about 450. For such a great one-shot adventure, that’s still fewer than I’d like.
• Ultimately, this was a very successful campaign, but not a breakthrough. We didn’t exceed prior bests in anything but followers, and the follower-to-backer conversion was not bad, but it wasn’t impressive either. I don’t want to downplay the success here – it was a very solid campaign – but again, not a breakthrough.
• One thing I will say about this: I am way ahead of schedule on production. Backerkit surveys have been cleared for smoke test, and I have only two pieces of art left and the PDF will be essentially done. So expect to get all of your digital products very nearly as quickly as you can fill out your surveys.

Now Available on Warehouse 23!

• Delvers to Grow: Core Book in print and PDF for the DFRPG
• Delvers to Grow: Fast Delvers in print and PDF for the DFRPG
• Delvers to Grow: Smart Delvers in print and PDF for the DFRPG
• Delvers to Grow: Strong Delvers in print and PDF for the DFRPG
• The Crypt of Krysuvik in print and PDF for the DFRPG
• Tower of the Moon in print and PDF for TFT
• The Nordlondr Ovinabokin: Bestiary and Enemies Book in PDF-only for now, for the DFRPG
• Dragon Hunt! for TFT is now also available in softcover print
• Dark Lord’s Doom for TFT is now also available in softcover print
• Roc of Sages for TFT is now also available in softcover print
• Catacombs of Living Death for TFT is now also available in softcover print
• The Sunken Library for TFT is now also available in softcover print

Now Available in PDF format on DriveThruRPG:

• Tower of the Moon (The Fantasy Trip)

Product Announcements

The full Product Catalog has been updated for Spring 2022 and probably needs an update for Summer 2022.

Combate Epico em Masmorras (Epic Dungeon Combat). Really good progress here. Translation is done. Graphic design is done, updated based on my current thinking on what looks good. I have to get some new art for this, as the art spaces aren’t even close to what they used to be, and finalize layout.

Then we’ll go live with a Kickstarter (on Kickstarter, not the native-Brazilian Catarse, because I know KS and I don’t know Catarse) and see if we can reach Brazil with a PDF offering to gauge market size. If that works out, I’ll do more. Maybe much more. The key output variable I’m looking for here is backer count, to size the market. Buy in will be in the neighborhood of R$ 14.90 I think. Inability to price natively in the Brazilian Real will be tricky. I’m looking to get the KS page written and translated very quickly here, launching – if things go really well – before June is over. Certainly no later than the first week in July.

Till Death Do Us Part (OSE), by David Pulver will mark Gaming Ballistic’s first release for Old School Essentials. The current plan is to convert all of the four solos I have to OSE and launch them in July, immediately following the TFT version of ‘Till Death. Pledge levels will include “pick 1 PDF,” “Pick 2 PDFs,” “All four solos,” and Four Print+PDFs. Seems like some sort of card layout would make good sense as well.

Let Us Rejoice! is a systemless exploration of festivals and gatherings as great ways to make a world come alive. Uses and collects the Nordlond material that is scattered over several books as examples, but also goes further than that. This will be GB’s first systemless release, aimed at mid-August.

In Development

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

• Bestiary Project 1. Work progressses on this bestiary expansion. Some new NPC races, a bunch of monsters, and the author isss bringing ssssome really neat expansions to the lore of Nordlond to life. Making very nice progress.
• Bestiary Project 2. The least advanced, but we’re starting to get to the point where the author may be able to take a crack at it.
• Delvers to Grow Companion. Some new professions. A whole bunch of new disad packages. Epic Upgrades. Who knows what else will strike me? September/October plan.
• Gear Catalog 1? There’s a good start at what is probably a nice 32-page book, maybe a bit more. Also DFRPG.

• Inns and Taverns, by Marshall LaPira. Systemless. Still postponed indefinitely. A good time for this would either be along with Let Us Rejoice (in a few months) or real close to the end of the year.
• Let Us Rejoice! Systemless short book (probably less than 16 pages) on festivals in fantasy gaming, and why you should be using more of them.
• OSE Solo Adventures by David Pulver. Till Death OSE draft already exists, need to work on formatting, editing, and looking at the rules there, then get busy with the other three solos. Crunchy work.

• Small Rules Supplement 1. The author is making steady progress on this and is probably going to have something ready for preliminary read-through, after which we’ll undergo several months of rigorous playtesting.

• Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. Actually saw some writing over Valentine’s Day. On hold as other things come first.

I note that for new authors, Delvers to Grow and Bestiary entries are fantastic ways to get into the game, as such projects lend themselves very well to focused writing and fast turn-around.

Friction

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

• The shipping/tracking hiccup on Bestiary was a bit annoying but not tragic.
• I am still severely short on sleep.
• I didn’t get some writing done for SJ during vacation, which I was hoping to do. That’s not big friction, because it was a great vacation, but it was on the “like to accomplish” list.
• I was hoping for more conversion on the TFT project from followers to backers. I was honestly thinking with a 985 follower count we might see a minimum of 700 backers, with a possible upper end closer to 850 … but it’s still in that 550-610 backer range already established. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a breakout, and the need to push into higher backer counts is still very much a thing.
• Spoke with Tax Guy and I may need to spend some money on a Payroll system (probably QuickBooks Online) so I can file as an S-Corp this year and better manage the tax burden. That has all sorts of implications I need to sort out.
• This is both friction and fair winds: I’ll be utilizing the “second wave charge for shipping” beta feature for Till Death. This has some complications, in that early payments cannot be on PayPal, but also lets me get my Backerkit surveys out really fast. Like maybe “later today” fast if I can get my stuff together properly.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• Till Death did very well, and landed in my #4 spot for KS backers ever (Bestiary 685, Five Perilous Journeys 608, Nordvorn 600, Till Death 572, Character Collections 557, More Perilous Journeys 555…).
• Double the estimated per-pledge average is a nice thing
• The other projects are making progress, visibly so.
• So relieved to see Bestiary arriving and folks liking it a lot
• Really good behind the scenes progress on both Till Death PDF and the CÉM book for Portuguese market test.
• This is both friction and fair winds: I’ll be utilizing the “second wave charge for shipping” beta feature for Till Death. This lets me get my Backerkit surveys out perhaps even “later today” fast. I find it likely that by the end of the weekend, the PDF will be ready for distribution, meaning that I’ll have a good estimate of how many of each physical book I’ll need. Mixam seems to be running around three weeks to delivery, so for US folks at least, life might go very quickly even for physical fulfillment. Of course, we’re still in “printing and shipping hell” so that’s maybe irrational exuberance.
• I really like the new CÉM layout and graphic design. Took some good lessons from the Bestiary there.
• Oh, and my vacation in Maui and O’ahu was freakin’ awesome. Nearly hiked my legs off (almost literally), laid down over 50,000 steps and a half-mile up-and-down each way elevation change in three days in Maui. Drove every hairpin hazardous road (you think the Road to Hana is bad? Hah! Try Lahaina road north, or the south route to some of the more offbeat trails to Haleakala…on some of those it feels like you’re going to drive right off the end of the world) on Maui. O’ahu was less to my taste, but we still did Diamond Head, a luau, and some nice time on the beach. Great fun, and so many great pictures.