Citadel at Nordvorn: All proofs in hand. Fulfillment begins soon.

June 11, 2019 gamingballistic

As a Strange Dr once said: “We’re in the Endgame now.”

Oh: that may have been a spoiler.

In any case, I got the advance copies of Citadel and HoJ (2nd Edition) yesterday.

These are freakin’ gorgeous books. I’m super-proud of Citadel, and I hope you guys enjoy the heck out of it.

Enough back-patting: here are a few pictures.

Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, Citadel at Nordvorn, Hall of Judgment (1e), and Hall of Judgment (2nd Edition) spine view

Map and Artist's Take on Longbru; Sewn binding visible. — Map and Artist’s Take on Longbru; Sewn binding visible.

Close-up of stitching. Should be robust.

And lastly, a parting shot of the two 128-page Norðlond books.

They should arrive in the UK maybe by the end of the week. I expect few shennanigans with getting them into the UK from Latvia, since books are 0% VAT and Latvia and the UK are easy relatively speaking. I’ve shipped bookmarks to Kixto from the US – I could not guarantee that the printer I had in the UK would produce product that would work with a dry-erase marker – and they should arrive June 18.

Shipping to international customers will be done within a few days after that; 1-8 weeks for delivery depending on the fortunes of shipping and travel.

Then the remainder of the books will be transported to Studio 2 in TN for fulfillment. Two weeks or less from arrival to books-in-hand.

Endgame.

Thursday is GURPSDay! May 17 to June 7, 2019

June 7, 2019 gamingballistic

Thursday is GURPSDay, and once again it’s on Friday this week! Sorry! I was single-dad’ing it all week, and yesterday was a “work all day, then run around some more, then frantically do parent stuff, then more Kickstarter stuff” kind of day.

Still a bunch of new stuff, and three new blogs on the list, so scroll all the way down (the random order is, well, random, so at least one of the new folks is near the bottom this week). Catch up and get some repeat views and if you missed some. They’re in reverse chronological order, so if you’re up-to-date, just skim off the top!

News for Gaming Ballistic:

I received the preview copy of Fantastic Dungeon Grappling in hand today. Wow. Holy wow. You guys are going to love it. If you didn’t get it, well...it’s actually not too late.
My new venture, Four Perilous Journeys, for The Fantasy Trip funded last week, and is now in the last 48 hours…and it’s surging. The “Give Me the Things. All of Them” pledge level includes about $200 worth of stuff “sold separately” for $110 . . . and you have to pledge to get that discount. It won’t be available discounted that steeply as a pre-order.

GURPSDay is in 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.
Continue reading “Thursday is GURPSDay! May 17 to June 7, 2019” →

DFRPG Fantastic Dungeon Grappling print proof arrives!

June 7, 2019 gamingballistic

I got my single advance copy of Fantastic Dungeon Grappling from Latvia today via DHL.

It looks, in a word, FANTASTIC.

The color on the cover is exceptionally vivid. The paper weight is just right for the booklet, and very stout. I think folks will be pleased. Each copy is just shy of 62g.

For those looking forward to Citadel at Norðvörn, Hall of Judgment (Second Edition), or the print copies of the Four (now Five!) Perilous Journeys for TFT . . . this bodes very well for print quality on those volumes.

Thursday is GURPSDay! May 10 to May 30, 2019

May 30, 2019May 30, 2019 gamingballistic

Thursday is GURPSDay, and I’m on time this week! These last three weeks saw a real surge in activity, and there’s a LOT of GURPS here for you, plus THREE new blogs on the list!

Even so: catch up and get some repeat views and if you missed some. They’re in reverse chronological order, so if you’re up-to-date, just skim off the top!

News for Gaming Ballistic:

Citadel at Nordvorn, Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, and Hall of Judgment (2nd Edition) are all still on schedule to ship to the UK mid-June. Time to order those bookmarks!
My new venture, Four Perilous Journeys, for The Fantasy Trip funded last week, and thanks to a major re-shuffling of campaign goals and rewards – including a FIFTH Perilous Journey – did over $4,000 of funding in ONE DAY. That was over 20% mid-campaign, which is freakin’ huge.

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.

Thursday is GURPSDay! May 2 to May 24, 2019

May 24, 2019 gamingballistic

Thursday is GURPSDay, and as seems to be the case with me these days, I’m posting this on a Friday. Life gets busy.

Even so: here’s three weeks of GURPS blog posts, to catch up and get some repeat views and if you missed some. They’re in reverse chronological order, so if you’re up-to-date, just skim off the top!

News for Gaming Ballistic:

Citadel at Nordvorn, Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, and Hall of Judgment (2nd Edition) are all approved for printing, and I just wired the money. I expect the books to print and ship to the UK mid-June.
My new venture, Four Perilous Journeys, for The Fantasy Trip both funded and had its second-best day of the campaign on May 23; even better than the day after launch. While hard on the nerves, late-accelerating Kickstarters like Nordvorn and 4PJ are fun to watch take off. Expect some really nifty stuff to come in the last two weeks of the campaign.

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.

Thursday is GURPSDay! Apr 26 to May 17, 2019

May 17, 2019 gamingballistic

It’s well past time for a GURPSDay! The move was still disruptive, but we’re coming out the back end of it, I think. Now to sell the old house. That’ll be a load off.

But here you go. I went back three weeks this time, to catch up and get some repeat views and if you missed some.

In news for Gaming Ballistic, Citadel at Nordvorn, Hall of Judgment, and Fantastic Dungeon Grappling files were all sent to the printer. I just spent time reviewing and correcting one pesky error in Nordvorn’s image rendering (fixed), and I have a lingering doubt on image quality on Fantastic Dungeon Grappling that might be nothing, but I want to make sure.

My new venture, Four Perilous Journeys, for The Fantasy Trip is over 80% funded, but it’s in the doldrums so things are slow; plus Decks of Destiny is doing so well it’s got lots of spotlight, so there’s that.

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.

Citadel at Nordvorn: Preliminary Financial Outlook

May 15, 2019 gamingballistic

Things are starting to wind down on Citadel. Shipping costs are not yet quantified, but everything else has more or less settled. When I posted my Hall of Judgment analysis, I cautioned that that profitability (and it was profitable, if not hugely) was a result of the book being a revision and expansion, not a “from nothing” creation. I’d need a lot more money to be profitable on an equivalent book.

Well, I got my chance! Citadel wound up doing very well, and things are – at the moment – looking good.

Revenue

For a “just the books” Kickstarter, this one smashed all my previous records. 600 backers, and over $26,000 gross. So a really good showing.

Kickstarter Net Revenue: $23,790
Backerkit and Pre-Order: $6,250
No post-KS sales yet; it’s not for sale during fulfillment. That might change soon.

So total revenue has been just about exactly $30,000. This includes money reserved for shipping.

That’s a fantastic total. For a 128 page book, I’d expect it to run me $20K to get to PDF, so there’s still room for a print run and other stuff. But what were the actual, not theoretical costs?

Costs

So, this one was from scratch. 128 pages total, lots of art, etc.

The expenses for the project:
Writing and Editing: $4500
Production Fees: $3,700
New Art: $6565
Backerkit Fees: $780
Printing: $4,150 (Nordvorn only)
Other Printing: $5350
Shipping and Fulfillment: $TBD (estimated $5,000)
License Fees: Classified

So total cost to make the thing itself was just shy of $19,700. I had to print Fantastic Dungeon Grappling AND Hall of Judgment AND the bookmarks, which added another $5,350 to the tally, and then I’m guessing shipping and other fees will come in at a maximum of $8,000 more. That’s $33,050 total.

Note this looks like a “loss,” but it’s a book-keeping loss, not a cash loss. $6,000 of this total is my projected costs for writing and production, which I did myself. Another $5,300 is “I want to print more books than fulfillment requires, including a second edition of Hall of Judgment.” So out of pocket costs are looking more like $22,000, and I should have lots of inventory left over – fully paid up – for future sales.

Ultimately, I invested about $3,350 extra of my writing and production fees in extra inventory. Maybe 800 spare copies of FDG (nearly all that cost was setup cost; doubling the print run from 500 to 1000 was an esy call), and perhaps 300-400 each of Hall of Judgment and Nordvorn. Plenty of inventory to last a bit, and I expect that as my authors write Rosgarth and Forest’s End this year, some of that will get taken up by new customers wanting to catch up on the Nordlond books.

Of Lengi las Ekki

Too long, didn’t read? So, ultimately, the project was profitable, and would have been even more so had I not decided to invest in future inventory. That will wind up being something like $5-7K in print-and-ship costs, but hopefully represents $10-15K in future revenue. I actually expect FDG to do quite well: it does everything Technical Grappling does, but better.

Hall and Nordvorn will be solidly in hand, staged for several future Kickstarters worth of product. I made the best-looking book to date, and it’s utterly gameable. If you play it, you should have fun.

Big books are expensive and they’re hard to make money on at the price points folks expect. Even so, the GURPS crowd stepped up huge for me on this project and it made money (which I promptly spent).

Also: it was on time. I promised delivery of the PDF in May, and the print book in July. The final PDF was delivered in the second week in May (success), and fulfillment of international physical copies will begin mid-June. Some time taken to get the books to Studio 2 in Tennessee where they’ll go through Media Mail for US distribution should put them in folks’ hands by the end of July, as promised.

Successful project. Still not “quit the day job” success, but this is the RPG business, after all.

Thursday is GURPSDay! Apr 12 to May 9, 2019

May 10, 2019 gamingballistic

It’s well past time for a GURPSDay! I got caught in major “get the Citadel draft finished” mode, and then I moved. That was much more disruptive than I thought it’d be, and I thought it was going to be very disruptive.

But here you go. I went back four weeks this time, both to catch up and get some repeat views and if you missed some.

In news for Gaming Ballistic, Lost Hall of Tyr international copies were finally sent out. Citadel at Nordvorn is one page away from being done, and I made major progress on that page yesterday. Fantastic Dungeon Grappling and the 2nd edition of Hall of Judgment are both at the printer. I also launched a new project, Four Perilous Journeys, for The Fantasy Trip. These four 16-page adventures went into crowdfunding on Wednesday, and we’re already over 60% funded. Not bad.

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.

Continue reading “Thursday is GURPSDay! Apr 12 to May 9, 2019” →

Commissioned Art from Citadel at Nordvorn. Hire these guys.

May 1, 2019 gamingballistic

Hey, while I’m finishing up the relationship map and the index (I took care of the monsters last night), let me distract you with some art and artists, in alphabetical order. I also use stock art by Dean Spencer, and his Patreon portfolio (and DriveThruRPG work) are a great aid to any RPG publisher.

Thomas Denmark

Thomas and I actually have a longer association than I thought, though this the first time he’s accepted an art commission from me. He and David Pulver featured a short grappling system for OSR games (that would eventually become Dungeon Grappling for That Other Game) in Thomas’ Guardians Superhero RPG. Turns out we both share a love for Viking/Norse lore and culture.

https://www.thomasdenmark.com/portfolio-samples

Ben Jan

Ben specializes in landscapes and environments, and does a spiffy job with both. He was lightning fast on the commission work.

https://www.artstation.com/winterkeep

Ksenia Kozhevnikova

Ksenia has a wide repertoire of styles to choose from, and I loved the sensibilities she brought to the work.

http://kseniakoz.com/portfolio/illustration-portfolio/

Juan Ochoa

Juan and I have been working together since my first Kickstarter, Dungeon Grappling. In fact, we worked together before any kickstarters were launched, as I commissioned him to do pre-visualization on Dragon Heresy. He’s done two different covers for me, plus some neat other work.

http://www.juanochoa.co/

Glynn Seal

Known best for his Midderlands OSR setting and that he won a Gold Medal ENnie for Cartography last year, I’ve used him for both of my Dungeon Fantasy RPG projects for cartography. I love the style and detail he puts in to the maps.

https://monkeyblooddesign.co.uk/cartography/

Ricardo Troula

Rick did the cover work for Citadel, so you’ve been seeing his stuff from the get-go. But he’s also got some great work inside the book as well, such as this more pastoral scene.

http://ricktroula.com/

Kriz Villacis

Finally, Kriz – another who’s been working with me since the beginning.

https://www.artstation.com/krizevil

Initial Distribution of PDFs on Nordvorn is Complete

April 23, 2019 gamingballistic

PDF Distribution

Anyway . . . all PDFs that were part of this Kickstarter have been sent out. In four cases, these are the “final” files: Fantastic Dungeon Grappling, Dragon Heresy, Lost Hall of Tyr (2nd Edition), and Dungeon Grappling.

In two cases, Hall of Judgment and of course The Citadel at Nordvorn, I’m taking errata and comments until Apr 29 or so, when I send the final files in to the printer.

The Backerkit and pre-order phase of the project will be open until I send the order to the printer next week. After that, the PDF sales (and print-book pre-orders) will migrate to my website. Once both print and PDF products have been sent out, a quantity of all the books will be sent to Warehouse 23 and listed there, plus PDF sales. Of course it’s best for me if you buy them directly from my website . . . but as Guy Fleegman once said, “I’m just jazzed to be on the show, man!”

Say Things Please?

I’ve gotten a few nice comments as part of proofreading, for which feedback I thank you. That being said . . . if you have a review, initial impressions, or comments about the book, telling me is great. Telling Facebook, SJG Forums, RPG.net, Reddit, Twitter, theRPGPub, etc what you think is even better. If you feel strongly, you can always include a link to the hosted pre-order page:

https://the-citadel-at-norvorn.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

The author saying “buy my stuff, it’s fun!” is all well and good. If I didn’t think it, I shouldn’t write it. But the backers saying “was worth it,” or even better “I’m going to run this/I ran this and it was fun!” is even better.

No Rest for the Weary

If you’ve seen the Gaming Ballistic publishing schedule for 2019, you’ll know I’ve got a lot going on:

The next on the docket is “TFT Group 1.” That will be four adventures for SJGames’ The Fantasy Trip.

I’m pleased to say that I took a break from Nordvorn to do a draft layout of one of the four adventures – I’ve got them all in hand already – and I’m pleased with how it breaks down. The complete adventure text, with reflow, comes in at about 11 pages or so, with some room for art. The remaining five pages are going to be tokens and maps, more art, and of course a title page and table of contents.

I like doing a bit of layout first. It’s somewhat silly, but it’s far easier for me to see things, edit things, and get a good drink of a draft if it’s on paper. Also: I need to do it eventually, and being able to directly import a file into something that looks good makes for a better Kickstarter presentation.

And while “April 19” has but a week left in it, the first two weeks in May is very possible for a crowdfunding launch. In fact, May 8 through June 2 looks like good dates for the campaign.

I’ve played a bit of The Fantasy Trip at FNORDCon and GameHole Con, and it’s a great little tactical combat game, and in the “old-school” fashion, is easily expanded into a “roll and shout” RPG with In the Labyrinth.

The adventures being funded are not (yet) Nordlond adventures. I don’t have an issue with doing some! And I may well throw down a few Viking-esque adventures later (I’ve got an idea there, in fact, that would be a great short scenario).

Realistically, that puts crowdfunding completion and backerkit surveys finished in the first week in July, with The Dragons of Rosgarth launching in July, and Forest’s End in September/October. So there should be three completely new books for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, plus Fantastic Dungeon Grappling and Hall of Judgment (2nd Edition) in 2019 for the Powered by GURPS crowd.

We’ll finish up the year with yet another project for The Fantasy Trip, and the authors are hard at work there as well.

Final Touches

Even so . . . I’ve still got a week to go on Nordvorn, and I assure you I will not be idle. The proofing and commentary has already proven valuable and continues to be more so, and those edits will be reflected in the released draft. A reminder on what you can help me with:

Spelling, typos, and errors in layout/formatting. Y’all are rocking this already.
Mistakes in monster stats. Gotten a few of these, and they’re vital.
Glossary Entries. “How do you pronounce this?” and “Oh, more Nordlond phrases” are both good reasons to stick an entry in the glossary. I’ve gotten one or two of these, but suggestions are welcome.
Index and cross-reference suggestions. Some of these are obvious: “see [Section Topic here]” will always get a link. Some are NOT so obvious. With PDFs, you can always just do “Find X,” but you can’t do that in print, and that’s where a good index comes into play.

And that’s that!