Written with Jon Hook one of the amazing authors of this fantastic book…
What is this project?
This Kickstarter is to fund two books, the first being How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck, or HtWAMTDS for short… kinda short, I guess. This “How to” book is an anthology with contributions by 25 authors, all of whom where hand-picked by project lead, James M. Ward. Jim Ward is a veteran of the role-playing game industry; he is the creator of the very first science fiction role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha, as well as Gamma World, the first post-apocalypse role-playing game. He is an author and editor with decades of experience, and with this project he wanted to share his insight in adventure design, as well as pick the brains of some of his friends in the industry.
The second books is The Adventurer’s Almanac, by Michael Curtis. This book will provide hundreds of adventure seeds organized around the passing of the seasons, fantasy holidays, and the movement of the calendar. Author Michael Curtis has been professionally designing RPGs since 2008, and is best known for his extensive work with Goodman Games, to include the adventures Frozen in Time, Intrigue at the Court of Chaos, The Chained Coffin, and his award-winning Dungeon Alphabet.
What do I get?
Goodman Games has published more than 200 adventures, many of which are considered “modern classics” that have been in print for years with second, third, and some cases, even fourth printings. Each author within HtWAMTDS contributed an article that suggests ways the game’s judge can create interesting and unique encounters, or ways to enhance published adventures in order to put a personal spin on it for their specific gaming group. In addition, each author demonstrates how to implement the concepts they wrote about in a fantasy RPG encounter. So that’s 25 articles on how to write or enhance RPG adventures, and 25 unique fantasy RPG encounters. To quote a popular demagogue, “That’s huuuuge!”
Will it fund?
I’m going to have to say, “Uh… yeah!” The campaign was launched with the goal of raising $5000; within the first 24 hours the campaign breached $20,000. As of this writing, the campaign is closing in on $36,000. If anyone reading this article is unfamiliar with Goodman Games, and their track record with Kickstarter, I would encourage you to review some of their previous campaigns, like Fifty Fantastic Functions for the D50, The Monster Alphabet, with GM Gems, and Grimtooth’s Ultimate Traps Collection.
Stretch Goals?
How many people have pledged to support a Kickstarter, but then had to wait, and wait, and wait because creators were slow in producing the promised stretch goals? Well, as of this writing, this campaign only has two stretch goals, and the first one was achieved on the first day of the campaign. Joseph Goodman, the president and publisher of Goodman Games, knows how frustrating it can be to wait for promised stretch goals, and because this particular campaign is more about advice on how judges can enhance their own adventures, (versus being a campaign that introduces a new adventure setting), so the stretch goals that have been announced so far are to enhance the printed form of the books.
The first stretch goal, set for $20,000, was to convert HtWAMTDS from a softcover book to a hardcover book. To be clear, what that meant was that all copies of the book would now be hardcover instead of softcover. The various pledge levels have nothing to do with the printed form of the book. All backers who pledged for a printed copy of the book were automatically upgraded from softcover to hardcover as soon as the campaign broke the $20,000 mark. That happened on day one of the campaign.
The second stretch goal, set for $40,000, is to convert The Adventurer’s Almanac into a hardcover, just like HtWAMTDS was converted. As of this writing, the campaign is close enough to predict that this will soon become a reality. Beyond that, no other stretch goals have been announced, but a few ideas have been discussed in the Comments page of the campaign.
Why should I back it?
I don’t know if I can accurately predict why you should back it, but had I not been a contributor to the book, I know why I would back it. I would back this campaign in order to have a convenient single source that contains a wealth of ideas from industry veterans on how I could help enrich my player’s experience in my games. Now, I’ve always been “that guy” in my gaming group that always seemed to be wearing the judge’s robes; I was always behind the screen as my players used a sturdy stick to probe the path 10′ ahead of them. And part of the reason why that was is because I usually had some kind of crazy idea I wanted to test out on my players within the depths of the next dungeon. But, I’ve always felt that regardless of how many ideas you think you have, you can always benefit from more and different ideas from those people who also spend most of their time designing traps for their player’s characters, versus trying to roll a d20 to disarm it. Whatever your reasons may be to pledge your support, or to not support, I do hope everyone will at least visit the Kickstarter page to review the campaign and consider lending their support.
Scott Alden
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