In the first two parts of this three-part series, I’ve written about the history of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, what gave the character its cult status as well as Moonstone Book’s anniversary graphic novel anthology, and how the setting might be adapted into a hypothetical Kolchak: The RPG, including how it would work as a GUMSHOE RPG. In the final part, I write about the timing of creating a Kolchak RPG, the economic viability of the project for both an RPG publisher to pursue the license and a freelancer to pursue this project, before drawing a conclusion about what I hope for the future of Carl Kolchak.
Why Now?
I asked KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER 50TH ANNIVERSARY Graphic Novel editor, James Aquilone, if Moonstone’s Kolchak license included an option for any sort of Kolchak tabletop roleplaying game?
“I don’t believe so but a Kolchak game would be very cool. When I was researching Kolchak for my Kickstarter campaign I stumbled upon this RPG character profile for the DC Heroes Role-Playing Game, so I know people have been interested in using Kolchak in a game. With the success of the Kolchak 50 Kickstarter, maybe we will see an RPG. It certainly would be a fun game.”
While I’ve discussed what I want to see in a tabletop Kolchak: The RPG, let me praise Moonstone for keeping Carl Kolchak alive and celebrating his 50th anniversary. It seems unlikely that we’d celebrate a half century of Kolchak without the efforts of Moonstone. Their production of new comics and novels for nearly two decades kept this forgotten property from falling completely out of the public consciousness as anything more than an inspirational footnote for The X-Files. Without their efforts, I would not have written this series.
The 50 year anniversary is one of the reasons to pursue this project. Kolchak has withstood the test of time and would be able to support a game. But, beyond the date, there are several great reasons to tackle this project.
Based on Moonstone’s library, the licensor has approved a number of wild stories and crossovers. Getting agreement to include a public domain character like Frankenstein’s monster is one thing, but getting The Green Hornet, Dark Shadows’ Barnabas Collins, or Kevin J Anderson’s Dan Shamble into a Kolchak story normally requires sign off from the licensor. I’m assuming that is the case here. Moonstone has published book upon book of these type of crossovers, which may point to the ease of doing business with the license holder.
From a production perspective, this project would be easier to pull together than some. There exists a staggering body of photos, illustrations, and paintings from the 50 years of movies, TV, novels, and comics, more than enough to provide the artwork any RPG needs to thrive. Assuming the license included those images, your book comes with a wealth of beautiful artwork and photographs to select from. As a publisher, it reduces the budget and stress involved in creating a new book.
Another reason this is a good engine for a hypothetical Kolchak: The RPG, GUMSHOE has a System Reference Document (SRD) is available under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Unported License. This gives designers the tools they’ll need to use this system in conjunction with Kolchak’s investigations. Not to say you couldn’t use another system, but there’s an ease in producing a game when you have a framework to build from.
Deep Speculation: How Much Revenue Might The Project Generate?
In financial terms, what might the combination of Kolchak and GUMSHOE look like for a publisher? Obviously, predicting the future is impossible, so take these thoughts with a grain of salt.
This project involves a great unknown: Will Kolchak fans be interested in a Kolchak RPG after 50 years of stories but no games. Does GUMSHOE have a big enough audience to tempt a publisher? Does Kolchak have enough name recognition to justify obtaining the license to make this game happen?
To speculate at an answer that question, let’s look at four Kickstarters to provide a baseline on the number of fans and dollar amounts this project might expect.
- NIGHT’S BLACK AGENTS: The Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press kickstarted in November 2014 to reach 1,420 backers that pledged £87,935 against a £10,000 goal. $138,427 dollars if converted at the end of November 2014’s exchange rate.
- The Yellow King Roleplaying Game from Pelgrane Press kickstarted in June/July 2017 to reach 2,288 backers that pledged £167,341 against a £23,000 goal. $219,768 dollars if converted at the end of July 2017’s exchange rate.
- Between the Devil & the Deep GUMSHOE RPG from Sons of the Singularity LLC kickstarted in November/December 2021 to reach 272 backers that pledged $6,346 against a $2,000 goal.
- KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER 50TH ANNIVERSARY Graphic Novel from Moonstone Books is kickstarting right now and it’s well past its goal of $14,500. The graphic novel seems likely to exceed one hundred grand and it’s already over a thousand backers.
Those four Kickstarters suggest that a core rulebook would tempt a thousand or two thousand fans to back the project. It might reach a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand over the course of the campaign. It’s not a million dollar campaign, but with the artwork largely paid for, there might be enough meat on the bone so that the publisher, freelancers, and licensor can all eat.
Deeper Speculation: How Much Would Freelancers Make?
How much might freelancers expect from writing a Kolchak RPG? The number I’m going to suggest is arrived at by the most spurious means and should not be considered a final figure. The rate is not intended to upset anyone, make anyone feel a publisher is being cheap, or put an actual number on the pay a freelance author might expect. This figure is simply a starting point, and it should not be considered anything more than rough speculation.
Here’s the math I’m drawing from: Moonstone has an open call for Kolchak prose short stories to go into the anthology. They’re offering a flat $100 for “1500 to 5000 words (but the sweet spot is between 3000 and 3500 words).” Using the sweet spot as our baseline, they’re offering an average of 3 cents a word. I’m not judging their prose payment amount as many RPG publishers pay rates that orbit 3 cents a word. As well, the rate may be subject to increase if the Kickstarter does well (they’ve already raised the amount once).
Using NIGHT’S BLACK AGENTS as a guideline much as I did in the prior article, that book came in at 120,000 to 125,000 words. At 3 cents a word, that’s $3,750 layout for the writing with editing over and above that. At a rate of 6 cents a word, that’s $7,500. At the highest end of 10 cents a word, that’s $12,500 before editing, project managing, art, layout, licensing fees, printing, shipping, and sundry overhead. I’m not suggesting that the book would come in at 10 cents a word, but with most of the art cared for by earlier productions, this book may have the room in its budget to pay out a first class rate. Ultimately, the licensing contract will decide a lot of what resources are left to develop the book with.
White Wolf and Moonstone and a Note
Before closing out of the final part of this series, there’s a footnote about Moonstone that’s worth mentioning, but does not dovetail into the rest of the piece. Moonstone Books is no stranger to RPGs as they held the first comic book license for White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse from 2001 to 2003. Those classic comics gave them some exposure to RPG fans around the same time they started Kolchak’s revival. It’s a nice bit of paths crossing.
This article speculated on a hypothetical Kolchak tabletop roleplaying game. At the moment, there is not a licensed Kolchak game meaning this article is just what I said, speculation. If you want to use GUMSHOE, or any system, to run a game of Kolchak at your table, by all means, enjoy. However, it needs to be stated that Kolchak is a copyrighted character and cannot be published into an RPG without a licensing agreement with the license holder.
Final Thoughts
Should a publisher take up the challenge and create Kolchak: The Roleplaying Game? Just looking at the subject matter and the numbers, it might seem like an easy yes. It could be a core rulebook, a scenario book that games some of the stories that already exist, and a monster manual to make sure The Night Stalkers have plenty of monsters to fight off. While that all sounds positive, this project isn’t just that. For any publisher to move forward on securing the rights to create this RPG it comes down to this, is there a creator in their Rolodex that is a Kolchak fan and has a solid basis in the gaming system that they’d push for this RPG? Without the right creator to bring this together, it’s hard to see pursuing the contract. I’d love to know which RPG creators are Kolchak fans, to know who the likely pool of creators are. Only with that list in-hand would it make sense to pursue Kolchak: The Roleplaying Game.
In the meantime, check out Moonstone Book’s Kolchak 50th anniversary celebration.
KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER 50TH ANNIVERSARY Graphic Novel from Moonstone Books
End Date: Fri, February 11 2022 12:00 AM EST.
“Comic book anthology with stories by Rodney Barnes, R.C. Matheson, Kim Newman, Nancy Collins, Jonathan Maberry, David Avallone + More”
Egg Embry participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Associate. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Games, and Amazon.
Latest posts by Egg Embry (see all)
- New Gamemaster Month 2023 - January 20, 2023
