Kickstarter and Me: 2019 Update

I backed a number of new Kickstarters in 2017-2018, all for D&D Fifth Edition products. I have received my rewards for most of them over the past couple of months, so it seems high time to give an update. Here are links to my earlier columns about projects I've backed:

• Kickstarter and Me (5/25/2016)
• Kickstarter and Me, Revisited (9/6/2017)

First, here are a few quick updates on some of the projects listed in those previous columns:

Fate Core: The last remaining stretch goal reward, Shadow of the Century, was delivered to backers in January 2019. I haven't read through all of the most recent digital stretch goals, but the core rulebook and first few supplements were solid work.

Freeport: The City of Adventure for the Pathfinder RPG: The sixth and final part of Return in Freeport was released in late 2018. The collected edition is available in PDF now, with the print version coming very soon (it's currently available to preorder). I provided feedback and errata for each installment as they came out, so earned a proofreading credit in the final book. 

Just last month, Green Ronin announced to backers that the long-promised Freeport Companion for Fantasy AGE will finally be released later in 2019. That will be the last promised reward for this 2013 Kickstarter.

Spirit Island: This boardgame's Kickstarter is long over, but it recently had a follow-up campaign for an expansion, Spirit Island: Jagged Earth (which I believe we backed through my wife's KS account).

Book of the Righteous for Fifth Edition: I had just received this book before my last update, and--like every other Green Ronin book I've funded--it has proved to be one of my better investments on Kickstarter. The book contains a great amount of detail about its unique pantheon of gods, some solid new crunch for 5E games, and lovely full-color art throughout. Since then, I have written two blog posts about using this book with the Freeport setting (here and here). 

Next, here are details on the four projects I have backed since my last update, and their status:

Mini-Dungeon Tome for 5th Edition or Pathfinder RPG, by AAW Games (September 2017): I only backed this for a PDF of the 5E version, which was delivered last year. A few bonus mini-dungeons, including a half-dozen holiday-themed adventures, have been released since then. Because I only got the PDF, I haven't yet read the entire book; in retrospect, I should have sprung for a print copy so that I could browse it more comfortably. 

A larger obstacle to me getting full use of the book is that many adventures use monsters from third-party sources that I don't own (such as Open Design's Tome of Beasts). The book contains an index with highly-abbreviated stat blocks, but that's not nearly enough information for a GM unfamiliar with the source.

Tome of Horrors: Reborn for Fifth Edition, by Frog God Games (November 2017): The original Tome of Horrors (by Necromancer Games, the precursor to FGG) was a ground-breaking work that converted hundreds of monsters from previous editions of D&D to the v.3.0 rules set. The later Tome of Horrors Revised updated it to v.3.5, then the Tome of Horrors Complete did the same for Pathfinder, and the book also spawned a couple of sequels of all-original monsters. The Reborn version offers a selection of monsters from all of those previous Tomes, updated to the 5E rules. I owned the v.3.0 edition in print, and the v.3.5 in PDF, so only backed the Kickstarter at the PDF level. That delivered this past fall, and I'm still making my way through it. (The parts that I've most read most carefully are the handful of entries that converted monsters from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which I hope to run using 5E someday.)

Strongholds & Streaming, by Matt Colville (February 2018): Colville's "Running the Game" series, which strives to demystify the experience of becoming a good DM, quickly became a runaway hit on YouTube. This allowed him to take a pet project and spin it into a full-fledged book, Strongholds & Followers. The Kickstarter also funded the creation of a studio setting for livestreaming his next D&D campaign--in fact, the Kickstarter was so overwhelmingly successful that Colville has formed his own company, MCDM Productions, and quit his former day job. The book is complete, backers have received the PDF, the print version is in production, and Colville has started planning his next book (for 5E mass combat rules). His D&D campaign, "The Chain," streamed its first episode in January 2019.

I backed this project for both the PDF and print book. I won't be reading the book in great detail until I receive the hard copy, which is still a few months away. (When I do, expect to see a review here, slanted as usual towards how useful it would be for a Freeport game.) I still haven't decided whether I'll be watching any of the streamed game yet, because I have many other ways that I'd rather spend my free time (like playing games myself). But I backed the project because people like Colville, who has many great ideas to share with the RPG community, deserve to be supported and encouraged in what they do. Even if I never watch the streamed game or use any of the material in the book, I'll be satisfied in having backed his Kickstarter.

Pirate Campaign Compendium for 5E and Pathfinder RPG, by Legendary Games (February 2018): I backed this project for the 5E version, and have recently received both the PDF and the print copies. I've only read about half of this book so far, but am already more disappointed than thrilled with the result. While the book does update a huge amount of existing nautical-themed material for Pathfinder into 5E mechanics, the published text seems rushed and in dire need of extensive editing. After creating and maintaining my unofficial RPG errata archive for most of two decades, I find it very hard to shut off my "editor mode" and ignore grammatical errors, sloppy implementation of rules language, and incomplete conversions. When I feel compelled to correct the text multiple times per page, as I have for many chapters, reading a book like this one becomes far more exhausting than fun. This book has put me off of buying any future Legendary Games products--in fact, at the moment, I'm rather dubious about whether I'd ever want to try to use anything from this title in my future campaigns. Which is a damn shame, because this book should have been a go-to reference for anyone who, like me, is thinking about running a 5E Freeport campaign. But, to put it very bluntly, if this book had been produced by a company with more rigorous standards, such as Green Ronin, Paizo, or Wizards of the Coast*, it would never have been allowed to go to print in the form we received it.

On the plus side, the company promptly sent me a replacement copy when I discovered that one of the signatures (16-page sections) of my book was missing, and the previous signature duplicated instead. But that's small consolation for the other issues.

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This past year's Kickstarters have rather polarized me regarding future campaigns. I'll gladly back interesting projects by companies that I already know well and trust to deliver high-quality products (like Green Ronin, Greater Than Games, and potentially MCDM), but I've grown more and more leery of projects by companies I've never bought anything from before.

* Just yesterday, I heard that Wizards has revealed that its next D&D hardcover, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, will include rules for ships and related nautical subjects. That's sure to be a better investment by a long shot.