🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
enamel pins with fire, a raccoon with a match
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Hi Reader, Welcome back to game night. I'm briefly out of the smithy—Udo has to bury all the bronze swords in the backyard for that weathered look, so the ball's in his court. Still, I've been busy. I'm working on enamel pin designs. What do you think? Can you tell what B is? I've also been publicizing the game. I contracted with a consulting company called LaunchBoom to help me, because I don't know from marketing. Little did I know it would drop me into the crossfire of tabletop games discourse. LaunchBoom's main gimmick is to set up a "prelaunch" page for a Kickstarter, where I ask people to plunk down a refundable $1 deposit. If you back the game, the dollar goes toward your pledge, and you get a freebie too (five dice). If you don't, you get the dollar back. People who make the deposit are 20x more likely to back the Kickstarter than folks who just leave their email address. Given all the thousands of dollars I've fed into this game, it sounded smart. Well! It turns out this tactic blew up in board games last spring, when backers pushed back hard, angry to be asked for money before the Kickstarter even launched. Board game publishers have dropped the tactic en masse. And here I am trying to use it again. It takes six thousand raccoons to build trust and just one to burn it all down. I'm keeping my setup for this campaign, but I doubt I'll do it again. I'm grateful to the nearly thirty people who have already pre-pledged. Coming up! I'm going to GAMA Expo, February 23rd to 27th. GAMA's Horizons Fellowship made that trip possible, so thank you, GAMA. I'm looking forward to connecting with retailers and others in the biz. Then I'm a guest at Breakout Con in Toronto, March 14th to 16th, where I'll run both Raccoon Sky Pirates and Defy the Gods. I can't wait! Maybe I'll see you there. In the meantime, I'll try to keep the raccoons from getting into the strike-anywhere matches. Cheers, P.S. Seriously, what do you think of those pins? P.P.S. If you haven't yet, I hope you'll consider making the refundable $1 deposit and then join us in the private FB group. I'm talking more about Defy the Gods in there—including more work-in-progress art! |
Everlasting, Neverending Game Night
🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
Hi Reader, [heat, banging] Welcome! Please, come in. I'll be right with you. Just need to stick this blade in the quenching bucket ... [steam, hissing] There we go. Whew! It's sweaty in here. Put your coat wherever. No, not there, that's hot. Why is our game night in a smithy? I've been working on Defy the Gods. Turns out, in a sword & sorcery game, there are a lot of swords. So, thank you for coming to my workshop while I continue to hammer away. But look what I've turned out! I've scheduled...
Hi Reader, Welcome! Happy New Year! Please, come in. Let's shake off that snow. Make yourself at home. The candles on the table are set up for Hanukkah. Tomorrow night's the eighth night—the big one! I haven't had you over for a while because I've been heads-down in the text for Defy the Gods, trying to finish it so I can hand it off to Rue Dickey, the copy editor. Now that the Christmas brouhaha is over, I'm putting every spare hour into this. I'm preparing to launch a Kickstarter for Defy...
Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. Let me take your coat. Can you believe it snowed today? None of it stuck, but still. I've got a saucepan full of hot chocolate in the kitchen. Mugs are in the cupboard. So. Some wild things happened since we last met: I went to Big Bad Con in San Francisco, where I spent time with some of my favorite people, ran Defy the Gods, and met folks who will help me finish the book. I also went to U-Con in Ann Arbor, and I made the hard decision not to go to PAX...