Kickstarter + Indiegogo update

After I wrote a summary of all of the games I had contributed to on Kickstarter, one of my friends was curious about all of the non-gaming related things I kickstarted as well, and I did one of those too. This is an update to that.

I've funded a few more projects and have seen a few others delivered. These projects are listed in the same order that they display on my Kickstarter profile page. I've also inserted Indeigogo projects into the lineup according to when I funded them. There are a couple of projects I funded just to support and follow their updates, those are marked as $1 recipient.



So here's the format:
Name of the project is a link to the project but these words are a link to my KS profile:
Estimated Delivery: May 2013, brief description of project and whether or not it was delivered on time

Green delivered on time or early
Blue not delivered yet but not late either
Yellow means late but delivered
Red means late and not yet delivered

LotFP Hardcover Referee Book:
Estimated Delivery: January 2019, another RPG book, estimated delivery is obviously a joke, just started


The Agents:
Estimated Delivery: November 2013, card game, just finished, I'll be surprised if they aren't late


Balrum:
Estimated Delivery: September 2014, an open world fantasy RPG video game, almost didn't fund, but has a long time to gather extra donations via paypal


Becoming: A Game of Heroism and Sacrifice:
Estimated Delivery: September 2013, an RPG, these guys have three weeks to release on time


The Name of the Wind Playing Cards:
Estimated Delivery: December 2013, plenty of time, via updates it almost looks finished


Torchbearer:
Estimated Delivery: September 2013, Burning Wheel + OSR game, the books are shipping now!


TARDIS Eruditorum:
Estimated Delivery: November 2013, essays about Doctor Who, this guy is a workaholic, my suspicion about it being late has evaporated


NUIA eyeCharm:
Estimated Delivery: Jul/August 2013, use your eyes to control a Kinect sensor, looks like these guys hit a legal snag, $1 recipient


The Doom That Came to Fiddle Creak:
Estimated Delivery: October 2013, a Lovecraft marionette play, $1 recipient


The Secret Order of the Black Diamond:
Estimated Delivery: June 2013, a not entirely serious secret society in Kansas, $1 recipient


America: Witnessed:
Estimated Delivery: August 2013, a photography book, $1 recipient


NotEqual.:
Estimated Delivery: May 2013, avant-garde fashion designer, $1 recipient


The Union Project Dance Company:
Estimated Delivery: May 2013, dance company needs a space to perform, $1 recipient


Small World 2:
Estimated Delivery: December 2013, iOS version of board game, on time as far as I know


Torment: Tides of Numenera:
Estimated Delivery: December 2014, a video game, I will be pleasantly surprised if this arrives on time, it's a long wait!


Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between: A Patron Sourcebook for DCC RPG:
Estimated Delivery: December 2012, self-explanatory, the books have been printed but we're still waiting for delivery


Deadwood Studios USA:
Estimated Delivery: September 2013, deluxe version of old board game, it was almost early


Achtung! Cthulhu:
Estimated Delivery: August 2013, Cthulhu + World War 2 rpg, hit lots of stretch goals but it's looking slowed down from feature creep


Dungeon Roll:
Estimated Delivery: August 2013, dungeon delving dice game, it's a fun little game, this is one of the best Kickstarters I've backed


Sea Dracula: Judicial Inquest at Gamestorm 2013:
Estimated Delivery: March 2013, I only funded this for the Apocalypse World playbook offered but I put in a decent amount of money


Screamin' Cyn Cyn and the Pons' final EP:
Estimated Delivery: July 2013, a local band wants to do one last album before they split up, two months late


Drinking Quest 3: Nectar of the Gods:
Estimated Delivery: April 2013, a card game, an RPG, a drinking game, and a sequel, for a game about getting drunk this project was run very professionally


God Hates Astronauts:
Estimated Delivery: May 2013, webcomic printed into deluxe graphic novel, exactly on time!


Rifftrax wants to Riff Twilight Live in Theaters Nationwide:
Estimated Delivery: August 2013, self-explanatory, sort of late but they couldn't get the rights to Twilight... it's disappointing but not their fault


The Last Days of Coney Island:
Estimated Delivery: May 2013, animated film by Ralph Bakshi, I don't think he understood what "estimated delivery" meant


The Green Girl:
Estimated Delivery: February 2014, documentary about Susan Oliver, on time as far as I know


Alas Vegas:
Estimated Delivery: June 2013, weird horror rpg, we are assured progress is being made for a finished product


Lamentations of the Flame Princess Free RPG Day Adventure:
Estimated Delivery: July 2013, self-explanatory, a successful funding campaign even if the finished product didn't end up in everyone's hands


Fate Core:
Estimated Delivery: March 2013, got some pdfs but the printed book was very late


Tavern Cards:
Estimated Delivery: April 2013, a deck of cards + rpg resource, regular progress and updates but still late


Ehdrigohr:
Estimated Delivery: April 2013, tribal African rpg, slow moving but consistent, it arrived 5 months late


Adventures Dark and Deep Players Manual:
Estimated Delivery: June 2013, an OSR rpg book, delivered two months early!


Póstumo - The Deck of the Dead:
Estimated Delivery: February 2013, a deck of cards with zombie iconography, delivered two months late


"The Goon" movie:
Estimated Delivery: December 2012, a movie based on a comic book, the movie isn't finished yet but low-level backer rewards have been delivered


Spears of the Dawn:
Estimated Delivery: March 2013, an African-inspired OSR rpg, was delivered 2 months early!!


The Art of Brom:
Estimated Delivery: June 2013, a book of Brom's artwork, only ran one month behind


The Power Principle:
Estimated Delivery: September 2012, 1st issue of a self-published comic book, on time


Horror on the Orient Express:
Estimated Delivery: August 2013, Call of Cthulhu rpg scenario, success has delayed the project


Bos Meadery:
Estimated Delivery: September 2012, local business, on time and so far they've been very successful - GOOD MEAD!


Numenera:
Estimated Delivery: July 2013, a new rpg from Monte Cook, AMAZINGLY after everything this project added it still delivered on time!!!


+5 Food of Eating Cookbook:
Estimated Delivery: September 2012, gamer-themed cookbook, inexcusably late


Axes and Anvils:
Estimated Delivery: November 2012, a dwarf-obsessed rpg, a total fucking debacle! I will be surprised if this ever gets delivered


Black Moth Super Rainbow, Cobra Juicy album:
Estimated Delivery: October 2012, a new album by BMSR, everything was either early or on time


CLANG:
Estimated Delivery: February 2013, Neal Stephenson's swordfighting video game, I only funded this to support the work but I think they could have gone through an established game studio for assistance


LotFP Hardcover and Adventures Project:
Estimated Delivery: October 2012, a hardcover version of one of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rulebooks, woefully late!


The Horror in Clay:
Estimated Delivery: October 2012, a Cthulhu tiki mug, it was a little late but was otherwise a huge success


Champions of ZED:
Estimated Delivery: August 2012, an OSR rpg, updates are few and far between and this project still hasn't been properly delivered, inexcusable!


Drifter: A Space Trading Game:
Estimated Delivery: November 2012, a video game, 6 months late but there's a "beta" build for the game (version 0.3)


Our Last Best Hope:
Estimated Delivery: August 2012, GM-less rpg about saving the world, delivered late but I have it and for some reason still haven't played it yet


Amanda Palmer: record, art book, and tour:
Estimated Delivery: September 2012, self-explanatory, on time and I actually got more than I paid for so her critics can go fuck themselves with razorblade dildos because she treats her supporters well


Phil Tippet's "MAD GOD":
Estimated Delivery: December 2013, weird apocalyptic animated film, production is moving faster than expected!


New Fire:
Estimated Delivery: July 2012, an Aztec-inspired rpg, super late but eventually delivered


Weird West Miniatures:
Estimated Delivery: None listed, I chose the cheapest reward and I've still never received it


OGRE Designer's Edition:
Estimated Delivery: November 2012, a new 6th edition for the OGRE board game, production difficulties and bloated stretch goals have really delayed this game but frequent updates are informative and show that lots of work is being put into the final product


Zombicide:
Estimated Delivery: September 2012, a zombie board game I liken to Left 4 Dead, delivered super EARLY


Nekro:
Estimated Delivery: June 2013, a video game where you play a necromancer, infrequent updates, releasing next year


Curse the Darkness:
Estimated Delivery: August 2012, a horrific post-apocalyptic rpg, still haven't played it yet (what's wrong with me?!)


Shadowrun Returns:
Estimated Delivery: January 2013, Shadowrun video game, I always thought their estimated delivery date was optimistic


The Banner Saga:
Estimated Delivery: November 2012, a combat strategy video game, super late, the game is still in "multiplayer beta" which for some reason I've never been able to access


Wasteland 2:
Estimated Delivery: October 2013, post-apocalyptic video game, super excited for this one and it looks like it might actually be on time


Dwimmermount:
Estimated Delivery: August 2012, an OSR megadungeon, LATE but it's moving forward again now that James Maliszewski has been divorced from the project


This is Not a Conspiracy Theory:
Estimated Delivery: December 2013, a multi-part documentary explaining modern politics from the same guy who did Everything is a Remix, appears on schedule


Farmageddon:
Estimated Delivery: July 2012, a farm-building card game, got it one month late


Return of the Deck of the Living Dead:
Estimated Delivery: April 2012, zombie-themed deck of cards, delivered two months late


Double Fine Adventure:
Estimated Delivery: October 2012, Tim Schafer's next video game, like Ralph Bakshi I don't think these guys understood the phrase "estimated delivery" when they set their kickstarter up

Of Blood & Lightning / Apocalyscotia

I GMed a Dungeon World game for a few weekends, and then ran an Apocalypse World game for a few weeks. Both started with my own unusual take on character & world creation.

Dungeon World
When we started I didn't really have any ideas. I was a little nervous, and a little annoyed, because I was already playing in one Dungeon World game and I didn't want to be GMing a second one. I'd rather be playing Apocalypse World. Or just playing. But circumstances led to this game and I tried to put my best foot forward. As I said, I had no ideas, but that's a lie. I had one idea. Ancient pyramids. I planned on starting the PCs in a town, not a bustling city or a struggling village, but an established town. This town would have one dominating feature: an ancient pyramid.
I had ideas about that pyramid, about who put it there, about it's true purpose, and about what it held. All of that got thrown out the window. During the first session the players dictated the terms of the pyramid, it's magical properties and it's mystical significance, and I just rolled with the punches. I don't even remember what my original idea was anymore, except that it started with an ancient impenetrable pyramid that would lead to something bigger. Somehow the players outdid me by pushing the stakes of what was in play.
The 15-feet tall pyramids, for there are now more than one, are prisons holding extra-planar beings. Maybe releasing these beings helps the old god, Bartleby, but the spirit-wolves who guard the demiplanes of these pyramids don't want Bartleby released or else he will eat. He's so terribly hungry. "What does he eat?" somebody asked, but the question remains unanswered.

The real creative thrust for this game came a collection of strange images I had culled from deviantart and let the players look through. I asked them to define the deities of their world, and take inspiration from, these images. I made sure I had at least two images for every player. This was an interesting exercise because I noticed that each player would focus on a single image and expand details upon it, but would not define details about other images unless I asked pointed questions about the image directly to that player.

The artwork of Jeff Christensen, known as js4853, seemed appropriate to me. His images are dark, explicit, and leave enough explanation open to the imaginative interpretation of the viewer. Some of his images seemed like they could double as the portraits of gods:

The players first foray into one of these pyramids forced me to regurgitate out ideas as they sprang to my mind.

the space inside was much bigger than the outside made it seem

gravity pulled towards every surface inside, thus the walls of the pyramid were actually the floor where an immense maze simply led intruders around in circles

shadowy wolves stalked the PCs through the maze

strings of muscles and sinew sprang forth from the center of each pyramidal base and bunched together in the three-dimensional center of the pyramid where a mass of flesh pulsed with black ooze

a lightning storm swirled around the empty spaces of the pyramid and randomly struck walls and started fires

the center mass held the otherworldy prisoner within the center of the pyramid space, and the prisoner was revealed to be a blonde teenage girl named Aleph

After the PCs managed to escape the demiplane prison, I gave them all the option to learn some blood-based magical powers. Using the format of the compendium classes, I wrote a list of powers I would like to see used and edited them to fit in with the imagery of the place they had visited. I titled the little sheet of custom moves "Of Blood & Lightning"

Blood Magic became a theme for me after that, and the players were constantly dreading what disastrous consequences their actions might lead to. This player-fear overwhelmed the game in our final session which led to a split party. Only one character ventured into the second dungeon, another demiplane prison, something I did a considerable amount of work on during the previous week. Upon entering the demiplane the players would find they were developing telepathic abilities, using them would make them more powerful but would also cause them to become more paranoid and fear-stricken.



Apocalypse World
This game had a little more structure starting out than the previous one. I knew it would be set on the coastline of Nova Scotia, Canada. The game would focus on having a creepy, horrific atmosphere. The playbooks that were available starting out were mostly custom playbooks made by the Apocalypse World community, and these playbooks were all creepy, weird or horror-themed characters:

the Beast Master = in control of a monster
the Damned = vampiric sin eater
the Grotesque = a mutant
the Haunted = talks to ghosts, makes more ghosts too
the Horseman = rides an evil horse
the Last Child = a portentous child with a wicked family
the Orphan = a child with a not-so-imaginary friend
the Radio = psychic broadcaster
the Sorceror = a magician with a magical companion
the Turncoat = member of a secret society

Almost all of the playbooks start with NPCs in contact with the player or controlled by the player. Or possibly controlling the player (the Turncoat). The two that don't have NPCs are both creepy and weird (the Damned and the Grotesque).

After the players chose playbooks and we had gotten past the History distribution of character creation, I pulled out a string and laid it across the far length of the table. I instructed two players to define the coastline and to decide which side had water on it. Then I handed out pictures I had taken from the Nova Scotia tourism board's website and one at a time I asked people to declare where along the coastline these places were. When this was done I took a picture and this became the map of the region which all of the characters would be familiar with.


There was one player left and I gave him three pictures of creepy artwork and said "Tell me which one is a true image."


He chose the bottom picture and we discussed what these weird things were, one player named them Plague Children, and I had a dream about them a few nights later which helped me to define exactly what they were and what their presence signified. There was one town on the map that was overrun by these Plague Children and the locals called the place Bad Mojo. The final session involved the Plague Children in Bad Mojo getting stirred up and being led back to the town where most people lived and congregated, though the game ended before we got to see what would happen when the Plague Children arrived.

indie vs OSR, and the winner is...

I was just thinking about wandering monsters and how most of the time they are pointless and don't make sense. I was thinking about my last Dungeon Crawl Classics game which came to a screeching halt when the party got surrounded by jackals from a wandering monster table and there was literally nothing they could do to survive such an overwhelming encounter except by rolling their ice really well. I was thinking back to previous experiences where wandering monsters were simply used to soften up the party. I was trying to think of times when the wandering monster was used to help layer the atmosphere of the locale and I was coming up empty.

Then I remembered a wandering monster that was fun to fight. For me, at least.

It was one of my early gaming experiences, when I was too young to really know the rules and too naive to know how "the best" way to role-play was. I was gaming with older people, who perhaps tolerated my presence but otherwise didn't support it. My character was a wizard and a bear had broken into our camp. He was smashing tents and gouging his claws into horses and people. Everyone was running around, gathering weapons, and keeping their distance. The main fighter in our group got pinned and was being mauled, he needed to make a Strength check to break free at the start of his next turn, and my turn in the initiative came up.
"Can I jump on the bear's back and drive my dagger into it's shoulder blades?"
The surprised looks I got, and the advice afterwards, I look back on it now and think those people were fucking idiots and if I had known better I would have found a different group. "Wizards don't really rush into combat like that." "You don't really have the stats to pull it off." "A spell would probably be a better course of action." and similar such things.
I didn't care. "But can I? How hard would it be?"
I remember the DM saying "If you roll really high I'll let you do it, but that bear will probably turn on you next." Everybody was discouraging me from acting. I rolled high, an 18 or 19, impossible to deny success on such a roll. I was on the bear's back and I could roll damage, a whopping 1d4.
Most of the players clucked their tongues or shook their heads, because now the bear was going to attack me, but the fighter got free and in two more hits the bear was down and out. I had saved the fighter, taken a few licks myself, and turned the tables of the fight, all because I didn't follow some pre-programmed narrative for how I should play my character or what my skills were best suited for.

That group really sucked.

I think that the experience of playing indie games has helped rekindle my OSR gaming nostalgia far more than some of the other OSR games I've played. Dungeon Crawl Classics does a really great job of bringing back that old school flavor to a set of rules, but the "story first" dictates of Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Itras By, Lady Blackbird, and Monsterhearts is far more evocative of the time in my life when I could play a wizard and think it was totally appropriate for me to distract a bear from mauling the fighter by jumping onto the bear's back and trying to jam my dagger into it's ear.
What I'm really saying is that there is very little difference between the OSR and indie games. One is perhaps a little more brutal where the players are accepting of that inherent brutality as part of the story, and the other is more focused on survivability so that the same characters can thrive throughout the story. One is no better than the other, and each can be slightly tweaked to change the survival-brutal axis on which it sits.
As a GM or a player I want to be in a game that has the depth and details of an OSR game but with the flexible mechanics of an indie RPG. I believe a happy medium can be reached between the two.

playtest pdf

I inadvertently challenged myself last week when I said I could probably put this together in a week, and it actually required less time. I only spent about two nights moving data around, proofreading, then writing up a quick and dirty character sheet. It's really rough around the edges but it's a playtest document, and my house was flooded last weekend, so whatever. Deal with it!

This represents all of my notes for Tales of Imperial Space

That's just the tentative title, something I thought of quickly when I started writing ideas down two months ago. It started as an Apocalypse World hack, and I originally wanted it to be compatible with that system so that characters could, in theory, travel back and forth between settings. It has, however, diverted quite a bit and become it's own thing. More changes are on the way. Maybe after I move back into my house.

An open letter to Mike Nystul

Let me address something really quick and get it out of the way: You're right, Monte Cook is a gold standard, and it is unfair to expect you to run a fledgling business the same way that an industry veteran will run his. That being said, I don't think it's unfair to compare the kickstarters that you both created given that yours ended a month before his, you both started from the same position of having a solid premise but nothing written, and your stated goals at the beginning of each were both for one book. Despite the fact that Cook's project ballooned into enormous proportions and added supplement after supplement (and then a video game) the initial goal of the project is being delivered only one month later than originally projected. It's not a one-hundred percent fair comparison, and I think I account for that in my brief commentary explaining the differences. There's a term being thrown around called "feature creep" and it mostly applies to video games that get kickstarted and balloon into bigger projects, every single one of them has been late because they add features they weren't expecting to be able to afford and it quite rightfully extends the workload of the project. Numenera had extreme feature creep and yet is still being delivered very close to the original projected release date, and your project begged for feature creep yet still hasn't produced anything other than a tattoo.

You wrote: The point by point "take him to the mat" comparison seems a bit mean and I'm not sure what the point is. Does anyone not know the deal by now? I'm public about all of this. He's not breaking any ground here.

What's the point? To understand. I want to know what is going on in your brain. And if you are public about all of this and I'm not breaking any ground with my analysis then why do you feel the need to comment on it at all? No, I think I did point out something that nobody else had, and I did it without being angry or insulting, because if you've been reading other blogs like you say and haven't been commenting it's only because other blogs haven't tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and look at the project from your perspective. I did, and in doing so I struck a nerve.

Having access to your facebook is the only reason I have any sympathy for you at all. When you lamented that people should just follow your facebook page instead of relying on kickstarter updates, that is what I did. You like to dance around your reasons for not completing the project but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that you're unemployed and that it probably happened either during or just after the kickstarter ended. There's no shame in being unemployed and most people would understand if you just came out and explained that it was a factor in the delay of the project. I know what it's like to finish another string of job interviews and have nothing to show for it. I was unemployed for a total of almost two years before I found my current line of employment and I know all too well the apathy that can set in after you feel like you've hopelessly exhausted all of your options. A friend of mine once told me that looking for a job is your full-time job when you're unemployed, and in your case you've got a part-time job alongside it of trying to deliver a role-playing game book. That's an unenviable position to be in.


However, it's very frustrating from my perspective to see you posting pictures of cats, Cthulhu cakes, reviewing movies, and talking about attending conventions incessantly on facebook. Every time I see you spending money on something I think "Was that spent with backer pledges?" and every time I see you planning for a convention I think "What the fuck? Conventions are EXPENSIVE! Why aren't you writing the damn book already?!" I think the last straw was your pictures of running a D&D game on Gary Gygax'es birthday. My immediate reaction was "GMing takes a lot of work, so why isn't he running Axes & Anvils?" That's when I really started to look through your posts because I wanted to know if I was just being annoyed because I wasn't seeing results or if I had a legitimate reason to feel like I did. To look through these frivolous posts on facebook made every day coupled with repeated posts on kickstarter saying "I promise the preview is coming" really paints a picture of incompetence. It made my feelings legitimate.

I only have 18 regular readers, and one-half of those are people I game with every week, and I only update maybe once every week or two. In terms of blogging in general, and gaming blogs in particular, I'm not popular. So why respond? Why try to defend yourself? Why not just ignore it like you've ignored some other more popular blogs? Because they were lashing out in anger, but I'm saying things that are reasonable assessments. I'm sorry if any of this sounds harsh, but if my criticism stings then I think you know it's true. I'm only trying to be honest with what I see and my reaction to it. The only thing I can say to console you is that I'm not really angry with you like some people are, I've never insulted you or debased you (and I never will), and I have tried to give you the benefit of the doubt every step of the way. You make it really hard to do that though. The tattoo, for instance. At the time you were posting about it I didn't think much of it, and it did cement your commitment to the project in a very tangible way. In retrospect it looks like a waste of money. The tattoo should have been the prize for finishing the project, not your prize for collecting the money. You're right, it was fun in the moment, but it was your dessert and now you ruined your supper.

As for the issue of thanking the backers, it was just something I noticed. It's why I made a point of saying that Monte Cook was overwhelmed by the popularity of his project, because when you read the Numenera updates one after the other it's clear he had no idea how his project would grow and warp into the monster it is now, and he constantly tells the backers how awesome they are for supporting his vision. When I read the Axes & Anvils updates one after the other I see a man who is hopeful of success and eager to hit each goal but mentioning the backers is noticeably absent in comparison. If I hadn't been comparing the two kickstarters I might not have noticed it at all.

Why did I compare your campaign to the Numenera project at all? Because it was reasonably close in the time period of when you had run your project, I felt like both projects started with similar goals and ended completely differently. And they were both late. At first my comparison was only for my own edification and understanding, but if Numenera hadn't also been late I never would have published it.

Another reason I wanted to understand what was going on was because I'm writing a game myself. I haven't looked into creating a kickstarter for it, I haven't contacted artists, and in terms of publishing the only thing I've done is look at the publisher contract on drivethrurpg. I might not ever finish it. This is the way of all design. Ideas are great, but most of them don't work in practice. For the last two months I've worked on it, off and on, and I feel like it's playable right now, though not finished. If you asked me to put up a preview for playtesting I think I could hammer out a pdf file in less than a week. Now take this into consideration as well: last week my house flooded, I had to move the entire contents of my house into my and my neighbor's garage, my wife and I have been couch surfing and staying at hotels, spending way too much money on food, and we can't move back into our house and settle back into our routine until next week some time, and while still having to go to work and deal with the stress of not getting enough sleep and being generally crabby at everything. I'm not in the best place right now. Yet I could still hammer out a playtest pdf for the game I started writing two months ago in the next week. Meanwhile in Austin, how is your work coming along?

Does that explain my reasons for criticism well enough? I hope so, because the gloves are coming off. Yes, all of that before was me being nice. When you take money and fail to deliver you should expect some healthy doses of criticism from the people who invested in your idea. If you can't take the heat then don't go in the kitchen. At least I don't call you names.


Last I checked nobody forced you to add anybody as a friend on facebook. Even Monte Cook added all of his backers as friends and only recently converted his profile into Monte Cook Games so he could have more than 5000 people added. He always conducts himself very professionally and rarely talks about anything not directly related to his job, and when he does post something unrelated it's usually about something that happened to him personally. Have you considered that this might be a big factor as to why he's so successful? He doesn't waste anybody's time sharing silly youtube videos.

And since you called me a stalker creep I would like to point out that it's fucking impossible to stalk somebody on facebook who is posting more than a teenage girl. Yes, there are teenage girls in my family and they don't share stupid shit as much as you do, what they do share is sometimes actually more constructive and personal like graduation photos and feminist essays about rape culture. Sharing fan art for Adventure Time seems banal in comparison.

But you were posting a few constructively personal things for awhile, so let's talk about selling your gaming books. Yes, I'm going there. And I wasn't planning on bringing this up, but it's been preying on my mind for some time and your behavior yesterday to my legitimate criticisms prompted me to bring it up. When you posted a lot of pictures showcasing gamebooks and boardgames you wanted to sell, you happened to have one I was looking for: Block Mania. You were also selling a copy of the 1982 Judge Dredd boardgame and I thought I would help you out with your financial woes and decided that if the price matched the price I saw on ebay that I would just take it off your hands. You said $60 and even sweetened the pot by telling me Block Mania had the expansion. I said "How should I pay?" and I was quick to pay, eager even, and you took my money but then, nothing. I had to email you three times, and then after a month of waiting it was only when I said "I would like to know when I can expect to see them arrive or if I can get my money back." that you made some effort to mail them to me. It still took another three weeks to get those games mailed out. When I finally opened the box and looked at the boardgames I looked at the date and saw that a full two months had passed since I sent the money via paypal and I immediately thought "If this is how long it takes him to deliver on something he HAS, then how long is it going to take for him finish Axes & Anvils?"

You did throw in an extra game: Red Empire. Which was a nice "I'm sorry" surprise. So it did tell me that even though you're going to be horribly late and incredibly disorganized, that if you can do so you'll try to make up for the tardiness. But I have to say, honestly, it doesn't really make up for the aggravation of handing you money for something you have and being forced to harrass you in order to see some results. Maybe you should rethink this whole ignoring criticism attitude you have, because a good swift kick in the pants might be just what you need to keep you on track. Maybe you should get somebody in Austin to be your boss for finishing this project?

Hey! That was constructive criticism! How about a little more instead of just criticism? Why don't you set up a preview and playtesting blog? Blogs are really easy to create and if you have a gmail account you get a blogspot connected to it for free, you can set up all of your comments to go straight to your inbox. If you want to put up a few more barriers you could get a wordpress account, they have an option that locks out anybody from commenting who doesn't also have a wordpress account. You can set up your living campaign backers to be able to post to the blog, then they could post play session reports and you could use the really epic events of those sessions as background material for your campaign world. Rule changes could also be debated or discussed. Then you also have a living document on the internet that people can put their 2 cents into. But maybe you don't want people seeing your rules, afraid they're going to steal them or something. That's cool. You can do the same thing on facebook, just set up Axes & Anvils as a group that members can post into, just like the Tabletop Role-Playing Games group that you frequently share posts from. Verify accounts and connect them to their kickstarter accounts to find the living campaign backers and set them as moderators for the group.

But you know, this is a lot of work. You might not have time for it. You're really busy performing improv comedy every week and trying to get a ride to GenCon and making a big show of purging your facebook account but only deleting 6 people from the 772 "friends" you had so, shit, maybe you should either just make time for finishing this project or cancel it already. Because it's really fucking obvious that your priorities seem to be elsewhere.

UPDATE: Mike Nystul's fanboys tried to create a false image of myself as some sort of stalker, creeping through Mike's facebook feed. I got pissed off at those comments and deleted them. I tend to think if somebody is publicly posting crap that shows they are not working hard then that's not stalking, that's just being aware of what your FB friends are posting. Mike has since blocked me and anybody else he suspects of being connected to me. As a customer, I have every right to know what happened to my money and as an investor I feel like I should have a voice about the progress of the project that I helped fund. I don't understand why it's okay for someone to pretend they didn't just take thousands of dollars and have nothing to show for it.

comparable

links:
Axes & Anvils
Numenera

UPDATED: open letter to Mike Nystul

Axes & Anvils versus Numenera
generates x35 initial goal	generates x25 initial goal
funded within 1 hour	funded within 1 day
funding ended Aug. 11, 2012	funding ended Sept. 17, 2012
estimated delivery Nov. 2012	estimated delivery July 2013
58 updates	64 updates
promises made: 6	promises made: 3
promises kept: 2	promises kept: 3
praises backers 9 times	praises backers 26 times
# of tattoos creator received of project: 1	# of tattoos creator received of project: 0
average # of posts made on facebook every day that have nothing to do with this project: 18	average # of posts made on facebook every day that have nothing to do with this project: 0.08

That last point is petty of me. But fuck, this guy seems to be spending more time dicking around on facebook than working on the kickstarter that is eight months late!

I decided to go a little overboard and summarize these two kickstarters via their updates. Primarily because I keep getting updates from Axes & Anvils that are the same broken record of "nothing yet, I promise I'm working on it." The last update from Axes & Anvils was a preview of the rules and even that was delivered with the disclaimer of "This is also not final. There are things in here I know will change."

In writing this comparison of updates I tried to be sympathetic to Mike Nystul and tried to be unforgiving with Monte Cook. It didn't always work because Cook works hard to make his backers happy and Nystul clearly has no idea what he is doing.

I feel bad for Mike Nystul. I really do. As much as I'm disappointed in his failure to deliver, angry at his apparent lack of discipline, and annoyed at his lack of focus, I just feel bad for the guy. His eyes are bigger than his stomach, and his lofty goals were just never going to work with the ramshackle way he approached this project. After going through all of these it's clear for me to see that Cook always had people lending a helping hand and turning to him to make his project better, while Nystul was by himself and always searching for help. Monte Cook is overwhelmed by the popularity of his project, while Nystul always seems overwhelmed by his project.

The real difference between these two projects is that Cook expected to make A BOOK, singular, and ended up making a whole product line. Nystul's goals were bigger than a simple game book and he was always looking towards expanding what he had and looking toward the future instead of focusing on what he was getting and what he needed to do in the present.

#1: funding met, adds pdf pledge level	#1: clarifies costs
#2: adds "new" stretch goals, promises summary of rules	#2: funding met
#3: underestimated costs, adds pledge levels	#3: overwhelmed by popularity, talks about adding stretch goals
#4: first stretch goal met, talks about printing and gameworld	#4: first stretch goal met
#5: second stretch goal met, talks about add-ons for game and adding pledge levels, offers miniatures to backers who pledge more money	#5: second stretch goal met, talks about add-ons for game and adding pledge levels, promises free pdfs to backers at higher pledge levels, promises free books to libraries if next stretch goal reached
#6: another stretch goal met, talks about attending GenCon and adding another pledge level	#6: shows off finished concept artwork
#7: another stretch goal met, talks about expanding product line	#7: another stretch goal met, talks about add-ons for game and adding pledge levels
#8: two stretch goals met	#8: another stretch goal met, promises free pdf to most backers
#9: two stretch goals met, underestimated costs, plans for GenCon, talks about other Kickstarter project	#9: stretch goal met, talks about adding stretch goals
#10: stretch goal met, talks about adding stretch goals	#10: stretch goal met, plans for GenCon
#11: underestimated costs, adds new pledge level	#11: talks about adding stretch goals
#12: ego-stoking, promotes somebody else's kickstarter	#12: gives free pdf to higher pledge level backers
#13: promotes Dwarf Con, an Axes & Anvils convention	#13: video update
#14: video update	#14: expanded pledge levels, begs backers to promote project
#15: merges two stretch goals together	#15: stretch goal met, adds stretch goal
#16: project ends, all stretch goals met	#16: links showing blog posts of the evolution and growth of project, links to playtest reports
#17: promises free pdf to backers	#17: adds new pledge levels
#18: presents plan for publishing	#18: hints at future project, adds stretch goal
#19: promotes presence at GenCon	#19: new kickstarter announced
#20: returns from GenCon, promotes Dwarf Con	#20: stretch goal met, adds stretch goal, promises free short story
#21: defeated by technology	#21: stretch goal met, new stretch goals added
#22: links to add-on spreadsheet	#22: adds more stretch goals, promises more wallpapers for backers
#23: survey delayed, promotes Dwarf Con, plans for FenCon	#23: stretch goal met
#24: survey posted	#24: gives backers wallpapers
#25: shows off his Axes & Anvils tattoo	#25: stretch goal met
#26: promises playtest rules, promotes Dwarf Con	#26: stretch goal met, shares promised short story
#27: shows off logo art, promises playtest rules	#27: stretch goal met
#28: promises playtest rules again	#28: stretch goal met, adds new reward level
#29: promotes Dwarf Con	#29: ego-stroking
#30: delays printing schedule, promotes Dwarf Con, promotes next Kickstarter project	#30: stretch goal met, details more add-ons
#31: talks about rewriting rules, promotes other kickstarter, promises playtest rules	#31: stretch goal met, talks about dice and GM screen production
#32: promotes facebook page for game	#32: stretch goal met, production expanded
#33: talks about writing rules, promotes website	#33: stretch goal met, more details for add-ons
#34: playtest rules posted	#34: stretch goals added
#35: defeated by technology again, talks about rules	#35: stretch goal met, shares finished artwork
#36: shows off finished artwork	#36: stretch goal met, adds stretch goals
#37: ego-stroking	#37: stretch goal met, reward levels clarified due to excessive amounts of extras
#38: production delayed, shows off artwork	#38: details production plans
#39: confession and apologies, cancels Dwarf Con	#39: names and thanks all co-contributors, video update
#40: promises preview rules	#40: promotes others' kickstarters
#41: asks for volunteers to help	#41: clarifies payment process, shows off artwork
#42: complains about posting to kickstarter, wishes for people to read his facebook page	#42: clarifies production schedule and payments, promises new wallpapers
#43: shows off (very poorly done) map artwork	#43: shares new wallpapers
#44: rules have been rewritten, promises preview pdf	#44: clarifies payment process (again)
#45: promotes his attendance at another convention, promises preview pdf	#45: promises playtest rules, promises survey, promotes book
#46: promises preview pdf, promotes facebook page	#46: asks for playtesters of finished rules, promotes book
#47: promises preview pdf	#47: apologizes for add-on delays
#48: promises preview pdf, shows off finished artwork	#48: links to add-on order form
#49: promises preview pdf, shows off finished artwork	#49: clarifies use of order form and playtest submissions
#50: promises preview pdf, promises his work partner will just publish what they have if he slacks off again	#50: clarifies communication, rewards, playtesting and production; ego-stroking
#51: lots of hand-wringing, apologies and clarifications	#51: ego-stroking, more clarification, shares artwork
#52: promises preview rules again, shows off finished artwork	#52: more playtesting and production clarification, promotes website, shares artwork
#53: promises preview pdf, shows off artwork and table of contnts	#53: promotes new kickstarter for tie-in video games
#54: talks about writing rules, releases print-and-play minis	#54: ego-stroking, promotes website and podcast, encourages backers to join forums
#55: ego-stroking	#55: promotes new kickstarter project, talks about production
#56: talks about being "unwell all weekend"	#56: promoted kickstarter reaches goal, fulfills low-level backer reward, promotes preorder link, shares map artwork
#57: promises preview pdf	#57: promotes add-on, shares artwork
#58: preview rules posted	#58: shares pictures of add-on dice
.	#59: promises project is done and clarifies production schedule
.	#60: fulfills first stretch goal, clarifies production, ego-stroking
.	#61: clarifies stretch goal fulfillment
.	#62: fulfills second stretch goal
.	#63: clarifies production (again), fulfills third stretch goal, shares picture of dice
.	#64: clarifies release of ebooks, ego-stroking, promotes (another) tie-in kickstarter, shares picture of miniatures