PRESS RELEASE: Dark Conspiracy is back!

Clockwork Publishing/Uhrwerk Verlag is proud to launch a new edition of Lester Smith’s Dark Conspiracy on Game On Tabletop

DARK CONSPIRACY    JUST LAUNCHED 

In Dark Conspiracy, the players taken on the roles of normal citizens in an era marked by a Greater Depression, drawn into investigating the sinister alien horror, minions of dark and evil alien entities, that have infiltrated human society.

With an arsenal of high-tech weapons and paranormal abilities, these “minion hunters” form cells, relying one one other as they wage a clandestine war against these evil forces that attempt to ruin the world for humankind. 

This new edition updates the original game system and setting to modern sensibilities and heralds a robust line of accompanying sourcebooks and accessories. The team contains a wide and diverse team of talented newcomers and industry veterans, with additional team members to be announced. 

PLEDGE NOW

About Uhrwerk Verlag

Patric Götz founded Uhrwerk Verlag in 2009, using his extensive experience in the field of roleplaying, first as an employee in a games store, then working at a wholesaler, and finally as publishing director at Ulisses Spiele. Uhrwerk’s first publications were the German versions of Hollow Earth Expedition and Deadlands Classic in 2009, as well as the license for the western continent Myranor for The Dark Eye. In the following years, Uhrwerk continued with successful launches with more and more German self-productions likeMalmsturmContact, and Dungeonslayers, and expanded into translations of English games such as Numenera and Achtung! Cthulhu. Since 2013, Uhrwerk Verlag (under the label Clockwork Publishing) has branched into the English-speaking market, financing a new edition of Space: 1889. At the same time, the company focuses mainly on the production of its original German fantasy roleplaying game, Splittermond. Today, about a dozen employees are permanently employed at Uhrwerk Verlag, and on average, they issue three to four roleplaying publications per month. Uhrwerk Verlag has a history of executing several prior several crowdfunding campaigns.

Vanity Press: What Kickstarter RPG Rewards Are Available? – How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck

No vanity-press-buy-a-RPG-creator’s-credit this week. Instead, let’s focus on a publication to improve my RPG adventure module writing skills.

How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck by Goodman Games
Kickstarter campaign ends on Tuesday, February 14th, 2017 at 11:50 PM EST.

How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck

Their Pitch:

“Advice on how you can write great adventures – from the company that has published more than 200 top-notch adventures!

Many years ago, when Goodman Games was first starting out, many sage elders in the industry gave Joseph Goodman advice on what to publish. The most common advice received was: “Don’t publish adventure modules. They don’t sell.”

What we have learned since then is that advice is largely true. Poorly written, uninteresting, uninspired adventure modules do not sell.

But the good adventure modules – the exciting ones – that ones that read well and play well at the table – they become treasured memories for us all. They become legends. These adventures are the shared experience that builds our community. We remember our exploits, ask each other how a different group handled that encounter, and lament the secret doors we may have missed. We tell our friends about the climactic finale; we are in turns surprised and devastated and thrilled as we navigate the encounters. And most importantly, if an adventure is fun to play – if the game master and the players both have a blast – then we tell our friends, and they play, and they tell their friends, and that adventure becomes a community builder. It is played thousands and thousands of times. It becomes a legend.

How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck

This book is about how to create tabletop RPG adventures that become those legends. This book is about how to write great adventure modules – the ones that gamers can’t stop talking about.

This is the primer that every game designer needs to have on his bookshelf. I’ve been in the role-playing game design industry for more than forty years. In many of those years my products were the best selling products out that year. I learned many new things from this set of articles. I have learned things that have improved my design skills, so I know they will improve yours as well.

The essay writers include:

Jobe Bittman, Mike Breault, Anne K. Brown, Timothy Brown, Stephen Chenault, Casey Christofferson, Chris Clark, Michael Curtis, Chris Doyle, Joseph Goodman, Allen Hammack, Jon Hook, Kevin Melka, Brendan J. LaSalle, Lloyd Metcalf, Bill Olmesdahl, Steve Peek, Jean Rabe, Merle M. Rasmussen, Lester Smith, Harley Stroh, Jim Wampler, James M. Ward, Skip Williams, and Steve Winter.”

Egg’s Thoughts:

How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck

I want to be a tabletop role-playing game freelancer. I have some creator credits and experience that I’ve bought through RPG Kickstarters. What I don’t have is a mentor. HtWAMTDS is not that, but it is written by individuals that would be ideal mentors. The book promises to share their thought process for designing modules and adventure paths.

The cleverest part of Goodman Game’s Kickstarter is the updates, they’re samples of the book’s philosophy. Unlike so many projects, this one creates a clearer and clearer picture of what you are purchasing every time they add a new post.

To be clear, there are no vanity press rewards here. Instead, for as little as $12, you can get the PDF of HtWAMTDS and learn from those that have gone before and made money in this industry. Seems like money well spent.

***

Egg Embry, Wanna-lancer

Egg Embry wrote comic book short stories, edited comic book series, wrote and drew a webcomic, and contributed to comic book journalism across the 2000s. Now, he buys the opportunity to write for a variety of tabletop role-playing games in the tradition of vanity press. His purchases have been published by:

  • Sasquatch Game Studio’s Primeval Thule for 5e (2015) available at DriveThruRPG.com – Writer
  • Ember Design Studios’ Yrisa’s Nightmare for 5e and Pathfinder available at DriveThurRPG.com – Writer
  • Ember Design Studios’ Rats in the Street for 5e and Pathfinder available at DriveThurRPG.com – Writer & Artist
  • Kobold Press’ Tome of Beasts for 5e available at KoboldPress.com – Playtester