What RPG Kickstarters Excite Creators? Empire of the Ghouls, Good Society, Ultramodern5, Trilemma Adventure, and more

Every week I ask RPG creators what Kickstarter they’re following and they are kind enough to share their insights. This week, among their lists are several games that appear more than once, like GeneFunk 2090 (twice this article and three times to-date), Fungi of the Far Realms (twice this article) and Hearts of Wulin (twice, as well). Check out the suggestions from the creators of:

Empire of the Ghouls: A 5th Edition Campaign vs. the Undead by Kobold Press

END DATE: Fri, May 31 2019 4:00 PM EDT.

“An alliance of cultists, ghouls, and vampires. A scheme of the dark gods against humanity. New maps, dark realms, monstrous societies!”

Wolfgang Baur (Kobold Press) recommends:

Monsters of the Underworld for 5th Edition. So I’m all about the dungeons and the underdark, and Cawood Publishing did well by their prior volume so… Very intrigued by their Underworld Monsters volume, which seems like it will be useful for any mega-dungeon or the like. Art style leans toward comics rather than realism, which doesn’t bother me but fair warning.

Sea King’s Malice. Relative newcomer Alex Kammer is also the mastermind who runs the amazing GameHole Con in Madison every year, and this nautical adventure looks like it would fit neatly next to Ghosts of Saltmarsh. If you have an urge to set sail for adventure, the Sea King’s Malice seems like a great way to challenge your players with encounters and storylines from a rising talent.

Odyssey of the Dragonlords. Ok, with 6,000 backers and just two days left*, this doesn’t need a lot of help but… Greek myths have been fused to D&D since the beginning, and this looks like a visually lush take by a talented team. Worth checking out just to see how they bend and twist familiar tropes!

*EDITOR’S NOTE: I miscommunicated when this article would be published. This Kickstarter has ended but they do have a late pledge option.”

Trilemma Adventures Compendium by Michael Prescott

END DATE: Thu, May 30 2019 10:00 PM EDT.

“A compendium of 48 adventure locations, settlements, and regions for fantasy role-playing games.”

Michael Prescott (Trilemma Adventures) recommends:

Hearts of Wulin. One of the amazing things about good PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) games is how deftly they transport you into an unfamiliar genre with so few rules. Not in the sense of an avalanche of content for the GM to trot out, but in that subtle alchemy of how the players contribute to the tone and make the genre really vivid even for newcomers.

I’m a newcomer to the Wuxia genre, but hearing about this game on the Gauntlet got me longing to try it out. This gives me vibes of high production wirework films like Crouching Tiger, the fateful mismatched duels of Amber, all suffused with poignant melodrama.

Lowell Francis is a voracious gamer with incredibly broad system experience, and the playtest materials that he and Angela Chen have put out together look really tight.

Five Torches Deep. This project is like catnip for me. A simplification of 5e so it’s compatible with the lingua franca of fantasy adventure, but with an OSR attitude. A chunky resource focus that makes being underground really feel like you’re a long way from home. Simple rules that have teeth.

Ben Dutter (Vagabonds of Dyfed) has a history of hybridizing the various schools of gaming, and with Ben Milton (Questing Beast, Knave, Maze Rats) looking over his shoulder, this is definitely a project not to miss.

And holy snot, I love a good title and this one makes me jealous I didn’t think of it!”

Good Society: An Expanded Acquaintance by Storybrewers Roleplaying

END DATE: Sun, June 9 2019 9:59 AM EDT.

“Tell regency tales of magic, masked outlaws, servants & ambition with four expansions for Good Society: A Jane Austen RPG in one book.”

Vee Hendro (Storybrewers Roleplaying) recommends:

Big Bad Con 2019. Based as we are in Australia, we had to think carefully when deciding which RPG convention in the States to attend. Time and time again, we were recommended Big Bad Con as the convention to be at, and it is easy to see why. With over 400 events, 40 private gaming rooms and hundreds of different games, it is a brilliant weekend of gaming, whether you are looking for story games, LARPs or board or card games. But beyond that, what makes it truly special is its strong commitment to diversity and community-building. This year marks the first year of the Babble On Equity Project, a collaboration between the convention and community leader DC, to bring more people of colour to Big Bad Con. This project is one of the reasons why we are able to even make it there this year! So if you’re looking for an unforgettable weekend, come along this year to BBC with us!

Fungi of the Far Realms – a fictional fungal field guide. Billed as an RPG game supplement / illustrated encyclopaedia of fictional mushrooms, I love seeing these more unusual kinds of projects being crowdfunded. As a physical artefact blending art and fiction, these types of books stretch our imagination, and reminds me that simply reading can be big part of play.”

Hayley Gordon (Storybrewers Roleplaying) recommends:

Hearts of Wulin. I’ve always been a massive fan of Wuxia movies, so I am more than ready for this RPG. I’ve had a chance to playtest this game, and there’s a lot about it I love. The choice of playbooks is pretty stellar, it gives your characters a reason to be and throws you straight into the narrative. But my absolute favourite part is the entanglements, which create messy webs of relationships between the characters. So if you find yourself engaged to be married to your brother’s sworn enemy while also secretly infiltrating their clan in disguise, that’s just an average session!”

Ultramodern5, a 5E universal sci-fi sourcebook by Dias Ex Machina Games

END DATE: Thu, June 13 2019 11:59 AM EDT.

“Second Edition. Second Printing. New Rules. Full Color. One of the most popular books for 5th Edition is back!”

Chris Dias (Dias Ex Machina) recommends:

“I have backed 49 projects in the past year and a half. I admit, I think I have a problem. By a majority, the campaigns I back involve tabletop board games with role-playing elements because I love the hybridization of board gaming with pen & paper role-playing.

But with specific role-playing, a friend of mine is the creator of Endless Realms, and she has a new supplement on KS now called Tome of Spirits. The artwork is fantastic and the setting is original. Her campaign only has a few days left.  It uses an original rule system which I really appreciate. I hope this is the start of something amazing.

And as an odd addition to that, I am looking forward to seeing Fantasy Grounds Unity get funded. Obviously, I am biased as SmiteWorks were the first virtual tabletop software to support Ultramodern5, which is itself is on Kickstarter now, so I would obviously want to return to the favor. I love the idea of virtual tabletop and wish I had something like that ten years ago.”

Monsters of the Underworld for 5th Edition by Cawood Publishing

END DATE: Wed, May 29 2019 10:58 AM EDT.

“Only the bravest walk into the dark… Into the Underworld! Discover 100 new 5E monsters. A full-color 5th Edition book.”

Andrew Cawood (Cawood Publishing) recommends:

Genefunk 2090 by CRISPR Monkey Studios. In this biopunk/cyberpunk RPG,players take on the roles of mercenary characters. I like that this Sci-Fi game uses the very accessible 5E system and seems quite detailed. Corporations rule the world and the wealthy have discovered immortality. 

The ADVANCED: Pandemonium bBeirdo GamesThis dystopian RPG game lets players create in a very open-ended fashion. I’d recommend any game with this type of customization. Players can alter their characters in unique ways and add many types of skills and weapons. It’s a very fluid d10 system that still has depth.”

Vintage Space: Disco-Era Sci-Fi RPG by Thunderegg Productions

END DATE: Wed, June 12 2019 9:11 AM EDT.

“A tabletop RPG of optimistic optimistic space opera featuring retro-inspired rules and aesthetics.”

Jacob DC Ross (Thunderegg Productions) recommends:

“I’m hugely interested in S3RPG, which is a simple and easy system designed for newbs and veteran players. Looks fun and cute.

I also really want to see GeneFunk 2090, because there just isn’t enough biopunk these days.”

 

The Beast of Thornbriar Hills (For D&D 5E and Pathfinder) by Ramen Sandwich Press

END DATE: Tue, June 11 2019 7:45 PM EDT.

“An RPG location module about sheep, the people who keep them and something that’s killing them. For D&D 5E and Pathfinder RPG.”

Douglas Sun (Ramen Sandwich Press) recommends:

The Silence of Hollowind: Pin-Up Adventures. I like the mash-up goodness of combining two apparently different genres, film-noir and high fantasy. It’s something I tried myself, but with much less success than this fellow.

Fungi of the Far Realms – a fictional fungal field guide. It’s not an RPG as such, but RPG-related. And it looks whimsical and humorous, so I’ve have actually backed it. Whimsy and humor are qualities that I like to inject into my own work because I think that it’s worth reminding ourselves that it’s possible to take fantasy RPGs too seriously.”