John Harper of One Seven Design is currently pitching Blades in the Dark on Kickstarter. If you like “Powered by the Apocalypse” style games or you don’t want to miss out on the next big thing, stop reading this, head straight over there and pledge.
I’ve you want some flavour, check out this great Actual Play post on Sean Nittner’s blog. There’s also a couple of videos of the same session linked from there.
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 10 April 2015.
Spirit of 77 is a Funky 1970’s Tabletop Role-Playing Game being pitched on Kickstarter by Bob Richardson and Dave Kizzia of Monkeyfun Studios. The game is set in an alternate pedal-to-the-metal, nitro-burning 1970’s that combines over-the-top action, kung-fu films, glam music and classic sci-fi.
It’s also powered by D. Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World engine, with modifications to encourage amped up action – leaping cars, swinging from rooftops, blowing up tanker trucks, and punching bigfoot right in his hairy face. Can you dig it!
Jason Lutes is currently kickstarting Servants of the Cinder Queen, an adventure for Dungeon World that attempts to capture the flavour of classic Old School AD&D adventure modules. According to the text it gives the GM all of the building blocks; an oppressed village, a ruined monastery, a mad sorcerer, a lost tome, warring gods, an active volcano and a plane of elemental fire; with the freedom to combine and create connections between all of these according to how things unfold at the table. As one would expect from Mr Lutes, it looks really nicely done. There are some very neat ideas here!
Adam Bosarge, Kyle Simons and Jason Faulk have launched their Kickstarter campaign for Worlds in Peril, a Superhero RPG based on the Apocalypse World engine. They look to be doing some interesting things with damage conditions and building characters from multiple mini-playbooks that represent their origin and drive/motivation (e.g. ‘See justice done’), plus I’ve been waiting for a *World game that cracks the superhero genre for a while. This is a strong candidate.
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 12 May 2014.
It’s the last few days of the Saga of the Splintered Realm Kickstarter, which is Michael T Desing’s reimagining of classic B/X D&D with simplified rules and unified mechanics.
Pitching yet another version of classic D&D is a hard sell but I’ve followed Splintered Realm through various iterations and Mr Desing has some nice ideas. Take a look at the free playtest version up at DriveThruRPG and see what you think.
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 13 Apr 2014.
Doc Unknown: Winter of the Damned and Others is a Kickstarter Campaign, being run by Fabian Rangel Jnr and Ryan Cody, for an all new 104 page Graphic Novel continuing the adventures of Gate City pulp action hero Doc Unknown. It’s well worth any fans of Hellboy and/or Planetary taking a look at the Kickstarter (Volume 2) and the original 4 issue series (Volume 1).
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 9 April 2014.
Crone is a tabletop roleplaying card game currently running a campaign on Kickstarter. In the game, mystical and mysterious witches, wizened old women with fearsome reputations and vast magical powers, travel the land, visiting ancient ruins and fighting powerful monsters. Crone uses an easy 3d6 + Skill + Attribure vs. Difficulty Target Number (TN) mechanic for all resolution and combines this with a fast-paced simultaneous card playing approach to initiative. Everyone places their action cards face down on the table and then flips them over together to resolve them. The concept of playing a bunch of crotchety old women with vast magical powers that can shake the very foundations of the earth is in itself worthy of a pledge and you still a few days left to get in on the action.
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 14 Apr 2014.
Nefertiti Overdrive is Fraser Ronald’s new rules-light mash-up of crazy cinematic ahistorical Wuxia action set in legendary Ancient Egypt at the fall of the 25th Dynasty. Is that a concept for a game or what! This is the latest from the guy who brought us Sword Noir: Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery and Kiss My Axe: Thirteen Warriors and an Angel of Death. So if you fancy some kung-fu fightin’ in Ancient Egypt, the campaign is up and running on Kickstarter. Go back it right now!
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 22 Apr 2014.
Ron Edwards is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for his new game in development Circle of Hands. It’s billed as a stark, brutal, mud-and-dung Iron Age fantasy heartbreaker RPG with extremely consequential mechanics twists.
Ron says about the game; “I wanted monsters and cosmic magic. I wanted human evil and human pain. I wanted combat that felt like fighting, with fear and desperation just ahead of effective tactics. I wanted damage to not merely tick down a fuel tank, but to hurt. I wanted a knife to be a deadly weapon, as dangerous as a great-axe in the right time and place. I wanted a reason to fight which made sense to me.”
If that piques your interest (How could it not?) there’s a playtest PDF available from the Kickstarter page, some tantalising discussion about earlier development of the game from back in 2010 here and more recent discussions on the Adept Press Forums here.
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 2 Apr 2014.
Epoch:Return by Innate Games is an interesting looking indie PC game development project currently running on Kickstarter. It aims to deliver an immersive story of exploration and discovery, about the adventures, trials, and triumphs of a husband and wife team, who have crash landed on a blasted, alien world. Can you salvage enough parts and fuel from other wrecked ships to make it home? And, why does this world feel so off? If, like me, you want to find out, go and back it so it gets funded.
The Kickstarter campaign finishes on 11 Apr 2014.
Edit: Sadly the Kickstarter campaign for Epoch:Return has now been cancelled.
League of Imaginary Heroes 