October Update: Streams, Systems, Crafting, Kickstarters, where we are at

So this update is a bit late, wasn't sure if I was going to do one this month, but I wanted to make an update to let you guys know what's going on and where we are on the various things.

Streaming & Playtests

First of all, I'll be streaming on Tuesday October 26th; I'll talk about various things I am working on, as well as probably work some on the Kibbles Battle System some of you may have seen. The beta version went out a bit ago, but we'll see the next version in not too long, and I think it would be a fun thing to work on during a stream.

I will dovetail that into a Friday Playtest using on Friday, October 30th should I get enough volunteers. This will be a playtest of the Battle System, but also just, my Homebrew in general; it will take place at Character level 6, with any of my normal options enabled. But it will only happen if we have enough volunteers by Tuesday, as my plan is to flesh out the cards those characters would need during the stream.

If you want to volunteer for the playtest, here's the sign up sheet. It'll be first come first serve this time around, with up to 4 players, though feel free to sign up on the waiting list if you there's already 4 sign ups.

We will do normal playtests in the future - this is just a sort of one off idea that I thought would be fun as stream->playtest combo of ideas.

Crafting

Crafting was the goal for last month, and largely this month, but one that I've been struggling a lot with. I was pretty happy with the start with Alchemy, but the initial feedback has pulled me in... a lot of different directions. I am certainly not out of ideas, rather I have far too many and have half finished a whole pile of things. I will try to do better about getting some of those out to, but one of those little steps was the formalized Camp Actions which helps define how you carve out time for crafting, and what other things you might want to use, as well as revisiting the Weapon Template, both of which are systems Crafting will continue to expand on.

There's more coming here, I just have been deadlocked on a few different approaches that balance "approachability" vs. "depth", and am trying to balance those two factors.

Kickstarter

I've been talking about this for awhile, but I've also been putting in some work behind the scenes to get closer to this. I have no idea how something like this would go, and it's going to be a lot of work to go forward with - I think I will be going forward with on in (very) early November. The timing isn't ideal, but I think that's the earliest I can reasonable start it.

At a very high level, here's my plan.

Kickstarter #1 (Mind & Metal)

Artificer + Psion + Crafting (+a bunch of subclasses and stuff). These will be bundled in a hardcover 200+ page compendium, and available individual in soft cover reference guides as (<50 pages each). The compendium will have more fluff, tables, loot, spells, etc, but the soft cover individual ones will just be handy high quality printed guides for ease-of-use at the table for people that don't want the whole hting (or that want both).

I'm still looking into what else (if anything) I can offer (like Dice, Upgrade/Talent/Spell Cards, etc). For now, I don't think I can offer minis here - it was something I sort of wanted to do (Artificer/Psion minis would be cool!) but they would be more complicated.

Kickstarter #2 (War & Occult)

Why even talk about a second Kickstarter if I don't know if the first one will succeed? Because I think I need a plan for how to layout content, and I think that requires knowing what to do with it; I don't want to try to jam everything into one book as I think some things aren't ready for it (Occultist is just not ready for a printed version, many subclasses, etc).

This would be Warlord + Occultist + Battle System + More Misc. Subclasses.

This second would obviously only be a thing if the first one succeeds, and depending on where we are could offer some more ambitious things - an app/plug in for Battle System, perhaps we'd finally get to minis here, more certainty on spell cards for the Occultist spells, that sort of thing). Perhaps more monsters requiring art, that sort of thing.

Kickstarter Preparation

I'm going to be level with you, figuring out publishing via a Kickstarter is a lot. It's a long shot, but if any of you happen to have recommendations for things regarding that, feel free to reach out to me. In particular, figuring out how to import books to the EU/UK without big tariffs, recommendations on printing and fulfillment services (I have some ideas, but am still open to recommendations), recommendations of easy things to add to it as bonus rewards, recommendations ways to promote, I'm open to anything of the sort. My marketing budget is far from infinite, but I'm willing to try to get the word out at least a little here and there.

One last note, everything, including the full length version of the PDF, will be made available to people on Patreon at some tier, though the PDF version will be unique from the free versions I release (as it'll be an OGL version) as well as professionally edited and with more knick-knacks (lore and story bits, character building bits, more items and things, etc). That said, ultimately I don't current plan on having any not-free character options, so any character option in the book will be free somewhat (or at least that's the current plan).

Kibbles' First One Shot Adventure?

Some of you know that I did an interview a bit ago with a blog called Artificial20, but it it I mentioned a one shot I ran for my players. A fair number of people have asked for that one shot (a one session thing about the players being abducted by aliens and having to shoot their way free with stolen hi-tech weapons), so I've decided to finish fleshing it out. 

It is very much intended to be a strange one-off; it has very little with how I typically run my games, but I sort of feel that's the point of a one-shot, they are the freedom to something a bit... weird, though it has rules for how to plug it into a longer campaign. That'll go up on patreon sometime not long from now. One of the original players of it actually is the one that commissioned a battle map for it... it's pretty awesome! Considering that my players had to play it on my hand doodled version, future groups to run this will be quite spoiled.

I will not suddenly become an adventure maker, but I figured since there was some interest and due to the generosity of one of my players, a full real map for it, at this point I essentially have to post it :)

If people like it, I may do more in the future, we'll see.

Overdue Artificer Update

As some have pointed out, the Reddit Artificer thread has become archived, so I suppose that means I need to post an update. This will probably coincide with the running of the Kickstarter somewhere along the line, so next month we'll see an update for it (probably early). That said, updates for it are mostly just new content, as it's been working great (though some small tweaks and fixes are planned).

Closing Rambles

Well, that's a lot. Thanks for sitting here reading this nonsense rambling, and thanks for being here. Hope you guys are surviving all the world's been throwing at you recently, and hope you are having fun where you can and getting play (or at least think about) the fantastical worlds of D&D when you can. We all need a bit of escapism sometimes.

I'm super grateful for all the folks that make this possible. Every month that goes by, this is more of my time. Depending on how the next few months ago, we'll hopefully see more new stuff and more quality stuff than ever before. Thank you to everyone that supports this endeavor and makes this possible. It's been a strange few months, but I can say that the support of this patreon has fundamentally shaped how those months have gone and the direction we are pointed in. Thanks!