Kickstarter: Achtung! Cthulhu

Inspired by Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics and the perennial stories of the German Ahnenerbe in popular media as a prominent WWII occult baddie, I've toyed with the idea of a race against the Nazis as an RPG campaign.  Delta Green's historical fiction led me planning to race the players against the Ahnenerbe in a race to Atlantis, and a race to keep sleeping Cthulhu awake.  I even started converting weapons that were popular in the '40s, but ultimately, I scrapped the project due to lack of player interest.  Achtung! Cthulhu has now beat me to the punch, and done (presumably) the majority of the legwork both for converting the '40s into BRP rules and documenting a race for Atlantis.

Shadowrun 5: Limits

One of the things I enjoyed most about PAX was getting the chance to test D&D Next and SR5.  My D&D Next thoughts will have to wait, due to my possible playtest participation, but I am free to comment on SR5.  The biggest change SR5 makes is creating limits for each set of stats.

Kickstarter Missed: Cthulhu Playing Cards

I recently stumbled across a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign ending last October for Cthulhu-themed playing cards.  I hunted down the creator's web site, and found this: he's now selling them on Amazon.  $12 for a deck of cards isn't cheap, but when the art is this rich and detailed, it's certainly worth it.  Follow the jump to see the art he featured on Kickstarter:

Just for Fun

As I'm out of town for PAX East, I figured I'd leave you with something interesting from Wikipedia I found while working on Project Mercury:

Please don't accept Wikipedia's invitation to add to the list.

Kickstarter: Empire of the Dead: Requiem

Kickstarter has particularly been successful at helping independent miniature sculptors prosper. From the ambitious Kingdom Death: Monster to Sedition Wars, it has encouraged sculptors to look at miniatures not as one shots, but rather entire ranges. Empire of the Dead is no exception: it takes a Victorian steampunk setting, and adds in the supernatural. While its selections are somewhat uninspired, sticking to Sherlock Holmes and Dracula rather than expanding upon its own premise, and I'm not particularly a fan of the sculpts of some of the supernatural models, some of the models are rather unique -- particularly the "background" ones -- police, horse-drawn carriages, and the such. One thing that the page doesn't particularly do a good job explaining -- the box sets mentioned as rewards are the original game's box sets, which can be viewed here. The Kickstarter ends next Tuesday, and can be found here.

Kickstarter: Dungeon Roll

Want a quick dungeon crawl without the high level of preparation D&D seems to require? Dungeon Roll might be for you. Using dice with specific faces, it essentially takes what Dragon Dice attempted to do and creates an RPG out of it. At a $15 price point, it's cheaper than most Kickstarters, but I'm not entirely sold. For me, it's a wait and see. It ends on Wednesday.

Kickstarter: Wild West Exodus

Wild West Exodus is a western steampunk miniatures combat game designed by Alessio Cavatore (of Warhammer 40k fame). It's running a Kickstarter with some beautiful western theme miniatures, which would be amazing if I ever decided to run a Fallout-themed game (the Outlaw faction would be perfect for Desert Rangers, for example). However, at a $65 price point for a 14 figure box, it's a tad pricey. Still, if this is what you're looking for, it fills a niche that isn't already cornered in a widely supported miniatures game. You have until Monday to make up your mind.

Project Mercury

On the cusp of my completion of planning for the first arc of my D&D campaign of a somewhat non-traditional campaign structure, the lovely lady I spend a hint of my free time with declared that she'd be interested in trying something in a bit of a different setting. This got me started working on Project Mercury, a more traditional tabletop roleplaying game with an adventuring bent, in a setting that she is interested in -- Victorian Britain.

This is why I throw money at them.

I spend so much time on Kickstarter because this is what makes me happy. From Shadowrun Returns:

Kickstarter: Dreamfall

That's right. A Dreamfall sequel. A few months ago, when developers on The Secret World did an Ask Me Anything, there seemed to be as many questions about a Dreamfall sequel as there were about TSW. Now, on Sunday, they'll be funding that sequel.

Kickstarter: A Mobile Battery Recharge

In a conversation I had the other day, I mentioned in passing that I was hoping for a way to recharge my 3DS on the fly. This, largely, was the biggest drawback I saw in mobile gaming -- once your battery dies, you're pretty much stuck twiddling your thumbs, and you're always in a location where there's no handy outlet and you haven't brought a book -- a plane, a train, and so on. And then I found this Kickstarter.

Kickstarter: Torment

In 2 days, inXile will start kickstarter funding for its next title, the sequel to Planescape: Torment. FYI.

Update: The Kickstarter can be found here. For a bit longer, you can snag a copy for $20. I'll spend a bit more time on this Kickstarter as the date gets closer.

City RPG: Part 2

On Wednesday, I laid out the foundation of the concept of a RPG where players defined a city and leveled it up in various ways based entirely on their actions. Today, I'm getting a hint deeper into the concept.