A Thought on Scale

I am the Warden!!

For those of you paying attention to my struggling Kickstarter, you can imagine I'm feeling disappointed. That's not to explain my lack of Video Updates over the past few days, the majority of those were due to prepping and planning for the LUG Con games run over the weekend. (If you haven't had a chance to check them out yet, you can find them on the BRG YouTube page.) As for this morning, I have to admit that I was sitting at my desk ready to fire off another recording session, but didn't have the want or will to do it. It is a bit frustrating to see something you've planned on for close to two years come to a halt.

And then I remind myself that this is not the only way to publish. Killshot came to be its current inception because of Kickstarter, yes, but that is not the only way it would be possible. The same goes for Reloaded - it does not need a Kickstarter to become a reality, but the current version did depend on it to make the process simpler and less risky. With signs and indications this is not going to happen, barring an incredibly generous benefactor, I've begun to think about a Plan B approach. Then a Plan C.

When I first started to get last year's project ready and posted, I was given an ominous warning. "Not all project make their goal, but that doesn't mean they fail." I've been keeping that sagedom to heart over the past few days as I've begun to stand back and study the black box. What I've been coming up with has grown beyond the mere reach of this particular project, but to the very heart of how I've been conducting business.

Is it possible I'm trying to hard to reach for something that's beyond my grasp at the moment?

By that, I mean the concept of publishing a 250-page volume designed to create a campaign and indulge the gaming pleasures of countless others the world over. Am I asking too much of myself and the few regulars aware of my work? It's a question that goes beyond Killshot and it's something I'm quite seriously considering. Is it possible that I need to try something a bit "smaller?"

In this context, smaller does not mean less. It means slighter in scale. Rather than publish an entire core rulebook for a new system, should I be focussing on single adventures and supplements? Right away, the knee-jerk reaction is to work on open licensed material from other publishers and designers, but that's not why I created BRG, no sir. The Ruler is for completely original material, particularly in game mechanics, so that's forbidden. Now the question becomes "How do I publish 'smaller' products without playing in someone else's puddle?"

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true question. 

The Waiting Game

I am the Warden!!

Running a Kickstarter is exactly as my friend and fellow game designer, Jason Pitre, once said (and I'm paraphrasing here). "It's like going to a month long convention. You meet lots of great people, talk about games, but when it's all over, you just want to crash." Yep.

The Killshot Reloaded Kickstarter currently teeters precariously on a thin ledge. With the thirteenth day coming to a close, it's currently $58 behind schedule (we need to bring in at least $100 a day to make our minimum goal of $3000) and my nerves are twitching like there's an electrical current running through my body. What started off as a rewarding and encouraging launch (over $600 on the first day), the running total's only climbed by roughly $800 in the twelve days since and that math does not bode well for this project.

Add to that a couple of problems/ego crushers to add more current to the voltage that is my nerves and it's a wonder I haven't started chain smoking again. (In my defence, I have been smoking irregularly, so maybe it's safe to say the pressure's taken a slight toll on my willpower.) On Sunday, during an update to the Kickstarter, I found out that the domain name for BRG was no longer valid and when I started looking into it, my password was no longer working. That lead to a panic and after an hour of scrambling to figure out what was going on, I learned there's a cost to having web problems on a Sunday. No one's around to solve the problem. At this moment, I still have no clue why the renewal didn't go through because I set it up with Google directly. There are no people working at Google, only codes and lines of programming and they don't speak human. With all my advertising spouting the website "brokenrulergames.com" and that very domain name connecting potential backers to a lovely picture of a young, blond student next to a list of alternate possibilities, the timing is the very definition of poor.

And not but an hour ago, I found out my work on another unrelated project has been replaced by someone else's efforts after reading about it on a public announcement on Facebook. Ouch. I haven't heard a peep out of the project lead, even going so far as to check my spam message looking for anything. There was also a link to the new edit and after watching it, my ego has taken quite a kick in the groin.

But you know what? That's the game, kids. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you can't handle third degree burns, stop putting your hand in the BBQ. For every major defeat, there is a minor victory to improve the odds and make it appear that you're on the right path. For me, it was this link.

You hear me, Kickstarter? There's still 17 days remaining to meet my goal and this project's not dead yet.

The Eh-Team: How One Playtester Played Killshot With His Kids

I am the Warden and this is the Eh-Team!

The who? You know, the Canadian edition of that popular and cheesy action TV series from the 1980s.

I received this email from Brandon Neff, my longtime friend and playtester, who was looking for a way to play Killshot Reloaded... with his kids. What resulted became an homage to the kids' favourite show on Netflix and I couldn't help but share them with everyone. With stats provided by Brandon, I've taken the liberty of transplanting them onto official Killshot Reloaded character records for your group to try out in their next playtest. You can read Brandon's account of how they played the newly provided Dealing Justice job (available to all backers of Killshot Reloaded) with a twist.

The Next Step Begins! The Reloaded Kickstarter Is Live!!

I am the Warden and this is my Kickstarter!!

That's right, Killshot Reloaded is up and running and already sits at 20% of its goal ($3000). The past eighteen hours have been a whirlwind of relief and reward and there's still 29 days remaining on this bad boy. According to Kicktraq, the project is due to hit 318% of its goal (just over $9500), which would allow me to not only publish Killshot Reloaded, but include a special appendix for ninja magic in the Way of the Killshot theme, support Killshot Files for another year, publish a 64-page supplement for one of the themes, provide a job for each of the five themes, yet fall just short of the Savage Worlds edition of Killshot.

Add to that this absolutely glowing review of Killshot: The Director's Cut from Megan Robertson at DriveThruRPG and it may be safe to say this project is going to meet, exceed, and obliterate expectations.

Wow.

Wow.

So the pressure is on, folks. Check out the Kickstarter video below and feel free to start clicking away. Make your vote for the Stand Alone Theme stretch goal (see Bonus Objectives for details) and let's reloaded this game.

Overwhelming Odds

I am a very sorry Warden.

To anyone who attended CanGames over the weekend and planned on checking out Killshot, I want to offer my sincere apology for canceling at the last hour and bailing on the con. Which brings us to today's topic. 

For the past couple of years, I've been mentioning some of the difficulties inflicted by the accident, but never went into details or hid behind the ongoing legal action to avoid getting into details. I think it was a way for me to avoid confronting these disabilities directly or admitting to weaknesses that have turned out to be a larger obstacle than I had anticipated. Or maybe I thought it would clear itself up in time and things would return to normal. Unfortunately, I have to admit none of those are the case and if I want to make this work, honesty is better than vague messages and there's still a chance this could happen again. 

Here goes. 

Why Facts Don't Have Time for Traditional Print

I am the Warden!!

In my previous life, I worked in print media, an industry that has been struggling to sustain itself in the face of growing technology. While I'm of the belief that traditional print will always exist to one degree or another, it's very hard to make my case when the industry itself is constantly shooting itself in the foot. Having worked on the inside, I've seen the panicked reaction of employers and managers determined that if they simply hold on for a while until this "trend" blows over and it's the wrong reaction.

However, that's not the only issue anymore. On Monday, there was massive panic and public reaction to the report that a 10-year old girl was almost abducted in broad daylight in the middle of town. A description was announced on the radio and local police were scouring the area looking for this individual. On Tuesday, it was announced the suspect was not real and the girl made it up to cover for the fact that it was bullies at school beating her up.

I'd like to show you Thursday's edition of the local paper.

Learning From Failure (AKA Not the End of Wildpath)

I am the Warden!!

A winner has been declared in the EN World 7-Day Design Contest and it's Daughters of Lear, a storytelling game placing players in the role of actors putting on a play with, I'm guessing, heavy Shakespearean influences. Asylum didn't even rank within the top 8 of nearly 40 entries and received only 5 votes (or 6, if you count my own vote).

D'oh.

Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets about investing the time in creating Asylum or the Wildpath System behind it. First, there's still a chance Morrus will want to publish it if he found it to his liking and saw potential in it. Second, there's loads of potential for Wildpath. I may have sold the rights to Asylum, but a system is not bound by such rules and there's no mention of it being called Wildpath in the submitted text.

If you haven't had a chance to take a look for yourself, it's available through this link now that the contest is over. Let me know what you think, what works, and what doesn't.