FOMO and Board Games... the rabbit hole

The excitement for, the new game, the new KS campaign, the new things the campaign will have, the game funding, then the lull in between you start that WHOLE excitement again.. and its months if not years til the game arrives and you've either been lucky enough to not return, or instead you crave that excitement again.. and again and then a year later the 1st game arrives, but you've backed 12 other games in between.

Then it arrives, you unbox it, you maybe get to play it straight away, and it reinforces the whole chemistry, on par with a new friends a new partner a new job.

Then the 2nd game arrives.. and they compete for your time.. a 3rd and you can't give the love to the 1st like you used to. do you make more time to play games? or do you gauge which one has more fun and sell off the excess.

The interesting part is when you sell the excess, often with KS games, you can still break even with a 2nd hand, this feedback loop, justifies your purchases.. you played the game, you had your fun and you sold it back for what it cost you, or close enough that the price diff is negligible.. you've not spent any money going out this month, because you're home playing games, your bank account is looking healthier.. strangely, so you increase your game budget.

Then, you go a little overboard.. you back a game that you.. maybe, might be interested in.. it looks ok, maybe it'll be up your alley, but hey, who cares if its not, you can sell it and break even.

now you'e getting a new game every fortnight, you crave the high of the next KS campaign.. Oh so high, stretch goals, unlocks, new expansions.. ALL-Ins.. your shelves strain under the weight, you start buying Kallax shelves and maybe even inserts to bling out your game boxes.. you forget that the resale of the game will unlikely include those costs..

You now have enough games, to play twice a day 7 days a week, campaign after campaign for 4 years.. and still your KS account says 20 more games are due to arrive.

you're spending more than you're selling, you've forgotten about life outside of board gaming..

What do you do?

you start a You Tube channel....

Historical Reference to Dungeon World Maps #2

 Facebook, is apparently deleting all the stories.. their attempt at allowing facebook users blog. I honestly don't see why this is an issue. Its a single image and a wall of text. Its a great place to store a blog, that you are comfortable people in your life reading about you, or from you. 

So, in the interests of saving that page, I post it here, and hope that google doesn't ever kill blogger. 

From Facebook, with Love

How this Kickstarter Worked

DUNGEON WORLD MAPS·FRIDAY, 1 MARCH 2019·

Last Year I saw the Make 100 project on Kickstarter,

Lets step back a bit.. Are you a Kickstarter Backer? Or Are you new to the whole Process?

Kickstarter is a platform for people to help fund projects. When it first started it was a fun little website, ask a few hundred people to give you a $1 each so you could so something like, making an album at a studio or buy the paints to draw some art, or print up some books.

The Premise is, to get just enough of the project ready, to show off, to get interest, to see if people would buy your product or project, to invest in you. Some fail because they didn’t put enough time into their kickstarter project, Some, even after funding fail, because they didn’t put in enough time to structure their project and funds, so they fell short in funding.. Some, fail because they succeeded too well, the overwhelming response meant they needed to quit jobs or take holidays to fulfill the demands, often spending more money than they raised.

But, Once a Kickstarter works, the creator, kick-starts his new life, creating that product, getting it out to the backers, and setting up their new business.. they’ve raised awareness of their brand, money for their project and advertising for the next one.

If they did it well, they might not need kickstarter for a 2nd time, but, kickstarter, the site, is a place where people are searching for interesting projects to invest in. just because one project garnered 1,000 backers, doesn’t mean they’ll all back your next one, nor should you deny your next project to the millions of backers on KS that might be interested in your next.

So What About me? What About THIS project

I’m a slow burning wildfire, I gather the knowledge and resources, then go full force with overwhelming odds, to guarantee success. So while I have several projects in the forge, I want to ensure that the timing is right and I have the right tools to make it not just a little successful, but a lot.

So I needed a project to learn kickstarter, understand its buttons, its systems and how to run a campaign. but I didn’t want a runaway success, or excessive costs such as shipping and printing, so it needed to be digital, or very small.

So, When I saw the Make 100 last year, I started thinking about some potential ideas.

Make 100 is a way for kickstarter to get back to its roots, small projects for small numbers of people, like they did when they first started. not this mega million dollar deals, which dwarfs the new project creators and makes kickstarter feel like its not possible..

Make 100 is only for January, Start a new project in the Start of the year

So, I had a think about it.. a deck of cards, 100 cards, or 100 characters, 100 something.

I backed a project in the year, about Taverns. Everyone got to write up their Tavern and add it to a book. It suffered several problems, but eventually got made, but the response of people interested to add ‘their tavern’ to a potential set of taverns in other peoples roleplay worlds is what sparked this mapping idea.

Taverns are words.. and so you have to take the time to read them. But Images are instant..

I have drawn now 30 large maps. like 50cm x 30cm sized or bigger. I have maybe a few hundred smaller maps scattered through several notebooks for my roleplay world, some zoomed in to 1cm:1m, others scaled out to 1cm:1000km (and its still a A3 sized page). I started Commissioning maps 3 years ago, with the website called Simbi, Swamp goods or services that can be done electronically for Simbi and buy with Simbi.. no cash, no tax.

Games-masters and Authors wanted maps, so I drew them. Post Apocalyptic Idaho, A few Game Worlds, some game Cities, a continent or two, and a world for bugs, in a gem of a game where you roleplay as bug adventurers.

So it was obvious.. I’d draw 100 maps!

What? No.. impossible.. I have 2 kids, professionally games-master 2 nights a week and a full time job.. 100 maps would take 50 years..

I’d draw maps, with 100 “Things” in it.

So, Jan rolls around and I created a Kickstarter Page, draw up some headings and sketches of what I intend to do, and tell all my friends.

What I didn’t expect was to be as successful as I was.

I set the goal for $250, because I figured getting halfway was enough to draw a map, just a little smaller. My expectation was 50 people at $4 for a ‘location’ and 25 people who just want a copy of the map for $2.. I did it for 15 days, thinking I’d probably hit 25% in day 1, 50% more over 10 days, then push for the last 25% and maybe even 50% more for stretch goals in the last 48 hours.. which seemed reasonable.

Getting to 100% in 16 hours was.. surprising.. that’s for sure..

By the end of day 1, over 70 ‘locations’ were snapped up.. the last 30 would go in the next 24 hours, I hadn’t even started to exhaust my list.

Kickstarter is built on a computer, with algorithms, that look at certain factors, such as popularity, new to KS backers and the like, and they ‘promote’ your page if you meet criteria. One of which is regular visits and backings from new people.

I had figured that I’d tell 50% of people I knew day 1, and then 10% of people day 2, day 3, etc etc, so I’d maintain a regular flow of inbound traffic.

Now, I had more traffic to come, but no product to sell.. ack.. what to do.

So, I asked the current backers, asked friends, other kickstarter groups I participate in, would it be such a horrible idea to add a “mini” location after the fact. Its not as expensive as the full location, but its not a full location either. just some fun Easter eggs to be included.

The Bulk of people said this was a great idea.. So I went ahead and added it.

Day 2 we ran out of the 100 ‘locations’, and backers were starting to take on the ‘Easter eggs’ and just maps, but If I did this over, I think I’d have included it from the start and made the initial 100 a tad more expensive, like $5!

So, for 5 days or so, I rode the excitement of being a successful kickstarter project creator. There were ups and downs, 3 people decided to back out, 3! I was mortified.. but those coveted spots were snapped up in seconds.

I was adding stretch goals, people were increasing their pledges to push for the stretch goals, I began to exhaust my lists, facebook, google+, MeWe, etc. but then I realised.. The more we did, the more work I had to do.. I was at 1 main map and two digital maps, we were about to hit the goal for me to draw a 2nd map, then a 3rd map, people on the forums were encouraging each other to pledge for more map items, pushing towards the elusive $1500 goal for a colour map.. then just as I announced the next stretch goal, someone bought the map.

Maps of this size are expensive if you commission them, thousands of dollars if your going to publish, and the Original? who knows.. so selling them wasn’t likely to be part of my strategy. Yet I felt, if someone saw all the enthusiasm and thought that the actual map would be so awesome to own it. I wasn’t going to deny them. This would mean I’d need to use better materials, wrap it in protective layers each time I put it away and shipping costs would be somewhere around $100 or so. So I put in a price which was high enough to cover costs, but reasonable enough that I’d let it go.

One Backer loved the idea, so he took the map. That meant we hit out goal for a 4th map. I was so shocked, I just chucked up a stretch goal for a darker grittier map, based on the Kingdom Death Monster board game, and within minutes, another map was taken!

5 Full Maps. Original, Redrawn with Voter Theme, Sepia Toned, Colour and KDM versions.

1020% funded!

What a ride. It was exciting, for me, and those backers on the forums chatting with me.

So this Facebook page was made, and now, I’m using my spare time to get everything into the system.

To Save time, I’ve created a program, which takes the data, sorts it and puts it together with some physics (for world building). I’ll leave that for another blog post, but you can see the posts on the topic throughout this page.

But that’s my story.

Hope you enjoyed it. Its only the first step in the adventure of this project, and will consumer most of my 2019.

Welcome to Dungeon World Maps

The Historical Reference of Dungeon Worlds Map #1

Welcome to my blog, you're likely here to read about the first Kickstarter, how it came about, how it grew and the results.

Make-100: Fantasy Locations.

For the Make 100 Challenge I was thinking: I could ask you, as backer, for your ideas to turn into locations, medieval buildings (or.. see below). These I could turn into a map... a massive collaborative city map (and more).

Like I did in 2019..

After a phenomenal 1000%+ success of the First Make 100 Fantasy Locations, I was asked repeatedly to go again, this time we've decided on a city map (maybe with sewers!)

I've been drawing fantasy maps for roleplay games for years now, not just my own. For authors, artists, role-players and games-masters.

For the 2019 Make 100 Challenge I thought If I could get you, the backer, and your ideas to turn into locations. These I could turn into a map... a massive collaborative map.

With 300+ backers and 150+ locations on the first map, It was an awesome project, lots of fun to do, and most importantly, Kickstarter Experience.

It took a little under a year, what with life events and world events along the way, to get the planning done to achieve this:
Lots of little tiles, placed, moved, tweaked, moved again, resulting in this 'plan' map.


On to Drawing, pencil in where it all goes, then draw it in


Almost done, just checking over various backers notes to make sure its all exact

Then, using the plan, I drew out the first Map. I am still a little surprised I drew it, to me the maps are awesome, fantastic, a little over the top, but just right for many styles of roleplay.
Sitting on my largest table, 912mm x 1479mm, the green area is of the picture below


Zoomed into the bottom left corner of the map, almost to scale

For scale,
And in the Image below, that red box


An interesting place, with some very interesting quests.. where will your adventurers go next?

Not only that, but I was able to flex my artistic skills to include some varieties we unlocked from stretch goals, While not 100% complete (awaiting an owner, to draw in their character) I have a Sepia toned copy, a Colour copy, a Redrawn from 100 years on, after a war with undead, and a Cataclystic/Post Apoc/Caveman version based on the popular game Kingdom Death Monster, Set in my own KDM world "Cataclyzm", for my own roleplay system Dungeon-Delvers-Twelve




Well, I was considering doing another of these, for another 100+ people, but, I got thinking.. Hmm, maybe it might get too big (again)? So, first up, I'm going to try something different.. a City Map.

Inspired by city maps such as this:


A map of Moscow, from the 16th century, I've been working on a roleplay map for it.

and this:


This Map is one of many that inspired me.

I thought it would be fun to draw a range of buildings this time.

At the same time, I'm working towards a pet project, my own roleplay system, I have a campaign, set in this town, so its going to add a major theme to the whole city. So I'm going to include the campaign along with the city map.

Healing potions become Healing Poisons

 I'm reading about how, if you eat too many vitamins, you can kill yourself. So in theory, overdosing on Healing potions should be a thing.

When Healing starts to Hurt

The Theory comes from this article on vitamins. If you eat too many, and its the wrong type, you'll do damage, and possibly die. 

Now, not to say that you should be rolling on the poison table every time players take a potion, but.. 

The Thought is this: Players who buy up lots of healing potions, and go into battles, sorta break the flow of the game, not the roleplay, that's another story, but the gaming part of the flow.

Standard games have a cost vs Benefit system, You pay a smaller cost, to gain a slightly better benefit, swapping where the benefit is, maybe you get an axe, its heavier, but it does more damage. then you go up level, it takes time, but you get a strength bonus. Over time, you 'pay' the costs to gain the benefits.

Ignoring 5e DnD long and short rests for the moment, more old school, the players would 'pay' for healing potions, which would allow them to return from a very dangerous situation, almost dying, to a point where they can live long enough to bandage up, return to town, mend their wounds, regroup, possibly researching the bad guy they're about to face, preparing for that battle, and then going out again.

The cost to buy them, would often be restrictive, at 2nd or 3rd level, you'd be lucky to have one in the group, by 5th-6th, everyone would have one, and in times when the game would usually end around 9th-12th, and players would go into negative HP, requiring a few potions to achieve the same effect, the balance was still there.

But then computer games.

You might remember Diablo, now, this huge HP buffer, stacked up with 10s of potions, small medium large, to allocate more and more HP per potion, completely broke this balance. and it bled into roleplay games. Players now expected to complete missions the FIRST time they entered a dungeon. Considering it a fail to need to retreat and regroup. 

I've seen groups, give up on a dungeon, because they got half way and had run out of abilities to continue. They went home, convinced the dungeon was too hard, even blaming me as GM, as if I was in charge of the Half Orcs that constructed this place, and filled it with strategically placed traps, guards and alarms.

no-wonder the youth of today can't follow through with a task. tsk tsk (take the bait, leave a comment)

So, games like DnD, instead of training their players as to the 'right; way of doing things, like good parents, gave into the childish cries of new players and added mechanics, such as partial and full rests, which pretty much take care of the healing potion carts that would accompany mid level players into dungeons.

So, I'm not going back that far, but the thought occurred, as I am mid rules on potions and poisons, that all potions should have decimal places of poison, and if you overdose, you'll trigger poison rolls.

This way, you can allow your players as many potions as they want, as long as they mitigate the numbers, chug down 5 lesser healing and a greater healing, and maybe your severed spinal column will heal too fast and you'll get a limp, or your muscles will cramp and heal too tight, causing pain when you flex.

Then, you've got a quest, for players to need to return to the town, and get proper healing, maybe from shannafria, players didn't leave because they failed. they needed to get rid of this 'curse' before they could defeat the Big Bad Guy.