KickStarter Monte Cook is making ANOTHER RPG on Kickstarter - The Strange

[Infinitron]

Successfully funded at $418,478.

 

[Darth Roxor]

 

[Trash]

Is it actual decline though? Heard good things about this.

 

[Trash]

Is it actual decline though? Heard good things about this.

The Strange is great, basically a Numenera 2.0 with some neat stronghold mechanics. Weird you'd ask after so long tho.

Prolly because I simply don't play pnp but do enjoy to read the occasional sourcebook.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Does this guy really think people are going to give him another chance after Numenera?

What's wrong with Numenera?

The problem with Numenera is that the audiences it was never intended for don't like it.

If a system-heavy game fails to sell, the system is at fault.

If a system-light game fails to sell, the players are at fault for not being able to properly appreciate it.

 

[udm]

Looks like ol' Monte's at it again.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Was Numenera really all that huge of a smash hit?

 

[Charles Eli Cheese]

barf

 

[Luckmann]

Was Numenera really all that huge of a smash hit?

By all accounts, no. It's honestly odd that someone keeps funding these Kickstarters for Monty Cuck Gayms, considering that the interest in the Cypher system games seems to be extremely shallow. None of my regular RPG hangouts discuss it, I hear a ton of trash-talk about it whenever it comes up (honestly more than i'd expect), and there's generally just very little buzz. Even forums dedicated entirely to the games often seem to be pretty much entirely dead.

And still the Kickstarters keep getting funded, and while I can take shits on the games all day, make no mistake; the production values on these books is high. The cost of art is staggering when it comes to these sort of products, yet I don't think anyone could say that it's not top-notch in the Cypher-system books (whether we're talking Numenera, The Strange, The Cypher System Core, or the Gods of the Fall setting). There's also quite a bit of original writing in each book, and I can't complain about the style of anything. And the settings are actually pretty cool, generally speaking. Each scenario/campaign seems to have at least some high-resolution well-drawn maps, too, and I love the fact that even though the offical .pdf:s could've downscaled that shit, they haven't, which isn't just amazingly rare, but absolutely stellar for those of us that enjoy to rip stuff out of books and use it ourselves.

It's simply well-made, high-quality products, which I don't think people should deny, no matter how shit they think that the actual game and it's mechanics are, or other issues, such as accusations of SJW:ness, uninteresting adventures, flat combat, or whatever. Compared to this, Pathfinder books, for example, can go fuck themselves with a rake. They're useless hack-jobs by comparison. I just wish that the Cypher System itself didn't seem objectively terrible.

So while it makes me happy that they get funded, because some of these I enjoy just for the quality of the art and the books themselves, I have no idea who does it. I would never actually pay for entire books just because they look pretty. I mean, look at the A Strange Box Kickstarter. It's literally just a fucking box, and it's over three times it's goal, with 20 days to go. It's not even a reprint of The Strange as a setting for the Cypher Systems Core, no; it's just a fucking boxed set.

 

[Mackerel]

So, all the lonely kids who read and collected tabletop books while not having any friends to play with are now lonely, and full of disposable income, adults who read and collect tabletop books while not having anyone to play with?

 

[Old One]

When I was a kid I had friends to play with, but now my friends and I all have kids and/or careers and no time to play. I still like to check out RPG books sometimes though. There are probably quite a few people like me.

I've never spent money on any of the products under discussion though.

 

[Turjan]

Interesting. I guess Monte found his niche. And I haven't really looked at anything he wrote in a very long time.

I still have his old Arcana Unearthed/Evolved books and Ptolus plus a few more from his d20 days. Lots of good ideas, combined with somewhat wonky mechanics . I never got warm with his writing style, which didn't really make those ideas shine. You basically had to dig the stuff up. Anyway, I should probably have a look some day how his recent stuff holds up.

 

[CptMace]

So Cook is going the Brian Fargo way of building a legal Ponzi crowdfund-scheme to try to get out of the Torment Numenera's system quality put him into ?
Not that it's that difficult really, whenever a p&p rpg is put on a crowdfunding platform, it reaches between 500 and 5000% of its set goal. We gotta save the p&p guyz. Yeah, tomorrow we'll have to save it from the increasing amount of crowdfunded shits that pop every month.