Incline OSR Games - Official thread

[KateMicucci]

How do I get paid $125k to write an adventure module?

 

[Morblot]

I'd contribute to the campaign if the $240k stretch goal was to administratively ensure tieflings never appeared in OSE instead.

I feel the same way about the dragonborn.

 

[Sacibengala]

So the new OSE box set kickstarter is up.

It kinda sucks. While I'm not really into the new booklet covers my real complaint is the stretch goals.

Like other than dragonborn and tiefling what's this nonsense of Beast Master and others being stretch goals? The work was already done for them and released in issue 0 of his zine.

What justification is there that this singular class thats already been released should be a 10k mark stretch goal.

If this is about release the classes out side a kickstarter exclusive than just do some social goal or whatever. Attaching them to a dollar goal feel at best kinda greedy

Gavin Norman said that he was sorry about making KS exclusives and he will never do the same again. The worst part for me is that how this is getting so much money, so fast, and for nothing new?

Everything from this KS we already saw in the last one. The "micro" adventures sounds lame and I don't care about new classes. Especially from 5e.

Anyway, I'm glad that it's successful enough for him to finish Dolmenwood and do the next supplements. Probably Psionics and the Post apocalypse one next.

 

[Morblot]

how this is getting so much money, so fast, and for nothing new?

I can' speak for the others, but I actually was drawn in by the new interior art, Carcass Crawler #2... and the T-shirt. What can I say, the collector in me is too strong.

Still, sure is nice to see a non-5e-related TTRPG getting over $400k on KS in just a few hours.

Psionics

Yes! This would be awesome.

 

[Bara]

Still, sure is nice to see a non-5e-related TTRPG getting over $400k on KS in just a few hours.

A cherry on top to that is comparing it against the Zweihander box set kickstarter.

Like admittedly $50k is nothing to sneeze at but seeing how much OSE made in the first few hours vs Zweihander with only 4 days left in is funding is funny to me.

 

[Bara]

So the production values for this kickstarter Gods of The Forbidden North seems pretty good but has anyone heard of these creators before?

I respect them being upfront with their future plans and that should the KS fail their going to still release anyways.

It should be said here and now, that even if this Kickstarter should fail, Pulp Hummock Press intends to move forward with this project’s scheduled release by the end of this year. This project is a labor of love, not by someone who seeks a mere profit, but from a fellow player who genuinely loves the game. This is as much an homage to those giants of industry that came before us as it is the personal artistic vision of a single person. It has been an honor to work on it.

We are shooting for a backer completion date of August 2023 and a release to the general public by September 2023. This module serves as the flagship for a pulp sword & sorcery campaign setting called The Overlords of Steel, which details the low-magic world of Magis Terra. It is planned for release in 2024.

 

[MiguelSerranoFan]

Will there be any difference mechanic-wise between OSE now and OSE post-Kickstarter?

 

[Morblot]

Will there be any difference mechanic-wise between OSE now and OSE post-Kickstarter?

AFAIK, no, except for the new classes in the Carcass Crawler zine that will also be sold separately.

 

[Bara]

The only thing different text wise is that these will have the most up to date errata fixes. Anything brand new will be in the Zines and sold separately as Morblot said.

 

[Bara]

Well the Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch launched on kickstarter

The micro-prompts on the outer margins to then tie in with what you roll on the tables is actually kinda cool and with Melan praise I went for it.

The tables themselves seem pretty damn good.

Also Prince kinda goes off a bit here but he did confirm he's doing a follow up of the No Artpunk contest.

And of those of you who wish for another No Artpunk contest, I say rejoice! For a contest is in the making. And also a module is in the making.

 

[Melan]

The ToAD is the most consistently useful adventure design aid book since the 1e DMG's appendices. I have been using it for more than a decade now (especially if we count the precursor Adventure Design Deskbook), and it has been a godsend in brainstorming. The only thing that's a bit weaker is wilderness adventure support, but that's in comparison. If you don't own one yet, this is a great investment for any edition of D&D, and several other games which are not D&D.

 

[Sacibengala]

I'm sad that he doesn't estipulate how much the cost of shipment will be for different parts of the world. If he did like Exalted Funeral did for OSE, I'm sure I would back.

 

[Bara]

Tome of adventure design pdfs went out if you did the backer survey. Really good stuff in there wish I bought this before but guess it worked out. Hopefully print copy won't be to long away.

Also progress report for Dolmenwood

Dolmenwood: Progress Report 2022
May 4, 2022 • Gavin Norman • dolmenwood

It's been over a year since the last progress report on Dolmenwood — Necrotic Gnome's fairy tale and folk horror campaign setting — so I thought it was time for an update!

Work on the three big hardcover books is progressing extremely well. In fact, I can now confidently say that the end is in sight. Looking at the work that's been done and what remains to be finalised, here's a high-level progress bar for each of the three books:

• Dolmenwood Player's Book: 114 pages. 95% finished.
• Dolmenwood Campaign Book: 400 pages. 75% finished.
• Dolmenwood Monster Book: 96 pages. 50% finished.

(That makes for an overall 73.33% progress.)

A Detailed Look at Each Book
The Dolmenwood Player's Book
As the first book that I seriously started work on, this book has been more or less finished for a long time. Here's what's in the book:

• 10 pages of introductory material, including a player's gazetteer, a player's overview of Dolmenwood, and some rumours and folklore.
• 14 pages of info (including loads of flavourful tables) on the sentient races of Dolmenwood
• 8 new character classes, along with guidelines for using standard Old-School Essentials classes in Dolmenwood.
• Rules for creating characters with separate race and class.
• 12 pages on magic in Dolmenwood, including rules for fairy glamours, elf runes, and moss dwarf knacks.
• 16 pages on equipment in Dolmenwood, including trinkets, quick start equipment tables, new adventuring gear, useful herbs and fungi, beverages, lodgings, hounds, and pipeweeds.
• Appendices with rules for exploring the wilds, details on the calendar and climate of Dolmenwood, optional rules for moon signs, and an overview of the noble houses and saints of Dolmenwood.

Status (95%): Everything apart from a page or two of the introductory material is complete.

The Dolmenwood Campaign Book
This book is the heart and centrepiece of the campaign setting. It's around 4 times longer than the Player's Book or the Monster Book. (400 pages vs 100-odd pages in the other two.) Most of my work over the last year has been on this book. Here's what's in it:

• 34 pages of introductory and setting background information, including a referee's gazetteer, an overview of the history of Dolmenwood, details on the ley lines and standing stones, an overview of the parallel realm of Fairy, its rulers, and how to get there, and a listing of the ancient Wood Gods once venerated in Dolmenwood.
• 4-6 page write-ups of each of the 7 major factions, including detailed descriptions and portraits of the most important NPCs in each faction (23 NPCs total).
• 4-8 page write-ups of 12 settlements and the important NPCs that dwell in them, each accompanied by night and day encounter tables and a beautiful map by Arlin Ortiz. The Castle Brackenwold write-up, for example, covers 21 numbered locations in the city, comes in at 8 pages, and includes descriptions of 7 additional NPCs.
• 12 pages of additional rules and tables fleshing out the procedures for exploring the forest, weather, fishing, foraging, hunting, and camping in the wilds.
• 200 pages of fantastic locations throughout the Wood — one page for each of the 200 hexes on the campaign map.
• Appendices with rumours, new spells, and magical herbs and fungi.

Status (75%): All introductory material apart from a page or two is complete, 11 / 12 settlements complete, factions complete, exploration rules complete, 115 / 200 hexes complete, appendices being fleshed out as work on hexes continues.

The Dolmenwood Monster Book
As the third book in the set, this book has seen less work so far and will be the last to be completed. Luckily, it's by far the least involved, as write-ups of most of the monsters already exist in an older format and just need to be revised and finalised. Here's what's in the book:

• 10 pages of introductory material, including information on the types of normal humans that one might meet in Dolmenwood, a Dolmenwood-specific NPC adventuring party generator (including quests), and a list of standard Old-School Essentials monsters recommended for use in Dolmenwood.
• 62 new monsters, each with a colour illustration and tables of example traits, encounters, and lairs.
• Appendices with tables of trade goods and handy lists of monsters by Hit Dice and by type.

Status (50%): The introductory material and appendices are about half finished, 36 / 62 monsters complete, all monster illustrations complete.

Want to Follow the Development?
We run a Patreon where backers can support the ongoing development of Dolmenwood and get access to the in-development books. That's over 400 pages of material at the time of writing!

Patrons at the €2 ($2.50) tier receive monthly PDFs of freshly written sections of the books, while patrons at the €5 ($6.50) tier also get access to the complete PDFs of the books as they stand (as described above).

Join here: patreon.com/necroticgnome

When Will It Be Complete?
The 1,000,000gp question! In the recent past, the answer to that question has been "when it's ready". The scope of the project is so large that I didn't want to give estimates that might then turn out to be totally misleading. Better not to give an estimate at all.

Now that the end is in sight, however, I feel ready to give an estimate: the Kickstarter for the Dolmenwood Campaign Setting will probably be around 1st quarter 2023. Some notes on that:

• It's still an estimate. We've not started seriously planning the Dolmenwood Kickstarter, so won't announce an actual date until much closer to the time. The date will depend on a lot of factors, including the schedules of lots of other people who'll be involved.
• I feel confident that the books will be finished (or very nearly so) by that time, though.
• When I say "finished", I'm talking about writing and layout. There will most likely still be some artwork remaining to be done.

A Few Notes On Wormskin
People who have followed the development of Dolmenwood for a long time are probably familiar with the Wormskin zine. The 8 issues of the zine (published Dec 2015 to Feb 2018) were the first exploration of Dolmenwood, with a series of piecemeal articles describing some scattered bits and pieces of the Wood. A couple of notes on that:

• As almost everything from the zine issues will be featured in the full campaign setting books (in a revised and updated format), the zine issues are now considered legacy products.
• As such, they will be removed from sale at some point. (It'd be very confusing to have the old, outdated version of the material available alongside the shiny, finalised campaign setting books!) We'll give some advance warning when the end of Wormskin is imminent.
• If you want to get into Dolmenwood right now, by far your best bet is to support our Patreon. For €5 ($6.50) you'll get access to over 400 pages of material — more than enough to start running a Dolmenwood campaign right now!

 

[Bara]

Ah so Goodman Games is finally reincarnating a Original Adventure to a non-5e system.

However, three books and $100 if you buy physical. $50 for the pdf...

Along with the Fantasy Grounds version being charged as a separate item for $50 also or you could buy the "platform neutral" VTT maps and tokens for $25 as a separate add-on.

Like I promised myself never to pirate anything OSR related and support good content but damn does that chip at that.

But at least it'll be nice to have a fleshed out megadungeon for DCC.

 

[Melan]

Dark Tower is top-tier AD&D, one of the greatest, if not the greatest modules. High-stakes dungeoneering in an interconnected and varied environment (the two great towers of Law and Chaos, buried under the mountains, and excavated by the agents of the two sides), charismatic villains, and a lot of imagination. It is also a death-fest to put character abilities and player skill to the test. It becomes very deadly very soon, and getting through it intact is a definite accomplishment.

However, this edition seems like a major case of bloat. The original Dark Tower is a 72-page book, massive by the standards of the time (when 16-24 page modules were common), but definitely not the size of the brick shown above. The original had fairly large type, so with all the extra art, some editing and padding, and a breezier layout, it wouldn't make more than a 120-pager. What's the rest for?

 

[Bara]

First book is full reprint of the original module along with a bunch of essays and introduction material about the adventure.

Second book is the conversion with expanded material such as another mini dungeon, npcs, pregen pcs, and more wilderness encounters.

Along with adding patrons and dcc specific stuff at least for that version.

Book three is three brand new adventures to continue the adventure.

And that's not including the stretch goals...

So yeah likely a lot of bloat unless all the expanded contents good.

 

[Bara]

OSR June jam on itch.io.

Tells everyone to have mutual respect and no hate. Then proceedes to list a bunch of people they consider nazis or anyone that associates them can fuck off.

I've never really looked into these people their talking about but assuming they are as horrible as others say I don't get the need to even publically bring them up like this. I'd rather forget about the existence of bad people, if they are such, and have a good time then have to hear about them.

Its like how people making anything magic school related lately have been including rants against jk Rowling. Like great your inclusive and all but do how about more descriptions about your product rather than these tirades. I want a good time not this.

But anyhow maybe we'll get something cool out this. The real question I have is the heck is "After School Rennesance" mentioned on that page. Is this one person's really dumb label or are there people out there really calling their stuff ASR.

 

[Sacibengala]

OSR June jam on itch.io.

Tells everyone to have mutual respect and no hate. Then proceedes to list a bunch of people they consider nazis or anyone that associates them can fuck off.

I've never really looked into these people their talking about but assuming they are as horrible as others say I don't get the need to even publically bring them up like this. I'd rather forget about the existence of bad people, if they are such, and have a good time then have to hear about them.

Its like how people making anything magic school related lately have been including rants against jk Rowling. Like great your inclusive and all but do how about more descriptions about your product rather than these tirades. I want a good time not this.

But anyhow maybe we'll get something cool out this. The real question I have is the heck is "After School Rennesance" mentioned on that page. Is this one person's really dumb label or are there people out there really calling their stuff ASR.

If I remember correctly, Monkey Paw games were the prominent one talking crap about "Wight Power" by lotfp a time ago. They even got to the author's instagram to bait him into the fake hate. They weren't successful, though. So, makes sense they're using that "fuck nazi" slogan.

 

[Bara]

Ah so this isn't a new history for them.

Well for something thats less my gripes about the world and actually usefull. Matt Finch gives folks a heads up how the charge shipping later for backerkit works as he was under a misconception. I do appreciate the transparency from him.

UPDATE #11
BackerKit Part 3: Conclusions and Recommendations

This update is about physical books and the BackerKit beta program we’re using for charging shipping later. Backers who are only ordering pdfs aren’t affected by anything in this update.

Issue

As you might know from previous updates, the issue at hand is that BackerKit’s “Charge Shipping Later” program asks for credit card information and treats that as an authorization to charge the card once the shipping fee is determined. They send a notice of the amount before charging the card, but unless the backer contacts backer support within that time frame, the card is charged. This was not how we understood the program to work (details about how that happened are in earlier updates).

Summary

1) With reservations, we’re going to stick with BackerKit unless something further happens. This is based on our analysis that the risk can be adequately contained (see below), weighed against the considerable difficulty and possible new problems involved in switching fulfillment methods mid-stream. It’s important to keep in mind that if shipping prices don’t rise dramatically, this is basically a non-issue in financial terms.

2) We are, however, going to continue to request from BackerKit that when the time comes, our backers are asked to approve the charge for shipping based on the amount. There is a “back door” way of achieving this already, which we’ll discuss, but we would prefer to have it work as part of the process.

3) As a matter of helping to improve the marketplace for gaming products via Kickstarter, we are going to advise BackerKit that the design of this entire program is much less attractive to backers than they seem to believe. Organizing the program the way we thought it was organized (i.e., with something like a “second survey” at shipping time) should be considered by BackerKit as a better way of setting up their “Charge Shipping Later” program. At some point, this program as it’s currently organized is going to
to encounter the perfect storm of circumstances, and the alternative method is far more likely to weather that storm.

4) At the end of this update, we have some guidelines for different groups of backers to manage your concerns about the way BackerKit will charge cards.

Analysis

We spent most of yesterday talking with people at BackerKit, and also reviewing various options up to and including switching from BackerKit to a different fulfillment/payment system. Fulfillment on a large Kickstarter is an integrated process. As one example, the fulfillment warehouses we’re using in the UK and the USA were selected in part because they have a lot of experience using BackerKit’s data-output to produce an accurately packed box with a correct shipping label on it. The sheer quantity of data involved in a Kickstarter with thousands of backers makes it difficult to switch from one overall fulfillment method to another. So, we decided early in the process yesterday that trying to “fire” BackerKit would be a last resort, to be employed only if we decided that the potential risk to backers was very high. Having made that decision we reviewed what we know from emails and documentation, to understand what risks backers might face, and when those risks would occur.

First of all, if shipping rates don’t increase tremendously between now and roughly November, this is a complete non-issue other than potentially as a matter of principle. Backers expect to pay for shipping; backers of this Kickstarter have even accepted that the shipping may be higher than it was when they pledged. The problem only arises if there is such a large increase in shipping prices that people would legitimately decide to abandon a pledge rather than pay the additional shipping amount. At this point in time, we still see this as possible, but not as probable. We launched this Kickstarter in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when the risks and results of that invasion were unknown. Now it appears that inflation is roughly topping out and becoming a known quantity, and oil supply (which is probably the largest risk for shipping costs) is adapting to the dislocations in production and transportation. Our projection is that while BackerKit shouldn’t organize their program this way, we’re not likely to encounter the scenario where it’s a problem.

Also, specifically for backers in the USA, since this is media-mail eligible and the book is printed in the USA, the risk is quite limited since media mail is inexpensive (relative to priority mail) in the first place. Even a large jump in percentage rates wouldn’t lead to much additional cost in dollar terms, relatively speaking.

Moving Forward

The Existing Back Door: Once we ascertain the shipping rates, BackerKit will contact you via email to give you that information, and you will have 48 hours (as it’s currently set) to contact BackerKit support if the shipping rate is so high that it causes an alarm bell to ring. Here is a quote from a BackerKit email to us yesterday describing this process:

“The only difference with our process for the beta feature in order to streamline the backend is that we charge cards after 48 hours since the email notification with total due amount for shipping is sent to each backer. We have found that 48 hours is a reasonable amount of time to give backers a heads-up and opportunity to reach out to our Backer Support if they need order adjustments. But if you feel strongly about waiting 3, 4, 5 days after the email to charge cards, then I can ask for an exception but I can't promise anything until I talk to the product manager who's leading this effort. The actual action of charging cards for the 2nd time for shipping fee is a staff only feature at this moment.”

We need to clarify with BackerKit what “order adjustment” means, but it appears that this is the way to veto a charge to the credit card. It’s not optimal, because it requires seeing and responding to the email, but it’s better than nothing. As noted above, we’re going to request that a form of active approval is required, but we don’t know if we’ll be able to get BackerKit to agree to that. However, once we hit this point (shipping prices known), we, meaning Mythmere Games, will also be doing updates and informing backers that this email from BackerKit is on the way, plus we’ll know at that point whether the shipping prices are likely to be a problem for people or not. If they are only 5% higher than they are now, it won’t be an issue, but it they are 50% higher we’ll absolutely know that lots of backers may need to opt out.

What to do

If you are a PDF-only backer: no action needed

If you are in the USA and have given BackerKit your credit card details: since your financial exposure is limited, this being printed in the USA and planned to ship as media mail, this might not be an issue for you, in which case, no action needed. If you are on a tight budget or if you object in principle to the way the program works, we suggest that you contact BackerKit’s support team (support@backerkit.com) and ask how to ensure that your card is not charged without your permission. The first answer is likely to resemble the quote above, but if lots of people ask the question, BackerKit will begin to focus on it more.

If you are in the USA and have NOT given BackerKit your credit card details: it’s still worth deciding whether this is even an issue for you. If it is, you have an additional option, which is to ignore BackerKit’s requests for the credit card information until you receive the notification of the shipping charge, at which point you can decide whether to give them the information or not. This is likely to entail numerous "reminders" from BackerKit that you haven’t given them the CC information yet, which is why we suggest deciding whether you actually care about it.

If you are not in the USA: The options are the same for non-USA backers, but the difference is that international shipping charges are more likely to increase than the shipping charges entirely within one country. If you have not given BackerKit your CC information, you can wait to do so, as described above for the Americans. If you have already given BackerKit your CC information, you can contact their support team (support@backerkit.com) and ask how to protect yourself against an unexpectedly large charge.

Conclusion

We are going to continue to lobby BackerKit to either offer us an exception (create an opt-out) or, preferably, change the procedural flow of the entire beta program in a way that requires backers to affirmatively approve a shipping charge rather than requiring action to prevent it. They have not encountered many complaints about this program in the past, which we think is probably because (a) people didn’t know it was functioning in this way, and (b) the “perfect storm” that will cause a problem hasn’t happened to a Kickstarter yet. When it does, the problem in the system will become visible. On the other hand, there are almost certainly factors involved that we don’t know about: credit card laws, costs of processing credit cards, and balances of the interests of the Kickstarter campaign versus the interests of the individual backers. We don’t think BackerKit is being deceptive here: as mentioned before, they are trying to meet the needs of Kickstarter campaigns in the best way possible. We just think that they have selected a model for “Charge Shipping Later” that is at some point going to encounter just the wrong set of circumstances, with bad results.

 

[Sacibengala]

Ah so this isn't a new history for them.

Well for something thats less my gripes about the world and actually usefull. Matt Finch gives folks a heads up how the charge shipping later for backerkit works as he was under a misconception. I do appreciate the transparency from him.

UPDATE #11
BackerKit Part 3: Conclusions and Recommendations

This update is about physical books and the BackerKit beta program we’re using for charging shipping later. Backers who are only ordering pdfs aren’t affected by anything in this update.

Issue

As you might know from previous updates, the issue at hand is that BackerKit’s “Charge Shipping Later” program asks for credit card information and treats that as an authorization to charge the card once the shipping fee is determined. They send a notice of the amount before charging the card, but unless the backer contacts backer support within that time frame, the card is charged. This was not how we understood the program to work (details about how that happened are in earlier updates).

Summary

1) With reservations, we’re going to stick with BackerKit unless something further happens. This is based on our analysis that the risk can be adequately contained (see below), weighed against the considerable difficulty and possible new problems involved in switching fulfillment methods mid-stream. It’s important to keep in mind that if shipping prices don’t rise dramatically, this is basically a non-issue in financial terms.

2) We are, however, going to continue to request from BackerKit that when the time comes, our backers are asked to approve the charge for shipping based on the amount. There is a “back door” way of achieving this already, which we’ll discuss, but we would prefer to have it work as part of the process.

3) As a matter of helping to improve the marketplace for gaming products via Kickstarter, we are going to advise BackerKit that the design of this entire program is much less attractive to backers than they seem to believe. Organizing the program the way we thought it was organized (i.e., with something like a “second survey” at shipping time) should be considered by BackerKit as a better way of setting up their “Charge Shipping Later” program. At some point, this program as it’s currently organized is going to
to encounter the perfect storm of circumstances, and the alternative method is far more likely to weather that storm.

4) At the end of this update, we have some guidelines for different groups of backers to manage your concerns about the way BackerKit will charge cards.

Analysis

We spent most of yesterday talking with people at BackerKit, and also reviewing various options up to and including switching from BackerKit to a different fulfillment/payment system. Fulfillment on a large Kickstarter is an integrated process. As one example, the fulfillment warehouses we’re using in the UK and the USA were selected in part because they have a lot of experience using BackerKit’s data-output to produce an accurately packed box with a correct shipping label on it. The sheer quantity of data involved in a Kickstarter with thousands of backers makes it difficult to switch from one overall fulfillment method to another. So, we decided early in the process yesterday that trying to “fire” BackerKit would be a last resort, to be employed only if we decided that the potential risk to backers was very high. Having made that decision we reviewed what we know from emails and documentation, to understand what risks backers might face, and when those risks would occur.

First of all, if shipping rates don’t increase tremendously between now and roughly November, this is a complete non-issue other than potentially as a matter of principle. Backers expect to pay for shipping; backers of this Kickstarter have even accepted that the shipping may be higher than it was when they pledged. The problem only arises if there is such a large increase in shipping prices that people would legitimately decide to abandon a pledge rather than pay the additional shipping amount. At this point in time, we still see this as possible, but not as probable. We launched this Kickstarter in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when the risks and results of that invasion were unknown. Now it appears that inflation is roughly topping out and becoming a known quantity, and oil supply (which is probably the largest risk for shipping costs) is adapting to the dislocations in production and transportation. Our projection is that while BackerKit shouldn’t organize their program this way, we’re not likely to encounter the scenario where it’s a problem.

Also, specifically for backers in the USA, since this is media-mail eligible and the book is printed in the USA, the risk is quite limited since media mail is inexpensive (relative to priority mail) in the first place. Even a large jump in percentage rates wouldn’t lead to much additional cost in dollar terms, relatively speaking.

Moving Forward

The Existing Back Door: Once we ascertain the shipping rates, BackerKit will contact you via email to give you that information, and you will have 48 hours (as it’s currently set) to contact BackerKit support if the shipping rate is so high that it causes an alarm bell to ring. Here is a quote from a BackerKit email to us yesterday describing this process:

“The only difference with our process for the beta feature in order to streamline the backend is that we charge cards after 48 hours since the email notification with total due amount for shipping is sent to each backer. We have found that 48 hours is a reasonable amount of time to give backers a heads-up and opportunity to reach out to our Backer Support if they need order adjustments. But if you feel strongly about waiting 3, 4, 5 days after the email to charge cards, then I can ask for an exception but I can't promise anything until I talk to the product manager who's leading this effort. The actual action of charging cards for the 2nd time for shipping fee is a staff only feature at this moment.”

We need to clarify with BackerKit what “order adjustment” means, but it appears that this is the way to veto a charge to the credit card. It’s not optimal, because it requires seeing and responding to the email, but it’s better than nothing. As noted above, we’re going to request that a form of active approval is required, but we don’t know if we’ll be able to get BackerKit to agree to that. However, once we hit this point (shipping prices known), we, meaning Mythmere Games, will also be doing updates and informing backers that this email from BackerKit is on the way, plus we’ll know at that point whether the shipping prices are likely to be a problem for people or not. If they are only 5% higher than they are now, it won’t be an issue, but it they are 50% higher we’ll absolutely know that lots of backers may need to opt out.

What to do

If you are a PDF-only backer: no action needed

If you are in the USA and have given BackerKit your credit card details: since your financial exposure is limited, this being printed in the USA and planned to ship as media mail, this might not be an issue for you, in which case, no action needed. If you are on a tight budget or if you object in principle to the way the program works, we suggest that you contact BackerKit’s support team (support@backerkit.com) and ask how to ensure that your card is not charged without your permission. The first answer is likely to resemble the quote above, but if lots of people ask the question, BackerKit will begin to focus on it more.

If you are in the USA and have NOT given BackerKit your credit card details: it’s still worth deciding whether this is even an issue for you. If it is, you have an additional option, which is to ignore BackerKit’s requests for the credit card information until you receive the notification of the shipping charge, at which point you can decide whether to give them the information or not. This is likely to entail numerous "reminders" from BackerKit that you haven’t given them the CC information yet, which is why we suggest deciding whether you actually care about it.

If you are not in the USA: The options are the same for non-USA backers, but the difference is that international shipping charges are more likely to increase than the shipping charges entirely within one country. If you have not given BackerKit your CC information, you can wait to do so, as described above for the Americans. If you have already given BackerKit your CC information, you can contact their support team (support@backerkit.com) and ask how to protect yourself against an unexpectedly large charge.

Conclusion

We are going to continue to lobby BackerKit to either offer us an exception (create an opt-out) or, preferably, change the procedural flow of the entire beta program in a way that requires backers to affirmatively approve a shipping charge rather than requiring action to prevent it. They have not encountered many complaints about this program in the past, which we think is probably because (a) people didn’t know it was functioning in this way, and (b) the “perfect storm” that will cause a problem hasn’t happened to a Kickstarter yet. When it does, the problem in the system will become visible. On the other hand, there are almost certainly factors involved that we don’t know about: credit card laws, costs of processing credit cards, and balances of the interests of the Kickstarter campaign versus the interests of the individual backers. We don’t think BackerKit is being deceptive here: as mentioned before, they are trying to meet the needs of Kickstarter campaigns in the best way possible. We just think that they have selected a model for “Charge Shipping Later” that is at some point going to encounter just the wrong set of circumstances, with bad results.

I don't know how, but Exalted Funeral handles shipping much better with charging exactly what they said they would in the KS page.

 

[Melan]

OSR June jam on itch.io.

Tells everyone to have mutual respect and no hate. Then proceedes to list a bunch of people they consider nazis or anyone that associates them can fuck off.

I've never really looked into these people their talking about but assuming they are as horrible as others say I don't get the need to even publically bring them up like this. I'd rather forget about the existence of bad people, if they are such, and have a good time then have to hear about them.

Well, anyone these days who writes "Be kind", generally isn't. A s for the named persons:

• RPGPundit: "the Ben Shapiro of the OSR", basically a right-leaning libertarian who has established himself as a facts-and-logic anti-SJW youtuber.
• Venger Satanis: IRL Cthulhu cultist, slime fetishist and all-around libertine, voted Hillary but switched to Trump on issues of free speech. He identifies as a "zaak'ier".
• GrimJim: a very liberal socialist from the UK. He once wrote a blog post "in defence of rape" (as a plot device in games).

These guys are your average 2000s fedora-tipper atheist geeks, but this now makes them "far right" or "white supremacist" or whatever. None of them are even remotely conservative.

The contest's originator is, well,

Monkey's Paw Games is an independent tabletop role-playing game publisher and distributor based out of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Monkey's Paw Games seeks to amplify and celebrate diverse voices and faces in the role-playing games industry. We stand against bigotry in all forms including racism, sexism, transphobia, queerphobia and other forms of harm towards marginalized groups.

I got one of his games, which could be best described as "soy and sorcery". Outright terrible. Here is how it starts:

 

[Sacibengala]

https://bundleofholding.com/present...42Wmoi0uYRk34nEImiXlp7XDcpO6x227TjxkjHuz0Kjbc

50 DCC dungeons from GOODMAN GAMES modules on Bundle of Holding. Anyone knows if there's any good ones in there? I believe it's from 3rd edition era, so It's seems very unlikely.

 

[catfood]

RPGPundit: "the Ben Shapiro of the OSR", basically a right-leaning libertarian who has established himself as a facts-and-logic anti-SJW youtuber.

He is also, in typical libertardian fashion, a massive cuck who likes to virtue signal about having friends with super duper special pronouns, just to show to everyone else that he's so open minded. These retarded boomers will never learn.

 

[Bara]

https://bundleofholding.com/present...42Wmoi0uYRk34nEImiXlp7XDcpO6x227TjxkjHuz0Kjbc

50 DCC dungeons from GOODMAN GAMES modules on Bundle of Holding. Anyone knows if there's any good ones in there? I believe it's from 3rd edition era, so It's seems very unlikely.

Yep its all from 3e days. Some of the lower level ones might work fine in DCC others may be just better off for mining for ideas from.

 

[Melan]

3e-era DCC modules are crummy. The covers and concepts are often very interesting, but the content is weak sauce. There are a few standouts; Aerie of the Crow God and Legacy of the Savage Kings were fine, and there were a few others which were not earth-shattering, but playable with a good GM (which is how I experienced some). They got better with the DCC RPG, but those early ones are generally not good.