The Dragon Heresy Introductory Set is a fully playable game, covering character creation, adventuring, combat, gear, and challenges. In the book you will find: * Norse-inspired culture, cosmology, and mythology * Deadly and tactically interesting combat * Rules and options to bring viking-style martial combat to the Fifth Edition of the world's most popular Fantasy RPG, with both tactical and narrative tools The game and contents are geared toward exciting play in these early levels. The "Introductory Set" get the players and GM acquainted with the new axes of engagement enabled by the new mechanics, and will be supported by future releases.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
When I started to get quotes for printing, especially in color, I didn't really know what I was looking to receive. But I just got a trial "book block" back from the vendor that is likely to be the printer for this Kickstarter unless we hit the $16,000 offset goal and it's amazing.
The book is what is referred to as digital offset, which is a bit more than Print-on-Demand, but much more suitable to low volume runs. They recommended a heavier paper than I was asking for due to the coloring, and so I said "sure."
Then they offered to print me up a trial interior.
The paper is 140gsm silk, which is basically 95# weight.
Check out how impressive the block is at 254 pages:
(Note Dracula Dossier is sewn binding, so it's a better book than what can be done with the above block.)
Following are some indifferent-quality photographs with my camera phone of the interior print quality.
First, the edge, where the chapter markers (currently not spread out) clearly bleed through and will provide a great way to find pages. We may wind up changing colors too, for a better visual reference.
Now a few images of the interior.
So the color print seems well in hand, and is a great "thank you" to all that have pledged at the "sponsor" level (Styðja). In truth, you have a backer to thank, since he suggested upgrading the sponsor level to the color print!
But this book will likely wind up about 1" thick including the covers. I cannot wait to get final layout and content sorting done!
So, three days left, and we're around $11K. Based on the various algorithms, we'll land at $14K, and with a little help the $16K offset goal is within reach.
I'm going to compose and post an update and blog post summarizing where we are, the critical attention and reviews the project has received, podcast roundup, and a few more details.
I'd ask that you guys share it on your social media outlets if you could.
There are eight content chapters, plus chapter nine is "foes," but is really four chapters due to InDesign's struggle to digest quite so much RTF text at one go.
I have received three chapters, and reviewed and approved the first two. My task today will be to review the third. Vince is making larger cuts and revisions at my request, targeting a 9% wordcount reduction over the original manuscript. That ensures a tight presentation, and also helps keep costs and book size under control. Chopping down to the minimum, adding the extra content you guys voted for, and then the indexing and ToC and other "front matter" and "AppendX" pages will push the book back up, and then we'll see where it stands. As noted, the options are 256 or 272 pages.
I note with some satisfaction that Symbaroum is 272 pages.
I've been looking at a whole mess of printing quotes . . . and I simply can't find a way to do what I wanted to do with both the Jarl and Styðja tiers. So unless a few more loose ends get cleaned up with quotes, things will be as they are: B/W books via POD for the Jarls, and digital offset for color. That's going to be a nice book. The company even allowed me to send them a preliminary file to print an interior book block, and will ship it to me, to inspect how it'll look. So in a few days or a week I should have some fun photos.
From here to Saturday night, it's about reach and detail.
Reach because this is a great game, and I think folks will like it. I'm still looking to try and run a few live sessions over the next two weeks, so folks can see what the game is like and pre-order if they are so inspired.
Second, is the Big List of Stuff to do. Including
I'm sure that there's a bit more, but from here out it's about production.
There's actually a long time between now and October, when everything's done. I am drafting/designing a short starter scenario for Dragon Heresy that will help play the game, a micro-setting to explore based on an open-ended relationship map. That basically translates into "free-form play, but with things happening that the PCs can get in the middle of."
In any case, look for the big "share this out" update later. For now, I return to the word mines of editing review!
As of this morning, 60 of 196 eligible voters have filled out the form. Thank you!
Currently, here's the tally:
The next point totals below that are 73 points and it drops rapidly from there.
The above list has more than the 10,000 allotted words I can probably fit, but I wanted to show you the tally.
The feats are fun, but also the most potentially issue-filled part of any rules addition. They have to be carefully considered and balanced, which is fine. I've got a calculator for combat feats that can help things.
The backgrounds, in my limited experience, are a bit like starting equipment. Soon forgotten after play starts. Other folks' experience may vary, of course, and since this game focuses on Level 1-5 play, the characters aren't that far from their backgrounds in the game.
The additional shield rules are fun, and a key component of the game. They enable having bucklers to tower shields, metal reinforcement, and discuss what happens with a magical shield. They are, however, more fiddle. That being said, thus far "more fiddle" is winning the contents, so there's that.
I honestly didn't expect this one to hit the top (at least thus far), but here are the additional rules topics:
So that's where we stand! If projections continue, we'll finish the Kickstarter around $13,000, which is pretty cool. Not "guaranteed offset print run" cool, but pretty cool nonetheless.
As always, a bit of social media boosting helps, and in particular, it would not take many Favorite Local Game Stores to make retail orders to make that print run happen. That's a win for everyone.
I'm still looking at improving the quality of the books. I should be getting quotes in mid-week, but these things are unpredictable.
More news as events warrant.