Gygax Memorial and Swords & Wizardry Kickstarter

The Kickstarter rules don't allow a Kickstarter project to raise money for a charity. We've had a couple of back-and-forth discussions with them about the difference between a charity and a non-profit, etc., etc., so we are making a minor alteration to the way that we donate to the Gygax Memorial based on sales of Swords & Wizardry Rulebooks and Monster Books.

Frog God Games has decided to donate from its own funds a certain amount per rulebook and monster book sold (not only the ones sold on Kickstarter but also those sold through our own website after the Kickstarter program is finished), until December 31, 2012. The amount of the Frog God donation per book is as follows:

1-500 books: $1 per book
501-1,000 books: $1.25 per book
1,001-2500 books: $1.50 per book
2501-5000 books: $1.75 per book
5001- 6000 books: $2 per book
6001+ books: $2.50 per book

We won't know, immediately following the Kickstarter, how much the additional sales will drive the donation higher during the rest of the year, and we also don't know the timing on the Memorial's needs, but if needed we will contribute the "raised so far" amount earlier, and then tally again at the end of the year. We're talking to Gail about it, and we'll get those details worked out.

I'm sure Kickstarter has a good reason for their requirement, and having a Kickstarter even as part of the process will almost certainly lead to a larger dollar amount being donated than we could have done with internally-generated sales. So, I can't really complain.

 One thing I just realized will be a question -- yes, those are retroactive numbers, so if we sell 6001 books, the total donation would be $15,002.50, with $2.50 being donated for each of the whole set.

Kickstarter link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/swords-and-wizardry-the-actual-1st-edition-rolepla

First D&D thing you bought with money you earned?

I was just thinking back to Dragon Magazine #39. I think that it's my favorite issue of Dragon, objectively, but it also happens to be the first D&D purchase I made with money I earned from mowing lawns (as opposed to an allowance for doing chores). What was the first D&D item you bought with earned money (other than allowances)? Do you think that it affected your perception of its quality?

Tougher Books and More Monsters, YES!

Everyone wants indestructible gaming books and lots of monsters. Not only that, but large numbers of people who haven't ever played OD&D or AD&D are buying a copy of Rappan Athuk and want to play it using the original rules. Welcome to all of you grognards-to-be! You'll find that the blogroll over there on the right side of the screen is a good introduction to (and link to many more sites of) the grognard community. We are doing a Kickstarter for Swords & Wizardry that is intended to meet a couple of goals that have been around for a while: (1) A really durable stitched-binding hardcover rulebook. It's scary to shell out the up-front money required for this kind of binding, but on Kickstarter we can largely eliminate that risk. (2) Distribution into Game Stores. Kickstarter money will fund the "rest" of the print run, allowing us not to lose our shirts by putting copies into distribution. This is most likely for the rulebooks only, but possibly the monster books -- that will depend on numbers. (3) The Monster Book, with illustrations. The existing printing of the S&W Monster Book is remarkable for its lack of a wealth of illustrations. We're going to commission tons of monster illustrations. (4) The chance of a Referee Screen. Referee screens require pretty substantial print runs to be cost effective. We think that using a Kickstarter will get us to that level, so this is a good way to try for a Ref Screen. (5) And breaking into the mainstream. Since there is a S&W version of Rappan Athuk, and Rappan Athuk had a huge Kickstart profile, this is a way to leverage all that publicity into an old-school game for the younger, mainstream gamer. (And now I go off to bite my nails in a corner until the project hits minimum funding)... Here is the link, at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/swords-and-wizardry-the-actual-1st-edition-rolepla

Death Spray of the Ancient Ones

Thank you Thrash Geek for this actual laugh-out-loud moment. It's worth clicking to see it larger, so you can read all about what this amazing product does.

Barnes & Noble stretches the truth

Lots of OSR publishers would like to get onto Barnes & Noble ... oddly enough, Rappan Athuk seems to have gotten there without agreeing to be there, on terms that not only weren't authorized ... but wouldn't be approved.

Someone pointed out this link to Rappan Athuk at Barnes & Noble, and it caused a bit of confusion over at Frog God Games, because it is completely and utterly unauthorized. We have no idea why Barnes & Noble is offering the book, since they don't own any and haven't bought any.

The price they are quoting is below the price we would sell the books wholesale, so don't expect that they will honor any orders put through their website. If this turns out to be a third party seller rather than B&N, and we can track who it is, that third party seller will NOT be getting any copies.

In summary, if you hear that you can get a cheaper price at Barnes & Noble, don't expect that B&N will actually come through. This is also technically endangering our agreement with Kickstarter, which is why we are trying to make it absolutely clear to everyone that we have not authorized B&N to sell the books at ALL. Much less at bargain-basement clearance prices.

So unless you're 100% confident in your ability to sue Barnes & Noble to sell you a book when it's at a loss to them, I wouldn't pre-order from them.

EDIT - the only place to get it is from Kickstarter, here.

Wisdom of Guy Fullerton (and Gothridge Manor)

Given all the publishing activity that's begun in response to Kickstarter's insane ability to gobble in money for its clients, Guy Fullerton has posted an absolutely fantastic set of guidelines for the prospective module-publisher. He also references an earlier set of posts on the specific topic of editing that were done at Gothridge Manor.

Here is the link to Guy's first installment.

Here is a link to the Gothridge Manor series, but I recommend going here from within Guy's posts where the link appears.

Rappan Athuk Kickstarts Now

Frog God Games and Necromancer Games are announcing that the Rappan Athuk megadungeon will be sold through Kickstarter rather than by doing the pre-orders through Frog God Games as originally planned.

This is the Kickstarter page!

Yes, at $25K this is a really ambitious Kickstarter goal, but the fact of the matter is that it's a really big project to do a 700 page hardcover book with a separate map booklet, etc., etc.

Although Kickstarter does charge a fee, using the Kickstarter model allows us to pull in bonus goals and do other things that would be difficult if not using Kickstarter -- they've done all the website-programming already. Plus, I expect that the Kickstarter name will increase sales, although I'm not sure it's by 5% (not for an already well-known company like Necromancer or Frog God).

But if Steve Jackson thinks it's the right thing to do ... you don't argue with the OGRE.

I just got a phone call from Bill that in the first 10 minutes after launch we got a $3,000 backer. I haven't even finished this blog post yet. Okay, now I'm done. I'll blog more about it soon, I'm sure. I have to go see if he's yanking my chain.

Edit: nope, that was true. I think we broke $6K in the first hour, or really close to it.