The Ravens Nest

Spoiler Alert, It’s Budgets!!!

Not too long ago, I posted about Independent Games Month and how I would highlight those games. I’ve talked about the problems with Baldur’s Gate III and I’ve documented problems with places like Drive-Thru RPG, Wizards of The Coast, Paizo and others.

At one time, I’d considered joining the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics/Mutant Crawl Classics Road Crew where I’d run games, get pictures and get swag for it if they ran regularly. I don’t think I will now as Goodman Games has now decided to include the gender-neutral pronouns as part of their updates to the 10th printing of DCC. It’s not a surprise, we all knew it was coming. They recently launched a Kickstarter for XCrawl Classics and I have to say something here. Goodman Games may be one of the independents, they don’t have the market share that WoTC or Paizo have but they are a bigger company that doesn’t need kickstarter and they certainly have a marketing budget by now. The artwork is consistent which tells me that they do have the means to produce and, at this point, backing a major company via kickstarter has become the equivalent of a glorified pre-order. Even though I do have MCC and DCC, I won’t be backing, nor will I be buying XCC, their arena combat-centric game that mashes up both MCC and DCC in a sort of American Gladiators style, televised contest. Honestly, I can do that on my own as a side mission in either of the two games.

Here’s the thing, all that the Mom & Pop, truly indie cottage-industry makers have, is you. Maybe you’re not getting free swag in the process but trust and believe, when you help to build a company up and help them get on their feet with a project, they tend to never forget that kind of thing.

Which brings me to Elf Lair Games and their kickstarter for Wasted Lands. At present, Elf Lair Games is not that many people, maybe two guys, their family and friends and Meliora Henning, an artist I met on Twitter who does some amazing artwork and she’s pretty damn fun to hang around. As of the time of this writing, the Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Kickstarter is in it’s final 24 hours and it’s over halfway to funded.

This is why I’m reaching out to you today. Elf Lair Games doesn’t really have a marketing budget like Goodman Games, Paizo, certainly not WoTC (although the people such as myself who shamelessly shill for these independent publishers do better copy editing) or even Chaosium. Honestly, I think some of us take some of these companies for granted, when, in fact, we really shouldn’t.

Case in point, I came across this tweet last night and wanted to show it off to illustrate what it is I’m talking about

We Print Miniatures sends people miniatures to prime, paint and display. Yes, they’d send me some miniatures and then I’m obligated to paint them up and display myself using them in a game whether it’s a solo game or a game with friends. Honestly, if they did send me some, I’d happily start doing so, in fact, I would make it a priority but some haven’t been. Games Workshop starts talking about new fireteams and kill teams for Warhammer 40K and suddenly, WPM becomes an afterthought at the table. Meanwhile, the same fans of Warhammer 40K are complaining non-stop about the practices of Games Workshop and their near-monopoly on the hobby itself. One that GW has driven prices increasingly ever-upwards.

Will you hear me ever talk about them? Perhaps this once but I’d really rather talk about We Print Miniatures, One Page Rules, Elf Lair Games, Troll Lord Games, Dueling Dragon Adventures, The Basic Expert, The Red Room, Mythmere, James Raggi, Venger Satanis, David Guyll, Stuart Marshall, Jeffrey Talanian, Grim Jim, Kelsey Dionne, Viktor Gorchev, and the list goes on and on and on. I have more people that I can and want to talk about because they make great games at affordable, even inexpensive prices, than I do the bad behaviors that these major companies are pulling.

Fact is, we have a choice in front of us; Fund the bad behaviors (goodness knows we give them enough publicity) or fund their replacements. “They don’t stand a chance in competing with…” is no longer an excuse. Hollywood is collapsing under the weight of their own cruddy behavior and largely substandard and hyperinflated product. The tool that we have in our hands can be very powerful in turning tides but it is up to each and every one of us to do it.

So far, 157 people have backed Wasted Lands on Kickstarter, bringing it to nearly $12,000. It only needs another $6k to go and that should illustrate that yeah maybe we’re not as many as those other guys’ market share but we’ll have the better product in the end. On top of that, if you and I can get this bad boy to that magic number of $40k, we’ll get a whole hell of a lot more including VTT assets for Foundry which is not a bad VTT in my opinion, plus, Mel will get some more work to do for them and, if you’re one of those people fawning over Chaosium’s virtue signaling over A.I. art but you’re not willing to go to the mat here, remember the claim you put out there. You wanted to support human hands in these projects. Put that money where your mouth is.

Check it out. Back it. You haven’t seen a system like this before and if you have, it’s only because you took my advice and grabbed Night Shift: Veterans of The Supernatural Wars. By the way, if this gets funded and you haven’t gotten that game yet, you absolutely will get it in PDF along with the Night Companion which has Angels, Immortals and other expanded character classes in it and O.G.R.E.S. is a completely customizable system. So while everyone else is arguing over Rule 0 vs. Rules As Written, you could just be playing.

It’s Independent Games Month, people. Let’s act like it for a change.

Let’s show these companies that got too big for their britches what they don’t have. You!