# Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter is live!



## TwoSix (Aug 3, 2021)

I have to say, that looks really impressive.


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2021)

MichaelSomething said:


> Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game
> 
> 
> An officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra
> ...




$680K and still rolling.  Do not be surprised if it cracks a million today.

Edit: It has gone of $40K in the last half-hour or so.
Edit: Now it is $110K in an hour and a half or so since I posted....


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## Weiley31 (Aug 3, 2021)

Are Metal Benders an option? Or are they like a assumed to be part of the Earthbenders (which they actually came from IIRC.)


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## Umbran (Aug 3, 2021)

Weiley31 said:


> Are Metal Benders an option? Or are they like a assumed to be part of the Earthbenders (which they actually came from IIRC.)




"When you create your character, you pick a training—one of the four elements, martial and weapons training, or technology training."

I would presume that metal-bending comes under Earth-bending.  The game also has a concept of what era you are playing in, so metal-bending may only be available in the Korra Era.


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## darjr (Aug 3, 2021)

Over $900,000


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## EthanSental (Aug 4, 2021)

This thing is rolling.  I never watched much of the anime series but some friends did and  enjoyed it.  I’ll make sure they know about this if they already don’t know.


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## CubicsRube (Aug 4, 2021)

Well colour me impressed.

I've gone from being skeptical to being wowed by the production value. I have more games than I can get to the table, but I'll be getting this one even if just for the pleasure of reading it and going through thw contents.


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## Skywalker (Aug 4, 2021)

Holy. This must be the fastest to USD1m of any tabletop RPG on KS.


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## Skywalker (Aug 4, 2021)

EthanSental said:


> This thing is rolling.  I never watched much of the anime series but some friends did and  enjoyed it.  I’ll make sure they know about this if they already don’t know.



I recommend the series highly. Its not just one of the best animated TV series but one of the best TV series IMO


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## Morrus (Aug 4, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> Holy. This must be the fastest to USD1m of any tabletop RPG on KS.



Yup. By far!


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## MichaelSomething (Aug 4, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> I recommend the series highly. Its not just one of the best animated TV series but one of the best TV series IMO



The show got a Peabody award of that means anything...


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## darjr (Aug 4, 2021)

@Morrus broke a million.


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## Olaf the Stout (Aug 4, 2021)

I’m sad that IDW’s game division seems to be all but gone. An Avatar board game was slated to follow the TMNT (which I’ve got and love) and Batman (waiting on delivery) board games as a Kickstarter. The success of this Kickstarter shows that there is strong demand for the setting.


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## loverdrive (Aug 4, 2021)

While the quickstart pack I've run kinda made me scratch my head (I find the combat system kinda questionable), I'm soooo happy that now there's a major 1m kickstarter of a PbtA game.


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## CubicsRube (Aug 4, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> While the quickstart pack I've run kinda made me scratch my head (I find the combat system kinda questionable), I'm soooo happy that now there's a major 1m kickstarter of a PbtA game.



Is this the first PbtA game to hit $1million? If so, that is huge news..


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## Morrus (Aug 4, 2021)

Already the 5th biggest TTRPG Kickstarter ever after less than a day. I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t top the chart.


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## lyle.spade (Aug 4, 2021)

EthanSental said:


> This thing is rolling.  I never watched much of the anime series but some friends did and  enjoyed it.  I’ll make sure they know about this if they already don’t know.



You need to watch it. It's really excellent storytelling and character development.


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## lyle.spade (Aug 4, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> I recommend the series highly. Its not just one of the best animated TV series but one of the best TV series IMO



Agreed completely....HOWEVER....avoid the movie of several years ago!


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## darjr (Aug 4, 2021)

Nearly 1.5 million early in day two!


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## Weiley31 (Aug 4, 2021)

Umbran said:


> I would presume that metal-bending comes under Earth-bending. The game also has a concept of what era you are playing in, so metal-bending may only be available in the Korra Era.



You are correct on both parts.


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## Blue (Aug 4, 2021)

lyle.spade said:


> Agreed completely....HOWEVER....avoid the movie of several years ago!



There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
There is no live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 4, 2021)

I bought into it at the 75$ level yesterday, I'm so excited, especially with all of the extras this is getting through stretch goals. I like Masks for the most part, and this game apart from being a franchise I really like, solves one of my biggest problems with that game (which I do like)-- the fact that it doesn't have an explicit combat structure, making combat scenes feel hard to run in a satisfying way. I'm looking forward to seeing how the exchanges and techniques play out in this system.

Edit: Don't forget you can sign up for the quickstart rules here to check out the system.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 4, 2021)

Weiley31 said:


> You are correct on both parts.



Though, the "Aang" era takes place after the post-show comics a few years after the show, so its possible Toph is already spreading it by that point too.


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## BRayne (Aug 4, 2021)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Though, the "Aang" era takes place after the post-show comics a few years after the show, so its possible Toph is already spreading it by that point too.




She starts her Metalbending academy in The Promise which is the first post-show comic, Aang era takes place after Imbalance which is around 2 years later I believe


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## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 4, 2021)

BRayne said:


> She starts her Metalbending academy in The Promise which is the first post-show comic, Aang era takes place after Imbalance which is around 2 years later I believe



So yup, we have two years worth of new metal benders, it would be the 100 year war, Roku, and Kyoshi eras that don't have them.


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## ngenius (Aug 4, 2021)

Who would believe this today, my childhood friend , Abdulkareem, introduced me to the Legend of Korra over 15 years ago now. He is not a table top player so here is my chance to introduce him to this Million Dollar RPG today.


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## Grendel_Khan (Aug 4, 2021)

CubicsRube said:


> Is this the first PbtA game to hit $1million? If so, that is huge news..




I'm an idiot when it comes to figuring out tabletop sales, but once the campaign funds it feels like it's also going to be the bestselling PbtA game to date, right? As hugely influential as many PbtA and adjacent games are I can't imagine they hit these kinds of numbers.


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## overgeeked (Aug 4, 2021)

That’s insane. Good for them.


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## Morrus (Aug 4, 2021)

It's currently the third biggest ever TTRPG Kickstarter, and climbing that chart rapidly!









						Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club
					

Avatar Legends leads the pack in an exclusive club -- Kickstarters for tabletop roleplaying game products which have broken the $1M barrier! It is currently the most successful TTRPG Kickstarter in history with a funding total of nearly $10M, and over 80,000 backers.  22 TTRPG campaigns have...




					www.enworld.org


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## overgeeked (Aug 4, 2021)

It's looking to easily bust 2 million today.


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## CleverNickName (Aug 4, 2021)

Woah.  $1.81M with 29 days remaining.

I'm happy to be an Otter-Penguin.


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## Morrus (Aug 4, 2021)

It’ll do the usual U-shape Kickstarter big drop off after the first couple of days, then have another boost right at the end. So don’t expect it to keep this pace going for 30 days!


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## overgeeked (Aug 4, 2021)

Here's to hoping more Kickstarters take their approach and offer reasonable PDF prices. $20 for all PDFs is about right. One of the reasons I waffled on the Classic Call of Cthulhu Kickstarter was because the PDF tiers were ridiculously overpriced.


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## CleverNickName (Aug 5, 2021)

At $1.91M USD, it just passed "Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting" to become the third-highest earning TTRPG Kickstarter ever.


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## Blue (Aug 5, 2021)

They're jumping from $125K to $200K per stretch goal once they unlock Katara @ $2mil.


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## Skywalker (Aug 5, 2021)

Hardly surprising.


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## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

I wonder if we're witnessing a watershed moment for the PbtA system like how 5e was for D&D. And if this heralds a new generation of GMs and players whose first ttrpg is a PbtA game, and who don't carry the baggage of a trad RPG mindset. And if this subsequently ushers in an renewed interest in PbtA or story games, or perhaps leading to more PbtA games based on popular IPs. It's amazing to think that until now, no one has really utilized the PbtA system for a major IP (Root comes close, and did do pretty well on KS, but this is a whole other level), and that perhaps this was what was needed to catapult PbtA beyond a niche segment of the ttrpg community.


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## CleverNickName (Aug 5, 2021)

It has now passed "The One Ring 2nd Edition" to be the second-highest pledged TTRPG on Kickstarter.  ($2,038,896 at the moment)


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> It has now passed "The One Ring 2nd Edition" to be the second-highest pledged TTRPG on Kickstarter.  ($2,038,896 at the moment)



The king is Colville's at $2,121,465. This is about $80k short of that...within 48 hours of launch.


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## darjr (Aug 5, 2021)

Well it passed 2 million when I wasn't looking.


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## Wardook (Aug 5, 2021)

I have never ever run PbtA, but my kids and wife are so damn excited for this, so I am an Otter-penguin. They will probably convince me to get the special edition.


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## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> The king is Colville's at $2,121,465. This is about $80k short of that...within 48 hours of launch.



I can't think of any other licensed IP that would be able to top this for a TTRPG were it to be funded via Kickstarter.


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## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> It has now passed "The One Ring 2nd Edition" to be the second-highest pledged TTRPG on Kickstarter.  ($2,038,896 at the moment)



It's mind-boggling. Who would've thought an animated franchise to be more popular than a franchise that's been around for more than 80 years. I wonder if it's because the franchise hasn't been saturated yet, or if there aren't enough imitators around, making the franchise still appear fresh and unique.


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## Wardook (Aug 5, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> It's mind-boggling. Who would've thought an animated franchise to be more popular than a franchise that's been around for more than 80 years. I wonder if it's because the franchise hasn't been saturated yet, or if there aren't enough imitators around, making the franchise still appear fresh and unique.



Avatar is much more popular than Tolkien, with a younger generation especially. My kids are all late teens and early twenties. They have literally watched the series all the way through several times. 

They made me download the starter rules. Guess what I am running next week, lol. Having never run PbtA, I have a bit learning to do.


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> I can't think of any other licensed IP that would be able to top this for a TTRPG were it to be funded via Kickstarter.



Weird. I can't think of many that wouldn't blow this out one of the water. Avatar is awesome, don't get me wrong. But come on. Star Wars. Star Trek. Marvel. DC. Doctor Who. Lots and lots of IP have huge followings. Most of the money from the Kickstarter, I'd argue, is from fans of the IP, not necessarily from fans of the IP who are also gamers. Clearly some fans are both.


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## CleverNickName (Aug 5, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Weird. I can't think of many that wouldn't blow this out one of the water. Avatar is awesome, don't get me wrong. But come on. Star Wars. Star Trek. Marvel. DC. Doctor Who. Lots and lots of IP have huge followings. Most of the money from the Kickstarter, I'd argue, is from fans of the IP, not necessarily from fans of the IP who are also gamers. Clearly some fans are both.



It's not just the amount, either...it's the _speed_.  The Avatar Legends RPG reached $2M in less than 48 hours.  That's bonkers...it took Covelle's Kickstarter almost a full month to do that.

Kinda makes me want to do a Final Fantasy Kickstarter.  (But I would need a _miracle _to get permission from Square Enix.)


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## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Weird. I can't think of many that wouldn't blow this out one of the water. Avatar is awesome, don't get me wrong. But come on. Star Wars. Star Trek. Marvel. DC. Doctor Who. Lots and lots of IP have huge followings. Most of the money from the Kickstarter, I'd argue, is from fans of the IP, not necessarily from fans of the IP who are also gamers. Clearly some fans are both.



Perhaps it's a generational thing, as I'm not sure if the IPs you've mentioned are necessarily super popular among millennials.

Plus, the Marvel Heroic RPG folded in less than a year because of sluggish sales. The Star Wars RPG is in limbo after FFG more or less abandoned it (to EDGE Studio). Doctor Who has never made to the ICv2 charts and barely registered a blip on Roll20's report at 0.01%. The last DC RPG has been out of print for a while now.

Anyway, we'll never know because up till this date, there hasn't been an RPG of those IPs funded via KS.


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> It's not just the amount, either...it's the _speed_.  The Avatar Legends RPG reached $2M in less than 48 hours.  That's bonkers...it took Covelle's Kickstarter almost a full month to do that.
> 
> Kinda makes me want to do a Final Fantasy Kickstarter.  (But I would need a _miracle _to get permission from Square Enix.)



I’m in no way trying to diminish how awesome this is. Only pushing back against the idea that somehow Avatar is unique amongst the universe of IPs and that only it could have done this. It’s a nonsense assertion.


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## Skywalker (Aug 5, 2021)

Avatar just passed Strongholds and Streaming at $2,121,465, making it the #1 Tabletop RPG Kickstarter.


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## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> Avatar just passed Strongholds and Streaming at $2,121,465, making it the #1 Tabletop RPG Kickstarter.



This just proves that given sufficient marketing, hype and the right franchise, a non-5e game _can _top the charts


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## CleverNickName (Aug 5, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> This just proves that given sufficient marketing, hype and the right franchise, a non-5e game _can _top the charts



I suppose the saying is true:  a rising tide does indeed lift all ships.


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> Avatar just passed Strongholds and Streaming at $2,121,465, making it the #1 Tabletop RPG Kickstarter.



So it started yesterday at 10am PDT (?) and around 8pm PDT (?) tonight it became the biggest RPG Kickstarter. 

That's what...34 hours.

Damn.


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

Now what about backers? As of now it's at 18,213. Which puts it in the #3 spot. Behind Colville's two Kickstarters with 19,033 for Kingdoms & Warfare and 28,918 for Strongholds & Followers. It shouldn't take long to beat the first one. At the rate it's been going, it might not take too long to beat the second. Best of luck you mad ladies and lads.


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## Gradine (Aug 5, 2021)

It helps that the studio has a solid pedigree, as well. Bluebeard's Bride is pretty popular, and Masks might be the best designed PbtA hack I've ever played.


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## Ghal Maraz (Aug 5, 2021)

Gradine said:


> It helps that the studio has a solid pedigree, as well. Bluebeard's Bride is pretty popular, and Masks might be the best designed PbtA hack I've ever played.



That still doesn't explain a lot. I mean, Magpie is good, but it certainly isn't Fria Ligan, in terms of RPG design recognition. 

Some KS get unexplainable, awesome magic behind them and this is the best example ever in the RPG category.


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## darjr (Aug 5, 2021)

It may reach 3million before most people in the us wake up!


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## Imaro (Aug 5, 2021)

Honestly I think Avatar is just that popular with both older and younger people... and honestly the setting info would be great even if you're not a fan of PbtA...  I wouldn't be surprised if this is getting grabbed up by gamers and collectors alike.  I doubt I'll run it using PbtA (or whether I'll run it at all) but I definitely kickstarted as it's a media property me, my son and my nephews/nieces watched together and it holds a ton of sentimental value/nostalgia for us.


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## BRayne (Aug 5, 2021)

I have seen a few people on like /r/thelastairbender who seemed to think it was a video game so there might be some backers with that misconception as well


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

BRayne said:


> I have seen a few people on like /r/thelastairbender who seemed to think it was a video game so there might be some backers with that misconception as well



You’d think the mention of dice and PDFs would be a clue.


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## Grendel_Khan (Aug 5, 2021)

Imaro said:


> Honestly I think Avatar is just that popular with both older and younger people... and honestly the setting info would be great even if you're not a fan of PbtA...  I wouldn't be surprised if this is getting grabbed up by gamers and collectors alike.  I doubt I'll run it using PbtA (or whether I'll run it at all) but I definitely kickstarted as it's a media property me, my son and my nephews/nieces watched together and it holds a ton of sentimental value/nostalgia for us.




The questions from backers about GM screens are a pretty good sign that a lot of folks don't realize what PbtA is, or at least how it works.


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> The questions from backers about GM screens are a pretty good sign that a lot of folks don't realize what PbtA is, or at least how it works.



Between that and people thinking it's a video game, here's to hoping it doesn't collapse when people pull out en masse when they realize it's neither a video game nor is it D&D.


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## Grendel_Khan (Aug 5, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Between that and people thinking it's a video game, here's to hoping it doesn't collapse when people pull out en masse when they realize it's neither a video game nor is it D&D.




I think a huge portion of the backers are just folks who want to buy something Avatar-related, even if that means getting the cloth map and never hanging it or the element-themed journals and never using them. That collector itch runs deep. And I get it, I just lost it at some point. I still have a ton of toys that I got on eBay sitting in boxes that I move from home to home and never display or do anything with.


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## overgeeked (Aug 5, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> I think a huge portion of the backers are just folks who want to buy something Avatar-related, even if that means getting the cloth map and never hanging it or the element-themed journals and never using them. That collector itch runs deep. And I get it, I just lost it at some point. I still have a ton of toys that I got on eBay sitting in boxes that I move from home to home and never display or do anything with.



That's my assessment as well. It's mostly collectors and only some gamers. Too bad it's going to wildly skew the numbers for RPG Kickstarters.


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## Aldarc (Aug 5, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> That's my assessment as well. It's mostly collectors and only some gamers. Too bad it's going to wildly skew the numbers for RPG Kickstarters.



As opposed to people backing a Middle Earth kickstarter or one from the ex-lore director of Blizzard Entertainment?


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## darjr (Aug 5, 2021)

I hope that most will at least give it a try

but I do find it kinda hard to believe that most are not aware that the Kickstarter is a tabletop rpg.


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## Umbran (Aug 5, 2021)

Ghal Maraz said:


> That still doesn't explain a lot. I mean, Magpie is good, but it certainly isn't Fria Ligan, in terms of RPG design recognition.




Recognition of design _by design wonks_ doesn't mean much in this context.  


Ghal Maraz said:


> Some KS get unexplainable, awesome magic behind them and this is the best example ever in the RPG category.




There's nothing unexplainable in, "a decent game shop got hold of one of the most popular franchises in the geekisphere".


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## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

The way I see this phenomenon is that it could serve as a gateway to folks who haven't the darndest clue what a ttrpg is. Sure, people are starting to learn what it actually is, but the high rate of funding shows that people are willing to give it a shot. Probably won't win everyone over, but like what 5e did for the industry as a whole, I reckon this will also bring in a new generation of ttrpg gamers


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## Weiley31 (Aug 5, 2021)

From the kickstarter images, the Book looks a lot better than what I thought it would have. That or I'm just used to PBtA books not looking professional or big. _Course, I haven't really played any PBtA rpgs despite getting a copy of Henshin._


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## CleverNickName (Aug 5, 2021)

darjr said:


> but I do find it kinda hard to believe that most are not aware that the Kickstarter is a tabletop rpg.



Same here.  It's in the first sentence of the project description, and it's the first word of Magpie Game's company description.  There will always be that handful of people who just skim the page, look at the pictures, and pledge with the assurance that they can back out whenever.  But I'd wager that far, far more folks will read any and all fine print before spending $50+ dollars on something.

So far today:  $2.44M with 28 days remaining and 20,256 backers...that's incredible for any tabletop RPG, and especially so for one that isn't 5E-compatible.  That is quite a hat-trick, and I'm really proud of them!

I feel like the expectation for these projects within the industry is that sure, a good one will make $10-50K, and a really _really successful _one will make a few hundred thousand dollars.    So a Kickstarter project hitting the _multi-million dollar tier _could raise a few eyebrows in the industry...maybe this will become a catalyst for other things.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 5, 2021)

Its probably a combo of the show's popularity among 20-somethings in tandem the swell of the tabletop market over the last few years too. Even if they aren't current players, the idea is def percolating around the young and hip.


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## Gradine (Aug 5, 2021)

Also, if you don't even know what a TTRPG is, you could be a lot worse off than trying to figure it out with PbtA mechanics.


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## Staffan (Aug 5, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> The Star Wars RPG is in limbo after FFG more or less abandoned it (to EDGE Studio).



With Star Wars, it's probably that the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. They did not just one but three RPGs, each with six splat books covering the classes for that particular incarnation and then did a few adventures and other sourcebooks. They even followed that up with era books for using the different RPGs together but in eras other than the one the main books focus on (between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back), as well as books collecting bits and bobs from all the other books (spaceships, gear, and such). Sure, they could do more, but that would mean investing more money for a lower rate of return.

IME, it's fairly rare for licensed RPGs to be actively supported for a long time, and moreso in the modern day. The One Ring is very much an exception – and even there, Cubicle 7 stepped away from it and/or lost the license. But we're not likely to see anything close to the product lines for 80s Marvel Super Heroes, Middle-Earth Role-Playing, or Star Wars.

The main difference between a licensed game and one you're doing yourself is that you're paying a fee for the licensed game. This would generally be in the form of $X per year (or for N years) plus $Y (or Y% royalties) per product. For a game you own, it can make economic sense to support it with supplements for a long time, both because the supplements are (hopefully) self-sustaining and because they drive core book sales – and core book sales are, after all, like free money. But when you're also paying a license fee, core book sales aren't free money anymore, because the license costs money to keep going and eventually you'll hit the point where you say "Nah, my money's better spent on other things" and cancel the license. That doesn't mean it was a *bad* license, just that licensed games generally aren't sustainable.


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## darjr (Aug 5, 2021)

Just perused the comments section and no one seems confused about this being a tabletop RPG.
And there are a lot of comments. I might have missed it though, I’ve only browsed the first half or so.

Also there seems to be a lot of folks new to TTRPGs in the comments!!!! Nice!


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## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 5, 2021)

Gradine said:


> Also, if you don't even know what a TTRPG is, you could be a lot worse off than trying to figure it out with PbtA mechanics.



The only possible issue, is that in my experience, most of the people currently sub-25 joining the hobby have REALLY strong Neo-Trad sensibilities, e.g. they want control over their character's emotional development, and what lesson to take from their story.

In our experience it conflicts somewhat with 'play to find out what happens' especially with Magpie's games which have strong narrative and emotional components to the mechanics (e.g. in Masks other people can shift your identities around, in this the playbook insists the characters have a central conflict they can be pressured to one direction or the other on defined by playbook.)

I'm not saying this is a deal breaker, in fact a fair number might be discovering an exciting new way to play, since Magpie always seems to explain the difference in their rulebooks, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

But I've had at least one conversation with someone who had issues when we played Masks about buying into the central conceit and not feeling punished when their character is under pressure, or complications happen because consequences for the actions you take while say, clearing conditions by acting out (in this case stealing your mentor's motorcycle to dirty it on a joyride for petty revenge) aren't casually mitigated (in this case, they brought another player along, who used their powers to jack into the bike, and ended up breaking it, getting player 1 way more in trouble.) Having to mark conditions instead of just delivering a pithy comeback because _they _didn't think their character would ever be influenced that way also rankled at times.

I've also had to backpedal on someone's playbook because they didn't think playing the scion, would actually lead to comparisons and influence stuff from their villain mother. When said player has mother issues, I guess they chose it to treat it more or less as a backstory-- which obviously, would be easy and a non-problem in a game that wasn't Masks, since that tension is enforced with mechanics.

So this time I'm talking to everyone about buy in about the kind of game this is, and what kinds of events the mechanics enforce. Which we expect to work better, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a lot of people upset if this is their first go around with this kind of game that the mechanics are intruding on their principles and emotional state, or that the mechanics push them into dramatic situations when they're used to avoiding them by playing even-tempered characters more or less never in conflict in DND and stuff.


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## Ghal Maraz (Aug 5, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Recognition of design _by design wonks_ doesn't mean much in this context.
> 
> 
> There's nothing unexplainable in, "a decent game shop got hold of one of the most popular franchises in the geekisphere".



Avatar is hardly more popular than Lord of the Rings. So that's not that.

As I've said, there are many factors.


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## Gradine (Aug 5, 2021)

In my experience with brand new players, they don't know a single thing about what "neo-trad" is and are highly adaptable to whatever the conceit of the game is, provided they're willing to buy-in at all in the first place. New players don't enter the hobby in however many neatly pigeon-holed boxes this or that RPG philosopher has decided upon. Sensibilities are developed over time, and they can be remarkably flexible, provided your players are buying what you're selling.

Masks is designed to tell a very specific type of story with very deliberate connections between gameplay and thematic elements, and if players aren't interested in pursuing _that _type of story then of course they will chafe against its mechanics. A player with the Scion playbook who did not expect their villainous parent to play a major role in their character development, emotionally and mechanically, is someone who has not been sufficiently explained the point of the game they're playing, or at least weren't paying any attention.

That tight focus between mechanics and theme is what makes Masks such a well-designed game (well, some of the playbooks were definitely less well-thought out (or too _overthought_) than others), but it also makes it incredibly niche. This is true of most PbtA hacks I've seen... hell, even Apocalypse World is only really great with its particularly style of post-apocalypse. You find very few genre-generic PbtA games and fewer still that work particularly well (Monster of the Week being the exemplar of that particular field)

I think what makes Magpie games such a good fit for this property is that they are, once again, dealing with young heroes. While the context is quite a bit different, it hits a lot of the same thematic notes as Masks. Characters in the world of Avatar have complicated relationships with their families, their companions, their nations, and ultimately, their own destiny. The genre is different, and the stories you can tell with the setting are quite a bit more varied, but the foundation I expect to be very similar. My only concern is that with all the different eras of play they might be spreading their focus a bit too thin.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

Staffan said:


> With Star Wars, it's probably that the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. They did not just one but three RPGs, each with six splat books covering the classes for that particular incarnation and then did a few adventures and other sourcebooks. They even followed that up with era books for using the different RPGs together but in eras other than the one the main books focus on (between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back), as well as books collecting bits and bobs from all the other books (spaceships, gear, and such). Sure, they could do more, but that would mean investing more money for a lower rate of return.
> 
> IME, it's fairly rare for licensed RPGs to be actively supported for a long time, and moreso in the modern day. The One Ring is very much an exception – and even there, Cubicle 7 stepped away from it and/or lost the license. But we're not likely to see anything close to the product lines for 80s Marvel Super Heroes, Middle-Earth Role-Playing, or Star Wars.
> 
> The main difference between a licensed game and one you're doing yourself is that you're paying a fee for the licensed game. This would generally be in the form of $X per year (or for N years) plus $Y (or Y% royalties) per product. For a game you own, it can make economic sense to support it with supplements for a long time, both because the supplements are (hopefully) self-sustaining and because they drive core book sales – and core book sales are, after all, like free money. But when you're also paying a license fee, core book sales aren't free money anymore, because the license costs money to keep going and eventually you'll hit the point where you say "Nah, my money's better spent on other things" and cancel the license. That doesn't mean it was a *bad* license, just that licensed games generally aren't sustainable.



The FFGSW line did indeed do pretty well, judging from the number of times it appeared in the ICv2 charts, especially in its earlier years. But yeah, it also did taper off, judging from unmet expectations and fan sentiment, especially it its later years.  It's still doing ok in the Roll20 charts though, compared to other licensed IPs.

[A Cthulhu RPG comes the closest to still having legs. But none so far has been funded anywhere near Avatar Legends. It's also not a licensed IP (CoC only holds the trademark for a very specific title), so maybe it doesn't count in this comparison]

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that yes, FFGSW is a well-known and beloved franchise (albeit with some detractors, presumably of their unhappiness with some of the recent films) but I was just making an argument that the Avatar RPG has exceeded the wildest of expectations, which will be very tough for any other RPG with a licensed IP to match. This is, of course, an educated guess, which can always be proven wrong when new barriers are broken, which Avatar Legends itself has done.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 5, 2021)

Ghal Maraz said:


> Avatar is hardly more popular than Lord of the Rings. So that's not that.
> 
> As I've said, there are many factors.



It'd be interesting to parse out what these are. The PbtA philosophy and the Magpie Games company are kind of popular, but not that popular. The Root RPG, itself a licensed IP, garnered a mere 602k (mere only in comparison to AL, of course).

My guesses are Avatar having massive untapped potential, kind of an unmet nostalgia, if you will. There hasn't been a video game or card game in more than a decade. And a board game was _just _released this year. Other major IPs, in contrast, have been saturating the gaming and hobby market. Also, heavy social media marketing like I've never seen before. And lots and lots of opportunities for fans to try out the game via Magpie's play program even before the Kickstarter was launched. This presumably built word of mouth. I think their marketing and publicity efforts are paying off handsomely.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 5, 2021)

Forget I brought it up, insisting that players don't bring their own expectations about about such matters in when they're new is a non-starter.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 5, 2021)

Ghal Maraz said:


> Avatar is hardly more popular than Lord of the Rings.




Allowing for how we have no agreed-upon measure of "popularity", there are two ways to think of this:

1) In terms of the current RPG market, you might well be wrong.

2) In effect, sure, LotR is more popular that Avatar, but then you should be comparing the Avatar RPG popularity to _Dungeons and Dragons_, because it effectively covers the fictional genre of LotR.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 5, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> My guesses are Avatar having massive untapped potential, kind of an unmet nostalgia, if you well.




Not just nostalgia, but _current_ fandom, as the Avatar series have been reportedly doing very well for themselves on Netflix.

Also note: The Avatar series, together, have about _3.7 times the runtime_ of the LotR movies. For most of the media viewers out there, there is simply more Avatar to be a fan of, and that means more plot, mor world, and more characterization to be enamored of.

(I disregard the Hobbit movies, because they kinda stank, and did not do the franchise popularity any favors).


----------



## PsyzhranV2 (Aug 5, 2021)

Ghal Maraz said:


> Avatar is hardly more popular than Lord of the Rings. So that's not that.



Popular among _whom_? I don't see LotR fanart or fanfic pop up on my feed.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 5, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Popular among _whom_? I don't see LotR fanart or fanfic pop up on my feed.



tbf LOTR fanfic describes a significant portion of the fantasy genre ; )


----------



## darjr (Aug 5, 2021)

Avatar being more popular than lotr? I’d believe it. Especially in the younger adult range.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 5, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Not just nostalgia, but _current_ fandom, as the Avatar series have been reportedly doing very well for themselves on Netflix.
> 
> Also note: The Avatar series, together, have about _3.7 times the runtime_ of the LotR movies. For most of the media viewers out there, there is simply more Avatar to be a fan of, and that means more plot, mor world, and more characterization to be enamored of.
> 
> (I disregard the Hobbit movies, because they kinda stank, and did not do the franchise popularity any favors).



Man, your opinion is valid, but I adored those movies in my recent watch through of the trilogy. 

But yeah, Avatar is massive, there are youtube channels on worldbuilding that essentially use it as the most common reference point that everyone's seen.


----------



## Wardook (Aug 5, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Allowing for how we have no agreed-upon measure of "popularity", there are two ways to think of this:
> 
> 1) In terms of the current RPG market, you might well be wrong.
> 
> 2) In effect, sure, LotR is more popular that Avatar, but then you should be comparing the Avatar RPG popularity to _Dungeons and Dragons_, because it effectively covers the fictional genre of LotR.



LotR might be more popular in our age group, I am Gen X. It is not more popular among millennials. One thing we are seeing here is the huge population growth with the millennial generation. Anime and manga are hugely popular with that generation. Many were introduced to RPGs via CriticalRole. They started watching CriticalRole due to the voice actors of their favorite anime. Many consider Avatar an anime, even though it's obviously American. Millennials are literally going to change American just as the Baby Boomers have. This really shouldn't be a surprise, but I have 3 millennial children, so I might be a little more woke than most on these boards.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 5, 2021)

Wardook said:


> LotR might be more popular in our age group, I am Gen X. It is not more popular among millennials.




Yep.

Now, attach this to how the 40+ age group is about 13% of the D&D market currently.  This doesn't tell you exactly who wants to play Avatar, but it is suggestive that, really, the 40+/GenXers and their favorite properties _are not_ what RPGs are about any more.


----------



## Grendel_Khan (Aug 5, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> That's my assessment as well. It's mostly collectors and only some gamers. Too bad it's going to wildly skew the numbers for RPG Kickstarters.



There's a real skill, though, to presenting a campaign as well-managed stewardship of a beloved IP. So I don't think that element alone overly skews things. My issue is more with TTRPG Kickstarters where it becomes obvious that a ton of the funding is going towards various doodads that have nothing to do with the game. Anytime someone adds a plushie or whatever as an add-on I start to disassociate a bit, and think about those shipping and manufacturing emissions pumping straight into our warming atmosphere, and I wonder about this here hobby/obsession of ours...


----------



## MichaelSomething (Aug 5, 2021)

I think one factor is pent up demand.  There's untapped fan dollars out there waiting to be catered too!


----------



## Fallen star (Aug 5, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> I can't think of any other licensed IP that would be able to top this for a TTRPG were it to be funded via Kickstarter.



Harry Potter? Legend of
  Zelda? Spirited Away?


----------



## Gradine (Aug 5, 2021)

Fallen star said:


> Harry Potter? Legend of
> Zelda? Spirited Away?



A Harry Potter RPG 7-8 years ago? Definitely. These days though, not so much. 

The others also don't have nearly the reach of Avatar, which is something I think some of y'all are sorely underestimating


----------



## Skywalker (Aug 6, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Now what about backers? As of now it's at 18,213. Which puts it in the #3 spot. Behind Colville's two Kickstarters with 19,033 for Kingdoms & Warfare and 28,918 for Strongholds & Followers. It shouldn't take long to beat the first one. At the rate it's been going, it might not take too long to beat the second. Best of luck you mad ladies and lads.



Just passed 22,000 backers.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 6, 2021)

Critical Role is doing an ad for Avatar Kickstarter right now.


----------



## darjr (Aug 6, 2021)

darjr said:


> It may reach 3million before most people in the us wake up!



Ok, maybe tonight?!

freaking burning stars I can’t believe I’m guessing at 3m in the THIRD day of an rpg Kickstarter!!!!


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 6, 2021)

darjr said:


> Ok, maybe tonight?!
> 
> freaking burning stars I can’t believe I’m guessing at 3m in the THIRD day of an rpg Kickstarter!!!!



Well, it's at $2,783,805 as of 9:03 pm PDT. It'll likely top 3 million overnight or early in the morning.


----------



## Imaro (Aug 6, 2021)

Ghal Maraz said:


> Avatar is hardly more popular than Lord of the Rings. So that's not that.
> 
> As I've said, there are many factors.



Are you sure about this?  And by popular I mean resonates with people more vs. heard of it.


----------



## Wardook (Aug 6, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Critical Role is doing an ad for Avatar Kickstarter right now.



As I said before that's their crowd right there. Very smart marketing.

As Umbran said, they make up the majority of the D&D crowd now. Grognards that complain about the current trajectory of D&D, need to understand this.  Wizards is well aware of the changing dynamic. Millennials are much more woke. They are the purchasing future of this country. The Critical Roll folks aren't millionaires by accident.


----------



## CleverNickName (Aug 6, 2021)

Woah.  $3,000,159 and 24,907 backers.

Three million dollars raised in just three (or is it four?) days...the project is 6000% funded, and still has 27 days to go.  It's far and above the most successful Kickstarter project for a tabletop roleplaying game...and by the time the campaign ends, it will likely double (possibly even triple) the previous record.

I can't even process those numbers.  My brain would start throwing sparks out of my ears if that were _my _bank account.

If there were any lingering doubts about whether or not crowdsourcing is the future of indie game publishing...well, I think this should clear that up.


----------



## darjr (Aug 6, 2021)

Woot!


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

It's slowing down. It's only done $200k in the last 8 hours.


----------



## Doc_Klueless (Aug 7, 2021)

Part of the $200k was my $200 as my daughter would LOVE this. Gifts are nice. Unexpected gifts rock on toast.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 7, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> If there were any lingering doubts about whether or not crowdsourcing is the future of indie game publishing...well, I think this should clear that up.




At this point, by "indie" we may mean "anyone other than WotC".


----------



## Umbran (Aug 7, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> It's slowing down. It's only done $200k in the last 8 hours.




As Morrus said - the typical U-shape will happen.  It may be higher, but the general shape is still to be expected.


----------



## PsyzhranV2 (Aug 7, 2021)

Umbran said:


> At this point, by "indie" we may mean "anyone other than WotC".



Yeah, at this point I wouldn't call Magpie "indie" anymore, they were pretty well established even before they announced Avatar Legends. Maybe B tier to Chaosium, FFG, and Paizo's A, and then WotC is in a tier all of its own; but there's definitely a world of difference between Magpie and a solo or two-man itch.io outfit.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 7, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Yeah, at this point I wouldn't call Magpie "indie" anymore, they were pretty well established even before they announced Avatar Legends. Maybe B tier to Chaosium, FFG, and Paizo's A, and then WotC is in a tier all of its own; but there's definitely a world of difference between Magpie and a solo or two-man itch.io outfit.




If they make this work, and then have follow-through, I daresay that B tier classification might need to be reconsidered.  How many B tier companies get revenue like this?  20K units of a game is a _stellar_ performance.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

Umbran said:


> If they make this work, and then have follow-through, I daresay that B tier classification might need to be reconsidered.  How many B tier companies get revenue like this?  20K units of a game is a _stellar_ performance.



How about the common A-F tiers with S on top for WotC?


----------



## Umbran (Aug 7, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> How about the common A-F tiers with S on top for WotC?




Common for people with MBAs is not common in a colloquial sense.  

It isn't like we have actual financial or business information on RPG publishers to distinguish between them with any resolution, and we should not proceed as if we did.  I think it more like, "With 3 million dollars and 20k+ units of sales, if they have follow-through they've hit the big leagues," is sufficient.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Common for people with MBAs is not common in a colloquial sense.
> 
> It isn't like we have actual financial or business information on RPG publishers to distinguish between them with any resolution, and we should not proceed as if we did.  I think it more like, "With 3 million dollars and 20k+ units of sales, if they have follow-through they've hit the big leagues," is sufficient.



No, but it’s the scale commonly used in just about every D&D ranking video and blog post for the last few years...so properly common in gaming circles.

We wouldn’t need to know their finances. Just rough estimates. The data already collected by the site, top five ranking, Roll20 popularity, plus some easily accessible data like Amazon sales ranks, etc would be enough.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 7, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> No, but it’s the scale commonly used in just about every D&D ranking video and blog post for the last few years...so properly common in gaming circles.
> 
> We wouldn’t need to know their finances. Just rough estimates. The data already collected by the site, top five ranking, Roll20 popularity, plus some easily accessible data like Amazon sales ranks, etc would be enough.



We already have that — the quarterly ICv2 charts.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 7, 2021)

A lot of video games use S through F, popular wisdom attributes it to Japan and the only sources I'm finding corroborate that. I know its VERY common within that sphere, its rare to have a game where 'grades' aren't on that scale, and a lot of people grew up with it being represented to them so its pretty ubiquoutous at this point.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 7, 2021)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> A lot of video games use S through F, popular wisdom attributes it to Japan and the only sources I'm finding corroborate that. I know its VERY common within that sphere, its rare to have a game where 'grades' aren't on that scale, and a lot of people grew up with it being represented to them so its pretty ubiquoutous at this point.



Pardon my ignorance, but what is this S to F thing everybody is talking about?


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 7, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Pardon my ignorance, but what is this S to F thing everybody is talking about?



Its a tier system, much like grades in school, but it has an S rank over A, tier lists tend to put entities that are far and away dominant in the S tier.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 7, 2021)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Its a tier system, much like grades in school, but it has an S rank over A, tier lists tend to put entities that are far and away dominant in the S tier.



A tier of what? Quality? Sales? Budget? Smell?


----------



## Blue (Aug 7, 2021)

Morrus said:


> A tier of what? Quality? Sales? Budget? Smell?



Whatever you are ranking.  It's a tiering system, it has no inherent link to what is being tiered.  You could use it for how spicy a meal is, with straight ghost pepper being an S.

It's just ranking things A, B, C, D, E or F, and if something is far beyond A it gets an S instead - but that doesn't mean anything gets an S.  If everything is within a normal distribution you're just looking A-F.

If you were looking at units sold of RPG product, WotC would be "S" compared to most other publishers just because it's so far ahead.  I don't know if Paizo would also be and S or not, it's not exclusive.  It's just in a category of it's own - sort of there's little hope of getting promoted from A to S, while changes are more possible in A-F.


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 7, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Pardon my ignorance, but what is this S to F thing everybody is talking about?



A lot of this came out of video game parlance. I believe actually from a lot of fighting games (e.g., Street Fighter 2, etc.). 

I really first encountered it with MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas). If you were playing a MOBA game - e.g., League of Legends, Dota 2, Smite, Heroes of the Storm, etc. - you would have a choice of characters to choose from to build a team. But some characters are more useful or powerful than others due to their abilities, while some are only situationally useful depending on the team composition. So these characters are often ranked into the aforementioned tiers (often by role), which others have explained, based upon the meta. 

Tier rankings have since expanded to D&D as well. One can easily find people, including Treantmonk or Dungeon Dudes, ranking character options in 5e D&D according to this tier list.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 7, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Pardon my ignorance, but what is this S to F thing everybody is talking about?




So, the guy who makes his living running a gaming news site hasn't heard of it...

Maybe not all that common in RPG circles.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 7, 2021)

I'm aware of the generic concept of grades from A-F, obviously (they're common parlance). I didn't realise this was the same thing (I thought it was some specific video game thing), and hadn't heard of "S".

Now I know!


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I'm aware of the generic concept of grades from A-F, obviously (they're common parlance). I didn't realise this was the same thing (I thought it was some specific video game thing), and hadn't heard of "S".
> 
> Now I know!




Treantmonk breaks down the ranking system at the start of his ranking videos. At about six minutes in he explains it.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

Umbran said:


> So, the guy who makes his living running a gaming news site hasn't heard of it...
> 
> Maybe not all that common in RPG circles.



The news on the site _heavily_ focuses on the business and publishers side of things. This is _very_ common player-side convention.


----------



## Campbell (Aug 7, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> The news on the site _heavily_ focuses on the business and publishers side of things. This is _very_ common player-side convention.




It's also a very millennial / Gen Z / video game streamer type thing. As an elder millennial I'm mostly familiar with it from my time playing MMOs and Magic fan sites.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

Campbell said:


> It's also a very millennial / Gen Z / video game streamer type thing. As an elder millennial I'm mostly familiar with it from my time playing MMOs and Magic fan sites.



I'll take your word for it. I'm not familiar with its origins. I only know it's ubiquitous enough to be seemingly everywhere in gaming circles and has seeped into this GenXer's head.


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 7, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I'm aware of the generic concept of grades from A-F, obviously (they're common parlance). I didn't realise this was the same thing (I thought it was some specific video game thing), and hadn't heard of "S".
> 
> Now I know!


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 7, 2021)

Aldarc said:


>



The other half the battle is gratuitous violence.


----------



## Grendel_Khan (Aug 8, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I'm aware of the generic concept of grades from A-F, obviously (they're common parlance). I didn't realise this was the same thing (I thought it was some specific video game thing), and hadn't heard of "S".
> 
> Now I know!



First I heard of it was in the One Punch Man anime, and always assumed it was popularized there. Now I know too (I think? I’m still a bit confused about the origins)


----------



## Panfilo (Aug 8, 2021)

It originated in Japanese video games and has spread to ubiquity over the last 15 years or so. A run of a level would get graded based on its points and time at the end, as in Sonic Adventure 2 or Armored Core 4. Tier lists as a general media concept now use it, in part in order to make room for the idea of an overpowered or boundary-defining success, ie. an S tier or S+ tier fighting game character (Meta Knight in Smash Bros. Brawl). Or, used more broadly, to say Citizen Kane was an S+ tier movie


----------



## Gradine (Aug 8, 2021)

My first experience with S, A-E (F isn't really a part of the Japanese tier system) was with Dance Dance Revolution.

These S-F internet tier charts that you see everywhere are a relatively recent phenomenon, only a couple of years old. Treantmonk used to just use colors to define tiers prior


----------



## ruemere (Aug 9, 2021)

Could anyone tell me how much PbtA is in the game engine? 

On a scale from 1 (pure PbtA with fronts) through 3 (sprinkled with something else like Dungeon World) through 5 (half and half, like City of Mist) to 7 (entirely different, though inspired by, like Blades in the Dark).


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 9, 2021)

ruemere said:


> Could anyone tell me how much PbtA is in the game engine?
> 
> On a scale from 1 (pure PbtA with fronts) through 3 (sprinkled with something else like Dungeon World) through 5 (half and half, like City of Mist) to 7 (entirely different, though inspired by, like Blades in the Dark).



Download the free Quickstart and read for yourself.


----------



## ruemere (Aug 9, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Download the free Quickstart and read for yourself.



I'm on vacation. Using mostly mobile. With somewhat limited Internet access (quality varies).

Also, hopefully someone already gave it a test run and can provide gameplay level insights.


----------



## darjr (Aug 9, 2021)

4million


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 9, 2021)

I will definitely be curious how the fact that this is a non-D&D game plays out at the table for backers who may or may not have experience with either (1) TTRPGs or (2) non-D&D TTRPGs. 

I kinda hope that this Kickstarter becomes a huge gateway drug to the wider world of non-D&D TTRPGs.


----------



## Campbell (Aug 9, 2021)

Based on the Quickstart it seems to line up pretty well with scene framed Powered by the Apocalypse games like Masks and Monsterhearts albeit with more of a focus on the physical action than those games have. It reminds me a bit of Apocalypse Keys in that it seems to want characters being emotive while doing other things. 

One distinguishing feature is that it does have a combat system with defined antagonists.


----------



## CleverNickName (Aug 9, 2021)

It looks like they're done posting new stretch goals, too.  (Which is a good thing...they had so many of them that I was starting to worry about fulfillment.)

I pledged at the Otter Penguin level ($75) so I'm getting:

Core Rulebook
Core Playbook
Dice pack (12 custom dice)
Four Nations cloth map
54-card Combat Action Deck
Dice bag
Pack of 5 journal booklets
Adventure Booklet: Earth & Root
Adventure Booklet: Fire & Brimstone
Adventure Booklet: Ash & Steel
Adventure Booklet: Air & Wind
Adventure Booklet: Water & Mist
Extended Play booklet
And PDFs of everything
I mean, $75 isn't cheap but that's still a pretty awesome deal.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 9, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I will definitely be curious how the fact that this is a non-D&D game plays out at the table for backers who may or may not have experience with either (1) TTRPGs or (2) non-D&D TTRPGs.
> 
> I kinda hope that this Kickstarter becomes a huge gateway drug to the wider world of non-D&D TTRPGs.



In my experience, it’s gamers who have a hard time figuring out PBTA games not non-gamers. Fresh-faced newbs have a far easier time grokking the system as they don’t have years baggage to unlearn first.


----------



## PsyzhranV2 (Aug 9, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I will definitely be curious how the fact that this is a non-D&D game plays out at the table for backers who may or may not have experience with either (1) TTRPGs or (2) non-D&D TTRPGs.
> 
> I kinda hope that this Kickstarter becomes a huge gateway drug to the wider world of non-D&D TTRPGs.





overgeeked said:


> In my experience, it’s gamers who have a hard time figuring out PBTA games not non-gamers. Fresh-faced newbs have a far easier time grokking the system as they don’t have years baggage to unlearn first.



I agree with overgeeked, from what I've been seeing and reading, brand new players who have never even heard of a TTRPG before are finding their feet really fast with PbtA system (or at least Magpie's interpretation of it). It's the people coming from D&D and other "trad" RPGs that are having trouble adjusting.


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 9, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> I agree with overgeeked, from what I've been seeing and reading, brand new players who have never even heard of a TTRPG before are finding their feet really fast with PbtA system (or at least Magpie's interpretation of it). It's the people coming from D&D and other "trad" RPGs that are having trouble adjusting.



My partner, who has next to no experience with TTRPGs, had a WAY EASIER time with Dungeon World than they did with 5e D&D.

It will still be interesting how people with various levels of knowledge with PbtA games find this game precisely because it is not the 800 lb. gorilla in the TTRPG market. I will be curious what lasting impact, if any, this TTRPG has for our hobby.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 9, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> My partner, who has next to no experience with TTRPGs, had a WAY EASIER time with Dungeon World than they did with 5e D&D.
> 
> It will still be interesting how people with various levels of knowledge with PbtA games find this game precisely because it is not the 800 lb. gorilla in the TTRPG market. I will be curious what lasting impact, if any, this TTRPG has for our hobby.



While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D, it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 9, 2021)

So an update on the Kickstarter, it passed $4 million overnight ($4.08 million now) and will likely double Colville's $2.1 million Kickstarter before the day's out.


----------



## CleverNickName (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> So an update on the Kickstarter, it passed $4 million overnight ($4.08 million now) and will likely double Colville's $2.1 million Kickstarter before the day's out.


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> *While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D,* it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.



I don't think that anyone reasonably does. It's more about the space around that and the road ahead.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D, it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.




Ultimately, how big a gorilla it is depends on how much material _beyond_ the kickstarter they'll be creating.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Ultimately, how big a gorilla it is depends on how much material _beyond_ the kickstarter they'll be creating.



I'm not sure what would reasonably be left with how huge the Kickstarter is. They've got all the bases covered. Core book, dice, dice bags, maps, action cards, themed journals, and modules. And it's a PBTA game, so there's not really all that much stuff you need. Other than expanding eras into stand-alone books, a dedicated GM book?, a GM's screen?, more modules, more legends, more monsters, and a few more maps...I don't see a lot of what else they could produce. Unless they want to go down the dedicated tchotchke angle. Avatar Legends: The Role-Playing Game the Keychain!! Avatar Legends: The Role-Playing Game the Breakfast Cereal!! Avatar Legends: The Role-Playing Game the Flamethrower!! The kids love this one!!


----------



## TheAlkaizer (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D, it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.



It's a TTRPG that's tied to a preexisting franchise, characters and settings. In my head, there's zero chances that this becomes a major player in the future. TTRPGs are pricy; they pay for themselves with replayability and modularity. Or people buy them as object of art, something to read and enjoy without playing it. I suspect a large amount of the backers are more into the camp of avatar fans that want the latest Avatar product than being necessarily TTRPG fans.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D, it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.



Nah, it's just capitalizing on the Avatar fandom.  I doubt WotC is remotely worried about this.  Even if it hits a wild $10 million, how much did D&D generate in it's first month when 5e was released _before _costs?


----------



## Umbran (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> I'm not sure what would reasonably be left with how huge the Kickstarter is. They've got all the bases covered. Core book, dice, dice bags, maps, action cards, themed journals, and modules. And it's a PBTA game, so there's not really all that much stuff you need. Other than expanding eras into stand-alone books, a dedicated GM book?, a GM's screen?, more modules, more legends, more monsters, and a few more maps...I don't see a lot of what else they could produce.




Well, you listed.
Eras into stand alone books - which would be four or five books?
A dedicated GM Book.
More modules.
More monsters.
More legends (They haven't given us Bumi!)

That's potentially a lot of stuff.  There's a question of how far they're allowed to go beyond canon.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D, it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.



It’s got about 30K backers. D&D is in the tens of millions.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Well, you listed.
> Eras into stand alone books - which would be four or five books?
> A dedicated GM Book.
> More modules.
> ...



I want Bumi the mad genius!

That could be a lot of stuff. It could be zero books. We just don't know. The Kickstarter could be a spike in interest and once people get the game in hand they turn their nose up at it or lose interest. PBTA are generally not dedicated fighting games, so I'd guess a stand-alone monster book or books isn't going to happen. More likely folded into whatever module or sourcebook makes the most sense. So too with legends. My bet is era books (with legends, monsters, and modules) and maybe a GM book. Maybe nation books...but those depend a lot on era. Maybe bending books, or a bending book, or a technique book...but it's PBTA, so it's not likely there will ever be an exhaustive book of powers, etc.


Umbran said:


> That's potentially a lot of stuff.  There's a question of how far they're allowed to go beyond canon.



Potentially, sure. But the canon question is really what matters. What they can and cannot do will determine what we get, if anything, beyond the Kickstarter itself. I'd hope we'd get more but there have been "one and done" licensed games before. Green Ronin's DC Adventures as an example. It was only the 3-4 books and that's it. No intention of making a continuing line of products.


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> I'm not sure what would reasonably be left with how huge the Kickstarter is. They've got all the bases covered. Core book, dice, dice bags, maps, action cards, themed journals, and modules. And it's a PBTA game, so there's not really all that much stuff you need. Other than expanding eras into stand-alone books, a dedicated GM book?, a GM's screen?, more modules, more legends, more monsters, and a few more maps...I don't see a lot of what else they could produce. Unless they want to go down the dedicated tchotchke angle. Avatar Legends: The Role-Playing Game the Keychain!! Avatar Legends: The Role-Playing Game the Breakfast Cereal!! Avatar Legends: The Role-Playing Game the Flamethrower!! The kids love this one!!



I’m not specifically talking about Avatar: Legends, but, rather, how this affects interest and activity in indie games.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 9, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I’m not specifically talking about Avatar: Legends, but, rather, how this affects interest and activity in indie games.



I'm not sure if Avatar Legends could be considered an indie game. It's not D&D, sure. But it's a licensed game based on a wildly popular franchise owned by an international media conglomerate and a Kickstarter that's a few hours away from doubling the next closest Kickstarter in RPGs. I think "indie" loses all meaning if it's applied to this game. Unless all "indie" means now is it's not D&D and/or not put out by WotC.


----------



## PsyzhranV2 (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> I want Bumi the mad genius!
> 
> That could be a lot of stuff. It could be zero books. We just don't know. The Kickstarter could be a spike in interest and once people get the game in hand they turn their nose up at it or lose interest. PBTA are generally not dedicated fighting games, so I'd guess a stand-alone monster book or books isn't going to happen. More likely folded into whatever module or sourcebook makes the most sense. So too with legends. My bet is era books (with legends, monsters, and modules) and maybe a GM book. Maybe nation books...but those depend a lot on era. Maybe bending books, or a bending book, or a technique book...but it's PBTA, so it's not likely there will ever be an exhaustive book of powers, etc.
> 
> Potentially, sure. But the canon question is really what matters. What they can and cannot do will determine what we get, if anything, beyond the Kickstarter itself. I'd hope we'd get more but there have been "one and done" licensed games before. Green Ronin's DC Adventures as an example. It was only the 3-4 books and that's it. No intention of making a continuing line of products.



Given Magpie's track record, I'd hazard a guess Avatar Legends would will the same level of support as Masks, Urban Shadows 1e, and Bluebeard's Bride got. A core book, a few supplements, and some add-on accessories like dice and card decks. Otherwise generally treated as standalone, and once they're done with all that they'll move on to other projects (such as Root, where is Root, how much longer do we have to wait???)


----------



## darjr (Aug 9, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Given Magpie's track record, I'd hazard a guess Avatar Legends would will the same level of support as Masks, Urban Shadows 1e, and Bluebeard's Bride got. A core book, a few supplements, and some add-on accessories like dice and card decks. Otherwise generally treated as standalone, and once they're done with all that they'll move on to other projects (such as Root, where is Root, how much longer do we have to wait???)



Maybe, but I’d wager that their supplements would earn them more than their other games core books.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 9, 2021)

darjr said:


> Maybe, but I’d wager that their supplements would earn them more than their other games core books.



Sure, but you always have to develop your own IP, because you always have to hand back licensed IP at some point. It’s never yours.


----------



## darjr (Aug 9, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Sure, but you always have to develop your own IP, because you always have to hand back licensed IP at some point. It’s never yours.



They could do a bit of both. What would you do in their shoes?

edit: especially given that they seem to abandon or quit working on older stuff anyway.


----------



## MichaelSomething (Aug 9, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> So an update on the Kickstarter, it passed $4 million overnight ($4.08 million now) and will likely double Colville's $2.1 million Kickstarter before the day's out.



Seem like it grew beyond even Magpie's wildest expectations!  They had 4 million dollars worth of stretch goals prepared.  They were properly like, "that should be enough for the entire campaign.  We might have to make a few more at the last week if things go well."  Then again, running out of stretch goals is one of those problems you want to have


----------



## Morrus (Aug 9, 2021)

darjr said:


> They could do a bit of both. What would you do in their shoes?
> 
> edit: especially given that they seem to abandon or quit working on older stuff anyway.



Well yeah. You do both. The licensed stuff lets you do your own stuff.


----------



## Olaf the Stout (Aug 10, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> While I don't expect Avatar Legends to dethrone D&D, it's looking quite like a 500 lb. gorilla at the moment.



Let’s not get carried away here. A $4m+ RPG Kickstarter is freaking awesome, but you’re still talking about a Kickstarter with 35k backers

There are several established RPGs with more players than that on Roll20 alone, let alone all electronic and physical tabletops. D&D has millions of players, so is several magnitudes bigger than this.

I’m super excited that it’s doing so fantastically well, but lets temper our expectations a little.


----------



## overgeeked (Aug 10, 2021)

And it just hit $4.2 million. Double the next closest Kickstarter.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 10, 2021)

Man, I love that this one just keeps growing in terms of stretch goals, I'm getting soooo much stuff.


----------



## Aldarc (Aug 10, 2021)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Man, I love that this one just keeps growing in terms of stretch goals, I'm getting soooo much stuff.



It's not as glamorous as a stretch goal, but I kinda wish that one goal would simply contribute to the reductions in shipping costs on the customer side.


----------



## Skywalker (Aug 10, 2021)

Magpie's international shipping costs are some of the best out there already IME.


----------



## Skywalker (Aug 10, 2021)

Morrus said:


> It’s got about 30K backers. D&D is in the tens of millions.



Though Avatar Legends is not going to challenge D&D, this comparison is a little disingenuous.

Backers do not equal total players. Backers are a small subset of total players. Though WotC hasn’t done a D&D KS, we do know that no D&D KS has had half the backers that Avatar Legends has achieved in its first  week.

Also, Avatar Legends has 35k backers to date after 7 days. It has 25 or so days left to go. I am not sure what the final total will be but we could be looking at 70-100k if it continues as it looks like it is going to. That’s significant, right? Plus 20% of those are new to KS, which suggests that there may be a decent chunk of new RPGers in there too.

Despite it being an existing IP, the RPG is brand new, or at least relatively new if you factor in Masks as it’s predecessor. It hasn’t the years to build a fanbase that D&D has had.

This KS really is a phenomenon.  I am sure almost everyone in the RPG industry is watching the KS with interest. It has put Magpie and Avatar Legends on the map in a way that is going to cause ripples for the hobby going forward.


----------



## Olaf the Stout (Aug 10, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> It's not as glamorous as a stretch goal, but I kinda wish that one goal would simply contribute to the reductions in shipping costs on the customer side.



Why would they do that? That’s a stretch goal that would increase their costs without adding anything to the game.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 10, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> Backers do not equal total players. Backers are a small subset of total players. Though WotC hasn’t done a D&D KS, we do know that no D&D KS has had half the backers that Avatar Legends has achieved in its first  week.



Well, no, we'll never see a D&D core rules Kickstarter.


Skywalker said:


> Also, Avatar Legends has 35k backers to date after 7 days. It has 25 or so days left to go. I am not sure what the final total will be but we could be looking at 70-100k if it continues as it looks like it is going to. That’s significant, right? Plus 20% of those are new to KS, which suggests that there may be a decent chunk of new RPGers in there too.
> 
> Also, despite it being an existing IP, the RPG is brand new, or at least relatively new if you factor in Masks as it’s predecessor. It hasn’t the years to build a fanbase that D&D has had.
> 
> This KS really is a phenomenon.  I am sure almost everyone in the RPG industry is watching the KS with interest. It’s has put Magpie and Avatar Legends on the map in a way that is going to cause ripples for the hobby going forward.



Of course. You don't need to convince anybody that this KS is significant or a phenomenon. Everybody's on board with that. It's awe inspiring!


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 10, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> Though Avatar Legends is not going to challenge D&D, this comparison is a little disingenuous.
> 
> Backers do not equal total players. Backers are a small subset of total players. Though WotC hasn’t done a D&D KS, we do know that no D&D KS has had half the backers that Avatar Legends has achieved in its first  week.
> 
> ...



And don't forget about late pledges too.


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## darjr (Aug 10, 2021)

Kingdoms and Warfare had over 19 thousand backers and Kingdoms and streaming had over 28 thousand. Both for really focused, niche D&D supplements. Avatar is for the whole game and, according to some, most of everything we’ll ever see of it.

I get your overall point but both of those are at least about half.


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## Feepdake (Aug 10, 2021)

Plus there's a high possibility of a spillover effect. Backers and players who end up joining Magpie's Discord server or browsing their site might very well end up playing or purchasing other Magpie PbtA games, including upcoming ones that haven been announced (Root, Urban Shadows 2) and that haven't (perhaps other well-known and beloved IPs?).


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## Umbran (Aug 10, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> It's not as glamorous as a stretch goal, but I kinda wish that one goal would simply contribute to the reductions in shipping costs on the customer side.




Almost everything about such a project works with economy of scale - the more you do, the cheaper it becomes per unit.  IIRC, the one thing that _doesn't_ get cheaper with scale is shipping to people's homes.


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## darjr (Aug 11, 2021)




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## ruemere (Aug 11, 2021)

Thank you for providing the link to the review. It looks like the game is much more interesting than what I expected*. Backed the project.

* Traditionally, PbtA games often rely on players to shape the narrative, making the flow somewhat centered around their characters since the presence of an NPC is felt mostly through complications. This is a bit too limiting for me.


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## darjr (Aug 12, 2021)

It might hit 5million tonight!!!


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## Aldarc (Aug 12, 2021)

darjr said:


> It might hit 5million tonight!!!



It likely would have hit that sooner if they had further stretch goals prepared, but I understand that it apparently requires hashing out those details with Viacom. The Kickstarter also has over 40K backers.


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## darjr (Aug 12, 2021)

Aaaaannmd 5 Million!


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## CleverNickName (Aug 12, 2021)

Five million dollars in 9 days...that's incredible.  The pledges have slowed way down, but "slowed way down" still means about $300K and 2000 new backers every 24 hours.  There's still three weeks to go, so it's possible that "Avatar: Legends" could hit $8M, maybe even $8.5M, by the end of their campaign.

The last time I remember a Kickstarter hitting the stratosphere like that was with the Critical Role "Legend of Vox Machina" Kickstarter...by Day 9 it had earned $7M.  (It eventually reached $11.3M, but it ran for 48 days...this one is only going to run for 30.)


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## Marc_C (Aug 12, 2021)

Spectacular! Still 3 weeks to go. 

I'm immune to all this 'folly' as I don't like PtbA and am not a fan of Last Airbender.


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## Aldarc (Aug 12, 2021)

Marc_C said:


> I'm immune to all this 'folly' as I don't like PtbA and am not a fan of Last Airbender.



I suppose that's one way to announce the world that you don't like fun.


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## Marc_C (Aug 12, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I suppose that's one way to announce the world that you don't like fun.



I like all kinds of fun, just not that specific one.


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## darjr (Aug 12, 2021)

I dint like fun.


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## Olaf the Stout (Aug 13, 2021)

They're definitely advertising the heck out of it. I've frequently had Google and Facebook ads pop up for it on many occasions now.


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## Olaf the Stout (Aug 13, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> Five million dollars in 9 days...that's incredible.  The pledges have slowed way down, but "slowed way down" still means about $300K and 2000 new backers every 24 hours.  There's still three weeks to go, so it's possible that "Avatar: Legends" could hit $8M, maybe even $8.5M, by the end of their campaign.
> 
> The last time I remember a Kickstarter hitting the stratosphere like that was with the Critical Role "Legend of Vox Machina" Kickstarter...by Day 9 it had earned $7M.  (It eventually reached $11.3M, but it ran for 48 days...this one is only going to run for 30.)



$8.5m would get it close to the top 50 most funded Kickstarters ever, which is pretty amazing.


----------



## darjr (Aug 13, 2021)

Olaf the Stout said:


> $8.5m would get it close to the top 50 most funded Kickstarters ever, which is pretty amazing.



Wow! That’s crazy cool.


----------



## Skywalker (Aug 13, 2021)

Olaf the Stout said:


> They're definitely advertising the heck out of it. I've frequently had Google and Facebook ads pop up for it on many occasions now.



I think a lot of that is also based on it being picked up by the algorithms. Success tends to breed success.


Olaf the Stout said:


> $8.5m would get it close to the top 50 most funded Kickstarters ever, which is pretty amazing.



Its currently the 13th most funded tabletop game Kickstarter.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 13, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I suppose that's one way to announce the world that you don't like fun.



They're alright, _We are Young_ and _Some Nights_ have grown on me, but I wouldn't say they're my favorite, I've really been more into _Spanish Love Songs_ and _Rise Against_ lately.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 13, 2021)

Speaking of records, might this the longest non-D&D front-page thread? :-D


----------



## Morrus (Aug 13, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> Speaking of records, might this the longest non-D&D front-page thread? :-D



Not even close.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 13, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Not even close.



That isn't a heated discussion?


----------



## Morrus (Aug 13, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> That isn't a heated discussion?



I don’t know what that means.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 13, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I don’t know what that means.



I meant long discussions that follow upsetting pieces of news, instead of something celebratory. Anyway, just a hunch. I might be wrong


----------



## Morrus (Aug 13, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> I meant long discussions that follows some upsetting piece of news, instead of something celebratory. Anyway, just a hunch. I might be wrong



I’m not clear what you mean, but there are many longer non-D&D threads.

The new Marvel RPG announcement springs to mind, just recently. And all the TSR3 stuff.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 13, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I’m not clear what you mean, but there are many longer non-D&D threads.
> 
> The new Marvel RPG announcement springs to mind, just recently. And all the TSR3 stuff.



Oh yes, I remember the Marvel announcement. Had totally forgotten about that.


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## darjr (Aug 17, 2021)

Six Million!


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## Skywalker (Aug 17, 2021)

And it has also reached the top 10 most funded tabletop game KSs.


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## overgeeked (Aug 17, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> And it has also reached the top 10 most funded tabletop game KSs.



Surreal.


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## Feepdake (Aug 17, 2021)

Skywalker said:


> And it has also reached the top 10 most funded tabletop game KSs.



Top 30 of all KS too


----------



## akr71 (Aug 17, 2021)

Stretch goals are cool and all, but at this point I hope Magpie just sits back and lets the KS run its coarse. More stretch goals give more areas for the project to be delayed.

As an alternative to additional things to include, they could add more art, offset the production cost, or print more copies of the final product.


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## overgeeked (Aug 17, 2021)

akr71 said:


> Stretch goals are cool and all, but at this point I hope Magpie just sits back and lets the KS run its coarse. More stretch goals give more areas for the project to be delayed.
> 
> As an alternative to additional things to include, they could add more art, offset the production cost, or print more copies of the final product.



Pay the freelancers more.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Aug 20, 2021)

See, I love Avatar, but have never enjoyed any PbtA game other than Monster of the Week.  I backed because I figured the book would be a good source of world info for my 5e game.  I got a great 3rd party document from Drivethru that covers this material for 5e.


----------



## CleverNickName (Aug 20, 2021)

Micah Sweet said:


> See, I love Avatar, but have never enjoyed any PbtA game other than Monster of the Week.  I backed because I figured the book would be a good source of world info for my 5e game.  I got a great 3rd party document from Drivethru that covers this material for 5e.



I bet it won't be long until we see 5E conversion documents for Avatar: Legends on DriveThruRPG.


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## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

It's currently the 17th most funded poduct and the 6th most funded tabletop game. The top 5 tabletop games are:

5. 7th Continent: What Goes Up, Must Come Down $7,072,757
4. The Witcher: Old World €6,840,648
3. Exploding Kittens $8,782,571
2. Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 $12,393,139
1. Frosthaven $12,969,608

Looks like becoming #5 is most likely, and #3 is within reach.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

What's even more astounding is that the #2 most funded TTRPG product is not even in the top 50 most funded tabletop games. This truly is a watershed moment for tabletop RPGs.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> What's even more astounding is that the #2 most funded TTRPG product is not even in the top 50 most funded tabletop games. This truly is a watershed moment for tabletop RPGs.



Boardgaming is a much, much bigger industry than TTRPGs.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Boardgaming is a much, much bigger industry than TTRPGs.



Yes, as evident from ICv2 figures. Which is why it's so surprising that Avatar Legends made it so high up the list. It's either going to remain a once-in-a-lifetime outlier, or it could mark a turning point for ttrpgs.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> Yes, as evident from ICv2 figures. Which is why it's so surprising that Avatar Legends made it so high up the list. It's either going to remain a once-in-a-lifetime outlier, or it could mark a turning point for ttrpgs.



It’s pretty much an outlier by definition.


----------



## Gradine (Aug 22, 2021)

Morrus said:


> It’s pretty much an outlier by definition.



The question is whether this remains an outlier (due to the associated property's broader appeal), or if this becomes the new normal for TTRPGs in general


----------



## Morrus (Aug 22, 2021)

Gradine said:


> The question is whether this remains an outlier (due to the associated property's broader appeal), or if this becomes the new normal for TTRPGs in general



I understood the question. My answer was that it was an outlier.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> It's currently the 17th most funded poduct and the 6th most funded tabletop game. The top 5 tabletop games are:
> 
> 5. 7th Continent: What Goes Up, Must Come Down $7,072,757
> 4. The Witcher: Old World €6,840,648
> ...



I just realized it's also the third most funded tabletop game that _isn't_ a sequel.


----------



## Gradine (Aug 22, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I understood the question. My answer was that it was an outlier.



My confusion was that your answer doesn't match the tense of the question. What you are saying is that, in retrospect, this game _will remain_ an outlier.


----------



## Micah Sweet (Aug 22, 2021)

Gradine said:


> My confusion was that your answer doesn't match the tense of the question. What you are saying is that, in retrospect, this game _will remain_ an outlier.



I absolutely think it will be an outlier.  Most of the backers might not even be gamers, but rather fans of the IP.


----------



## Gradine (Aug 22, 2021)

For the record, that would be my guess as well, but it would be nice to be wrong about that


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

Micah Sweet said:


> I absolutely think it will be an outlier.  Most of the backers might not even be gamers, but rather fans of the IP.



If I'm not mistaken, before 5e, almost everyone thought that DnD was dead and would never surpass Pathfinder. Pretty much no one saw the behemoth it ended up becoming, and even dwarfing Pathfinder by an unimaginable magnitude.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 22, 2021)

I mean, if $8M ttrpg kickstarters become _normal_ then don’t get me wrong, I’m all on board for and very much looking forward to my $8M Kickstarters, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

A


Gradine said:


> For the record, that would be my guess as well, but it would be nice to be wrong about that



A Matt Mercer kickstarted game?


----------



## BRayne (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> A
> 
> A Matt Mercer kickstarted game?




Seems he's not super interested in using Kickstarter for ttrpg books (probably easier to just do regular preorders and not have to deal with stretch goals and swag)


----------



## Feepdake (Aug 22, 2021)

BRayne said:


> Seems he's not super interested in using Kickstarter for ttrpg books (probably easier to just do regular preorders and not have to deal with stretch goals and swag)



Yeah that's true.


----------



## MarkB (Aug 22, 2021)

Micah Sweet said:


> See, I love Avatar, but have never enjoyed any PbtA game other than Monster of the Week.  I backed because I figured the book would be a good source of world info for my 5e game.  I got a great 3rd party document from Drivethru that covers this material for 5e.



I've enjoyed some PBtA games (and moreso the spin-off Forged in the Dark system) but what I've read of the system on the Kickstarter page doesn't really pique my interest. It feels more like I'd be playing an attitude or a personality trait than a fully-formed character.


----------



## Blue (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> If I'm not mistaken, before 5e, almost everyone thought that DnD was dead and would never surpass Pathfinder. Pretty much no one saw the behemoth it ended up becoming, and even dwarfing Pathfinder by an unimaginable magnitude.



You're mistaken.  It was still the #2 selling RPG, selling much more than other actively publishing RPGs.  No one in their right mind ever thought D&D was dead.

And since it used to dwarf everything and many gamers considered the slide of D&D to the #2 spot the fault of the divisive feeling about 4e in the gamer populous, many if not most D&D players expected it's return to the top spot with a new edition.


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## CleverNickName (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> If I'm not mistaken, before 5e, almost everyone thought that DnD was dead and would never surpass Pathfinder. Pretty much no one saw the behemoth it ended up becoming, and even dwarfing Pathfinder by an unimaginable magnitude.



It's been argued that much of Pathfinder's success had less to do with Pathfinder itself, and more to do with people being unwilling to switch to 4th Edition and abandon the OGL.


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## Morrus (Aug 22, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> It's been argued that much of Pathfinder's success had less to do with Pathfinder itself, and more to do with people being unwilling to switch to 4th Edition and abandon the OGL.



Pathfinder’s success was a perfect storm of a lot of things. That was one factor — and having been producing Dragon Magazine and keeping all those customers was another — but the sheer competence of Paizo was a massive factor. In the same situation, even with the same connections, I couldn’t have pulled off what they did.


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## MichaelSomething (Aug 22, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> A
> 
> A Matt Mercer kickstarted game?



He already used Kickstarter to for a Critical Role cartoon show.


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## Staffan (Aug 22, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Pathfinder’s success was a perfect storm of a lot of things. That was one factor — and having been producing Dragon Magazine and keeping all those customers was another — but the sheer competence of Paizo was a massive factor. In the same situation, even with the same connections, I couldn’t have pulled off what they did.



Indeed. It is telling that it was Paizo/Pathfinder that became the "custodians" of "proper" D&D, and not things like Arcana Evolved or Trailblazer.


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## darjr (Aug 22, 2021)

Staffan said:


> Indeed. It is telling that it was Paizo/Pathfinder that became the "custodians" of "proper" D&D, and not things like Arcana Evolved or Trailblazer.



Both of the companies behind those efforts, at the time, were a lot smaller than Paizo and had a lot fewer game designers. Not to mention that list of Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscribers.

After wotc and Paizo I don’t think another company was anywhere close to their position in the gaming industry at the time.

was there such a company?


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## Staffan (Aug 23, 2021)

darjr said:


> Both of the companies behind those efforts, at the time, were a lot smaller than Paizo and had a lot fewer game designers. Not to mention that list of Dragon and Dungeon magazine subscribers.
> 
> After wotc and Paizo I don’t think another company was anywhere close to their position in the gaming industry at the time.
> 
> was there such a company?



The only one that comes to mind is White Wolf, but I can't recall if they were still going strong at the time or if they had been eaten by Icelanders yet. But they certainly didn't have the ties to D&D that Paizo had.

But my point is: at the time of 4e's release, there were a few different "3.75s" going around. There's a reason Paizo's was the one that won out, and it was not just the subscriber list – that certainly helped, but if their stuff had sucked things would have turned out differently.


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## Panfilo (Aug 23, 2021)

Before the the Star Wars TTRPG IP headed over to Fantasy Flight in 2012, the most recent edition was not only hailed as a promising 3.75E D20 game, but was explicitly cited by Wizards as a heavy influence for 4E D&D. It had stuff like defenses rather than saves, and reduced skill complexity. I wonder how much of that confidence was misplaced based on the Star Wars IP inheriting the prequel generation as they came of TTRPG age around that time.


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## darjr (Aug 23, 2021)

@Staffan oh I agree that if PF had been bad it wouldn’t have been good for Paizo.

But if PF had been bad and one of these others was good (not saying they weren’t good) these other companies were in no position to capitalize on it and wouldn’t have been able to replicate anything close to Paizos success.

At least not nearly as quickly.


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## darjr (Aug 23, 2021)

Seven million is close. I wonder if it’ll be tonight?


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## TheAlkaizer (Aug 23, 2021)

All the money coming in must be nice. But the idea of having to handle 55,000 pre-orders seems like a nightmare. I've seen the behind the scenes of much smaller Kickstarter campaigns and even a few thousands backers is a lot to manage. And they have physical products to receive, store, ship, etc.


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## darjr (Aug 23, 2021)

Yea.

I'm am both VERY happy for them and very concerned.


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## Aldarc (Aug 23, 2021)

MarkB said:


> I've enjoyed some PBtA games (and moreso the spin-off Forged in the Dark system) but what I've read of the system on the Kickstarter page doesn't really pique my interest. It feels more like I'd be playing an attitude or a personality trait than a fully-formed character.



It seems that you are playing something akin to an archetype, stock character, or trope which feels pretty "at home" for a TTRPG based on a children's television series. Of course it's not fully-formed: it's the player's resonsibility to flesh it out to their liking. 



Staffan said:


> Indeed. It is telling that it was Paizo/Pathfinder that became the "custodians" of "proper" D&D, and not things like Arcana Evolved or Trailblazer.



It's much as @darjr says. Plus, Malhavoc Press and its properties mostly got dropped like hot cakes by Monte Cook as a result of a divorce. 

PF1 was very much boosted as a result of an appeal to essentially play 3.75 edition, particularly as supported through its adventure paths. Despite its innovations, AE was honestly a bit closer to 3.0 in some ways (e.g., Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting being two separate feats), and APs were not really all that supported as part of AE. The only adventure that I recall for AE off the top of my head was _Ruins of Intrigue_ by Mike Mearls.


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## Morrus (Aug 23, 2021)

TheAlkaizer said:


> All the money coming in must be nice. But the idea of having to handle 55,000 pre-orders seems like a nightmare. I've seen the behind the scenes of much smaller Kickstarter campaigns and even a few thousands backers is a lot to manage. And they have physical products to receive, store, ship, etc.



That’s what fulfilment companies are for! Exactly what they’re set up to do for you.


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## Staffan (Aug 23, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> PF1 was very much boosted as a result of an appeal to essentially play 3.75 edition, particularly as supported through its adventure paths. Despite its innovations, AE was honestly a bit closer to 3.0 in some ways (e.g., Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting being two separate feats), and APs were not really all that supported as part of AE. The only adventure that I recall for AE off the top of my head was _Ruins of Intrigue_ by Mike Mearls.



Adventure paths were very much a part of the success formula for Paizo. They had a solid adventure rep after doing Dungeon for a couple of years, including two adventure paths that came out of the magazine (Shackled City and Savage Tide).

Conventional wisdom in the game industry was that adventures don't make money. I think Ryan Dancey once said that adventures, and to some extent the rest of the D&D product line, essentially were ads for the Player's Handbook that paid for themselves. Paizo instead made a product line focused on adventures, and to some degree the Pathfinder RPG was made because it didn't make any sense to publish adventures for a "dead" game. It seems to have worked out well for them.

I think the adventure *path* concept is central here. With traditional adventure publishing, you make shortish adventures that the DM can drop into their campaign, whatever that may be. That means that as a DM, I am interested in buying an adventure that both has the correct level range, fits into my setting, and is otherwise appropriate for my campaign. That's a lot of requirements. But an adventure *path* instead provides me with a full campaign experience, from level 1 to wherever it ends up (20 in PF2, usually about 15-18 in PF1), and usually comes with a player's guide on things to consider in order to make appropriate PCs. That means that as long as I buy into the path's core idea, I'm sure to have use for the rest of it.


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## CleverNickName (Aug 24, 2021)

Don't look now, but it just passed the $7,000,000 mark.
It's the 17th highest-funded Kickstarter in history, and still has 9 days remaining.


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## Feepdake (Aug 25, 2021)

Feepdake said:


> It's currently the 17th most funded poduct and the 6th most funded tabletop game. The top 5 tabletop games are:
> 
> 5. 7th Continent: What Goes Up, Must Come Down $7,072,757
> 4. The Witcher: Old World €6,840,648
> ...



At $7.076m, Avatar Legends is now the _5th_ most funded tabletop game and the 2nd most funded tabletop game that isn't a sequel. And also the second most funded tabletop game that's based on a licensed IP.


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## Feepdake (Aug 27, 2021)

According to Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game page on Kicktraq, the game is "trended" to cross the $9m mark. If that happens, it'll be the 3rd most funded tabletop game, the top most funded tabletop game that isn't a sequel, and the top most funded tabletop game based on a licensed IP.


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## SusaninIce (Aug 30, 2021)

The game looks very interesting. it came and took everyone by surprise. This project became the most popular in the history of KS...


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## Umbran (Aug 31, 2021)

The problems of success...

"...*our printer is telling us that there may not be enough cardboard in the United States to print these books on our original schedule."*


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## The-Magic-Sword (Aug 31, 2021)

Umbran said:


> The problems of success...
> 
> "...*our printer is telling us that there may not be enough cardboard in the United States to print these books on our original schedule."*



That is _hilarious_


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## CleverNickName (Aug 31, 2021)

Well they'd better fire up those papermills and get to work!  I'm an Otter-Penguin and I demand satisfaction!!


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## Morrus (Aug 31, 2021)

Umbran said:


> The problems of success...
> 
> "...*our printer is telling us that there may not be enough cardboard in the United States to print these books on our original schedule."*



Yikes. That will affect other people too. Glad I’m not printing mine in the US later this year!


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## Umbran (Aug 31, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Yikes. That will affect other people too. Glad I’m not printing mine in the US later this year!




Quite possibly - they are talking about books for 65,000 customers, which is a pretty big order using specific materials.  It is larger than anyone could reasonably have expected.  Anyone who is sharing in those materials may see disruption.


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## Morrus (Aug 31, 2021)

They’re about to get that last 48 hour bump. I’m fascinated it see how much it boosts in the last two days!


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## darjr (Aug 31, 2021)

Eight million!!!


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## CleverNickName (Aug 31, 2021)




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## Umbran (Aug 31, 2021)

Hey, @darjr , you know you can size those images down a bit so folks don't have to scroll to read the thing, right?


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## darjr (Aug 31, 2021)

On my phone the interface is so jittery it’s almost impossible. Ill try another way. Apologies!


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## darjr (Aug 31, 2021)

Did that work? It’s tiny on my phone.


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## Umbran (Aug 31, 2021)

darjr said:


> Did that work? It’s tiny on my phone.




Oh, you're working on a phone.  Yeah, that'll make it hard.  On desktop is is a simple click-and-drag operation.

You've manage to go from huge to tiny, and I can understand with that interface it must be hard.  Don't worry about it that much - I just found the HUGE SIZE kind of comic.


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## darjr (Aug 31, 2021)

If I made someone fell the comical I’m good.

I meant to do that.


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## Tun Kai Poh (Sep 1, 2021)

Morrus said:


> Yikes. That will affect other people too. Glad I’m not printing mine in the US later this year!



Between the crisis in international freights and printing capacity problems, this recent period has been a Lovecraftian horror for KS fulfillment.


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## Aldarc (Sep 1, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Hey, @darjr , you know you can size those images down a bit so folks don't have to scroll to read the thing, right?


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## Feepdake (Sep 1, 2021)

Woo-hoo! Just blew past The Witcher board game to become the 4th most funded tabletop game.  Exploding Kittens, you're next!


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## Gradine (Sep 1, 2021)

Right now it's on track to finish in the Top 10 in both funding and backers. We'll have to see what the last 24 hour push looks like


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## CleverNickName (Sep 1, 2021)

I'm getting SO MUCH STUFF for my $75 pledge.  I'm going to have to clear out some space on my bookshelf.  0.o


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## Feepdake (Sep 2, 2021)

Well, well, It just overtook Exploding Kittens to be the third most funded tabletop game. And the top spot for most funded tabletop game that isn't a sequel.


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## CleverNickName (Sep 2, 2021)

And now it's at $9,213,362 with 78,296 backers and 5 hours to go.  It made the Top Ten.


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## Gradine (Sep 2, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> And now it's at $9,213,362 with 78,296 backers and 5 hours to go.  It made the Top Ten.



#10 in both Funding and Backers. About 100 backers away from #9 in that category. Anything beyond that seems unattainable with 5 hours, but who knows how big the tail will grow at the end?


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## CleverNickName (Sep 2, 2021)

Currently, it stands at $9,413,279 and has 80,315 backers.  It is now the 10th most funded, and the 9th most backed, Kickstarter project of all time.  (And in the Games category alone, it's the #3 most funded and #5 most backed.)

 It has 108 minutes left to go, and seems to be pulling in a couple thousand dollars and a dozen new backers every minute.

If I were Magpie Games, I'm not sure how I would feel right about now.  On the one hand, I would be incredibly proud of my team for pulling off a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, one of the most successful ones in history.  But on the other hand, knowing what I know now about materials shortages and shipping challenges, and having hundreds of thousands of books to deliver...I think I would be huddled in the corner wimpering.

Indie publishing isn't for the feint of heart.


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## CleverNickName (Sep 3, 2021)

And the campaign has ended.
From the Kickstarter page:
*"81,564 backers *pledged $9,535,022 to help bring this project to life."


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## Tun Kai Poh (Sep 3, 2021)

In case Nickolodeon has any doubt about the pull the Avatar franchise still has...


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## Malmuria (Sep 4, 2021)

Interesting/concerning thread related to this KS


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## CleverNickName (Sep 4, 2021)

Malmuria said:


> Interesting/concerning thread related to this KS



The twitter thread doesn't go anywhere.  Could you elaborate?


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## Aldarc (Sep 4, 2021)

CleverNickName said:


> The twitter thread doesn't go anywhere.  Could you elaborate?



I'm not sure if the Zak S controversy is still off-limits. @Umbran likely can weigh in. But the long story short is that Satine Phoenix is one of Magpie's guests in the "celebrity" game of Avatar Legends, and her own role in the Zak S controversy is murky and complicated. So her own inclusion in the game is a potentially controversial decision by Magpie Games, who (one would think) would want to "play it safe" for this IP.


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## Umbran (Sep 4, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I'm not sure if the Zak S controversy is still off-limits. @Umbran likely can weigh in.




*Mod Note:*

This thread is not about Zak S.  Making it about him would be a Bad IdeaTM



Aldarc said:


> But the long story short is that Satine Phoenix is one of Magpie's guests in the "celebrity" game of Avatar Legends, and her own role in the Zak S controversy is murky and complicated.





Since it is murky, I would caution people against arguing over it.  People may have strong feelings, but definitive evidence is scarce or non-existent.  And that generally means it would become a topic that would itself descend into toxic behavior on both sides.

Folks are free to make up their own minds.  Getting into an argument about it here, however, is not going to make anything better.


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## Crusadius (Nov 18, 2022)

For those excitedly waiting for this project to start shipping, Shipping is starting for Australian and New Zealand backers.

I myself have just received a notification so expect to receive my goodies within the next 2 weeks.


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## CubicsRube (Nov 22, 2022)

Just got the books in Sydney today. They look great! Love the cloth map.

Will be reading through it in the next week.


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## Crusadius (Nov 22, 2022)

Picked up mine this morning from the post office. Still haven’t taken them out of the box, just too busy. Cannot wait though.


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