# Tabula Rasa - Customizable, Flexible RPG Item Cards at Indiegogo



## Avaru

Heya,

We would like to tell you about our role-playing related crowdfunding project which was just launched on Indiegogo: Item cards! (our website: www.itemcards.com)




Our goal is to print item cards for pen & paper role-playing games.  You have probably already heard of the idea of using printed cards to  replace inventory lists. We liked the idea but realized we have to  develop it further. We decided to create cards which are *game system-, playstyle- and language-independent*,  flexible, beautiful and affordable. To print and ship the cards, we are  going to employ crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Our campaign will run *until May 23* and hopefully allow us to deliver sets of 120 colorful, printed cards to our backers. We decided to call the project _Tabula Rasa_.

What makes our cards different from other existing systems that we know  of is that there is *no pre-printed text* on our cards. It is up to  players and GMs to add that. What we do is designing a category system  which is represented on cards by dividing them into four colors as well  as more than 25 colored illustrations. For example, there is a category  for sword-like weapons, but no defined longsword card. Because you might  want a bastard sword. Or a very special two-hander. Everyone who has  played pen & paper games will have realized there are *more possible  items than you could represent on 100 static cards.* Or 1000 cards.  Instead, We have put a lot of time into researching what kind of  categories would be required and we created generalized, yet  characteristic and unique illustrations - so they are not limited to a  specific system or universe. All cards are layouted to allow for adding  stickers or plain writing - for example to note condition, origin,  customization and amounts.





The cards help to visualize your characters *without leaving low-tech Pen & Paper territory*. For example, if your character stumbles and something falls out of his backpack and down a cliff, the Game Master can have you draw a card at random and discard it. No long discussion but fast, clearly visible results.
*Using cards to handle a party's "assets" speeds up the game*, gives your a clear overview of what you have (or in the case of the game master, what your players have), gain or lose in a certain situation. Using physical cards helps visualizing not just your stuff, but what happens with it.

Why are we crowdfunding this? Printing the cards is expensive unless we do it in large quantities. We want to give you an easy, flexible, complete and affordable solution, so going on Indiegogo seemed to be the best choice - not Kickstarter since we are based in continental Europe, and Indiegogo's fixed funding is exactly the same system. Of course, our backers will get sets of cards and other useful goodies. No t-shirts, but dice and wooden chests to store everything. 

You will find more about the cards on www.itemcards.com, along with a rather hilarious pitch video. We are very interested in your opinion about the project and would love to hear from you. Feel free to ask us!

The campaign is live at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/tabula-rasa-customizable-item-cards-for-roleplaying/
We are also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tabularasacards

Thank you for reading this. 

Anton & Wiebke


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