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Patreon-izing

I’m sure I’ve made the joke before, but what the heck.

If you have been here in the last few years, you will have noticed something different: nothing directing you to a Patreon. That’s an experiment that has come to a close. I have to admit that having started SEP in 2004, I still haven’t figured out marketing. Unlike Kickstarters, where drive-by traffic can fuel some (for me, it’s most) of the support, Patreon relies on the subject’s ability to pull in people.

Never been really good with that.

For a while, the Patreon proved useful just to push me to create RPG material. The larger one’s catalogue, the more revenue one can expect from Drive-Thru RPG (much like Patreon, itch.io—at least for me—is very dependent on the author/publisher’s ability to draw in customers). So in the end, the Patreon will likely have a longer reach than the revenue which came directly from it.

The sad truth is that, many modern societies and cultures measure a product’s value and impact in revenue. Back in university, I took a course on the social psychology of sport, and in a component about contracts we looked at studies suggesting large contracts are pursued more as a signal of the management’s regard for the athlete than for the money itself. I imagine it’s the same in entertainment as a whole.

All that to say, I’m not immune to this, so I’m afraid I continue to looks at sales and people’s willingness to spend money on me as a measure of my value—at least as an author and RPG designer.

I think I have one or two ‘for pay’ projects I might pursue, but if I write any more adventures, I think I might release them as ‘pay what you will,’ knowing the general perception will be that these are lesser products than those with a fixed price.

Forget it, Jake. It’s capitalism.

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Sagas of the Sea Peoples: Introduction Preview

This post was original presented at My Patreon on 16 Aug 2019.

While the research for Sagas of the Sea Peoples continues, I have begun writing the game itself. I wanted to share the introduction with you, in which I try to encapsulate the aesthetic of the game.  

The stories of the Sea Peoples are heroic tales of the Bronze Age untold by the conquerors. These are chronicles of trade, raids, and migration. Your characters are destined to become great leaders of warrior cultures, but the warrior ethos to which many cling may be a hindrance to success even as it is gains one prestige among one’s people.

Welcome to the Late Bronze Age. Iron is on its way but hasn’t made its full impact on cultures, and many of the dominant polities of southwest Asia and the east Mediterranean Sea coast have collapsed or have seen their power and prestige decline. Economic turmoil and war have created a churn of disarray, leading to suffering and desperation.

In the middle of all this are the Sea Peoples. Led by Mycenaean migrants and joined by the dislocated from around the Aegean Sea and beyond, these groups are seen as pirates, raiders, and barbarian invaders by what remains of the great powers – the Hittites, the Levant city-states, and the Egyptians. There are certainly those among them who have profited from the vast ungoverned space of the Mediterranean and its shores, but there are many more pursuing a better life for their families, seeking opportunities and freedom from oppressive hierarchies.

The characters in Sagas of the Sea Peoples have been pushed to the periphery, and now they have decided it is time to push back. Better to die on your feet than on your knees. They pose a threat to the status quo because they are the other – the outsider and the barbarian. They represent something different, something that is motivating change, and the elites do not like change. While belonging to an egalitarian society which struggles with a conservative need to rebuild the structures of the past, the characters seek to overturn the status quo and avoid a return to the hierarchies that destroyed their society. They cannot escape violence – who in this world can? – but they are special because they have recognized the trap of the warrior ethos and they are seeking something else, something that will preserve their lives, their families, and their peoples.

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It Came From The Sea! . . . or maybe the pool

This article was first posted to Patreon on 18 May 2019

Today was the first day this year that I skimmed the pool.

Bear with me!

Skimming allows me to zone out, to kind of enter a Zen space where my thoughts are divorced from my actions. The body does what it needs to do while the mind is free to wander. So it wandered to Egyptian history.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the 25th Dynasty in order to write a history supplement for Nefertiti Overdrive, and while reading about the transition from the New Kingdom to the Third Intermediate Period, I came across mentions of the Sea Peoples, a kind of boogeyman often blamed for the Late Bronze Age collapse, which seemed to affect most of the Mediterranean civilizations. The Sea Peoples were apparently a kind of maritime nomadic group that swept in, messed things up, and then moved on until Rameses III of Egypt put them in their place – that place being the Levant. This allegedly led to the creation of the Philistines, who – according to one theory – were displaced Mycenaean Greeks.

Fascinating stuff, you say. So what?

Because I think the saga of the Sea Peoples would make a great game. Here’s why:

Often the Sea Peoples – and “barbarians” in general – are depicted as the villains. Here’s a nice orderly polity, imposing law and order on a specific region, and in come these terrible barbarians who create chaos and suffering. Except those polities were run by a very small elite for their own benefit. Often – especially with Rome – the fight was about stopping immigration. The Goths just wanted to some land to farm, but they weren’t obsequious enough with the Romans. The Gauls earlier had been pretty much minding their own business, ruling polities that had already imposed order on a wide area, but they weren’t serving Rome’s – or at least Julius Caesar’s – interests. Heck, it was a “Celtic menace” that was a factor leading to the empowerment of Marius and therefore Sulla, who led pretty much directly to the fall of the Republic. Those Celts weren’t even really interested in in the Italian Peninsula, though they did attack Roman town and forts in what might be called Celtic territory.

And there are parallels today, as elite interests attempt to portray those seeking a better life inside the elite’s polity as criminals and barbarians. The elite see a threat to the status quo as a threat to their privileges and power, and so change is bad.

I think history has been very clear that change is good.

So let’s have a game with the Sea Peoples as the good guys. Yes, they are forces of chaos and yes they threaten the status quo. But that status quo protect a rapacious elite. Let’s not kid ourselves, the Sea Peoples and other barbarians generally do not come as liberators. Most of them wanted to challenge the status quo, if only to find a place within it. But changing the status quo can be seen as good, protecting a society against atrophy.

All this to say that as this game evolves, it’ll be doing so in this Patreon. I will share here my notes, my thoughts, my intents, and my design. This will not be something for which patrons will pay, but the posts will only be open to patrons.

It will all start with design goals, and maybe even a philosophy.

Wish me luck.

Note: the development of Sagas of the Sea Peoples will be conducted at my Patreon, so if you are interested, look for it there.

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Sword’s Edge Publishing

SEP has published a few lines that may be of interest, and you can find a page devoted to each.

Centurion: Legionaries of Rome has characters serving under the eagles of Rome in her famous legions.

Nefertiti Overdrive is about high-octane, wire-fu action set in Ancient Egypt and includes a series of adventures that tell a longer story.

Sword’s Edge is a generic system for which multiple adventures in different genres are available.

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Heads Are Gonna Get Crushed!

Coming to my Patreon in September will be HeadCrushers: an RPG of Fantasy Mayhem. This is a very simple system – more simple even than Sword’s Edge – that is designed for quick, loud fantasy adventures but which can be easily adapted to other genres. This was directly inspired by the fantastic Skullkickers comic, which you can ​read online but which is ​available in print.

I would greatly appreciate your support to my Patreon. HeadCrushers will be coming to the regular venues for sale in around October, but it’s cheaper if you get it through the Patreon.

 

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The Wall

This month, the release through my Patreon is the Wall, a new role-playing game in which you play members of an occupying force in a foreign city.

You are the occupying soldiers of a foreign power garrisoning a city far from home. You do not share a culture with the citizens, and your state has decided to use the existing political structure to maintain its rule. You stand as the voice of the occupying power, ensuring the elite protect that power’s interests while avoiding antagonizing the regular citizens. You do not want political opposition and you do not want riots.

You are the Wall against chaos, against dissension, against revolution. But you are also the Wall against freedom and self-determination.

And now you need to live with that.

This is not a game about playing inhuman monsters. It’s a game about playing humans in a monstrous situation. You are right in the middle of various factions, all seeking to better their lives or increase their power. You need to maintain order without alienating the foreign elite or making enemies out of allies. When you are ordered to do something wrong, how do you avoid it? How do you find a better outcome? And then what are the repercussions for you?

You can find the Wall at my Patreon.

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The Patreon Is Live

The Patreon is now live. You can find it here. The first three releases are complete and ready to go. First, later this month, I’ll release “Lawless Heaven,” an adventure for Sword’s Edge based on Korean action cinema. In October, it’ll be “Face ‘Splosion,” a Sword’s Edge adventure sci-fi actioner that’s an homage to the Borderlands video games. November’s release will be “Judged,” an adventure for Nefertiti Overdrive that bridges the adventure in the Quickstart Rules and in the main book.

I hope this is something you can support. Have a look and decide.

 

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All Quiet On The . . Wait, No It Isn’t!

It may have been quiet in the internet-facing portion of Sword’s Edge Publishing, but there’s been lots of work behind the scenes. The files for the Sword’s Edge books are with the printers and I’m awaiting a proof. Once that has been approved, the final PDF will be available to Kickstarter backers and I’ll be in contact with Magpie Games to take care of the shipments.

Plans continue apace for the Patreon which will go live in September. Both “Lawless Heaven” and “Face ‘Splosion” are ready to go. The third release looks like it will be an adventure for Nefertiti Overdrive which bridges the period between “Rumours of War,” presented in the Nefertiti Overdrive Quickstart Rules and “Get Netiqret,” which was presented in Nefertiti Overdrive. December will see “Swords & Searchers,” a revision of “the Nor’Westers” as I believe a sword & sorcery setting will work better than early 19th century Canada. “Swords & Searchers” will be a mini-campaign and depending on how many pages it encompasses, it might end up being two releases. It uses the Sword’s Edge rules.

At that point, I’ll be taking stock of the Patreon. I have two stories in the sword noir genre ready to go, and I may also be releasing the Wall RPG, depending on the backers and their preferences. I also have “Gang War,” a take on the Warriors – which was itself an update on Anabasis by Xenophon – using Sword’s Edge. I’m going to keep working on possible releases as I want to make sure the Patreon is stacked for at least a year. Once that first year is done, I’ll review and adjust accordingly.

So rest assured, I am busy working. I want to make sure I have a buffer of product for the Patreon just in case real life happens, as it always does.

Until the Patreon launches, if you haven’t picked up Sword’s Edge, the pre-order is open but will close once the books start shipping, so this is your chance to get it at Canadian rather than US prices.

You can find the Sword’s Edge pre-order page here.

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Patreon-izing

As Sword’s Edge slowly moves towards completion and delivery to its backers, I have been using what time I have to get some other projects in order. Right now, both Lawless Heaven and Face ‘Splosion are ready to go. These are Sword’s Edge adventures designed for convention play, meaning they are one-shots with prepared characters, although they could be introductions into longer campaigns if so desired. Right now, I am working on the Nor’Westers, which may get a new name for its release, and is different than the other two releases in that it is a campaign, though one built of the truncated summaries I use to run adventures, which I tend to lump together as one-pagers.

Along with these three Sword’s Edge products, I have a Centurion and a Nefertiti Overdrive adventure that I could release, as well as a possible second campaign product (a covert special forces campaign set in modern Africa) that could be completed.

You may wonder about this flurry of activity. It is because I am intent on exploring another type of crowdfunding – Patreon. Unlike Kickstarter, Patreon is a subscription service in which one pays a specific amount per month or per release. My intent is to set mine to “per release” and to release adventures as well as some other items at a planned rate of once per month.

As it stands, I’ll have three months (possibly four) covered, and I intend to keep that buffer going – so I will always have some extra time in case there is a month in which I am unable to get a product completed. Each product will be around 20 pages. The idea is that they will be provided to backers of Patreon. Depending on the amount of money I am making on Patreon, the products may then be sold elsewhere or they may remain available only through Patreon. Along with adventures, I intend to offer game supplements – such as an Egyptian history and culture supplement for Nefertiti Overdrive and a Sword Noir supplement for the new version of Sword’s Edge – and fiction – I am toying with the idea of a serial novel along with speculative fiction short stories.

This will happen once Sword’s Edge reaches its backers as a PDF. I don’t want to put a date on that as all is going well and I don’t want to raise expectations only to then have to dash them.

I’ll be talking about this both at the SEP Google+ community and on Twitter.

I hope that you’ll be kind enough to support me on Patreon when the time comes. If you like what I do, it is a way to make sure I keep producing.

You can find the SEP G+ community here.

You can find me on Twitter here.