Friday, April 20, 2012

Tsar is printing!

Notices for shipment have gone out, so if you have not yet received one, please email me at bill@talesofthefroggod.com. Books will ship May 28, with shipment from Paizo (if you bought from their site) about a week later. Greg flies up the week before so we can sign and number the copies ordered directly from us!

RA Reloaded is very rare and expensive…so yes, we are redoing both a Swords and Wizardry and a Pathfinder version  (pre-sale in about a month)—including 20 or so new levels (I am finalizing the last 2 this next week). This puts it over 50 levels!

We added a number of lower level areas (character levels 1-10), a village, a Temple of Tsathogga with a  three level dungeon of its own, and several deeper levels (wait until you see my treatment of the will-o-wisp on Level 12C).  I am also making it a faux-leather, stitch bound hardcover that will look like a Bible, and we are doing a series of 50-60 battle maps (miniature scale) of key encounter areas. Everything is drafted except 2 levels I am behind on (5B and 13C)—maps are in, art is ordered, and editing is in progress! Go Skeeter, John (Stater) and Dawn! The SW version will feature a red cover, and the Pathfinder version will be blue. Retail price is TBD (probably about $100). We may do this as a kickstarter project so we canm print more and get it into distribution. Please let me know your thoughts about this. We could offer premium packages at higher donation amounts--not sure what all would entice folks (a trip to Dallas or PaizoCon with the Frogs perhaps?).

9 comments:

  1. I am not sure a Kickstarter is a good idea. First off, Amazon takes their percentage, and I am not sure you would get so many more people to buy this way that it would offset this hit. Your fans will preorder. Everyone else? Not so much. Kickstarter is for startups and you guys are way past that league now, like it or not. :)

    Also, one of the things I like about your products is that they are limited run items and are rare sort of gems on my game shelf. If I can get it anywhere, anytime, say on Amazon, and my FLGS then I could procrastinate a preorder.

    Lots of words to say I like it the way you have been doing it. Do not change what works. :)

    ~Big Ben

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know I would preorder from here - even shipping to Austalia. The included battlemaps really help sell this too me. Don't really need any extras except these, the production quality of your books is so high anyway, and you usually sign them when ordered here. Not a lot extra to add through kickstarter. I think it's a great idea to get more into ditribution, so perhaps save the signed copy as a stretch reward, maybe coloured art booklet of main areas, puzzles and people as a visual aid? Pregenared character pack chosen by contributor? What happens if it fails in kickstarter (not that I think it would)?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kickstarter

    The idea behind kickstarter is we could generate enough money to dive into distribution...subscribers would still have those rare perks (I am considering several ideas--limited ed miniatures, posters, add-on modules only for subscribers, etc.), but I would really like to get us back into brick and mortar stores--and at current numbers--we simply cannot afford to do this. I may try the kickstarter thing and see what happens; if it sucks/fails, we will just return to our old methods.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AWEsome.

    I like the battlemaps, limited edition minis, add-on modules for subscribers/backers.

    Few more rewards:
    1) Monster Ecologies from sages specific to Rappan Athuk
    2) Secret Level! Exclusive to backers/subscribers
    3) Player's Guide to Rappan Athuk...filled with new player character options, fiction, background info, advice, etc...this could be distributable
    4) Vinyl Erase maps of wilderness or overview of dungeon
    5) Introductory Adventure tying in the new portions (like the temple or the village)...maybe given away on FreeRPGDay?
    6) Special Tie-In Adventure or Locale from another FGG product..i.e. a certain hex in the Hex Crawl Classics #3 Beyond the Black Water that contains a fully-fleshed out tower or prison or locale that connects to Rappan Athuk via portal or REALLY long tunnel.

    Pumped!
    -MadCaptive
    6)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'd be curious to see how the Kickstarter could take off ala Dwimmermount, and (I can see from a production / financial commitment POV) where it would be nice to have a certain degree of financial security upfront even prior to serious design work. As a consumer, I like that it gives me a chance to do a longer-lead-time pre-order, since I always have a fear I'm going to miss on the order period.

    I think that the 'extra' concept for different tiers simply screams small/mid-batch RPG, as a positive. Extra levels, some one-sheet fleshed out NPC's or rival parties, nearby town* or tavern details - I love the Ecologies idea, too.

    Shame that the system is so different, this would be fun to see in DCCRPG form...

    Sunrunner44 - noted FGG sucker.

    * looking in a wayback files I found an old rough town we used when I was around 12-13, the Village of Omlette... the mayor was Hamen Ches and the local mage was (wait for it) Saw Sage.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I second the notion to suggest a collaboration with Goodman Games to create a create a conversion of Rappan Athuk to what is quickly becoming my favorite rule-set...the DCC RPG.

    I also suggest a vinyl wet-erase full-color hex map of this Village of Omlette...but only if the local smithy is the renown Han Yanz!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Personally I really look forward to seeing (and hopefully working on) the S&W version, which should be relatively easy to convert to any other old school game (LL, DCC, ACK, etc).

    I've hit up both Kickstarters (Dwimmermount) and preorders (Over the Edge 20th Anniversary Edition) recently, whichever way FGG goes I'm in like Flynn.

    ReplyDelete
  8. don't like the kickstarter idea, i would just like the book and maps ASAP please!!!! great work :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. The kickstarter might be needed--I need to come up w/ about $35k or so to print and art the book--The numbers I am having to lay out (my bank account), not a big corporation) are getting kind of scary. The basic buy on Kickstarter will be less than retail once we raise the $25k minimum and can print the book (with my $10k added in). If we cannot rais ethe minimum, I'll have to rethink doing this the fancy way. I don't actually think we have any chance of failure on kickstarter though.

    ReplyDelete

Related posts

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...