What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

My friend Derek could use some help with getting his Zine Quest project over the finish line.

In the Light of a Faded World

And my buddy John "Hambone" McGuire (co-host of the excellent Vintage RPG Podcast) has this one going. I've playtested it a ton and candy vouch that its very, very good.

3,2,1...Action! Rocket to Russia

I was looking at the Terraforming Mars Ares Project Kickstarter but I'm not sure if I'm actually going to back it. Mainly I think $50 is more than I want to pay for Race For The Galaxy: Terraforming Mars edition. It's a shame because I think a few people I play games with would love it (notably my dad, who absolutely loves RFTG, and who liked TM but thought the board aspect wasnt great and that it ran too long... its like they made this game for him specifically). I'm conflicted on it, as the only benefit to paying a nontrivial amount more for the Kickstarter than waiting for retail is getting it marginally earlier and a few promos...

I looked at Ares Project too; the graphic design seemed kind of a mess. Also I haven't played TM in years; one of my group thinks all the decisions are obvious and then he twiddles his thumbs while waiting for his turn to come around.

Terraforming Mars did not impress me, even as an enjoyable activity game. And as everyone knows in the forums, I love activity games like Uwe's games. Very sloppy design to me, I can't imagine how it would translate to a two player duel type game.

dysjunct wrote: I looked at Ares Project too; the graphic design seemed kind of a mess. Also I haven't played TM in years; one of my group thinks all the decisions are obvious and then he twiddles his thumbs while waiting for his turn to come around.

I would tend to agree with your friend more or less. I like the part of TM that is an engine builder card game. It's not the best example of the form, but it's fun. Then it's saddled onto the rest of the game that takes forever and doesn't add anything meaningful to the decent card game part, and also exacerbates the issues of a card game even more by making it take way longer to end. If you don't luck into drawing good synergistic cards early you're screwed, which is fine in a shorter card game. It's less fine in a 3+ hour long board game. Stripping out the chaff and making it a 60ish minute card game seems like a great way to focus on what was good about the original game.

I'm not sure why they also felt they needed to turn it into RFTG, but whatever. RFTG is fun.

I always feel like some players get caught up in their cards and coming up with combos so much that they forget there is a board and end game conditions.

If you see someone focused on cards, work the board.

The terraforming is the goal, not the forming of the terra, or something like that.

As far as what I'm actually backing, I'm in for the 2nd edition of THE ONE RING RPG, and then a ZineQuest project doing a supplement for the excellent MAUSRITTER RPG.

The TOR one is going nuts.

Got my Millennium Blades: Collusion KS yesterday, just 14 months late. Sorting all of this stuff is a chore and a half, but I'm looking forward to playing again.

This game is tough to get to the table, but I think it's great. And I now own way too much of it.

Always wanted to try Millenium Blades.

Gary Sax wrote: Always wanted to try Millenium Blades.

Agreed. It looked like a great game for someone else to buy so I could play it a couple times, rather than having it be a shelf toad for me

Aeons End Legacy 2: Electric Boogaloo is live on Kickstarter. Legacy of Gravehold I think it's the name. $79+20 shipping, 21 mages, 12+ Nemeses, tons of new player cards and etc. I think this is supposed to be the Avengers Endgame of AE, so everyones coming back in that's ever been in an AE. I wish they hadn't gone for another legacy one, but at least this time the vast majority of stuff is usable after the campaign. I'm currently backing this one but I can't tell if I actually care about 2 more regular waves of AE content piled on top of each other even though AE is one of my favorite games of all time. I just already have a staggering amount of stuff for it yknow. Mainly I think the Nemeses in the Outcasts wave were quite fun and original, and I'm excited to see how much further they push it. But we'll see if the translates into wanting to pay $100 for this. If I do get this im definitely done after this, as this is already gilding the lily to an absurd degree. I'm leaning towards getting it for the Legacy sized box for storage, if nothing else

My Tainted Grail finally arrived after a month and a half delay due to Brexit backlog of shipping from the EU to the UK. It looks amazing apart from where, due to Awaken Realms fulfilment centre not using their normal massive amounts of hard foam but instead just one layer of bubblewrap , heavy objects smashed into the shipping box and badly crushed one box corner and split open and damaged a loose pack of cards they threw in - nothing hurt inside the damaged box except their rep. So I can run a solo of the tutorial scenario then still have to wait 2-3 months before I will be allowed visitors in my house to play.
All delayed stuff is starting to arrive at the same time, with Sword & Sorcery: Ancient Chronicles and Nemesis wave 1 expect in the next two months, then Machina Arcana and Time of Legends: Destinies ... so thanks to this Lockdown I will have a pile of new games sitting waiting for players while I would have been doing nothing for six odd months .

But the good news is that I haven't (yet) succumbed to any new kickstarters ... although was peeking at Wolfenstein and investigating Dawn of Madness.

I don’t kickstart often, but I am really looking forward to Mythic Battles Ragnarock and Hellboy when they come.

I’m interested in Mythic Battles to further broaden the variety of units, but I am half expecting the campaign to be withdrawn halfway in. Having long subscribed to the BGG forum for it, I don’t know that there is enough base support and that company seems to have fostered distrust with their customers due to poor communication.

You could be right, but my money is on Mythic Battles Ragnarok funding in less than 20 minutes.