Meet the Creators: Max Moon
about 2 years ago – Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 07:09:17 PM

Throughout the rest of the campaign we will be posting spotlights on each creator who is contributing to the project, where we ask and answer some questions to help you get to know us and where we're coming from to the world of TTRPGs. This update is featuring our standalone microgame designer, Max Moon.

Q: How did you get into game design?

A: Wasn’t it Picasso who said that every child is born a game designer, the trick is to remain one?  I have always had this curse that I can’t really fully enjoy participating in something without hacking it apart and building my own.  As a kid, I made board games, designed roleplaying games using legos so we could hide from the Satanic Panic, wrote text-based computer RPGs, and then as an adult, I taught a high school video game design class for a few years. As a musician, printmaker, and designer, I love the opportunity games present for multimodal engagement.

Q: Aside from the writings of C.L. Moore, what other fantasy work—in any medium—inspires or excites you?

A: Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite fantasy books.  I also am deeply drawn to folk stories involving fairies, especially the ones my grandparents told me about all the strange little people who lived in the wooded expanse of southern Illinois. They serve as a reminder that humans are not the only people and we inhabit a world far older than rationality.

Q: Describe your ideal gaming experience (when, where, what, how).

A: My ideal gaming experience would be a 5-day binge of Old School Essentials at a cabin in the woods with my dearest friends and my brother.

Q: Favorite gaming snack?

A: Pistachios

Q: Has a game ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?

A:  Yes, definitely.  If it weren’t for gaming during the pandemic, I wouldn’t have rekindled a friendship with one of my dearest college friends.  Now we chat almost daily and continue to game together regularly.

Q: Which subjects do you wish more creators would build games about?

A:  It isn’t a topic or subject, but I would love to see smaller TTRPGs and games with endings.  Things that take you through the full game experience in just a few hours.  The Labyrinth Adventure Game is a great example.

Q: Favorite record(s) or track(s) to listen to while working on this project?

A: I have been listening to the Bulbils tape, A Smashing Adventure, from Heimat der Katastrophe.  I’m listening to it again right now.

Quick shout-out to a few projects we are excited about!
about 2 years ago – Sun, Sep 11, 2022 at 09:30:41 AM

Hey All,

We've been so focused on our own Kickstarter these past two weeks that today we want to take a little break and highlight a few other projects we are really excited about (and have backed)!

Skin Crawl Issue 2! Giant Size Horror Anthology: If you don't already know Skinner's art, you actually probably do. He's crated a lot of cool RPG-related illustrations over the years (including as a guest artist on our last project, Ekphrastic Beasts)—and for a bunch of cool bands like Mastodon and High on Fire. He's also just a rad guy. Don't sleep on this wild, weird horror anthology that he wrote and illustrated. Only 4 days left in the campaign!

A Selection of Slimes: An OSR collection of eleven slimes, each suitable for inflicting pain and suffering on the adventurers. Need we say more? No! Need you this slim volume of liquid nasties in your library? Yes! You can pick up a PDF for as little as $1. Also only 4 days left in the campaign!

Old-School Solo Adventures: A number of you have asked us about playing Black God's Kiss solo. If solo gaming is your jam, then you definitely need to check out this collection of four adventures written for OSE which you can play in a Choose-Your-Own style, or with a referee. Campaign is over but accepting pre-orders.

Dr. Grordbort's Scientific Adventure Violence: This may be the first project from Crowbar Creative but with Exalted Funeral signed on as a collaborator we have a high degree of faith in the awesomeness of this "retro-futuristic, pulp sci-fi setting and supplement" for 5e! The art and design both look on-point, and you've still get 11 days left to back it.

FAQs Answered!
about 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 09, 2022 at 02:40:01 PM

Over the past ten days we've been getting a variety of questions from backers and would-be backers—in comments, on social media, and via direct messages. We've distilled most of them into recurring themes, and have done our best to address these below. All of these questions are now also addressed in the project FAQ section for quick reference later. We will continue adding to that section as the campaign continues. Thank you all for your curiosity and patience as we pulled this together!

Q: How much content should I expect in this project?

A: So far backers have unlocked roughly 100 pages of RPG material for the core set, and about 150 pages in the deluxe set—with more RPG material on the horizon at the $100K stretch goal.

In addition to that, the standalone microgame for 1-2 players will be about 28 pages of material.

Lastly, we are looking at a novella’s worth of fiction by C.L. Moore between Black God’s Kiss and the unlocked stretch goal for Black God’s Shadow.

In total, backers should expect 200-250 pages of material in the box set, depending on what level they pledge—and more material to come as further stretch goals are unlocked!

Q: What level range is this adventure?

A: We are designing the adventure materials to equip GMs with a variety of hooks and objectives. Because the style of play is different in each system, each adventure option will be customized for either OSE or 5e.

That being said, for OSE play there will be options suitable for player levels 1-6; while for 5e play there will be options for levels 1-6, and an additional set of options for levels 7-15.

Keep in mind that across both systems, we put “perilous setting” right in the headline for this project! Toward that end, the challenges will be designed in the “old-school style,” meaning that not all encounters are intended to be balanced to the party’s capabilities or resolvable by brute force. Judicious use of stealth, parley, and trickery are to be encouraged, in place of blindly rushing into combat.

Q: Why both systems in one box?

A: We did this for a variety of reasons. First and foremost: we didn’t want to force backers to choose between the most popular TTRPG system in the market and a dark horse system which is growing rapidly in popularity. We often play multiple systems ourselves, and so wanted to challenge ourselves to create something that could serve both interests without making people buy the same game twice.

Additionally, as lovers of the old school ourselves, we hope that this provides new players with an opportunity to dip their toes into OSE without abandoning the chance to grab something compatible with the more familiar 5e.

Lastly, we want to assure everyone who has asked: we are very aware that 5e and OSE have dramatically different play styles! Accordingly, we have developed different narrative paths for play (and of course stats / difficulty) depending on the system you choose to run.

Q: If I am new to TTRPGs and looking to learn, which system should I go with?

A: OSE is a reworking of B/X with high attention to organization, clarity, and easy to use layout. B/X is similar to 1e AD&D but is a bit lighter. For those reasons OSE is going to be a much lighter system than 5e and will be quicker and easier to learn and play.

That being said, play-style is also a big consideration. If you want an old school and deadly play-style then OSE is great, but if you want to do a deep dive into character customization and advancement, then 5e is going to give you more of that.

Black God’s Kiss will work great with both systems so you can’t go wrong going with whichever system you are most intrigued by. And because each system will have different hooks and objectives there is a very high replay-ability factor for anyone who wants to run both systems.

Q: What if I don’t want the fiction or the microgame?

A: Then you’re a philistine and you can get off our lawn!

*deep breath*

Okay, in all seriousness, the reason we packaged it this way is because adapting a work of fantasy fiction that was published four years before Gary Gygax is a complex and nuanced endeavor. People already familiar with these stories have expressed either excitement or skepticism (and sometimes both) about how the stories could be realized as a game.

Moore’s writing is very atmospheric, often surreal, and contains as many subtleties as it does dramatic encounters. To provide a multi-dimensional and immersive experience for backers we wanted to create a variety of entry points into the Black God / Jirel mythos. We believe reading the stories will enhance your experience of the TTRPG. Furthermore, by designing a standalone microgame we were able to highlight the pivotal themes and struggles central to the fiction in a way that just isn’t possible in a “sand box” RPG mode of play.

You don’t need to read the fiction or play the microgame, if you don’t want to; the TTRPG stands on its own. Just as licensing Moore’s work to a game allows us to offer something unusual to the TTRPG audience, we wanted to use this opportunity to develop a truly unique box set that’s never been done before.

Q: Is this a setting, a campaign, a sourcebook, a gazetteer, or what?

A: This isn’t a setting in the traditional sense, but it does have its own character. We have interpreted the realm of the Black God as a kind of pocket dimension that can be easily visited (or plugged into) any large game setting or campaign—or run a one-shot game within it. The Black God’s realm is a place that people throughout the cosmos may find themselves in—deliberately or unwittingly—who want to make an infernal pact. Something like Ravenloft meets Hellraiser…

Toward that end, there will be a variety of tools for GMs to lure their players into the realm, and guide them once they begin to navigate it. Among these tools will be hooks, objectives, narrative side quests, a number of new creatures, magic items, maps, and of course treasure galore! The Encounter the Architects booklet (included with the Deluxe tier, or available as an add-on to the Core and Digital tiers) will also have new character options and spells.

We've also implemented some custom mechanics (for use in both 5e and OSE) that addresses the spiritual and psychological toll simply existing in the Black God's realm can take on PCs (more on that later).

Q: Will the VTT materials be compatible with Roll20?

A: Yes!

Q: Can I get the GM screen / shirt / poster from the Black God’s Bundle as an add-on?

A: We had originally intended for the GM screen to be exclusively available through the Black God’s Bundle pledge tier but demand for it was so high that we pivoted early on in the campaign and will now be making it available as an add-on. That said, we do want to preserve a Kickstarter-exclusive quality to the Black God’s Bundle, so the poster and the t-shirt will only be available by pledging at that tier.

Q: How much is shipping to my country?

A: If you scroll allllllllllll the way down to the bottom of the project page, you’ll see estimates for shipping to regions around the world.

Unlocked Stretch Goal: Illustrated Character Sheets
about 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 07, 2022 at 06:37:37 PM

Third Stretch Goal Unlocked!

The Character Sheets stretch goal unlocks printable character sheets for both 5e and OSE illustrated by our project's artist, Saprophial. These will be made available as digital downloads to backers at all levels. If you're already drawn in by the art you've seen on our project page, expect to see more of that same work illuminating her character sheet creations! Somewhat hilariously, we hit this $70K stretch goal right in the same week that Saprophial is en route moving from the U.S. to Canada—so we just need a few more days for her to unpack and get settled before we can show you some sketches. In the meantime ...

This also means it's time to unveil another stretch goal:

$100K: Escape the Keep. We'll write an additional one-shot adventure for 5e and OSE, involving additional hooks and a multi-level map of Jirel's fortress. This will be published as both a PDF and a physical book. (All levels)

This funding pace is incredible and we're all so blown away by it! With 21 Days to go we're closing in on revealing (and unlocking?) our final stretch goal before the campaign ends. But we've got a bigger stretch to straddle before we can do that; we need to raise another $20K before we can hit our (next) $90K goal and unveil our final one.

So many if you have already been posting and sharing about the project; we see you and appreciate you! For those who haven't done so yet, the most sure-fire way we'll can hit our $90K and $100K goals is if you share your enthusiasm with your friends & GMs. Here's how you can find us online and help us spread the word:

• Join us on Discord ⚔️
• Follow us on Instagram ⚔️
• Like our Facebook page ⚔️
• Tweet at us on Twitter ⚔️
• Email your friends, fellow gamers, eldritch lovers, and dark fantasy aficionados to tell them about what we're trying to do ⚔️

xo — Janaka (and Jog, Matt, Max, Meredith, Peter, Sam, & Saprophial)

Guest Post: Composing the Black God's soundtrack
about 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 07, 2022 at 12:40:09 AM

Throughout the campaign, we’ll be featuring guest posts from our creators talking about the project. Today’s guest post is from Sam Winnie, who composed the score for our project video and—now that we've unlocked out $60K stretch goal—will be working on the gameplay soundtrack.

Whenever I’m composing a score, much like in other art forms, it is a process of two pillars: concept and mechanics. The concept is first formed through conversations with whomever has commissioned the work. Here, we lay out the tonal and structural aspects of the piece; what components of the source material should it reflect? What feelings should it convey? Janaka, Saprophial, and I spoke at length on these ideas in the days before the first compositional sketches were written.

In discussing C.L. Moore’s “Black God’s Kiss,” we were struck by her use of language to evoke dreamlike and atmospheric landscapes. It was this—in combination with Saprophial's early drafts of the box art—that proved to be my two most reliable inspirational references. From there, the mechanics of composition begin. This phase consists, at least initially, of me hammering away endlessly at my piano and digital keyboards until I find suitable musical ideas. Crude but effective. These ideas take shape in the form of melodic themes, textures, or chord progressions and, oftentimes, the ideas themselves can suggest other timbral aspects of the piece and its structure.

The genesis of our trailer's score, “The Kiss,” was two chords that I found quite versatile (for my music theory nerds out there: it is Eb/G to F#min/A). Performed by itself, this chord progression possesses strong harmonic motion and has an ethereal quality in the higher registers and a dark, murky, and ambiguous feeling in the lower registers. These features and resulting emotions play out in several ways throughout the piece as it develops into its first fantastical crescendo.

Technical and artistic jargon aside, I hope that when you hear this music you are transported (willingly or otherwise) into the unreal world of Jirel of Joiry!

—Sam