An Extraordinary Failed Kickstarter: Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-Away

It's official. The Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-Away has been canceled. Damn shame too. They were just $44, 610 from their $45,000 goal. There are 11 disappointed (or possibly relieved) backers.

So, what was the story?

An RPG that's been around for years but no one knew about it wanted to be the break out RPG story it never was. So, singlehandedly, it decided it would give a 1 million copies of it's RPG rules on newsprint, to get it into the hands of the masses that had been deprived of the knowledge of it's existence. The fact that it had an awkward game system behind it that was certainly NOT introductory was not going to hold Guild of Blades and it's flagship game Dark Realms back from taking the mantel of leadership from D&D and Pathfinder.

Alright, that was never going to happen, but they had dared to hope.

I didn't. See here and here.

Here's the update from yesterday (it as officially cancelled earlier today):


Hi Everyone. I would like to thank those of you that backed this project (all 11 people). At this stage, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that the project can succeed (there was a better chance of hitting the Powerball and Mega Millions while getting hit by multiple lightning strikes, all on your birthday) . As such, I will let this message sit for a couple days, then I plan to terminate the Kickstarter campaign. (wisely, they killed the Kickstarter the following day) We still firmly believe in the goals of the project, but in discussions on various forums, we found far too many existing role-players would only back such a project if it were for their existent favorite game (see, there is a reason certain games are favorites - they have a following, are well supported and play well). Sadly, the owners of games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder (the two current market leaders) risk too much to give-away their core rules en mass when they are currently the market leading sellers (no, they risk too much supporting a poor substitute), so a project like this necessitates a new entrant to the field to give it a try. (but it's not new. Dark Realms is old. And not that good, sorry to say. Try something REALLY new and maybe you'll get a spark. maybe)

When the opportunity presents itself for the Guild of Blades to be able to self fund this project, I expect we'll take up the challenge once more (if they had anywhere near $45k to piss away on something like this, they probably would at that). Until then, it will have to sit on the back-burner.

The Dark Realms game books remain currently available on our website at guildofblades.com (grab it, and if someone is willing to run it, I'll gladly sit in on a G+ session. I couldn't make it through the rules myself, but if someone is willing to give it a try, I'll find the time) and we have begun releasing PDF versions of the same books RPGNow.com:

http://guildofblades.rpgnow.com/index.php…

We will continue to release additional support material for the Dark Realms. The Magic sourcebook is nearing completion and the Undead compendium is in the works. I have made significant progress on the World of Chaos campaign box set, but a fair amount remains to be done. The failure of this kickstarter simply means that the 1 million give-away project can't proceed at this time (again, 11 supporters means something else entirely - folks that have already bought your game weren't interested in the kickstarter), but continued development on the Dark Realms game itself absolutely continues. The Technology, Space Pirates and World of Chaos Campaign settings should all be available late winter. More to come.

If you would like to keep up with developments for the Dark Realms, you can drop by our website and create an account to access our forums at:

http://www.guildofblades.com/gamerreward/MainForum.php

Thanks,
Happy Gaming,
Ryan Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing
http://www.guildofblades.com

I'm sorry, but the idea here was to give away cheap, disposable copies of the game to build business for Guild of Blades. It wasn't to grow the hobby.

It's not a good game in my opinion. It's certainly not a good game for beginners, which is how this Kickstarter was selling it as. 

Kickstarters That Make Me Go "HUH?" - Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-Away

I've stumbled across a handful of Kickstarters over the last year that have left me scratching my head. Some were poorly done, some poorly presented, some made no sense, some aimed to high - but they all made me look closer to try and figure out what the real faults were. This will, I suspect, become a fairly (ir)regular feature at the Tavern.

This time I'm going to take a look at Dark Realms RPG 1 Million Book Give-Away. Right away you can tell it's ambitious. Match that to the $45,000 goal for a company's initial Kickstarter, let alone in the RPG niche, and it raises some questions.

They answer the first question pretty well - how the hell are they going to give away a million of anything with $45k dollars? They aren't - they are aiming at 250K in the first round of funding, and publishing the free RPGs on newspaper quality paper. Interesting.

The second question is an obvious one too - what the heck is Dark Realms, and why should it be able to gain $45k in pledges and 250k RPGs distributed. This there is no easy answer. Apparently Guild of Blades (the publisher) has been around since 1994, I've just never heard of anything they've put out, let alone the game they are trying to raise $45k for.

How is the game? You can grab the PDF for free, but the link on the Kickstarter page is far from helpful, as it send you to their web store to buy it in print (direct link to download Dark realms here). Yeah, I know that's not an answer - so maybe this will help:

As a function of the Dark Realms game system, each core attribute a character has is also assigned an “Adjustment Value”. The Adjustment Value is used to determine certain combat and mental capabilities as well as potential bonuses the character might receive. They “adjust” a good number of features about the character. 

The adjustment value will be determined by the current rating of the Core Attribute and is found by referencing the following table (See Below). Attribute Adjustments typically apply in one of two ways (though they can apply in others). The first is that the Attribute Adjustment rating is a direct bonus to or the starting foundation to some other game number. For instance, a character’s Strength Adjustment is a bonus to a player’s “Attack Level”. The second is that the Attribute Adjustment is a random chance on a D6 for a bonus of some sort. For instance, whenever you spend Experience Points to buy a Hit Point to add to the character’s maximum Hit Points, the character’s Health Adjustment is a chance on 1D6 to get a second Hit Point added to their maximum for free. So yes, an Attribute Adjustment of 6 would thusly be an automatic bonus Hit Point. If a character’s Adjustment for the Attribute is higher than a 6, then they get the automatic point, and each point above 6 becomes a chance for a second bonus point. So a character with a Health of 20 would have a Health Adjustment of +7, so when the character would spend Experience to buy a new Hit Point, they would automatically get a 2nd Hit Point for free, then also have a 2 in 6 chance of getting a 3rd Hit point for free.

I hope you followed that. It left me with some more head scratching.

Why would I want to put a million copies of this game out there? I guess because it uses a singe D6 and has a simple resolution system. That's about the only simple part. Here's the rules on dual wielding:

Multi-Weapon Use Penalties:

Typically this is something few people can do and even few
people can do well; but there is nothing stopping one from
trying, even if it is often unwise. Without the Ambidexterity
skill, the following penalties apply when wielding more than
one weapon:

1) Both weapons being used must be single handed weapons.

2) The larger of the two weapons will be considered to be
held by the character’s dominant hand and be the “primary”
weapon. The other weapon will be the secondary one.

3) The character gets a -1 to Dodging. This is in addition to any
Dodge penalties that would apply from each weapon.

4) The character is -3 to Initiative with the primary weapon
and -6 to Initiative with the secondary weapon. This is in
addition to any Initiative penalties that would apply from
each weapon.

5) The character is -2 Attack Level with the primary weapon
and -4 to Attack Level with the secondary weapon 

6) Yes, if they have 3 or more arms, there can be multiple
“Secondary Weapons”.

7) The character receives no Weapon Mastery bonus they
would otherwise recieve with both of the weapons being
used.

When a character has the Ambidexterity skill each point in this skill reduces one of the penalty points to each weapon otherwise given to Initiative and Attack Levels. Additionally, at Level 1 with Ambidexterity the character no longer receives the -1 Dodge penalty.

The character will still find it difficult to utilize their Weapon Masteries, but not impossible. With each weapon, the character will be able to use 1 level of their Weapon Mastery skill with that weapon for each level of Ambidexterity skill they have; Up to their maximum Weapon Mastery skill, of course.

This is not an introductory RPG that someone is going to pick up and run for their friends if they have no prior RPG experience despite what the publishers feel to be the case.

The publishers have a laudable, if unrealistic goal (it's been live for a few days, and currently has 4 backers for $138). This isn't the product that's going to make a $45k goal. $4.5k would be highly doubtful.  It is a curiosity none the less.