Image by ScalyDragon from Pixabay
It’s time to don your armor, because I’m back with another weekly review of Dungeons & Dragons and 5e-Compatible projects on Kickstarter – including the very ooky Midnight Ball and GrymWyrd Tales!
I’ve now covered every D&D project on Kickstarter for a whole month. In that time, I’ve figured out some things – including that it’s no fun to scour a campaign page only to discover it’s poorly-planned, badly-edited, unreadable in layout, or even covertly racist – and to then write about it.
I don’t want to punch down on first-time creators or highlight creators whose work I’d never endorse.
Starting with this post, I’m no longer reviewing every new project on Kickstarter each week – only the ones that look interesting to me or that I think are worth recommending!
This week there’s just five new projects, of which I review three below:
- 5e D&D – Adventure Journal, Character Sheets & Planners – Reviewed! A cool physical artifact to track your character.
- GrymWyrd Tales – Volume 1: Siblings – Reviewed! A great value for bringing mature horror to your party.
- The Midnight Ball – Recommended! A creepy, role-play-heavy mansion mystery.
Also new on Kickstarter this week are:
For projects with a scope that extends beyond being a single adventure or specific topic like “wands”, I review them based on the 9-point criteria I established in “What makes a good Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official release or 5e-Compatible supplement?”
Want to catch up on other currently-running campaigns? Here are all of the other 24 campaigns currently-running on Kickstarter, all of which I’ve covered in depth on past posts in this series.
- 12 Projects from the 19 July 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Post
- Brave: Guide to the shattered
- Calls To Action: Extraordinary Party Backgrounds for 5e
- D&D 5E Modules: Tomb Raiders of Orek / Into the Royal Tombs
- Dalor’s Guide To Devils & Demons – HIGHLY Recommended! 6 Days Left!
- The Dark Nun’s Church, a D&D 5e Adventure – Cool first time campaign!
- Druid Wild Shape Reference Deck
- A Guide to Guilds For D&D 5E
- Maps & Monstrum Compendium
- Quick 5e Side Quests – 1€
- Rings of Protection – From a creator I dig!
- Shipwrecks of the Astral Sea
- Whisper & Venom: Dark Fantasy Adventure for 5e and OSE
- 7 Projects from the 12 July 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Post
- The Courts & Kingdoms Tavern: 5e Drunken Supplement
- Customizable, Comprehensive DND 5E Character Journal
- Hag Mag: A Terrible RPG Adventure Setting for 5E – Check this out!
- Humblewood Tales – Sequel to a cool campaign setting.
- Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying – Unusual Concept!
- Til Death Do Us Part: Adventures With Heart For 5E – Great value!
- Treasure Hoard: Volume 1 – HIGHLY Recommended!
- 5 Projects Covered in the 5 July 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Post
- Curse of the Chupacabra: Epic Horror Adventure For 5e & OSR – 4 Days Left!
- A Folklore Bestiary for 5E and OSE – Recommended! 2 Days Left!
- The Lost Message (5E)
- The Rumor Broker’s Ledger of Names: An NPC Compendium
- Skwirl’s 5E Wild Shape Cards – Recommended! 6 Days Left!
Do you have an upcoming 5e-Compatible Kickstarter project? I’d be happy to check out your sample pages, give you comments on your planned campaign page, or highlight your project in a future post. Just leave me a comment below or reach out to me @CrushingComics on Twitter.
5e D&D – Adventure Journal, Character Sheets & Planners
On Kickstarter! Created by Theorycraft. Funding goal of $180 reached! Kickstarter ends Wed, August 10 2022 11:31 PM UTC +12:00.
What is it? This project describes itself as, “DUO PACK: Track your Adventures & Plan your Character’s Development with these epic hardback books specifically designed for D&D 5e!”
Notable Pledge Levels: £10 (~$13USD) for a digital version; £20 (~$25USD) for either the Adventure Journal or the Character Planner; £30 (~$37USD) for both.
Should You Pledge? I think campaigns for character sheets and journals always need an angle, because they are competing with free-to-use print-outs and cheap digital tools. The angle of this campaign is that the books are solid, hardcover tomes that not only allow you to jot down your character notes, but keep them on your shelf in an attractive format next to your D&D books.
GrymWyrd Tales – Volume 1: Siblings
On Kickstarter! Created by STONEworks Gaming. Funding goal of $180 reached! Kickstarter ends Tue, August 2 2022 10:00 AM UTC +12:00.
What is it?GrymWyrd Tales – Volume 1: Siblings describes itself as a 12-24 page scenario that is “Part one in an anthology series of dark & strange horror adventure scenarios inspired by old-school gaming and designed for 5E.”
Notable Pledge Levels: $4 for a PDF digital copy; $10 to include a previously-published “Volume 0” adventure.
What it includes:
- Rule Sets: N/A
- Game Worlds & Settings: N/A
- Adventures & Campaigns: One 4-6hr adventure
- Creatures: 10 monsters
- Playable Races: N/A
- Classes & Sub-Classes: N/A
- Equipment & Items: 1 magic item (additional items as stretch goals)
- Spells: 3 spells
- World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: digital map
Should You Pledge? Do your campaigns like to trend a little more violent and scary than the official D&D content is willing to go? If all of your players consent to that sort of thing, typically you’re left to your own devices to dream it up.
That’s exactly what GrymWyrd Tales offers, in the form of a 4-6 hour scenario for characters Level 1-4. Thes campaign promises, “drug use, coarse language, and graphic illustrations of body horror and violence” and other mature themes that the official book shy away from. The sample layout pages look terrific as does the artwork. I think if this sort of thing would resonate with your group, $4 is a reasonable price to pay for the quality they’re showing off in the campaign.
The Midnight Ball
On Kickstarter! Created by The Grinning Frog. Funding goal of $361 reached! Kickstarter ends Mon, August 1 2022 10:00 AM UTC +12:00.
What is it? The Midnight Ball tersely describes itself as “Recommended for experienced Dungeon Masters.” It’s a roleplay-heavy locked mansion mystery for 7th level characters where the mansion is the mystery.
Notable Pledge Levels: £7 (~$10USD) for a 32pg B&W PDF digital copy; £10 (~$13USD) for a print copy; £15 ($19USD) for both
I thought I had missed this campaign in previous weeks because it is ending so soon, but it’s simply a short, 12-day campaign.
What it includes:
- Rule Sets: N/A
- Game Worlds & Settings: N/A
- Adventures & Campaigns: 1 adventure
- Creatures: an unspecified number of new stat blocks
- Playable Races: N/A
- Classes & Sub-Classes: N/A
- Equipment & Items: N/A
- Spells: N/A
- World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: extensive interior maps for 40+ rooms, 20 “NPC events” to be triggered by you or your characters
Should You Pledge? I have to confess, this adventure pushes ALL of my buttons as both a player and a DM. Mansion mysteries are one of my favorite genres of stories, and having attempted one for my party last year I know how difficult they can be to engineer! Also, I love RP-heavy adventures (as does my group) and the creepy, macabre vibe that haunts the background of this project.
Creator Stephen Hart notes, “the last campaign run by The Grinning Frog fulfilled it’s digital rewards within 2 hours of the campaign closing,” and which this one isn’t planned to deliver quite as quickly it sounds like there will be no question of receiving it soon. I recognize several of his past projects as stuff I’ve been meaning to browse, so I took the plunge on this one (even if the group I DM is about to level out of it).
[…] 3 Projects from the 26 July 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Post […]