Call of Kickstarter

So in the last couple of days a couple of Cthulhu related Kickstarters have finished, and one is still going with 9 days to go at time of writing.

First up we have the reprint of Horror on the Orient Express. This was a Kickstarter by Chaosium to raise funds for a new edition of the classic campaign. Chaosium originally asked for $20,000, and ended up getting over 1000% funding at $207,804. I'm ashamed to say I ended up in for more than I initially planned at $150 (Conductor, Canada for those interested.) There was a lot of confusion originally with the shipping charges being messed up, descriptions not being clear and stretch goals that were incomprehensible to some. Things did get ironed out slowly over time and it ended as a huge success for them. Note to RPG companies in the future though, never start a Kickstarter during GenCon, you won't have the time to devote to it that you'll need.

Next up was Tremulus. Not related to Call of Cthulhu but a Lovecraftian hack over the Apocalypse World engine. Not something I'm hugely familiar with but it sounded interesting to me. Generate your games as you go, different game each time and it becomes more of a storytelling game than a traditional RPG with less work on the gamemaster. Originally asking for $5,000, they came in at 1254% funded with $62,723. Only $20 from me this time, PDFs only. Seemed a lot to add $40 more to get a paper copy shipped to Canada and it may be something I don't play, just read and go "hey this is cool, I should run this some day."

Lastly is the Cthulhu Playing Cards. A Cthulhu themed set of Bicycle playing cards. Traditional, interesting and with some decent art. They were asking for $7,500 and at time of writing had $66,302 with 9 days left. They'll do fine. Not even a little bit of wrangling with Chaosium over trademarks could slow them down.