First, I’m gonna talk about my Monday Lunch Meeting with our CCP representative and all-around good guy, Eddy Webb, and then a fair bit about the Mage20 Kickstarter and Onyx Path‘s whole methodology of handling KS Stretch Goals- as that topic has come up a lot recently. So this is going to be one of those blog posts, and you’ve been given fair warning.
Eddy mentioned that he had been to a live performance of Welcome to Nightvale, so already I was jealous. I’ve been enjoying the broadcast for quite a while now, and while they sometimes get more whimsical than my WoD, the city and surrounding environs could certainly exist in “our world, but darker”. Eddy has been getting some requests to speak at various cons and colleges and was wondering about how to step into such things and how to price his fee. Not a lot of comparable situations usually occurring in tabletop RPGs where your “speaker fee” is usually transportation, room, and board, as guest of honor, or what have you. He and I also compared notes on some of the writer and artist rates out among other companies- as we have done occasionally for years- to note that with very few exceptions, Onyx Path continues to be one of the better paying companies in the tabletop RPG business. Which granted, is not saying a whole lot compared to the real world.
Which leads us to the impetus of my writing about our Stretch Goals: specifically, my discovery last week that some of you fearless-front-facers out there have some misunderstandings as to what Stretch Goals are, how they function as part of a Kickstarter, and why any sort of Stretch Goal pay bump to our awesome creators is not cheating you out of other, cooler, Stretch Goal bonus products.
To begin with, let’s be clear from the onset, Stretch Goals are not part of the original Kickstarter process. The gang who created KIckstarter did not have them in mind when they went live, and so far have not built them in to the creators’ tools. I believe Stretch Goals started because game designers simply must tinker with systems, and saw a cool “after the goal has been achieved” demand from the backers. So any Stretch Goals you see as part of any KS have been deliberately added by the project creator. This is important because…we don’t have to include them. We really don’t.
Now, I can’t speak for other creators, but the reason I like them, and include them, is based on several things:
1- They are fun for our fan community. It’s fun to see what else can be unlocked as the KS keeps rolling past funding. Sometimes that fun is compounded because backers get a chance to add to the original intention for the book: added subjects and art, more bookmarks, special gilding. Sometimes it’s fun because backers get to enable us to create more projects than just the intended special book: extra books, screens, maps, music suites, novels and fiction anthologies. It’s fun when we can give backers those new projects for free or at a discount. And it is always fun when backers are throwing around ideas for what would be cool and participation becomes far more than just “pre-ordering” a book and going away. This added community experience was one of the big selling points of Kickstarters for Onyx Path when I first looked at KS, and continues to be a big reason behind our KSs.
2- We (Onyx Path) get to create some things we wouldn’t have. And we get to try out ideas that we’re not sure would be of interest to the community.
3- Backers can reach out and do more for the creators than a simple transaction-based relationship. The KS format and comments set-up starts the process, but I think the Stretch Goals where the backers actually enrich the creators’ efforts like with the aforementioned pay bumps, or flying the Exalted Devs out to Gen-Con for meet and greets, really expand what it means to support a company and the creators. It becomes more of a two way street, with a spectrum of involvement much wider than was standard years ago: from fans commenting about a particular text section to add, to enabling a writer to afford rent that month.
Now, you’ll note I didn’t include “Making huge bucks!” as one of the advantages of Stretch Goals for Onyx Path. Certainly, the theory is that having a series of Stretch Goal rewards spurs on the excitement, which gets existing backers pledging more, and new folks interested and then backing. All this excitement and noise is supposed to be better than not. In my thinking, for the reasons above I’ll take the Stretch Goals as we do them- but for financial gain? I’m not convinced that the extra hoopla actually makes a creator more money once you factor in the costs of creating the new projects.
Which brings us neatly to the realities that dictate how Onyx Path does Stretch Goals. The first reality, which is really the most important one that must be understood by both creators and backers, is the fact that all the “extra money” after the funding goal is met is not pure profit. The vast majority of pledges throughout the run of our Kickstarters involve getting the physical book (that the KS is being run to create because doing short run prestige and deluxe books is expensive) as a part of their Reward Tier. Which is unlike other KSs from other industries where your rewards aren’t about a physical thing created because of the KS, but like a tote-bag with the bands’ logo for backing getting a new album out. So most of the funds we get go towards the creation and shipping of those books. We also have percentages to pay before anything else happens to Kickstarter and Amazon Payments for using their platform and services, and to CCP as part of our license.
Then that’s what we do with Stretch Goal rewards- we decide how much of that percentage of the pledges that isn’t directly eaten up by fees and the cost of creating the books themselves we can use for the additional stuff in the Stretch Goals. I am ultra-conservative about carving out funds to add to the book, or to create new projects via the Stretch Goals, because there is not a lot of leeway there. My goal is for Onyx Path to be here making the books you love ten years from now, not closed up because we made a bad call on making Vampire Lawn Chair rewards for the Deluxe Mage 20th KS.
Because, anything else that needs to be created- ie: physical things- brings another set of issues to the table. There are the added logistics and cost of packing and shipping those extra things as part of the backer reward package, but even more dangerous is how the trap of how the Stretch Goal is set up and worded.
Here’s the logic: a physical item Stretch Goal reward is going to be given to all or some percentage of your backers based on a goal number. Let’s say it’s another book. As an informed creator, you get a quote for the number of books you’re estimating you’ll need to have printed. So you know about how much of that extra money you need to assign to pay for printing/manufacturing these new books and set your Stretch Goal amount based on that. Let’s say you set $3,000 aside. Now here is where it gets ugly: what happens if the number of pledges is a lot more than you estimated? Let’s say the number of books you’ll need to create to fulfill your Stretch Goal amount has doubled, and even with some cost reductions for scale, it still will cost you $5,000 instead of the $3,000 you set aside. That $2K has to come from somewhere, and it’s going to be from a different part of the pledge funds. Fall into that pitfall enough times and your big huge success of a KS has just been torpedoed by your Stretch Goal efforts.
So Onyx Path, by and large, doesn’t include physically manufactured rewards in our Stretch Goals. I try and stick with PDFs and other electronic projects like Music Suites, which have almost no scaling issues based on quantity, and discounts to PoD products which allow backers to choose to purchase or not. The rewards still cost us for creation (which is a fixed cost), but not manufacturing. The advantage to the backers is that we can still add a lot of new projects during the course of a KS without breaking the bank, and we include other types of Stretch Goal rewards which aren’t new item/project based as well.
Which brings us to those Stretch Goal rewards that aren’t about another bit of bonus stuff, but are about allowing Onyx Path, through your pledges, to give something back to our creative teams. And while there are a few backers who get annoyed anytime a Stretch Goal is not a freebie they want, the most divisive extra Stretch Goal are those times we give a well-deserved bonus to the creators. First, let me be clear, any Pay Bump does not include me, no matter how involved I am in the project or the KS. So I have no vested financial interest in “sneaking a pay bump in there”. Which is paraphrasing from a comment I got on the Onyx forums.
I could just wait to the KS is over and fire off a few bonuses like I used to do with our earlier KSs. But look up the page to Stretch Goal reasons 1 & 3 above. Making a Pay Bump a Stretch Goal is fun and lets those who care about these things know that some fraction of their pledge is going directly to the very folks whose imaginations, creativity, talent, blood, sweat, and tears go into the making of these games you love. That’s a rare opportunity, and one I think is worth hearing a few complaints about every time we do it.
The other complaint we keep hearing is that some folks want all of our possible Stretch Goals listed ahead of time with each KS. Well, unless I see evidence to change my thinking, that simply is not how we do Stretch Goals. Before each KS goes live, myself and the Devs and other creative folks involved get together and throw around ideas as to what would be cool as Stretch Goals. We make sure that we understand just how big the projects would be, and who will take ownership of getting them created if they get the OK during the KS. If the Kickstarter is for a project that allows adding material to the book, I try and get a list of Dev ideas for possible expansions to the existing book, but am always looking for feedback from the community as to what they want to see in there. We establish a rough ladder of Goals, and then tease a couple at the beginning. That way, we can try and “read” the KS once it goes live so that we’re putting the Goals in in such a way that they are seen as doable based on how fast pledges are coming in. We don’t want backers getting bored, or us flashing through the Goals so fast that they don’t register.
Similarly, to the original point about listing all the Stretch Goals ahead of time, I’ve found that while there are a minority of backers who are most satisfied when they have a list, most backers seem to have more fun when Stretch Goals are revealed sequentially. Right now, as with the Deluxe Mage 20th KS, we try and keep two unachieved goals revealed at a time. It’s the anticipation and reveals that add in to the fun, and we have the freedom to swap Stretch Goals around and add Goals we didn’t think of ourselves if the backer community brings them up.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few points I wanted to make, but this magnum opus is already War & Peace size, so let’s wrap it up for this week and continue any questions in the comments.
And a shorter section (in comparison) this time:
– Mummy the Curse – Cursed Necropolis DC is in editing.
– Exalted 3rd Edition: From Holden: Bureaucracy Charms are down, Crunch Team Prime is now banging away on Craft. The social engine, larceny rules, investigation rules, and leadership rules, along with Charms dealing with all of the above, have now been sent out to playtesters, officially kicking off Phase 2 of the playtest.
Zub’s EX3 Comic is more than halfway finished being illustrated and both EX3 novels are being worked on (I talked to both novelists last week). Starting to get one of the EX3 Music Suites to a finished state, the Dragon Blooded theme.
– V20 Hunters Hunted 2: US/Canadian missing packages being gone through case by case- at this point I should have messaged all of you back. Waiting for confirmation that all International packages have been sent.
– V20 Anarchs Unbound – Amazon Payments are finished and we’re getting together some fun for our AU backers including first shot at AU t-shirts featuring Smilin’ Jack himself.
– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: As with HH2, US/Canadian missing packages being gone through case by case- at this point I should have messaged all of you back. Waiting for confirmation that all International packages have been sent. The Heavy Metal Deluxe W20 is slowly being assembled- the current delay being a glitch on the W20 disc on the spine that’s being fixed by the printer. Mike Lee has a new batch of chapters of the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel for Bill to review. Jess Hartley has the White Howlers Tribe Book in red-lining and will jump back into inputting changes once her last couple of CB stories are done for that anthology. W20 Wyld West patch writing is in editing and is being art directed.
– Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition- the Deluxe M20 Kickstarter KS went live just about a week ago and we have (as of this writing) 2185 backers, and $330,256 in pledges! We’ve passed 11 Stretch Goals including 3 early t-shirt designs, a Character Pack PDF Parts 1&2, a Quickstart PDF, a PDF on the way the Spheres work, an increase in the art budget, Book of Secrets PDF Parts 1&2, two more silk bookmarks, a Mage20 Fiction Anthology and a pay bump for the creative team. Come check it out, the fun is just starting! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-mage-the-ascension-20th-anniversary-edition
– W20 Changing Breeds PDF and PoD versions are on sale at DTRPG! Deluxe files are with the printer- proofs were shown to backers and are back with the printer. The cover emboss needed a tweak and has been. The Changing Breeds Fiction Anthology in editing.
– W20 Book of the Wyrm is in layout. This will be the next Kickstarter project if everything times out as expected. We think this book should appeal to W20 and W20 Changing Breeds fans alike.
– V20 Rites of the Blood: is ready for layout, but layout is not yet ready for it, art finals rolling in.
– Dark Ages: Darkening Sky (classic Dark Ages): PDF is available on DTRPG. Physical book PoD just needs to go on sale, hopefully this week.
– Trinity Continuum: New System ideas continue being hammered out. Most of the Aeon setting material is in. Logo discussion has started. We’re looking at starting some preliminary blog posts.
– Scion: New Systems discussion continue. Both Scion and the TC above are now moving into active mode for 2014. Contracts and art notes out for the Scion: Origins cover.
– Demon: The Descent: We delivered the Demon PDF to KS backers before the end of December, and the backer PDF has been updated and the PoD version is awaiting PoD approval (I sent for the PoD proofs again after the ones last week had some major errors in them). Traditional printing files at the printer. The Demon: Ready Made Characters set is in editing and the artist is working. Demon Seed Collection is in first drafts. DtD Seattle is in first draft. Heirs to Hell is in redlines.
– Hunter: Mortal Remains: Art coming in and going in for approval to CCP, and is in layout.
– Book of the Deceived (MtC): Redlines. The loss of a writer means their section has to be given to a new writer, CAS is on top of it.
– nWoD: Dark Eras: Writers are following up on redlines except for one chapter which is having writer issues.
– V20 Dark Ages: Scribes are scribing 2nd Drafts. David Hill has recently moved to a new country and is still acclimating, more info once he is settled in.
– DtD Players Guide: Flowers Of Hell?: In editing and being art directed.
– V20: Ghouls: First drafts coming into to the developer for redlines.
– V20 Red List: In final draft stage.
– The Making of the Art of Children of the Revolution: Out to backers who pledged for it. Creating PoD files to go with PDF for sale on DTRPG.
– W20: The Umbra: First drafts being written.
– WtF: The Idigam Chronicle: First drafts being written.
– GtSE: Geist Ready Made Characters: Being written. Just thought we’d throw this in.
Reason to Drink: I need a drink after writing all of that….
As far as the “making giant bank” theory on well funded KS’s, I don’t think a lot of people think of the percentages that things like Amazon payments takes when they are complaining about this.
The only time I’ve ever been slightly bothered by the “give the creative team more” was the multiple choice stretch goal during the Exalted KS. It was going to be a surprise when we reached it, but it honestly just left a bad taste in my mouth. I would of preferred a straight “We’re doing a pay bump”. I actually appreciate being able to give a bump to the guys doing the work.
I also like the lack of list of the stretch goals. It’s neat to find out what new ones have been added.
Keep up the good work on the KSs. I’m supremely sad my finances won’t allow me to pick up a Deluxe copy of Mage 20th.
The multiple choice was designed to allow some feedback from the backers, which we got. That was why they rolled out like they did. What felt bad to you about that?
I’m not sure how to word it, but when confronted with the multiple choice avenue for that Stretch reward it had this feeling of “Well, of course they’ll go with 5% more money for them.” The interesting thing about that is that other Stretch goals which include a pay bump I don’t have a similar feeling about.
I also wasn’t aware that it was in any way based on feedback from backers which may have happened in the comments of the KS when I wasn’t looking.
Well, yes- we were listening to the comments. But frankly, even if we just went with the 5%, what’s your issue with that?
Sorry for my intromission, but i think that “any” repeated Stretch Goal gives that feeling… if one is going day by day to the web to see if there’s any new stretch goal, and the dollar flow is becoming slower day by day, and the new shiny stretch goal is EXACTLY the same that something that came before, the feeling is a bit deceptive…
For example, in M20: the Books of scertes for me are the most important of all the stretch goals (i know that this is a subjective evaluation), but even in that situation, if one were to have the title “Book of Revelations” and the other “Book of Secrets” and a real distinction btw them in the description (one about subsects, and the other about expanded rules for example), even being the same products that we will have at the end, it would have been a lot more attractive to the backers.
On the other hand, the t-shirts case, that even being “different” can be felt reppetitive because are really distant from the concept of the project (a book/game).
I hope to have added som constructive feedback here 🙂
@Adria Check out the part in the post where I talk about velocity. Book of Secrets is one book divided into three Stretch Goals because nobody is going to like waiting for a single $100k Stretch Goal to be met. So the description is as it is because it all adds up to one big book.
I never said it was based on a logical reason. I was just giving you feedback that when done in -that- fashion, it bugged me.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the amount, I can tell you that. It was something about the multiple options and it only being revealed after the previous stretch goal was reached that led to the irritation.
Does that make it clearer?
Didn’t mean to imply that the % amount was the issue, was just using that as the point independent of the three options we offered. But it was the fact that we did the three the way we did which seems to be where your personal issue with the whole things lays. Which is totally not something I’m going to try and argue away- it’s how you feel about it. Strangely enough, we got a ton of positive feedback about the whole three options thing, so good to hear from the other side. Thanks!
Wednesday, there was a lot of discussion in the Ex3 comments section about which stretch goal we wanted. It was more chaotic than “voting” but the pay bump option did seem to get the majority support, as I remember.
I can see how it must have looked pretty different for backers who weren’t following the comment feed, though.
…are there seriously people who object to pay bump stretch goals? those are my favorite kind of stretch goals. RPGmaking is no gold mine, kids. people put long hours into their work and don’t see a lot of material reward for it (or even a lot of recognition). kicking an extra few percent of the fundraised money their way can mean a lot in their lives.
Absolutely. Every time we include that Stretch Goal we get complaints. The new added twist we heard about last week was that the Pay Bump was some kind of scam.
Lending my voice to those saying that the pay bump is an awesome goal and should continue to appear!
Well don’t worry, we’re not going to stop including Pay Bumps when they make sense.
Well, seriously, I usually pay for the book, not the extras.
Being told that me getting the book made somebody else’s day brighter, and most likely resulted in them being at least a little bit happier about producing said book, is just fine and dandy for me 🙂
I’m with Octavio, you and your team deserve the pay bumps. Let the haters hate, they will never understand.
To carry this blog post’s output into future scenarios, I’d like to propose the following. What active readers and supporters here (on the Onyx Path blog comments and in the forums) can do to help new supporters and people who miss out on these discussion is this:
Take in the insight shared with us by the Open Development process and add our voices to Rich’s et al when there are people dissatisfied by a lack of background and understanding in the process and how they have grown.
More voices equals varied explanations which equals more teaching styles, effectively increasing the chance people in, say, the Comments section of a Kickstarter will have a better shot at coming across a perspective that gets the point across.
…And then there are some followers in any circle who may be unhappy with any explanation given by the development/business-side, for varied reasons. In those instances, hearing an explanation from fellow customers can allow them to be more open minded and actually listen.
Hope that all makes sense.
As a M.A. student, my finances won’t allow me to pick up any of the Deluxe copies, or even DTRPG hardcovers, specially after shipping costs are added (I live in Brazil). It means I must settle for .pdf books. However, I know how important words of encouragement can be, so I say: keep on rocking you guys!
Keep up the good work on the KSs, and stretch the stretching goals. They fund interesting add-ons, like the new anarch domain (can’t wait for Anarchs Unbound), things even .pdf guys like me can enjoy!
And yes, I support pay bump stretch goals.
Do what you can, my friend. Thanks!
I’m having flashbacks to the Veronica Mars and Zach Braff Kickstarters. This makes me sad. And angry. Sangry?
But the Ex3 updates makes me happy, so I guess that evens out. Also looking forward to Flowers of Hell and Heirs to Hell.
Glad your emotions stabilized, T. I don’t think the exact same issues are in play as those KSs, but maybe the same misunderstandings are the root cause. Hence why I wrote this big-ass blog these last two days. Hopefully some folks will be better informed after this.
On the bright side, at least you don’t have to worry about explaining the concept of overhead expenses to people.
I actually like those stretch goals that are pay bumps, in my opinion, the creative team deserves that; I can also fully understand why some people dislike them, I wonder if they’re backers who increase their pledge or just wait for more people to join the ks.
Something I’d like to be added as an option is for international backers to pay for shipping at a later date (i.e. When the books are ready to be shipped), this helps in 2 ways: you wont lose money if there’s an increase in shipping costs (after all the books could be delayed a lot, just like W20), and we, backers, could use that money to increase the pledge and worry later for shipping.
So far, this is the 3rd project I’ve contributed to, still waiting for my W20 HME and Exalted, but very happy to contribute to this and to help the creators with those pay bumps.
Well, that’s an interesting idea. The problem with it is that we then really step out of the Kickstarter process and tool-set and Onyx just isn’t set up for tracking, payment processing, all that sort of stuff at this time. But definitely something for us to keep in mind.
I was looking at a Kickstarter that sort of offered what Miguel suggested, and the bloke running it had set up a mad-complex set of rubrics for HOW it all would work. I took a look at it all and though, no way mate. I do NOT have the maths to make this work out… Still, as Rich says, worth thinking about?
You don’t have the maths? I’m a friggin’ artist over here! 🙂
I REALLY dislike the idea of having to pay for shipping at a later date. I would rather pay a bit more than I have to up front (which often determines what I will actually get), than have to find more money months down the track for what I have paid for. That shipping deal has certainly stopped me from backing a few kickstarters I had been interested in.
Keep doing the kickstarter like your doing!! I’m ecstatic every time one launches. If people want to whine about the creative team getting a bump for their hard work (and let’s face it pleasing nerds is hard work) well that’s their issue. On a quasi related note, tease me about a changeling kickstarter pretty please?
We haven’t even confirmed that we’re doing C20. Let’s see how Wraith 20 does. Then come the teasers!
I’ll be there boss! Keep um coming!
Bah, screw Changeling, I want Demon and I don’t care how far away it is from twenty years!
Oh, and Orpheus, I loved Orpheus.
p.s. I’m one of the people who is in favor of the pay bump stretch goals and would actually like to see more of them.
Wild horses (nor graduate school) would keep me from C20 BTW. I’ve been very sad it seems to be the last cWoD product to get it’s anniversary. I’m one of those odd people who rants and raves like a madman when people bring up that game.
While C:tL has grown on me after exposure to it, it still doesn’t hold a candle to one of my first WW loves.
It doesn’t seem to be the last of the original five, it is. Because of math. Each anniversary book is supposed to be out in the year that is actually the 20 year anniversary of when it was first published. (Mage slipped). So since we put out each of the originals one a year for five years, so too do the anniversary editions come out the same way.
Yep.
1991: Vampire: The Masquerade (20th: 2011)
1992: Werewolf: The Apocalypse (20th: 2012)
1993: Mage: The Ascension (20th: 2013)
1994: Wraith: The Oblivion (20th: 2014)
1995: Changeling: The Dreaming (20th: 2015)
1999: Hunter: The Reckoning (20th: 2019)
2002: Demon: The Fallen (20th: 2022)
2003: Orpheus (20th: 2023)
Then there’s the more esoteric:
1996: Vampire: The Dark Ages (20th: 2016)
1997: Werewolf: The Wild West (20th: 2017)
1998: Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade, Kindred of the East (20th: 2018)
1999: Wraith: The Great War (20th: 2019)
2001: Mummy: The Resurrection (20th: 2021)
2002: Dark Ages, Victorian Age: Vampire (20th: 2022)
With luck we’ll be doing these for years to come, but we’re focusing on what’s in front of us first.
Oh god yes! Orpheus 20!
I had no idea that was even an option. Man, I hope we get there!
Hunter is last, not Changeling.
Last of the original five. As in the five books we put out one a year after announcing we were doing a gameline a year for five years. Appreciate your Hunter love, but it was a specific point I was making.
Speaking of teasers and Wraith 20, I do hope there’s Risen.
According to Rich Dansky over on the OP forums, there’ll be some space for Risen in Wr20.
Most excellent.
I cant believe people complained about the pay bump (okay, I guess I can believe, people will complain about anything). As for reasons you stated above, getting a little bonus for something like this just encourages the creators to create more awesome pieces of work. Thats a win for everyone involved. Guess when you’re hung up on looking at one tree you dont tend to notice the forest around you.
Just read on here in the comments.
As I posted over in the kickstarter comments I’m wholeheartedly behind both of the 15% bumps to both the art budget and the same pay increase for the folks slaving away to bring us awesome books. I think people need to take a step back and realize that the RPG market is very different from 20 years ago. If OPP hadn’t picked up the license to publish these properties then we likely wouldn’t have these books and the awesome stretch goals that come with them. Above and beyond that many need to be reminded that the 15% pay bump is going to average people just like us, not millionaires who are out to squeeze out every cent possible. That 15% is going to people that love the same games we do and want to see those game survive. That can only happen if those who are part of it can actually be able to survive themselves.
The stretch goals being revealed as the funding increases rather than all at the beginning is a good thing, at least in my opinion. As they have already proven OPP listens to the feedback from their customers, and that helps shape the rewards that are offered. So revealing the rewards as it goes along not only helps generate excitement to see what the next reward will be, but it also gives OPP a chance to listen the feedback from their fans and actually use it to shape the rewards offered. That’s a great thing in my opinion, and I hope that continues.
Sorry for the length of this post, but far too often the only voices that are heard are those who are disgruntled. There are tons of us who are quite happy, so keep up the good work!
You make a good point, and one that colors people’s perceptions in the Kickstarter comments areas particularly. Very often, it’s the same people grinding the same negative comments over and over again that drown out the positive support. Or even the neutral, I’m not sure about this, folks. From what I have read, in KS after KS, the opinions you express here are what the vast majority of our community think and feel.
You should make one of the “freebie” backer rewards an “I support Pay Bumps” backer badge like you did for Demon. 😀
Maybe a T-shirt too!
As an annoying big mouth on the physical stuff part i really have to ask this : how about add-ons ? Because, stretch goal are indeed somehow “freebies” for everyone who has already pledged (bakers get the bonus without the need to pledge more, so that’s less money gain) but add-on on the other hand can scale. You have to bake more for any extra instance of add-on. so for a lawnchair one you dont actually have to use “pledge money”. If the add-on is costly enough it could more or less cover its own production cost therefore leaving only delivering organisational problem (which are annoying enough by themselves)
So could there be more add-on for collector love ? 🙂
Yes, you’re right, and I love your need to spend more on the KS. Add-ons have their own tedious issues, with the primary one being that they too are not supported by KS’s set-up. So either you use third party programs to keep track of them, which I am uncomfortable with for privacy issues, or you do what we do and have to go pledge by pledge sending links. So there’s a balance between the Add-ons folks really need- like being able to put a Screen on one of the upper Reward Tiers that doesn’t include one- and the ones some folks say they want. We kept it light with Mage to start so we could add more and it wouldn’t get crazy for us logistically.
So all in all, Mage 20 KS will be the one with less physical props than all the others core line before it ?
I know not everyone has a collector mind but, damn, I’m going to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the best RPG of all times with “only” a mammoth book, a screen and a tee ?
It IS nice, really it is, and i love every single one of them… but my passionate fan heart wish the celebration was somehow bigger and flashier.
I only have the power of buying here, I have not the power to make official Mage stuff exists. This one is yours.
So i’m going to use Phil very words here (oh nasty me 😉 ) :
“Instead of shutting things down with a No, which limits possibilities, meet almost every challenge with a Yes. That Yes can be conditional, of course”
Please don’t say me “No”. Tell me more about “If X and Y and Z then we could do it”. That way, at least, we could try.
Mage 20th is not getting shortchanged. V20 had a Deluxe book, and an alternate deluxe book for the New Orleans con, and no Kickstarter at all. W20 had only the Deluxe, the Ultra-Deluxe and the Screen as physical rewards. And W20 only barely got the Ultra-Deluxe.
Right now, as of this writing, M20 has the Deluxe, the Screen, and T-Shirts (which no other core got). Which is, again, as of writing this- there are just under three more weeks to go!
And i want more. Because, you know… that’s what fan do 🙂
Sneaky, but whatever.
The first concealed stretch goal (you reveal 2, so the third in line) should be the pay bump. People pledge really fast at the start, blowing past the early stretch goals anyway. So place those costs low enough that the early surge runs through the revealed 2 and the pay bump.
Gets the deserved pay bump sorted and avoids people really having the chance to complain about it as they’re already past it and working towards goal number 4. Make sure number 4 is something people will really want.
Dunno if that’s work.
That solution does do some to mitigate the issue, but I’m not going to put a goal earlier than makes sense just to avoid complaints, though. If earlier is good, then sure. But sometimes we have to see how the pledges are rolling in after the first wave- the velocity I speak of above.
I pledged for all 20th anniversary deluxe editions, including the HME and currently the signed edition Inscribing Disciple tier of M20. I intend to continue doing so for as long as OPP puts them out (thanks Ian for the budgeting timetable! – but where were the Trinity titles, I am waiting for that too!). I have also bought deluxe editions of CB, CotR, V20 companion, and I pledged for pdf copies of the other CWoD titles. I am not wealthy, I work for rent and am a freelance writer. OPP consumes my entire entertainment budget and I would gladly feed it more because you folks have actually always been there for me through thick and thin, up and down. Words written decades ago continue to comfort me in hard times, such as today, when I am grieving. Its more than escapism. Its healing for me.
So that is my stake in this debate about stretch goals and pay bumps. And I feel completely disgusted to hear that people are complaining about the pay raises.
Please make sure there is at least one more.
Thanks, I really appreciate you speaking your mind, and I’m even more glad that the work we have done as WW and continue to do as Onyx Path could help you through your tough times. Stay well.
Haven’t read all the comments, just got an idea, while browsing through your message above:
Tie the “Pay Increase” stretch goals with other stretch goals, so both will be achieved at the same time… better yet, increase the pay by 2% per stretch goal, period.
You are, form a neutral point of view, right that the creative team should get a pay increase and that it isn’t taking some other stretch goal away.
But the curious gamer in me, who wants to know how the KS ends, is less exited when the next stretch goal is “just” pay increase….
Thanks, because I’ve said this before and meant to include it in the blog: not every Stretch Goal is for you personally. The Fiction vs Content comments we get whenever we add a set of fiction as Stretch Goals always brings this up, as there are folks thrilled for Fiction and others who just want more playable game content. We have to be there for everybody, and a variety helps spread out the interest to a wider audience.
Vampire lawn chairs were always a dumb idea anyway.
How do you know that it won’t bite your ass when you sit down? : D
And the lawsuits after!
Considering the ongoing joke is that Eddy, and others in his place, have made “tens of dollars”? I do not begrudge you the pay bump tiers. Ever.
Once I made dozens of dollars!
You have to keep that kind of thing under wraps, if you don’t eventually people will confuse “dozens of dollars” with “dozens of tends of dollars” and not realize that’s total versus project valuations and then we’re just going to have the whole argument restarted ;).
A base 12 number system makes me irrational!
(HA! A MATH JOKE!)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, those who don’t, and those who weren’t expecting a punchline in base-3.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with paying the staff extra, I just don’t think it has any right to be made into a stretch goal. Once the funding period has ended, say in the next update something like “Thanks to all the money raised, we’ve been able to give the staff a 20% pay rise.” Do it, but don’t make a big thing out of it.
Stretch goals should be for the sake of making the product better or adding on extras. The excitement of seeing one goal met and another one revealed kinda gets killed when on my side of things I get nothing out of it.
As I explained above, I could do that and did with our earliest KSs, but found that there was a lot of appreciation and excitement when backers felt that they personally could help the creators. And again: not every Stretch Goal is for you personally.
Would it be possible to have a an add-on that functioned like a tip jar, giving the money to the creators?
At that point, the Add-on logistics thing comes in again, but I’ll certainly consider it.
It’s a relatively minor thing, but there’s a “lack of transparency” problem with the idea of secret stretch goals that just puts me ill at ease. Let me try to explain.
Imagine there’s (using totally arbitrary amounts here) a stretch goal at $10, and you’re running it. After it’s met, you’ll reveal the $30 stretch goal. While the KS team sleeps, pledges roll in, and by morning, total pledges have bounced to $40. Now, what’s going to happen here? Is the $30 stretch goal going to be revealed, then instantly unlocked? No. Why should it, when you can just whistle, glance aside, and nudge it over to $50 with your foot instead as though that had been where it would show up the whole time? You still get the carrot to lure further contributions, but you get to use it to pull people even further than you would have otherwise. The only way to prove you wouldn’t do such a thing would be to demonstrably not do it – to go ahead and unlock a “blown past” stretch goal rather than just making sure the next one appears at a convenient value. To my knowledge – and this is very incomplete, fallible knowledge – that hasn’t happened with any of these Kickstarters.
Putting aside the selfish facet of how this affects me/the backers personally, there’s some incentive to transparency for the company as well. If backers are factoring this in, then they have every incentive to make sure each goal is met as narrowly as possible, to avoid accidentally boosting past the next goal. Granting any incentive to give less money or not give any at all isn’t very good business. Now, does this outweigh all the other legitimate reasons given for secret stretch goals? Probably not, in fairness. I wonder if a compromise like listing the VALUE, but not nature, of the next stretch goal would be tenable. I’ll be honest, I don’t really have a good, clean, everyone’s-happy solution here. Just tossing out a concern I didn’t really see addressed. If one or more of these KSes HAVE honestly unlocked a stretch goal that was blown past, that would pretty much bury my admittedly minor concern.
I guess I have to ask before answering anything here- do you pledge more than the Reward Tier amount plus any Add-ons? In other words, do you pledge more than you need to in order to help us reach particular Stretch Goals?
Thanks for the response! I’m not sure, though, how that’s germane to whether or not this is part of the practice. For what it’s worth, though, and perhaps this undermines my latter point, I have put up cash towards stretch goals before. Specifically, when Exalted’s KS brought up getting the Anathema devs on-board for launch, I dramatically increased my pledge in order to help work toward that.
I should reiterate/clarify, this doesn’t bother me very much. I mean, even if this is what goes on, it’s still business, and I can’t really be too harsh on embracing opportunities like that.
I asked to try and better understand where you’re coming from. If you have added to your base pledge to help hit Stretch Goals, then you are participating in the whole thing, and being concerned about whether you added more for naught because the creator is sliding the goal posts makes sense to me.
Now it so happens that once I think of where we need to position the next Stretch Goal in terms of the reward and the goal amount, I pretty much keep it there even though none of you folks can see that or know its happening. The most obvious example was during the W20 KS where I was having trouble connecting due to storms- if I finally got back on line and the goal had been passed, I put it up like that. Remember, as I wrote above, we’re trying to use these Stretch Goals to help fund more projects, so I want to establish the best estimate I can and then move to the next extra thing.
My personal methods aside, I’m still thinking you’re worried about impropriety when there is no need to be concerned. I already told you that one of the reasons I prefer to keep most of our Stretch Goals hidden until they hit is to regulate the speed we go through them. So yes, we’re adjusting the amount before we reveal them. It would be bad for the KS if we just stuck with our guesses from before the KS went live. Too fast, or too slow, a pace- or too little gap between Stretch Goals- would eat up pledges that are needed to manufacture the books and screens.
I don’t mean to keep demanding attention here, but I’m just a little confused. You’ve said you pretty much keep it where it is (in paragraph 1), but also that the amount is being adjusted before being revealed (paragraph 2). That seems contradictory, a bit. I’m probably just not understanding the meaning. I’ll try to be content with the answer, though, so as to quit pestering you!
As mentioned below, I think it’s hugely understandable during those initial funding surges. Those can be HARD to predict and get pretty crazy! And I guess it probably doesn’t happen very often outside of that.
Yes. Sort of.
I pledge for the tier I want then about £5 more above it as an anomalous ‘unexpected costs extra’.
Basically I want to support the project as well as covering the costs of my individual ‘preorder’.
The usual way to avoid such criticisms is the way OPP have been following – to have two unmet stretch goals so the chances of blowing past both before the next can be put up is slim. Even CIG (the company making Star Citizen) have two stretch goals at a time and they set them $1m apart.
More a by-product of finding the sweet spot of not getting caught without goals, but still being able to add or subtract them based on what we’re seeing atthe time, but yeah- good point, filli noctus.
Also, we as a backer community have a nasty of habit of unpredictable funding surges. M20’s rates haven’t been exactly linear (nor are many, now that I think about it)…
Fair point! I may be misremembering here, but that may be an example of my fallible knowledge here. The only KS I really followed closely was Exalted, and I don’t THINK that did the double-goal reveals. That IS a pretty decent way to shore up against this possibility. If it did in fact use this system and I somehow just missed or forgot it… well, that’s all on me. Now, if we WERE seeing two goals routinely getting blown past at once (beyond the initial funding surge, anyway), that’d be different, but I kind of doubt that’s routinely happening.
It happened at the beginning of the Ex3 KS. The sheer speed of the pledges didn’t even allow me time to write the new Stretch Goal description before it was passed a couple of times. 🙂
Right. People forget that Exalted 3 funded to 100% in 18 minutes. The early hours of that Kickstarter were a little hard to keep up with.
Thank you so much for M20! Very excited!
Are there any plans to release a text-only version once the redlines and such are done?
Not yet, but something to consider. Thanks!
Just to voice my opinion: I prefer stretch goals that are revealed in stages during the project. My friends and I comment and share them on facebook, and it gets us hyped continuously during the project, and gives a reason to check back 🙂
Again, I think the majority of folks find that part of the process fun. Glad you and your friends do!
I really want to say this: Getting the Deluxe M20 is a lot of money for me, and as a non-PDF-human, stretch goals are not that big (mostly because I no longer play, and is like reading physical books). Conversely, finding out that the authors get more for their work always does feel immensely rewarding, and I am happy the company pairs success with incentives.
Great work, you all. You have yet to disappoint me after 20 years (ok, I was pissed off by the delays of Deluxe W20, but that’s over ^_^)
Over for you…;)
I and my gaming group contributed to the Exalted kickstarter, and when we saw the pay bump we all agreed that it was the stretch goal that made us most happy, since it gave something to the people working hard for a game that we loved.
On revealing stretch goals a few at a time – yes, please. It definitely made me go back to the kickstarter page – and to mage now – every day, to see what had been unveiled, keeping up my interest throughout.
From myself, and the guys, please continue as you are doing. I hope to be able to spend too much money on your games for years to come.
Thanks! We’re certainly going to try and do this for as long as humanly possible (and maybe a bit beyond).
I believe you have indirectly answered this but—I really hope this can be made possible and this is the best place to ask. I won’t ask again.
Will you consider making the BoS a PDF add-on option in the KS for those of us who cannot afford the Deluxe at this time and also it could be for those that want to gift the BoS with a Deluxe bought for a friend (I’m sure there’s more permutations but those are the two that came to mind)?
I do have some ideas as to why you’re refraining from offering this but I don’t want to make suppositions here if you’re still answering questions asked here. It’s more time you have to spend reading icky stuff (not good icky). One thing I will mention, which gives me hope, is you hinted the BoS will possibly be three parts. Maybe you’re waiting for hitting the “completion” before formalizing it as a prospective add-on. If so, I’m happy and can’t wait for that moment. If not, well—you’ll let me know the reason here or not.
One last thing and I hope this dulls the edges to the previous paragraphs above. Having a bad pain day in the back and knees—it fractures my tenuous writing abilities. Also, I hope this will not sound disingenuous in light of what came before.
I’m always glad when a pay bump becomes listed in the SGs. I add what I can on top of my pledge, after whatever add-ons I pick up, for that purpose. You guys deserve much more than I can offer but I try to make up for it in consistently being a part of each KS. My imagination is forever populated with chimeras of WW/OP creation and I wouldn’t change that for anything.
Thank you.
Already been under consideration, and you are on target as to the stages that have to get unlocked before further Add-ons or whatever pop up. Thanks!
Well thank you. Have a good night 🙂
I’ve been enjoying watching the M20 kickstarter and seeing the new stretch goals get added every couple of days and I’m good with the pay bump. I’m happy that we can show the creative team some appreciation for keeping us entertained over the last 20+ years.
This question was posted by someone in the comments section of the kickstarter, but with 2000+ comments it may have been missed. Is there any chance of getting the Book of Secrets I and II printed in the same book when it becomes available through DriveThru as a PoD book? Possibly set it up so people can choose to bundle them up together or purchase them separately, perhaps do the same with the character pack books when they become available. I personally would rather have the one book with all of the information I want then a bunch of smaller books and have to try to remember if I needed to grab the first or the second book. Just my thoughts.
Also, can you give us a rough estimate on when W20 Book of the Wyrm kickstarter might be happening? Spring, summer or later?
I will admit that I was looking forward to hearing how your meeting with CCP went when you tried explaining the Vampire Lawn Chair idea. 🙂
Looking forward to seeing Demon20 as well as V30 and beyond. Keep up the good work.
1) There is a chance, of course.
2) As close to after this KS as we can swing it.
Anyone complaining about the pay bumps is a miser 😛
All the writers, artists, minions, etc are what make these cool projects happen. Making sure they can eat is a pretty cool thing.
Thanks! I know the creative team really appreciate folks understanding the value of that Stretch Goal.
You mentioned that the Book of Secrets goals will be combined into a single book for the final PDF/PoD release, is that how the Character Packs will work as well? I’m not able to pledge for M20 due to current funds, but just want to plan ahead for how many books I’ll have to order on DTRPG.
That would be logical…
We’re talking Mage here. Logic doesn’t enter into it haha
No problems at all with pay boosts.
Speaking on the issue of revealing stretch goals one by one (or two by two) vs all at once:
I vastly prefer having them all revealed at once. Now don’t get me wrong, I totally get the excitement of seeing what the next thing to unlock is, and I even feel a little bit of that myself.
However, hypothetically let’s say there’s a list of 8 stretch goals and the whole thing is revealed at once. Maybe those first 3 or 4 are things that aren’t that interesting to me. Completely understand that this will sometimes be the case, as Rich said not every goal will appeal to every backer. However, if that 5th or 6th goal that I see is something that is really awesome to me, then I’d be much more likely to kick in extra right away to try to reach that goal.
Revealing them a few at a time keeps the excitement and buzz and mystery of what will be unlocked next, but I believe also runs the risk of “leaving money on the table” so to speak. If I’m watching the slow reveal and the first 3 goals get funded, but I didn’t kick in much extra because the first 4 goals didn’t draw me, then I never know about the other potential goals. Had I known about them, and one of them really floated my boat, I’d be much more likely to kick in as much extra as I could in hopes of getting that goal funded.
So yeah, I totally get the appeal for those who like unlocking the stretch goals. Just giving the logic behind those of us that find the other side a bit more appealing.
Certainly, we’re aware of that line of thinking and have played around with variations on that theme and watched it play out in other folks’ KSs. In the final analysis, having the list set up ahead of time- besides not giving us room to modify or improvise in the face of new info- engenders less excitement overall than the slow reveal.
I appreciate the pay bumps being in the stretch goals. I don’t know specifically how much you guys make, but I know the industry ain’t doing well and that many RPG designers and writers have day jobs. I contributed to Ex3 and W20 CB, and I don’t recall having any problem with the way the stretch goals were rolled out. I used up all my remaining discretionary savings on my initial pledges and couldn’t afford to pledge extra for stretch goals, but it was still exciting to see them.
In fact my only complaint about stretch goals was the way they were ultimately implemented in CB20. The stretch goals that added content to the book resulted in content that looked rushed and not polished, and had some major flaws. I was quite disappointed in the quality of the material added by the stretch goals, especially as the subject matter was extremely exciting to me and got my hopes up. I think that those goals suffered rather badly from being “tacked on” without enought time, instead of receiving whatever additional time was necessary to get them right. As many backers have said, a good book is only late until it arrives, but a mediocre or bad book is mediocre or bad forever. This is why I’m not bitter that Ex3 is taking so long. Please take as long as you need to do it well.
Not only was there sufficient time to implement the new material that came out of the Stretch Goals for W20 Changing Breeds, but Stew Wilson is not the sort of developer to publish anything he wasn’t happy with. You obviously have issues with that material, which is your right, but there was no rush to complete the text.
I wanted to post here when I saw this two days ago, but lacked the time. Now, that I do, everything I wanted to say was said.
So, I’ll keep it short:
1. Pay bumps are win/win for both us and the writers. Motivated writers are productive and creative writers. And I see no wrong in helping someone pay the rent or eat. As long, of course, as this is done with reasoned pace and intensity. Which you have done from what I can tell.
2. Add on for physical objects is an awesome idea OPP can stomach the added effort. As it was said here, it scales and pays for itself. I don’t think we’re there yet until KS finds betters ways to help people handle such a workload, but it’s a great thing to remember for the future, I think.
3. Stretch goals which are revealed as the KS goes: Best option by far in my mind. Nothing wrong with a little patience and it keeps the KS alive for the entire run. And no, I am not afraid to be cheated in the least by anyone from OPP who might fiddle with the numbers. I pay with the understanding that my money goes to my pledge and anything else that may unlock is you guys just giving us more because you can, not because you must. The entire concept is optional and completely subjective by nature, therefore the original stretch goal plans are no more or less legit and/or binding than an adjusted one. As long as the end result is fair and the goals are awesome. I’m happy.
4. Just keep rocking everyone! The last year I spent with you guys talking on KS, here or participating in open development has been thoroughly enjoyable. I just wish I could have time to be more active.
5. Scion: I know its early on and the system itself is currently still being hammered. This being said, and with all due respect to the creators of one of the best game out there, that was one of the most argued over aspect of the original run. May be having the system itself in open development could be an interesting idea?
Thanks,
Dom.
PS: I know, I failed lamentably at keeping it short.
Re: Scion- Just discussed the System with both Joltin’ Joe Carriker and Ian “Dr” Watson, and we’re all in agreement that we want neither Scion nor Trinity to launch with a surprise system. Our plan is to do internal tests and critiques of the new system and then put it up for community feedback. Not before mid-May, though.
Brilliant! Thanks for letting us know. 🙂
I, too, shall partake of a live session of Night Vale next week, after which I will be a different person; older and changed in some small part by my experiences. While I wouldn’t categorize NV as WoD material, I did entertain the thought of a game where the characters are members of the Sheriff’s Secret Police, using Project Twilight material. You want something from the merchandise booth (serious)?
Anyway, on to the topic at hand; I’m rather lukewarm on stretch goals in general, because I’ve generally made a decision about purchasing the book or not based on its subject matter before the KS was launched. That said, adding content to the book can change my mind about purchasing a PoD copy of a book that didn’t call to me prior to the KS, so those are the goals I most want to see. Though if I could only have one SG on any given book, it’d definitely be color art.
Pay bumps make my day when they’re unlocked because I want the ladies and gentlemen (and Justin 😉 ) who are creating products that I enjoy to feel like they’ve benefited from their labors in a tangible way. I can understand why backers would be unhappy over goals that have a very limited number of beneficiaries, like sending people to Gen Con. Like you said, not every goal will appeal to everyone, but I think it’s important to balance the types of goals and in what order, so that backers that don’t care about fiction don’t wind up seeing three fiction-related goals in a row.
One thing OP has done with stretch goals that I didn’t like is when creating new content and adding it to the book are separate goals. Life is better when information isn’t scattered about amongst several supplements, and the move to PoD books-while necessary-has made this hobby much more expensive and so I can’t afford to buy a lot of books.
I’m curious though, why all the additional bookmark goals? My guess is that they’re one of the less expensive things to add, but do people really think they enhance the product? I’m of the thought that most backers of deluxe editions aren’t actually using them as reference/reading books and don’t need to mark pages. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not a fan of them because of the extra pressure they place on the text/binding when pressed between pages.
Lastly, I didn’t comment on it last week, but it’s great that OP has its own booth at Gen Con this year. I will see you there.
Couple of answers-
First, we want to make the new project, which costs X to do. Then there are the added expenses of actually adding that material to a book- more paper, printing, added weight creating more shipping costs- all of which we’ll call Y. Sometimes a Stretch Goal can only support X. So we divide it up so that folks at least are going to get the project, even if as a separate product. Then another Stretch Goal covers the Y amount, and if we pass it- whoo! it’s added in.
Not only have I heard responses asking for more bookmarks, but having sat in on some sessions with players who had books with them, the utility of multiple ones really hit home.