Your Best Game Ever!

A Couple of Things for the Final Day of the Campaign
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 11:11:18 PM

Wow! What a week it’s been! And what a final day! Just one hour left, and we are cruising toward that final, amazing stretch goal that upgrades all the books. Will we make it? Help us spread the world one last time!

Before the campaign reaches its end, we wanted to give you a little checklist of things you might do to make sure you get all of the rewards you deserve without any hiccups.

Without further ado:

1. Double-check Your Pledge. Go right now to the Kickstarter page and make sure you chose the reward level you want. If you want any add-ons, make sure you’ve increased your pledge amount accordingly. (Just click Manage Your Pledge, then increase the amount of your pledge by the cost of the add-on(s), without changing your pledge level. We’ll clarify what the extra funds were for in BackerKit, after the campaign ends.)

2. Credit Card. Please make sure your credit card information in Kickstarter is current and correct.

3. Last Minute Reward Add-Ons. Once the Kickstarter campaign is over, you won't be able to modify your pledge using Kickstarter. Add-ons should available, for a limited time, through BackerKit. We can't guarantee it, though, so if there's something you want, now's the time to be sure you get it.

4. Be Prepared for Additional Updates. The Kickstarter campaign is ending soon, but we’ll be interacting for some time—most rewards won’t ship for many months! Updates are the most reliable way of reaching all backers, so please make sure you read them and that they don’t go to your spam folder.

5. How Do You Spell Your Name? We apologize if this sounds silly or condescending, but it’s a real issue, and we have no other choice but to confront it head-on. Occasionally, in haste, people misspell or omit critical information when they provide it to us. This creates problems with shipping and sending rewards. When you provide information—your name, address, and so on—please pay close attention to all the details. If you live overseas, and your name or address includes special or accented characters, if at all possible please instead use the closest standard alphabetical character. Accented characters are often garbled as the Internet tries to convert them into American text; an "É" may come through the system written as "$%^", rendering your address undeliverable. Sometimes we can determine the correct spelling, but often not.

6. Spread the Word One Last Time! This campaign isn’t over yet! We greatly appreciate all your support. Thank you for helping us make all these amazing books happen! 

~Monte and the whole MCG crew

Cypher Deck Unlocked! And What's This...?
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 08:07:37 PM

You did it! Overnight, we reached our goal of $515,000 and thus we will make a 100-card Subtle Cypher deck. We’ll add it to the I Want It All! level and above as a printed deck and a PDF (and we’ll make it an add-on). The PDF will also be added to the All the PDFs level.

Today’s the last day. This Kickstarter has been a wild ride, and I say that as the veteran of 12 MCG Kickstarters that have all been wild rides in their own way. In many respects, this campaign started strong and never really slowed down much, and of course, now we’re at the end and it’s blowing us all away. We’re so excited.

And speaking of exciting, let’s go for one more goal. But let’s make it a really big one. We’ve been upgrading books here and there as goals throughout this campaign—but what if we upgraded ALL the books? I’m talking about adding more pages, more content, and more art for every book we’ve got in this campaign! We will upgrade Your Best Game Ever to 240 pages, the Cypher System Rulebook to 432 pages, and all four of the Cypher System sourcebooks to 224 pages.

We’ll do that if we can reach $575,000 before we close.

Let’s be real for a moment. The cost of producing books is going up and up. That’s just the reality of publishing. And we’ve upgraded a book like The Stars Are Fire from 160 pages up to 192, and now we’re looking at 224. That means if we reach this goal, when these books make their way into retail, with all these upgrades (and the reality of rising costs in the world) the price is certainly going to be more than we’ve got them listed here in the Kickstarter. People who wait and get these books after they’re published are likely going to pay at least 5 dollars more per book (and possibly more). That means that if we reach this goal, not only is the I Want It All! level an even better deal than we all thought, but even people just adding on one or two books are earning big savings by doing so now rather than later.

But we’ve all only got one day left to tell people about this deal, and they’ve only got one day to get in on it.

Thanks for being a part of this wild ride. Let’s see where it takes us by 5 PM Pacific Time.

~Monte, Shanna, Charles, Tammie, Bear, Bruce, Sean, Darcy, and Zoa! 

WANT ADD-ONS?

To get an add-on, all you have to do is look on the right-hand side of the main page (toward the top) and click on “Manage your pledge.” Increase your pledge amount by the amount of the add-ons you want. It’s that easy. After the campaign, we’ll use a service called BackerKit to collect not only your shipping address but also the details of which add-ons you’ve selected.

WANT IT ALL?

At this point, however, I’d be remiss in not pointing out what a great deal the I Want It All! level is. Back at that level and you’ll get a 416-page book, two 224-page books (one with a deluxe leather cover), a 192-page book, two 160-page books, 5 character portfolios, 4 art prints, the audiobook of Your Best Game Ever, and a 100-card deck of Subtle Cyphers. And you get them in print and PDF. Plus the Cypher Shorts character reference in print and PDF. 

Audio Book Unlocked!
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 01:01:18 AM

How exciting! This will be Monte Cook Games’ first audiobook, and I can’t think of a better book to start with than Your Best Game Ever!

This professionally produced product will be added to the I Want It All! and above levels. But it will also be included in your offerings if you take the All the PDFs level, or the All the PDFs add-on. It will also be available as an individual add-on. 

Next up is something we’ve been hoping for. In the Cypher System, nothing’s more important to the game than the cyphers (duh, Monte… it’s right there in the name). The key to making cyphers usable in any genre is something that we’re putting center stage in the revised Cypher System Rulebook, namely by focusing on Subtle Cyphers. While you can still have cyphers be techno gadgets or magical items or whatever else your setting provides room for, the easiest thing to do in any game is to have them be sudden inspirations or insights, bursts of adrenaline, or just bits of good fortune. Subtle Cyphers give a bit of ever-changing narrative control to the players.

And we’ve found that with any kind of cyphers, the best way to manage the fact that they are easily used and easily recovered is to put them on cards. So we’re going to make a deck of 100 subtle cyphers that can be used in any Cypher System game (actually, if you wanted, you could use them as character benefits for any game). Player needs a cypher? Deal them a card. Player uses a cypher? Turn the card back in. With the descriptions of the effects on each card, the whole thing becomes really easy.

If we reach $515,000, we’ll add the Subtle Cypher Deck to the I Want It All! level and above. We’ll make the deck a pdf as well, so it will get added to the All the PDFs level. The Subtle Cypher Deck will also be available as an add-on. 

Don't forget about the amazing Callisto 6 show on Geek & Sundry tomorrow night at 4PM Pacific. It's a fantastic chance to watch the Cypher System in action!

And keep spreading the word! We might end tomorrow, but you know we’re not out of ideas yet!

~Monte (and the whole not-so-subtle MCG crew)

We Are All Mad Here Upgrade Unlocked!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 11:36:49 PM

Things get even madder! We Are All Mad Here will now be 192 pages with more art, more madness, and a double-sided poster map.

That makes all four of the unlocked sourcebooks a whopping 192 pages each! And it’s all thanks to your support. This is why Kickstarters are so great. Because it enables us to not just fund the creation of cool stuff, but to make it bigger and better and more beautiful than we ever would have otherwise.

And speaking of which, up next, we want to do something we’ve never done before. It’s an experiment, but really, everything about the Your Best Game Ever book is sort of a voyage into new territory, so why not?

We want to make an audiobook version of Your Best Game Ever. We’ll hire professional narrators and producers to make this something you’ll love to listen to, and so you can get your player and GM advice while you’re in your car, while you’re walking the dog, or even while you set up the game table and get ready to play your next great session.

We’ll make this something you can add-on, but we will also add it to the All the PDFs level, the All the PDFs add-on, and of course the I Want It All! level and above. The goal to make this happen $475,000. We’ve got about 30 hours left in the campaign. We can do it!

Oh, and hey, even as our Kickstarter is almost over, take a look at this campaign for a dark fantasy supplement. Death and Decay: Creature Codex is from our friends at Blackstar and is for the Shadow of the Demon Lord game by game designer extraordinaire Rob Schwalb.

—Monte and the MCG Team

WANT ADD-ONS?

To get an add-on, all you have to do is look on the right-hand side of the main page (toward the top) and click on “Manage your pledge.” Increase your pledge amount by the amount of the add-ons you want. It’s that easy. After the campaign, we’ll use a service called BackerKit to collect not only your shipping address but also the details of which add-ons you’ve selected.

WANT IT ALL?

At this point, however, I’d be remiss in not pointing out what a great deal the I Want It All! level is. Back at that level and you’ll get a 416-page book, two 224-page books (one with a deluxe leather cover), a 192-page book, two 160-page books, 5 character portfolios, and 4 art prints. And you get them in print and PDF. Plus the Cypher Shorts character reference in print and PDF. And we’re not done—not by a longshot. If you’ve seen MCG Kickstarters in the past, you’ll note that we add a lot of great stuff in the last week of the campaign. Will there be additional books and products to add? It seems really likely, so watch the next two days closely if you’re still on the fence.

Art Prints!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 03:51:37 PM

Good morning,

While some of us were sleeping, the rest of you put us over the stretch goal amount for four gorgeous, 8x10 prints of the book covers. Thank you!

They will be added to the I Want it All! levels and above, and available as add-ons! (And if you take the Signed Books add-on not only will all your books be signed by the design team, but you’ll get the four prints signed by cover artist extraordinaire Roberto Pitturru. This will also be true for people backing at the "I Want It All and I Want My Say!" level.)

Next up, at $435,000, we will increase We are All Mad Here, growing it to a 192-page book with more art, more adventures, more cool stuff and a double-sided poster map to boot. 

What's after that? We have some cool ideas! Stay tuned!

~Monte and the whole MCG crew

WANT ADD-ONS?

To get an add-on, all you have to do is look on the right-hand side of the main page (toward the top) and click on “Manage your pledge.” Increase your pledge amount by the amount of the add-ons you want. It’s that easy. After the campaign, we’ll use a service called BackerKit to collect not only your shipping address but also the details of which add-ons you’ve selected.

WANT IT ALL?

At this point, however, I’d be remiss in not pointing out what a great deal the I Want It All! level is. Back at that level and you’ll get a 416-page book, two 224-page books (one with a deluxe leather cover), a 192-page book, two 160-page books, 5 character portfolios, and 4 art prints. And you get them in print and PDF. Plus the Cypher Shorts character reference in print and PDF. And we’re not done—not by a longshot. If you’ve seen MCG Kickstarters in the past, you’ll note that we add a lot of great stuff in the last week of the campaign. Will there be additional books and products to add? It seems really likely, so watch the next two days closely if you’re still on the fence.