New Stretch Goal: Your Best Game Ever Notebooks!
over 5 years ago – Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 07:05:21 PM

A lot of you have asked for stretch goals that apply directly to Your Best Game Ever and we agree—let’s build on that book! One of the best ways we can do that is to equip both players and GMs with the tools necessary to make gaming easier and more fun. Your Best Game Ever is going to offer a lot of tips for creating characters, creating worlds, creating adventures, and keeping track of it all. So we want to make specially designed, setting- and game-agnostic notebooks that help guide a player or GM through that process and provide lots of room to keep track of everything needed.

The Player Notebook will have room to record all your player’s background information, notes about NPCs, important places, and other campaign info. It will be set up to handle multiple characters in multiple campaigns if you’d like.

The GM Notebook will provide space to record all the pertinent details about the setting, and notes on the PCs as well as adventures that you plan, maps you draw, and so on. Both new GMs and old hands will appreciate how the notebook “guides” you through the worldbuilding and adventure-building process.

Both notebooks will be spiral bound and have 100 pages and they will look really spiffy. They’ll both be added to the I Want It All! level and above and they’ll be available as add-ons.

But they’ll only be available if this campaign reaches 3500 backers before it closes. There’s only a bit over 4 days left, so we’ll have to really work hard to get new backers by shouting about this campaign from the proverbial rooftops.

Thank you for spreading the word!

~Monte

WANT ADD-ONS? 

If you’re new to Kickstarter, 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, and 5 character portfolios. And you get them all 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 few days closely if you’re still on the fence.

Godforsaken Unlocked!
over 5 years ago – Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 11:43:07 PM

The Godforsaken Lands are places where the gods themselves cannot go. It’s a paradise in the homelands thanks to the power of the gods, but only the bravest, strongest, smartest, and craftiest of mortals dare explore these blasted, blighted, lands of old. And now your player characters can join those ranks. Can they survive the demon-haunted songs and monstrous Emperors of Hate? Now you’ll be able to find out.

Godforsaken will be a 160-page sourcebook on fantasy that details a brand-new original setting, some Cypher Shorts adventures, and much more. It will be automatically included in the I Want It All! level and above, and it’s now also available as an add-on.

If you’re new to Kickstarter, 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.

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, and 5 character portfolios. And you get them all 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 few days closely if you’re still on the fence.

What’s next? Well, we’ve upgraded The Stars Are Fire, but what about Stay Alive!? As our next stretch goal, let’s give the horror genre some much-deserved love with more pages (up to 192!), more content, more art, more adventures, and a double-side full-color poster map!

Everyone who gets that book will get all of that if we can reach $305,000.

Thank you for all your help sharing this Kickstarter around to gamers far and wide. If we keep it up, we’ll push through to this goal, and that would be really amazing.

And while we’re talking about sharing Kickstarters, let’s talk about some of the other great things happening on Kickstarter right now.

The Expanse Roleplaying Game

If you’re like me, you’re a fan of The Expanse TV show as well as the books. James S.A. Corey has created a fantastic future world with great characters. It’s a setting that I want to explore myself. And now I can! Check out The Expanse Roleplaying Game Kickstarter  from Green Ronin Games. It looks like it’s going to be awesome.

The Fantasy Trip

Steve Jackson designed a fantasy RPG back in the 1970s that I got a chance to play some of way back when (I’ve been doing this a long time). Finally, that game—The Fantasy Trip—is back! Check out the Kickstarter from Steve Jackson Games. I’m excited to see this classic game’s return.

~Monte and the whole shebang 

Videos and Streaming!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 12:35:00 AM

We did a Your Best Game Ever panel at Gen Con that focused on tips specifically for having your best game session ever. Listen to Darcy Ross, Bruce Cordell, Sean Reynolds and I give you some insights—it’s just the kind of thing you’ll see in the book, as well as in the video series that you unlocked a few stretch goals back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCQ7cGEfb7g

Callisto 6

Also, make sure you tune in to Geek and Sundry’s Twitch channel tonight or on their own Alpha channel at 4 PM Pacific TIme for Callisto 6, their new Cypher System streaming game. If you’re not backing at a level where you're getting the Cypher System Rulebook, Callisto 6 is a free and easy way to check out the Cypher System and see if it’s for you. Plus, many of the MCG crew will be in chat. Join us!

We’re so pleased at the support this Kickstarter has had. Thank you for taking a chance on a bunch of new books. We’ve got one week to go and plenty of cool things to come in that time. Tell your friends!

~Monte and the MCG team

Two Stretch Goals at Once!
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 12:18:31 AM

Thanks to you, we’ve reached 2750 backers and now we will add the character creation rules for Cypher Shorts characters in the new Cypher System Rulebook and we will put Cypher Short adventures into all the follow-up books like the Stars Are Fire and Stay Alive! (As well as all additional books that we fund during this Kickstarter).

We’ll make the character creation rules into a single-fold double-sided 11x17 document printed on nice sturdy stock that all backers at the I Want it All! pledge level and above get when they get their new Cypher System Rulebook.

Plus, we unlocked the Character Portfolios!

Your characters are going to look awesome on the Character Portfolios we just unlocked! Thank you for your support. The pack of five 24-page character portfolios is now added to the I Want It All! pledge level and above, and it’s also available as an add-on.

Now how about another book? We’ve already unlocked the science fiction book, The Stars Are Fire, and the horror sourcebook, Stay Alive! We showed off this cover earlier, and if you’re a fan of fantasy, you’re in luck! 

The next goal will be to unlock a new 160-page Cypher System sourcebook written by me, Monte Cook, called Godforsaken. Godforsaken will cover all your fantasy needs, with stats for monsters, fantasy characters, magic items and gear, and so on. And of course, some Cypher Shorts adventures, as promised. But it will also detail the fully-realized, ready-to-use Godforsaken setting. In this setting, the people live in safe, fertile, blessed lands, watched over by the gods, but there are places where the gods and their power cannot go. But there are secrets and treasures in these godforsaken lands, where mortals can do what gods cannot. PCs portray stalwart adventurers who must travel into the most dangerous regions they ever imagined, where everything is godforsaken!

Godforsaken will be added to the I Want It All! level (man, that level’s getting to be a fantastic deal!) and above, as well as an add-on if we can reach $285K. Help us spread the word to reach this goal in the next week! And we have ideas for goals after that as well, so tell your friends, and if you’re not at the I Want It All! level, maybe you should take another look!

~Monte

Why I Love Character Porfolios
over 5 years ago – Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 12:10:05 AM

Cypher System Character Portfolios may soon become a reality. One of these 24-page booklets is the perfect way to track all your character’s stats, gear, background, notes, and other developing details. How do I know that? Because I’ve used an earlier version (the Numenera Character Portfolio) and I love it.

In fact, I have a long history with character portfolio-style products, going all the way back to my experience using the Advanced D&D “Permanent Character Folder” for my half-demon wizard named Lord Dessatyso sometime in 1981! (I could tell you a story or two about Dessatyso, but maybe another time.)

More recently (much more recently), I used the Numenera Character Portfolio for a long-running character named Crail, a character whose name eventually spawned a curse word now widely uttered in the Ninth World, I’m proud to note.

One of the things I love about the character portfolio is that when you record your character in it, it feels as if you are making a commitment to that character. Putting your character into a portfolio makes that character feel just a little more real.

That’s partly because a character portfolio offers so much more “elbow room” in which to describe a character and what happens to them over time. At 24 pages, the portfolio is the perfect place to record all my character’s pools, abilities, skills, cyphers, and so on. But a lot can happen in a campaign. Which is why I so appreciate that the portfolio also has room for notes, sketches, and further details about my abilities, cyphers, and artifacts. There are dedicated areas to jot down thoughts about a character’s appearance and mannerisms, callouts for connections to the other PCs in the party, along with people, creatures, objects, and locations discovered while adventuring.

Another reason I appreciate the portfolios is because they have a premium feel. The Numenera ones are beautiful (and printed in full color on heavy matte paper that takes pencil and eraser easily), and the Cypher System ones promise to be equally great. Plus, how often in your life are you going to commit 24 pages to a single character sheet?

If you haven’t had the pleasure of doing so before, here’s your opportunity! We're getting very close to the stretch goal. Please continue to help us spread the word! 

~Bruce