So, a while ago, I backed the Cosmere RPG kickstarter, which is actually two different games with different delivery dates. The first, and the one that was delivered last week, is the Stormlight Archives RPG. Next year we backers will get a Mistborn RPG as well.
The box was well packed, and heavy, probably the heaviest package of Kickstarter rewards I've yet received. It makes sense, though, as I went all-in and got the top tier for this campaign, which is definitely an amount of cash we're not going to talk about.
Of course, I eagerly dived in and started pulling stuff out!
The minis had to come out first because I literally couldn't pull anything else out of the box before these were free.
The box got a little squished on the back there, but that's entirely cosmetic; there's just a big gap of air back there. The minis themselves look fabulous. I might have to very nicely ask one of my pro-painter friends to do something with them, as I can't paint to save my life.
Next up, some dice! And two packs of cards!
The dice are fairly nice. The long black box is a sharp-edged liquid core set of dice, and the bag is a set of normal style soft-edged dice. Of the two, I honestly think I kind of prefer the regular version... but they're both very nice.
The packs of cards are a set of items and a set of Plot Cards. I haven't opened the plot cards so I can't comment too much yet on what they actually contain... but the item cards are pretty cool.
I decided immediately after writing that I'd not opened these yet to actually open them up and see what was inside. The plot decks are a series of mechanical cards, including stuff like statuses (pictured there as the Stunned status), and then two different decks of Complication cards and Opportunity cards. These read something like oracles in that there are three different options per card. I suspect that there's a mechanical way to determine which of those consequences/opportunity results you get, but I haven't actually sat down to read the rules yet. They're beefy and I've got precious little time right now!
As you can see, though, the art across everything is fantastic. The item cards are simple, just a picture of the weapon/item/armour and then a description with some mechanical information on them. Perfect for handing out during play (or photocopying and giving the copies out)!
Now we get to all the real meat... the books, some maps, pop-out tokens, and all that fun stuff!
There are three or four pages of these little push-out tokens, which look like they cover most monster/character types I can field immediately so that's fantastic.
I believe this is something like a DM's screen. Honestly, I haven't opened this one yet and I don't intend to right now as I don't have space for it on any of my cluttered surfaces/shelves right this second.
And finally, one of the three core books!
This is the core rulebook, and contains everything you'd need to have for both GM and Player. There are two other books (not pictured) which contain a premade campaign, and a World Guide in case you bought this Kickstarter without knowing anything about the Stormlight Archives' setting of Roshar and the Cosmere. It's worldbuilding-dense and lore-heavy, so I've already thumbed through it and I intend to actually sit down and read it soon just for fun. You know I love that shit.
All in all, everything I've opened so far has been of fantastic quality. The books feel nice and look nice, and I'm really happy with this Kickstarter reward. It'll be a bit before I can even think of running a game using it, but I know of two other folks that are eager to play this already when I do get the free time I'm sure it won't be hard to convince them to try.
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Looks awesome. I’m in the 4th stormlight book right now. It’s soon good I don’t want to go to sleep at night. I just want to read. I’m reading and listening to it.
I missed this Kickstarter though.
It's a great series, I'm just about done with the 5th book and loving it. There will likely be a late backer option for the Mistborn set, and it looks like you can snag physical copies of the tabletop game in October from their non-kickstarter site: https://www.cosmererpg.com/shop
yo that looks cool as shit!
I noticed there's a ton of these table top games being crowdfunded over on kickstarter when I was doing some research some time ago, none of them looked as cool as this tho :D
This is one of the most impressive I've backed. MCDM's "Draw Steel" is also fairly impressive.
A friend of mine backed the Discworld RPG and it looks pretty good too, though I don't know if it had quite the same amount of glitz and glamour that this Cosmere one does... they went pretty all-out on the look and feel of their rewards.
It's a surprisingly well-funded niche, depending on what you're making and who's making it. The dude who made Ironsworn closed his last kickstarter at enough money to quit his day job and go full-time into ttrpgs, which is pretty damn good. Livin' the dream lol.
This looks interesting ! The production values look amazing, hopefully it's done properly rather than surface-deep, so that things like bookbinding are to a good enough standard that pages don't fall out or anything.
The Stormlight setting is an excellent piece of worldbuilding, I'd love to see a report on how it plays - are the rules based on (or similar to) any other RPG systems ? Also, does the package include access to digital content, e.g. maps and tokens that can be used on a VTT like Roll 20 or Owlbear Rodeo ?
I must admit I've always felt odd RP'ing in a fictional setting. It's a kind of "other guys" feeling. There are the heroes off doing world-changing stuff like dropping rings into volcanoes, and then there's me, playing "third guard on the left" 😆
The quality seems to be pretty good, I suspect I'll be able to use these books and even pass them on to the kids in a decade without any real issues as far as binding goes, I can't immediately tell if they're stitched or just glued, but they look to be similar to the 2e D&D book I have and it's survived this long through multiple owners.
I did get a bunch of digital and VTT stuff, which I don't honestly expect I'll use much. I don't really enjoy VTT gaming and I have trouble with staying focused on reading pdfs on my tablet. It's not so bad with something small like MCDM's The Talent pdf, but when it's something like this and has 300+ pages that I need to bounce around with as I reference other sections... I dunno, that tactile ability to flip real pages and toss in bookmarks is something I just can't get over loving. So yeah, there definitely is stuff for that, but I suspect it'll sit in a 7z archive until the end of time lol.
And yeah, I almost never run or play games that are strongly tied to specific settings that someone else made. I feel constrained by the existing lore which I don't like as a GM. I have a couple like this that I'm definitely going to try to run in the established setting. Roshar is a neat world and I think unless I kick off a big campaign unexpectedly, it'll be fine to run one-shots in that setting.
Similarly, I have the Magnus Archives RPG and I'll probably run one-shots in that world too as I don't really feel like building or expanding a setting for either of these RPGs unless I'm ready to invest a ton of time into them.
I can definitely see stealing the magic system to integrate into an existing homebrew world as a thing 😁
If I remember correctly, you are either a friend or relative of @nonameslefttouse. Any word on him? Radio silence, his last transaction was in January…just hoping he is ok. Thanks @oblivioncubed.
Sorry bud, I'm not sure about that one. I'm @lacking's cousin, he's still up north and enjoying the secluded life.
Oh, ok thanks for clarifying.