Increasingly is the case that many independent and corporate game makers have switched over to kickstarter as a production model for finance and distribution and even marketing for tabletop rpgs. I wonder if that it would be more useful to FFG to produce games that way for certain lines at least that would show interest in certain products over others. I've seen some interesting games come out of kickstarter in recent months. Torg 2nd ed, The Expanse and currently up for kickstarter and funded in 9 hours the new Judge Dredd rpg. So it makes me wonder if such products would have gotten a greater hit like the 30th ed of Star Wars D6 or lead to developing larger campaign products for star wars it might have even have served Genisys well. Your thoughts?

Given I'm going on 2 years waiting for an RPG that was "almost done" when the kickstarter started, I'm voting no on this. RPGs are FFG's red-headed step-child and seem like mostly an afterthought, even more so since the acquisition. I'm not an industry insider or anything, I just get the feeling the RPG department has been hacked to the bone and it's 2-3 people sitting on broken toilets next to the dumpster trying desperately to keep up with the workload and fan requests.

p.s. no offense to any red-headed step-children out there - you know the others are just jealous because Ma & Pa like you best.

For larger companies, the Kickstarter method doesn't really work so well.

Kickstarter is better suited for smaller publishers, like Evil Hat and Onyx Path and John Wick Productions, as a way to gauge "is there an interest in this product?" and "how much of an interest is there?" without necessarily committing a lot of resources to the project. If the Kickstarter funds, then there's enough interest and the company knows roughly how much stock to produce without having to worry about excess stock lingering around in storage.

As themensch noted, just because a Kickstarter was successful or overfunded by huge margins doesn't guarantee either quality of product or that it will be delivered. Palladium's fiasco with their Robotech minis game and R.Talsorian's mishandling of their Mekton Zero game are prime examples (though at least R.Talsorian were decent enough to admit they'd dropped the ball and have refunded the backers their money without anyone having to take legal action). Fred Hicks of Evil Hat has posted some very interesting insights in how to best go about running a Kickstarter that is not only successful in meeting its funding goals but also in meeting its pledges in a timely fashion (the FATE Core Kickstarter was a prime example of this).

I don't think FFG's RPG department is in quite the dire straits that themensch paints, but then I doubt it was ever all that big to start with, and now with Genesys and Legend of the Five Rings being produced, there's simply not the dedicated staff available to work on producing more Star Wars RPG books (which to be honest, they have seemed to have been winding things down in favor of IPs to which they own the rights, such as Genesys and L5R).

As someone who backed the Top Secret New World Order RPG Kickstarter and was thoroughly disappointed on both their delivery timeline and the ultimate quality of the content, I know that I will shy away from future rpg kickstarters because of it.

It may be a good way to gauge interest, but I don't believe that the KS production timelines are really all that beneficial to an rpg.

It may just be 2 guys on broken toilet seats in FFG's basement like themensch describes but at least they care enough about their work to not let glaring typos and game breaking errors slip through the cracks. Plus they have a solid and diverse playtesting group that can course correct long before these errors reach the printer.

I don't see anything like that on a Kickstarter campaign (mainly because they're small companies who don't have the budget)

4 hours ago, warchild1x said:

As someone who backed the Top Secret New World Order RPG Kickstarter and was thoroughly disappointed on both their delivery timeline and the ultimate quality of the content, I know that I will shy away from future rpg kickstarters because of it.

Thats a shame because I've been on the receiving end of some high quality kickstarters, 7th Sea and Torg. I have also backed Torg: Living Land, The Expanse and Khitai. Torg has been the most impressive so far. Both in detail and quality. The Judge Dredd one i backed just a week ago is a finished product with a sourcebook. The game designer has done a number of interviews showing the finished product and the kickstarter was merely for a production run and was funded in 9 hours and has far surpassed that minimum. So yes i try to research who puts the stuff out there before purchasing. As for FFG i know they are a decent scale gaming company. But if they chose something more experimental and are concerned for a welcoming response then kickstarter may be a good forum for that.

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I don't think FFG's RPG department is in quite the dire straits that themensch paints, but then I doubt it was ever all that big to start with, and now with Genesys and Legend of the Five Rings being produced, there's simply not the dedicated staff available to work on producing more Star Wars RPG books (which to be honest, they have seemed to have been winding things down in favor of IPs to which they own the rights, such as Genesys and L5R).

I certainly hope you're right - I think the veracity of my grim picture is fortified by going to the Upcoming page and looking at new releases for all the different styles of games FFG makes, and it's hard to not conclude something is up. Used to be there were many books in the pipeline, now it seems like there's diddley and squat. While I accept that FFG is pretty tight-lipped about upcoming releases, they usually at least tease something at least 6 months ahead of time. I theorize RPGs are a loss leader for them and that their paychecks from from other lines, and I am not sore about it. They have a right to make a living and a profit from the license they hold, and many have demonstrated that plastic crack is a surefire way to line their coffers. Hey, I like to eat too, or I'd still be a professional musician.

7 hours ago, warchild1x said:

It may be a good way to gauge interest, but I don't believe that the KS production timelines are really all that beneficial to an rpg.

I don't see anything like that on a Kickstarter campaign (mainly because they're small companies who don't have the budget)

Fred Hicks had a solid piece of advice for those folks looking to publish RPGs via Kickstarter, and that was to have at least 50% of the material done before the KS even launches, and plan ahead for stretch goals (both what they are and how to fulfill them) and if you get more backers than your initially anticipated and thus have to order a larger print run than originally planned. I do recall him mentioning in a blog post about how the rampant crazy success of the FATE Core Kickstarter even had him scrambling, with the promise of a Fate Accelerated version of Dresden Files being a last minute stretch goal (one he didn't really expect to be met) but he was savvy enough to not give a promised date of when it would be done beyond "at a future point in time."

I agree that the smaller, fly-by-night companies have an alarming tendency to fall flat due to not keeping those above points in mind. With some of the larger companies, like Evil Hat and John Wick Productions, they do have playtesters to try and iron out as many of kinks as they can, but given that even big dogs like FFG and WotC have dropped the ball and missed things (thus the need for errata/clarifications and FAQs) it stands to reason they're not going to catch all the mistakes.

With Evil Hat, Fred's pretty good about being transparent about if things are going hinky or if a promised delivery goal might not get met, and JWP has pretty good about giving backers a heads up that some of their scheduled books are going to be delayed (then again, JWP had an insanely ambitious production schedule for 7th Sea 2e, and actually made good on getting several of the books out on time).

JWP I agree has been very good at least initially with product releases. Though 7th 2nd ed does not have as good of set of rules as the 1st and I don't like the social shift in context in some of the content. I had to eye roll through some of the first novel but I digress.