4 Tips For The Business Side of RPGs

Most of the time when I talk about making changes or additions to games on this blog, I'm talking about doing it around your table with your fellow players. However, this week I wanted to take a moment to talk to my fellow creators out there. Whatever it is you're working on, whether you've been in the game for a while or you're just sticking your toe into the market, please, keep these tips in mind. I have found that they prevent a lot of problems and frustrations that can occur when you just don't think about certain parts of the process.

Because getting stuff made is hard enough.

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But First, A Brief Announcement!

As of about fifteen minutes before I sat down to write this blog entry, my first Kickstarter for "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" just got funded! Hitting that minimum goal of 6k means the game is going to exist, and folks will be able to play it... but there's still 2 weeks left in the Kickstarter campaign, and 2 stretch goals we haven't hit yet. The first is a set of army green dice at 10k, and at 15k we unlock an ammo can that will carry your book, your dice, and a boat load of minis all in a single, easy-to-haul package.

We're taking aim at our next goal!

So if that sounds like something you definitely want to get in on, please help us reach those stretch goals today, and boost the signal if you've already backed, so we can get in front of as many eyes as possible!

Tip #1: Understand What Your Content is Meant To Do

This isn't as obvious as some might think.

Before you put a single word on to paper, you need to know what the purpose your particular game, supplements, etc., is meant to do. What need does it fulfill at a game table? What does it do that will get people (players, Game Masters, or both) to buy a copy of it?

Sometimes the answer to this is easy. For example, when I wrote 10 Fantasy Villages, the purpose of the supplement was to offer Game Masters some smaller villages, NPCs, plot hooks, maps, etc., so they had ready-made locations to put into the empty places in their worlds between big cities. The Curse of Sapphire Lake is a low-level module that combines DND with Friday the 13th, giving players a unique horror experience that's a little tropey, but also fun. Even something like 100 Merchants to Encounter was meant to expand the NPC list for Game Masters so that when players want to go shopping the GM doesn't have to make up entirely new merchants, and the types of wares they sell, right on the spot every time.

When you make content for RPGs, you're essentially creating tools. And for a tool to be functional, you need to understand the job it's meant to do.

Tip #2: Understand The Demand

You need this? Ah, I thought not.

You could invent the most brilliant, perfect tool for solving a particular need... but if that need isn't common, then there isn't going to be a lot of demand for that tool. Or, put in plainer English, your RPG content has to solve a problem, or provide enough value, that players or Game Masters are going to buy it.

Now, there's a lot of variability in this tip, so I'll try to cover as much ground as I can. Things that might affect your demand can include:

- What RPG system is this meant for? Game line specific content like 50 Geists for Geist: The Sin Eaters is going to have a narrow market of buyers, whereas something more generic like 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master could be used by any GM for any system, hugely increasing your potential audience.

- How expensive is this content? Getting someone to read a free article like the character concept for The Savage Monk is extremely easy, though difficult to make money off of. However, low-cost pieces like 100 Encounters in a Fey Forest (which is only $1.99) are often easy to get customers to buy as an impulse, even if they aren't certain they need/will use it. A full RPG game book ranging from $30 to $70, though, is a purchase that's a lot heftier, and which will be a harder sell overall.

- Does this do anything differently than existing content? This is often a question folks need to ask when they're making a game setting, but it applies to other types of content as well. If all your setting offers is a different map with different country names, for example, but it's got the same aesthetic, monsters, quests, etc., that your competitors have, then why should people use your setting instead of one from a different company? Or one they made themselves?

- Is this actually something people buy? The best example I have of this is adventure modules. While they're a product customers often request, and they're something every company seems to put out there, the numbers suggest they're actually one of the worst-selling products you can create. This is not to say you can't be successful with adventure modules (or any other product) but that the market is stacked against you for certain types of products.

Everything from what form your product takes, to what genre it's geared toward, to what games it can be used for, to how expensive it is, and even if it's digital-only or print-on-demand, factors into whether an audience will buy it or not. And while there is no possible way to be absolutely certain when something will or won't make a lot of sales, it's a good idea to try to test the wind to see if the thing you're going to make checks the right boxes.

Tip #3: Ask What It Will Cost To Make

You're not working for free, after all.

A mistake that a lot of people make when it comes to designing RPG content is that they don't view their own efforts, time, and energy as expenditures. Someone might say, "Well, it's a digital release, so there's no printing costs. And I wrote everything, so I don't have to pay an author. I did the layout using free software, and I used free stock art/art I made, so I essentially paid nothing for this, and everything I make is pure profit!"

In one sense, that's true. However, if you're designing game content as a business (or at the very least a side hustle that you want to grow), then you need to look at your bills, and what you need to earn. For instance, did it take you a month to make that supplement? Or 6 months to write that adventure? How about 2 years to write a full RPG? How much is your labor worth? What costs did you incur just to live over that time period?

This can get even more complicated once you start doing bigger, more involved projects where you do have to buy art, where you want to source unique miniatures, where you're getting books printed, and so on. All of those costs add up, and you need to be honest with yourself about what your game needs to earn back to be worthwhile. This number may look different for different people, but it's important to go through the numbers and to look at your margins.

As a good example, my Kickstarter for Army Men had a minimum goal of $6k. That was just to get the bills paid and the expenses covered so the game could exist, and be shipped out to all the backers. That initial funding level doesn't actually pay me for the 2 years it took me to write the game; my earnings come from pledges beyond that base amount. Same for the other contributors who receive a cut of the proceeds beyond that basic, out-of-the-red zone.

This is not a fun aspect of designing RPGs, but it is a necessary one. If you can't eat, or pay your electricity bill, it's going to be really hard to keep making stuff for your audience.

Tip #4: Ask How You Plan To Market It

There are so, SO many dice to roll on this...

I've said this before over on The Literary Mercenary, but most people who like writing books don't actually want to market them. I've found the same is largely true for RPGs and RPG supplements. Chances are that if you like writing these things, then you just want to be left alone to write them, and if money just magically appeared in your account you'd probably vanish off of social media entirely.

Sadly if you want to move copies you have to climb up on the soap box, and get people's attention.

The good thing is there are a lot of options for getting attention onto your game even if you don't have a budget. The bad thing is that basically all of these options are the equivalent of pulling the handle on a slot machine; it might work, it might fail, and just because you got one result last time it's no guarantee that's the result you'll get this time. But some of the things you can do include:

- Social Media Posts: Facebook, Reddit, MeWe, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram... whatever platforms you can get on, you should use them. However, it's not really a matter of asking which platform is best for you. You're basically going to have to use ALL of them to get your message out.

- Content Creation: Whether you're writing blogs about gaming, making YouTube videos of real plays or demos of your game, or doing something else entirely, this is a great way to drum up interest in your products. If nothing else you can sprinkle in links where they'll get in front of people's eyes (like I did for most of the article up to this point) treating them like land mines for readers to trigger.

- Interviews: Whether you get on podcasts or YouTube channels, anytime you can get a slot where you can talk directly to someone else's audience, that really helps you get your stuff in front of fresh faces. It might be tough, but if you build up a network of people to interview you then you'll become a regular guest in no time!

- In-Person Sales: Attending conventions takes time, energy, and money, but you can often get your badge paid for if you run games for an event. And if you run modules you wrote, or a game you created, that's a great way to give people a try-before-you-buy experience.

- Make More Games: There's a saying that the best ad for your current book is actually your next book. The same thing applies to RPGs and supplements. The more stuff you can make, the bigger the pile becomes, and the more likely people are to check out your older stuff when your new releases catch their eyes. Of course it also helps that your new releases can include a list of links to your other projects and products, much like how novels used to have an intro page that listed all of an author's previous works so readers who liked one book could more easily find others by the same writer.

- Buying Advertising: There's a lot of ways you can save on this early on to see if it works for you. Large social media sites like Facebook and Reddit will often give you credits to try out certain services, and if you're running a Kickstarter, or trying to get fresh eyes on a tough-to-market product, this is often a good time to grab those coupons, and put them to good use.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Under The Hood With "Army Men": A 5E Game With a Lot of Tactical Add-Ons

Folks who have been around here for the past few weeks have likely heard that my first RPG "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is now live on Kickstarter! And while I've been talking about the game in very general terms the past few weeks, for this particular Crunch installment I wanted to get into what I did with the game's mechanics. Because while it uses the rules of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition as a basis, there is a lot more to it than the basic package you might expect with a standard 5E game.

EDIT: Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is now available on Drive Thru RPG!

Let's pop the hood, and see what's going on beneath your top coat.

Before we get into the details this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

The Origin of "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic"

I've talked about it in a couple of interviews thus far, but for those who haven't caught any of the media I've been sharing around, Army Men was first devised several years ago when I was more or less put on retainer for a new game company who wanted to put together a product they could break into the market with. The head of the company wanted to design something that would appeal to the wargaming crowd, and while they originally wanted something that ran on the FATE system, after a lot of discussion we finally settled on using a system that was going to be more tactical in nature, but which was still going to be simple enough to pull in newer gamers.

And while there were a lot of options available at the time, DND 5E was definitely king of the heap. Even now, post-OGL, it's still a system known to a large portion of the tabletop community. It might not be their favorite game, but it is still one they won't need a crash course to learn how to play. And while this game was originally designed as an add-on for DND 5E, it is now a stand-alone game which uses the parts of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition that have gone into the Creative Commons.

However... I felt the need to make additions.

First, Tactical Options

Targets acquired.

As we all know, Dungeons and Dragons was originally inspired by miniature combat games. It's one reason that, for all its story potential, DND (and games that use its various engines) is still a very combat-forward game. The 5th Edition, of course, was a little light on tactical rules... so I felt that should be corrected. Some additions I made include:

- Suppressing Fire: A standard tactic used by modern militaries, this maneuver is a particularly useful in Army Men where it allows you to give your allies cover... but it may be a tactic your enemies use against you as well!

- Taking a Knee: No one stands up during a firefight. Dropping to a knee is similar to going prone, but it only gives you some of the AC bonus. It does allow you to make better use of existing cover, however, and it's easier to get up and run from kneeling than from full prone.

- Flanking: While the 5th Edition of DND rules did have optional rules for flanking, Army Men makes them standard.

- The 5 Foot Step: A rule that was removed for 5th Edition, I felt it was a useful thing to bring back. For those not familiar, it allows someone to take a single, 5-foot-step in any direction without triggering an opportunity attack. This removes the need to spend your entire turn disengaging in case you just want to step behind cover, or give yourself a bit of breathing room before emptying your clip.

- Morale: Army Men has a morale system that takes you from +1 (battle frenzy), to -4 (utterly demoralized). This system provides a fluid way for battle to shift and change, and things like the Shake It Off action can be used to remove negatives from you and your comrades. It also means things like critical hits, and slaying enemy commanders, can have a serious effects on your team's ability to keep fighting.

Streamlined Gear Acquisition and Character Advancement

One of the major challenges that Game Masters have to deal with in traditional DND games is treasure acquisition, and making sure that PCs are properly equipped. This means you need to give them proper amounts of gold, make sure they have proper gear in treasure hoards, and so on, and so forth. Not only that, but if you follow the traditional rules, you also have to make sure your players are getting enough XP to level up, and that they're given the proper number of challenges to justify that reward.

Army Men does away with both of these concerns, in a way that gives more power to Game Masters.

Treasure management is a thing of the past.

First and foremost, Army Men does not have any XP; player characters will level up roughly every 3 missions. This saves GMs and players a lot of headaches when it comes to keeping track of who is close to leveling up, but it also removes the onus to solve problems in a particular fashion so that players will get the points. If they can sneak past periphery guards to steal the documents they were sent in to get without being caught, the mission is accomplished. If they infiltrate a militia as double agents, get everyone absolutely hammered, and then arrest them while they're passed-out drunk, the mission is still accomplished. And if they build layers of booby traps for a nest of Vespoids, and then lead the insects into the maze of tripwires, stake traps, landmines, etc., so that they barely have to pull a trigger at all to win the battle, the mission was still accomplished.

This flexible style also lends itself well to pick-up games, as well as character swaps due to death, wanting to try something new, etc. If someone new shows up (or a player had to make a new character), there's not really a lot of hemming and hawing over adding the new party member; command simply assigned them to the squad, here's their specialty, now shake hands and share your names, you've got a mission to complete.

Secondly, while characters in Army Men may have personal items and gear, a majority of what they're bringing into the field was given to them by the military before they were sent off on their mission. This removes the GM's need to make sure everyone is getting gold and treasure, because the PCs can just fill out a requisition form for the weapons, armor, ammo, etc., they want. But the Game Master can also restrict the gear that's available to add challenge/threat to a particular mission, if they so choose.

The very same mission with the same layout and the same enemies can be a very different game depending on what you allow the PCs to take into the field. If they're going to be fighting waves of Vespoids, but you give them huge belts of machine gun ammo, boxes of grenades, and high-quality armor, then it's going to be a Hollywood blockbuster sort of setup, with bullets flying and bugs dying. But if the PCs have standard armor, limited ammo, and they have to scrounge additional weaponry from the destroyed wreck of a base while avoiding Vespoid patrols, now that mission is going to feel tense and dangerous, with the squad choosing sneakier approaches, conserving ammo, and trying to keep moving.

Guns, Armor, and More!

Lastly, something I tried to do with this game was to try to avoid what's been dubbed the D20 Modern problem. Which is, namely, a game that has page, upon page, upon page of firearms, but where there's no real functional, mechanical difference between most of them. What I wanted to do instead was to present weapons and armor choices that each had their own strengths, unique capabilities, and which will allow players to really customize their characters in meaningful ways.

From plate carriers that can sacrifice a certain amount of armor to negate critical hits, to ballistic shields that can bring an old-world aesthetic to a modern battlefield, to shotguns rammed full of shrapnel to wreck utter devastation on close-range targets, there's all kinds of unusual options for players to play around with.

One shot, one kill.

And speaking of character customization, I altered both the way character backgrounds work, and introduced the Exploits System.

The changes to backgrounds is fairly simple. They still take the same form they did in Dungeons and Dragons 5E, but the difference is that each background gives you access to a specific, mechanical ability, in addition to a bonus exploit. These background abilities might be the power to requisition bonus equipment because you were a supply sergeant, so you know who to make the right phone calls to. Alternatively you might have been an irregular, so you can gain short-lived proficiencies in skills you don't normally have. You might be a spy with a cover identity, or a conscript who has friends in low places, allowing you to call in favors from the criminal elements of the setting.

And what is the Exploits System? Well, for folks who've played older editions of the game, it's basically the DND 3.5 version of feats. For those who haven't, they're a series of abilities that can shape the unique things your character is capable of doing when combined with their class features and background ability. Characters gain 1 exploit every odd level (including at creation), as well as an exploit from their background.

Exploits can do everything from making you better at hand-to-hand fighting, to granting you proficiency with certain types of weapons and armor, to allowing you to speak different languages, or granting you additional skill proficiencies. Some eliminate penalties from shooting from a prone position, while others give you bonuses to resisting fear and maintaining your morale. And by combining these abilities together, you can create a truly unique skillset for your soldier.

We Need You!

If that sounds like an interesting game system you'd like to give a try, back the Kickstarter today! We're 84% of the way to our initial funding goal at time of writing, but we have stretch goals at 10k and 15k that I would love to hit. And the more support this game gets at this stage, the more likely it is that we'll be able to expand and make even more supplements, missions, etc., going forward!

Like, Share, and Follow For More!

That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

What's Next For "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" After The Kickstarter?

Regular readers (as well as those who subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter) have likely heard that my RPG "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is currently live on Kickstarter! If you haven't heard of it yet, then I'd urge you to go check it out, and if you want to help make the game a reality then consider becoming a backer. It's just over 70% funded at time of writing, and we still need all the help we can get!

EDIT: The KS funded, and Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is now available on DTRPG!

And while I covered a lot of stuff about the game last week in We Want You! "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is Now Live on Kickstarter!, this week I wanted to talk about where I'd like the game to go, and what extra stuff I'd like to do with it, assuming we can reach our goals, and people want more than just a single, base book. So whether you've been following the news of this game for a while, or you're just now hearing about it, here's some stuff I'd like to do in the future, if the rest of this campaign goes well.

Because the Vespoids are just the beginning!

What The Game Already Has

For folks who are just joining us, I thought I'd offer a quick run down of what the base book for Army Men already has, so that what I want to add in the future has some context. In addition to the core rules of the game (it uses the mechanical parts of Dungeons and Dragons' 5th Edition that have gone into Creative Commons, with some additions for more tactical options), the base book gives you:

- 5 Resins to pick from, each with their own, unique benefits.

- 5 Casts to choose, each with 3 subclasses you can branch out into.

- A bestiary full of dangerous animals, dinosaurs, and the fearsome, insectile Vespoids.

- A setting full of nations, history, culture, and religions to explore.

- An armory full of unique weaponry and equipment.

- Unique systems for gear acquisition and threat management for Game Masters.

- A starting mission for players to really get stuck into the setting.

Now, that's a lot of stuff, but it's just the tip of the ice berg when it comes to what I'd like to put into the game once it's out in the wild and players have it in their hands.

What I Want To Add Going Forward

If I get a chance to shoot my shot, that is.

Army Men was never intended to be a one-and-done game, but rather a series of expansions strung together with supplements and tales that players could use to tell deeper, stranger, and more wide-reaching stories. And if we can find the audience for it, there are a lot of things I'd like to do for the game going forward. Some of the bigger things include:

- Additional rules for vehicles. Tanks, planes, motorcycles, and more, because vehicular combat should always be an option.

- Additional Casts to choose from, including options for characters with animal companions as a nod to historical figures like the horse Sergeant Reckless, and the Polish artillery bear Wotjek.

- Mission packs so that players can really get involved in the game and setting, and Game Masters can have a template to follow for designing their own campaigns going forward (given that Army Men uses a format that's unlike a lot of other RPGs).

- Options for mercenaries and contractors. While Army Men's core book sets the scene, this expansion (tentatively titled Soldiers of Fortune) would give players more flexibility, emulating things like The A-Team, or even The Equalizer using the setting and system.

- Expanded armories, tech levels, and enemies. Labeled "Weird War" in my ideas folder, this gets into sci-fi territory with ray guns, bizarre monsters, experiments gone awry, and more!

- Smaller supplements to flesh out the setting, similar to things like my 100 Fantasy Foods or 100 Sci-Fi Mercenary Companies lists.

Something I'd really love to do with Army Men is to get enough folks interested in playing it to expand the meta narrative of the setting, and to bring players along with the story as it develops through the mission packs and expansions. Because the core rulebook for Army Men starts us roughly 50 years after the incursions by the huge, insectoid creatures known as the Vespoids, which caused all the resinous peoples to set aside their differences, declare peace from the war they were fighting, and unite against this common enemy. But I'd like to expand the storyline so players can find out where the Vespoids came from, allow them to discover the even greater threat that lurks behind them, and to expand the borders beyond the Plastos Federation to see what other strange and bizarre nations, cultures, and creatures are lurking beyond their own battle lines!

And, as a final item on the wish list, I wouldn't be averse to expanding the game out to other forms of media, if that was something players wanted to see. Whether it be audio dramas (like the introductory story in the video above) collections of short stories/field reports, novels, or even comic books, if enough people love the setting there are all sorts of things we could do with it once the initial game is done.

So How Do We Get From Here, To There?

First, we've got to take that hill!

As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... and in this case, the first step is getting Army Men's Kickstarter funded!

While the KS has been going all right thus far, we still haven't even reached our minimum goal, to say nothing of the stretch goals that unlock at 10K and 15K (a standard-issue set of army-green dice to ensure your troopers roll hard, and an ammo can for hauling all of your necessities to game respectively). And the best way to make sure that all of us have the energy and space to work on sequels is to be sure that the initial offering made the biggest possible splash, and that there's a lot of people out there who elected to check this game out!

So if any of those expansions sound like something you want to see, then help us lay the foundation for the game so we can go forward with confidence! Back the Kickstarter for Army Men today, and if you've already done that, share it with your friends, your gaming table, or even your family if it sounds like the sort of thing they might get a kick out of!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

We Want You! "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is Now Live on Kickstarter!

Over the years various people have asked me why I only make content for existing games instead of making my own game. Well, about 5 years ago I started doing that very thing. Though there have been some ups and downs, today marks the final straightaway of this particular journey, because my TTRPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is currently live on Kickstarter!

EDIT: The game funded, and Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is now available on DTRPG!

While I'm trying to spread the word to help it get funded, I also wanted to give my readers a peek behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made, and to talk about the journey that led to this place a little bit. And, of course, to talk about the aspects of the game I think folks will enjoy, should they choose to help make it a reality!

Art by Anonymous Katsudon, found in the Army Men book!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

What Is Army Men?

Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is an RPG where you take on the roles of soldiers within the Plastos Federation. You choose your resin (green, gray, blue, red, or tan), your cast (medic, grunt, ordinance, tactician, or scout), customize your backgrounds and abilities, and then you are all formed into a squad sent off into the field. Whether you're exploring the wilderness and seeking deposits of much-needed resources for your home nations, you've been sent to reinforce a battle line, or you're on patrol to deal with the threat of the Vespoids (colossal, insectoid creatures that have put the Federation into a state of constant, military readiness), there's no shortage of threats for your squad to contend with!

Or, put another way, you're all living plastic people in a living plastic world, just trying to survive against the various threats that come knocking on your doorstep.

And to get out in front of several of the questions folks have asked, this is not a Toy Story style situation. The resinous peoples in the game are all human-sized, and the world they live in is written from the perspective of these characters. However, there is definitely a streak of the absurd running through the game that I feel makes it similar to Pugmire in its tone. This gives you a lot of flexibility, allowing you to do big, silly, bombastic stories that just feel like toys fighting each other (and which could just be the story a bunch of kids are making up around their games of plastic, backyard warfare), but you can also run tense survival-horror scenarios, stories about the scars of war, or anything else that your table can think of!

What About The Mechanics?

Army Men's engine uses the parts of Dungeons and Dragons that went into the Creative Commons recently, with a lot of tweaks and changes to help make it into a more tactical game. For example, there are additional options one can take during combat regarding cover, laying down distracting fire, and even shaking their comrades out of shock and fear so they can keep fighting. There's also 5 resins to choose from for your character, 5 casts (classes), along with 3 separate paths for each cast. There's also a bunch of fresh backgrounds, as well as the Exploits System, which replaces feats, but gives everyone a wider choice of abilities, and characters gain 1 exploit every odd-numbered level regardless of which casts they're choosing.

But wait, there's more!

Not everything in Army Men is about added complexity, though. In fact, there are a lot of mechanics in it that have been streamlined, simplified, or outright chucked out the window so that GMs and players don't have to deal with them anymore.

As a for-instance, this game has no XP; players simply level up after completing a certain number of missions. There's also no treasure to balance for the GM, because characters are all members of the armed forces; you requisition your equipment before you're sent into the field. That means you have the ability to give them as much (or as little) as you want to directly affect the challenge of the mission. There's also simplified rules for ammunition tracking, including the Hollywood Guns feature for folks who want to run a game that feels more like The Expendables or one of the later Rambo films.

Is There More Coming?

The Kickstarter for this game is set at $6k, but we do have some fun stretch goals in place. As Josh Heath said on the Dads With Nerdy Ambitions podcast (Steve Plays With Army Men is the episode), at $10k we're going to offer a d20 set of dice in the traditional, army green with gold numbers to ensure you've got your standard-issue polyhedrals by your side. And if that wasn't enough, at $15k the stretch goals will include an option for an ammo can to keep your materials in so that you're ready to rock whenever it's time to go on your next mission.

But what's coming down the pipe?

While the core rulebook for Army Men gives you everything you need to play the game, including a starting mission module, my hope is that this is merely the first step into a much larger world. I currently have ideas for a lot of extra content, ranging from missions Game Masters can run their players through, additional antagonists for the setting, expanded weapons, gear, and even advancing the meta story beyond the initial Vespoid conflict.

However, a lot of that is going to depend on you, the folks reading this right now.

The game is an all-or-nothing Kickstarter, meaning we need to at least hit the initial goal to make it happen. However, the more funding it generates, the bigger a message it sends to High Level Games that this is a good investment, and the more time it will buy me to put out additional content going forward.

The initial game took me roughly 2 years to write all the content for, because I had to squeeze it in between all the other TTRPG projects that were actually paying my bills. But if I could dedicate a lot of time and energy to expanding the setting, and adding new elements, folks would see follow-up projects coming to market a great deal more quickly. And, of course, if we had a bigger budget that would mean we could reach out to other creators, and put teams to work on future installments rather than keeping things small and controlled as we did with this initial game.

So, if you made it this far and Army Men sounds like a game you'd love to play, go back the Kickstarter today! Additionally, consider sharing the campaign on your social media pages, in your groups, or just telling your table about us... any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Help Owen K.C. Stephens Roll His Save Against Cancer (And The Healthcare System)

While some folks in the RPG community may not know Owen K.C. Stephens by name, chances are good they're still familiar with his work. A major hand on Pathfinder and Starfinder, he's made content for games like Star Wars Saga, Fantasy AGE, Savage Worlds, 13th Age, and more over his many years in the field. Chances are good that if you went through the books on your shelf (or the PDFs in your folders) that you'd find his name in the contributor section for a lot of stuff you've played over the years.

While he's been a recognizable name, though, he'll also be the first to tell you that nobody who works in the RPG field is paid well... some of us might be paid well for RPGs, but that's not the same thing. And when you wind up having to fight cancer, well, that's when you need all the help you can get.

For someone who has given us so much, let us return that aid in a time of need.

Call The Banners!

Back in February, Owen suffered a pulmonary embolism, which as you'd imagine sent him to the hospital. And while he was in the hospital he was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer. Now that's a rough 1-2 punch for anyone, but it's also important to remember that we're talking about the American healthcare system, here. That means that each day in the hospital still costs thousands of dollars after insurance, and he was in the hospital for several days before he was able to go home again.

While Owen still intends to keep making games and creating lovely toys for all of us to use, it's times like these when a designer could really use the support of the community.

And there are several ways we can make that happen.

And get some great games in the bargain!

If you're on most social media accounts, you've probably seen Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #1, and Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #2 by now. They were getting a lot of attention in the Drive Thru RPG hottest offers, and the response to them was pretty good overall. And if you're looking for a way to help Owen cover his bills so he can come out on top of this situation, grabbing both of them is a great way to do that.

Between the 2 bundles there's over 180 PDFs for a dozen systems, as well as system agnostic content you can use in your games. The estimated value is over $1,500 for all of this stuff put together, and you can get both bundles for around $70 total (or $34.95 each). Pathfinder, Starfinder, DND 5E, 13th Age, Savage Worlds, Shadow of The Demon Lord, Shotguns and Sorcery, setting books, GM tools, and a slew of other stuff that will make your head spin, and all of it available for a ridiculously low price to help out a good cause.

That's not all the options, of course.

But if you've already grabbed the bundles, or you're wondering what else you can do to help, I wanted to give a few additional options, as well. So if you want to go above and beyond the call of duty, consider:

- Becoming one of Owen's Patreon patrons.

- Bookmark and follow his blog.

- Follow Owen on Twitter (yeah, it's falling apart, but a replacement has yet to take its place)

It might not seem like much, but as someone who's been in this profession a few years myself, it does make a difference. Even if you can only afford to give a little tip every now and again on Patreon, or you just act as a regular participant and commenter on social media, if a lot of people all do that, it really does add up when all is said and done.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Would You Like To See Books From Golarion? (A Meta Game Project Proposal)

Folks who've been following my blog for a while know that, in addition to writing straight-up rules content and GM supplements for RPGs, I have a soft spot for tie-in fiction. Given that The Irregulars was my first professional credit with an RPG company (a short story about a team of black ops saboteurs working for Andoran in the Golarion setting), that shouldn't really surprise anyone. While I've written my share of other stories, such as the Silver Raven Chronicles that details my group's journey through the Hell's Rebels adventure path, as well as Warhammer 40K short stories like Blackest Knights and The Emperor's Hand (stories about Deathwatch black shields, and a new Gav and Bob adventure respectively), I had an idea for a new project that might grab some folks' interest.

In short, rather than writing stories about fictional settings, the idea would be to write books found within those fictional settings... and Golarion is where I'd specifically start this proposed project.

Also, seriously, grab a copy of this if you haven't yet!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

A Little Piece of The Setting in Your Hands

For folks who haven't checked it out yet, 100 Books To Find Across The Inner Sea dropped this past weekend. It's my second Pathfinder Infinite supplement, and while it's a little more general than my first piece 150 Sights To See (And Rumors To Hear) in Absalom, it also gave me a weird idea as I was putting it together.

What if I actually wrote some of the books on this list, and made them available through the Pathfinder Infinite platform?

It's a little unconventional, I'll admit.

For anyone who's played Skyrim, the basic idea would be do what that game did and actually write books players could find in the setting in their entirety. While fun to read on their own, they would also act as examples of the books that characters might have read growing up, or which they might wile away the hours wtih on long journeys as they pursue the objectives of their various quests. Whether folks wanted to grab one of the Dark Tales volumes, which contain gothic horrors and romances in the style of Ustalavian author Ailson Kindler, stories from The Lion's Quiet Roar which are basically a fantasy version of James Bond's tales told with Taldor as the heroes, or even a novel like Love and Blood: A Romance in Gray which tells the tale of a young noblewoman hiding her bloodline in Galt who's new lover is actually one of the nation's infamous Gray Gardeners.

On the one hand, I'm the first to admit this is kind of a silly idea for a project. It would also be extremely time and energy intensive, even if I managed to get other creators in on it to make the project go a little faster, much like I did with the Tales From The Moot collection of short stories for Werewolf: The Apocalypse. And, much as it pains me to say this, the rules of platforms like Pathfinder Infinite are quite clear; products made through them are digital only, so these wouldn't be novels like the Pathfinder Tales that you could buy at cons, or down at your local bookstore. They'd be ebooks only under the current rules.

Unless someone reading this happens to have the ear of Paizo's publishing team, in which case have them shoot me an email and I'll work up a full proposal for any of these books!

But that's my question for my readers this week. Is this the sort of project you think you'd be interested in? If so, which of the titles in 100 Books To Find Across The Inner Sea would you like to see expanded into a full meta book? Or if you're more interested in more game materials, what other supplements would you like to see me add to Golarion in the future? Are there any particular nations, cities, classes, or topics you want to see covered?

Toss it all in the comments below!

Lastly, There's The Possibility of a Podcast

If you've been watching my updates, then you know that I've been making a lot of audio dramas over the past year or so. I've even considered finishing out the Silver Raven Chronicles (which only 4 parts at time of writing) in an audio format. However, if folks would like a series of tales told round the campfire, stories of the Baba Yaga, the adventures of legendary figures that may or may not have happened in Golarion, etc., that is also a possibility if it's something folks would tune-in to listen to.

Speaking of ongoing narrations, I also wanted to remind readers that right now I'm putting together a series of crossover stories between Geist: The Sin Eaters and Mage: The Awakening. The above story is taken from my 50 Geists supplement, and it tells the story of how former mob hitter Johnny Hammer came to be the right hand of the creature called the Six Gun Saint. In 100 Shadow Names (And Their Meanings) we find out that Johnny's former boss, Tony Gracchus, awakened as a newly-minted Moros. Young and arrogant, he took the name Cyprian, and the necromancer has been using his power in ways that have alienated a lot of the community. It's likely that behavior is one reason the Saint chose Johnny as his new triggerman, and the two of them are set on a collision course for one hell of a reckoning.

So if that's something you'd like to see me add to in the coming months, consider grabbing copies of the supplements so I can convince the publisher that these game lines are worth making more material for, subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, and help me spread the word!

And, of course, if you have any particular supplements you'd like to see for those game lines, leave those in the comments as well!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Which of My Ongoing Series Would You Like To See Continue?

Over the 10 years or so that I've been running Improved Initiative I've started a lot of different series. While many of them have waxed and waned in popularity, I thought I'd take this Monday to ask my regular readers which one of these series you'd like to see get more attention going forward. And if you're a relatively recent addition to my audience on here, you might find a series you haven't even come across yet!

So if you have a strong opinion about what you want to see more of, leave it in the comments below! Or if you want me to start a new series discussing something I didn't mention here, or haven't covered yet, let me know. If enough people request the same thing then it's definitely something that will get my attention going forward.

The floor is yours!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

#1: Character Conversions List

Perhaps the biggest and longest-running list of all the ones on this blog, this series currently has 63 entries on it! They range as far afield as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, to Harley Quinn from DC Comics, to The Incredible Hulk, Guts from Berserk, all the way to the Death Korps of Krieg in the Warhammer 40K universe.

It's a pretty big project, admittedly.

This series was a major breadwinner for a time, but it's grown steadily less and less popular in terms of views. Which makes sense, given that it was conceived primarily for Pathfinder's first edition, and while I love that game it's definitely seen its player base diminished over the past few years. If you add in the lack of searchability that articles hosted on Vocal have, along with conversion fatigue (since it seems the thirst for this kind of content has largely passed), I've been only adding to it sporadically.

With that said, if folks want to see this project renewed, check out the Character Conversions master list, and share your favorite guides on social media! The more reads they get, the more likely it is that I'll boost this series up over 100 entries.

#2: 5 Tips

Speaking of long-running projects that have gotten pretty involved over the years, my 5 Tips series has quite a number of entries as well! Perhaps the runner-up in terms of numbers (depending on how you count the entries) there are over 40 articles in this series touching on everything from base classes, to player species, to broader pieces of advice like 5 Tips For Creating Fantasy Towns and Cities, 5 Tips For Roleplaying Characters With Mental Disorders, and even 5 Unusual Martial Arts For Your Monks.

There's still plenty of topics to cover with this one!

This series has met with a lot of successes, and a lot of duds, over the years. A recurring theme folks will notice, of course, is that stuff hosted on Vocal hasn't gotten the views I need it to in order to feel like it's worth continuing. That said there are still several books worth of classes I could cover, as well as everything outside the standard species players usually have access to. I could even expand the tips list to cover Starfinder classes and species, or switch this over to cover more World/Chronicles of Darkness concepts, which I already started with entries like 5 Tips For Running Better World of Darkness Games, as well as 5 Tips For Running Changeling: The Lost Games.

#3: Awful Characters You Meet in Your Gaming Career

This series got started off with a one-off joke in the form of The 5 Awful Paladins You Will Meet in Your Gaming Career. The sheer amount of stories people swapped over these 5 archetypes of painful player character took days to die down, and it still sees occasional spikes. It felt like I'd tapped into something people wanted more of, so I followed it up with other entries. While there was still interest, it seemed to have seriously diminishing returns over time. So far the list includes:

- 5 Eye-Rolling Rogues

- 5 Bothersome Bards

- 5 Infuriating Fighters

- 5 Cringey Clerics

While not as numerous as the first two entries on this list, this is the one that felt like it had the most potential in terms of audience interest. What I don't know is whether folks just stopped reading it because the novelty wore off (entirely possible), or the algorithm stopped it from finding its way to folks' faces. Regardless, though, if this is a series you'd like to see more of, share the entries, and maybe comment some of the classes (or even species) you'd like to see more of!

#4: Gaming Etymology

Etymology has a soft spot in my heart, and it's something that always fascinates me. This goes double when it comes to the creatures, classes, etc. that wind up in our games. From articles like What It Really Means To Be a Swashbuckler? to What is a Barbarian?, I had a lot of fun putting these together. When it comes to the projects I work on, though, fun takes a distant second to what will actually get the reads I need to keep the lights on around here.

There are a lot of other subjects to cover, still!

You know the drill by now, of course. If you liked this project, check out the Gaming Etymology master list, and help boost the signal so I can justify putting some more of these together in the near future!

#5: Alignment Deep Dives

While I eliminated the alignment system from my own setting, Sundara: Dawn of a New Age (more on that in the video below), I've always found the absolutism of alignment a fascinating, philosophical discussion. And while it's often very gray and very squishy, sometimes there are enough examples in a character's canon that you can genuinely sus out which of the 9 boxes they fit into... roughly speaking.

The project's original goal was to find at least one character of every alignment box to operate as an example of who best fit into that little square. However, I only got around to really covering The Punisher, Robocop, and Captain America before the project went into the fridge for a while. If you'd like me to pick it back up again, consider suggesting some characters along with sharing any of the existing articles!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!