A modular adventure game in the tradition of the beloved 1980s role-playing rules. 100% old-school rules, 100% modern design.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
First post-Kickstarter update!
almost 5 years ago
– Thu, May 16, 2019 at 12:59:22 AM
Hey everyone,
Following the last update, I have been on a three day binge of moss infusions and toad licking.
Only kidding! As the tirelessly conscientious fellow that I am, I've been cracking on with producing the game that you have all so generously backed!
As progress is happening pretty quickly, I'm thinking of doing weekly updates on what's going on. Here goes the first one!
Finished Colour Art Plate!
When I started looking around for artists to commission for the full-colour art plate stretch goals, I was lucky enough to come across the fantastic work of Audre Schutte (aka Charamath). I was so taken with one of the personal pieces on her website, The Wild Side, that I asked her if it would be possible to license it for use in Old-School Essentials. Lucky for us, she agreed!
So I'm delighted to report that I inserted this piece into the layouts of the Core Rules book and the Rules Tome this morning. Feast your eyes on those colours and that imagination!
So far, I've agreed commissions for about half of the remaining art plates in the books. The first few sketches have come in over the last couple of days, including compositional sketches by Olivia Politz (Olivia is painting an old woman summoning spirits from a magic lamp) and Jon Hodgson (Jon is painting an archer defending her village against a white dragon).
I'll share work-in-progress on those when they're a bit further along.
Internal Black & White Illustrations
Not only are artists around the world starting work on the colour plates, but I've also sent out the first commissions for the new black & white pieces that will appear in the books. There'll be about 75 new pieces, spread between the 5 Black Box books and the Rules Tome. (Those are in addition to the many pieces of art that have already been completed and placed in the layout.)
No sketches or anything to share on this front yet, but I'll keep you all posted with updates as art comes in.
The First Old-School Essentials Compatible Product!
I've seen a sneak preview of this book, and I can heartily recommend it. The Knight Owl chaps produce some really well-written, imaginative, and good-looking gaming material!
Here's what's in this book:
Annalida: a complete island setting with maps, descriptions, encounters, NPCs, treasure, and more!
Two brand new Old-School Essentials classes: the Worm Witch and the Worm Warden!
A comprehensive section on Worm Magic, with 42 spells!
A mini-bestiary full of worms!
As an officially licensed Old-School Essentials product, I'll be working with Knight Owl to ensure that their book is 100% compatible with the Old-School Essentials rules, and is written using the same standards, abbreviations, stat blocks, etc. that you are (or will be) familiar with.
Highly recommended for those who want to add a touch of weird to their Old-School Essentials games!
All For Now
I'll keep you all updated on further progress! (Including when BackerKit is ready to go.)
Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome
Half-elf race-class preview!
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, May 13, 2019 at 01:18:46 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
The end! And the future...
almost 5 years ago
– Sun, May 12, 2019 at 11:29:52 PM
Hey everyone,
It's over!! And what an amazing success this has been!
Looking back at the progress of the campaign, I'm honestly kind of speechless: this campaign has been so much more successful than I'd ever dreamed possible! I'm humbled by the huge levels of excitement around Old-School Essentials, and am super excited to start sharing the game with you all. (More on that below.)
Some highlights from the last 30 days:
Funding in under 2 hours! Even if the Kickstarter had only run for 2 hours, we'd still be producing this game, which is amazing in itself!
Unlocking all initial stretch goals in under 12 hours! This — more than anything — shows that the runaway success of this Kickstarter took me by surprise. I was thinking we might reach the point of unlocking the last stretch goal (at €35K) close to the end of the 30 day run. But no. 12 hours.
Also smashing all the augmented stretch goals! The initial plan was to produce a really nice, deluxe quality game in two formats. With all of the stretch goals all the way to €120K unlocked, the end product is a massive step beyond that! All of the books will have printed endpapers, the Rules Tome will have two ribbon markers, the intro adventure will be illustrated in full colour, and we're commissioning 40 pages of full-colour art for the main books!
All of the fascinating discussions in the comments. I love talking about RPGs, especially when it comes to inspiring newer players and to chewing over rules minutiae with experienced players. We've had a lot of both in the comments thread here! It's been a very entertaining and lively 30 days!
Thank You!
Every one of you has been a part of bringing this game to life in the deluxe form for which I designed it. Thanks to all of you!
Now, a few notes about what will be happening in the next weeks... and further into the future!
What Next? — BackerKit
Now that the Kickstarter campaign has finished, the first thing that will happen is that your credit cards will start being charged for the amounts you pledged. I honestly don't know how long this will take, but I believe it's normally about 2 weeks or so until all the funds have been gathered.
Once all of the funds have cleared, we'll open our pledge manager page over at BackerKit. You'll be able to do a few things of interest there:
Increase your pledge: Pledged for the Rules Tome but changed your mind and actually want the Black Box? No problem. Just upgrade your pledge from Fighter to Magic-User. You'll be charged the difference.
Select add-ons: Here's what a lot of you have been waiting for — the chance to add on the Advanced books and all sorts of other goodies! You'll be able to select what you want (including extra Black Boxes, Rules Tomes, or the individual books from the Black Box) and will be charged for the extras.
Pay shipping: When we're getting ready to ship the physical products, we'll also use BackerKit to ask for your final shipping address, and at that stage will calculate and charge the shipping fees.
PDFs
Another really exciting thing will happen once we're set up in BackerKit: I'll send out PDFs to everyone! As noted in the campaign description, these will be fulfilled by our friends at DriveThruRPG. You'll receive a code to add the PDFs to your library for free.
If you don't already have an account at DriveThruRPG, the code will include instructions on how to create an account and claim your reward.
A few notes on the PDFs:
The PDFs we'll be sending out at this stage will be nearly finished. The writing and layout are complete, the books have been proofread, and some artwork is in place. So you'll be able to start reading / playing Old-School Essentials really soon!
As the illustration team work their way through the raft of new pieces that are being commissioned for the books, I'll periodically update the PDFs with the latest art. So you'll get gradually more and more final PDFs, until we'll eventually have all art in place.
We won't be sending the books off to the printers until several months from now. This means that there's plenty of time for all of you (nearly 3,000 people!) to report any little errors you spot in the PDFs that might have crept in during production and not been spotted by previous proofreading rounds. Please, please, if you spot anything untoward, let me know. That way we can correct any oddities before sending the files off to print.
Keeping You Updated
Though the Kickstarter is now over, fear not: this won't be the last update! I'll continue posting updates here over the next months, sharing progress reports, previews, and development insights as we work towards manufacturing and shipping.
Obviously, these progress updates won't be as frequent as the updates during the Kickstarter have been, but we'll be sure to keep in touch regularly. (If anyone has any thoughts on how regularly you'd like to receive updates, suggest away!)
The Future
As I mentioned in campaign description, and at various points in the comments thread: the Black Box and the Rules Tome are just the beginning of Old-School Essentials! We have lots of plans for more books in the Old-School Essentials line, bringing in new classes, equipment, spells, monsters, treasures, and rules options for different genres — all 100% compatible with the core game. Here are a few of the books that are in the works / in discussion:
Advanced Fantasy: Monsters: A selection of iconic monsters inspired by the Advanced rules from the 1970s, adapted to the Old-School Essentials rules.
Post-Apocalyptic Genre Rules: Road warrior style rules for wasteland exploration, souped up vehicles, and car combat. Includes 10 new character classes, 100% compatible with the Classic Fantasy classes.
Lost Worlds and Forbidden Temples: Dinosaurs, monsters from lands that time forgot, guardians of ruined temples, denizens of the deep jungle. A book of monsters to add a pulp Lost World element to your games!
Pact magic: Two types of playable character — the warlock and tiefling — whose power originates from pacts with planar entities.
Biological magic: Twisted secrets of bio-sorcery, genetic manipulation, vat-cloning, and flesh warping.
...and lots more to come!
Compatibility Licenses
Apart from the official Old-School Essentials product line, we'll also be releasing a compatibility license for third party publishers to use. This will allow other companies to publish material for Old-School Essentials, using a special compatibility logo that will act as a Necrotic Gnome seal of approval. There will also be a fan license for non-commercial works.
The exact details aren't quite ready to roll out, but we'll keep you posted. If any publishers reading this are interested, we'd love to hear from you! Feel free to get in touch and we can chat about licensing.
Community
One final note. A great thing about a Kickstarter like this is bringing together such a huge number of people who share a passion for fantastic adventure gaming. Many of us already know each other online, through various social media platforms, but we've also got to know a lot of new folks over the last 30 days.
I'd like to invite everyone to join the Necrotic Gnome MeWe group! There's already a thriving community of over 600 old-school gaming fans there, sharing play reports, house rules ideas, home-brewed content, and generally geeking out about our favourite adventure games. It's a really positive, fun, and welcoming space, and we'd love to see you there!
