Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1057285Kickstarter is fine so long as the product is mostly done already. It's not a bad system to make the first print run feasible & giving a bigger % of money to the creator (as Kickstarter takes a smaller cut than retail sites). But I've learned my lesson and no longer back anything which doesn't show off the product being either 90+% done or at least 2/3 done with a good track record. (*sigh* Star Citizen - I only backed for the core game rather than one of the crazies that threw in hundreds of dollars, but it's been about 5 frickin' years)

TTRPGs on KS are terrible things to back... from a consumer perspective.  The risk to reward ratio usually isn't there.  Occasionally you'll see good deals on PDFs, but generally anything else will either be cheaper in retail or not cost any more than what backers paid.  Meanwhile, you're money is tied up for months (or -years-), and you're at the mercy of a creator working in a field known for depressive burn outs and attention disorders.  Even experienced professionals can run into problems or just plain shit the bed.  

From the perspective of someone wanting to be a patron they're better.  But patrons shouldn't actually expect anything.

Which isn't to say there are no good TTRPG projects out there.  But you have to be -very- selective.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057314I'll have a Kickstarter up soon-ish (pulling the trigger on a promotional website at the end of the month) and your concerns are precisely why I planned to launch it only once the writing was DONE and I had a full draft copy of the game to give out to all the backers upon successful completion of the Kickstarter.

Well, DONE minus a professional copy editor's proofing... which is one of the things on the list I'm asking for the funding for over and above paying for interior art and the print run itself... sundries like copy editors and copyright/trademark lawyers are things that are easy to overlook, more expensive than you'd think if you want them done well, but important if your goal is a professional publication.

The Fantasy Trip Kickstarter just sent out initial PDFs, and gave the backers until next Monday to report any typos, which would be corrected in the print versions. So it's possible backers could actually do some useful proofreading. (Not enough to dispense with professional proofing, but maybe better for rules clarity, etc.)

Quote from: Chris24601;1057314I'll have a Kickstarter up soon-ish (pulling the trigger on a promotional website at the end of the month) and your concerns are precisely why I planned to launch it only once the writing was DONE and I had a full draft copy of the game to give out to all the backers upon successful completion of the Kickstarter.

I've advised everyone I've consulted for to do exactly this.  Some of them didn't listen.

Quote from: san dee jota;1057330TTRPGs on KS are terrible things to back... from a consumer perspective.  The risk to reward ratio usually isn't there.  Occasionally you'll see good deals on PDFs, but generally anything else will either be cheaper in retail or not cost any more than what backers paid.  Meanwhile, you're money is tied up for months (or -years-), and you're at the mercy of a creator working in a field known for depressive burn outs and attention disorders.  Even experienced professionals can run into problems or just plain shit the bed.  

From the perspective of someone wanting to be a patron they're better.  But patrons shouldn't actually expect anything.

Which isn't to say there are no good TTRPG projects out there.  But you have to be -very- selective.

Which is why I've almost* always backed only KS projects I felt like patronizing:).
And yes, even if one of those project fails, I wouldn't consider it money ill-spent. I wanted this kind of game to have a chance to be made - whatever the reason was at the time - and it got a chance...them bones just didn't roll well! Happens a lot when you want to give a chance to people who aren't professionals and aren't making a formulaic game.
Sometimes I've come to decide after the fact that my reasons to back it were misguided - but that's my fault only, isn't it;)?

*There were a couple exceptions where I treated it as a pre-order, but those were from people known to be hard-working on their next game, with a preview of the rules, and so on.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1057701I've advised everyone I've consulted for to do exactly this.  Some of them didn't listen.

Needing a consultant to tell you this should be the first clue.

Quote from: EOTB;1057834Needing a consultant to tell you this should be the first clue.

There are a surprisingly large number of things that a lot of projects just don't consider when putting together a Kickstarter. For a couple of basics;

- copyright/trademark attorney to make sure your rights are properly protected and everything is filed properly.
- business attorney if you're newly incorporating or going LLC.
- a CPA if you don't already have one since you're going to be receiving a large sum of money and that has all sorts of tax implications.
- a professional copy editor to punch up your prose.
- an advertising budget to promote the launch of the product once its complete.
- hopefully you'll already have a basic promotional site up, but do you want a web store for your products on your site? Do you want to link that with a PoD publisher to streamline shipping? How about a forum? All those things cost.
- have you factored in shipping costs for any physical backer rewards?
- don't leave out that Kickstarter takes about 25% of the total off the top. If you need 30k for the project you need to ask for 40k so you have what you need after Kickstarter gets their cut.

Ideally all of these are factored into you product cost, but if they're not you could quickly find yourself in a financial hole because you're having to either pay for them yourself (effectively selling you product at a loss for the initial run) or skipping one or more pretty important things to keep afloat.

I've known quite a few people who thought all they needed was a writer and an artist and the rest would somehow take care of itself. It won't. You're either starting or expanding a business and need to treat it as such or you'll end up hosing yourself.

If you wanna pull the "lone writer/starving artist" approach, release your work for free in small regular amounts and ask people to support you on Patreon or the like. A thousand true fans willing to put up $1-5 each a month for your content won't make you rich, but you can live on it (pretty comfortably in the midwestern USA... that's a mortgage on a nice house in a good school system, car payments, utilities and eating out a couple nights a nights a week for a family of four in my town).

Quote from: Chris24601;1057839There are a surprisingly large number of things that a lot of projects just don't consider when putting together a Kickstarter. For a couple of basics;

- copyright/trademark attorney to make sure your rights are properly protected and everything is filed properly.
- business attorney if you're newly incorporating or going LLC.
- a CPA if you don't already have one since you're going to be receiving a large sum of money and that has all sorts of tax implications.
- a professional copy editor to punch up your prose.
- an advertising budget to promote the launch of the product once its complete.
- hopefully you'll already have a basic promotional site up, but do you want a web store for your products on your site? Do you want to link that with a PoD publisher to streamline shipping? How about a forum? All those things cost.
- have you factored in shipping costs for any physical backer rewards?
- don't leave out that Kickstarter takes about 25% of the total off the top. If you need 30k for the project you need to ask for 40k so you have what you need after Kickstarter gets their cut.

Ideally all of these are factored into you product cost, but if they're not you could quickly find yourself in a financial hole because you're having to either pay for them yourself (effectively selling you product at a loss for the initial run) or skipping one or more pretty important things to keep afloat.

I've known quite a few people who thought all they needed was a writer and an artist and the rest would somehow take care of itself. It won't. You're either starting or expanding a business and need to treat it as such or you'll end up hosing yourself.

If you wanna pull the "lone writer/starving artist" approach, release your work for free in small regular amounts and ask people to support you on Patreon or the like. A thousand true fans willing to put up $1-5 each a month for your content won't make you rich, but you can live on it (pretty comfortably in the midwestern USA... that's a mortgage on a nice house in a good school system, car payments, utilities and eating out a couple nights a nights a week for a family of four in my town).

With the possible exception of IP legal work, even these shouldn't require a consultant because they're not RPG-specific, but "starting a business 101" applicable to anything beyond a lemonade stand.  

If my paid consultant is telling me stuff that a very basic google search turns up in the first 5 hits, we're both idiots.  

Note what I'm actually saying, which is limited to paying someone consulting fees to learn the above.

Quote from: EOTB;1057834Needing a consultant to tell you this should be the first clue.

Keep in mind that a SHOCKING number of Kickstarter RPGs have not followed this simple rule. The majority, I think.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057839- have you factored in shipping costs for any physical backer rewards?

- have you factored in -international- shipping costs too?  Do you know how to handle VAT, or are you "EU friendly"?  

Quote from: Chris24601;1057839- don't leave out that Kickstarter takes about 25% of the total off the top. If you need 30k for the project you need to ask for 40k so you have what you need after Kickstarter gets their cut.

Enh... more like 5% for KS and 5% for Paypal fees.  Now, if you want to use a fancy shmancy Pledge Manager (and yes, that's an "if") then there are more costs involved, but nowhere near a 15% cut.

Very fortunately, there are LOTS of resources for anyone to freely access to learn about Kickstarter pitfalls.

The biggest problem I see with KS that fail is Creator wants to do their Cool Thing, but forget they are now small business owners and the KS is mostly about the business stuff, not the creative stuff.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1058232Very fortunately, there are LOTS of resources for anyone to freely access to learn about Kickstarter pitfalls.

The biggest problem I see with KS that fail is Creator wants to do their Cool Thing, but forget they are now small business owners and the KS is mostly about the business stuff, not the creative stuff.

Yes, that's another big problem. I know some KS were really 'successful' but ended up promising extended rewards that were either more expensive than they could cover with the stretch or that were so complicated to deliver that they couldn't make them happen.