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Backstory Cards, Volume 2

Created by Tim Rodriguez

Backstory Cards blend your characters and setting concept into an intriguing set of relationships and history. It’s tailor-made for games where the player-characters already know each other—from fantasy adventurers to star marines, from supernatural beings who share the same city to global-hopping troubleshooters.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Stretch Goal #1, accomplished!
almost 6 years ago – Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 11:50:53 AM

Woo, first setting grid accomplished (and halfway to the second, too!)

I've asked Misha Bushyager to write the first setting grid. She hasn't confirmed what she's interested in writing for her setting grid yet, but I'll get that posted as soon as I get it. Here's a little bit about Misha in the meantime.

Misha is a longtime gamer and GM working on raising the next generation of geeklings. She’s written for multiple games including Chill: SAVE, Lovecraftesque, and Dead Scare and was an editor of the award winning #Feminism collection of nanogames. She blogs gaming inspired fiction at BlackGirlGameWorks.com

A few other backers have offered to write setting grids as well, so they're in the queue now too. In the next post (for backers only), I'll write up a detailed breakdown of how we write setting grids and some tips and tricks for making them extra awesome!

And happy Tabletop day, go enjoy some games!

Three days to go!

-TR

Good Morning Goal!
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 06:58:34 PM

I woke up bright and early this morning to find that we’ve reached our goal posts!!!

Thank you so much everyone! We’ve still got a week to go and still lots of great things planned. As mentioned previously, every $500 over the base goal unlocks a new setting grid and I’ve started emailing my first handful of potential grid-writers to make sure they’re lined up and ready to go.

Upcoming Milestones

  • $10,500 - New Setting Grid (details TBD)
  • $11,000 - New Setting Grid (details TBD)
  • $11,500 - New Setting Grid (details TBD)
  • $12,000 - New Setting Grid (details TBD)
  • $12,500 - New Setting Grid (details TBD) AND the Techniques Guide Update

I’ve got a busy week ahead of me, but I’ve got some ideas for another stream and can hopefully get that arranged before we close out the end of the campaign

ONLY A WEEK TO GO!

So with that, I'd like to make a few further requests for your help. I hope you'll help out with any single one

  • If you are, or know someone who would be interested in writing a setting grid please put them in touch. These milestones are awesome, but it's also important to reach out to new people who I don't know yet!
  • Tell a tabletop roleplaying gamemaster or writer friend about Backstory Cards. We can only reach just so far, and its your enthusiasm which brings that more distant set of people to the community.
  • If you have a favorite anecdote or tip about your own use of Backstory Cards, I'd love to hear about it in the main campaign comments.

Thank you again for all your support. For all the new backers who are supporting me and Ryan for the first time, and for all the returning ones whose trust we've earned in making awesome stuff. THANK YOU!!!!

-Tim

Livestream, Sunday!
almost 6 years ago – Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 02:18:05 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Setting Elements: Live! (delayed due to technical difficulties)
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 01:24:12 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

The Original Sets update
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Apr 09, 2018 at 05:32:28 PM

There’s a lot of fairly complicated factors that go into a decision on whether to offer some of the original sets as part of this campaign. The biggest one is the sales records from the original printing. While the core deck fairly quickly sold through it’s healthy print run (we’ve already got plans to reprint that one), Expansion #1 (aka the genre expansion) has not performed as well. Further, if we are unable to print in volume, the budget fails to be sustainable. That said, we’ve got roughly a hundred or so units remaining of Expansion #1, but it’s not necessarily the case that it makes sense to reprint it at this point.

So here’s what we’re going to do.

We’re adding a limited physical-everything backer level, locked to a number we know we’ll be able to fulfill without throwing our existing budget plan out the window.

and

We’re making the core deck available as a $15 add-on.

Thank you everyone for all your feedback. We’re working hard to address all of the concerns as best we can while running a sustainable operation that leaves everyone satisfied.

-Tim