Barkeep on the Borderlands

January Update #1
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jan 07, 2023 at 02:51:58 PM

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

December Update #2
over 1 year ago – Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 05:44:31 PM

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

December Update #1
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Dec 09, 2022 at 06:52:01 PM

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

November Update
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 11:40:38 PM

Backerkit surveys are coming. This is a short update because you will likely be hearing from me again next week. We are working on our Backerkit pre-order store, making sure we have the latest shipping estimates. It should go live next week. What does this mean? This will be where we collect your shipping addresses and collect the shipping amount if you are getting physical rewards. It will also give you the option to add items to your order, if you decided you want more Barkeep than you thought back in February. For instance, you could add on the poster which has a map of the cover art on one side and the full pubcrawl map (see below) on the other. I am really happy with the map and think it is going to be a valuable play aid for people running the full adventure. All products—the book itself, the coasters and the poster, are being offered at the same prices they were during the Kickstarter (they will likely be higher once they go out into other retail stores in the real world—and the poster and coaster are not guaranteed to be offered outside of this campaign).

The plan is that the Backerkit survey will be open until mid-to-late January, which should be 1-2 weeks before we begin the fulfilment process. You will be able to change your address in Backerkit anytime between the day the surveys are sent out and then. I’ll make sure to also give you all a head’s up when we are about to lock addresses for shipping. If you have any questions about any of this, ask away on this update. Backerkit has a “FAQ” feature, so I will also include your questions and answers there too (though the FAQ doesn’t mean you can’t keep asking me even more questions if you have them).

The rest of the process is both speeding along and wrapping up. A few spreads are still getting finalized, I’m waiting on about five pieces of art, and layout is gearing up. Playtests are also being scheduled for this week. This adventure is getting so close to being out in the world, and I hope you’re as excited as I am!

Speaking of playlists, my fellow blogger at the A Knight at the Opera, Dwiz, will be the one running them (as I neutrally observe in my white labcoat). Dwiz also recently wrote a fascinating blogpost contrasting the official D&D adventures put out by Wizards of the Coast against better adventures from independent game designers. For full disclosure, one of the adventures he praises is my own Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl, but the post is worth a read for anyone interested in good adventure design.  

Ever thankful,

W.F. Smith of the Prismatic Wasteland

October Update (and Timeline Update)
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 03:26:19 PM

The adventure is going to be bigger now and will be delivered a few months later than expected. I originally estimated the zine would contain 52 pages with a color illustration on each page. Now that the adventure is nearly completely written, it has ballooned to 62 illustrated pages (not counting the cover and back cover). I’ve lost my battle against scope creep, but that’s not a loss for you. I thought it would be helpful to just list out the stuff going in the final adventure that you didn’t hear about during the Kickstarter campaign.

The adventure now includes:

• ~100 color illustrations throughout
• A spread of 36 player-character backgrounds (previewed in the May Update)
• A page of extra “Sidetracks” (random encounters) written by a new guest writer, Ty Pitre
• An expanded “timeline” section to make the city feel alive and dynamic as the player-characters explore its nightlife
• A spread of rumors using a dynamic rumor system, which changes what kind of rumors the player-characters might hear depending on when they ask or what they are asking about
• A spread detailing a small dungeon where player-characters might perform a lucrative heist–if they play their cards right
  

Additionally, due to the higher page count this adventure will need to perfect bound instead of saddle stitch. The good news there is that the spine will now be visible on a bookshelf. The downside is that it may not technically be a “zine”. We are in book territory now! If you’ve been keeping up with anything this past year, you won’t be surprised to learn that printing is more expensive now than it was back in February, but Barkeep’s coffers are well-equipped to handle the inflation.

This project has been more work than one might expect from a zine. With 12 writers, 3 editors and 17+ artists, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen. While it can be chaotic to manage at times, it means that this adventure has an absurd amount of cool ideas for your gaming table packed inside. But it has also slowed us down more than I initially expected.

I want to give you the best adventure possible and I won’t rush this all-star team if it means failing to deliver on that. In the original campaign, I estimated that backer surveys would go out in November with an estimated fulfillment time of December. Now that we see what work remains, I want to give you a better estimate: backer surveys are likely to go out in January and fulfillment will be by March. There is a chance that we hit both of these deadlines earlier (I would love to get it to you before the anniversary of the original Kickstarter), but these are very achievable dates.

I apologize for the pushed dates, but I hope you feel that it will be worth it to deliver this adventure to you with all the bells and whistles it can fit. This also gives us at least two to three weeks for rigorously playtesting the adventure and making any adjustments based on those playtests.

If you are looking for something to play while you wait to bring Barkeep on the Borderlands to your gaming table, I recommend a hexcrawl campaign. This is a classic type of campaign that emphasizes exploration, but if you aren’t sure how to start such a campaign, I recently wrote part one in a definitive guide for running a hexcrawl.

Cheers to another month,

W.F. Smith of the Prismatic Wasteland