It's Week 2 of the Downcrawl 2E crowdfunding campaign, and we've passed $50K and 520 lovely backers! This is the traditional plodding middle period of crowdfunding (most excitement and pledges come in the first few and last few days) but it's still exciting to see new pledges come in each day, and new friends join our expedition to the Deep, Deep Down.
While we're sailing through these doldrums, I'd love it if you could continue spreading the word about the game to your friends and communities. There's a press kit with hi-res images available, and if you've got an audience of TTRPG fans, I'd love to chat with you for a blog interview, podcast appearance, or anything else that might help get the game in front of more would-be delvers.
A couple quick updates this week:
As a reminder, shipping is not included as part of your campaign pledge. As is becoming more standard for crowdfunding, shipping fees will be calculated more precisely and charged separately once the project is about to fulfill orders and ship items to you. This keeps project creators from needing to guess what shipping rates will be far in advance of delivery, and lets us keep the costs to you as close to the actual shipping rate as possible.
After the campaign ends, you'll get a survey from BackerKit which will allow you to enter your shipping address, adjust your add-ons, and pay for shipping. Please keep an eye out for this survey email, as it's the only way I have to reach you to get your pledge rewards to you! I'll keep folks abreast in these backer updates about when to expect the survey.
You can review my current best estimates about what shipping rates will be to different countries and for different pledge tiers on the Shipping section of the Story page. If you need to cancel or adjust your pledge in light of this info, I totally get it, and no hard feelings! (And it incurs less unrecoverable fees for me if this happens before the campaign ends.)
I've posted a new article over on the Downcrawl Digest with more details about the standalone engine that comes with Downcrawl 2E. While you can continue to use Downcrawl to enhance a campaign with an existing ruleset (i.e. a D&D game), there's now a standalone engine called Sliver of Fate in the rulebook for out-of-the-box adventures.
I'll be at Big Bad Con in the San Francisco Bay area this weekend, running a few games of Downcrawl Worlds. The sessions are unfortunately full, but if you'll be at the con, look for the geek with "Aaron Reed" on his name badge and say hi! I'll also be running Downcrawl Worlds at KublaCon Fall in the San Jose area two weekends from now.
(What is Downcrawl Worlds? It's a standalone worldbuilding game that uses the cards from the Downcrawl Deck for a fast-paced and fun couple hours of inventing weird places and creatures. As an added bonus, you can use the world you create with it as the setting for a Downcrawl campaign! You get the Downcrawl Worlds rules for free if you're backing at any level that includes a Downcrawl Deck.)
got lost and arrived at the wrong place, which turned out to be a Watchtower eternally guarding a red-hot pyramid in which an ancient magmamancer was imprisoned
made friends with a stone giant named Topaz who triggered an existential crisis
stole secrets from the Watchtower Council right out of their chambers by making an incredible roll (4d6 drop two highest, but I got 6-6-6-5)
Finally, thanks to the folks who've sent in feedback on the early draft of the Downcrawl rules available to backers. I appreciate every typo, unclear rule wording, broken mechanic, or suggested improvement offered! I've refreshed the uploaded version of the rules with the latest tweaks. A reminder, backers get free access to the early rules draft: details at the link above.
That's it for now! As a heads up, you'll probably get weekly updates during the month the campaign is live, but these will slow down afterwards to every month or so, to keep you apprised of project progress. I'll keep anything crucial you need to know as a bolded notice in the first paragraph, so do please try to at least scan the start of these emails for vital info even if you don't have time to read them all!
