I know. I know. I said I was going to try to post at least once a week. What can I say? The last post on this blog was over a month ago. I have all kinds of great excuses. Want to hear a few? I've been preparing written materials for my AD&D 1e campaign. I've had work to do at my real job. My wife went on a trip for over a week, and I had to take care of the kids by myself. And so on and so forth. Oh well.
But I'm back now, and here's a new post for that handful of people who actually read this blog. (You know who you are!) As far as I'm concerned, posting something at all is what matters. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I let this blog turn into one of those "fossils" that just sort of sits there forever with its final, years-old post seemingly frozen in amber. I'll take this sucker down before I let that happen.
And that brings me to my point: Grognardia. I've explained before how Grognardia reawakened my interest in role-playing games. James Maliszewski's erudition and fascinating insights into RPGs made Grognardia a must-read for me for a couple of years. I loved it. Because of that, it's really painful to go to that site now and see the same blog post I've been looking at since December 11, 2012. After James stopped posting, I would check Grognardia about once a week to see if, by some miracle, something new had appeared there. Nothing ever did. I may check it now maybe once every other month, if that. I don't expect to see anything new--especially since James is now apparently posting over at the fantasy literature site: Black Gate.
Grognardia's tale is a sad one. From everything I've read, James put the kibosh on Grognardia after his father became seriously ill in late 2012. James was obviously having difficulty focusing on his site during this time. James' readers (myself included) certainly understood. A blog--about games no less--is small stuff compared to a grave illness in one's family. James had every right to shut it down.
What some people (myself again included) were somewhat less willing to understand was James' failure to fulfill his responsibilities in connection with the Kickstarter program he had initiated in 2011 to fund the publication of his legendary Dwimmermount megadungeon. James raised over $48,000 so that he could put Dwimmermount into a format that other people could use. I was a backer. Dwimmermount was, in fact, the first and only Kickstarter I've ever backed.
It didn't turn out well. After his father got sick, James more or less disappeared with the Kickstarter money for a while. He didn't even pay his freelance artists who had already contributed art to the project. Coming from a seemingly decent guy like James, that was disappointing to say the least. James did finally do the right thing, though. By mid-2013, he had turned the drafts, money, and his notes over to his partners at the OSR publisher, Autarch, LLC, to let them finish it. The whole project then limped along in fits and starts depending on who at Autarch was available to work on it. I personally never thought it would produce anything but hard feelings.
So, I have to say that I was pretty darn surprised when I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from Autarch's indefatigable Tavis Allison saying that the project was actually finished. Huh? Whut? Yes, it was true. Dwimmermount was complete and would be shipping to backers in a few weeks!! I couldn't believe it, but here was the proof: Dwimmermount Kickstarter. I'm only in for $10, which means (I think) that I'll only get a .pdf copy. But that's o.k. Tavis, Alex and the rest of the guys at Autarch actually made it happen. They deserve a few attaboys, that's for sure. Here's to them. All hail Autarch!! Way to go!!!!
Now I'm actually anticipating that .pdf again. I hope it's good.
Looking back on this whole incident, it hasn't soured me forever on Kickstarters, but it hasn't inspired a great deal of confidence either. Had it not been for Autarch, this whole thing would have surely imploded for good. I'm willing to concede that this experience may be unusual, though. I'd really like to know if it is. To try to answer that question, I'll now conduct an (admittedly very unscientific) poll. Has anyone out there ever funded a Kickstarter campaign--of any type--and did it actually produce what was promised? Inquiring minds want to know!!!! I look forward to reading your answers.
