Hi,
I was wondering if there are plans for things like Villain Books, sourcebooks, and the like? A book (or books!) with the RPG stats for the many heroes and villains from the card game not covered in the core book would be awesome. :)
If there is it wouldn't come until the all of the RPG books funded in the KS are done.
They have said they have plans for a lot past the KS-approved items. :-) Hopefully the game does well enough we'll get them!
These guys dream big. They've mentioned at least a half-dozen books they'd like to do, and I'm sure they have more on their list, if demand holds up. Certainly they want to publish enough books to have stats for all the surviving heroes and villains of the Multiverse.
They dream big...and sometimes bigger than their resources can manage. I think there was a better chance of seeing lots of books 6 years ago before they became a much larger game company. Now they seem in constant danger of overextension.
If we see one book a year, I think we should count ourselves lucky.
I think it's exactly the other way around. Had they done RPG books 6 years ago, it would have been at the expense of SotM, which was massively successful. That would have sunk them.
Now, if they'd launched the RPG 3 years ago, instead of OblivAeon? Maybe. OblivAeon took way too long and my understanding is that it was primarily Spirit Island that kept them afloat while the core GtG team worked on OblivAeon. But also 3 years ago wasn't the right time for the product. Not only did we need the story of OblivAeon for the setting to make sense, I don't think the market for RPG's was in a good place then. It was saturated with 5th Edition D&D and indies trying to compete with it. IMHO there's more breathing room now.
I also don't think we'll see more than one book a year... but that's a good thing! You don't want to flood your base with too many purchases in too short a time. You do need to allow for proper proofreading, playtesting, and art development and direction. Companies that push out too many cheap books too fast (looking at you, Green Ronin) publish a lot that's trash.
I agree with you. I'd just prefer to see two books a year, rather than one. As it is now, they have announced 3-4 books (I think?). At one a year, they'll barely get those out before either people will have moved on to the new hotness.
For reference, the promised book from the kickstarter are-
Dimand book/Zzzwhat’s his name- mystic/cosmic horror adventures and probable GM advise
Tie in adventure for the Sentinels of Freedom computer game- Possibly stats for The Adhesivist, Since the main bad guys for chapter 1 are already stated, On the Letters Page Christopher implied that the background and synopsis was almost as many pages as the adventure
Guise book- Guise, weird niche hero allies and enemies, GM advise, Wager Master, probably new character options
Dark Watch- The team, ©Rook City, The organization, For Profit villain team, New character options, possibly optional rule sets, GM advise
Urban Settings- Setting information, new rules, GM advise
A Prime Wardens book and a Space/Void Guard book are the “not guaranteed by Kickstarter” books Christopher and Adam talk about most
A Master Archive and Time Period specific Archives have also been mentioned, as has a Magic meta-power source/setting/theme book
The Paradigms and The Order of The Simple Machine also need a home but they could be in the Urban book.
Nice analysis, Mind Wanderer.