Tenra Bansho Zero is a Japanese RPG that made a big splash in the Japanese RPG scene around 2000. It's a gonzo anime style setting and ruleset, with a light system as a base with a few add ons like PTA style fan mail and a karma point system. In particular, it is designed for fast and furious pacing with an entire story being played in just a single 4 to 6 hour session.

In 2005, Andy K started translating the RPG and 7 years later he is done. The result looks pretty fantastic. Luke Crane (of Burning Wheel, Burning Empires and Mouse Guard fame) has done the layout and the art is by Junichi Inoue himself as well as other manga artists. Andy's blog has contained a number of insights in how difficult the translation of Japanese to English can be if you want to retain the vibe.

Anyway, it went up of KS this morning looking for $9K and has just hit $20K. It's going very strong, no doubt as it is the first RPG of this size to be translated from Japanese to English.

The KS page is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diamondsutra/tenra-bansho-zero-an-art-and-culture-rich-rpg-from/ and there is a link to the Tenra Bansho Zero webpage and the blog I mentioned.

Yikes, one guy paid almost three grand for an all expenses trip to Japan, not bad I guess. Some people are really willing to put serious money into this.

It's certainly not for everyone, but I can't deny I want a copy of this.

$77 worth of interest, though? Not sure...

(I really want the Alshard translation to happen, though, because that looks like fun)

Wow, I remember hearing about this project back when I spent time at TBP, but I forgot about it until now. Good for him! It's a nice "RPG as hobby/labor of love" story, that usually finds a way to warm the cockles of my heart.

I' d be interested in hearing more about the setting.

But they've met their goal by just over twice as much. Why then can't the person that backed only five bucks get at least a pdf copy of the game? What happens to the rest of the money?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;573021I' d be interested in hearing more about the setting.

But they've met their goal by just over twice as much. Why then can't the person that backed only five bucks get at least a pdf copy of the game? What happens to the rest of the money?

Well first, the more they go over their goal, the cheaper copies will be at retail.

Second, the extra money is going towards future projects for their small translation outfit.  There are two other games in the works, one of which has been mentioned on these forums (Golden Sky Stories, an RPG based on honobono or "feel good" Japanese fiction), and I believe (but could be wrong) Meikyu Kingdom, which is a dungeon-crawling/empire-building game where the entire world has been turned into dungeons, and you have to reclaim it for your kingdom (random charts for fucking everything, lots of humor and JRPG-type tropes strewn about).

The latter is the one I'm more looking forward to.

edit:
Plus, TBH, given the length of the books and the amount of content that had to be translated as well as the redone layout, 13 bucks is a friggin' steal.

Plus they probably have to pay the licensing cost to the original publisher.

Quote from: Peregrin;573028Well first, the more they go over their goal, the cheaper copies will be at retail.

Does that actually happen? Will it?

Shoudl this kickstarter go to funding later projects by the same author?

Quote from: The Traveller;573038Plus they probably have to pay the licensing cost to the original publisher.

Would these not have been factored into the kickstarter amount?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;573065Does that actually happen? Will it?

Shoudl this kickstarter go to funding later projects by the same author?

In fairness, who cares, each level of participation brings its own rewards, once people get what they paid for, their rewards, the author is free to do what they like with the rest. Its not like everything after the goal is a donation, if the authors want to blow the profits on coke and [strike]hookers[/strike] anime that's their prerogative. If someone wanted the PDF that badly they should have forked over the extra eight bucks.

Or to put it another way, if you paid the $13 for the PDF and then learned you could have only paid $5 to get the same, would you not have been pissed? I would be, and rightly so.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;573065Would these not have been factored into the kickstarter amount?

I certainly hope so.

i'll go on for $13--my 90s otaku self demands it

Quote from: Ladybird;573008It's certainly not for everyone, but I can't deny I want a copy of this.

$77 worth of interest, though? Not sure...

$70 for the books and international shipping. The DLC in the next level will be available seperately in about six months time.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;573021I' d be interested in hearing more about the setting.

But they've met their goal by just over twice as much. Why then can't the person that backed only five bucks get at least a pdf copy of the game? What happens to the rest of the money?

It's $13 for the PDF. That doesn't seem out of line with the work done and the product you get.

As for setting, check out the TBZ blog. There are lots of details there. My understanding is that the setting is presented mostly through the PC types and broad brush details to allow the campaign in a session mode to create the setting on the fly. Lots of details are provided but you don't get a detailed view of a single city, for example.

TS Luikart has done a sample of a setting that may be created from the material. There is also a second setting called Ruined Empire on offer, which has a FF vibe.

Quote from: Skywalker;573134$70 for the books and international shipping. The DLC in the next level will be available seperately in about six months time.

Huh, didn't notice that, but $7 won't significantly affect my purchase decision.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;573021But they've met their goal by just over twice as much. Why then can't the person that backed only five bucks get at least a pdf copy of the game? What happens to the rest of the money?

Because that wasn't the deal they chose.

If they change their mind, they can up their pledge any time in the next 28 days.

Quote from: Skywalker;573135It's $13 for the PDF. That doesn't seem out of line with the work done and the product you get.

As for setting, check out the TBZ blog. There are lots of details there. My understanding is that the setting is presented mostly through the PC types and broad brush details to allow the campaign in a session mode to create the setting on the fly. Lots of details are provided but you don't get a detailed view of a single city, for example.

TS Luikart has done a sample of a setting that may be created from the material. There is also a second setting called Ruined Empire on offer, which has a FF vibe.

What i'm saying is that surely the point of this kind of crowd funding is that the project gets funded by a lot of people paying (at least) a little. You decide to offer more because a) you want the project to succeed and b) you want the extras they offer at the higher levels. But everyone who ponies up at least something should get a copy of the final product in whatever form it's going to be printed.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;573391What i'm saying is that surely the point of this kind of crowd funding is that the project gets funded by a lot of people paying (at least) a little. You decide to offer more because a) you want the project to succeed and b) you want the extras they offer at the higher levels. But everyone who ponies up at least something should get a copy of the final product in whatever form it's going to be printed.

No. They can pledge at whatever level they want, but it's up to the publisher what the reward tiers are. In this case, sub-$13 pledges are eplicitly "for support". As always, people are aware of the deals and can choose whichever they like, if any.

You're saying people should be able to get the PDF for $1.