Quote from: Tavis;583844Autarch's next Kickstarter will be for the Domains at War mass combat rules.

I knew something positive would result from this thread.

I for one am dying to find out more about Autarch's future business projects especially DOMAINS OF WAR which promises exciting INNOVATIONS in a suite of mass combat rules.

Thank *you* Tavis for complimenting prospective customers ahead of their investment. You make us all feel so ... Christmassy.

If you have any curios or personal articles of clothing you wish to sell on ebay, this is the place to let us know. Your pocket is our concern.

I think this thread has made me want to put a new face on all my old mega dungeon maps I had since the 80s and release it for free.

Quote from: Endless Flight;583853
Dwimmermount doesn't actually exist yet, so why is it on any timeline? That's kind of what I'm getting at with the analogy.

It's a dungeon that players have been adventuring in for years, and still are. Part of the problem here is the definition of "exist", and I've apologized elsewhere for not better separating out these meanings in the KS pitch. But if materials that have seen extensive actual play can be said to exist, most commercial RPG products don't reach that definition until long after they're published.

Quote from: _kent_;583855If you have any curios or personal articles of clothing you wish to sell on ebay, this is the place to let us know. Your pocket is our concern.

Thanks! In the event, I will put it in my sig so it's appended to every post.

Quote from: Tavis;583820No, the 10% figure you heard was probably that Kickstarter takes 5% and Amazon Payments takes 5%.

No, I had already factored Kickstarter's 10% (or 5%+5%) in:

Quote from: EOTB;583775I remember seeing discussions around that time that implied that Autarch took a 10% "Kickstarter management fee" (since James is in Canada, he can't run his own KS without forming a U.S. company and getting a U.S. bank account).  Kickstarter also takes 10%, but if you think 80% of what you'll get on Kickstarter is a bigger $ than 90-odd% of Indiegogo, it becomes a win-win for both parties if it goes smoothly.

Perhaps Autarch isn't charging him an additional 10%, as I saw speculated - and I'm not demanding you detail how much such a charge would be.  But I certainly don't think Autarch did it for nothing.

Quote from: Tavis;583820Starting a RPG company is dumb. This is not a business you'd be in if you were solely focused on return on investment and never did things just because you were passionate about them. Kickstarter makes it a little less dumb because, if it turns out no one else cares, you're not as far in the hole at the point where this becomes clear.

Starting an RPG company may be dumb - my point is that turning over the revenue carrot/stick while retaining the overall liability is a dumber way to do something dumb like running an RPG company.  This probably sounds hostile, and I don't really mean it to be, but from a business case perspective I think it valid to highlight it as a lesson learned for others who may be considering doing something similar.  Other non-U.S. residents may try to arrange joint ventures like this in the future again, after all.

I agree with others that your recent transparency - even providing a phone number to call - is exemplary customer service and has made or kept the majority of your customers content for the current time.  

Quote from: Tavis;583850It'd make sense if baseball was only three years old, right? On the OSR timeline Dwimmermount is ancient, and less of it had been revealed than other early talked-about dungeons like Under Xylarthen's Tower or Mines of Khunmar.

So you're saying it doesn't make sense then, right?

I mean, if the OSR is, at its foundations, the continuing play and promotion of the original games than it isn't three years old.  It's almost 40 since a large contingent of such players never moved into the new editions.  So no, I don't see a dungeon created in 2009 as ancient by OSR standards, unless the definition of OSR now excludes the original games.  That would be a narrow definition that weirdly removes recognition of the very thing the OSR rallied around.  

I suppose how "old" one considers it depends on if someone places the most import on, or considers the heart of the OSR to be, the people who kept those philosophies alive when they were not in vogue, or instead on a first wave of people returning from having wholly adopted later editions and playstyles.  But the latter definition is somewhat insulting to those who thought the later editions were always crap, and put together the foundations for WotC edition players to return to.

Quote from: Tavis;583862Part of the problem here is the definition of "exist"

This is true; it depends on if you think that having 3 or 4 levels of an 8+ level megadungeon written and/or mapped means that it exists on a practical level, as opposed to a legal, "it depends on what the definition of 'is' is" level.

I think that the misinterpretation also came from the identifying it as the "centerpiece of James' campaign" in the KS.  Since most people assume James frequently plays the games, it is assumed that the centerpiece of his game would have more than 3 or 4 levels completed at the time of initiating sales.  But since that interpretation rests on the perception of James rather than what James has explicitly said about himself, that misinterpretation is not the fault or responsibility of Autarch's marketing of the kickstarter in any way.

Quote from: EOTB;583866I don't see a dungeon created in 2009 as ancient by OSR standards, unless the definition of OSR now excludes the original games.  That would be a narrow definition that weirdly removes recognition of the very thing the OSR rallied around. I suppose how "old" one considers it depends on if someone places the most import on, or considers the heart of the OSR to be, the people who kept those philosophies alive when they were not in vogue, or instead on a first wave of people returning from having wholly adopted later editions and playstyles.  But the latter definition is somewhat insulting to those who thought the later editions were always crap, and put together the foundations for WotC edition players to return to.

I see the heart of the OSR circles I'm part of as being the process of discovering and explaining why the original playstyles rock. This is kind of a modern phenomenon, despite the great advice you can get from the AD&D PHB section on adventuring or the tournament scoring guidelines from the original Lost Caverns of Tsojconth. It necessarily implies an audience for whom this stuff is new or at least worthy of explaining, and having this as my perspective means I'm always at risk of offending people who were around the foundations of the scene before than I was. Jon Peterson's Playing at the World made me realize how much the Acaeum and collectors in general did to bring this heritage back into the spotlight, and I'm always on the lookout for chances to play with people who've been rolling this way nonstop; there just aren't many locally.

Quote from: Tavis;583871I see the heart of the OSR circles I'm part of as being the process of discovering and explaining why the original playstyles rock. This is kind of a modern phenomenon, despite the great advice you can get from the AD&D PHB section on adventuring or the tournament scoring guidelines from the original Lost Caverns of Tsojconth.

Ouch. The "discovering" part is great. I bought the PHB 30 years ago and don't need it "explained" to me, thanks.

When I think of "legendary", I think of things that have been played and read by hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, like Keep on the Borderlands.

When I think "legendary dungeon" I think:

• EGG's Castle Greyhawk Dungeons
• Arneson's Blackmoor Dungeons
• RJK's El Raja Key
• M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel Underworld

That is, huge, sprawling megadungeons that have existed since the dawn of the hobby, hosted many players, and are storied, but remain mostly unpublished and sparsely documented.

Stuff like B2, S1, and T1-4 I'd put more in a "classic dungeon" category.  Experienced and loved by lots of people, but well known and well documented.

Quote from: Endless Flight;583875When I think of "legendary", I think of things that have been played and read by hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, like Keep on the Borderlands.

Oh I quite think Dwimmermount is going to wind up being legendary.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;583877That is, huge, sprawling megadungeons that have existed since the dawn of the hobby, hosted many players, and are storied, but remain mostly unpublished and sparsely documented.

Yes, but what Tavis just told us was, that in his perception of the OSR, Dwimmermount has existed since the dawn of the hobby.  

Think about it - that's not snark.  That one statement actually explains quite a bit of the difference between the pre-2008 OSR and the later, mostly separate blogosphere OSR and, why many in the latter see themselves as its center of gravity.  Their focus, and their world, are those who know less about the old ways then the bloggers and who like the bounded, one-way, bite-sized nuggets of basic concept exploration the bloggers provide.  Readers provide an audience (and probably a market) as opposed to the fraternity many message boards feel like; instead other "famous" bloggers provide that fraternal function.  It also explains why you rarely see them on any of the long-established message boards in a non-commercial capacity just shooting the shit.  

Starting an RPG company may be dumb, but there are smarter ways to go about it and I would include focusing on the blogosphere market as one of those - they need more stuff.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;583878Oh I quite think Dwimmermount is going to wind up being legendary.

Yes, but in what way?

Quote from: Endless Flight;583886Yes, but in what way?

Quote from: I run with scissors;583854The more you call me a sack of shit, the more silly you look.

Oh no! The lying troll Tu Quoque is wandering the wilds of RPGSite! Whatever shall we do?

Let's take a moment to review your pertinent posts:

Quote from: I run with scissors;583231It was only because people started bitching around 8/10 did anything come out.

Quote from: I run with scissors;583452Richard Barton on August 20

What? How can this be? I am a lying "sack of shit" according to you. I have no idea who this backer is, but here is the first backer who expressed something other than sunshine and lollipops.

Do you have any explanation yet for your belief that August 20th happens before August 10th, you lying sack of shit?

Quote from: Tavis;583850It'd make sense if baseball was only three years old, right? On the OSR timeline Dwimmermount is ancient, and less of it had been revealed than other early talked-about dungeons like Under Xylarthen's Tower or Mines of Khunmar.

If we take neo-old school dungeons (that is, not Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Jakkalá or El Raja Key), where does this put Rappan Athuk (2001), which goes back to Bill Webb's 1970s Wilderlands campaign, and has had rather significant exposure since its publication? To put things into contrast, Dwimmermount is less ancient than my recently retired mobile phone (2004), and I believe post-dates Fight On! magazine (2008). It can be sold on many merits, but age is not one of them.