A new edition of the occult tabletop game about broken and obsessed people risking everything to change the world.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
You did it, folks. That's a wrap on the Unknown Armies Third Edition Kickstarter! At over $266,000 pledged and 2,819 of you backing this project, I can confirm that UA3 is officially a blockbuster success. From all of us here at Atlas Games and the UA3 production team, thank you for getting us past all of our stretch goals and all of our social goals. You are unbelievably generous and we could not have done it without any single one of you.
For the next two weeks we're going to remain fairly quiet as Kickstarter goes through its usual processing and gathering the pledges. Soon after that, we will migrate everything to BackerKit, at which point the process of assigning pledged rewards and items can start.
BackerKit allows us to keep the window open for pre-orders and add-ons through the summer as Atlas Games attends conventions in San Diego Comic Con, Origins Game Fair, Gen Con Indy, and other smaller regional conventions. We're going to keep all of you updated on the progress of the game's production, and solicit more feedback from you as that happens.
Many of you signed up in the last 3 days and may still not have had time to grab the playtest versions of the game files in the Dropbox folder. You can find the link to that here. The folder includes 3 PDF files of game content and a PDF of instructions, as well as a few zip files containing free avatars and icons and wallpapers. Read those Gamma instructions for details about submitting your playtest feedback or comments about the rules to us. The deadline is May 9th, 2016 - the more feedback we get, the better the game will be.
Once again, THANK YOU for your pledges and for sharing the good news of Unknown Armies. We appreciate it so very much!
--Cam, John, Jeff, Greg, Colleen, Thomas, Aaron, and the entire Unknown Armies production team
Beloved cabal,
We enter the home stretch! With only a little over two days to go until the Kickstarter ends, we've still got some amazing stretch goals and backer goals we'd love to reach. Every day I see more folks sign up to get in on the occult action that is Unknown Armies and I'm excited to see how much more content you all want.
Coming up at $225,000 is another 16 pages of Book Five: Mine, written this time by classy old school occult writer Kenneth Hite. Ken's contributed to UA in the past and his boundless encyclopedic mind is only further enhanced by his vast personal library of books. Ken's pages add to those already unlocked by Jason L Blair, Tim Dedopulos, Chris Lites, WJ MacGuffin, Ryan Macklin, Chad Underkoffler, and Filamena Young, bringing it to a full 128 pages.
Once we clear Ken's stretch goal, it's only another $5K until the PDF Reference Companion by yours truly is unlocked. This is the essential tablet/laptop/device package that brings together all of the UA3 content, rules, and rituals into a single easily searched and referenced toolkit. We're hoping that this makes both player and GM preparation and play easier and provides us with the opportunity to continue to update and upgrade the companion as the game expands.
At $240,000 we'll recruit James Semple to complete his Unknown Armies musickal trilogy with a third soundtrack suite. Then, at $250,000, assuming we can hit that goal we'll give everyone who backs the project at the digital ebooks level and greater a digital copy of Greg Stolze's Unknown Armies novel, Godwalker. We've been wanting to get this book to more people for a while now, and Greg would obviously love for all of you to read it.
We're a handful of backers away from our 2333 backer target for the first UA3 tutorial video, covering character creation and setting prep! With this video we hope to show you just how much fun it is to string together your PCs and the world they inhabit upon the corkboard occult underground. We'll give you some helpful suggestions and pointers to make the first session of your game compelling and get your players invested.
At 2400, 2450, 2500, and 2500 backers we're going to unlock more Campaign Starter Kits, which we think are going to be incredibly helpful to new GMs and those groups without much spare time or with flagging inspiration. We've already got three of these unlocked and we're keen to get more.
2666 backers unlocks the second tutorial video, which will focus mostly on the many ways to manage conflict, shock, and consequences at the game table with UA3. Shock gauges and managing the outcome of conflict are key to driving the story forward, and this video drills down on how to keep things moving quickly while maintaining that atmosphere of menace and madness that we've come to love about UA.
Beyond the Kickstarter, we're partnering with BackerKit to manage all of your pledges and to provide opportunities to pick up add-ons and other goodies. BackerKit's how we're getting your your digital content, and for this reason it's important that your contact information, emails, and addresses are all accurate and up to date. You'll get contacted by BackerKit within 2 weeks of the end of the campaign and we would hate for you to get these messages lost in the ether.
It's our experience that putting in a few minutes now, ahead of the Kickstarter's conclusion, to straighten out your profile here and double-check your pledges makes it 100% more likely that things will go smoothly for you afterward.
Finally, a reminder that if you're interested in providing me with playtest feedback for the Gamma version of the rules, which are located in a Dropbox folder (the link is back here in Update 1), your deadline for that feedback is May 9th, 2016. All feedback goes to our playtest email at atlas-games.com, NOT the crowdfund email or via Kickstarter. Instructions and rules are provided in an instruction document in that Dropbox folder, so be sure to read that before you submit any feedback or comments.
We'll likely post another update tomorrow with more news if we have it, but until then, please share the Kickstarter link on social media, follow us and RT us at @atlasgames on Twitter, like our page on Facebook, and drop us into your circles on Google+. We love to discuss our games there and share bonus content and previews all the time, so check it out!
--Cam and the Unknown Armies production team
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Beloved cabal,
We're only a little over a week to go before the Unknown Armies Third Edition campaign draws to a close, but we're shooting for the moon. In this update I reveal a surprise new writer stretch goal, an exciting new way to contribute to the occult underground, and a big thank you to our retailer backers!
Anyone who knows obscure occult lore and eliptonic trivia knows Kenneth Hite, one half of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff and designer of such gaming-related gems as Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents, and Dracula's Dossier. Ken has had a long history with Unknown Armies and we are thrilled to have him come on board for Book Five, wherein he assembles some of his more disturbing campaign notes from the past and presents them to you. Assuming we reach the $225K goal, that is!
Atlas Games is in the process of securing a secret pact with world-famous online vendor OneBookShelf to create the Statosphere, a new program for Unknown Armies creators and fans. You'll be able to write and publish your own UA3 content through the program, in a manner similar to Wizards of the Coast's DM's Guild and other upcoming community content programs. Here at Atlas we've always loved the truly amazing fan content that's been created in Greg and John's world of transcendent horror and we'd like to invite those fans to contribute to the growing body of UA work and make some money while they're at it!
We want to be sure that this is something you're interested in, of course. So, we're making it into something of a social stretch goal. If we can get 333 retweets of this Tweet by Atlas Games, we'll assume the voice of the adepts has spoken and make this a real thing!
We wouldn't be able to do what we do if it wasn't for the support of bricks and mortar stores and their digital cousins. We've always felt that opening up a tier for retailers was key to getting our games straight into the hands of fans who might not have the chance to back out Kickstarters, so we're grateful for the vendors who have decided to back this project.
So that's a big shout out to Hamamicha in Tel Aviv, Spheremaster Games in Germany, EndGame in Oakland CA, Dragon's Lair Games, Adventure Games Store, Kalman Spigel, Games & Stuff, Twenty Sided Store, Devin, ChaosPrime, Adrian Hunter, Darren Johnson, and Sean Holland. We can't always assign a business to the name but we're glad you're here and you're helping us make this game come to life!
Until next time,
Stay hungry. Play hard.
--Cam and the Unknown Armies production team