Spotlight on the Culture Keyholes Expansion & Worldbuilding Questions
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 01:23:26 AM

Hi everyone!

I wanted to show you a deep dive into the Shared Hearths & Common Creeds Culture Keyholes Expansion, and also talk a little bit about how this expansion grew out of some early working drafts of The Story Engine: Deck of Worlds.

First up, here's a look at a few sample cards from the expansion, which features worldbuilding-focused "keyhole" questions that are designed to unlock larger aspects of the cultures in your setting. These are a separate type of card that supplements the 6 card types in the main deck.

Deploying Keyhole Cards

Depending on the level of detail you want to explore your setting in, and when in your creative process you want to take a deeper look at individual areas, there are three ways you can use these questions.

1) Draw and tuck 1 Keyhole Card into your micro-setting as you create it. (Or draw and tuck 2-3 Keyhole Cards for a complex micro-setting.) Write down the answers as you make your setting notes.

2) After you've created your world map, look at individual micro-settings you want to explore in greater detail and draw and tuck questions for these locations. This is my personal preference. I find the answers to these questions might change depending on the overall shape and interaction of my micro-settings, and I might want to apply one question to multiple micro-settings with linked cultures. 

3) As you draw Keyhole Cards with either option 1 or 2, you can always promote a question to a world-level keyhole if you think the answer has relevance across multiple cultures in your world. I put these beside my map for consideration.

Going Even Deeper

The small expansion booklet also includes two overarching follow-up questions that are recommended for adding additional layers of cultural detail and diversity to your world: 

• What assumptions does the question make? 
• How would the answer change depending on who you ask? 

For example, the cue "AT WHAT AGE ARE YOUTH EXPECTED TO LEAVE THE HOUSEHOLD?" assumes that it's uncommon for multiple generations to live in the same household. You are always encouraged to challenge the assumption the question makes in the way that you answer it.

Likewise, you could consider how different cultural groups within the same micro-setting (or how different people within the same cultural group) might give different answers to the same question. Cultures are not monoliths (with the exception of special cases like hiveminds and AI collectives). The question "WHAT KIND OF INSULTS DO THEY USE?" might yield different answers depending on who you ask and their religious values, family values, level of education, social mobility, and more. And the answer can give you deeper insight into what different people in this culture consider sacred or profane, offensive or acceptable.

To this end, you can optionally draw Agent Cards from the original Story Engine Deck to decide whose perspective you might consider when answering the question.

Let's take it for a spin using a sample setting from the campaign page: The Mapless Desert.

This is a complex micro-setting (meaning I drew extra Landmark, Namesake, and Attribute Cards). Thus, I would draw and tuck 2-3 Keyhole Cards. I decided to do 3.

Question 1: HOW DO THEY RECORD OR REMEMBER THEIR LAWS?

I attached this question to the Steadfast Workshop, because I thought an artist commune would have a very interesting answer to a question about what physical form something takes. Wouldn't it be neat if they created stained glass mosaics depicting the rules of their artist collective, and these were the windows of the gathering hall in the workshop itself?

And because different windows would catch sun and project onto the floor at different times of day, the all-day-every-day nature of their artistic practice could also be tied to a daily cycle of principles or rules they reflect on depending on which window the sun is passing through.

I could also challenge the question and say that they don't record their rules at all. Instead, they remember them as work songs they sing as they create their art. Or perhaps they simply don't have rules, and they resolve things on a case-by-case basis.

But I like the windows thing, so I'm going to go with that!

Question 2: HOW DO THEY SHOW RESPECT FOR THEIR DEAD?

I chose to attach this one to the Mapless Desert itself, because I was sensing a thematic link between the Attribute Card with the "LONG GROWING SEASON" cue and the cycle of life and death. If a desert has a long growing season, I would assume it has specialized crops that do well in low-moisture environments and that the seasonal variance in temperature and weather is fairly gentle on this crop.

If I'd drawn a question related to food, I would probably be thinking about edible cacti or some hardy nutritious grasses, but because the cards have pointed my attention to death rituals, I'm thinking that people might show respect for the dead by growing desert flowers or cactus blossoms out of the grave. Rather than cutting flowers and killing something that had a chance of surviving, they grow something fleeting as a reminder that life flourishes and dies, and the desert is richer for it, even after it's gone.

Question 3: WHAT WOULD THEY DO IF A SHARED BUILDING NEEDED REPAIRING?

When I drew this question, I wanted to apply it to the vineyard area, which is in crisis, but I realized that it applied to the desert as a whole, so I planted it there.

It's a hypothetical question about a building, but the larger door that this keyhole unlocks is about how this culture handles collective responsibility.

Right now, the vineyard is in danger of its vines dying out for good. I'd made notes that it could be due to pollution from the Steadfast Workshop.

I might refine my notes further to look at how the theme of personal and collective responsibility could be explored if the family in the vineyard asked the workshop to change the fuels they use in their kiln, or asked the large population of the desert for help in convincing the workshop to change their ways to preserve the vines.

Is this a culture that would shrug and say it's the family's problem? Or would they see the health of the vines as a shared goal? Or would the population be divided on this issue?

For now, I'll add to my notes that the population is divided. It leaves more room for my characters to sway the debate, and it's more realistic that there will be some people who don't see one family's problem as having anything to do with them.

Of course, this might change if the growing pollution problem led to grave flowers dying and if the problem began to affect a larger group and hit them where it hurts: their shared cultural values with regards to mourning. All this goes into my notes for how to escalate the stakes of my story over time!

The role of questions in worldbuilding

I love the keyhole questions, and an early draft of Deck of Worlds was built ENTIRELY out of these sorts of questions, with the exception of Region Cards and Landmark Cards.

Try as I might, I couldn't get this version of the deck to work for a couple of reasons:

• Without some basic establishing details for the world to start with, it was hard to answer the questions. 
• Questions required a deeper and more consuming level of thought to consider, so it was hard to build multiple linked micro-settings in a single sitting if I was constantly slowing down to answer questions.

But what I found is that the right level of open-ended prompt could give the player a starting piece of information AND also indirectly pose a linked question. For example, the Attribute Card cue for a long growing season doesn't tell you what crops the area grows. And when you layer it onto a Region or Landmark Card, it prompts you to think about what kind of crop the land might might support.

So I converted my questions to open-ended prompts, but saved some of my favourites in their original form. Later, as I explored how to expand the deck, I realized that the questions would be a perfect expansion for worldbuilders who really want to examine the social fabric of their world, and so I started building it back out and inviting the project writers to brainstorm questions with me.

I think that questions are a really powerful format for worldbuilding. It turns things over to the creator or storyteller and draws attention to important themes and creative challenges without telling them how to solve that challenge. And I love that ask if you ask 1,000 worldbuilders the same question, you'll get 1,000 different answers.

Next up: a look at the Lore Fragments Expansion

I'll save this for a future update, but I thought I'd let you know that I've also added a preview of the lore fragments expansion to the campaign page. This deck will be getting some new cover art. The current art is an older illustration under license from the EMBERWIND team, and they're cooking up an entirely new piece of cover art for us. I'll do a similarly deep dive on how this deck works in a coming update!

If there are any other expansions or mechanics you want a closer look at, let me know in the comments!

Rethinking the master box + demo video + new subreddit + shipping reminder + stretch goal progress!
almost 3 years ago – Sat, May 29, 2021 at 10:35:10 PM

Hi everyone!

I'm excited to bring you the latest updates on the campaign as we continue to steamroll stretch goals like a juggernaut of shared enthusiasm for imagined worlds and collaborative storytelling!

Speaking of which, if you want to share your love of the project, Zach designed some social media images you can share on your profile, cover, or story! You'll also find some nice uncompressed images of the deck, as well as links to the videos from the campaign.  Thanks to backer C. R. Rowenson for suggesting this!

Kickstarter compresses images, so you'll want to visit this webpage for the full-quality images!

As per usual, I'll give you the headlines first and we'll walk through the update details below!

• Rethinking the master box
• Unscripted video demo: watch me build two micro-settings in 7 minutes!
• Change of dates with World Anvil Live
• New Story Engine Deck subreddit
• Your routine reminder that shipping and VAT will be charged in the pledge manager
• Stretch goal progress

Rethinking the master box

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on the master box design!

After the initial round of feedback, I've decided to go back to explore an alternate design to see if we can get closer to something that provides affordable and modular utility storage rather than superbox collector cache. There are a few reasons for this:

• The master box design I revealed didn't support much by way of card organization, which was a big priority for a lot of people who already own and use the original Story Engine Deck.
• The box size and folding lid raised concerns about how much table space this thing will use. (A lot of table space!)
• The possibility of future expansions and the concern of futureproofing raised the question of whether or not it's the right time for a master box.
• The unique card size makes it hard to find other utility-focused storage options for users who don't want the current master box.

The master box design from the last update hasn't been scrapped. (At least not yet!) And I know there were a lot of people who were excited by the first glimpse. But the best design decisions I made with the original Story Engine Kickstarter came from listening to user feedback, even when it wasn't what I was hoping for, and the feedback this round is strongly indicating that we temporarily shelve the master box concept while we explore a simpler route.

What I'm discussing with the factory right now is a simple one-row or two-row longbox printed with Story Engine and Deck of Worlds artwork. It would come with card dividers, although the tuck boxes that the expansions and boosters come in could also double as additional dividers and spacers. Ideally, these boxes will be able to ship flat and be folded and assembled on arrival to backers, but I'm still confirming that with the factory.

They would be artfully designed versions of this classic style of storage box.

I'll build a simple tool for calculating how many centimeters or inches of cards your collection will be based on the number of sets you have and your decision to sleeve cards or not, and this can be turned into a simple recommendation for how many boxes you'll need to hold everything.

This will give backers a lot more freedom to decide how they want to organize and store their cards, and should lower box costs (and their shipping costs) considerably.

It's possible we can still do the master box design in addition to these utility boxes, but I suspect what I will do instead is postpone the release of a collector box for a later date when we know better what the full scope of the collection will look like and I can truly assure people that this is the last box they'll ever need for The Story Engine Deck.

I know the tendency with Kickstarters is add more bells and whistles to drum up excitement, rather than take bells and whistles away, but I strongly believe this decision will create the biggest net benefit for allowing people to use and store their decks simply and well.

If you have thoughts on this change, let me know in the comments below and I'll definitely take them into consideration. With open-ended multi-purpose creative tools like these, there are a lot of ways to use the decks and a lot of different user needs to consider. I think this will serve the greatest range of those needs, but it always helps to hear from the people who will be using these decks.

Unscripted video demo: watch me build two micro-settings in 7 minutes!

I wanted to give you all a deeper look into the creative process of using the deck for quick micro-setting prompts, so I decided to record the unscripted process for you, along with a bit of gentle rainfall ASMR in my back garden.

The video length is 7 minutes, and I cut about 3 minutes of dead air to speed up the watching process for you. Otherwise, here is what creating a location looks like, warts and all. I added closed captions in YouTube to make it easier to follow along.

I created The Bayou of Outcasts, home to a colony of exiled people. The cards naturally created a story involving a separate nearby nation, which I decided to create on the spot to see how these areas would interact with each other. This led to designing The Mountains That Weep, a vast range of populated peaks and valleys affected by a severe seasonal melt-and-thaw cycle.

I think this video gives a good look at how the cards combine and speak to each other to create dynamic and interwoven settings. They provide enough detail to start telling stories but enough open-endedness to leave room for those stories to grow.

If you're interested in seeing more of these demos, or watching a setting creation livestream, let me know!

And speaking of livestreams...

Change of dates with World Anvil Live

The livestream conversation with World Anvil has been rescheduled to June 4 at the same time! You'll be able to catch us live at 11am PST / 2pm EST on Friday June 4 talking about worldbuilding at https://www.twitch.tv/worldanvil.

New Story Engine Deck subreddit!

After a backer suggestion and an offer of help from experienced Reddit moderator /u/Kiba-Da-Wolf, I've decided to open /r/storyenginedeck for discussions of The Story Engine Deck and Deck of Worlds!

Please feel free to join in and share your questions and prompts!

Your routine reminder that shipping and VAT will be charged in the pledge manager!

I like to mention this every other update to make sure it doesn't catch anyone by surprise!

Please remember that shipping charges and EU/UK VAT will be assessed and charged in the pledge manager after the Kickstarter campaign.

Estimates for this additional cost are provided in the shipping section of the campaign page.

Stretch goal progress

The line of vanquished stretch goals lays broken on the path behind us. Ahead of us, the half-million-dollar stretch goal begins to sweat nervously.

We've unlocked loads of additional resources and content for the decks, including free lesson plans, printer-friendly PDF field notes for recording the details of your micro-settings, blank card PDF printsheets, card creation guides, and more!

Next on the list is a story notes template PDF (possibly a series of PDFs designed for different prompt formats) and then the biggie: bonus cards for the 6 new booster sets for The Story Engine Deck!

I'm rounding up the next wave of stretch goals, which will include an Asian shipping hub and card creator webapp for Deck of Worlds!

That's all for now, but I'll continue to update you as news comes in!

Master box poll and sketch + new stretch goals + new faces and authors
almost 3 years ago – Thu, May 27, 2021 at 05:15:33 PM

Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for your suggestions for the stretch goals! A lot of these have been added to the new batch, which you can learn more about below! A few I saved for the next round, which I hope to unveil after confirming a few more details. And a few have made it to my "future project development" notebook because I think they deserve a fuller treatment than being tagged on as extras.

There's a lot of exciting news to unpack with you all during this update, so I'll give you a preview of the headlines here and then get into the details!

• Master box poll + factory sketch
• New stretch goals (and more to come)
• Learn about creating tabletop RPGs
• 3 new faces join the project
• Join a fan-run Story Engine Deck Facebook group!

Master box poll and factory sketch

I would appreciate your input on whether or not to prioritize future-proofing the new master boxes! Please respond on Twitter in the next 2 days or leave a comment below!

First I'm going to show you the concept we are using for both the Story Engine master box and Deck of Worlds master box, which should both be the same size. Then I'll walk you through the pros and cons of future-proofing. Note that this is a VERY basic concept sketch, and the final box will be covered in eye-popping artwork!

It has a magnetic treasure-box lid that folds down into a workspace and features two storage areas. Not shown above are deep finger-grooved trays in the top section for handling vertical stacks of cards. But my favorite feature is this:

THE ORIGINAL MAIN DECK BOX NESTS INTO THE BOTTOM STORAGE DRAWER!

I hate waste, and while the original deck boxes are made of 100% recyclable material, it broke my heart to think of these boxes getting discarded when people upgrade to the new ones.

Now you will have a bonus drawer that can hold your sideboard and the extra card types like Adventure Prompts, Backstories, etc. The old deck box can also be easily removed for a more portable storage solution when you're on the go, and it saves on materials and costs that would otherwise go into adding extra storage compartments.

If for any reason you don't keep your original deck boxes, the bottom tray is sized to fit rolled-up playmats, and would also be really handy for notebooks, the new stretch goal PDF print-sheets, character sheets, or dice.

The top section will be deep enough to hold all the new cards in vertical card stacks, and possibly with the options for horizontal stacks too.

The question I'm facing right now is whether or not to future-proof the trays to hold another generation of cards in the future.

If we go much bigger, the boxes will have to be hand-assembled, which could drive up costs by ~20-25%, but then the top tray will hold future expansions and the additional volume created by sleeving cards. The larger size also lets us offer horizontal card storages since the tray wells will essentially be cubes that can be used in either orientation. This makes it easier to keep certain expansions separate from your main stacks.

In theory, if we go with the cheaper/smaller version, you could still store future cards in the original box in the bottom storage drawer, but you wouldn't be able to hold complete stacks together in one stack. You'd also likely need to split stacks between drawers if you sleeve cards on the current lineup.

I am leaning toward going for extra storage, but I'd love your input on the Twitter poll!

New stretch goals (and more to come)

I'm excited to unveil new stretch goals! As I mentioned in the previous update, I don't want to overburden this campaign with too many add-ons or complex stretch goals that could detract from the fain focus. I would much rather deliver my core promises the very best I can.

All the following stretch goals will be produced on a flexible timeline and delivered as they are ready to avoid slowing down the delivery of the main campaign, which will be my top priority.

Also, there are definitely more stretch goals coming, and you'll see some more of your suggestions reflected in those, but these are the ones I have all the details to confirm at the moment!

Learn about creating tabletop RPGs

Next weekend, I'll be talking about creating tabletop RPGs in a couple of settings, and I wanted to invite you to join in and follow along!

On Friday, May 28 at 5pm central / 6pm EST, I'll be on the digital panel "RPG Writing and Design" at CoreCon with Derek Chung, creator of the EMBERWIND tabletop RPG, to talk about writing and creating content for RPGs. Tune in at https://www.twitch.tv/fargocorecon.

On Saturday, May 29 at 2pm EST, I'll be joining World Anvil live on Twitch to talk about worldbuilding. Tune in at https://www.twitch.tv/worldanvil.

I have an occasionally-used personal Twitch channel where I'll be rehosting the streams that you can follow for "going live" notifications. If there's any interest in seeing me do any live demo sessions with the alpha deck, just let me know in the comments!

3 new faces added to the project

I wanted to introduce 3 new collaborators to the project!

First up is Zach Schuster, who has come on board to help me keep up with communications, graphic design, and some social media given the rapid growth of this campaign. Zach is a comic-making colleague who ran a very tight ship on his first Kickstarter for his original post-Ragnarok graphic novel THRUD. If you've met me at a convention in Alberta or Manitoba, you may also have seen him helping run my table, displaying his art, or performing on stage with me.

You'll likely see him responding to comments on the main campaign page and updates!

I'm also thrilled to welcome Kendra Harrison, aka "Curriculum Kendra," who performed an educational assessment of the original Story Engine Deck and produced a suite of free home-friendly lesson plans for introducing the deck, as well as the fundamentals of story, to students at sixth grade level and up. She'll be producing the curriculum that you've already started unlocking in the stretch goals!

And lastly, there was a micro-setting author whom I confirmed after the start of the campaign and I wanted to introduce them!

Meet Alina Pete, creator of the webcomic Weregeek, and while we're at it, meet our roster of talented authors who will be creating free micro-settings complete with lore and featured short fiction for you to explore in your own campaigns: Brent Lambert, Carrie Cuinn, CL Clark, Elizabeth Aoki, Jordan Shiveley, and Victor Manibo.

Join a fan-run Story Engine Deck Facebook group

If you want to chat with other fans of The Story Engine Deck, there's a fan-run Facebook group you can join here. It's a great way to see how other people use the original deck on the day-to-day and swap advice, tips, and questions.

Please note that I'm not involved in the group in any official capacity, but I'm really happy that there's an informal place for users to hang out and connect. You can find me on the official Story Engine channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, but the Facebook group is a great place to ask questions to ask other users!

That's all the updates I have for now, but please let me know your thoughts on the master box in the poll or in the comments below!

FAQ updated + sample micro-setting + meet the card writers + stretch goal progress + more!
almost 3 years ago – Mon, May 24, 2021 at 06:19:40 AM

The continued momentum on this campaign has been absolutely incredible! I woke up this morning and skipped 4 stretch goal graphics straight to $190,000, and now we're at $225,000. The next stretch goal graphic had to be replaced by the time I was done breakfast.

Thanks for your questions, your comments, and your enthusiasm! I wanted to fill you in on the latest news, and showcase some more of the details from the campaign! Here are the headlines with details below!

• FAQ has been updated
• Here's a sample micro-setting I made just now for fun
• Meet the card writers
• Another shipping/VAT reminder
• Stretch goal progress (and some thoughts on the next round of stretch goals)

FAQ updated

I believe I've now updated the FAQ with all the latest info and all the recurring questions that I've been getting. Some of the answers will be filled out with additional details as the campaign continues.

If you think I've missed something, don't hesitate to follow up!

Sample micro-setting

The deck is genuinely so much fun for limitation-free setting creation that sometimes I'll drop what I'm doing and make a prompt for a few minutes as a creative break. To give you a deeper look into the deck, I'll try to share occasional prompts with you! 

These will be quick and dirty, but I'll walk you through some of my thinking on how I place and interpret cards!

Below is the set of cards that had me dreaming up the Lonely Restaurant, located in the sprawling Steel Delta. 

Though the Steel Delta has been plagued by centuries of war between rival towns, the Lonely Restaurant was created as the basis of a truce. The towns are located at either end of the delta, and the restaurant was built by volunteers from prominent families from both sides on the exact midpoint between towns to fulfill a promise of peace. 

While this is in the middle of nowhere, it offers leaders a neutral place to meet where conflict is forbidden. Non-violence is ensured by the fact that the chefs are elderly members of influential families who have come to regret seeing see their progeny falling to senseless bloodshed. And no one fights when they're in their grandparent's kitchen! 

The kitchen serves up delicious dishes in both towns' culinary traditions and even does some fusion dishes. The signature dish is the Two-Town Hotpot, a curry-style meal using a blend of both towns' favourite spices and produce. While tempers still occasionally flare up, this beloved dish depends on the ongoing cooperation of both towns, so peace always wins out.

However, there is a bit of conflict on the horizon. The duel of the century is coming: a culinary showdown between the most beloved chefs in both families, each of whom thinks they have perfected the Two-Town Hotpot. They're inviting impartial taste-tester judges from outside the area to come in and crown a champion. (This would be a great entry point for an RPG party to come in, either as taste-testers or peace-keepers if a cheeky cooking contest boils over into a more sinister rivalry!)

OKAY, BUT HOW DID WE GET HERE?

I'll walk you through my thinking with the prompt!

First I drew a Region (DELTA) and then a Landmark (GLADE / RESTAURANT), and decided to go with RESTAURANT. 

After that, I drew a Namesake (HUNTER'S / LONELY / ON THE BORDER / WITHOUT WALLS) and had a tough choice to make. I really liked HUNTER'S DELTA, imagining a vast and fertile floodplain where hunters have traditionally hunted for some kind of amphibious delicacy. But also I was hungry, so the restaurant won out. (Plus, with the cards it's easy to readjust and change your mind later!)

I started imagining the Lonely Restaurant, the only building for miles around. I decided that sounded like an interesting place to learn more about.  Why is it in the middle of nowhere? I also still wanted to learn more about the delta, so I drew an extra Namesake Card for good measure. Sidenote: I always recommend thinking of your prompts as recipes and giving yourself permission to "season to taste" if you think your prompt needs more of one card type.

I drew another Namesake and decided the STEEL DELTA felt like a good fit. Now I'm imagining the centuries of armed conflict that gave the area its name.

Next up, I drew an Origin Card, and while tempted by the BIRTHPLACE OF NOTORIOUS OUTLAW cue, I decided to go with CREATED TO FULFIL PROMISE. But what promise?

The next card, and Attribute, gave me my answer. CONSTANTLY FEUDING was perfect for the Steel Delta. A place of historic conflict with a restaurant serving as a peace promise? I want to know more.

I decided to "season to taste" again and draw a second attribute for good measure. KNOWN FOR TASTY SAUCES was perfect for my restaurant. I knew the sauce would be instrumental to the story somehow, but I wasn't quite sure how yet.

Lastly, I drew my Advent Card. Option 1 was A LEADER'S SUDDEN POWER IS CREATING A POWER VACUUM, which had a lot of potential for a war-torn state held together by fragile peace ties. But the other Advent gave me an even better idea: THE DUEL OF THE CENTURY IS ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE.

I love showdowns, and I got to thinking: what if the showdown isn't a physical fight, but a culinary one? Representatives of two culinary traditions coming together to clash. It was perfect!

I worked from there back toward the beginning, deciding that the restaurant was co-founded by the two sides of the feud. I decided to assume that the delta stretched for the full area represented by all the tucked cards, putting the restaurant at its middle. If I decided to put this into a world map with other micro-settings, I would measure the party's march toward the word "restaurant" and treat the rest as a wilderness delta area. That also answered my question as to why the restaurant is "lonely": it's in the natural land out between towns.

Drawing these cards took about 5 minutes, and figuring out the details to the point I had a signature dish that married all the prompts together took another few minutes or so. Writing this up took a while, especially documenting my choices and rationale. But now I have a setting that I would love to explore in a short story about a culinary duel, or to invite my D&D party into to work security at the tasting event!

This section took longer than I intended to write, but I really wanted to show you how the cues start to talk to each other to create layered settings with room to fill with stories!

Meet the card writers

I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the incredible work the card writers have been doing over the past few months.

The team consists of the following wonderful people, who you can learn more about in their links: Akira Keith, Athar Fikry, A.Z. Louise, Brendon Alekseii, Cae Hawksmoor, J.D. Harlock, Juliet Kemp, Michael Barker, Pedro Galicia, Peter Chiykowski and Sarah Loch.

Some are new to game writing, and some are old hands, but all of them absolutely floored me with their writing samples and originality.

It was honestly humbling to bring in writers to help when writing has always felt like the one thing I'm supposed to be good at, but I'm so incredibly glad I did. Their work has already pushed past what I did for the alpha deck (shown in all these photos) and into some incredibly imaginative territory. The originality, variety, and depth of their prompts are amazing, and the worlds you create will be richer for it!

In the coming updates I'll also tell you a little more about our micro-setting authors and illustrators!

Another reminder that shipping (and VAT) will be charged after the campaign

I'll repeat this often because I don't want anyone to miss it: shipping and VAT will be charged after the campaign in BackerKit, our pledge manager! You'll find fairly detailed estimates in the previous update and the shipping section of the main Kickstarter page. 

Stretch goal progress

You have been one heck of a "can't stop, won't stop" crew for this runaway train!

In the span of me writing this update, I've already had to replace the stretch goal graphic AGAIN. We're coming up on the last of my stretch goals, and I'm sure you're all wondering: WHAT'S NEXT?

I have a few ideas, and I think you're going to like them, but I do want to be honest about this: everything I felt was essential to the campaign, all the content that I thought THIS ABSOLUTELYNEEDS TO BE HERE, was in the original stretch goal lineup.

The deck has now grown into what I believe will be its optimal size, I've covered what I think will be the most important territory for expansions and boosters, and any new content we add will be... well, not a stretch, but it will take us beyond the realm of the material I've been meticulously planning and into something more improvised. Improv is amazing in a lot of settings, but when I've been entrusted with a campaign this size and scope, I'd rather stick to a plan. Or to put it another way: if I'm your pilot, I'd much rather hold a careful course and land this plane safely, smoothly, and on schedule than try to impress you with a barrel roll. I've been down the stretch goal road many times before, and there's a temptation to promise things that add development time, logistics burdens, and additional moving parts to an already complex Kickstarter. 

With a few minor exceptions, the new stretch goals I announce (likely Thursday or Friday) will not be as substantial as the ones we've passed. My personal definition of hell is making a promise I can't keep—to thousands of people, no less.

That said, I'm really curious to hear what you're interested in for the remaining stretch goals. I would love to explore options for community giveback, digital extras (preferably that can be delivered after the campaign so they don't hold up development), curriculum resources for teachers, home activities, and things like that. Backer suggestions did SO MUCH to improve my last campaign, so I'd personally love to hear your thoughts!

In the meantime, here's the status of our stretch goals! 

I'm going to sign off for the night, but I'll be back in the morning (PST) to review all your suggestions!

Thank you, welcome, and here's what's next!
almost 3 years ago – Mon, May 24, 2021 at 02:24:21 AM

Wow, I had high hopes when I launched this morning, but nothing like this. 

It's so strange to condense the intensity of a year of work, planning, and creative development into a single click when you launch, but when that click happens and people come together like this, it's all so worth it.

So let me start by saying thank you for your excitement, your interest, and your support! I think it's clear this project is picking up steam and I'm so eager to see how far we go.

And with that, let's get into the updates! I like to list my headlines at the top of the update for easy navigating and then get into the details below.

• New reward tiers released
• Master box designs coming soon
• Reminder that shipping (and VAT) will be charged in the pledge manager!
• Updating the FAQ
• Stretch goal progress
• Friends of the project

New reward tiers

I hear loud and clear that backers are hoping to have access to all-in tiers to pledge, even if some of the items in those tiers aren't quite unlocked yet. 

I've added 3 new physical reward tiers:

• Deck of Worlds + 9 Expansions
• All New Decks
• All Old + New Decks

I've also added PDF-only variants of these reward tiers!

As the master box details are finalized over the next few days, I will be adding 2 additional tiers.

• DEVOURER OF ALL THINGS NEW
• DEVOURER OF ALL THINGS OLD & NEW

These will be the same as the two All Decks tiers, but they will include both master boxes, both playmats, and the postcard set.

Speaking of the master boxes...

Master box designs coming soon!

My factory recently came to me with a brainwave for improving my design of the master box. I worked with them on the first Story Engine Deck campaign and they brought some incredible design ideas to the table, including the magnetic treasure-box lid and the folding lotus-style booster packs. 

The videos below show off these two features from the first campaign and I wanted to show them to you because:

• They're amazing, and we'll be using these same features on the Deck of Worlds main deck box and new Story Engine boosters.
• I want you to understand why I decided to delay revealing the master box to hear a pitch from the factory. Their ideas have really transformed my projects in the past.

So when the factory came to me with a package design improvement for the master boxes this time, I was all ears. 

The concept they've pitched me is great! Their artist is just drawing a sketch of the concept now and they've already sent me preliminary pricing. I am hoping to have some designs to show and pricing to announce soon.

Reminder that shipping (and VAT) will be charged after the campaign in the pledge manager!

This is different from the previous campaign, so please give this section a thorough read, especially for UK and EU backers!

Shipping for all physical pledges will be charged in BackerKit after the campaign concludes. 

For backers in the UK and Europe, BackerKit is also where your pledge will be assessed and charged for VAT. This figure can be surprising when backers aren't prepared for it, so I want to be very transparent about the process so everyone can budget accordingly. Recent changes to crowdfunding/VAT have meant changes for both creators and backers that are often frustrating.

To make things easy for backers, we're providing estimates for the total shipping fees due in BackerKit depending on your rewards + add-ons. For the UK and EU, this figure is all-inclusive of both shipping and VAT due on the pledge items. We promise not to exceed the upper limits of these estimates.

Please note that we've made some very slight adjustments to these estimates since the graphic posted at launch. We will be making very few changes to the estimates, if any, and we will always tell you when we do.

Here's what's been changed.

• Some US rates adjusted down slightly :)
• Some EU and non-EU Schengen rates slightly increased :(
• Aus rates adjusted from $AU 25 to $AU 25-27 :/
• NZ rates separated from Aus and increased from some tiers :/

Updating the FAQ

I've started populating the FAQ and will continue to add details there as questions come in. I know there are a few questions I haven't answered quite yet, but I hope to have most of the most pressing questions answered in the next couple of days so you can make informed decisions about your pledges!

If you have a question, or even if you just want to request a sneak peek or closer look at a particular expansion, feature, or add-on, feel free to let me know in the comments and I'll do my best cover that in future updates!

Stretch goal progress

This update took so long because every time I tried to write about one of the recently unlocked stretch goals, you all would go ahead and smash through another. It's been incredible!

We have:

• Expanded the core deck to 210 cards
• Unlocked the 3 cartography expansions 
• Unlocked the 3 new Story Engine expansions
• Unlocked the 6 new Story Engine boosters
• Unlocked the "BUILD YOUR WORLD" playmat!
• Donated 30 decks to schools, libraries, and community programs

And as I write this, we're hard on the heels of the $CA 140,000 stretch goal, which would bring the deck up to 225 cards.

EDIT: We hit $CA 140,000 right after posting this! Graphic updated!

Friends of the Project

I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a Kickstarter project that's expiring soon, and I'm a big fan of: the Broken Tales RPG.

Broken Tales is a dark fairy tale-inspired RPG that is absolutely dripping with gorgeous art and dramatic atmosphere. I'm contributing an encounter to the game and it's well worth checking out before the campaign ends on May 25!

That's all for this update!

But I'll continue to keep you in the loop and share what's happening with the campaign!

I am still catching up on some comments and messages, and desperately need to get a full night's sleep, but I will catch up with you all in the morning PST!