Monsterpunk v1 Release

Oh right I had a blog.

I was scrambling to keep up with the regular updates on Kickstarter and I uh... Kind of forgot about this for a while.

But heyyy I made a game! Here's the System Reference Document!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ifwxvi6kd8i09m/MonsterpunkSRDv1.pdf?dl=0

This is just v1, I'm going to be updating this with errata before the end of the year. During that update I'll also upgrade it to color. Also I'm looking into making a phone-optimized version but I need to do a little bit of research for that and I'm not sure the way the book is laid out is going to make that, well, not be a pain in the ass. So no promises there, but it's something I'm interested in.

So that's that.

Gimmick Out.

The List of Monsterpunk Expansion Character and Monster Classes

Like any good splatbook, Monsterpunk's expansion (tentatively called Monsterpunk Unleashed for now) is going to include more character options. Chief among them will be 8 new Character Classes and 4 new Monster Classes. The PC classes carry unique mechanics that are too complicated for my vision of what should be in MP's core book and the Monsters feature in-built positive and negative traits that give them unique niches compared to the more all-around Monster races in the core book.

Let's start with the class that blurs the line between them the most:

The Pureblood Monster: The Pureblood takes a Monster race of your choice and turns it into a full PC Class. Its unique gimmick is an ability to manipulate Wealth, using pure Orgonium as a resource to generate Orgone Points, heal Vitality for themselves or Humanity for other PCs. They also get access to the Orgone Extraction Trick which is otherwise an NPC exclusive and can acquire additional Wealth from slaying enemies in combat. While the class is meant for humanoid monsters like demons, ghosts or ogres you can also use it to play an intelligent chimera, pegasus or swarm of rats that move and think as one.

The Secret Weapon: The Secret Weapon is a PC that slowly builds up in combat until they explode in a spectacular burst of power. They have extremely powerful Limits that cost multiple Orgone Points to use and the rest of their attack Techs are weaker than normal. Their Limits go from huge blasts that do enough damage to instagib NPCs of Medium tier and below, raising all defeated allies then healing them then making them immune to ailments and the very cool Summon Big Friend which  gives you an overpowered NPC ally that comes to your aid when you're with your back against the wall. The Secret Weapon earns Orgone Points differently from other PCs, picking from various archetypes each with different conditions for doing so. For example the Pacifist must have one of their allies reduced to 0 HP and attempt to Negotiate at least once while the Mastermind must Assess for the highest possible result and inflict at least one ailment in combat. It's a very unique class that plays differently from all others, it is potentially the most powerful of them all but can't do anything without a team that cooperates to enable them.

The Face: The Face is a Negotiation specialist. They have virtually zero proper combat skills and rely on a combination of charisma, renown and trickery to talk opponents down. They're trained in multiple Negotiation techniques, their can combine the effects of multiple Negotiation Skills, negate their downsides, and even Negotiate with multiple Enemies at once.  Against mindless or fanatical enemies The Face takes on a full support role, as they're also great at leading and motivating their own teams, with appropriately named "Techniques" such as Go Get 'Em (one ally of your choice makes an attack) and Pat on the Back (cure all ailments with Range 1). One of my favorites from a conceptual and mechanical level.

The Covenant Caster: A Covenant is a type of contract magic that lets the user create their own Techs by giving them penalties and conditions that they must adhere to. These range from purely mechanical costs (requires a payment in blood that costs 1 Vitality), targeting limitations (can harm monsters but not humans), environmental conditions (can only be used under the direct light of the sun to channel its power) or have roleplaying consequences that affect the rest of the session (having to spend a day of downtime painting on a canvas to recharge your painting-based power). You can create Limits that are not just numerically stronger than anyone else's this way but are also suited perfectly to your own build and are perfect minmaxing material. The drawback is that most of the special conditions will cost you a resource that needs more than one day or session to recover or have conditions that won't be applicable to every combat scene. Most of the expansion classes are meant for experienced players, but of those the Covenant Caster is possibly the trickiest one that needs the most experience with the system.

The Copycat: The Copycat steals or borrows Techs from others. The way they gain those techs depends on the starting feature they pick. You can make a tanky Copycat that learns techs you get hit with them or you can steal them from an enemy that you fully scan (either with Assess or Knowledge is Power) then attack. You can also borrow techs from allies (while still allowing their allies to use them) by granting them a damage buff or a passive regeneration buff. This way the Copycat gets a larger repertoire of Techs than pretty much anyone else including conditional access to Techs that would otherwise be exclusive to NPCs, which not even the Covenant Caster can make. It needs cooperation from your party or a GM that includes more than Minions and Grunts (and also hit you, in the case of the Tank), but that also makes it potentially much more rewarding to play.

The Evoluder: The Evoluder is a variant Summoner Class, but instead of boosting their partner's attacks they grant the monster the ability to Evolve mid-combat. Evolving a partner grants them powerful passive abilities such as giant size or permanent flight and an additional attack as well. Sufficiently powerful Evoluders can Evolve their monsters twice per combat, making them as strong as Elite or even Boss NPCs. Evoluders are very powerful, but they suffer from being even more dependent on their monster partners than other Summoners and taking longer to get going as they need Orgone Points to make their monster Evolve.

The Binder: The Binder is another variant Summoner Class, but this one controls between two and four monsters at any given time. The Binder brings its own party with themselves wherever they go and are one of the most versatile classes in the game as a result. Sustaining multiple monsters as one human is not easy, however, so the whole band has a single HP pool representing the Binder's efforts in holding their miniature army together. As the Binder and its minions take damage, individual members are unsummoned until only the Binder remains. Playing a Binder is tough and not recommended for beginners, you have to manage and control a small army and you have to be very careful of not grouping up too much to avoid blast or wave attacks - they won't hit multiple times, but they'll cause additional damage.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces: The Hero with a Thousand Faces (also known as the Monomythian) is a variant Tulpamancer with a multitude of Tulpas, called Masks. Each Monomythian has between two and four Masks, each Mask is linked to another PC or important NPC and acts as a manifestation of their relationship with its appearance and powers. Only one Mask can be summoned (or "worn") at a time, but while a Mask is being worn it grants a bonus both to the Monomythian and also to the PC or NPC that it is linked to. The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a versatile class that creates fun party dynamics and encourages teamwork just by passively existing.

I would like to point out that the names are likely not final. Some of them will probably stick (The Binder, for example, has pretty much a perfect name) while others probably won't (The Evoluder is... Not terrible, I think). I had more ideas for classes but they proved much harder to crystalize into proper rules so I'm setting them aside for when after everything else is done (hence the handbooks that will come out after the expansion does). You'll hear about those some other time! Meanwhile, here's the four new Monster Classes:

Flora: Plants and plant hybrid beings from mythology. From carnivorous plants to tree people to Jack o' Lantern, the Pumpkin Man of Halloween fame. Mechanically speaking, they're naturally immobile and need mobility buffs to move at all, but they benefit from superior regeneration abilities as a tradeoff. Their other abilities include long range attacks, burrowing moves (when they can move at all, that is) and turning the light of the sun into healing nourishment or using it to heal. 

Marine: Aquatic critters of all stripes, from merfolk to sea monsters to the bizarre Nuckelavee. They're all naturally suited to moving on water (and can breathe underwater) but they treat land as Difficult Terrain by default and must compensate for it. Fortunately, they do have many ways to compensate, from speed bonuses to the ability to summon pools of water. They're also great trackers, using both echolocation and electrosensitivity to detect and pursue anything that tries to hide from them. Well, anything except the next entry.

Alien: Mysterious beings that come from outer space, other realities or even other times. These include the Chupacabra, the Hounds of Tindalos and little green people with death rays, among others. Their special thing mechanically is that they're very weird and difficult to understand, to the point that they're immune to Tracking which makes them the best stealth enablers in the game. The tradeoff for this ability is that they're so weird that any healing received from others is reduced by 1, because nobody else really understands their biology.

Spirit: Spirits are what the core book currently calls abstract Elementals (that was written before I knew I was going to get the chance to make the expansion, so it'll be updated later). They're embodiments of concepts such as songs, the night and even individual cities. An interesting subcategory of Spirits are Tsukumogami - objects that gained life and powers - Tsukumogami can be anything from animated mirrors to swords and even umbrellas. Mechanically, Spirits are the most versatile of all Monsters with an additional slot to use on a Feature or Support Tech plus the ability to poach Techs from all other races. Their downside is not one to underestimate, it makes them dissipate when they reach 0 HP after which they need a lot of time or an investment of 1 Humanity to reform.

And that's all for now! That'll be the last you hear of the expansion for a good long while, the core book still comes first. Next update will probably be a bunch of art. Until then, 

Gimmick Out.

Monsterpunk Week IV Status Report

Me a week ago: lol kicktraq projects we'll end at like 9k that's dumb it'll probably be something like 7500 before the final 48 hours then another 1k or so during the last 48 hours.

Me now:

I'd feel sillier if it wasn't, like, amazingly good news.

Look at that jump. That was like 3k in 3 days. That's dumb. I jokingly posted some Retroactive Stretch Goals that had already been met (tl;dr more bestiary entries, more maps and 4 new class handbooks after the expansion is delivered) because I felt bad that people were giving me more money when I had no more stretch goals and then they give me even more money?????? What am I even supposed to do with all this, huh???????? Stop being a starving artist cliche???????????

I don't even know why I'm posting these numbers anymore with the campaign already being over. I don't know why I even try to understand them. I don't understand my world right now. I'm just going through the motions. Maybe tomorrow when I wake up I'll be able to process any of what has happened this past month. For now it still feels surreal.

If it sounds like I'm tired it's because I am. I wrote this post like 30 minutes ago then said "Yeah that's good enough" then alt tabbed and forgot to post it until I alt tabbed back and noticed I didn't. I slept 4 hours last night. I could take a nap now that the campaign is over but I don't want to mess up my sleep schedule so I guess I'll be a zombie for a few hours.

See y'all in a later update.

Gimmick Out.

Monsterpunk Week III Status Report

Day 22. It's one minute past noon. Time is a blur. Days and weeks have lost meaning. I almost forgot today was Sunday and I was supposed to write an update here. I've been awake for six hours yet it feels like a Saturday afternoon and the weekend somehow slipped between my fingers.

It's been a weird and busy week. I figured people would stop giving me money when I said there wouldn't be any more stretch goals.

They aren't stopping.

I already wrote an update about the demon race representative, otherwise I'd take the opportunity to do that in celebration of the 666% funding benchmark.

By last week Kickstarter's promotion-boosting algorithm had already surpassed the direct referrals in quantity and total value of pledges, but by this week it's almost doubled it in value and around quadruplued it in quantity. We could leave this thing on autopilot and it would keep going up.

Looking at the graph, weekdays have a constant and stable stream of new backers while weekends seem to hit a slump. Last week's I attributed this to Easter, but it is happening this weekend as well so I guess it's a pattern. The 14th, 22nd and 23rd are the big anomalies with huge influxes of backers making the graph jump up noticeably and stop being a nearly straight line.

With that said my sample size is of two weekends (the first doesn't count because it was during the rush of the initial 48 hours), so maybe I'm just seeing patterns that really aren't there.

So frustratingly close to the lucky 777, yet so far away. Most followers don't convert even at the end but if they do it's going to be ridiculous. I joked above that I expected people to stop giving me money after we met that last stretch goal but they aren't. I really didn't think we'd pick up another thousand and half in the third week, so among all the other things I'm doing I'm also trying to figure out what I can offer as a token extra reward for backers, sort of as a surprise stretch goal retroactively added in after it has already been met.

So far the best I've got is to write some additional classes and release them as PDFs later, giving them for free to all backers, but only after the core book and expansion are finished so they don't threaten to disrupt our schedule. I'll write a campaign update about that later when I've got it figured out.

Until next week, may you be continuously pleasantly surprised.

Gimmick Out.

Monsterpunk Kickstarter Week II Status Report

Second verse, same as the first.

At this point I figure I could tell people that our next stretch goal will be to buy me a skull fortress on a volcanic island for a million dollars and if it happened by next weekend I'd just go "Yeah, that checks out."

It's a shame I have too much integrity to do that. We're not doing more stretch goals, because this is all the work I can safely take on and I'm not looking forward to becoming another Peter Molyneux.

We've still got two weeks to go and we're still going strong though. More funding means more and better art assets. Monster art, landscapes, combat maps, all that good stuff. I figure I could say "Give me 10k and I'll get 3 landscapes plus a bestiary with 50 monsters and a map pack with 20 maps." But I can't 100% promise that with our current schedule, it's a lot of work not just for me but also for the people I'm paying to make these assets. If they get sick for or, you know, life happens at them for a week or two we won't meet the deadlines, so I'd rather just do however much we can with the money we get and leave it at that.

That number isn't a complete fabrication, by the way, it's the figure I ended up with after doing a lot of math. We might actually make it at this rate. It seems farfetched, but so seemed every stretch goal before. Crazier things have happened. If we do then, well, now you know how much I want to expand that bestiary and map pack, I guess.

Who knows, maybe next week I'll ask for that skull fortress.

Gimmick Out.

Monsterpunk Kickstarter Week I Status Report

Mkay it's been a week so let's check in how we're doing and --

--huhwha?

To say this has blown away all my expectations is an understatement. I genuinely doubted we'd reach the expansion book stretch goal, let alone that we'd reach it in four days. In a little over a week we've not just made more money than BCG did in its whole month but also we got more than double the backers. It's not unrealistic to expect we'll meet the 5k stretch goal before the final 48 hours. Hell, it might happen before the last week.

The numbers even went up again between taking the screenshot and finishing writing this update. Twice.

So how come MP is doing so well even though I've basically done less marketing for it than BCG, which pretty much had none at all?

You see that "external referrers" side of the pie chart? That's word of mouth. That's the people from my Discord that have either pledged themselves or showed the game to other people. For the first 2-3 days of the campaign the direct referrals were the grand majority of the funding and ever since then Kickstarter's algorithm has been promoting the game based on its success to make it catch up.

So the answer to the previous question would be "Turns out cultivating a chill community that upholds basic human decency for a few years without asking for anything in return makes people want to support you." Weird thing, huh.

And I didn't even have to show people any silhouettes of new classes hidden behind a number of retweets or put pictures of boobs front and center to do it!

The majority of pledges occur during the first few days and the last 48 hours. If the people that put this game on 'remind me later' all decide to pitch in for the basic PDF to reap its rewards we'll not just meet the last stretch goal, we'll soar past it for an absurd 777% funding. That's not even a joke. We have $3,669 as of me writing these words and $4,100 would give us $7,769.

That's terrifying.

I am not used to success. I had taken for granted that I would forever continue to barely get the funding needed for these dumb games of pretend that I keep making and to continue subsisting with only the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs covered.

With success come expectations, notoriety and also stakes. I now not only have to keep a lot more people happy and will get a lot more negative attention my way for no reason, but also I have something to lose. That is a hell of a motivator.

I would continue writing this blog post but I think that I've already said all that needed to be said. Plus I've already written 9 of the expansion book's 12 projected new classes and I would like to finish the other 3 today.

Until next week.

Gimmick Out.

The Monsterpunk Kickstarter is LIVE!

And also it's already funded!? NANI!?

Yes, really, go see for yourself. I've spent like four hours writing personalized thank you messages and also hastily writing the first update and let me tell you it's a great problem to have.

Crazy world.