How come it's turning out that some of the things I'm doing here at the back end to 'fill out the KS' are ending up as some of my favorite parts of the whole thing? I present to you Doc's Secret Lab...
So, I posted this to my Kickstarter page last night, but every time I read it I just laugh again, so I thought I'd share it with anyone who might see it...
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I decided to work up a cover for Doc Stalwart #127 from 1973... the first appearance of the Victory Legion of the 28th Century, and the first appearance of Skye Stalwart (who Doc assumed was a distant relative until he learned she was actually his biological daughter who had been sent to the future some time in his future - so it's a lot).
Here's the work in progress. I'm still not sure who all those heroes are, but there are going to be six of them in the core team... this would have come out when I was one year old, so that's fun.
True story: I met Burt Ward at a car show in Buffalo in like 1976, and I had a signed picture of him as Robin on my closet door for the duration of my childhood. So, yeah.
I have had the wonderful opportunity to reconnect with some college friends and play the Marvel Multiverse RPG once a week. We're meeting again tonight, and I'll keep playing Skye Stalwart as adapted to a rank 2 hero in that game world. The game did a pretty good job of allowing me to play Skye as she is - her basic abilities are all about where I see them, and she's pretty capable. She lifted a car. She was able to knock out several bank robbers in a round. She can fly pretty quickly from one point to another.
But... she's got a list of things she can do. When she attacks, she can use a few different very specific tactics that have very specific mechanical benefits and requirements. If and when she gets more powerful, she will unlock some new tactics and abilities that will give her more options. However, if I decide I want her to do something that isn't clearly delineated by one of those things - and they are pretty solid, so there are good strategic options each round - it is murky to me. Maybe it's not as murky as it feels right now.
Now, I'm only a session in, and I've only read the briefest selection of rules, but I can tell you how it feels to play. It feels like a game. Which it is. That's reasonable; it is a game that feels like a game and works like a game should work. It's a good game. Maybe it's a great game (I have no idea). But it is, first and foremost, a game set in the Marvel Universe.
When I play Stalwart, I don't feel like I'm playing a game. I feel like I'm in a comic. Sometimes, I kind of forget that it's a game, because I don't have to look anything up and I just think of something I want to try and then roll the die for that thing (because there are only five options, it's pretty obvious most of the time which of the dice I should use), and then see if it worked, and how well. And then I keep going, moving through the comic. I don't pause to read about my strategic options and deliberate over whether to activate my 'haymaker' or 'hail of blows' or 'shock and awe' or whatever other title I decide to give this particular mechanical nuance. I just decide to do something cool - maybe something I've never thought of before - and just go for it.
The last few weeks have shown me, that out of everything about Stalwart as a game, I'm most proud of how intuitive it is, and how well it gets out of the way of the comic book story. I'm grateful that the Kickstarter has allowed me to share it with so many people.
My daughter is a Taylor Swift fan (a ‘Swiftie’), and I have a running joke where I sing “Look… what you made me do” as a lounge singer. I was thinking of all y’all this morning, and that song came into my head… because you need to look… at what you made me do.
Stalwart has had a few knocks against it, and I have accepted those as functions of the system. It doesn’t do street-level supers all that well. It doesn’t have a lot of granularity. The dice get swingy (especially at the higher end).
This change addresses all those concerns.
In my proposed change, there are two ‘types’ of tiers: human and superhuman. The human tiers roll 1 die, and have SVs of half the die rating +1. Human dice range from D4 to D10 (I go back and forth on the D12, but for right now it's not there)… So if you are an enhanced human who has been given a dose of the Freedom Formula, you have D10 Might and Reflex. However, the moment you cross the line from ‘human’ to ‘better than human’, you now roll two dice, starting at 2D6 and peaking at 2D12 (with 2D20 reserved for cosmic entities). However, there are also places between these tiers where we can mix and match dice to create more granularity… For example, at the Meta tier, you roll D6+D8… for these tiers, the SV is the average of the two dice, which creates a nice, smooth scale.
Human Tiers
Superhuman Tiers
This would also change dice shifts a bit, since you would
shift your lowest die up +1… so you would shift down from 2D6 to D4/6, then
down one more to 2D4… you would shift up from 2D6 to D6/8, then to 2D8, then to
D8/10… this mechanically distinguishes humans from superhumans, and creates a remarkable
amount of granularity. I am not too concerned about balance… as a quick thought
through this, Arrow is an Expert human (so he attacks with D8), but he also has
Aim +3, so he’s averaging 7 to hit (max 11), which means that he can reasonably
use his bow against someone with Titanic Evade (10). The numbers don’t scale to
the point where they are impossible. I plan to play test the HECK out of this
before making edits, but I’m seriously considering this change to the core
mechanic.
I've had a few conversations around the dice in the game, and different options for reducing the swinginess of the options. I had already published one alternative, but I've come up with a second as well... here is a picture of the working draft of this page. Feedback is welcome! (By the way, the 2 or 3 always failing on 2D keeps this statistically similar to the current rules for automatic failure).
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I distributed the 47-page draft of the revised Core Rules to the Kickstarter backers yesterday, and I'm pleased with how the draft is coming along. I've expanded and clarified rules throughout, better organized the gifts, swapped out all of the art for public domain pieces (so that the entire core rules falls under a Creative Commons Share-Alike License), and revised language throughout for the concepts of Tier and Level.
I also debated about the Character Sheet - Aldo (a.k.a. Dragonfly) has made incredible form-fillable sheets (which I keep asking him to revise, because I keep changing concepts)... but I felt like I should have the entire rulebook be my work. I felt a tinge of guilt for using something someone else had made and putting it in my book, even if it's 'only' one page. It's still his work, not mine, and he technically owns it, I don't. I will keep links to his character sheets on the new web site, and I encourage you to use his character sheets. They're great.
But there's one thing that is still bugging me. I don't like how the naming for Tags works. While there are some tags that introduce new concepts (example: Leadership gives you a specific bonus in a specific context), others just grant bonuses to existing abilities (examples: Concentrate gives you extra Force; Stalwart gives you bonus hero points). I am thinking of getting rid of the new names for all of the second type of tag, since these only require more thinking... okay... Dodge gives you extra Evade (so, why don't I just have the Tag be 'Evade' and have it give you more Evade?). I know the answer - I didn't want confusion on the player side of saying 'wait, I have Evade twice on my sheet... which one do I use?' If you have "Evade 5" written in one section and "Dodge (Evade +2)" written somewhere else, at least you know that they are not the same thing. However, just placing these under the Tags section should be enough. I think the confusion potentially created by having the same names under Tags is lower than the ongoing confusion created by 'what does Concentrate do again?'. I think it's better to have fewer names and concepts than more.
I am playing a bit with the point-based character building rules, and trying to set up a little more of a structured approach; I personally like the randomness of character generation, but I also think that having a fixed point-based method would be helpful. One of the problems with the existing point-based method is that it's pretty heavy-handed; it basically gives you an average die of your tier. That's fine at D8, but gets problematic at D16, where you have D16 across the board (which is pretty powerful). If we go with the idea that the 'average is that you have one die of your tier, one die higher, one die lower, and one die two lower, we end up with these numbers:
D8 (10, 8, 6, 4) = 28 points (currently 36 points)
D10 (12, 10, 8, 6) = 36 points (currently 40 points)
D12 (16, 12, 10, 8) = 46 points (currently 48 points)
D16 (20, 16, 12, 10) = 58 points (currently 64 points)
It seems reasonable to set the benchmarks at D4 (16 points), D6 (26 points), D8 (36 points), D10 (46 points), D16 (56 points), D20 (66 points). This means that a D4 character is D4 across the board (well, yeah), and a D20 character might end up with D20/D20/D16/D10. These work pretty well.
Today, I spent a decent chunk of time changing the rules
for invulnerable and impervious, linking these to power instead of might. My
thinking was that this would give greater variety to heroes, since the
characters with invulnerability tend to be the big bruisers, and the
might/endure combination makes them very powerful with the single stat.
However, halfway into the process of initiating this change, I realized that it
created all sorts of weirdness - characters who shouldn't have high power
ratings suddenly needed them to justify the invulnerability they should have
had (and did with the higher might). I'm hitting the point in editing and work
on the game where I realize that every change I think about making ends up
being a step backward - the design is pretty solid as-is. I keep reminding
myself I've been working on this game for decades (in significant ways), and
everything I have learned about game design has already been baked into the
core system. There isn't a lot I can do 'better' without making foundational
changes to the game. It's very, very good at being what it is. I'm going to let
it be that.
Also, after drawing Modi yesterday, I decided to draw her Olympian parallel
today, the great Prince Heracles. My 'War of the Demigods' storyline is about
the children of the elder gods and their efforts to establish a new home as
their old ones were dying. Modi was a leader among the Norse gods, and Prince
Heracles was a leader among the Olympians. They will both appear in Stalwart
'85.
However, it is not particularly granular, and it starts to get messy when you have more dice shifts involved. I was thinking of swapping weapons out from a dice shift to a set damage rating. This would be based on half your tier SV. It then looks like this...
Wonder boy is Prodigy tier (D8[4]2) and Might D6. His battle staves deal D6+2 damage (instead of D8).
The Canadian Badger is Legendary tier (D12[6]3) and Might D8. His claws deal D8+3 damage (instead of D10).
The thunder god is Titan tier (D16[8]4) and Might D16. His hammer deals D16+4 damage (instead of D20).
It makes weapons a little bit cooler, but carrying Mjolnir SHOULD make you a little bit cooler. I think maybe I scale back throwing the weapon as a -1 die shift; the thunder god deals D12+4 when he throws Mjolnir. That also makes sense to me.
I also like how this works for found weapons; when the Brute picks up a tank and starts hitting people with it, he gets to add the full half SV to damage, but it degrades 1 point with every hit. If he's legendary tier with Might D12, he deals D12+3 with the first hit, D12+2 with the second, D12+1 with the third, and after that he drops the shattered piece of tank he's still holding, because it's no longer useful as a weapon. In a bar fight, when a normal person picks up a chair, it deals +1 damage with the hit, shattering on impact.
I don't think I want to port this over to trick weapons, though... trick weapons do double-dip on tier (using the same die for both attacks and damage), and it might make more sense to tie damage to reflex... the archer with D6 reflex is going to deal less damage than the archer with D12 reflex. That seems logical.
As I am tinkering with the layout for Stalwart '85, I had a little bit of a revelation; I wanted the 'core rules' (40-50 pages at the front) to be totally under the Creative Commons License, and the back part of the book (maybe 120 pages) to be my copyrighted material; I realized that if I use the art of public domain characters throughout the first part of the book, and only use my original characters in the back part, I get to have my cake and eat it, too. I've been having a lot of fun playing with the public domain heroes, and adapting them. I particularly enjoyed adapting Moon Girl's Moonship. Here it is!
In fact, here's my free micro RPG for Captain Battle.
In combat, Captain Battle always goes first. When you attack (because you don't have any other choices. The game is called "Captain Battle"), roll 1d6 and see below.
1. You disintegrate your foe with your pistol. Earn all of the experience points.
2. You defeat your foe with your American fists of justice. Earn a million experience points, and the hearts of 1d6 x100 nurses.
3. You flex your muscles and your foe runs away. Earn half a billion experience points, and also increase your popularity +1,000 (oh, never mind. You already have infinite popularity. Okay, it's now infinite +1).
4. Roll twice.
5. Roll three times.
6. Do all of these things.
I've posted an update to the Kickstarter with two characters who will be in the KS-24 superhero pack (that is released under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 License... these are drawn from the database of Public Domain Super Heroes, but I'm adding my own twist to each of them (and doing my own designs largely). I've got about twenty more to come... (although stretch goals may increase this even further).
I added a special reward for backers within the first 48 hours... and I really think you want to get this. I kept laughing at myself as I was working on it tonight. If you happen to have seen a particular blockbuster superhero movie that might be in theaters right now, you're going to want to get this.
I'm in the zone with this Kickstarter. No lie. I REALLY want to post the picture I drew, but I'm saving it for backers only.
Some background for the Kickstarter Campaign...
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The Startling Company of Comic Publishers (also called SC Comics) was a relatively minor comics company that started publishing in 1948. They launched a series of romance, war, and western comics, with titles like "Two Hearts", "Patriots in War", and "Wonders of the Wild West". However, when Kirby Jackson was looking for work after his time in World War II, publisher Gordon Richards offered him a job - launch a line of superheroes with his own title, "Startling Comics Presents".
Running for 57 issues from July of 1951 through March of 1956, Kirby Jackson (along with several uncredited assistants) churned out superhero adventures featuring, among many more, the Powers Squad, Tribune, and the Blue Bowman. You were always aware of these characters growing up - and your uncle, who was a huge comic collector, had a particular affinity for these characters. He always had the comics around the house when you went to visit him, and he loved talking comics with you.
However, it was no big surprise when Startling Comics declared bankruptcy in 1979; they had been running on fumes for over a decade, and their superhero line never recovered from Kirby Jackson's departure in 1956 (after they refused to increase his pay per page from $10 to $12). They continued to reprint his books continually from the time he left until they went bankrupt, despite turning out relatively scant new stories in the superhero genre. A suspicious fire at their warehouse - that destroyed much of the original art - was the final nail in the company's slow decline.
In an amazing turn of events, the bankruptcy of the company caused the rights to the characters to fall into question. When Kirby Jackson decided to pursue legal action to get these rights (which he considered a longshot), he was shocked when he appeared in court and representatives for SC Comics failed to appear; the judge awarded the rights to Mr. Jackson. Many believe that the same people who could have claimed copyright had bigger problems - notably their insurance fraud case - and were trying to put as much distance between themselves and the company as possible.
Moved by the public outpouring of support for him, and for the love these characters were receiving, Mr. Jackson decided to allow the characters to be used for the Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2, and he would allow a young up-and-coming creator to assume the rights for $1 so that the characters could continue.
At the end of the 'greatest comics jam ever', Kirby Jackson himself appeared and, to anyone who had contributed to the issue, he offered entry to the lottery. Dozens of creators held their breath as the lot was drawn - someone would be able to build upon the legacy of these characters created decades ago by Mr. Jackson.
You were as shocked as anyone when you won.
Scooter eventually became a creative voice as well. He sent in a story idea that served as the foundation for the “Return to the Future” storyline (Mighty Doc Stalwart #127-130), and at fifteen, started contributing story outlines (paid $3 per outline), that were adapted into backup features, almost always featuring his favorite characters, the Stalwart Legion of the 28th Century.
So, it was somewhat appropriate that as of Mighty Doc Stalwart #251, at age 24, he was hired full time as the editor-in-chief of New Stalwart Press; he was the one who was tasked with hiring the replacements for Byron John, the brothers Mike and Theo Pretzlaff, who took over the book going forward.
He had big ideas. He launched the Spectacular Stalwart Super Society. He started negotiating television and toy rights for the characters. He started to look at ways to merchandise Doc and his world, building the brand beyond its humble comic book origins.
But one of the biggest and most outlandish of his ideas was unveiled at the New Years’ Comic Con ’84, two weeks into his tenure as editor-in-chief. He organized the first ever ‘Independent Comics Company Summit’, where dozens of small publishers and independent creators met together in Ballroom B of the Grand Castle Hotel to share an idea he had.
The “Big Two” were doing huge crossover events, bringing together their major characters to battle a huge cosmic threat on a grand scale. He wanted to do something similar. He knew that New Stalwart Press, though a successful company, was nowhere near the size and scale of the Big Two, and wouldn’t be able to do such an event independently.
However… he suggested that everyone in the room, if they wanted to work together, could pull it off. His pitch was simple: The Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2 would be a collaborative story where dozens of creators, representing dozens of smaller companies, would come together to tell a story with each of their signature characters joining together against a huge cosmic threat. They would all continue to hold the copyrights to their own characters, granting one-time rights to publish them here.
Over the next twenty-four hours, what might be the greatest comic book jam session of all time took place, as dozens of creators worked together to build a story and crank out 64 pages. This was released to much fanfare; each creator received 100 ‘limited edition’ copies to sign and sell at conventions, and the book was released through newsstand distribution. Each creator kept a few original pages, and these were distributed in a lottery system. All proceeds were donated, and many of the creators who contributed suggested that this was a ‘launch point’ for their independent comic companies.
But, I mean, I don’t have to tell you all about this. You were there, after all.
And the Kickstarter will reveal how it all went down.
I worked up another cover option today... and I think I like this one better (although Mary and Grace both lean towards the other one based on John Byrne)... and by the way, I heard back that Mr. Byrne is no longer doing commissions (and it sounds like if it was meant to be used for a cover, it would be have been the entire funding goal I have for the KS... so, yeah...). The odds of the cover ending up as a commission are getting slimmer and slimmer. I just don't see a viable option for that.
I decided to try my hand at an iconic sort of John Byrne pose and built the cover around that. I cannot stop drawing like me (since I've been drawing like me for forty years now), but it at least has some JB vibes to it. Not bad for a first pass at a cover design, if I do say so myself...
One of the things that the comics do well (when they do this well) is that they have the superhero's performance closely tied to their drama outside of super life. When Peter is fighting with MJ and forgot to stop and get bagels for Aunt May, he's suddenly struggling against the Green Goblin more, because things just sort of spiral out of control on him. Tony Stark's personal life is in shambles, and suddenly he cannot remember how the repulsors work. One of the great things about FASERIP was that it had Karma, which actually created mechanisms for this stuff to directly impact your super-heroing.
I've got an idea for a mechanic called In Real Life (IRL) that would have a direct bearing on your superhero life, and emulate Karma (after a fashion).
Your IRL starts at zero. Everyone is pretty chill. No drama. But then you get a call that your sister needs your help just as the alarm goes off at First National Bank. You don your mask and ghost your sister. You take a -1 hit to IRL. At the beginning of the adventure, your GM requires you to check mind (DT 4). You fail. It was your mom's birthday. Oh, shoot. I mean, you kind of got her world peace for her birthday, but that's not going to make up for missing the luncheon. -1 to IRL. As long as your IRL is at 0, things are okay. People might be a little annoyed or a little extra pleased with you, but it's not affecting your superhero life.
But... once you get into positives or negatives, things change.
At -1 (or +1) you receive a shift to your hero points, moving either up or down one die rating. At IRL -1, your hero points (normally worth D10) drop to D8. At IRL +1, your D10 hero points are now rolled using D12.
At -4 (or +4), you receive a -2 or +2 shift to your hero points, moving either up or down two dice ratings.
At +10 or better, you're on top of the world. You get the +2 dice shift, and +1 bonus hero point. Go you! But... you can also hit rock bottom. At -10 IRL, you've watched your life totally fall apart. You cannot use hero points at all, and you suffer -1 edge to all of your checks. EVERYTHING falls apart. You cannot focus, you keep dropping your weapon, you cannot get your powers to work.
I think this would be a rare thing, but I also think it could be a cool way to build a character arc that is supported mechanically. I think of Daredevil's Born Again storyline here.
Your GM would have a lot of autonomy in deciding this, and could even deal bonus IRL damage for huge events. You forgot to get the medicine for your grandfather (-1 IRL), but he ended up having a heart attack and went to the hospital as a result (oof. That's another -3). And... while you were off saving Meridian again, he kind of died (yeah. That's another -5, so you're at -9 from this one series of awful things). You're living on the edge of everything falling totally apart on you. When Uncle Ben dies, Peter Parker hits -10... and realizes he can never let himself feel this way again. It's a character-building moment because the weight of his life choices ended up costing him dearly.
I like that this sytem:
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After binging the rest of X-Men '97 (I couldn't help myself), I spent a few hours this afternoon and evening moving everything for Stalwart into a single document, and then started to work on formatting and organizing. I plunked in everyting that I think is necessary, and left a few spots for expansion/clarification where I have a few ideas... and the book is 83 pages and almost 40,000 words! Dang. The 'rules' are only about 24 pages, and then the rest is setting, characters, and background. Still, it's a bit of a beast. By comparison, Stalwart Age was 87 pages and 23,000 words overall. I increased the font one size (from 10 to 11), so the pages don't feel quite as jam-packed (and as my eyes get older, I need larger fonts - I am my target audience). That said, this is a much more complete package than anything I've done in a long time.
I like the smaller format of the 6x9 book, but I think that a traditional 8 1/2 x 11 book (saddle stitched) is the best for gaming; I'm constantly bending pages in my trade paperbacks, but the big books lay nice and flat and are easier to manage. The bigger book also leads to more variety in page layouts, so that the whole thing ends up a little more interesting and varied throughout. The layout of the Stalwart books has been very easy, since it's a single column in a smaller space; this takes more management of the space, and I've already got a few pages I really like (and a few that bother me and will need work).
All-in-all, off to a good start.
I still don't know what to DO with this (like, is a Kickstarter even a viable option), but I figure I can probably have it done in a few weeks.
Why am I sharing this?
I suppose because this is the reality of being a self-publisher. I talk to a LOT of friends, family, and students about this, and their shared belief is that you go through a three-step process: A) Create something that's pretty good, B) Put it up for sale, C) Buy a yacht and set sail around the world, because you can do that now. You're a 'published author' = 'you must be rich' (or, you'd be rich if you were working for one of the big companies rather than doing this stupid independent thing you are so fixated on, but that's a whole other discussion - I have no numbers but do have a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests I am probably better off where I am right now).
This begs the question - why don't I just come out with another game like Stalwart? Except do that every two weeks? Forever? Wouldn't I then increase these sales all the time? Like... duh. The only problem is that ... A) Stalwart somehow finds one of the remaining sweet spots in the industry where the supply has not quite caught up to the demand (supers systems of low/medium crunch), and B) Stalwrt took me forty years to finally get right. I've been trying to write this game since I was eleven. I don't think I can do that again next week. If I start now and live to 90, I might squeeze out another one of these. Everyone has their go-to fantasy game, and most people don't need another one. For some reason, many people are still looking for that holy grail of supers games.
Okay, Let's Crunch Some Numbers
1. First of all, I also launched the itch.io page, and have 27 core rules downloads (I put it up PWYW there because I had no idea how the model worked there really) and have had 10-20 downloads of the other books, and zero total sales. I'm not loving itch. It's got a different set of people (that's good) but they don't seem to really be as invested or care as much (that's bad). I'm competing with a wider and not-necessarily-compatible set of products for space. I'm meh about it so far. I'll keep it up (because why not) but I don't see much value in it right now. Maybe that will change.
2. I am a pretty active blogger, and I talk about my game a LOT (I think). Even when I don't have new releases, I'm trying to continually keep people aware that I'm working on the game, and I produce a lot of tertiary stuff that ties into or adds to the game in some way. I have been blogging for 14 years and this is post 1,290 ... and an average of about 25 people read any post I put up (posts with images end up in the 30s, posts with no images end up in the teens). I have NO idea how people make any money blogging (maybe they're a little more broad than 'niche game I produce in the darkest corner of the internet'), but still. You'd think I'd be able to get more traffic after 14 years and 1200 posts :) I added an image to this post just because I hope it gets some traffic (and full disclosure - this post is part of my business model, too. People might not know or care much about my game, but people are interested in reading about publishing if they want to do it, and more eyeballs is more eyeballs).
3. I ran a banner for Stalwart, thinking this would be a home run, and it was BY FAR the weakest banner I have ever run (20,000 impressions with 8 clicks - so .04% - that is very, very bad). I don't know why, but I suspect part of it was the high number of people who visited the Stalwart RPG page to begin with. They didn't click the banner because they had already seen the game's main page. That's the best I can figure.
4. My core 'business model' - a few foundational books in my back catalog along with frequent smaller releases as PWYW to keep new eyeballs on my stuff, is the winning formula. Over these two months, my sales break down into these three categories (broken down by sales, not by my earnings, which are 2/3 of this, so out of 400.62 on the two months my earnings are 260.40):
In the broadest strokes, it's the three-headed monster with roughly a quarter the core book, a quarter the PWYW supplements, and almost half the back catalog (the back catalog is the strongest overall performer)... Here's why this model works (I think):
First, I have produced some good content (that's kind of the most important thing). The back catalog accounted for a significant chunk of my sales (44.8%). If people like my new game they got for $1, they are far more likely to throw another ten or fifteen my way to get the other stuff I've done. That's HUGE.
Second, I set very modest price points. I think my games give good value for the money I ask. I could double my prices across the board and nobody would be too angry at me for trying to gouge people, but how far down would sales go? I understand that raw economics says as long as I sold 51% or more, I'd be ahead. However, two things work against this:
A) Getting more eyeballs on my games is always better. The more people who get it, the more people might like it, and the more they might talk about it. Another reason to keep the itch.io page up - maybe the 'right' youtuber or blogger gets it there, says nice things about it, and suddenly I'm looking up yachts for sale on Google.
B) You guys are pretty awesome. For real. The reality is that each of you sets a value in your mind of what the game is worth to you, and you make sure to pay accordingly. Some of you felt that the World of Stalwart was worth $3 (and some of you more than that), but then decided that the Guide to Meridian was going to be the 'free one' you had already helped pay for. You felt like you'd made a pretty good investment in the game, and this supplement was a 'bonus' you should get for your support. I have no issues with that at all. I trust that at some point, I'll release something else you feel strongly about paying for, and you will. The model trusts you to set the value, and you collectively respond appropriately. Some people (who I very much doubt would happen upon this blog) have decided to fill several external hard drives with every free RPG they can ever get. I don't think those peeps are ever going to be a dedicated base, and that's fine. I am not going to change what I do so that someone doesn't have file 3752 on Drive F in a drawer someplace. It's why I like Patreon as a model (people pay you what they decide things are worth), but it's sort of a closed space (a lot behind the wall), so I think it ends up limiting itself. Setting up a Patreon at this point would be double-dipping on people - if you want to support me more, there are lots of ways to do it already.
Anyway, here are the sales charts:
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Edit: By the way, here are the sales reports for March and April, so you can see what 'typical' months look like. I figure that context matters, and without the context of my regular sales, it's hard to see what I see in the numbers above...
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