Frank Mentzer's Empyrea Fantasy Setting on KS

[Welleran]

$50 for pdfs? Pass.

[Falconer]

God I wish I was [involved with the KS]! I'd be in geek heaven! Sadly, no I am not involved. I defended Frank on Tenkar's Tavern because I consider him a friend and I couldn't believe he was responsible for what was posted. That simple. I am a supporter and I've had some private conversations with Frank about it. I just hope it funds so I can get my copy for 1E/2E.

Alex, I have to hand it to you, if you are secretly some meta genius troll whose every word is sarcastic, then this is some seriously hilarity! Geek heaven, LOL! Can’t wait for that 1E/2E goodness, heheheh! Makes me want to go back and read about those posts where you said… okay, what was it…

Something people aren't considering is if Frank's computer was hacked, which may in fact be the case. Someone with hacked access to his computer could probably get into DF potentially without even having to enter a password. They could have seen the past acrimony with EotB and sent the PM from Frank's account without his knowledge. That would make the originating IP address match Frank's. Just sayin'.

Come on, you HAD to be messing with Frank with that one, right?

[bobjester]

Its that damned Shoppe of Mirrors effect messin with people's heads...

I must admit that I would've been very interested in Empyrea 30... even 20 years ago. Then again, I was buying a lot of boxed sets & a lot of 2e splat books, so that's what Empyrea brings to my mind. At that time, there were few players to be found to actually play with in Central Nebraska, so desperation may have had a hand in that period of (non)-gaming in my life.*

I don't think that's inherently bad, its just not running along the same gaming patterns that I run with now. While I do like published adventures (of any edition), settings are less useful to me these days, even if I do still pull out Al Qadim, Ravenloft or Spelljammer for ideas for my own campaign.

If this leads to "Empyrea" adventures, especially in the form of modules like "E1 - Lord of 1,001 Aqaan Knights" or something, I might be interested. Hells, I could probably write something up along those lines for my 5e group tonight.

*Life in Central Nebraska is the same now as it was then: If you were a Husker football fan, farmer, rancher, trucker, or were a professional cowboy, you didn't need anything else, especially in the form of D&D. I was (and still am) none of the above.

[tacojohn4547]

Regarding Eldritch Ent, Frank talked to me at Gen Con (and no doubt many, many others) back in 2009-2010, around the time when Black bkade was getting underway, about throwing my lot in with him on his new venture that was going to publish multi-system products (adventures, settings, etc). I considered it a flattering invitation at the time, as I was a virtual nobody. But at the same time, I didn't want to toss my vision and my ideas aside to work on Frank's vision and ideas. And it was clearly going to be all about Frank's vision and Frank's ideas. I opted to steer clear and stay closer to my AD&D roots with Mr. Grohe.

About the funding that was sought back in 2009 for the launch of Eldritch Ent, I know from pretty reliable sources, one of which is a first-hand account (they were one of the investors/backers), that they did in fact raise something approaching $250,000 in private placement capital. Over the ensuing 6 or 7 years, they pretty much burned thru that capital, and really don't have a lot of that original investor capital left.


I wish Frank well in this venture, but I'm leery of what has happened in the recent past with attempts to bring celebrity authors together for large, expansive, collaborative projects.

[EOTB]

that they did in fact raise something approaching $250,000 in private placement capital.

They had private capital and that's what they were able to do with it?

[Flambeaux]

that they did in fact raise something approaching $250,000 in private placement capital.

They had private capital and that's what they were able to do with it?

That's a hell of a lot of hookers and blow!

[bobjester]

that they did in fact raise something approaching $250,000 in private placement capital.

They had private capital and that's what they were able to do with it?

That's a hell of a lot of hookers and blow!

Send Lawyers, Guns & Money!

[Melan]

About the funding that was sought back in 2009 for the launch of Eldritch Ent, I know from pretty reliable sources, one of which is a first-hand account (they were one of the investors/backers), that they did in fact raise something approaching $250,000 in private placement capital. Over the ensuing 6 or 7 years, they pretty much burned thru that capital, and really don't have a lot of that original investor capital left.

That's... in one word, fascinating.

(I published a pretty darn good boxed set with a print run of 150 copies for under $2500, one percent of what EE burned through. )

[Matthew]

Holy fuck.

[Chainsaw]

To be honest, I'm very surprised Frank didn't go with a $50K funding goal (easily enough to cover a very nicely done soft-back setting book and non-famous artists), then layer on contributions from famous writers/artists, rules systems expansions and a box set as a series of stretch goals culminating in $250K. People use strategies like that because they build confidence, momentum and buzz. They create reasons to say, "Hey everyone, we met another goal! This is doing really well!" The way it's organized now, there's no reason to send out positive updates. Even worse, he could raise $200K, which would be hugely successful by most RPG Kickstarter standards, and still fail to collect any funding at all. Regardless, best of luck to him with this strategy.

[Geleg]

I wouldn't touch this KS with an eleven-foot pole.

It looks like vapor ware to me - while Frank may have 30 years of notes (and perhaps more), it doesn't sound like any of it is ready to be published. And the fact that he admits that the creators are doing this in their spare time is a major red flag ("The Team have adapted as we've grown organically, but this is a Temp job for most. We have other jobs, and rich lives. Coordination and communication require constant vigilance for the next 9 months.").

It's beyond me why, after numerous rpg KS fiascos, people would fund a project that can't demonstrate that it is nearly ready to go (that is, all text written, edited, etc., just awaiting art and layout). The Empyrea page demonstrates ZERO content. hoo boy!

[ThirstyStirge]

*Life in Central Nebraska is the same now as it was then: If you were a Husker football fan, farmer, rancher, trucker, or were a professional cowboy, you didn't need anything else, especially in the form of D&D. I was (and still am) none of the above.

Sounds like East Central MO: farmers, cowherds, truckers, pizza delivery guys and nurses. I'd be happy to play D&D with a few sexy nurses who like to party.

I know a lot of people who give Frank grief. I'm not one of them. If he can make bank on this project, then good on him. It's a brutally tough economy -- esp. in publishing. Anyone who can make it deserves a gold medal.

[grodog]

I would imagine that the Empyrea setting will fit most naturally with BECMI, and the farther the other game systems are from BECMI, the less easy the fit.

As far as I know, which isn't much, Frank ran AD&D 1E until recently and only started running BECMI rules at conventions for fans. So presumably all his campaign material from the '90s-'00s was written using the AD&D 1E rules originally.

I'd dig up a quote but his Q&A thread at DF seems to have been nuked as part of recent events.

This may help, Zach: https://web.archive.org/web/20170830020 ... b65900f356

Allan.

[Jeff]

this

Does he specify anywhere what level of contributions all these "legends" are going to be making (other than Margaret Weis' foreword)? I mean, isn't it almost a given that most of those artists are going to do a single sketch apiece and the writers are going to contribute a 50-word NPC description, leaving 90+% of the text and art by the in-house staff? Frank is heavily hyping the "all-star design team" as a Major Event (IIRC he claimed in his promotional PM to EOTB at Dragonsfoot that it was "the biggest cross-industry event in 30 years") but isn't it almost certainly just a gimmick? And if it isn't, is there any way a product designed by 15 different authors and 16 different artists with very different styles is going to be anything other than a totally incoherent mess?

+ this

Frank's willingness to write people's characters (and/or forum members he doesn't like ) into the setting at this late date would seem to raise questions about how much writing has yet to be done for a setting that's other main selling point (besides the number of familiar names "contributing" to it in a yet-to-be-determined manner) is its 40-year pedigree. Are we to understand that Frank will happily toss aside details that have supposedly been established for decades in order to insert a bunch of vanity NPCs? Or are some fairly significant chunks of the setting (enough to accommodate all of these characters) still to-be-written? And, whichever of these is true, doesn't it undermine the 40-year pedigree?

+ this

I am confused with the $10,000 pledge level. Join the inner circle of play testers? I thought this was play tested for 25 years.

+ this

About the funding that was sought back in 2009 for the launch of Eldritch Ent, I know from pretty reliable sources, one of which is a first-hand account (they were one of the investors/backers), that they did in fact raise something approaching $250,000 in private placement capital. Over the ensuing 6 or 7 years, they pretty much burned thru that capital, and really don't have a lot of that original investor capital left.

= this

Holy fuck.

[RFlowers]

To be honest, I'm very surprised Frank didn't go with a $50K funding goal (easily enough to cover a very nicely done soft-back setting book and non-famous artists), then layer on contributions from famous writers/artists, rules systems expansions and a box set as a series of stretch goals culminating in $250K. People use strategies like that because they build confidence, momentum and buzz. They create reasons to say, "Hey everyone, we met another goal! This is doing really well!" The way it's organized now, there's no reason to send out positive updates. Even worse, he could raise $200K, which would be hugely successful by most RPG Kickstarter standards, and still fail to collect any funding at all. Regardless, best of luck to him with this strategy.

Your ideas sound really good to me. A lot of the campaign should have been handled with stretch goals. Full disclosure : I've never done anything with Kickstarter and my opinions are worth what you pay for them.