Currently Backing

I realized the other day just how much my Kickstarter backing has slowed.  I guess if you get burned a time or two, you learn to hesitate before diving right in.

In fact, right now I have only two projects open on my account and my wife is backing two more.

That's a total of four projects between the two of us - I think this is the fewest at any point since late 2011.

So what are we backing?

Reading Rainbow - This was such a huge part of our growing up. In fact, nearly everyone I know that is within a few years of me age-wise is backing this. Reading is fundamental. Period. Anything that increases literacy/reading rates is a Good Thing in my book.

Heroes! - Steph is a sucker for fiction anthologies. But if she hadn't backed it, I might have.  There are some great authors in here, including what is probably Aaron Allston's last story. But any anthology which includes Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole is worth looking at. Even if I do have a love/hate with Stackpole's writing most of the time.

Atlantis: Theragraphic - I think I've backed seven or eight of Jerry Grayson's projects, and he's never failed to deliver. The very first Kickstarter I backed was one of his. And I'm a sucker for any book with a monster building/customization system. As an added bonus, I like Atlantis: The Second Age. And the Omega system means I can move monsters from here to Talislanta or Hellas with only a minimal amount of work. Because those games are frequently somewhere in my headspace ...

Short Order Heroes: Locations - I am pretty sure I mentioned the original Short Order Heroes here before, but it is a really great quick character builder for nearly any system.  It works phenomenally well for NPC generation for those times when your PCs inevitably go off the rails and you need a personality on the fly. Now he is working on putting together a similar project for places. I was (apparently) his first backer this time out. 

There is a fifth project that I wish I could back, but my budget refreshes the day after it funds:

Fantaji Universal Role-Playing System - I backed their previous attempt called Mazaki no Fantaji and was disappointed when it failed. This is the same system changed to run as a universal engine.  These guys also did Early Dark, which did several things differently from most games I'd seen. For example, fitting characters into their culture and society - something that is often overlooked in games.  Update: Made some numbers dance and figured out how to make it work.  I'm now backing this.

And ... oops.  This week's post went up two days early.  Ah, well.