Alchemy Bytes #25: Kickstarters

Check out more from Shannon Wheeler and Too Much Coffee Man here.

All Shapes And Sizes... As Long As It's A 10' By 10' Square

The many faces of doom.

An item that has not long hit the market after being kickstarted but, already caught my attention is the DungeonMorph Dice and accessories range by Inkwell Ideas.

The first I saw of these was here, in a post over at Tenkar's Tavern. Instantly they rang a bell, reminding me of Dave's Mapper. What really drew me in with the photo though was the fact that these were dice.

Dice with geomorphs on.. What a great idea!

Granted, I already have a great set of dice produced by Chessex designed with the GM in mind and producing dungeons on the fly, as well as several other dice from various other distributors that do pretty much the same. So it's not what you would call a new idea.

This is however the first time I have seen a company print a whole chunk of dungeon on to the side of a dice. Usually you get something more along the lines of a concept like "Treasure" or "Trap" and it's up to you how you incorporate it.

All in all though, I have no doubt that what you have here is a product worth owning. Unfortunately it appears to be suffering from the post kickstarter price bloat that seems to be spreading like a wildfire of late.

Taking into account the flexibility and price of their competitors I can't see too many shifting beyond those going to pledges unless the price drops a few dollars. So if this product takes your fancy but not the price, keep a watchful eye on the site as it probably wont be long before there's a sale.

Fantasy Product. Fantasy Prices!

I'll preface this post by saying that it is not really like me to come down hard on small businesses but, by the end of this post, I will be!

Let me start though by inviting you all to take a look at this post over at Alien Dungeon.

Normally I would root for fledgling and independent publishers like these guys but, I really have to draw up an objection to their pricing policy. More so, I also have to question them as to what the hell were they thinking when they came up with it!?

To ask for $100 investment in a new product line when all you're offering is a handful of miniatures and a rulebook essentially is ludicrous! Even Games Workshop, who are the worst of the worst when it comes to price bloat only charge £61.50 for their base product (that frankly gives you a lot more bang for your buck) and, that's a price tag for an established product line.

You know it must be bad if I'm coming down on the side of Games Workshop when talking about value for money! It's probably also worth saying that Games Workshop didn't have the benefit of a kickstarter to produce their product line and they STILL don't charge that much!

I would be interested in hearing what other people have to say on this but, to me it looks like greed, plain and simple.

$900 worth of miniatures for just $100

Yeah, you read that right! $900 worth of  Reaper miniatures for just a $100 pledge to this kickstarter project.

A big thank you to Erik of at Tenkar's tavern for putting up the original post that drew my attention to this great offer, which I just had to share!

I am a great believer in kickstarters (and even plan to do a couple of my own in the future) for getting new projects off of the ground.

In my opinion they are great way for small and large groups alike to continue to expand in these financially tough times and, in turn keep the hobbies that we love alive and kicking!

So why not show your support? There's lots of shiny things in it for you!

Alchemy Needs You!

Well, here we are folks, post 100 and, it's announcement time once again.

Going forward I would like to start adding the work of guest bloggers.

So, we need you!

The chance are if you're reading this blog, you're either into your games or, Google screwed up, of which I sincerely hope it's the former!

Chances are also that you have something to say about the games that you play. Maybe a fond childhood memory or, maybe you're involved in the development of something new? Perhaps you roleplay on a regular basis and note down your sessions, have written a review on another site that you'd like to share with a wider audience or, have a kickstarter, group or, product that you'd like to promote? Maybe you're a fledgling writer or artist looking for an outlet?

If any of this sounds like you, why not drop us a mail?

We would love to publish your works on this blog and share them with the world. We can't offer you anything in the way of financial incentives just yet but, the original works will remain your intellectual property and, you can of course link your own site or blog into them if you have one.

Should you want to, you can even include such works on your CV and I will happily stand as reference for you.

So, why not drop us a mail? We look forward to hearing from you.