The Dice Are Here!
about 7 years ago – Sat, Feb 04, 2017 at 09:03:22 PM

I awoke this morning to find that we'd swept by the 4th stretch goal in my sleep. So the dice have been unlocked! Thank you, everyone. Seeing these milestones pass is a huge thrill.

So lets talk about the dice for a moment. They come in four sets, one of them a set of purely Opposition Dice to make sure you have enough for your table (every player may want his own four Opposition Dice to go with his Hero Dice). There is room in shipping boxes for lots of dice.

It was a blast, designing these, but just so we're clear, the different dice aren't treated differently in the rules! The hero-crests (and explosion symbol) on the dice replace the two + signs on uncustomized Fate Dice; rolling a crest means rolling a +.

If you decide not to spring for the campaign dice, or for Fate Dice which you can find online or in any game store, you can use any bunch of six-sided dice you have lying around!

A rolled 1-2 represents a -1 sign, a 3-4 represents a 0, and a 5-6 represents a +1. When you roll the four Hero Dice together, or the 4 Hero Dice and 4 Opposition Dice together, and add up the -1s and +1s you get a value ranging from -4 to +4 or -8 to +8. Most roll results fall between -2 and +2, but you get the occasional dismaying or exciting outlier.

Just make sure that you have two sets of distinctly different dice (4 blue, 4 red, for example, so you know which are the Hero Dice and which are the Opposition Dice).

Future Add-Ons

With four more Add-On levels to go, I am still looking at dropping in a few extra items. A strong contender right now is a set of 3 photo-quality prints of the first three book covers, suitable for display. They'd price at $15, but with no additional shipping for US backers since they can fit easily in the box.

I do like the idea of more Add-Ons. However, for those aiming for the Wearing the Cape Special Edition, rest assured that any future Add-Ons will add to the current stretch goals, not push them upward! The hardback edition of the book will stay right were it is, at $50,000.

So that's all for now! Thank you again, for bringing us this far, and have a great weekend!

Marion G. Harmon

And Now Some Background.
over 7 years ago – Thu, Feb 02, 2017 at 11:10:44 PM

We are edging up on the $30,000 stretch goal, unlocking all of the extra dice! Personally I'm curious to find out what dice-designs you are all most interested in. But tonight I wanted to provide something extra for everyone who is now building heroes in my world.

Turning Points and UK Heroes

Click here, or cut-and-paste:

http://media.wix.com/ugd/4f8e34_f390810a543f4703ab92a35508487a07.pdf

Because of questions some backers have been asking about early events and possibilities for capes around the world, I've attached a couple of additional pages from Chapter 1 to the above link. The first part tells the story of an all-important senate hearing shortly after the Event. The second part tells how events unfolded in the UK. I think it's a great example of how players should think about other parts of the world; different societies had different experiences. In a side-box on one page I give this bit of advice:

Other Countries
Every country in the world had its post-Event
Authoritarian Moment, and as per Ajax’ prediction,
many didn’t recover from it. There is hardly
space here to discuss each country or region,
but for a good indication of outcomes, look at
the Democracy Index (available on Wikipedia).
Issued by The Economist Intelligence Unit (a UK
group), it focuses on the presence of free and fair
elections, civil rights protections, government
accountability, political culture, and other factors.
Checking the DI, it’s a good bet that most if not all
countries rated as Full Democracies and many that
are rated as Flawed Democracies came through
the post-Event year intact. On the other hand,
Flawed Democracies and Hybrid Democracies
may easily have suffered revolutions, ending the
next decade as Full Democracies or more likely
as Authoritarian Regimes. With few exceptions,
Hybrid Democracies and Authoritarian Regimes
suffered at least low-grade insurgencies, many
all-out civil wars.

Measuring the Miraculous

Some of the backers who have pledged to build their own heroes, are not intimately familiar with my stories. Shame! Deep shame! No noodles for you! Go out and correct your deficiency at once! In the meantime, I've pulled this second bit of background from Chapter 1. It's in the form of a presentation paper, but I think it gets most of the points across. After reading you may ask questions, but raise your hand first.

Click here, or cut-and-paste:
http://media.wix.com/ugd/4f8e34_89cb883eee9a48569047eb02c41ddbf1.pdf

So I hope that helps. Kasia is already delivering on character art for Barlow's Guide (I have a little list--Seven, SaFire, Riptide...lots of familiar faces are going in the sourcebook), and I hope to post one or two of them tomorrow or Saturday with more news.

Third Add-On Tier Unlocked!
over 7 years ago – Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 11:07:36 PM

 Early this afternoon, we skidded over the bump into the third Add-On tier; anyone who has been waiting to add to their pledge for the unlock can now feel confident in receiving a nice print edition of Wearing the Cape: Barlow's Guide to Superhumans.

Speaking of Barlow's Guide, and looking ahead to the cover art, I am considering adding a new and limited pledge level for as many as 10 backers who want their heroes on the cover. (Why not, I pledged extra for a vanity-cover for Atlas last year.) The pledge award would include their cape-file inside the book as well, so if they were Sentinels backers they would not need to choose between putting their favorite heroes inside or outside the book.

Consider this an informal poll of the idea, and tell me what you think!

The next stretch goal Add-On is the dice! Lots and lots of dice. I really enjoyed designing these, and hope you guys like them (the bluish tint to the images don't really do them justice). Everyone will have their own favorites, but personally I think the "A" on the Atlas die just really pops the most.

Thank you, everyone who has been sending comments and feedback on the campaign so far; you have really helped me know what to focus on.

New Pledge Level, and Add-Ons Unlocked!
over 7 years ago – Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 11:05:51 PM

Okaaaaay, a lot has happened this weekend. Let's take this one thing at a time.

The Cape File Pledge Level.

First, I secured an agreement with another of my gamebook artists to provide the additional character-art for the expansion book, Wearing the Cape: The B-Files (essentially Barlow's Guide Volume 2). You will have all received a notice in your email announcing that the new pledge level will go live at 5:00 pm Pacific Time tonight. There will be 50 slots this time, so hopefully this one will remain open a little longer.

Second Stretch Goal Add-On Unlocked (and changed).

We passed the $20,000 mark sometime this morning! I delayed putting up the new stretch goal image so I could get in the changes made this weekend. The main change (which I added to today's unlocked goal) is that WtC:RPG will also be available as an Add-On! Backers who want multiple copies will be able to receive them now (with added shipping, of course).

The second change is in the pricing of the hardback editions. I had already planned to price the WtC:RPG gamebook Add-On at $49; now that I have a better idea of the page numbers I can expect for the sourcebooks also, I have reduced the Add-On price to $39. I hope that will take some bite out of the shipping fees.

Shipping Fees.

Going back over the campaign page this morning, I realized that the section on shipping fees can be misinterpreted. To be clear, the flat $15 domestic and $25 international shipping fees only apply to the base pledge items (to the printed gamebook and the dice that come with three of the pledge levels). All Add-Ons will come with their own fees, determined by destination. I have updated the wording on the campaign page, so please be prepared for that; I am sorry if that will be prohibitive for some.

Thank you.

So this update is a mix of great, good, and so-so news. With the week-early start (it would have been launched today), I have been scrambling to find my footing in the amazing tide of success. You have been amazing. We would have launched today, and instead we're staring at 200+% of funding. I've been trying to think of a way to thank you, and have decided to add this:

To commemorate the campaign, each printed Wearing the Cape: The Roleplaying Game will come with a stamped golden number on the lower right-hand corner of the cover. Inside it will have a customized bookplate signed by me.

A small token of my appreciation. Thank you. 

New Pledge Feedback.
over 7 years ago – Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 11:42:11 PM

The response to the email poll and the last update have been positive, and we're approaching the $20,000 stretch goal so I wanted to give everyone a brief heads-up. When the deal for the B-Files art is secured and the new pledge level goes up, the stretch goal Add-Ons will change slightly.

The $20,000 stretch goal will then cover the B-Files PDF, as well as pledge-independent copies of Wearing the Cape: The Roleplaying Game (not on the image below, but to be added). This will happen because with the new book, the production priority will shift to pay for production of the B-File PDF before funding printing of Barlow's Guide and B-File hardcopies.

On the other hand, this will also open an Add-On for anyone wishing additional copies of WtC:RPG!

For anyone worried about what this means for later Add-Ons like the dice and special edition, don't! At the campaign's rate of progress, I am confident that all the later stretch goals will be unlocked. (Also, the stretch goals are being pushed closer together; doing the math, I have determined that all of the Big Project can still be funded at $50,000+.)

So the new pledge level will look like this:

The Cape Files: 50 Slots. Pledge $175 or more, and you will receive the PDF editions of Wearing the Cape: The Roleplaying Game, Wearing the Cape: Barlow's Guide to Superhumans, and Wearing the Cape: The B-Files, plus your own cape in Barlow's Guide or The B-Files!

(To reiterate for any Sentinels-levels backers who are unsure because of my bad Sentinels' wording: the PDF of Wearing the Cape: Barlow's Guide to Superhumans is also part of your reward.)

To show what affect this will have on the Add-On schedule, here it is:

I'm very happy to be able to offer this new pledge level. Readers of my books know that they tend to get crowded; to me the richest worlds are always, at some point, collaborative (for obvious example, the DC and Marvel universes). This seems to me to be a wonderful way to do that.

Gamebook Sample Update.

A small change on the campaign page is the gamebook sample (found by clicking the link below the Powered By Fate logo). I added an extra page to the back of the sample, the template for Dragon-Type superhuman, to give viewers a better idea of what a worked up Power-Type looks like.