Orders charge on the 1st, notes about the open gaming license, and the PDF is nearly done!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 27, 2022 at 11:11:43 PM

Happy post-holidays, folks!

Just some quick news for everyone. 

Orders Charge on the 1st

The orders will charge on the 1st, so make sure you finish up your orders soon. I'd give more time, but I suspect that we'll get caught up in the forthcoming OGL changes if we do. Our industry sources suspect that the OGL changes will go into effect as soon as mid-January, so we've got to get them squared away. So make sure that you get your orders done by the 1st, as we won't have a lot of leeway for late charges.

Open Gaming License Changes

If you didnt' already hear, the agreement with which we can create Fifth Edition content, the Open Gaming License, is getting its first major revision in 22 years. 

Although we've read Wizards' press statement regarding the changes to the open gaming license (reporting, etc.), we suspect that the new OGL will have terms that won't work with our business model. We have too many contractors working for us to risk their positions, so we have to consider them. 

Even if we don't create new Fifth Edition content moving forward, this book was sold prior to the date on which the new OGL will go into effect. Therefore, we will continue to support the book throughout 2023 and beyond. Furthermore, the changes demonstrated so far for OneD&D don't show too much changing in the way of monster blocks except for how they're organized, so it will all still be relevant—and that's assuming you jump to the new edition. We recently surveyed over 4,000 Fifth Edition players and learned that the vast majority have no interest in changing editions. 

The PDF is Nearly Complete!

I replaced the book's editor in early December, which made me fear we'd get behind a little. Fortunately, the new guy is crushing out the content. He's already formatted all the monsters and is just waiting on me to finish up the appendices. I have probably two days of writing left until my end is done. After that, it's just indices and tables of contents and little sidebar note fillers, etc.

I'll send that as soon as it's done. The rest of the material we'll be working on throughout January. John, the proofreader, has already finished up all the content for the cards, so I just have to put those into our templates. The playbook cards will follow shortly after that and likely coincide with the release of the VTT forms. I hope to have all this done by the end of January, right in time for the printers to get back from the Chinese New Year celebration. After that, it's off to the printers. Whoop whoop!

Art Changes

For disclosure, our original plan was to use A.I. to bring the cards to life. However, after talking to other folks in the industry and fans, we decided to avoid using A.I. art. Instead, we licensed artwork from our good friend Paper Forge. So expect to see some pretty cool stuff. Whatever we can't fill with his, we've got some pretty nice stock art from some of our industry pals, such as Fat Goblin Games and Dean Spencer.

Finishing Up Your Orders

One last reminder: the charge date of the 1st is a hard date, at least until we know the actual date that the new Open Gaming License goes into effect. Unless the OGL is completely devoid of the clauses that we fear it will have, we won't publish anything using it moving forward. 

So lock in your orders pronto!

If you have trouble, make sure to reach out to me directly either via email or via Discord:

GMDave on Discord: GMDave#3009

GMDave Email: [email protected]

Backerkit is Locking Soon! Finish up your orders when you can! Plus, details on contacting me!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Dec 21, 2022 at 05:47:50 PM

Hey folks,

Backerkit is now locking orders, so ensure you get all your final details in. We should be releasing the PDF version of the book in a couple of weeks, and everything is still in place probably to start printing everything as soon as March.

How to ask me questions

Hey, here is some really important information for all of you:

If you need to contact me for any reason, don't do it via the comments section here or on the main page. For whatever reason, I don't get notifications on my phone, despite having it set up to give me notifications. However, I do check the messenger every day. So if you have a question, please send me a direct message either here or via my email: [email protected]

Thank you all!

 - Dave

Back From Pax-Unplugged and Answering Your Questions
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 11:12:15 PM

Hey all!

I'm back from Philadelphia and finally have a chance to get in front of the computer and answer some questions. I've already gone through all the questions in my messages, but now I'm going through the comments section. 

There's a lot for me to filter through, so feel free to re-ask any questions here on this update, and I'll answer them before the end of my work day (roughly around 8 pm or so).

Thanks for being patient!

 - Dave

Clarifying Your Rewards and Stretch Goals
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 11:07:51 PM

Hey everyone!

I've seen a lot of questions about this, so I want to make a public post here so you know exactly what you're getting and what you're not getting with the Kickstarter Rewards.

Hardcover Book-Only Backers

If you ordered the Gamemaster's Survival Guide Book in hardcover, you will receive:

• Hardcover Copy of GMSG
• PDF Copy of GMSG
• The Ultimate Guide to Writing Fifth Edition Adventures mini-book in print
• How to Create Legendary Monsters for Fifth Edition mini-book in print
• Playbook Sheets #11 to #50 (you will have to purchase #1 to #10 separately) in print
• Battle Mats #7 and #8 (you will have to purchase #1 to #6 separately) in print
• Vinyl "Beward the GM" Sticker

Digital PDF-Only Backers

if you ordered the Gamemaster's Survival Guide Book in PDF, you will receive:

• PDF Copy of GMSG
• The Ultimate Guide to Writing Fifth Edition Adventures mini-book PDF
• How to Create Legendary Monsters for Fifth Edition mini-book PDF
• Playbook Sheets #11 to #50 (you will have to purchase #1 to #10 separately) PDF
• Battle Mats #7 and #8 (you will have to purchase #1 to #6 separately) PDF

Playbook Sheets #01 - #10

The playbook sheets automatically come in all three versions of the boxed sets. They do not come with the books. If you only ordered the books and you want to have cards #01 - #10, you will need to purchase them separately.

Playbook Sheets #11 - #50

All Kickstarter backers will receive as stretch goals playbook sheets #11 - #50. Digital backers will only receive the digital versions, but all other backers will get physical copies.

If you are a backer and purchased this item in Backerkit but don't want an extra copy, you might want to adjust your order before Backerkit charges your card in January.

Battlemats #01 - 06

The Deluxe and All-in sets come with Battlemats #01 - #06. They do not come with the books. If you only ordered the books and you want to have mats #07 and #08. you will need to purchase them separately.

Battlemats #07 - #08

All Kickstarter backers will receive as stretch goals playbook sheets #07 - #08. Digital backers will only receive the digital versions, but all other backers will get physical copies.

If you are a backer and purchased this item in Backerkit but don't want an extra copy, you might want to adjust your order before Backerkit charges your card in January.

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Fifth Edition Adventures Mini-Book

All Kickstarter backers will receive as a stretch goal the mini-book The Ultimate Guide to Writing Fifth Edition Adventures. Digital backers will only receive the digital versions, but all other backers will get physical copies.

If you are a backer and purchased this item in Backerkit but don't want an extra copy, you might want to adjust your order before Backerkit charges your card in January.

How to Create Legendary Monsters for Fifth Edition

All Kickstarter backers will receive as a stretch goal the mini-book How to Create Legendary Monsters for Fifth Edition mini-book. Digital backers will only receive the digital versions, but all other backers will get physical copies.

If you are a backer and purchased this item in Backerkit but don't want an extra copy, you might want to adjust your order before Backerkit charges your card in January.

Any other questions? Tell me below!

Hopefully, this clears up a lot of your questions. There is no additional shipping for stretch goals, as the initial shipping costs (on the campaign page) estimated that we'd have a bunch to add to the set once it was done. Hence why, in the US, for example, it's $15 in shipping costs. That's for everything.

If you have any additional questions, let me know in the comments.

 Thanks!

Back from PaxUnplugged... and look who I met!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 11:06:50 PM

Hey everyone!

I'm officially back from PaxUnplugged. We had a blast! And I got to meet a lot of cool people, including this guy:

I'm the guy wearing the cool DMDave shirt. The guy on my right is none other than Keith "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" Ammann (he's not serving me a Cease & Desist letter, I swear). Some of you asked me what made my book different than Keith's or whether or not he knew what I was up to, so here's your answer. We get along swimmingly and had a great conversation regarding WotC, the upcoming OneD&D, copyright law, and more.  

He's an amazing guy who is more or less the reason I got into content creation, to begin with.

I also got to speak with some of the coolest creators in the business. 

Plus, we're probably going to do a lot more conventions in the future as I start to plan for our 2023 year.

Anyways, I just thought I would share this with all of you because I thought it was pretty cool.

Talk to you soon!

 - Dave