Matthew Finch's page

Interesting tie in with the partially owned by FGG (I think) Tabletop Library PDF store

basically free FGG PDFs if the KS does well.

Not owned by FGG itself, but many of the same owners.

No worries, everyone. Programming the BackerKit is something that's easy to screw up, so we do it carefully -- and we have been too crazy busy with fulfilling the other Kickstarters to be comfortable with what we've got programmed into BackerKit for the Blight so far*. That said, we're behind our planned schedule on the BackerKit, I believe, so it's a valid point and we apologize if it causes a problem for anyone.

For those who are first-time backers of a Kickstarter, please be aware that delays with BackerKit are administrative, and don't have anything to do with actual production of the books, which is proceeding apace. As noted above, the books are already written, etc.

*BackerKit requires us to physically input what becomes an integrated system of products, postage, and discounts. It's like an interactive spreadsheet from the creation side. Just the typing and button-pushing takes a while, and then it requires us to troubleshoot each pledge level to make sure the backer sees all the appropriate add-ons with any applicable discounts. If we forget to include an add-on in the system, it can cause us to face larger postage costs, and we end up having to tell people to go back in and add the add-on into their orders. Some people obviously never get/read that message, which leads to people not getting the right combination of products. It's an extremely useful system, and works better than trying to do it by hand, but it's still vulnerable to human error, so we try to be very careful with it as a tool.

Great interview! Could we get Matt and Bill to do a podcast talking about OD&D/AD&D/OSR as a weekly thing? ;-) Really enjoyable!

The difficulty is actually getting the two of us to shut up. :)

There is a pass through the Kal'Iugus Mountains in the South, which turns slightly northward to get to Durbenford. Again, this is just off the map (like by one hex or so).

If you look at the Sinnar Coast Region map, it is off the map a couple of hexes to the west, on the far side of the Kal'Iugus mountain chain. Politically it is part of the County of Toullen, which has pledged fealty to the Kingdom of Suilley.

I have never seen a Kickstarter launch this plagued by technological and communication problems before it finally worked. It's almost as if the real world was trying to keep the Blight from coming into being. Just saying.

Started a thread on ENW jump on in

I posted my song there, too.

Evil city
Dark city
Deadly place to be
Creepy city
Golem city
Flee, Flee, Flee.

<Sniffs the air>
"The sign is carved."

The total is climbing!

There is no official location for "The Keep," but I myself would put it somewhere along the northern edge of the Wilderland Hills, which is the southern marches of the Kingdom of Suilley. There are definitely small keeps along the edges of those hills to protect against incursions, and in fact a major assault into neighboring Keston Province happened only 10 years ago in the campaign timeline. It could even be placed right along the Trader's Way, if you want it to have a wild but oft-traveled road nearby. The further you get from the Trader's Way, the wilder the territory becomes, so you're basically toggling the Keep's isolation upward as you move eastward.
If you look at the map and find the hex where the Trader's Way appears to go directly over the top of a hill when entering the Wilderland Hills from the north, I would place it in the hex to the northeast of that one (O-17), in the extreme eastern portion of the hex. That places the Keep about 40 miles from the stone Hyperborean road, where there might still be a dirt road but it's into an area where the forts are extremely isolated from any sort of immediate help from anywhere.
Hmm, this might be an interesting update to post, too.
Link to the map I'm talking about: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/the-lost-lands-borderland -provinces/posts/1391215

We love meeting people at the cons -- it's the best part.

Time to join up, for those who are waiting: we've got only 4 more days for the Kickstarter to run!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/the-lost-lands-borderland -provinces

And I'm finally back from the convention, so I can get on a computer with a real keyboard and mouse. We had a great time meeting people and telling them about the Kickstarter.

Also we sold a freaking TON of books. Actually, that's not true because we only brought 700 pounds or so. I think we might have sold 550-600 pounds of them, though.

Obviously, people don't pledge to Kickstarters when they're wandering around in a dealers' hall buying real books for instant gleefulness, but when they get home and settle in I think we'll see a lot of new people joining the banquet.

I think it's going to fund for certain, in fact, I'm making sure we have enough stretch goals planned, because it could rise an awful lot with 12 days still to go.

Fear not! Stretch goals abound, and tomorrow we will begin pursuing them in earnest...

LOL, I think my voice is a bit nasal, but it's pretty close to a radio voice. Just not quite. :)

The question is in the title.

So a question for the FGG folks, do you guys have any plans to update and re-release Bard's Gate? I'm thinking in the same vein as Stoneheart Valley, Rappan Athuk, Lost City of Barakus, etc.?

It seems logical to do so with it being a fairly central location to the Lost Lands and I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet. So will we be seeing it any time soon?

Yes. :)

Personally I find that map really interesting, especially for scale. It seems to be a bit more of an American scale than a European, this is not a criticism but an observance.

With Pontos Island is bigger than the UK, Eastreach Province is equatable to France. Rampart mountains > Pyrenees. Forlorn > Alps.

Or have I got my maths/geography wrong?

This does imply that each village/town is fairly far apart, however we'll see the population of the towns. But this sizing does create an interesting discourse on how the various trade-routes survive; how isolated villages are; how wealthy lands are.

With carts (4 wheeled) historically moving 20-25 miles a day (generally & under normal circumstances), most of the places are at least a week apart. Hence not something a traveller would undertake unnecessarily, especially dependant on the dangers of monster/bandit attack.

What do others think?

The assumption for the map is that there are plenty of small settlements that aren't marked on the map. The population density is not as high as that of the dark ages in Europe, but it's concentrated around the old Hyperborean roads and virtually empty in many of the wild areas. So for traveling along the roads, you're generally going to find (in my interpretation of the campaign) an inn within a day's travel.

Now, that's not to say that you can't decide that only the settlements shown on the map exist, but our intention was to allow the GM plenty of latitude to place the archetypal little village-in-crisis wherever desired. With 50 mile hexes and even a dark ages population density, each hex would be crowded with labels of settlements.

With a population density of, say, 5 people per square mile, and a hex size of 50 miles (2165 sq. miles), you're looking at 10,000 people in that hex. There are lots of settlements out there.

HOWEVER, those settlements are actually quite hard to even find. Those 10,000 people are farming a total of 20,000 acres out of a staggering 1,385,000 acres in the hex. Just trying to find the cultivated land, much less the actual village, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Anyone who has managed to get lost in a forest of 5 acres has a sense of how incredibly vast this wilderness would be, even though the population numbers seem high.

Update #12 contains a bit of a challenge concerning a piece of lore called the "Riddle of Gates."

When the scale on the maps say a hex is 50 miles across, is that edge to edge, or corner to corner? I know it's a relatively small difference, so doesn't really matter much, but I was just curious how it's intended.

I don't think we have an official answer to that, but I've always used edge to edge since that's the "vector" used to go through them for purposes of measuring movement. Counting corner to corner when you're moving through edges would throw off the distances.

In my mind you can't spam QUALITY, only well ---crap, so FGG products - and announcements and threads concerning them - will never be "spam" IMO :)

Very interesting concerning the distance/scale of the Lost Lands map, and these Road & Risk encounter tables. Very interesting, I would love to hear and see more of your design/game philosophy! :)

The last update about design philosophy was apparently really popular. We had 6 new pledges in the hour following the time when I posted it.

Okay, I posted the update, but it changed form into a discussion about encounter tables. I can't stick to a topic.
Here's the update, #10.

Well looking at the coastal road they made the correct call, looks to be around 1100 miles by coast road & only 600 (ish) by boat. So I'd guess that you could possibly make it in a week by boat.

Of course, to me it seems better to make the map larger rather than smaller - especially when spells can reduce the relative lengths & players always assume they can keep an excessive pace up no matter the terrain, road conditions, weather.

Probably something we haven't emphasized yet, either, is that the settlements shown on the map are not intended to be the only ones in existence. They're simply the ones that we're going to treat as canon, the nailed-down content from our perspective, things that GMs can consider a consistent reality that we'll stick to.

You'll find in the book that there are references to villages and inns along the roads that aren't marked on the map at all.

On the other hand, we will treat the population and details of shown settlements to be canon, although of course the GM is free to change anything -- canon restricts us, not you.

We've long had the philosophy that a campaign isn't intended as a restriction; it's intended as a framework of locations that can either be used "as written" for GMs like Bill who really don't care about anything beyond the adventure, or used as a rough draft for the GM to fill an entire campaign world into the gaps.

Our tapestry is woven more like a fisherman's net than like tight embroidery. It still forms a picture, but it's designed to leave room for entire new scenes.

I might actually turn this little post into an update discussing the underlying design of the campaign, because we've also had people raise similar questions on the map update.

Map of the Borderlands in Update #9.

It was a lot of fun to write. It sort of built outward from the idea of a place where a weird twist of medieval-type law created a sanctuary for potential criminals, and then developed to the tactical question of how it would look and be infiltrated/attacked, and from there to the information gathering, and from there to the details of everything that had cropped up in the thinking process.

I am actually the last person on earth with no Facebook account but feel free to link or reprint my comment anywhere as you see fit.

LOL, I do know one other person with no facebook account. I have one, but on the other hand I don't have cable TV or a smartphone. :)

I try and approach the world as if it's still the 80s but with Star Trek technology. If my phone can't flip up like a tricorder, it misses the whole point.

So here is a question, if we are getting a coupon from the TOH kickstarter can we use it to get the pdfs from this kickstarter?

It's not supposed to work that way, but if Chris didn't set the system up to work only on pdfs in the catalog at the time the coupons were issued, I doubt we'll use up more of his time to alter things.

You'll want a firmer answer on this, so we're checking with Chris to see how it's currently set up to operate.

I think all it needs is the email address. We need that to send the link.

Wow. I know it is soon to say this having just turned the last page, but my strong first impression is that this little adventure is one of the best examples of adventure module writing I think I have read in the modern era, full stop.

It has that gygaxian detail thing I love from the old classics, but manages to strike a balance so that none of the detail is wasted. The author somehow also includes a strong story/plot element that will satisfy the expectations of modern gamers, all without taking any agency away from the players, as narrative elements in adventures can do.

In my view this is a future classic and a turnkey piece of adventure module writing.

Grimmy, if you happen to feel like sharing this thought on facebook with a link to the Kickstarter page, that would be really cool. No pressure. :)

(and, um, for no particular reason at all I'll mention that the link to the Kickstarter is): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/the-lost-lands-borderland -provinces/description

(in case anyone wants to cut and paste it into a facebook post)

(which will push us toward higher stretch goals)

(just sayin')

:)

Is the player gazetteer going to have anything that isn't in the campaign book? Will the book have any monsters?

No, the Player Gazeteer is almost entirely from the Campaign Book, although some of the wording is of course changed to direct it toward a reader who is a player rather than a GM. If you're looking for reference material only, avoid the Player Gazeteer. It's designed as a way for the players to pick up basic information ahead of time without needing long expositions from the GM at the gaming table.

The campaign book does have some new monsters, although not tons of them.

I'm interested in the reply to that too, Herald Frog.

I've got Tsar & Stoneheart Valley for Pathfinder but I'd buy them again for 5th ed. Or Sword of Air.

You all do sandbox better than anything I've seen and I'd like the option of that in 5th ed too.

Publication of conversions for our classic "big book" resources to 5e will actually depend heavily on how many 5e players we see in this Kickstarter. The up-front cost of a big book is pretty significant. Although we are building a big fan base from Fifth Edition Foes, the Quests of Doom adventure books, and other 5e resources, it isn't clear yet that we've got the critical mass for a big book conversion. If we get enough people ordering the 5e version of the Borderland Provinces, it might prove that we actually do have the critical mass, and in that case conversions will shift overnight from a hypothetical possibility into a fairly high priority project. It depends on how we do here.

any chance of unlabeled maps?

It contains unlabeled player maps. There are numbers on it -- these denote the height of the building, which is an important shortcut if the characters are going to use rooftops. Those numbers are not keys to locations.

I don't think we have an unlabeled map of one of the relevant areas (avoiding a spoiler by being a bit vague). I will check on this, but no guarantees.

We are now at step 2 -- anyone can now get the module, not just backers.
The link is on the Kickstarter page, on the left, scroll down slightly.

The free module Rogues in Remballo is now live, and at step one of distribution!

Step One is availability to backers of the Borderland Provinces Kickstarter in a backer-only update. All three versions (PFRPG, 5e, and Swords & Wizardry) can be downloaded from the link in the update. Please don't share the link -- this is a way of spreading out the load on the servers so we don't have a server crash like we did with Wizard's Amulet.

Step Two is general availability. The module will be made generally available tomorrow on on the Kickstarter page for non-backers to download.

Downloading does require putting in some customer information so you can get the link emailed to you, but I think all you are required to input is an email address.
Matt

Hi FGG, I want to back this but I'm not sure how I should be doing this.

I would like to get the two hardcovers of the 2 main books Borderland Provinces and Adventures in the Borderland Provinces, and get PDF versions of the Player Guide, the Player Gazeteer, the Journey Generator and Rogues in Remballo.

However, I'm not seeing this as an option.

Am I reading the various pledges and addons correctly?

Curmudgeonly,

Hi FGG, I want to back this but I'm not sure how I should be doing this.

I would like to get the two hardcovers of the 2 main books Borderland Provinces and Adventures in the Borderland Provinces, and get PDF versions of the Player Guide, the Player Gazeteer, the Journey Generator and Rogues in Remballo.

However, I'm not seeing this as an option.

Am I reading the various pledges and addons correctly?

Paul, I have finally fixed this. :D

Someone called Matthan just posted a question on ENworld about "why should I buy from Frog God," looking for basic information. He's a 5e player, but if anyone wants to weigh in generally on that thread about our quality of work, that would be awesome. The question is on this page of the thread.

Woot! Looking forward to this!

Any of the books come with Deity information?

Some. There's a lot more about the temples, organizations, worshippers, and religions than about the deities themselves. This area is right in the center of the best-known gods mentioned in the adventures, like Thyr, Muir, Jamboor, Kamien, Freya, Telophus, Mitra, and Belon the Wise, so it focuses more on the influence of their various temples.

What there is, in terms of new information on religions, is a detailed discussion of how heresy functions.

Thanks for the info. I've now pledged. It might be a good idea to put the cost of adding additional hardbacks on to the Kickstarter page, to save on answering questions like mine.

Paul,

Matthew Finch wrote:

You're exactly right in your reading of how to get a full set of hardcovers for only 2 rules-editions: there is no pre-programmed option for that. The way to do it is to pledge for 2 hardcovers, then add the cost of 2 more hardcovers to your pledge amount ($70 total extra). What happens is that when the Backer Kit arrives in your email after the Kickstarter, it will ask you to apply your "extra" $70, and you'll be able to select the two hardcovers at that time.

Thanks for the info. I've now pledged. It might be a good idea to put the cost of adding additional hardbacks on to the Kickstarter page, to save on answering questions like mine.

We just did that, and thanks for raising the question. It's hard to know when we've worded something ambiguously, or where we forgot to fill in the gaps until a "cold reader" points it out.

We're probably going to add a pledge level for 2 sets, but first we have to clear all the numbers through Bill. I'll try to remind you, and please keep an eye on it, because if we do create a two-set pledge level, and it contains a discount, you might be able to get your desired set for somewhat less money than using "two book pledge plus two add-ons."

Looking at the Kickstarter, there are two hardcover books. Each of those hardcovers comes in three different rules versions. The softcovers seem to be rules neutral.

So if I wanted to get the both hardcovers for just two rules sets, I'd need to either pick an option for four hardcovers, which doesn't seem to exist at this point, or pick an option for two hardcovers and then add on two more, which isn't listed as an option under the addons list.

Am I just misreading and not seeing something that should be obvious to everyone, or is there an option missing from the Kickstarter?

You're exactly right in your reading of how to get a full set of hardcovers for only 2 rules-editions: there is no pre-programmed option for that. The way to do it is to pledge for 2 hardcovers, then add the cost of 2 more hardcovers to your pledge amount ($70 total extra). What happens is that when the Backer Kit arrives in your email after the Kickstarter, it will ask you to apply your "extra" $70, and you'll be able to select the two hardcovers at that time.

I need to find a way to back this even though I am currently "employment challenged".

Maybe I can get in the low end so I can get a print copy of Remballo?

I'll keep my eye on this one...

damn....Alternate Wilderness Encounter tables....(sigh)

On a budget, the LAST thing I'd buy would be the printed copy of Rogues in Remballo. Just download the free copy when it's posted, then print it. No need for the "Limited Edition" copy if your goal is to get the content. Viewed as tiers:

* Cheapest is to get the campaign book as a pdf and nothing else (or even use the Player Gazeteer for that, but you'd miss a lot in exchange for only a couple of extra bucks).

*Next cheapest is either to get the printed campaign book, or to get the campaign book pdf without the player gazeteer, but probably pick up the journey generator as the next priority on the campaign. Or maybe a physical poster map instead of the JG.

The Alternate Wilderness encounter tables will be a free pdf, not a paid product, so as long as you get whatever the minimum pledge level is for that, it won't cost anything extra.

Backed at the complete GM level. Also tacked on a couple of the hardcovers that I don't have yet. I do like that you've made that an option on the last couple of your kickstarters, because that's let me fill out the ones I've missed in a convenient way.

Especially in this Kickstarter, since the Borderland Provinces is possibly the key land-area of the world setting (Duchy of Reme is more famous, but Borderlands is actually the central hub of more adventures). So we definitely wanted to make those tied-in adventures available alongside the campaign area.

Plus, we're envisioning this Kickstarter as a kit, where people can buy the stuff they need, and ignore the stuff they don't need. It's a very different approach than we've used before, plus we're treating the Kickstarter kind of like a party, or an event, since we're going to be updating almost every day with topics of interest to those planning a campaign in this area. It ought to be a fun time for the backers, I think.

Definitely keep checking in, or at least checking updates. The first important update (other than the obligatory "Yay, we did well on day one!") will be about the free module, Rogues in Remballo.

Thanks guys! :)

Essentially the three areas you're covering, Endhome, Suilley, and Burgundia are right at the intersection of three world supplements. Burgundia is covered in Greg's Cults of the Sundered Kingdoms, Endhome is covered in Lost City of Barakus, and Suilley is covered in the Borderland Provinces.

The Sundered Kingdoms and Burgundia, as described in Cults, is an area where civilization has effectively lost the battle. The area is depopulated and chaos reigns.

Suilley is a kingdom rising fast in the vacuum of power left by the retreat of the Kingdoms of Foere. Suilley technically rules Keston and Toullen since the leaders of those realms have pledged fealty to the Suilleyn King. As a result, Suilley is not only a potential beacon of hope, but is over-extended to the point of paralysis. That's why there is no eastward movement by Suilley.

The eastern range of Suilley becomes less and less loyal, and more and more independent -- these are nobles who opposed secession and now don't like being under the thumb of the Suilleyn monarchy. The area is also less settled than western Suilley, and the feudal system is less organized in terms of a good chain of fealty leading to the king (who is a westerner).

So there's a kind of buffer space in between Suilley's more settled west, and its rebellious and less-settled east. This buffer zone would make an invasion of the Sundered Kingdoms difficult, and the Lorremach Highhills are an impassable barrier in terms of military force. The area between the Lorremach and the Forlorn Peaks is technically part of Suilley but to give an idea of how loose the grip is, the same area is also claimed by the King of the Vanigoths, who has almost as much power in the region as the Kingdom of Suilley. It would be virtually impossible for Suilley to maintain a military supply line from its settled west to the borders of Old Burgundia.

Endhome is a free city, but doesn't exert much political power anywhere, unlike Bard's Gate, which gets itself right up into everyone's diplomatic grill. Endhome's trade volume is still considerably larger than Bard's Gate, though. Endhome exerts a lot of influence up the Gaelon River Valley since this is a big artery of trade for bulk goods and the city's food, but its policy is usually hands-off on outside politics. As a result, Endhome guards it borders against the chaos in Sunderland, but isn't taking any steps to go out there and establish order.

I hope all this helps...

Actually, I think I can answer some of these quickly.
You've actually almost nailed the official history of Suilley, except that the empire comes from the east, in the Kingdoms of Foere, rather than from Burgundia to the west.
There's a really detailed timeline in the campaign book (Greg Vaughan really likes detail, and that's one of the parts he wrote). The Borderlands have had more than one empire wash over them and then recede, and they have always been at the edges of those empires -- which is why "Borderlands" is such an apt name for the region. First the Hyperboreans controlled the area, then fell, then the Foerdewaith took over the area ...
And as the empire of the Kingdoms of Foere are now becoming decadent, drawing back, and only clawing for a control they no longer have, that's right where matters stand now. The campaign takes place against the backdrop of that receding empire.

I'll try and answer these questions in small bites. I'll work on a bit of a blog post right now, and keep going through the Kickstarter.

And all of the above applies to THREE game systems.

Pathfinder, Swords & Wizardry, and Fifth Edition!

That's true about the $12 price, you could use it in any edition since it's rules-neutral at that level of detail.

The hardcover GM books are all specific to a single edition, though -- they're not dual-statted.

We're planning on launching the Borderland Provinces Kickstarter for the core region of the Lost Lands campaign on October 15, 2 days from now. Many people have asked about pricing: the answer may be a very nice surprise:

(1) The Basic Campaign Price is $12
Yes, you did read that right. You can start a Borderland Provinces campaign on a $12 budget if your goal is just to have basic information about what's around Rappan Athuk and the other major locations. By getting the pdf Player Guide and Gazeteer, which comes with a pdf of the poster map, you're all set for that type of bare-bones campaign if you're a DIY game master who doesn't plan on using encounter tables, secret GM information, lairs, etc. The Player Gazeteer gives basic descriptions of the map locations, enough to work with if you're a build-it-yourself Game Master. And since the campaign also comes with a free adventure, Rogues in Remballo, you have a pretty complete set of resources to work with.

(2) The "Core" Campaign Hardcover + Map + PDF is $35
A library-quality hardcover of the GM campaign book is only $35 plus shipping, and it comes with the poster map of the region (and free PDFs). This contains all the information we mentioned that's not in the Player Gazeteer. Also available just in pdf, of course.

(3) Additional Resources (make-your-own "resource kit")
An extensive pick-and-choose set of additional resources is where the Kickstarter gets fun, and where you can assemble whatever additional elements you want to supplement your core book, creating an extended "kit" tailored to the way you run your games. The main one is a hardcover book of seven brand-new, full-length adventures, called "Adventures in the Borderland Provinces," which gives you an instant starting point for general campaigning. Plus, there's the above-mentioned Player Gazeteer, a Player Guide, a book we call the "Journey Generator," and lots more. None of these are necessary for play, but all are excellent supplemental resources to add.

Greg will be making the official announcement when we launch: it will be some time on October 15, as soon as Kickstarter gives us the link.

Looking forward to seeing you in the Borderland Provinces!
Matt

Easy to get to Remballo from there. Just take the King's Road out of Endhome, past Grollek's Grove, turn onto the South County Road, and Remballo is just 100 miles or so past the capital city of Manas.