Gratitude for funding, plus a note on the book's utility
about 2 years ago
– Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 07:12:05 AM
Gratitude
First of all, a thousand thank-yous to everyone who backed Shrines so far. We have enough now to print, which means, no matter what, the press' first Kickstarter is a success: we're officially making a book.
How to Use This Book
"Embed these shrines in your world, expressing their mechanics through your system" is a line I wrote before any of the book's actual content, but which, over the course of development, slipped from the way I described the practical value of minimalist, system-neutral design to TTRPG players. I'd like to do a better job of that now, especially for those of you on the fence about backing.
"Internalize these 40 pages of lore, and then deploy their nuance during interactive play" is, IMO, a ridiculous proposition. It asks too much, of course, but worse it steals the joy of running and playing these games: imagination, improvisation, authorship. Your table owes nothing to printed modules or even gameplay systems that underpin its play; those things exist to serve your experience, during which they sustain their utility or quietly fall away. How many of your D&D sessions forgot about the dice? The best ones, right?
When we say that we "omit both crunch and fluff to spotlight actionable ideas," we mean that we write with purposeful restraint to provide the useful, inspiring kernels of novelty (for which experienced readers scan) and precisely nothing more—not because we don't think rich, elaborate narratives are interesting or good, but because we think they're yours to produce. That's what roleplaying is for; story is an emergent property of play. Similarly, on the mechanics front, we skip crunch because we know you're gonna repurpose these gameplay hooks anyway for your context (deeper still than which system you're running), and we trust you to do that well.
This is all to say that EM|NCD exists to support creativity; and when it comes to the volume of information in vignette-based material like Shrines, we believe that more would be much, much less.
Thank you again, and in touch,
James