The Devil Made Us Do It

Design Is Complete; Check Out Some New Art!
over 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 01:12:05 AM

Greetings, Liars—

It’s been a few months since you lied Stealing Stories for the Devil (plus Who the Devil Are You? and The Devil’s Dandy Dogs) into existence. Since then we’ve been hard at work, and things are moving along exactly as we schemed.

Design work on Stealing Stories is complete. It has moved into the editing phase, and will transition from editing into layout before the end of the year. While Monte was working on design, Bear, our intrepid Art Director, has been wrangling art and other assets, and those have started coming in as well. We’ll show off a few pieces at the end of this update (but note that they might still be getting a few tweaks, so they’re not necessarily final.)

Who the Devil Are You? has also moved into editing—Monte completed design work on it recently, too. It’s included in the deluxe version of Stealing Stories, so production for Who the Devil Are You? is on pace with Stealing Stories itself.

Design work on The Devil’s Dandy Dogs continues progressing well. We’ve had several internal playtests that were loads fun!

We’ll continue to share news and previews for these games as they move toward completion.

Now, as promised, we have some art to share. But first:

A cursed moon hurtles through the multiverse, crashing from one plane to the next, never at rest, forever fleeing a catastrophe that predates existence itself. Behold the Planebreaker!

The Planebreaker visits all planes, all demiworlds, and all dimensions. Gods and demons, angels and mortals, undead and outsiders alike—all eventually see it streak across their realm. Some worlds visited by the moon are known to sages and planar travelers. But in a multiverse stretching across epochs, the number of previously uncatalogued planes is vast. The Planebreaker races through all of them, in time.

We’re excited to announce a new and exciting supplement for Fifth Edition and Cypher System adventurers: Path of the Planebreaker! Path of the Planebreaker is the lead title in the Planebreaker Kickstarter.

Path of the Planebreaker is a sourcebook that brings the wonders, terrors, mysteries, and treasures of new, alternate worlds—plus the inexplicable Planebreaker, an ever-traveling moon—to 5th edition and Cypher System players and GMs. It includes:

• Dozens of brand-new planes to explore and adventure in
• A bestiary of planar creatures
• Playable planar species for PCs
• New planar class options for players, including new subclasses
• Exciting new feats and spells to help you explore these new planes

This gorgeously illustrated hardcover gives you everything you need to add whole new dimensions to your game. And it’s on Kickstarter now!

Thanks again for your support!
—Team MCG

Crossing the Finish Line, Next Steps, and a Peek at Our Next Project
over 2 years ago – Sun, Aug 15, 2021 at 09:08:12 AM

Greetings Liars! You did it! Thank you for helping us bring three devilish roleplaying games to life!

Our final stretch goal was pretty darned ambitious—and we almost made it! Seems a shame to have missed it by such a narrow margin, so the Old Gent has suggested we make a deal. A bargain of sorts. In a couple of weeks we'll open BackerKit (more on that below). If we can generate $3,000 in additional pledges through BackerKit—very roughly the amount by which we missed the stretch goal—we'll call it a hit and unlock the actual play stream. So keep an eye out for the BackerKit announcement, and be ready to help spread the word and draw in a few more backers there!

We have some critical info for you, but here’s a little run down of Team MCG behind this Kickstarter, all of whom helped make this campaign a success:

Designers Monte and Shanna have been and continue to work hard on the games you’ve brought to life through this campaign (Stealing Stories for the Devil, Who the Devil Are You?, and The Devil’s Dandy Dogs); Bear (and the many great illustrators he works with) coordinated the artwork and handled the graphic design of this campaign; Teri and Tammie wrangled words and logistics; and Jen and LaTia interfaced with you, our wonderful community, here and everywhere gamers congregate online. The man behind the curtain of this campaign was Charles, who planned and ran this campaign, while Sean and Bruce, along with the rest of the team, provided support, valuable feedback, and encouragement—all while keeping our other projects humming along.

All of us want to thank you: the gamers who bring our imagined games and worlds to life. Your support means so much to us, and you make all that we do possible!

Here’s what to expect as we move forward from here.

This Evening and the Next Few Days

Running Kickstarter campaigns is rewarding in many ways, and we have greatly enjoyed interacting with you through these updates, the comments, social media, and so on. But it’s also a brutally hectic challenge to administer it all. And most of the MCG staff has been keeping up with our regular duties throughout—shipping your orders, bringing out books like Vertices, getting Claim the Sky and Break the Horizon through editing and into layout, and writing forthcoming titles like Ptolus: City of Adventures.

So, as we often do after a Kickstarter campaigns wind down, we’re taking a short break.

Don’t expect to hear much from us this weekend, or in the week or two ahead of us. If you have questions, feel free to send a Kickstarter message, but don’t be concerned if you don’t get a response right away. Production of Stealing Stories for the Devil and The Devil’s Dandy Dogs will take some time (they’re being written as we speak). If you do reach out during this time, you may need to wait a few days. But don’t worry—we WILL get back to you.

The Next Few Weeks

Kickstarter began collecting pledges the moment the campaign closed. But it takes Kickstarter a full two weeks to release those funds, along with the data on our backers.

In the meantime, we will get BackerKit fully set up so we can open it when we have that data. BackerKit is a third-party platform that lets you confirm all the information we need to fulfill your pledge. If there are add-ons you’d like to grab, or if you decide to increase your reward level, you can do that through BackerKit as well. You’ll be notified when we open BackerKit.

NOTE: Signing into BackerKit is vital to getting your rewards. Kickstarter does NOT provide us with the information we need to fulfill your rewards; we MUST gather it from you after the campaign. If you don’t respond to your BackerKit survey, we can’t send you any rewards!

The Next Few Months

Once you’ve done your BackerKit survey, we won’t need anything else from you until it’s time to start fulfilling rewards. We’ll be busy crafting the products and rewards you will be receiving in the months to come.

At times during this period, you won't hear from us, maybe for a couple of months. Don’t worry if that happens—we've delivered hundreds of rewards on time in the past, and we'll be working diligently on yours.

But at the same time, please pay attention when you do get communications from us. Our emails and Kickstarter updates include critical information about your rewards.

When Your Rewards Ship

Every time a reward is ready for you, we’ll contact you again by email to begin the fulfillment process. Generally, we’ll direct you to the MCG Shop, where you’ll log in, “buy” the product (for free with a coupon, because you’ve already paid for it through Kickstarter), and check out.

This is an important part of the process because it ensures we have accurate delivery information for every item we send out. (With thousands of backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) You'll pay for shipping at that time.

Make sure you're paying attention to communications from us—don't let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you could miss out on some of your rewards.

This was a wonderful Kickstarter campaign, and we are very happy you chose to be a part of it. Thank you all for your support, and for helping us bring reality-bending heists to your game table!

A Sneak Peek Into our Next Project…

While Monte and Shanna are busy for the next while, Bruce has been cooking up ideas for our next Kickstarter project: a 5E-compatible product dealing with the planes and weird dimensions. 

Here’s a sneak peek from the designer himself:

A cursed moon hurtles through the multiverse, crashing from one plane to the next, never at rest, forever fleeing a catastrophe predating existence. Behold the Planebreaker.

The Planebreaker visits all planes, all demiworlds, and all dimensions. Gods and demons, angels and mortals, and undead and outsiders alike eventually see it streak across their realm. Some worlds visited by the moon are known to sages and planar travelers. But the number of previously uncatalogued planes is vast. The Planebreaker races through each of them, eventually, and Path of the Planebreaker is a chronicle of many of these alternate worlds.

Path of the Planebreaker is a sourcebook for 5th edition players and GMs to bring the wonders of over a hundred mysterious new alternate worlds (including the inexplicable Planebreaker itself), planar creatures, and new planar class options for players to their campaigns, including new subclasses, feats, spells, and player character species options. This gorgeously illustrated hardcover sourcebook gives you everything you need to add whole new dimensions to your 5e game.

Look out for the Planebreaker Kickstarter to break through in the late Fall!

Thanks again for your support!

—Team MCG

New Stretch Goal: Streaming Stories for the Devil
over 2 years ago – Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 09:23:36 PM

Greetings Liars! Happy Friday the 13th—featuring our 13th update! (It’s almost as if the Devil is in the details.) We’re finishing strong and have unlocked yet one more stretch goal: The Soul’s Arrow for the Devil’s Dandy Dogs!

In these final hours, let’s shoot for one last goal: Streaming Stories for the Devil! At $350K, we’ll unlock an actual play series of Stealing Stories for the Devil with Monte Cook as the GM!

The best way to help us hit this goal is to spread the word about this project and tag your social posts with #BlameTheDevil!

Thanks again for your support, and we’ll see you on the other side of the finish line!

Team MCG

Stretch Goal Unlocked—Last Push for More!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 05:24:54 PM

We’re in our final days, Liars, and we’re going for a strong finish with this project!

Stealing Stories for the Devil is now overflowing with even more GM resources. These are added to the standard version as single-page-sized resources, and to the deluxe version in an upgraded format—which in many cases means enlarged to poster-sized!

While we approach the last day of the project, we’ve still got more time for stretch goals! How about another upgrade to The Devil’s Dandy Dogs?

In The Devil’s Dandy Dogs, players use the tarot-sized cards not just to create characters, but also in generating the setting and adventure start, as well as guiding the narrative throughout gameplay. The Soul’s Arrow guides the placement of the cards as the story unfolds. At $320K, we’ll add a Soul’s Arrow to the game—a poster-like play surface that guides the placement of cards. But wait, there’s more! We’ll also increase the number of cards in the box, bringing the total close to 100.

At the rate we’re going, we can unlock this stretch goal (and even more!) before it’s all over. Spread the word and #BlameTheDevil!

Our friends at Cypher Unlimited have been interviewing some of the MCG team over on YouTube.  The most recent one was with Stealing Stories for the Devil’s mastermind himself, Monte Cook! Check out the interview and share it with your gaming friends on social media, and don’t forget to tag your social posts with #BlametheDevil!

Thanks again for your support!

Team MCG

New Stretch Goal Revealed; The Devil's Dandy Dogs Dice Unlocked!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 10:43:01 PM

Thanks to your ceaseless support, you Liars have unlocked the dice for The Devil’s Dandy Dogs!

Every physical copy of The Devil’s Dandy Dogs will now include three standard six-sided dice and a custom Temptation die, to accompany the rules and tarot-sized cards!

We are in the final days of this campaign, but there’s still plenty of time to hit more stretch goals and unlock more upgrades.

Stealing Stories for the Devil‘s zero-prep system works largely because of its structure, and the collaborative way heists are created. It doesn’t hurt that the GM has a load of handy resources, though. Does your heist take place in a hotel? The game comes with a couple of maps detailing hotels of different sizes and types—just pick one that fits the scenario, and your heist is already mapped out! Need to case a museum or sneak something out of a bank or mansion? You’ll have some floorplans to form your plan. In the standard edition, these are handy page-sized double-sided sheets; in the deluxe edition many of them are poster-sized.

So far, we’ve increased the GM resources included in Stealing Stories for the Devil a couple of times, but there’s literally no limit to the benefit these provide to fleshing out a zero-prep game, so with this stretch goal we’re going to add roughly half a dozen more. This upgrade will be unlocked at $290,000, so share this Kickstarter with friends on social media!

Need something that showcases how cool Stealing Stories is? Our friends at HyperRPG just did a playthrough of Stealing Stories on Twitch! It’s the perfect way to see the game in action and show your friends why they should be excited too! Don’t forget to tag your social posts with #BlametheDevil!

Thanks again for your support!

Team MCG