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Delvers to Grow (Dungeon Fantasy RPG, Powered by GURPS)

Created by Douglas H. Cole

Fast, modular character generation. Would-be heroes from 62 points and higher as player characters, henchmen, or supporting cast.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Ballistic’s Report for Week Ending July 31
over 2 years ago – Sun, Aug 01, 2021 at 12:17:56 PM

Missed the July 23 update, so this one is again two weeks, covering July 17 through 31.

A bunch got done, but it was mostly incremental. They were good increments, though.

  • All files from Delvers to Grow were finalized, printed, and distributed on DriveThruRPG. There are still a few stragglers that need a file or two, and nearly all of those were caused by weirdness in how Kickstarter interfaces with Backerkit on addons.
  • I got all of the DtG core books from Mixam. They’re currently awaiting the other books, which are on schedule to arrive Aug 4.
  • I dug into international shipping and it was more or less a mess, as per usual. Costs are going to run about twice what I collected. I don’t say this to ask for more money (I’m not) or make you feel sad for me (you shouldn’t), but the challenges involved will change the strategy going forward for international books.
  • The Omnibus edition was successfully edited down to 96 pages, and is pretty nifty. That’s arriving Aug 4 as well.
  • I didn’t exactly announce it, but the next TFT project is going to be David Pulver’s Tower of the Moon, and I’ve already got it in layout, working on art.
  • I’ve made substantial progress on a new Dragon Heresy item as well.

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here's the weekly update on Patreon status.

  • Membership status:     50 patrons and $345 per month.
  • Special Content:     Surveyed Patrons and let them weigh in on what GB will do next in my      various market segments. This also revealed several new products by intent.      The pre-art layout of Tower of the Moon, along with some cover images.      Patreon members got the PDF of the 96-page Delvers to Grow Omnibus as well.      I also showed the results of some of my new sword-making process. That’s      harder to give away by PDF, tho.

Gained a few patrons since last time!

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Project where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

  • Delvers to Grow: Core, Fast, Smart, Strong, Omnibus,      and Krusuvik delivered via DriveThrRPG.
  • Delvers to Grow: Core Book in the house; all other      books schedule to arrive Aug 4. Shipping will commence immediately      following.

Crowdfunding

Delvers to Grow(Launched Friday May 7 at 10am Central Time, Ended May 25 at 9pm Central)

  • DtG is down to two physical orders who still need to      fill out surveys. Once I get to the end of fulfillment, I will refund      those orders and that’s that.
  • All five books are in backers’ hands in PDF format.

Product Announcements

The full Product Cataloggot revised a bit. I also developed an order form, which is available upon request and was sent to a lot of retailers.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

  • Tower of the Moon, by David Pulver with maps by Thomas Denmark, is in an advanced state of production. Layout is done. Art is underway. Maps are underway. Not sure what vector will be used to deliver this one ... I have some alternative to Kickstarter in mind here.
  • I made significant progress on      laying out a new Dragon Heresy book, this one containing 20 backgrounds      for the setting. I don’t think that is going to come out on its own. I      have other things I want to pull together for more Dragon Heresy support.
  • This isn’t precisely RPGs...but I did some work on      developing my sword-making skills in terms of hickory training swords for      HEMA. They consist of two types
    • All-wood trainers that usually weigh about a pound,       and
    • Weighted trainers that have metal in their core to reproduce       the balance and weight real swords.
    • The results of both development efforts have been very       successful. My latest all-wood training sword can be seen in the image to       the right, and It’s a joy to handle. And look at. Even if I say so       myself. You can see how far I’ve come. A sword like that will sell for       $100, with shipping anywhere in the USA running about $20.
    • The weighted trainers bring a       different feel to the weapon, one more akin to steel. You can’t duplicate       the resonance and feel of steel, really ... but these are getting close. I’ve       made two for paying clients, and thus far they love them. One was 27.5”       blade, 1.65 lbs, balance at 6” from the crossguard. The other was 31”       blade, 1.85 lbs, balance at 6.5” from the crossguard. I’ve also made one       with a 29.25” blade, 6.5” balance, 2.45 lbs based off of the Anglo-Saxon       sword from Arms       and Armor (they’re such a good resource!).

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

  • The international order pricing was a mess. While I covered the details in this Kickstarter Update, the short version is that things were more expensive than I thought, and while I might print some books in the UK for shipment within those borders (and maybe the EU), the mix for Canada and Australia was such that it was not feasible to try that process there. No price breaks either, as shipping is currently estimated to be as much as 2× what was charged.
  • This tweet by Nolan Nasser on July 28 is indicative of what’s going on. Over the last year, prices for 40-foot containers from China have risen from $2,000 or $3,000 for a full container to $21,000. Not only is it expensive, but the actual containers are hard to find (this impacted my wife’s work, and she’s involved in biogas remediation from cow poop ... they can’t find containers to ship purchased equipment) Granted, Gaming Ballistic isn’t in that boat (so to speak) because my scale is smaller than that, and I print in Europe if I ever get orders that large (I have, twice, in the past). But there are paper shortages, supply chain faults, etc. All of this has driven up costs “below the waterline” in ways that are impossible to predict. As Korg said, “the only thing that makes sense ... is that nothing makes sense.” Words of wisdom from perishable rock.
  • The something from fair winds last time didn’t pan out. This is why one doesn’t mention these things.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

  • There’s something else in the works that seems more likely. Can’t say.
  • I spoke with at least two authors about products in the future. One of them is likely something we can do this year, while the next is probably 2022.

Omnibus arrived!
over 2 years ago – Sun, Aug 01, 2021 at 07:53:10 AM

What it says. The 96-page Omnibus is in the house!

DriveThruRPG Distribution: Should be Complete
over 2 years ago – Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 02:32:06 PM

Pretty much what it says on the tin. All y'all should have all of the PDF files you purchased in a DriveThru account. You probably got anywhere from 1 to 14 emails (sorry!) with your files.

If you don't see something you're expecting ... please first check to ensure you actually ordered it. I'm not saying sometimes folks forget what they ordered ... but sometimes folks forget what they ordered.

Once you check, if you STILL don't have what you bought, ping me and I'll fix it.

Omnibus? What Omnibus?
over 2 years ago – Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 02:31:31 PM

Omnibus edition?

So, at some point during the campaign, someone expressed the interest in having a "shelf-worthy" single volume. Others liked the ability to pass around all the books (and when I was doing KS planning, that was what I based my decisions on, with my own experience in wishing I had MORE copies of the various Dungeon Fantasy RPG sub-volumes to pass around the table at conventions).

So after doing some analysis, mid-campaign I added the omnibus as an add-on. As it turns out, the core book came in a few pages under what I thought, the example books came in over, and when all was said and done, the omnibus came in - with no small amount of digital gruntwork - at exactly 96 pages. This happens to be a very friendly number for the future.

In any case: I got 53 orders of this compound volume, and (over) sized the print run at 100 books. So there are 47 of these left unclaimed.

If you missed an update, or decide you want the extra, we can talk. One thing I cannot do is replace your four small books with the omnibus. That way lies chaos and madness. 

But if you want something with printing on the spine, and all the books in one (though the 96-page layout makes the indexing unique to the omnibus book)...there are 43 copies left to put yer mits on. 

Loot I say! Loot!

The Omnibus Edition is only available in softcover format, and is $30 while the Kickstarter/Backerkit is on. Eventual retail price will be $32.99.

What's the Deal with DriveThruRPG?
over 2 years ago – Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 02:30:58 PM

OK, now that I've got pretty much everything done but the actual delivery of the books (first to me, then to you), I wanted to talk about PDF delivery via DriveThru...thanks to ParagonLostInSpace for being persistent about this.

  • I'd truly love to deal with all of the updates through my website, but WordPress/WooCommerce is, well, awful. It's free, which is good, but it's crushingly slow, and I never quite know what's going on it its head, so to speak. So that's not a great way to deliver files to backers, although it's not bad for what it was designed for: giving customers what they want when they buy it.
  • Backerkit makes it super easy to send out files as long as a project is open, but you have to be careful about burying backers in "which are the ones I need?" and it's only been in the last two campaigns that I discovered you can go in and prune the downloads list so that ONLY the most recent version of a file exists there. I've been doing that with the errata updates for Delvers. Failing that, I date all my update files: that's what the u20210714 is all about. You always want the latest file. Even so...once the project closes...that's that. I have to open it to send out anything more, and that can get ugly (I once got a late international order for a project I closed and had to open briefly. How that happened, I've no idea, but it did).
  • Gaming Ballistic is not Steve Jackson Games. I have no access to Warehouse23 and no ability to put files there. The odds of mingling the lines of responsibility and accountability with me keeping my customers on SJGames website are zero. Not just because they'd say no (which they should), but I wouldn't want to cross the streams like that either!

That leaves DriveThruRPG. 

They have a very good auto-updating system, and a comp-copy delivery methodology that isn't bad. You do have to do it one file at a time, and appending names to the list is something that requires a lot of tracking. 

So, the best way to do this is to wait until almost the very end (which I've done), and then go through a backer list one file at a time, sending out comp copies for every file. This is very tedious, but not difficult. If you don't have an account on DriveThru, you'll have to make one I think. Should I ever update that file, though...you'll get an email saying it's been updated and can easily download a new one. 

That's why it's taken so long to get to this step. It simply is more chaos than I can handle being a one-man shop to do it piecemeal. But it's on my list of to-dos, and it's on my list for to-day.