Sounds like a brilliant idea to me.  Doing a fieldwork-based dissertation on a subject you love, and having a lot of it paid for, that's fantastic!

From what he indicates in the Kickstarter, the money will help to cover some of the travel costs to do research, and other expenses to produce the dissertation.

He also received a $2,000 research fellowship.

MetaSigma wrote in Kickstarter projects:Just a little puzzled. Why does someone need funding to complete their Ph.D.? Presumably these people have stipends through their universities (I did, anyway)? Isn't this just slightly unprofessional?

As others have mentioned, the scholarship isn't guaranteed or it may not cover all of his needs.  Also, this really helps a lot in his personal branding.  There is so much competition between new phds, especially in the humanities, right now that the more they can get themselves out there, become known and control their image the better their future may be in landing a post-doc or other job after graduating.

I'm still dithering on that one. There are just so many role playing systems. Seems to be a few launched every week on Kickstarter. In the last week:

This one from Japan went ballistic and was funded in the first day:

Ryuutama - Natural Fantasy Role-Playing Game by Andy Kitkowski — Kickstarter

This one  funded quickly too:

Orbis Terrarum RPG by Simon Clements & Dan Voyce — Kickstarter

This last is a little less polished:

The Fellwater Tales by Brendan Myers — Kickstarter

That being said, I think I may back the East Mark one and the Japanese one as they are established systems with good fan bases that are being translated.

I got the first installment on my Whisper and Venom Kickstarter today.  Awesome and spectacular job, Zach!  The pictures I've seen really haven't done justice to the map.  I can't wait to get the rest.

galladril wrote in Kickstarter projects:Interesting:

AD&D 1e Module: The Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen by Mark Taormino — Kickstarter

$50!

galladril wrote in Kickstarter projects:Interesting:

AD&D 1e Module: The Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen by Mark Taormino — Kickstarter

He's about to make the same mistake regarding the OGL that the burntwire brothers made on the first printing of Insidious. But in this case, WotC will have a pretty big window of opportunity to prevent it from getting into backers' hands in the form shown.

If you're going to back this, realize it has that additional challenge to surmount (beyond all the usual kickstarter-related challenges) in order to get into your hands as currently depicted.

bbarsh wrote in Kickstarter projects:There is also a little problem with using Vampire Queen. I am having a real hard time thinking this is not a complete rip-off attempt.

Sure it also has "Vampire Queen" in the name, but it doesn't seem at all like PotVQ, especially given the premise about escaping from the dungeon lair. And the whole Vampire Master thing. (Disclaimer: I've never read PotVQ, but I have read a review / description or two, so I might be totally wrong there.)

All that said, some of the cover & descriptive text appears to be directly lifted from my modules. If that's actually the case, I could hardly fault him for the legal disclaimer; that's probably just standard legal boilerplate that any lawyer would give anyway. But these blurbs on the kickstarter page...

"THE HANGING COFFINS OF THE VAMPIRE QUEEN includes complete descriptions and maps for several adventure sites and is easily adaptable to most campaign settings.
...
It is the first in a new series of modules designed for independent or interconnected use."

...are lifted directly from the back of my F1 module:

"THE FANE OF POISONED PROPHECIES includes complete descriptions and maps for several adventure sites and is easily adaptable to most campaign settings. It is the first in a new series of modules designed for independent or interconnected use."

So it will be ... interesting ... to see what's actually inside this thing if it survives the kickstarter.

That strikes me as pretty dodgy.  Pass.

Cubicle 7 launched its London boxed set kickstarted for Call of Cthulhu.

kickstarter.com/projects/461807648/cthu ... u-rpg-boxe