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RPG Sidequest Decks

Created by Inkwell Ideas

Every card is a mini-adventure! Map on one side, outline on the other: GM info, story hooks, encounter plot points, & follow up ideas. Our Kickstarter was to make four new sidequest decks to expand the 11 we made previously (15 in all). And because two of the new Sidequest Decks are related to our previous 9 NPC Decks, you can pick any of those as well. The four new Sidequest Decks are Monster Hunts, Coastal Town Quests, Frontier Town Quests, and Pulp Adventures.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

$120K Hit: Monster Hunts Deck Is Now 72 Cards (no extra cost) & Help Us Do More!
about 3 years ago – Mon, May 03, 2021 at 03:47:13 AM

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to you, we just hit our $120K stretch goal--so as the title says, we're now making the Monster Hunts Sidequest Deck 72 cards at no extra cost to you!  This gives us even more variety for the monsters to include in this deck.

I did juggle around the 6"x6" battlemats deck stretch goal.  After considering it further, the battlemats for these are mostly already going to be created for the two town Sidequest Decks so it didn't make sense to make it a separate stretch goal.  Therefore, we've revised the $140K stretch goal to make the PDF & printed 6"x6" card deck. Previously the $140K goal was the digital version only and the $160K goal was the printed 6"x6" cards.

To keep interest going though, we've added other goals at $10K increments. At $130K (between $120K & $140K) we'll increase the Frontier Town Sidequest Deck to 63 cards. And at $150K we'll increase the Coastal Town Sidequest Deck to 63 cards.  For the additional cards, several of the new cards' sidequests will be related to a special threat or event. However, because they are outlines you'll still be able to use them as one-offs.

The Frontier Town will have The Depthless Pit. A vast sinkhole yawns open near the town overnight. What caused the chasm to open, and what new dangers await?  These questions haunt those above, and those below...

Several of our Coastal Town's additional cards will feature The Sea Screams. The storm to end all storms rises on the  open ocean, smashing ships and scattering aquatic life. Trade is  disrupted and nature is displaced. If the storm makes landfall, its winds will scour civilization from the coast. Will  the port close for good?  

See the new "Stretch Goal" graphic on the main page for more goals.  By making most of the stretch goals "no extra cost" we hope you'll be excited to share the project with your friends and on-line communities & help us achieve as many of the goals as possible!

Here is our recent tweet you can retweet/share.  Or our facebook post.  And here is the instagram post. We also recently posted a reddit.com/r/DND thread.

Thank you!  You're definitely going to find these decks very useful for your games.

Joe

Stretch Goals
about 3 years ago – Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 05:24:33 PM

We've just listed our next couple of stretch goals.  I shouldn't be surprised that larger decks option was the clear favorite of the survey so far.  Right now we're at the cusp of the $100,000 stretch goal to expand each of the decks to 56 cards!  Here are the next couple that we just added to the main Kickstarter page:

  • $120,000: Our Monster Hunts Sidequest Deck will be expanded to 72 cards at no extra cost!
  • $140,000: We'll make a PDF of 40+  building battlemats based on the buildings in our two town sidequest decks. These also have no extra cost for anyone backing either of the  two town sidequest decks.

From there, we'll do a mix of making those building battlemats into printed 6"x6" cards, expanding them to 54 or 60 cards, as well as expanding the other decks.  We'll also continue looking at the previous update's survey to see if anything else gets more momentum.

These stretch goals don't require you to pledge any extra to the project... therefore to hit these goals I need your help reaching out to others to bring more people into the project.  Please follow @InkwellIdeas on facebook & twitter and (re)tweet/share about the project. We've just posted about the project on Reddit's RPG board too if you're a regular there. If you know of a blog or podcast or something we should reach out to (or you have one!) please post a comment or send a private message.

Thank you!  We're really trying hard to make these decks be a great resource for your games!

Joe

$50K! & Stretch Goal Ideas/Suggestions
about 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 05:34:52 PM

Wow!  This is now our highest funded Kickstarter ever, and our first one was a full 10 years ago.  Thank you for your support!  I know you're going to find the final products useful.

Here is a list of our possible stretch goals:

  • Two extra cards (54 -> 56) for each of the 4 new decks.
  • Plastic case option for each individual deck.
  • Large plastic case for holding several (6-8) decks, perhaps something holding many decks.
  • PDF of many buildings in each of our two towns. The two town sidequest cards will have many of these, but this PDF will have more.  Battlemat maps will be scaled so one square = 1" when printed and be 300dpi.
  • Printed battlemat scale cards of the buildings (these will likely be on 5"x5" or 6"x6" cards so most buildings can fit on one card, but for some you may put a couple together).

Please post a comment with which of these you like as well as any other ideas you have.  I'm meeting with our printer on Monday to discuss the pros and cons of the above and any other suggestions you have. We should have some announced shortly.

Thanks  again!

Joe

First Stretch Goal Announced (56 card decks!) & Input Wanted
about 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 03:34:07 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

First 24 Hours! Introduction! Our Store! Stretch Goals! FAQ!
about 3 years ago – Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 05:27:56 PM

Hi Folks,

Thank you for joining us on this adventure!  I KNOW you're going to love the final products. We get tons of compliments on these and they consistently sell well at any convention we visit.

Since this is the first time we've really embraced marketing, we're new to many of you so I feel introductions are in order. If you'd like just the key & non-bio points, look for the bold text.

Bio

I'm Joe Wetzel, the owner/founder of Inkwell Ideas. I've been playing tabletop RPGs since 1983 with a few of the other kids on my street. (It was almost exactly like Stranger Things.) I live in Virginia, and I'm married and we have two girls--15 & almost 13 years old.  I'm assisted & supported on this project by Aaron Canton, Keith Curtis, Misha Handman, Josh Parry, and Andrew Shields.  Their short bios are all near the bottom of the main project page.

Company Background

I founded Inkwell Ideas in 2005, but it was just a blog for a few years until I created Hexographer (world/kingdom map software) in 2008. That was followed by Dungeonographer (for dungeons and other battlemats) and Cityographer (generates and lets you create/edit cities & villages). Eventually all three were re-written and combined to Worldographer 3-4 years ago.  I still work on it and make updates with new features every month.

In between all of that we did Creature Decks--monster cards--for various game systems (Pathfinder, Fate, Dungeon World, 1e/OSR, and 5e) as well as Magic Item cards for 5e--all of the 5e cards were before the official ones were announced. The most recent were licensed conversions of Kobold Press's monster books as cards.

But our three biggest non-software projects were DungeonMorphs (Dungeon/cavern designs and later city/village designs engraved on 1" d6 dice), and these Sidequest Decks and our NPC Portraits Decks.  Late last year we expanded and improved the NPC decks, this Kickstarter expands the Sidequest Decks, and you can bet our next project--once this is out--will be something new with the DungeonMorphs.

Stretch Goals

So for stretch goals, we wanted to see how things settle after the first couple of days before announcing anything.  We have a few stretch goal ideas in mind, but we're open to suggestions. While we likely have the time to do an additional deck or two split among our writers and cartographers, I'm leaning to limiting the scope and not doing something like that.  I think we're better off with upgrades and digital additions to what we've already got planned. A couple of you have already suggested a couple of things along these lines such: as a PDF of any battlemat maps at 1"/square size (in addition to the 75 pixel/square png/jpg versions we've already committed to making; an upgraded deck box for folks getting all 15 decks.

You Don't Have To Wait For The Prior Decks

If you'd like to get any of the Sidequest Decks or the NPC Decks we've already created early (or even check out the DungeonMorph dice and Creature Decks mentioned above) you can get them via our store.  We'll send them out within one business day.  Note that shipping from our store won't include VAT--however, the Kickstarter shipments will include it for the countries listed on the main Kickstarter project page. (This Kickstarter will be the first time we're working with distributors in other countries.)

FAQ Update

We did make one addition to the FAQ that I should note: If you're backing for a particular number of Sidequest decks, you will be able to substitute in NPC decks.  So if you back for 10 Sidequest Decks, you'll be able to pick 7 Sidequests and 3 NPC decks if you wish.  Or if you want 12 overall (say 7 and 5 for example), pick the 10 Sidequest level and 2 add-on decks of either type.

I think that wraps up this long update.  Thank you again for your support!  Stick with us--the Sidequest Decks will be awesome and very helpful for your games.

Joe