Path to Orek: Tomb-raiding adventure for Pathfinder 1E/2E

Next stop: The Hobgoblin's Fortress
over 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 09, 2024 at 04:13:40 PM

Our current Kickstarter campaign, which includes Found by the Way #13: Path to the Hobgoblin's Fortress, has entered its last full week and we still have a ways to go. We're only about 2/3 of the way to funding and pledge activity has been effectively stalled since week 1. So I thought I would reach out to as many past backers as I dare to make one last attempt at goosing this thing. If you have any interest left at all in the series, I could sure use your help right now. There's still an awful lot of room left on the bandwagon.

It seems that I last used the updates to this campaign to pitch what was meant to be the first and only campaign for Path to the Hobgoblin's Fortress. You may or may not know that that turned into a bit of a debacle because I did not cope artfully with Kickstarter's new form for launching a new campaign and I mistakenly set all reward tiers to be invisible until the end of the campaign. :0 So I cancelled, corrected and relaunched. The link above takes you to the corrected and relaunched campaign.

I must admit that I'm surprised and disappointed that Path to the Hobgoblin's Fortress isn't doing better right now, especially since I tried to make clear that I have been persuaded to keep supporting Pathfinder 1E for the foreseeable future, alongside Pathfinder 2E. One of the benefits of hitting the convention circuit is that people tell you about what they play, how they play it and why they made those choices. I think that sums it up. I have also noticed that our Pathfinder-compatible sales have been up this year, which suggests that the player base is growing (although a fellow with the Los Angeles chapter of the Pathfinder Society who stopped by our table at Gateway Con hinted that the numbers have fluctuated over the last year or two). I know money is tight these days, but we'll reserve you a PDF copy for less than what a gallon of gasoline costs right now. Is Found by the Way losing its mojo after an all-too-brief flicker of post-OGL Crisis enthusiasm? I hope not. I have no desire to stop writing it. But it's also hard to justify writing these modules if they're just going to meet with indifference.

Back in business!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 01:25:27 AM

Hello, and I hope the tail end of summer finds you doing well. Goodness knows, the season has passed awfully quickly. But that always seems to be the case, and the older I get the harder it seem to be to grab its arm for a moment and just savor its presence.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that Ramen Sandwich Press will be back on Kickstarter soon, this time with another Found by the Way module: Path to the Hobgoblin's Fortress. I have already discussed it a couple of times in my Substack, here and here. BTW, my Substack is probably the best way to keep up with the latest from Ramen Sandwich Press, and announcements and design diary-type stuff will remain free to everyone even after I put up the paywall. As prior backers, you will probably get a notification from Kickstarter when the campaign goes live, but I'll post it to Substack as well.

As I've mentioned several times (most recently here) our Pathfinder sales have gotten a nice boost this year, and all of a sudden we feel more confident that Pathinder-compatible books are a good bet for us. So we're going back to how we used to handle Found by the Way on Kickstarter. We'll run a campaign for a single module concept, and you'll have the chance to choose between the Pathfinder version and the D&D 5E version at the backer survey stage. Or you can get both versions, we won't stop you from buying more!

Kickstarter is reviewing the campaign right now, so we should be able to launch soon. I look forward to hearing from you again!

Exposing myself: I'm now blogging on Substack
over 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 01, 2023 at 09:25:57 AM

I hope the end of summer finds all of you well. Personally, I am astounded to realize that it's September already and that the summer season is over; if I wasn't setting up at Gateway Con today, I wouldn't believe it.

I just wanted to pass along a couple of bits of news, the first being that Severed Heads and Broken Blades, our guide to critical hits and fumbles, arrived from the printer this past week. If you missed the Kickstarter, we'll make it available to the public soon enough; in fact we'll have some print copies available at Gateway Con this weekend:

The other bit of news I want to share is that we're moving my blog, "I Think We've Been Playing It Wrong," from our website to Substack, where I hope it will get more attention. I'm going back to my original plan for the blog, which is to post 2-3 times each week about games, the gaming life, and my other nerdy interests. Plus, I will mix in some original work not directly related to RPGs. At the moment, all posts are free and public, but eventually I will put up a paywall. At that point, some posts will remain free and public (quick reacts to gaming news, announcements about Ramen Sandwich Press, previews of works in progress) and some will be paid subscriber exclusives (game reviews, event recaps with photos, deep-dive essays). As past supporters of my work (I am still and always will be grateful to you), I invite you to give it a look and help me out a bit by subscribing. Substack blogs are delivered by email (Substack likes to call them newsletters), but if the frequency becomes annoying I'll try to set up a weekly digest, or you can just mark the emails as spam.

Enjoy the autumn and don't take the time we have for granted. Get in some gaming, have at least a little fun — it all passes so quickly (or at least it does at my age).

Get your severed heads right here!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 01:19:16 PM

Greetings to you all and I hope the beginning of summer finds you well! Just wanted to use the update system to give you a heads-up that we'll be back on Kickstarter very soon — sometime this coming week, as soon as KS approves the project. It's a modest (100 pages in 6x9 format, almost all of them devoted to results tables) system for critical hits and fumbles called Severed Heads and Broken Blades. As a past backer of a Ramen Sandwich Press project, you'll probably get an email from Kickstarter once the campaign launches, but I just wanted to give you some advance notice. See you soon!

Check your spam filter
almost 3 years ago – Wed, May 10, 2023 at 12:37:18 PM

All of the print rewards have hit the mail and are on their way; many of them will be delivered by the end of the week. As of just a few minutes ago, download links have been sent to everyone who is due PDF rewards. Backerkit is handling all of the modules, the 2E conversion notes and Tome of the Utility Drawer, and Book of Hidden Paths (and Book of Chance Meetings, for those of you who seem to be keeping a foot in both systems) are being sent as complimentary copies from DriveThru RPG.

....

So that's it, right? I think it is. If any of you have problems with delivery of your orders, please let me know, of course. Other than that, this campaign is pretty much wrapped up. Thank you again for your support, and I look forward to writing and publishing more Pathfinder-compatible products for your enjoyment. In fact, we're still on track to bring Severed Heads and Broken Blades to Kickstarter soon.

If any of you are going to Gateway Con in Los Angeles later this month, look for the Ramen Sandwich table in the Dealers Room and say hello!