Kickstarter Quick Picks are short looks at projects currently on Kickstarter that are of interest to me, and by extension, many of our GeekDad readers. A Quick Pick is not an endorsement of the Kickstarter campaign, nor have I (as yet) received any product copies to review. If you like what you see here, go check out the campaign and decide for yourself if you’d like to back it, or wait until GeekDad has had a chance to go hands-on. As always, caveat emptor- let the buyer beware.
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Epic Encounters: Local Legends is a 5e RPG supplement. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with several pledge levels. The least expensive option is an all-digital bundle, which is £17 (about $21 USD), and tops out at an all-in physical bundle for £131 (approximately $159). The campaign ends this Friday, July 8th at 10am PDT, and as of this writing has raised over $213K with 1,875 backers.
If you’ve read my previous coverage of Steamforged Games’ Epic Encounters series, you’ll know that the series indeed lives up to its name. Each box of Epic Encounters provides a Game Master with all the tools that they’ll need to easily incorporate premade NPCs and foes, and contains tips for the GM on how to incorporate the encounters into their campaigns.
With Epic Encounters: Local Legends, the designers are moving away from exotic locales, and focusing on one of the locations that adventurers inevitable find themselves: the tavern. In this Kickstarter, Steamforged Games is creating 10 unique taverns, ready to be dropped into any existing 5e campaign. Included are new rules, plot hooks, tavern games, and over 60 fully fleshed-out NPCs to incorporate into your roleplaying sessions.
At its most basic pledge level, the campaign has 3 different books: a Tavern book, an NPC book, and a “Pub Crawl” Adventure book. As you go up in level, you’ll receive tavern maps, NPC cards, and more. You can also choose pledge levels that incorporate highly-detailed miniatures specific to different tavern encounters. There are 38 miniatures altogether in the campaign, some of which you can see below:
For players of Bardsung: Legend of the Ancient Forge, a popular board game recently released by Steamforged Games, there are also cards, battlemaps, and an Adventure book specific to Bardsung available at different pledge levels.
I’m currently playing in a campaign of Dungeons & Dragons: Ghosts of Saltmarsh, where there are several taverns just in the town of Saltmarsh. Considering our adventuring party tends to, shall we say, color outside the lines when it comes to following story hooks, I’m sure my Dungeon Master would love to have the resources of Epic Encounters: Local Legends at his fingertips. It’s a fantasy roleplaying trope that many adventures start off at a tavern, but so many creators of adventures look at a tavern as an afterthought. With the pledge rewards from this Kickstarter campaign, you can easily have taverns as fully fleshed out and interesting as the other parts of your campaigns, complete with their own encounters. These taverns can be used as one-offs, or as a regular destination for the player characters.
Richard August, the lead RPG designer for Steamforged Games, describes the Epic Encounters series as a way to provide resources for Game Masters to help with roleplaying. While designed with the 5e OGL system in mind, Epic Encounters: Local Legends can be easily plugged into any RPG. And, as mentioned previously, it can also be used with the Bardsung board game!
While this campaign is focusing solely on taverns, the Local Legends part of Epic Encounters may see other common fantasy RPG locations receive the same treatment in the future. August said that he’d love to design a series of archetypal temples. Visiting your local cleric to get a curse removed or a party member resurrected would definitely become a lot more interesting were that to happen.
The Epic Encounters series is a fantastic resource for GMs, and I’m excited to see all the content in Local Legends. Given the quality I’ve seen in the series so far, I’m confident Steamforged Games is going to knock it out of the park.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Epic Encounters: Local Legends Kickstarter page! The Kickstarter ends July 8th.
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
This post was last modified on July 5, 2022 9:47 pm
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