(Kickstarter) Kingdom Death Monster 1.5

[Charlie_]

I must say I'm rather perplexed by this, but mostly because I find the kickstarter website somewhat bewildering. I can never really seem to navigate it to find out quite what the product is with photos to explain it easily!

So, is this a board game?

Are the miniatures required, or just extras for those who like miniatures instead of cards and counters?

From what I was able to see after finally finding some pictures of the miniatures after trawling through all the kickstarter crap.... Those monsters look cool! Very good sculpts, and really creepy and unique (i.e. awesome) concepts.

But yeah I'm truly shocked at the amount of money and apparent supporters this thing has apparently raised!!!!!

[FramFramson]

Well, Japan may have been producing stuff like that for ages, but not in 28mm.

[Ray Rivers]

Yearly mini budgets blown in one go!

Personally I was going to pick up the basic game as I almost did the first time around. Gave it another pass, but it wasn't because of the cost. The miniatures are absolutely magnificent.

But my philosophy on miniatures has changed considerably over the years. I no longer hoard miniatures or revel in my lead mountain. In fact the opposite is true. I now look at my lead mountain and shake my head wondering why I bought all those miniatures that I will never paint.

Today, I buy as I paint. I won't buy anything until I have actually painted the stuff I have already bought. But when I do buy, I'm looking for quality and am willing to the pay the price that comes with that.

I think many underestimate the high end miniatures market... especially here at LAF.

[Malebolgia]

Played 4 games (and settlement phases in between) yesterday and absolutely loved every minute of it. The game system works well, it's brutal, unforgiving, insane, hilarious, freaky, sometimes very random, very original and most of all, a lot of fun. There will be moments when you roll a d10, roll a 1 and your favorite character dies from something awkward. That can be mind blowing... and often hilarious.
I am also blown away by the 12.4 million bucks, but I am very happy my mate pledged. Really looking forwards to playing this frequently. A unique experience.

[The Voivod]

Well, we definetly have different tastes there.
I always hate insta-kill monsters in RPG's as well. Never faced a cockatrice or something similar in any campaign ever.
We don't mind character deaths, but it must be because you screwed up ( or in some cases: heroic sacrifice).
Just rolling a dice and lose a character that way? hate it!

But than again: the cockatrice has been staple of the monsters manual for ages, so some people probably play it....

[ecurtz]

I've seen the game-play on beast of war and am far from impressed. Either very little decision making (hunting) or random as all $&^&.

...

I've personally sunk about 300 euro's in two Myth kickstarters each and plan on backing the third
But the ammount of money being spend here in one go: wow.

Everyone has their own criteria for backing these big games. I got the first Myth Kickstarter and think it's absolute garbage but plenty of people were very happy with it. There were 10,000 units in the original run of KD:M and at least 5,500 of the upgrade kits were sold during this campaign, so most people (myself included) seem to be enjoying it at least enough to invest another $60. I do think that some of the all-in people who hadn't actually played got caught up in the hype and might be disappointed to have spent so much, but the core game at KS pricing is a solid purchase.

[rwwin]

I always hate insta-kill monsters in RPG's as well. Never faced a cockatrice or something similar in any campaign ever.
We don't mind character deaths, but it must be because you screwed up ( or in some cases: heroic sacrifice).
Just rolling a dice and lose a character that way? hate it!

That's the biggest thing you need to wrap your head around to actually enjoy KDM instead of being frustrated by it.  KDM isn't an RPG and your survivors aren't designed to be avatars for yourself in the game.  They're designed to be finite resources in building your settlement.  The game has RPG elements, you name survivors, build their skills and give them gear.  Even when none of the random bad things happen to a survivor, they accumulate injuries and insanity along with experience and then just plain get old.  Even if beloved survivors make it into the late game, most of them have to be put out to pasture because their liabilities outweigh all the experience.

I get that style goes against the natural tendencies of tried and true RPG play and won't be for everyone, but it's a conscious design feature, not an unintended consequence of poor design.

I contrast it with my other favorite sprawling messy train wreck of a kickstarter game, Shadows of Brimstone.  I end up playing a lot of it with my kids and they love it.  Monsters are stupid, characters turn into superheroes and hardly ever die.  Even if you do die, if your party has enough can they can resurrect you.  They both scratch a different itch for me and are both enjoyable on their own terms.

[Malebolgia]

Well said!
I've seen many reactions about it being a lackluster RPG or dungeon crawler, which it plainly isn't. It's all about survival in that dark, brooding and freaky world of Kingdom Death. In the end everybody will die and the settlement will (probably) get wiped, but it's mostly a matter of hanging on as long as you can. I'm a real novice, so don't know if you can "win" the game, but going by the theme and the way it plays I think not.

I have played three survivors yesterday. The first got a broken leg in the prologue encounter (and he was promoted to the town elder doing all the fancy stuff in town), the second one received an injury which prevented him in playing the third game, in the third game I had a survivor who did quite well...and in the fourth game I took the second one out and he was utterly butchered by...the Butcher. Loved every moment of it .

[ced1106]

Yearly mini budgets blown in one go!

Forget the budget -- how long will it take to paint these???