Silly Spelunking Addendum

At the time of writing, Onyx Path's crowdfunding campaign for The World Below is in its final stretch. It's done very well for itself, especially considering it's a new IP in a new series of tabletop RPGs.

A month or so ago I did a review of the preview quickstart for The World Below, and while I was positive on it overall, there were definitely some concerns that came up. Consider this an addendum to my ashcan review, as I go over my thoughts while taking a long glance at the draft manuscript.

The Lore Still Kicks Ass

No surprise there. The draft continues the quality stuff I read from the ashcan and expands the world greatly while still leaving room for exploration.

Chapter One is an obvious highlight; it gives readers a drive-by of the important and banal aspects of life in this world, told from the perspective of the people living in it. More than a good chunk of other TTRPG books I've read, it goes through great lengths to make its setting feel lived in. Some of it, like the "fantasy swear chart", is a little silly, but the flavoring is still appreciated. Others, like details on the various "games" people do to pass the time, the contrasting viewpoints on basic facts—it's all bang-on.

Onyx Path likes to do the vague "who knows what's real or not, oohhhh" postering you see in the classic White Wolf books. It's not to everyone's taste, though in The World Below, I think the ratio of fact and rumor is balanced well. In fact, the rumors make for cool character hooks to build PCs or adventure hooks to build campaigns around, again all thanks to how grounded the world is. No pun intended. They feel deliberate and inspiring, not thrown out there for the sake of style.

I won't go into a whole lot of detail on stuff that wasn't in the ashcan, but I have to give all the writers props for crafting some amazing lore, and that's not praise I give lightly. It's hard for me to not think up adventures and campaigns while reading through it.

Might as well also mention that, while I didn't read anything that confirmed my Conspiracy Theory, nothing outright denied it either. The truth is out there, folks, and my ever-vigilant eyes will find it, one way or the other...

Momentum Is The Same, Unfortunately

This was the mechanic that blemished an otherwise solid system, and in the draft manuscript, it's unchanged. Though there's more Momentum Generators to chew through, it only confirmed my earlier grievances with its inconsistencies. Likewise, Bolster has the same ceiling of Hits that can be invested into it.

I can't accept it's just a me-being-weird thing. Savage Worlds: Adventure Edition, for example, has a metacurrency with elements that I look for, and the fact that it's a much more mature system means that they must be doing something right with it. The amount players get is controllable, meaning GMs can set the mood and pace as well as reward players for behavior they want to see. Much more importantly, success is not guaranteed, since most of what you can invest Bennies into are rerolls.

Basically, players don't get metacurrency for rolling really well, nor can they spend it on auto-successes.

Ultimately, Momentum is just not the metacurrency I expect. It's bizarre that they make it so easy to succeed when it's already easy to score hits, especially with the minor tweaks they did—like, seriously, a 3d10 roll has a 65.7% chance of at least one Hit. For sure, I think this needs a rethink, because the other rules are solid otherwise.

The Release Concerns

I dedicated a decent word count of the review to my overall marketing strategy worries. In hindsight, I imagine saying Onyx Path was going to "botch the release" didn't earn me fans within the company. Yeah, could've worded that better. However, I wasn't being untruthful about what I thought, and I don't think these concerns of mine were played up to offend.

Did I change my tune upon seeing the success of the crowdfunding campaign? To put it shortly, yes and no.

Full credit to Matthew Dawkins, the main developer behind The World Below, for really stepping up to get the game out there. He's produced a number of videos on his personal channel where he hypes up the setting. He utilized the big name writer, Ed Greenwood, and had him do some promotion. By the first week, he managed to get some actual play podcasts to run one-shots of the game, and more are planned in the future. The guy even braved the bowels of the Internet (Also known as Reddit) to promote the game on r/hollowknight.

The most gustiest move, however, was that he quote tweeted an OnlyFans model to plug The World Below! Twice! I respect the gumption.

I think it paid off in a big way. We're staring down the barrel of a potential $50,000 total, and for a wholly new IP in a genre the company isn't known for, that's really impressive.

There's also some legs on this core book, too. At the very least, we're getting two supplements—one unknown one mentioned in the pledge tiers, and a bestiary written by Mr. Greenwood. Who knows if more is planned and what else might come next. Players Guide? Storyguides, er, Guide? Sourcebooks on the various Strata in the World Below? There's a lot of possibilities here that I can't wait to see realized.

One concern hasn't been assuaged. The World Below is part of a game line called The Earthbane Cycle, and at the time of writing, I still have no clue what this is supposed to be. At The Gates, the second in the line, is on its final drafts and revisions. It might not be too much longer before all the momentum gets shifted over to a game in a completely different setting with a completely different vibe.

Not that I'm not excited for it, just kinda feels ominous, doesn't it?

...And YOU Gotta Help Us!

Before we unpack what The Earthbane Cycle could be, I want to try and understand their release strategy and see what that might mean for the future of The World Below.

I mentioned this in my review in passing, but Onyx Path makes most of its money through crowdfunding. How important is it, though? To sate my own curiosity, I decided to do a little digging and see just how much they made in crowdfunding last year. This isn't accounting for any fees or reward fulfillment, just the revenue.

In total, they pulled in $450,687 from four crowdfunding campaigns in 2022. Let's be real: a little under half a million is not a bad take. Onyx Path is a lean company, too, with most of its writers and artists being contractors, and I don't think they have office space. Add up all the digital and physical sales, and I think it's making enough to keep it running as a going concern, if not making some profit.

Actually, let's dig a little into sales. Just as an example, Trinity Continuum: Adventure! raised more than $100,000 on Kickstarter in 2021. Now fully released, the book is only an Electrum seller on DriveThru RPG—making an educated guesstimate here, the revenue from book sales probably hasn't reached a fifth of the Kickstarter take.

So it makes 100% sense to keep the hype up for crowdfunding. Books about to go to Kickstarter will get weekly blog posts, spotlighted on their podcast, the works, while the only thing a newly released book will get is a small "oh, this is out" buried in an end-of-the-month wrap-up. I get it, whatever keeps the lights on, but it does look as if Onyx Path is just dumping the post-Kickstarter books without much fanfare, right? Is that what we have to look forward to?

I don't know. I hope that The World Below gets the love it deserves, but I can't help but feel as if it's going down a well-traveled road, only getting a few supplements before the New Hotness comes around. Still, I think there's passion behind The World Below and, who knows, this thing might go the distance. I'm willing to have my expectations defied on this one.

The Earth Spin Cycle

Still don't like the name, but what can you do?

I won't retread my petty complaints. Instead, I'll hit you up with some more speculation, specifically on what the game line is supposed to encompass.

See, you can pretty easily guess what the other Onyx Path game lines are all about by their name. It isn't a stretch to assume Chronicles of Darkness is about various beings who dwell in the dark, of this world or otherwise. Likewise for They Came From...!; the name itself invokes cheesy 50's B-movies, so it's no surprise that their books revolve around emulating that low-budget silver screen flair.

Then comes The Earthbane Cycle. Well, the name has a fantasy vibe to it, but do we have any more to work off of? Not really, considering that the two known projects in the game line are a dark fantasy dungeon crawler where people live underground and a JRPG-inspired romp that involves doors. They couldn't be more divergent.

Seeing as answers aren't forthcoming, I have a couple guesses as to what the line could be:

1. Fantasy apocalypses. Ignoring my conspiracy theory, "Earthbane" insinuates bad things happening to the world, so the logical deduction would be that each game is about...bad things happening to the world. Duh. The World Below has the big disaster that pushed people underground, At The Gates... I actually don't know but there's someone named Sakhalla The Dust Bringer in it, and if anyone is going to cause an apocalypse, it'd be someone with that name.
2. Fantasy setting umbrella. As far as I can tell there's no line developer for the entirety of The Earthbane Cycle. The two known games are lead by two different people, who have different genres they're exploring. It could be that The Earthbane Cycle is just a central brand to throw anything vaguely fantasy in. With no one leading the game line as a whole, there'd be no unifying ideas or concepts, simply that they have to have swords and/or magic and/or adventures in vaguely medieval settings.
3. Theoretically 1, but practically 2. Considering how common world-ending threats are in the fantasy genre, it's a possibility.

There Will Be More?

The review of the ashcan was the first time I ever properly put my thoughts on an RPG in a structured format. For sure, I think there's some rough patches in there and some missed opportunities—I won't pretend I'm perfect—but overall I'm pretty happy with what I put out. Once the full core book is out, I'm sure I'd have improved in this whole "reviewing" business to be able to do a proper in-depth look at it.

I fully recommend taking a look at the ashcan if you haven't, as well as the Backerkit crowdfunding campaign (which is on its last week) if anything in either post interests you. Overall, I'd say my outlook on the project has become a lot more positive seeing the draft manuscript and the general interest surrounding it. Things can change, but as always, we'll have to see what the future holds.