Hello! I’m contemplating setting up a Patreon for Autarch. I’m soliciting ideas/feedback as to what would be most interesting to offer you, our community.
Current Ideas:
The Patreon could help accelerate development of the Auran Empire Campaign Setting. Each month, Patrons would receive sneak peaks of the material that month.
The Patreon could fund a monthly set of bonus articles / expansions for ACKS. Every 3 months (assuming certain goals are met), the material could get bundled into an e-zine/magazine. Essentially we’d be creating a subscription-style “magazine” online.
The Patreon could fund a Living World campaign. Backers would be given information on the Borders of the Empire sandbox with adventures made available over time for their campaign’s use.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above, and any other ideas you might have.
Detailed explanations or expansions of things that are already implied or behind-the scenes in the rules?
(Off the top of the head, this might include things like how to design the spell categories from Player’s Companion, or basically anything from the hidden elegance thread).
In general, sneak peeks don’t excite me, but new things do; I’d be a lot more willing to kick in for ideas 2 and 3 than idea 1. (I think 2 would be my favorite off your list, I tend to like new toolboxes more than things that were already built.)
I would be most interested in improving the ACKS ruleset by clarifying and building on existing rules, adding optional rules and variants. I guess that could be #2?
I haven’t pulled the trigger for any Patreons yet (including Dyson Logos, who i should REALLY start tossing money at for using all his maps), but I would do it for this.
Honestly, the number of usable house rules and extra sub-systems you’ve posted on these forums for free is enough of an indicator that what would be put out would be quality. If you cleaned them up a bit and laid them out nicely in a template similar to the actual books, it would absolutely be worth money.
I would also be in for #2. A Patreon funded ACKS “magazine” would be a great addition to the game and as Jard says, there is plenty of design space to work with.
I’d be in for it regardless - #2 is appealing, and I’d also love some articles written to make the Domain building rules and high level play a little more accessible - some realm-building articles that help you navigate converting your own homebrew, for instance, or tricks and things you’ve discovered (or that you’ve changed at home) over the past few years of play.
Honestly I would be open to any of them, but in theory couldn’t #1 (info about the Auran Empire) or #3 (adventures taking place in the auran empire) be potential articles in your 'zine?
I’ll second enthusiasm for house rules/suggestions/tips/tricks/etc. for allowing players to experience domain level play earlier. As someone who ran a play-by-post game for almost 3 years that topped out at level 4, it would have been nice to be able to showcase some of ACKs’ campaign XP mechanics earlier.
For what it’s worth, I think that would be a pretty short article if you just want to use the economy or background world building, because 5E intentionally decouples economics and treasure from advancement.
In 5E, you can basically do whatever you want with the economy or world-building. It will, of course, affect the things you change (that is, if you make the PCs kings, they will be kings and have access to that sort of thing), but nothing about the system will break.
The harder part would be if you wanted to introduce an XP for GP rule into 5E, or if you wanted to introduce ACKS demographics for leveled characters into the world (5E XP rules are not designed to simulate anything about the world, and so getting XP for GP or having the demographics work out the way they do in ACKS requires either alterations to the XP system or just throwing up your hands and saying the PCs work differently).
I’m very curious… I’ve played a bit of 5e, read the Basic Rules PDF, own and have skimmed the PHB…if you’re going to adopt the ACKS economics wholesale (though still detached from Character advancement), what are the drivers for you wanting to play 5e? When I say “you,” I mean you, specifically. I’d be very interested in your own personal feelings on the subject, if you don’t mind sharing them.
I’d love to see a quarterly magazine. I’d hope that people could contribute some- for example, I’d be happy to contribute short adventures and/or new monsters.