Les Ombres d'Esteren - Forum officiel

So, I decided to pledge to the Book 0 Kickstarter (had been looking forward to it before it began). I don't have anything for SoE yet, so I got the original book and Book 0 (in at Tuaille). I have loved the experience of this Kickstarter, as it has been run spectacularly. This certainly rivals the amazing experience I felt I got from the Numenera Kickstarter. Then, when the stretch goals were completely reworked based on community feedback, I was just taken aback. It was amazing. So, my somewhat long-winded post is this.

If the Shadows of Esteren team plans on using Kickstarter in a similar manner to release Book 2, maybe we the community can help by recommending some new stretch goals! The team clearly cares about our opinions, and we can hopefully provide useful feedback for them. The goal would be to help them start the KS with amazing stretch goals and attract even more backers!

So, I hope this post is appropriate, and if not, I apologize, I am doing this with the best of intentions. Thanks for an amazing game!

Post your ideas away!

Hey, welcome aboard!
I believe that as soon as the team thinks it is the time to give a Go to book2:Travel , they will be as much tuned to the community as possible ... as usual.
But, we cannot ask them to put the cart before the horse. Thanks to the previous kickstarters they gathered a lot of information and tips on what to do/ not to do and we have to keep faith on them.
Of course they'll be listening to the community, they've done it so far, all the time. I just think it's a bit too early to talk about it now

Just be prepared to catch the book when it'll be out, everybody will fight like cat and dog in order to get one copy!

PS: I see it's your first post. Do not hesitate to introduce yourself in the proper thread. It's common practice

Hi Caldwellst!

Thanks for your message and your great support!

I completely agree with your opinion. And I think you have a great idea here. The main advantage of Kickstarter is to work with you to devise incredible editions, which would never have been possible without your support. I am myself a RPG lover and it is such a thrilling experience to shape the books for Esteren with your help!

Yes, we will definitely seek your advice for building the next Kickstarter.

For now, it remains a little more than ten days for the current Kickstarter and we still have a few surprises ... let's help Yldiane to reach some new places and new stretch goals. It depends on you, you can share this Kickstarter around you or in the forum you know..!

I just read the blogpost about the upcoming Kickstarter and since I have missed the previous two, I thought I'd let you know what I personally think would be nice to have.

First off, for everybody just now joining the fun, it would be nice to have some of the goodies of the previous Kickstarter Stretch Goal Items as optional (add-on payment) items. Especially things like the pronounciation guide, handouts and miniature tiles make my heart bleed with longing Please bring them back, or put them up on the Shop. What happened to the shop, btw?

I have read through Prologue and it is nice to see that the pre-gen characters are tied into the story. Well, this is a double-edged sword, IMHO. One it is satisfying if I am playing with those chars, however it's really a disincentive to create original chars, or at the very least turning me off from wanting to start playing Esteren with my group before the full campaign is released in English (which won't be this year, right?).

To offset this, maybe, it would be nice to make a list of general background traits / or plot traits that could be given to player created characters. For a nice example of how to do this, have a look at the WFRP campaign 'The Enemy Within'. In the FFG re-make of THE classic FRP campaign, they created a set of background options that tie each character into the longterm plots of the campaign without giving anything away beforehand, and it works for both pre-gens and homebrew characters. Perfect. If you are interested I could explain this in a little more detail.

I've lead quite a few groups through lengthy campaigns. The better ones always had a strongly defined homebase or starting point. Like a starting village with iconic NPCs and a set of introductory (low danger) mini-adventures to really emotionally tie them to this starting point. It will really help to give players motiviation to go on all these gruesome adventures later on, if you can remind them for whom they go through all this sacrifice after all. Think of the function The Shire has for the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings.

So some nice items would be:
- Map of home region / village (always nice to have a player and leader version)
- Handout style images of main home village NPCs (so that they can be strongly established)
- some impressive handout images of the main sights of the starting region (not just in a book, but as little handouts)

For a starting group, since Esteren is such an original setting the main problem is always the same I think. The Leader will be fully immersed and enthusiastic about the setting, however, the players usually don't want to read the entire Book 1 themselves.

So important items for a starting leader would be:
- Introductory adventures that impart basic setting lessons, impart the feeling and rules of the world without being all too dangerous. Prologue is nice, but I think somethink with a little less threat would be nice, something that allows the group to form without already putting the pressure on strongly.
- maybe a one sheet reference with a mini-map and glossary of terms for the players, so the leader doesn't always need to explain the difference between Demorthen and Demothaire (sp?).
- a player in-game map is always forgotten! Don't get me wrong your maps are nice! But actual characters in the rural regions of the peninsula would have access to only very crude representations of the world around them ... an ingame map (with lots of wrong information even maybe) would be awesome to hand out.
- images for the key places of adventures are always nice to establish the scene
- any kind of hand-outs are always VERY welcome. Players love them!
- maybe a downloadable mapping style for Campaign Cartographer 3 (other programs) so that more people can create beautiful maps more easily.

Finally maybe some items that speed up actual play, and help keep player's noses out of the books and their minds focused on the roleplaying instead of the roll-playing:

- key rules summary play aid
- a combat action / flow chart
- example guide for portraying the various ways (high vs. low combativeness for example)

Hmm, these are my top-of-mind ideas, maybe I can come up with more.

What do you think?

Edit:
Sorry for the long post, just had another idea.

Since dramatic potrayals of nature seem like an important part of the atmosphere, it would be awesome to get a little help as a storyteller. For a German RPG I have been running, I have a small App that randomly generates weather, shows phases of the moon, calendar and random events. This is a fairly easy to build app, and can constantly be added to by the community (by providing little encounters or just adding natural phenomena).

Looking forward to what you come up with. I'm really excited about the tone and setting of Esteren. Thank you for sharing your dream with us

Great stretch goal ideas.

An idea that struck me was jpg or pdf of letters without anything written on them.
Gm could use them to create own letters as handouts in hes campaign.

For example letter with church or king stamp on. Wanted letter and so on.


Printed artwork in "map size" (40x60 cm) would be great as add-on buys. Sold in rolls not folded. I want them framed on the wall

Morgon a écrit :First off, for everybody just now joining the fun, it would be nice to have some of the goodies of the previous Kickstarter Stretch Goal Items as optional (add-on payment) items. Especially things like the pronounciation guide, handouts and miniature tiles make my heart bleed with longing Please bring them back, or put them up on the Shop. What happened to the shop, btw?

Proposing the rewards from the previous Kickstarters once more is certainly something we intend to do. However, as for what will be made available exactly, I cannot give you an accurate answer. You can be sure, however, that we are taking due note of your suggestions!

Morgon a écrit :I have read through Prologue and it is nice to see that the pre-gen characters are tied into the story. Well, this is a double-edged sword, IMHO. One it is satisfying if I am playing with those chars, however it's really a disincentive to create original chars, or at the very least turning me off from wanting to start playing Esteren with my group before the full campaign is released in English (which won't be this year, right?).

To offset this, maybe, it would be nice to make a list of general background traits / or plot traits that could be given to player created characters. For a nice example of how to do this, have a look at the WFRP campaign 'The Enemy Within'. In the FFG re-make of THE classic FRP campaign, they created a set of background options that tie each character into the longterm plots of the campaign without giving anything away beforehand, and it works for both pre-gens and homebrew characters. Perfect. If you are interested I could explain this in a little more detail.

Then worry no more my good friend, because this is precisely what we have been doing with Dearg (the official campaign): each one of the pre-gen Characters has core background traits that can be given to another, Player-made Character so that even a fully original Character can be among the protagonists of the Campaign... provided some conditions are met.

There will be a "How-to?" in Dearg to indicate how this can be done, so as you can see, we've been taking that into account! Therefore, no reason to hold your PCs back from creating their own Characters.

I've lead quite a few groups through lengthy campaigns. The better ones always had a strongly defined homebase or starting point. Like a starting village with iconic NPCs and a set of introductory (low danger) mini-adventures to really emotionally tie them to this starting point. It will really help to give players motiviation to go on all these gruesome adventures later on, if you can remind them for whom they go through all this sacrifice after all. Think of the function The Shire has for the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings.

Yup, that's precisely how it's going to be: the village - as the title of the Campaign Book indicates - is Dearg, and the mini-adventures can be found in the Prologue book.

So some nice items would be:
- Map of home region / village (always nice to have a player and leader version)
- Handout style images of main home village NPCs (so that they can be strongly established)
- some impressive handout images of the main sights of the starting region (not just in a book, but as little handouts)

Duly noted! I'll make sure that these ideas are at least acknowledged... and after all, maybe we had them even before you suggested them; who knows?

So important items for a starting leader would be:
- Introductory adventures that impart basic setting lessons, impart the feeling and rules of the world without being all too dangerous. Prologue is nice, but I think somethink with a little less threat would be nice, something that allows the group to form without already putting the pressure on strongly.
- maybe a one sheet reference with a mini-map and glossary of terms for the players, so the leader doesn't always need to explain the difference between Demorthen and Demothaire (sp?).
- a player in-game map is always forgotten! Don't get me wrong your maps are nice! But actual characters in the rural regions of the peninsula would have access to only very crude representations of the world around them ... an ingame map (with lots of wrong information even maybe) would be awesome to hand out.
- images for the key places of adventures are always nice to establish the scene
- any kind of hand-outs are always VERY welcome. Players love them!
- maybe a downloadable mapping style for Campaign Cartographer 3 (other programs) so that more people can create beautiful maps more easily.

Wow, isn't that a lot! Well, as I said, new ideas are always welcome, so thank you for these ones, and keep'em coming!

Finally maybe some items that speed up actual play, and help keep player's noses out of the books and their minds focused on the roleplaying instead of the roll-playing:

- key rules summary play aid
- a combat action / flow chart
- example guide for portraying the various ways (high vs. low combativeness for example)

Why good sir, that's precisely what we've done! Indeed, the system is actually very simple, and usually, the Character Sheet is enough for the Players to remember how the system works... except for more complex in-depth rules like Demorthèn powers or Flux extraction.

From my own experience, after one or two sessions tops, the Players know how things go, so I don't think such reminders are necessary. It's an idea though, so like the rest, it'll be taken into consideration.

Hmm, these are my top-of-mind ideas, maybe I can come up with more.

What do you think?

As I said, keep'em coming! I can't promise that I (or another member) will give detailed answers to all of your suggestions, but this thread is what helps us devise good Kickstarters, so we make sure to take a look at it every now and then.

Looking forward to what you come up with. I'm really excited about the tone and setting of Esteren. Thank you for sharing your dream with us

And thank you for keepin this dream alive!

Kromke a écrit :Printed artwork in "map size" (40x60 cm) would be great as add-on buys. Sold in rolls not folded. I want them framed on the wall

Ha ha, now that would be grand, wouldn't it? As with Morgon's suggestions, we'll see what can be done.

The greatest stretch goals in my opinion would be of the book itselve. More pages (more info and artwork in the book)

Ha ha, well, that's my opinion too: more Esteren to love!

However, unless we somehow learn how to survive without sleeping or eating, there'll still be only so much we can do. As things are, we imagine, write, translate, proofread, lay out, etc. the series as quickly and efficiently as we can in order not to disappoint!

I echo the previous ideas posted here, maps and handouts, folders, etc.
I too missed the previous KS's for Esteren and I am REALLY looking forward to this next one.
Please make the music cds available too, as well as GM screens, and all volumes of the books in hardcover...Limited Editions if still available.
Will the tarot be available in English by the time of your next KS? I hope so.
Any idea what month the next KS will begin?
Thank you.

Hello !

The next Kickstarter should take place in june...

But first of all, we want to be sure that every backer of the Prologue Kickstarter has been delivered before we begin another one