Just spent some time on Tenkar’s Tavern looking at the Wayward Kickstarters. Take a look here:
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/search/label/wayward%20kickstarters
Wow. Just, wow. What makes anyone think that paying a WRITER and/or ARTIST in ADVANCE for something that isn’t remotely ready yet is a good idea? And I’m saying that as a writer. Seriously, don’t send me money for something until I have it to the “ready to edit” stage. At that point, any reasonably good editor can sort it out; but up until then:
(a) How do you know I’ll get it done?
and (b) How do you know it’s not a steaming pile of poo?
But I know my own limitations; I would never start a Kickstarter for something I didn’t at least have a WORKING prototype of. Given that, and the fact that I know you can successfully bootstrap a project WITHOUT a Kickstarter… well, you can rest assured I’ll probably NEVER start one.
Or put any money into one. No matter how cool it sounds.
I honestly can’t believe the people who say they’ll write a “next generation” or “innovative” or just “cool” RPG if you just send them some money. Gah. If you have such a game in you, write the darn thing, and get your friends (you do have some of those, right? Cool.) to help playtest it. THEN, and only then, figure out how to get paid for it.
And at that point, when the game already exists, yeah, you can ask for funds. Or just, y’know, PUBLISH it. Print on demand is the way of the future… use it. Traditional publishers are a pain (you have to convince them your work is valuable before they’ll publish it, but how can you convince them if you’ve never had a chance to sell any?) and vanity presses are money sinks for the foolish. Lulu.com, CreateSpace.com, and RPGNow.com all offer ways to get your book into print at basically no cost to you… and the first two offer standard packages of professional editing that you can avail yourself of if you need it, at predictable rates you could attempt to fund if you need to.
I don’t believe in Kickstarters. You get people to give you money, but they’re just gambling on whether or not you’ll deliver.