This week I was able to chat with James Pozenel of Horseshark Games about his new game that is currently funding on Backerkit. Netcrawl RPG is a TTRPG about adventuring inside a computer system. Everyone goes in, seconds pass in the meatspace as players spend hours conquering a cyber-dungeon - together. 

Netcrawl RPG uses the d20 System and Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG rulebook that can run as a cyber sidecar to your current game or as a stand alone game with little or no notion of an outside meatspace world. You can read the QuickStart version of Netcrawl right now by clicking this link.

To help folks imagine what a Netcrawl game might play like, can you share one of your favorite experiences from all your playtests?

The sessions for In Space No One Can Hear the Robopacalypse start with spacers getting whacked left and right and then the party enters cyberspace. They get excited about the 0-level applications they are controlling, "I'm a goth spider." Or all sorts of stuff. I think the players even get a little more heroic. They are now cool applications with monowire whips (little do they know) and not warp drive engineers with a wrench. They kind of get to business saving the ship. It's the vibes and the fact that people like to make computer jokes.

You've been fostering a community and getting feedback on Netcrawl through your Patreon. What did you learn from having that monthly release cycle that you had to stay accountable to?

The Patreon has been a great experience. I've been able to connect with my most ardent fans and get feedback along the way. I post 2-4 times a month. To me establishing post formats is important, what am I sharing? Without the structure I might post all kinds of information without a clear message or subject.

New content for Netcrawl is one type of post I produce for the lowest level of paid support. Higher levels of support grant access to my Developer Diary. I talk about how I came to arrive at various design decisions. The last type of post I usually produce is an update which is free to everyone and a place for housekeeping and announcements. 

Lastly, committing to the release cycle just means planning way ahead. I might get stuck writing something and if I have nothing to fallback on, I could miss my dates. I've only missed a couple in almost 3 years and I've never not delivered during a monthly cycle. It all adds up to discipline, planning, and having plenty of backup content.

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Netcrawl Arcologies seems geared towards GM tools to help generate adventures and settings in Netcrawl. Are there any sections of that book that you feel notably proud about how they turned out? Or any sections that required extra work to make really shine?

Exactly right, Netcrawl Arcologies is primarily a set of GM tools. Lots of tables to roll on to describe or build a node (like a place or a server or even a huge collection of servers  aka an arcology) in the WorldNet. The amount of effort put into creating and maintaining a VR world typically results in the amount and maturity of functions it provides. The Functionality table provides results that aid in determining the level of danger, security, or complexity the node might possess. I'm working on some new ones too, so I'm getting excited about those as well. Tables to create malware, list of glitches, lots of stuff percolating. 

What can you tell us about the five adventures? Any amazing premises that you can share?

I'm so excited to be working with Brendan LaSalle, Julian Bernick, and Brain Shutter on this part of the project! Brendan has a second level adventure that mixes a little steampunk into the cyberspace setting. It's going to be wild! Brian is at the helm of the 1st level adventure about a hacker causing havoc, so a good old fashioned mystery and beat down. Julian is continuing an idea he left open in Home for the Holideath: avatars find a lawless cyber-wasteland. Do they try to tame it, re-make it, or escape? Of course I have a 0-level gig, In Space No One Can Hear the Robopacalypse, that mixes Star Crawl with Netcrawl for some good old fashioned space horror/hack the ship's computer or die trying. I have a very special collaboration in the works for an additional 0-level gig, but that won't come out until the end of 2025 or early 2026.

You blew through all your stretch goals in under 48 hours! I've heard it can be risky to introduce unplanned stretch goals mid-way through a campaign. But are you thinking of any that will let you keep on track for delivery and stay under budget?

Secret: I've had additional stretch goals in planning and I'd done my research on budget and feasibility. I saw somewhere some advice on keeping stretch goals close to the vest in the early days of the campaign, so I tried that out on Netcrawl. For one thing, it allows you to have an additional ceremony around new parts of the crowdfunding campaign. Which should draw some excitement after the first few days of the launch wear off. I think it also gives you a way to adjust stretch goals to match the momentum of the project. If all the cards are on the table at the beginning, you don't have those options.

You recently were on an episode of RPG Ramblings where yourself and several other creators discussed the current state of TTRPG publishing and what creators can do to support each other. I’d love to get your thoughts on where you’re at since that discussion.

In general, independent creators are in a bit of a bind. We don't typically have big and/or expanding audiences to sell new and old work to. It's a disadvantage in a couple of ways. First, one may not be able to afford larger print runs where to start to see the margins larger companies enjoy. Without a lot of expansion in your audience, those bigger print runs just sit around collecting dust. On top of this, costs have easily gone up 20-50% across the board (shipping, printing, even art) over the past couple years. We're at a point of either raising prices or quitting the business. I think the Netcrawl campaign is proving that we can be a little more objective about our pricing and still have success. Of course there's several things working in my favor. I'm doing full color print runs of the books (that certainly raises costs, and most people understand that). But it's also a new stand alone TTRPG in an extremely untapped genre, Cyberpunk 2077 has been hugely successful, and Tron: Ares recently released trailers.

As publishers, we should really start thinking about each other more. That will be the biggest difference in the coming years for independent creators. The Cross Collab feature of Backerkit is huge! Start thinking about who might be a good partner on your next project. Ask yourself: which existing products work great with my project? Setup wholesale opportunities with those creators. They move their backstock (so important!) and you get a piece of the action and strengthen your product offering. Share your creator friends with your audience! Be a hype-man for everyone! We shouldn't operate like one-man shows anymore. Goodman Games understood that pretty early on, so should we.

Ready to adventure in cyberspace? Will your campaign be in the style of Tron, Reboot, the Matrix, or something else?

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What Else Is Going On?

Against the Cult of the Hippie Commune

Take your gaming table back to the decadent 1960’s with this 0-level funnel where PCs are townsfolk in 1960’s rural America attempting to rescue innocent teens from the clutches of a sinister cult. Like any other Loot the Body project this game comes with an original psych rock soundtrack to add to the lore and complete the immersive experience.

Visitors to Fairhaven

Available through Goodman Games (Print/PDF) or DriveThruRPG, Visitors to Fairhaven is a new zine for Weird Heroes of Public Access. It contains a new adventure: The Yellow Truth of Fellowship Farm. This weird and harrowing town is filled with drugs, murder, possession, prophetic comic books, cultists, and teen pregnancy! But wait, there's more! This zine also contains:

•    d66 Visitors to Fairhaven
•    d66 Weird Places
•    d66 Strange Complications