Geek Native has been tracking Ultimum for a while. The art was so good we pushed for a sneak peak inside the book and then followed the first Kickstarter. That project was cancelled. This is the return of the ambitious game. You can read more about it on Kickstarter.
The campaign has just launched and has a whopping 56 days on the clock. At the time of writing there are already 20 backers and well over $1,250 in the pot. The target goal is $10,000.
Ultimum is more than just a sci-fi RPG. There’s an infrastructure of mobile and desktop apps to support the game. Christian Muckler and team are taking an unabashed approach to Ultimum data. If you play this tabletop RPG with any of the digital assets then your gaming data is sent back to the publishers for trending. They’ll use this to see how the game could be developed.
I think this is a bold approach. I actually like it. It’s a step towards crowd-sourced storytelling. You could imagine the meta-plot of the game adapting to trends. You could easily imagine sourcebook decisions being based on it. I’m worried that roleplayers will be more cautious. People worry about privacy. People will want to know what exactly Ultimum’s apps are recording, sending back and whether that opens up any other security risks.
The rewards look pretty impressive. The company has thought about shipping but you should too as you could end up with many deliveries. A $10 pledge gets the beta book in PDF and t-shirt. $20 unlocks the Player Companion App which has everything you need to play as well as the first set of rewards. Skipping ahead to pledges in the $55 region we can see plastic miniatures on offer. I don’t think there was even time in the video to mention those.
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