Monday, December 23, 2013

[Adventures in Fantasy] Book of Creatures and Treasure

The final book of the Adventures in Fantasy role-playing game boxed set is Book III: Book of Creatures and Treasures.  This slim, 49 page manual has a Pepto-Bismol colored cover with red letters and the material inside is also presented in red lettering.  I am sure this was done for copy protection back in those days but it can lead to some rough reading.  The cover art depicts a lone dragon sitting with wings spread and one foot on what I can only assume to be a giant’s skull from the size of it.

INTRODUCTION
The words of the introduction take up approximately one-third of the page.  The authors explain their main source for the creatures came from “the myths of Europe and the Mediterranean while some creatures come “from other sources” but those other sources are not mentioned.  The aim of the creature section was “to provide a mythos composed of those creatures that comprise the major segment of our mythological heritage” and to describe them with “the attributes and background they possessed in the myths of their origin”. There are also a few words about treasure in the introduction.  The random treasure tables have been set up for a large amount of variation while not allowing too much treasure.  The sample artifacts included came about from the research of the author.  These artifacts should be rare and the treasure tables have been designed to reflect that. 

CREATURE DESCRIPTIONS
The creatures section of the rule book contains 31 pages of information.  These 31 pages are split among 29 pages of creature descriptions and a 2 page list of basic creature information at the end. Every entry contains the name of the creature along with average hit points (hit points without rolling), movement (flying also), alignment, body type (for combat purposes), and hit dice (for when you want to roll for hit points). This information is typically followed by a short paragraph or two describing physical appearance, culture, intelligence, weaknesses, and some encounter notes.  The information seems sufficient enough for game use and, most importantly, the reader is not smothered in a mountain of details and statistics that seems to be the norm in many modern game systems.

The largest entry in the creatures section – and the one that most people will probably find the most interesting – is the one detailing Dragons.  The information on Dragons takes up 9 pages of this section because there is no static list of entries to use.  Each Dragon is unique and must be generated before campaign play.  Every Dragon has 13 Characteristics – Form, Age, Size, Sex, Intelligence, Egotism Index, Greed Index, Personality Index, Alignment, Breath Value, Magic Rating, Interests, and Hoard – that are generated by rolling on a series of provided tables.    

The typical length of most of the other creature descriptions is around one-third to one-half of a page.  Of course, there are some descriptions that fall outside of this range. Bits of mythological information can be learned by reading the creature descriptions.  Bugbears are closely related to Goblins and their name was intended to mean “Goblin Bear”, Ogres are the offspring of the Troll and Trow, if Black Elves are exposed to sunlight they will automatically turn to stone without a saving throw, and Vampires can change into 6 different forms.  It is nice to see some actual mythology used for the monsters and also some connection to stuff like Hammer Horror.  Some players will probably dislike the fact that Adventures in Fantasy is very human-centered because many of the monster races have weakness or other disadvantages that will make them highly unattractive for use as player characters.  The only other negative that I can really see is that this is just the basic game and there were many supplements planned that would have expanded Dragons, the Jinns, and others; nothing more was ever published so one can only imagine what might have been. 

TREASURE
The second half of the book uses 18 pages to cover topics such as gemstone values, miscellaneous treasure, magic items, and artifacts.  Following a brief introduction, there are three pages of charts and explanations.  The General Treasure Chart determines if a treasure consists of coins, gem/jewels, miscellaneous treasure, or magic items.  There is also an individual treasure chart with the results affected by activity, location, and social status for solo encounters.

The next nine pages of the manual cover the subject of magic items.  This section begins with some basic information about magic items.  There are two types of magic items:  natural and artifact.  Natural magic items derive most of their power from the material used in construction while artifacts are granted their power mainly from the workings of the maker during construction.  Characters can even begin play with a family heirloom magic item on a successful roll against their age. 

The magic items included in the game are split into five basic groups: swords, armors, amulets, talismans, and miscellaneous. The magic items avoid the straight up “sword +1” and similar labels that seem to plague many games these days.  Swords are very individualized with attributes such as unbreakable, pierce rock, magic dispeller.  Swords may even turn on a character if found instead of inherited.  Armor has an enchantment level expressed as a percentage bonus to defense and only one armor bonus can be used for improving defense.  Amulets function like armor because they are “always on” when worn and Talismans function like swords and have to be put into use.  These items grant the user abilities such as increasing saving throws, increasing strength, warding against magic, granting future knowledge, or an assortment of other benefits.  I did not notice any cursed items but maybe that was planned for a future expansion.   

The final five pages contain details for artifacts in the game.  The largest part of this section is an alphabetical listing of 24 miscellaneous artifacts.  Some examples of the artifacts include The Bow of Locksley, Waters of Life, Flying Carpet, and the Wand of Light.  The descriptions seem pretty clear and easy to comprehend.  I get the impression they would be quite fun in play with sense of discovery and a little bit of unpredictability in some cases.  This section closes with a sample campaign artifact table that one can use to randomly determine which artifact is discovered. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS
This was the easiest book in the Adventures in Fantasy boxed set for me to fully grasp.  I admit that the other two books had me scratching my head in spots.  I do not think it is necessarily because they were difficult reading but because they seemed vague and even contradictory to me at times.  After making it through this manual with relative ease I am really interested in going back through the other books and giving it another shot.  Maybe I will do that sometime in the future…

ADDENDUM
Okay, I am not quite done yet.  I do have some other stuff I would like to do with this game including:

I have searched for a character sheet for Adventures in Fantasy and have had no luck at all.  I have some published stat blocks provided by a fellow blogger that will help me design a character sheet to make available for download.

There were three reference sheets in the boxed set.  I am in the process of cleaning these up and making them available for download.

I am interested in going back through the rules and noting some house rule decisions that will help me understand this game better.  If I am successful at this task then I will make those notes available for download.

If I get really motivated then I would definitely be interested in developing a new game based on my perceptions of Adventures in Fantasy.  This game would be written in the same way that Tunnels & Trolls was written as a reaction to Dungeons & Dragons.  I make no promises…


               

 

Saturday, December 21, 2013

State of the Blog...

It has been almost two weeks since I last posted.  Work has been pretty hectic with extra hours and extra days recently but it always picks up during the winter in the bus industry.  I am just thankful that I have one of the “easier” jobs instead of the back breaking labor that others are doing all day.  We are on holiday leave until Jan 6th so I plan on getting back to regular posting.  In an effort to do some catching up, here are some snapshot thoughts on various subjects.

Posts & Traffic
My last post was the 300th post to this blog and there have been almost 45,000 page views since the start.  I know some of the traffic is the result of random search results but there are others that could be considered faithful readers and I appreciate it.  Thank you all for stopping by and also for commenting when the mood hits.  Even if we disagree, I enjoy reading the other viewpoints and experiences.

A Look Back
Starting this blog was a random thing for me.  I have always enjoyed writing but it isn’t always easy for me.  Once I get started it seems like words flow pretty easy but getting started is definitely the hardest part for me.  It often feels like I drag the words out while they are holding on kicking and screaming the whole way.  If I can keep up the writing it is much easier but if I go weeks on end then it becomes difficult again.  I would assume that – like any skill – you have to exercise it to keep it up to snuff.

The Way Ahead
I began blogging with real no plan in place.  I just started posting about Adventures in Fantasy and went off in other directions for the content of other posts.  While random ideas and concepts served me well for some time, there is something to be said for having a plan with a goal in sight.  I am going to try to get back on track with committed posts planned out – not sure of the frequency – to eliminate the mostly random nature of my blog posts.   

Adventures in Fantasy
I started this blog by examining Arneson’s Adventures in Fantasy game.  I got sidetracked and I still owe any interested readers the final post or two for this game.  I stated the same thing earlier this year and have yet to fulfill that goal.  I am making a commitment to complete that series of posts before the end of January 2014. I also have other resources for this game that I would like to make available – reference sheets and a character sheet, specifically. I have even tossed around the idea of making a game in reaction to Adventures in Fantasy similar to the way that Tunnels & Trolls was written largely as a reaction to D&D.

Perilous Journeys & SteamCraft
I am a fan of both of these games from Perilous Journeys Publishing.  I converse with the author on a pretty regular basis.  I am hammering out some fan support for both of these games and will post them on my blog in the coming months. 


The OSR
I am a fan of the movement and I definitely appreciate their efforts.  The professionally published games I have really been drawn to lately are Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and Swords & Wizardry Complete; I plan on putting up some resources for both of these systems in the coming months.  Those two games really show both ends of the clone spectrum as far as I am concerned – one is closer to “by the book” and the other is closer to “by the spirit” – and I will probably hold off on purchasing any more of these types of games unless something really knocks me off my feet. 

That does not mean I am not interested in other clone games.  I really need to take a closer look at Raven Crowking’s work and I would be really interested in seeing a full blown game by Venger Satanis after seeing some of his other work and through conversations we have had.  I am also currently working on a Toldara sourcebook for the Back to the Dungeon RPG by Eldrad Wolfsbane.  For the most part, however, I believe there are probably enough of the core retro-clone systems available at this point.  I hope the movement starts spawning more supplementary material, more speculative material, and more neo-clone material.

D&D Next
I saw earlier that D&D Next will be released in 2014.  I will definitely do the cheapest buy in possible to check out the final design.  I am interested but I am also a little standoffish about the final product.  I am not confident in their “one system to unite all D&D fans” goal and I am pretty skeptical about how this will work in application.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out next year.  I am sure that it will sell like crazy initially and will most likely knock Pathfinder off the top spot for a short while.  Let’s see what happens after the hype dies down…

Other Games
Now, more than ever, I am curious about breaking out and playing other games.  I want to see how USR handles in actual play.  I am also interested in breaking out my copy of RIFTS and giving it another go.  After reading the game reports from Venger Satanis I am really interested in picking up the Vampire:the Masquerade 20th Anniversary edition because I missed the original wave of popularity and I have become increasingly interested in the game over the years.  Unfortunately, most of my gaming experience these days is purely academic.  It is rather difficult at times to coordinate schedules to get people together and my wife works on the weekends at night so online gaming can be a real challenge with two young children at home; my 7 year old is autistic and that can be demanding at times.  Please, don’t forget about me when sending the Google+ Hangout game invitations because one of these days I am going to make it!

Board Games
I do not have a tremendous amount of experience with board gaming; I enjoy RISK and Axis & Allies.  Even though I have relatively little experience with board gaming, I do have some concepts for board games that I am working on with other bloggers.  Progress is going to be slow and there is a high probability that neither will ever get completed.  As much as the idea intrigues me, I am falling short on expanding ideas.  I have learned that when it comes to board games I can come up with concepts and ideas for the game but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts design there is something not clicking.

The End

That should just about cover it for now.  I am curious to see what the next year brings to the blogosphere.  I enjoy reading your posts and I hope to continue to produce more “good” than “bad” posts.  I know not every post is going to be gold and that is fine with me.  It is beneficial to get the clutter out of my head so I can move on to writing the next post.  I have put you through enough of my rambling and now it is time to post this so I can catch up on some of blog reading…

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Wake The Dead is now Available at DriveThruRPG

For anyone interested, Wake The Dead is the newest product available at DriveThruRPG from Perilous Journeys Publishing.  I was impressed by the core game and this adventure continues to deliver and it's only $4.99!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Venger's The Baleful Sorcerer of Tsathag'kha is Pure Gold!

Due to the recent Oklahoma snowstorm my internet has been a little spotty but my repeated attempts paid off.  I downloaded The Baleful Sorcerer class by Venger Satanis from DriveThruRPG.  For more information, check out Venger's old school gaming blog: The Baleful Sorcerer of Tsathag'kha: If you've ever wanted to play a swarthy, silk-clad sorcerer from a Clark Ashton Smith or Robert E. Howard story, then look no further...you will be IMPRESSED!

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Building a Better D&D?

I don't know how many of us in the OSR/RPG blogosphere have seen it, but there is an ongoing(?) examination of the D&D game rules going on at Building a Better D&D.  I stumbled across this site months ago but lost track of it until recently.  I am sure many of you will find something of use in many of the 54 entries.  Thoughts? 

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Perilous Journeys Character Creation Reference

Just a little document I whipped up for Perilous Journeys that collects various bits of character creation information in one spot. The information presented below is also available as a downloadable document at this location here.

Character Creation Reference

Standard Method
Race
Points
Health
Agility
Mind
Speed
Human
185
40-90
20-60
35-60
35-55
Dryad
200
45-90
25-60
45-65
40-55
Dwarf
190
50-95
25-60
35-55
30-50
Elf
200
40-80
35-65
45-65
40-60
Fomorian
185
50-90
30-60
35-55
30-45
Gnome
190
40-90
30-60
35-60
35-50
Lurikeen
200
40-75
40-65
40-65
45-70
Wild Elves
195
40-80
40-70
35-60
40-65
   
Optional Method
Race
Points
Health
Agility
Mind
Speed
Human
160
1d20
1d10
1d10
1d12
Dryad
160
2d12
1d10+4
1d10
1d10+2
Dwarf
160
3d6+6
1d10
1d8
1d8
Elf
160
2d12+2
1d10+4
1d12
2d6
Fomorian
160
3d6+2
2d8
2d6
1d10
Gnome
160
2d8
3d6
2d6
1d12
Lurikeen
160
2d6+2
1d12+2
1d10+4
1d12+2
Wild Elves
160
1d12
2d10+2
1d8
1d6+1

Abilities
Race
Excluded
Restricted
Human
None
None
Dryad
Psionics, Theurgy
Commerce, Games, Marining, Metallurgy, & Streetwise
Dwarf
Chivalry, Psionics
Ranging, Survivalist, & Marining
Elf
None
Commerce, Evaluation, Mechanics, Metallurgy, Planning, & Streetwise
Fomorian
Psionics, Theurgy
Commerce, Necromancy, Scholarship, & Sorcery
Gnome
Chivalry, Psionics
Marining, Minstrelsy, Ranging, Survivalist, & Improvised Fighting
Lurikeen
Chivalry, Psionics
Commerce, Mechanics, Metallurgy, Planning, Pastoral, & Marining
Wild Elves
None
Arcanum, Chivalry, Commerce, Marining, Mechanics, Metallurgy, & Streetwise


Saturday, November 2, 2013

FedEx Came By Yesterday...

I had the pdf copy for quite some time but I finally got a printed book!
I am off to do some reading...

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Clockwork: Empire Roleplaying Game

I stumbled across the kickstarter for another steampunk game - Clockwork: Empire Roleplaying Game. It seems that steampunk is picking up some momentum with SteamCraft, Tephra, and now this game along with the others.  With 26 days left for funding at the project at 150% of the goal it looks like another success for the genre and it will be interesting to compare and contrast the game with other offerings in the same genre.  I downloaded the free quick start rules and will try to give them some proper attention in the next couple of days.  More later....  

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Q&A with Jamie Hardy of Perilous Journeys Publishing

I am going to post this now even though I was in the process of brainstorming some more questions for Jamie Hardy of Perilous Journeys Publishing.  As I mentioned in my previous post, an upswing in work commitments is currently eating up a lot of my free time.  Maybe I can do a continuation of these questions at a later time...

Would you mind giving a quick introduction about yourself and your company?  (Whatever you feel is appropriate in this forum)
My name is Jamie Hardy and I am the founder and owner of Perilous Journeys Publishing.  I have always been into games.  My first memories are of board games, in elementary school I moved into AD&D, and most of high school was spent playing AD&D.  I started to get into some other RPGs then, but as many people know, getting players to move to a different rule system after being so used to one system is very difficult.  In college I got into different groups and LARPS that gave me the opportunity to play with those who were fans of different systems and genres. 
The first game I tried to write as a Highlander based RPG in high school.  It was very much in the AD&D rule structure.  I don’t remember much about it, but I am pretty sure it sucked.  I am not sure it really got played either.  Many years later, I now have two RPGs out with SteamCraft being that newest game.  Out first expansion for SteamCraft, tentatively titled Shadows Over Newport will be released soon.  We are also working on some additional products for SteamCraft and have a new RPG in the works. 
With all of the commercial games that are available why did you feel the need to publish your own?
I didn’t think of it that way.  With PJ, it was just putting out the game.  I wasn’t building a company and at best I have broken even with my costs, but certainly not the time I put into it.  SteamCraft was different. 
Years ago, my wife was living in Japan for a while so we skyped.  One day I came across this steampunk stuff.  I read up on it and starting looking at the fashion, its themes, and the people who were getting into it.  So the next time I talked to my wife, I explained to her this steampunk thing.  I told her that since Twilight had killed off the vampire/Gothic thing that I thought steampunk was going to be the next big thing.  I told her that someone should put out a steampunk RPG because it could be huge.  If you could release at the right time, with an easy to use system, you could have a success once steampunk became more popular like the Gothic/vampire stuff did in the 1990’s to mid 2000’s. 
My wife then said that I should do it.  She said that since I had already written an RPG, I had a game system that would work, there should just need to be the need for a setting – and that wouldn’t take too long.  It wasn’t as easy as it seemed at the time.  I built a new system to make things work the way I wanted and world building took a long time. 
Why steampunk? (Have you always been a fan, etc.)
Well, I grew up watching the old Wild Wild West TV show.  I found it awesome at the time.  In that regard, I suppose you could say I have always been a fan of steampunk in some way.  Nevertheless, I think cyberpunk has been a longer direct fascination.  I think some of the most fun I ever had in an RPG was playing Cyberpunk 2020 in high school a few times.  I think after the release of PJ, I started thinking of other genres and was going to put out a cyberpunk version of that.  Then I came across steampunk on the internet and that led to SteamCraft instead.  I am sure what grabbed me at the time was the aesthetics.  I think what keeps my interest is the technology and the type of characters allowed by that technology.  I really like the frontier and individualistic aspect of the steampunk era where scientist and inventors are in some sense the heroes.  Tolling away in a one room shack, they come up with fantastic inventions to help the world or more often, to sell for a massive profit.  I love the idea of needing or wanting something and then someone going into a room, grabbing parts, and then building what is needed.  Steampunk allows that because it harkens to an era where something like that did happen, i.e. Fulton, Edison, Tesla.  It is a much more romantic, compelling, and interesting view of scientists and engineers than what is the case in the modern world. 
I took the aesthetic, technological, and inventor aspects of the steam era and then mix it with the themes I enjoy from cyberpunk and the result is a really interesting amalgamation that is my view of steampunk. 
I noticed the similarities with Gygax’s Lejendary Adventures and how you fixed the frustration I and others have had with that game.  Was that the motivation for Perilous Journeys?
To answer this, I need to put things into context.  I grew up playing 1st edition AD&D and never went on to play 2E.  In the late 1990’s I got onto the internet and found Gary Gygax’s website.  I then went and emailed him and I am sure it was about AD&D.  I know at some point I sent him the Bard as a class and he said some nice things but pointed out because of a settlement he couldn’t offer an endorsement but suggested I post it up on Dragonsfoot. 
Anyway, at that time Lejendary Adventure was in beta.  Gary talked it up, I downloaded it and printed it out.  I got onto his mailing list and we ended up chatting a lot.  I very much had an AD&D outlook on games and talking with him really helped break that mindset.  At some point he decided to let me write a supplement for the setting Lejendary Earth.  The project was much different at that time than what came about.  I started working on a small portion known as the Djarenn Septarchy with a friend of mine.  Anyway, I ended up moving around the time LA was released and I never finished that project.  At that time I think Gary had a lot of people working on various things and I don’t think any of us delivered any of the products. 
Sometime down the road I get back into LA and the old Yahoo Group was replaced by a website.  Prior to Gary’s health decline, I did get involved with a lot of LA potential products.  I wrote up some stuff about necromancers and had an article as well as new spells for the Lejends Magazine ready to be published just as the magazine was canceled.  At another point, I helped a member of the LA community write an adventure.  It was supposed to be produced by Hekaforge, but because LA pretty much failed it was canceled.  Another publisher was going to put it out and I started to write another adventure as part of the deal, and that company went under.  Meanwhile, I was branching off into other games and helping people out for free with writing, editing, and testing things that wouldn’t get published. 
Down the road, Gary died.  Gail Gygax, his wife, pulled all of the contracts she had.  A 2E of LA was planed and then scraped.  At that time, a small publisher wanted to do a retro-clone of LA and get it into print.  I agreed and I started to work.  Well, I was much more productive than he was and plowed through it.  When I was maybe 2/3 done, he contacts me to pull the project.
Around the time I was writing adventures that I thought would be published but new were, I got married.  My wife saw how much time I spent of gaming boards, doing things for other people, and writing projects just to have them canceled.  At the time, I got the impression she was a bit pissed I kept wasting my time.  Knowing this, I decided that I would just do things myself so that I can say at least I got a product completed and done. 
Now that I was not producing a retro-clone, I was freed up to do things how I wanted.  I suppose my overall goal was to produce a skill-based RPG that gave you the openness of original D&D to appeal to those players as well as to the few people who played LA.  That required me to produce a skill-based game around the way people actually played LA. 
I think that Gary was a very smart man, but I believe that what made AD&D great were people around him to challenge him and clean up rough ideas and poor writing.  LA lacked that.  Thus, you got a confusing mess and no one came close to playing it like it was written.  For example, if you play the game as written, you had to come up with the character concept.  Then select the abilities you thought appropriate.  Then you consulted with the GM about what exactly each ability did.  Then, you both had to agree on what the numerical rating of the ability meant.  That is, do you have a broad knowledge of everything, or specific knowledge of one thing?  There were no real guidelines or rules on how to handle any of this.  How did people actually play?  Well, they assumed that whatever the ability covers a PC can do.  Further, you just roll under the rating and the action succeeds. 
In order to create the type of fantasy game I wanted, I thought back on those early conversations with Gary.  One of the notorious things that everyone asked in regards to LA, was what an order is?  Well Gary had imagined that the GM would create a world and that there would be associations that trained people.  If you recall in AD&D, when you leveled up you needed training.  He thought this means GM’s created associations for players to belong to and I got the impression that this was what he had done since D&D. 
What I then decided to do was to take my interpretation of how Gary played D&D and put it into the skill-based system.  Over the years I realized that there is a strong interplay between the game setting and the mechanics and part of LA’s problem was not integrating them.  When doing PJ, I realized I had to integrate the rules with the background assumptions of the setting. 
Along the way, I decided that the sloppiness of the 1970’s style RPG was unacceptable to the modern gamer.  So when creating the abilities list I made sure that each ability was clearly defined to avoid overlap.  I removed nonsensical abilities like Luck and replaced it with a mechanic in the game.  I made sure that you could do whatever was in the list of abilities.  I made changes to the attribute system to solve problems people had. 
I had the LA gamer in mind when I worked on Perilous Journeys.  I wanted a game that they would embrace as well as one that would appeal and make sense to new gamers.  I didn’t want a rule system that contradicted itself.  I wanted to make sure that if there were game world institutions that needed to be incorporated into the rules that it was done.  I wanted to remove the needless restrictions that Gary was fond of putting to games.  I wanted a flexible rules-light system that allowed the freedom of original D&D, but reduced the hand waiving that GMs have to do in that game. 
Perilous Journeys was your first design and it was made available through Lulu.  What have you learned from that experience?  What would you do differently looking back?
I think everyone starts with Lulu, but few stay there.  Lulu makes things very easy for self-publishing.  It breaks everything down into steps.  There aren’t limits to file sizes.  You don’t have to convert your art from RBG, to CMYK, nor do you have to use PDF x-1/a.  They have a great tool for doing covers.  You can do full bleed with Lulu. 
What most people do not know is that Lulu is not a printer.  Instead, they send your files to independent printers.  This is why people do not stay with them.  You can use CreateSpace and save a lot of money and be on Amazon without having to pay Lulu’s fees and higher costs.  DriveThruRPG allows POD now, and their printer is often cheaper.  If your goal is to get your RPG product out there, then Lulu isn’t the place you want to stay.
I am not sure I would have done anything different.  My goal at that time was not to have a gaming company.  It was to see an RPG product I wrote be available and Lulu worked for that.  If there was one thing it would have been to do hardcover instead of perfect bound.  Lulu uses different page sizes for those requiring a different layout.  Since people wanted a hardcover, I would have likely done the layout for hardcover size.  Perfect bound would have still be an option because I can use the layout for the hardcover for the perfect bound, but not vice versa. 
The SteamCraft kickstarter was a success.  I believe you exceeded your goal but, most importantly, fulfilled all backer rewards.  It’s refreshing to see a kickstarter that ends in a positive manner.  Can you tell us about the experience?  (Stuff like did you have SteamCraft completely designed before doing the kickstarter, did you have a plan in place, etc.)
I might be wrong about this, but insofar as I can tell by searching on Kickstarter, SteamCraft is the only steampunk rpg that has fulfilled its rewards and to top it off, we pretty much did it on time.  I believe we were able to do this because of good planning and a bit of luck.  The writing, layout, art, etc were all done and we had the PDF for sale since April of last year.  We used POD to make copies and sold them at conventions. 
It was going to conventions that led us to doing a Kickstarter.  There is another steampunk rpg that was out in the area and they had insane success on Kickstarter.  I started to think about doing one then.  People began to pressure me to just sort of launch it because somehow I was going to be behind.  Instead, I ignored them.  I put a plan into place on how to do a Kickstarter.  I also wanted to know exactly how to do things.  So, I got prices for printing the book.  Got an ETA on how long that would take.  I learned how to get the book into distribution.  I then set a schedule for everything beginning with the Kickstarter.  I then totaled how much money was needed to print the books, fulfill the rewards, and then ship everything.  The only thing that we continued to do was edit the book for a final printing. 
The actual experience of Kickstarter is nerve wracking and a bit addictive.  I found myself constantly checking the totals and waiting for backers.  I was trying to find new places to get the word out.  It was great to be funded and Kickstarter is an amazing way to get your product noticed.  We have fans all of the world because of Kickstarter.  However, the experience was very stressful and having to fulfill rewards personally takes a lot of time.  The current plan is to only do a Kickstarter if we need the money to get a product out.  We have a card game and another RPG in the works, so there may be a Kickstarter for those.   
On the flip side of that question – and you choose to be as specific as you want in your answer – what do you think causes these problems that commonly pop up for kickstarters trying to get a game published?
I assume you mean something along the lines of why successfully funded RPG projects fail to fulfill their rewards or take a long time to complete.  I think that there are many reasons, but I will pick three general ones that I am aware of.  First, is that they do not think about the business side of things.  You need to know how much it is going to cost to print books.  You need to take shipping costs into account.  You need to carefully choose the all too common stretch rewards.  The costs on those can be substantial.  Once you reach you goal and have the money, you need to avoid the urge to splurge the money on upgrades you did not budget for.   
Second, people take on too many projects.  There are at least a few cases of people once they are funded with one project, go and start another one.  Putting out one project is lengthy and expensive, when you add two or three, then things are naturally going to get behind. 
Third, the very nature of Kickstarter leads to delays.  People are there to get money to do the project and have no understanding as to how long things take or how much it costs.  Many people going into Kickstarter have little done.  Some are still “testing” things but have it written.  However, they still need art and to do the layout once the testing is complete.  Of course, the reason why they are on Kickstarter is to get the money for the art, and sometimes pay for layout and editing.  If they could pay for those things, they wouldn’t need to do a Kickstarter. 
In many cases, you are getting in on the ground floor of a project with someone who has never produced a product before.  It isn’t just the inexperience that causes the problems, but how much needs to be done prior to release.  The more that needs to be done and the more people that are involved in getting the project done, the more likely delays are going to happen.  Inexperience and worrying about funding creates unrealistic deadlines.  If someone posted up it would take one year for you to get your book, would you back it?  In many cases I do not think potential backers are intentionally mislead, but I think there is a subconscious motivation to be optimistic about deadlines. 
I think SteamCraft was in a different situation than many other projects on Kickstarter.  We wanted money to do a printing of the book and get it into stores.  Most other people need money just to get their project completed and produce a few copies for their backers.  We were much farther along in the process allowing us to meet our goals. 
As a side note, and I cannot speak to this being a common issue or not, but I believe that many people vastly overpay for art.  Part of it is that people still buy under an old pricing model.  That is they pay by the size of the art in the book.  They pay $40 for a single quarter page, but then have to pay $150 for the same image if it takes up a full page.  That pricing model makes no sense for the modern publishing world.  You should purchase by the piece, not the size it is going to be printed.  Again, that comes back to the first problem I mentioned – not thinking like a business.  But, when you are doing something for the first time you are often going to make mistakes like this.  I was lucky enough to spend time leaning the RPG market before I decided to be a publisher. 
Where do you stand on the retroclones?  (Do you use any of them or don’t see the point at all, etc.  Tell us how you feel.)
Retroclones cover so many different types of games with different purposes I don’t want to lump them all together.  I believe that OSRIC was intended less to be a book for people to use in place of AD&D, but to provide legal cover for people wanting to put out adventures.  That way, the first edition gamer can put out an adventure and say “For use with OSRIC” instead of AD&D.  That makes sense to me.  Most people have never played the original “White Box” D&D.  It is not something you can easily get a hold of.  So, having a retroclone of that makes sense to give people access to that style of game. 
The term ‘retroclones’ can also be used for original but sorta clone products.  People re imagine D&D, but put it in space.  Or I have seen people try to make a Second Edition of AD&D the way that Gary intended it.  These are interesting products and I have no problem with that. 
With that said, I do have some issues.  I see no reason to play a clone if you have access to the original, or if the original is cheaply available.  If you want to play AD&D, then just go play AD&D.  I do not see why people would want to purchase a clone of that.  The books are easily available and pretty cheap. 
What other types of games do you enjoy?
I like most types of games, although a lot of the new German board games I don’t really care for.  I suppose I prefer tactical, simulation, and role-playing games the most.  I like games that involve problem solving, planning, and finding creative solutions.  The medium of the game doesn’t matter.  I enjoy card, board, computer, and PnP RPGs.  This ranges from traditional card games and RISK, to computer games like Civilization and The Secret World.  Of course good old-fashioned slaughter your enemies games are fun, which is why I played Dark Age of Camelot for over 10 years slaughtering Mids and Albs who were invading border keeps in my homeland of Hibernia.