It's the final day for The Book of Funnels!

We've cleared yet another stretch goal - another bumper sticker at the $260k mark! Vote for your favorite in the poll below.

Our countdown show is later today,  at 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern on our YouTube channel. Hopefully we'll sail into OT mode. We have some great ideas for bonus swag in OT mode, starting with the "Bag Of Nightsoil" idea suggested by one of our backers!

If you'd like to help us clear some more stretch goals - please consider adding some scratch-off zero-level character sheets! Save 30% when you buy packs of 10. You can never have too many, especially with the backer edition of this Book of Funnels. 20 funnels stitched in... that's gonna require a lot of character sheets! You can see all the add-ons here.

Thanks everyone for the support so far! Looking forward to a strong finish!

Hello everyone!

Only one day remains for The Book of Funnels.

There was such an enthusiastic response to our design diaries on how to write adventure funnels that we're making it official:

The Book of Funnels crowdfunding edition will also include those essays, stitched into the book, in addition to the eight bonus adventures.

If there was ever a reason to pledge now rather than wait until later, well, I think this is it. Print backers get the stitched-in bonus chapter, and PDF backers will get the digital pages appended to the PDF version. (And of course, print backers also get the free PDF as usual.)

The project ends on Friday. Starting an hour before the end, at 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern, we will air the countdown show live on YouTube. Join Joseph, Mike and Matt for this fun time. Somebody remind us to talk about the tornado at Gen Con... a lot of good "funnel" jokes came out of that!

If we go into Overtime Mode (fingers crossed), a number of the writers and artists on this project are lined up to join us. Doug Kovacs, Harley Stroh, Stefan Poag, Julian Bernick, Stefan Surratt, Tim Snider, and maybe even a surprise guest or two may stop by as the evening winds on. If you backers keep the OT mode going, we'll keep the camera going!

And who knows, maybe there will be bonus swag for OT mode. Like a branded "bag of nightsoil" (love that idea, whichever backer came up with it!) and maybe some bonus swag to put in it!!

See you on the countdown show!

Reminder, especially to more recent backers, that there are great deals on scratch-off sheets with this project. Plus awesome new dice, death stamps, and more. Check out the add-ons if you're looking for ways to push us into the next stretch goal!

Voting continues on the bumper sticker stretch goals. Backers get several of these for free so make your vote count! Some are clear favorites... get in your votes now!

Hello everyone!

We have several fun items for today's update. Let's start with the updated "Dead" stamp art. Based on popular demand, we have revised the image to feature judge initials and cause of death:

Didn't that turn out great? Thanks for the suggestions, folks. We've requested another prototype from the stamp vendor, which we'll share when we get it.

Yes, we have once more maxed out the stretch goals. Wow. So we're adding new ones.

As a reminder, backers already get a book that's substantially larger than the retail edition. Retail backers get 12 adventures. Crowdfunding backers get 20 adventures - the starting 12 plus 8 bonus ones. Plus sewn-in satin ribbon bookmarks and a passel of bumper stickers.

We'd like to fulfill this project quickly, so that is one of our overriding goals as we think about stretch goals. Since we have already made the book huge, we're focusing additional stretch goals on things like more swag. The bumper stickers proved very popular, so we're adding even more bumper stickers up to $300k. We can quickly manufacture bumper stickers without adding more lead time to the main book, and adding more lead time is something we are trying to avoid doing.

When we hit $300k, we'll do something even cooler. Not sure what, yet!

In the meantime, vote in the bumper sticker contest, below. There are three clear winners so far, plus a couple others bouncing around in that next tier. When it comes time to select the bumper stickers we will choose from these top contenders.

Here is the new stretch goal chart:

Thanks everyone, let's keep the momentum going!

If there are three things you can count on in life, they are death, taxes and... funny animal stories from a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel!

"Send in the chicken to check for traps!" It's almost a staple of the funnel genre. Maybe it's a hog or a sheep, but the principle remains: at least one of those peasants probably has a farm animal, and pretty soon it becomes an important part of the funnel strategy.

We certainly didn't plan for this to be part of the funnel experience. But it just keeps happening. And players love it. So we accept it now!

With that in mind - what is YOUR favorite animal store from a 0-level funnel? I am sure there are some great stories out there. Tell us in the comments!!

For those who missed it - here is the latest video where the authors describe their funnels. Lou Hoefer, Stefan Surratt and Tim Snider all contributed to the Book of Funnels. You can hear their thoughts about the adventures they designed in this video!

Happy Monday, you butchers, bakers, and cheesemakers (did we really leave "candlestick maker" off Table 1-3?)!

Welcome to the final week of The Book of Funnels Backerkit campaign. We're almost out of the dungeon and about to level up, so if you're still back at the entrance, it's time to get a move on! Backers get exclusive content such as the bonus adventures, the cool bumper stickers, and--thanks to this weekend's comments--it seems like a collection of short essays on the art of funnel design is on tap. Look for more info on that in a future update.

The weekend also brought us nearly to our next stretch goal and I have high hopes we'll hit that one by Friday. Speaking of Friday, did you all catch the first of the YouTube videos where I speak with some of the funnel writers? If not, here it is now:

Now, something of great importance to every aspiring adventurer: Do I bring my cow with me into the funnel or not? I mean, what could go wrong?!

Animal and funnels go together like chocolate and peanut butter or pineapple and pizza. You're almost guaranteed to have a least one domestic animal accompanying the party into a funnel adventure. I can't count how many times I've heard someone tell me about how the farmer's chicken turned out to be the VIP of the adventure. I'm sure you all have some funny animal-related funnel stories to share too, so why not leave them in the comments section so we can all start the week with a laugh?

Our final design diary comes from DCC stalwart, Julian Bernick, who contributed three funnels to the book. Here he is with his thoughts on two of those. The third must remain a secret for now, but if you know Julian's work, you won't be disappointed.

Of Star-Chons and Lemurians

 

When I was approached to write some adventures for the Book of Funnels, I was excited to brush up on my funnel chops and create some new grinders! So I thought of inspirations. Back when first assigned adventures for DCC RPG, the Dark Master would summon me to his smoke-wreathed scrying chamber and refer me to an Appendix N author. “Read this and give me something like that!” he bellowed as his minions groveled, the tower trembled on its foundations, and an iced tea appeared on the table beside him.

And I did! These days, the Dark One is so busy with world conquest that I don’t always hear from him directly, but I still consider what Appendix N author I’d like to draw inspiration from when I cook up new modules. And perhaps my favorite, and definitely the least emulated in DCC, is Philip Jose Farmer.

I love Farmer because he’s all-out, unapologetically bizarre, as anyone knows from his World of Tiers books. I wanted to bring some of that “deep weird” into my adventures! So in my first funnel, "Challenge of the Star-Chons," the hapless zeros PCs wake up with no explanation in an open-roofed maze afloat in the starry void. It is perhaps the strangest adventure I’ve ever done, and that includes Mutant Crawl Classics as well (PCs of which would fit this adventure just fine.)

Now when I got a second adventure going in my hot little hands, I felt the yearning to do something a little more classic. The Kull stories of Robert E. Howard were a favorite, with lost lands, serpent-men, decadent nobles--the golden age sword-and-sorcery tropes. So for my next assignment, "The Blood Crown of Lost Lemuria," the PCs are the heirs to a time-lost kingdom, and if they can survive the hidden outpost they discover, they may claim some of its power for themselves. And, let’s face it, just as I thrive on killing PCs (why deny it at this point?), the nominal Blood Queen is actually powered up by the deaths of the poor zeros who are on their way to meet her! 

Now that you know the way my brain works, feel free to send me some lovely collectible Appendix N volumes. I’ll take good care of them and they’ll provide lots of adventure fuel. And maybe far off in the distance, all the way from the icicle-strewn forests of the frozen North, you’ll be able to hear that dead-stamp ka-chunking away in future playtests!