Outliers: the award-winning solo TTRPG of weird research
Created by Marx Shepherd
Play a research assistant recruiting participants, collecting data, and performing weird tasks, before the study runs out of funding.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Lab Notebook Entry: Day Eleven
7 months ago
– Sun, Feb 25, 2024 at 02:33:03 PM
Hello Research Assistant,
It's been a while since we updated you. Have you seen how well we're doing? Frankly I'm astonished. We've been pretty steadily getting nearly £400 per day, and for a small campaign like this, that's truly something else.
At the time of writing we've got £7,669 pledged, which is well over 400% of our funding goal. We've sold 487 physical zines and 542 digital copies. There are currently 313 community copies purchased, plus 102 from before the launch, so: 415 copies total (wild). We're planning on spending that money as follows:
£876 on fees (Kickstarter, Stripe, and Backerkit)
£1696 on labour (including a 60% staff bonus, thanks to you)
£2724 on purchasing zines (including nearly 800 to sell to retailers, thanks to you)
£805 on stickers (as a thank you!)
£373 each to the CoOp war chest and the CoOp crowdfunding manager
£100 each bonus fund to the creators
I'm extremely grateful for every backer! I've been watching the campaign like a hawk and I'm so proud of what we've achieved. Thank you again, so so much.
We've kept a little quiet about stretch goals, but here are the final two we're going to offer.
FUNDING GOAL 5 - £8,500
At £8,500, we'll give each backer who has bought a community copy for someone they don't even know and yet are willing to give money to! a £1 shipping credit. We'll also give all of our staffers another 20% bonus to their pay.
This is calculated at the end of the campaign - so if you add a community copy between now and then, you'll get a shipping credit too. It'll be applied in Backerkit. Basically, that means that if you buy a community copy, it only really sort of maybe costs you £3 instead of £4. And if you're super-kind and you upgrade your pledge from £12 to £30, it'll cost you £17 instead of £18.
FUNDING GOAL 6 - £10,000
This is the big one - £10,000. To be honest such a big number is even more surreal than Outliers itself. But Backertracker tells me it's possible, even with the slowdown we had over the last few days.
If we do get there, we'll add another 20% bonus to the staff, taking their total pay to 200%, which would be well ahead of industry averages. We'll also give everyone a £1 shipping credit, regardless of whether you've bought a community copy or not.
Depending on the level of surplus at the end of the campaign, we might also give community copy buyers an extra shipping credit, but the forecasting needed to say "yep we'll do that!" is too difficult. I would love for this to happen, but it depends a lot on what the final make-up of backers is.
The main message, then, is thank you very very much, and if you can, buy community copies for our future fans (and for yourself). And do absolutely keep telling people about Outliers. Whatever it is you're doing, it's clearly working.
Thanks so much,
Marx //
Lab Notebook Entry: Day Four
7 months ago
– Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 02:27:59 AM
(found open on waking on Day Five)
11:32pm - a busy day at the lab. after some considerable effort, managed to locate the source of the humming - a participant had deliberately locked themself in a supply cupboard, and had been surviving on erasers and felt tip pens. when i finally managed to unlock the door from the outside, by unscrewing the screws holding the door handle in place, they had made an elaborate web-like structure using elastic bands, paperclips, and treasury tags, and sat suspended in it, humming sweetly. when i approached them, they leapt away, shrieking, and flapping their arms rapidly they darted away. it took three hours to track them down again, this time in the air vents, where jhjhjk jqqqiry hjaa hj-q--1 ... [message ends]
Hi Assistants,
Content warning for lots and lots of numbers and finances in the below.
I'm stoked to wake up to 300% funded. Truly incredible. Having crunched the numbers, I've found we're able to add over £500 to the CoOp War Chest, which is huge for us.
When we set up the CoOp, we found ourselves full of enthusiasm and ideas, but short on capital - the way of most indie publishers, sadly. That's why, over time, we've developed a process that ensures that successful projects contribute to the CoOp War Chest, as well as paying their own costs and staffers.
External Expenses pot
For each project, we set aside 35% of revenue for "essential costs" - this External Expenses pot includes platform and payment processing fees, but also printing. In some cases, such as here, we're able to get the unit cost of printing down enough that the total amount of these fees is below the 35% limit. The difference goes to the CoOp War Chest. In this case, our fees plus printing has been reduced to about 25%, meaning that about 10% of the project revenue can go to the CoOp War Chest - an incredible effort.
Internal Expenses pot
The remaining 65% goes to paying staffers (Internal Expenses) and any "nice to have" extras on the project. In this case, your pledges have meant that we've been able to pay our staffers at $16 per share, which we consider better-than-sustainable pay, and which is well above the industry average for activities like writing and line editing. That means we've been able to give you, our valued backers, some nice to have extras - the stickers and sticker sheets, for one, but also adding those print-at-home sheets. It also means that for every softcover zine you purchase, we're able to buy 1.5 more to sell through Indie Press Revolution, Knave of Cups, selected retailers, and at conventions. This is essential for maintaining future revenue for our creators, and surplus for the CoOp.
Surplus!
Beyond this point, we're able to start thinking about what some might call "profit", but which we're calling "surplus". For every £5 of this surplus, we'll split it between the five creators to do with as they wish - charitable donations, kicking it forward to other projects, retained for themselves, or an extra donation to the CoOp War Chest.
For my part, as crowdfunding manager this time, I'll be keeping my share. I've done one heck of a lot of labour for this project, and foolishly (don't be like me) I didn't add a fee for myself in the Essential Costs pot. It's a learning point for us that we have to remember to pay for all labour, not just the glitzy bits. Project management and crowdfunding management is just as hard as writing and layout, and it deserves to be recognised as a tough skill.
What does a pledge give to us?
In case you wondered: at the moment, every Research Assistant pledge for a softcover zine adds a cost of about £10 to the project, with the remaining £2 as surplus. By contrast, a Research Technician pledge for a digital copy adds about £1 to costs and £8 as surplus, and a Principal Investigator pledge adds about £11 to costs with the remainder £19 as surplus. Adding a single community copy to any pledge is almost all surplus to us with very little cost, and it's a great way to show your support for the project, for the CoOp, and for the indie TTRPG communities.
That's it for this time. Sorry about the numbers.
ZiMo shout-outs!
Two shout-outs today, from people I've encountered in the wilds of Zine Month.
Slasher is a horror TTRPG designed for one-shots and recreates the sort of horror film where a single dangerous creature kills off the cast one by one. The game uses a hidden dice pool to represent both sudden yet inevitable character deaths and the various clues revelations they will need to eventually beat the Threat. The book comes with 3 pre-written scenarios so it is really easy to get to the table and start playing.
Sam Armstrong has long been a champion for indie TTRPGs, and is a Yes Indie'd Pod's superfan, so he gets my vote and attention every time.
Lethe is a TTRPG for 1-6 players and 1 GM where players are a group of individuals in an odd and dreamlike world. They wake up on the shore of a river knowing only their name and are tasked with finding who they used to be and how much of that person they want to be going forward. The GM creates the character backstories and their stats, skills, and abilities.
The world of Lethe is inspired by a combination of Alice in Wonderland, Over the Garden Wall, and the Divine Comedy. Things are dreamlike and just different enough to confuse the characters.
Lethe is crowdfunding now on Crowdfundr, and is a fascinating project with lots of interesting guest writers planned. I originally applied to be a contributor, but pulled out when we decided to run this campaign instead, so go and show Lethe some love!
Lab Notebook Entry: Day Three
7 months ago
– Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 02:41:47 PM
7:53am - check funding. seems we're past £4,000 and 200 community copies. go back to sleep.
9:37am - deal with the steady realisation that this is the biggest Kickstarter I've ever dealt with.
11:12am - a mild panic. ask a friend to deal with fulfillment. good decision
Evening Assistants,
Thanks to you, we've gotten through all of our planned stretch goals, both community and funding. That means we're getting:
Book Upgrades - frosted covers on both front and rear, and an upgrade in paper weight from 120gsm to 160gsm. It'll feel really nice to hold.
Individual Stickers - individual large-ish rectangular stickers (about A6 in size) of Carly's art, to every softcover backer. Will be a design exclusive to this campaign.
Sticker Sheets - A5 sheet of custom-cut stickers of Carly's art from the game, to every softcover backer.
PnP Round Stickers - templates of 25mm / 1" round stickers, so you can make your own custom tokens at home.
PnP Standees - more print-at-home templates so you can make your own weird lab equipment standees!
PnP Play Aids - design TBC, but something that you can use to track the state of your game and maybe do your journaling.
PnP Money - design basically finalised: money you can use instead of your tumbling block tower, in weird denominations (1, 3, 7, 18, 45).
Well-Paid Creators! All of our creators are now getting a full 60% bonus, which is amazing. We're all about being rewarded for incredible efforts!
From now, after all costs are accounted for, the extra funds raised are being set aside and divided into little "pots" that each of our five creators are going to decide what to do with: a little bonus to themselves, paying into the CoOp warchest so we can pay for other book printing in the future, a big tip to an amazing ZineQuest campaign, a charitable donation, or something else I've not thought of!
This is the biggest campaign I've ever run, so it's a big deal for me to see it succeed. I'm wary of burning myself out, so I'm looking to take on a fulfillment house to deal with sending out the 300+ physical zines we need. I'll price it out and make sure it represents good value for money for you, the backers, because you'll be paying for shipping later. But it will mean that I can offer Delivery Duty Paid (DDP) to EU countries, which I know is a big deal - no surprises fees when your zine arrives. So whatever happens, our EU backers will be getting DDP shipping.
Thanks again all,
Marx //
Project Shoutouts
More of Sam's picks! These all need help reaching their funding goals - go back 'em!
Play as a crew of Spacers in a colorful, hard sci-fi universe. Crews take on a variety of jobs and work together to solve complex problems. The game includes both a Spacer Guide zine and a Host Guide zine. I’m impressed by the visual design and I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about this one!
A solo TTRPG about a martial artist fighting against the odds. This book is over 200 pages and brings your character through years of their story. It’s thematically similar to Kerr’s multiplayer game Fight to Survive: Role-player Martial Arts Meets Heart, which is absolutely fantastic, so I’d love to see Solo Martial Blues come to fruition.
Another solo TTRPG, this one about a Norse adventurer in a neon world. Your character will take on many quests throughout their life and eventually grapple with death at the end. This is a fantastic team of creators and I’ll happily shout about everything they make.
Lab Notebook Entry: Day Two
7 months ago
– Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 04:02:15 AM
6:32am: woke up to find we're at 200% funding, which given we're at less than 18 hours in, seems pretty unreal.
7:24am: checked again. number still high and ever-increasing.
11:37am: still rising. time to update the boss?
Folks, at time of writing we're at something like 204% funded, which is absolutely astonishing. We've smashed through goals I didn't even have time to announce (being asleep). So to go over these...
The zine will be upgraded with a frosted cover, and whatever other upgrades the budget can cover
Every softcover backer will get an A5 sticker sheet with art from the game
Creators get a 60% bonus to pay
We'll give you print-at-home sheets for round stickers (to make tokens) and for lab money (to use instead of a tumbling block tower)
Also we're at a grand total of 102 pre-launch + 172 purchased = 276 community copies, which is just incredible.
If we get to £4,000, we'll add an extra bonus sticker (the original size) to the softcover editions. And if we get to 175 community copies purchased, Carly is going to make some standee (cardboard minis) print-at-home sheets. Fun stuff, just for you.
I'm trying to work out what we'll do with more money, but I think we'll probably give our creators some choice as to what to do with your generous pledges: kicking it forward to another campaign, a charitable donation, an extra bonus, war chest deposits ...
That's all for now. Please keep up the support and shouting about us to your friends and enemies. We really appreciate it.
More shout-outs!
Here are some other campaigns you should check out this ZiMo / Zinequest:
3 GAMES ABOUT LIFE is a collection of 3 diceless, GMless one-page TTRPGs about the passing of time, the addition of small details making up a life, and a focus on what keeps us going through bitter times. In HERE & NOW, players explore the same place at different moments in its history, the same moment as it unfolds all around the planet, or a combination of both. In THE SEVENTH RAINBOW, players explore the whole life of a single protagonist in six summer scenes and an epilogue. In SHE TRAVELED, YOU STAYED / SHE STAYED, YOU TRAVELED, two players explore the relationship between two urban witches as they meet again after 30 years apart.
Côme and I worked together a fair bit on the now-defunct in*die zine, and SHE TRAVELED, YOU STAYED / SHE STAYED, YOU TRAVELED was in the final edition of that zine a couple of years ago. It's a fabulous little game!
If you enjoy the tone of Outliers, you should check out 100% Modern Ghosts by B Marsollier, a game of humorous horror! Play as a researcher for the Bureau of Occult Observation (BoOO) documenting ghosts hiding in the mundane. Each zine contains 3 ghosts/games, such as The Bodyguard (for 1 player) and The Knick-Knack Shepherd (for 2 players). B’s comedy is impeccable – you won’t want to miss this one!
100% MODERN GHOSTS is on Kickstarter now, also until midnight on February 29th (or March 0th), and has just funded. This is Sam's pick, and we're all super stoked about it.
Lab Notebook Entry: Day 1 (supplemental)
7 months ago
– Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 01:35:48 PM
Hello Assistants,
When I pushed the "Launch" button earlier, I did not expect to fund on day one, let alone in six hours. I can only thank you for your support, which has absolutely blown me, Sam, Carly, James, and J away. We're so, so grateful for your support.
A microcentury is 0:52:37.5, in case you wondered. Also look at that happy lil' filing cabinet.
Stretch Goals
Y'all blew past the goal so dang fast I didn't have time to catch up - I was going to announce some stretch goals! So here they are:
Funding Stretch Goal 1: Book Upgrade (£2,500)
If we break £2,500, the book will get upgraded to have a frosted cover on the back as well - it doesn't at the moment, but it'll look so much better if it does. I'll see if there are any other upgrades the printer can offer as well. Plus, every creator will get a 20% bonus to their pay. Any leftover money will go to printing extra zines for sale in places like Knave of Cups (we love Knave of Cups!), to me as crowdfunding manager, and to the CoOp warchest for future projects.
Community Stretch Goal 1: Sticker Templates (125 community copies purchased)
You have all been incredibly kind in terms of buying extra community copies, which is frankly just astonishing. At one point this afternoon we had 69 (nice!) community copies for 92 backers, which is a rate of 75% - beyond amazing - and we're still only just below this percentage. To say thanks, if we get to 125 community copies purchased, Carly and James are going to release some 25mm (1") round sticker templates for print-at-home sticker sheets (like Avery). Then you can make your own tokens for the game, and just generally put stickers on anything you like.
You can expect some more Funding and Community stretch goals announced as we get through the campaign, but once again, thank you so much for your continued support.
Zinequest/ZiMo shoutouts
We've gotten a lot of love from some other quarters in the last few days and indeed hours, so here's a round of ZiMo campaigns we wanna shout out to. This is how you build communities, y'all, so take note!
CoOp member Reilly Qyote recommended this amazing campaign to us:
The Details of Our Escape is a new ttrpg from ENnie Award-winning game designer Tyler Crumrine, two-time Eisner-nominated comics artist Linnea Sterte, and Windham-Campbell Prize winner in fiction Renee Gladman. Played with a standard 28-tile set of dominos instead of dice, players control a caravan of people in search of a new home. What they've left behind and what strange & wonderful sights they'll encounter along their journey is up to you. Just how many party members continue all the way to the caravan's final destination, however, is up to fate.
Optimized for 2-7 players without a game master, modifications and guidance are included for both solo and online play. Each physical copy will also come packaged with heavy-stock, cut-out domino sheets designed by Hinokodo.
A ghost hunts you across a map of your home in this fast-paced, solo/duet RPG about snacking and pets. Can you escape with your cereal?
I Crave the Loop is a game of keep away with an eldritch kinda-cat whose sole desire is to devour your snack. Taking a healthy dose of inspiration from roguelike video games, you'll FLEE across maps of houses, apartments, dorms, and other snack-rich environs and FEAST on a real life snack as your game clock. Gather items to help you against the creature but keep an eye on your snack or you'll lose it all! It's a game for anyone who has played a less haunted version of keep away with pets while they eat.
I Crave the Loop a Bright Bard Productions game created (incidentally) by CoOp members Jon Boyle (writing, design), Bri de Danann (illustration), and Marx Shepherd (editor).
Me, the Singularity RPG is a haunted-house-in-space game, about the crew of a space station being haunted by an extradimensional "ghost". Players attempt to interpret the entity's cryptic warnings, the only thing that can save them from a looming catastrophe.
The game reimagines the Me, the Singularity visual novel by Supercircuit, adapting the art, themes, and plot of that game to a tabletop roleplaying game. This #Zinequest we're looking for backers to help fund the creation of Me, the Singularity RPG as a physical zine.
Me, the Singularity is created by friend of the CoOp and UK Tabletop Network Michael Duxbury, who went through hell and high water to sell Outliers at Dragonmeet 2023.
