Last month I released Old Gods, the first in a series of what I’m calling Campaign Frames for Mortal Coil. The basic concept is to provide a quick start setting document that players can use to play Mortal Coil. I think that setting creation is one of the best things about Mortal Coil, but it can help to have a good example of a setting to start from, or if you are playing a one-shot game or a convention game, having a lot of the prep work done lets a group get up to speed quickly and spend time playing rather than building the setting in the first session.
The other purpose of the Campaign Frames is, frankly, to increase interest in the core rules of Mortal Coil. When I originally released the game in 2006, I had what I consider solid sales for an indie game release. I sold 650 copies over the whole life of the original rules release of Mortal Coil. That puts in the ranks of other indie successes like Polaris and The Shadow of Yesterday. I revised and re-released the rules last year to answer some of the problems in the initial printing, expanding the text by about 80 pages. I had hoped to get some repeat sales and attract some new players with the revised release. Sales have so far been more modest than I wanted, with only about 140 copies sold in about a year. This doesn’t count PDF only sales, to be fair. Including PDF, I’ve had a total of 215 copies of the revised rules sold. Not shabby, to be sure, but my goal is a bit more ambitious.
I got advice that it’s hard to sell a setting-less system, since there isn’t any fiction or world for potential players to latch onto. I’m not sure that’s an actual problem with Mortal Coil, but it might be one reason it didn’t do as well as I wanted. Toolkit games like Mortal Coil are a bit harder to sell.
I’d been thinking a bit about what to do to drum up a bit more interest in Mortal Coil, a game that’s been out there for four years in one form or another. I know a lot of indie games don’t follow the supplement model. The core rules deliver everything you need to play, and I do agree with the idea that any supplement that’s worth anything should deliver something that adds value to your play or it’s not worth producing (or buying). I had to determine if there was anything I could produce for Mortal Coil that was of sufficient utility to players. I came up with the Campaign Frame idea and decided to create a couple and see how they did.
So far, it has been a success. Old Gods has only been out for a few weeks, but I’ve already noticed a significant uptick in the number of people talking about Mortal Coil online. Like a lot of creators, I keep an eye on who’s discussing my games. That way I can participate in conversations or respond to criticism. Sales of the main book have also increased slightly. Based on this, the Campaign Frame idea is a success. I plan on releasing some more of these in the coming months. I’ll follow up on this post once I have more data.
I’m interested in comments on the concept or the information I gave above, feel free to give me some feedback.
Links
Indie Press Revolution
DriveThruRPG
