You have a birthday card from Gary Gygax?! That is the coolest thing ever!!!

A book signed by Gygax is so cool, and seeing how long you've been involved definitely makes you a veteran. Looking forward to the KS start!

I had never heard of you until professor dungeonmaster had covered your kickstarter. I am going to be purchasing your product.

Really like the art you've chosen, that old school messy line is so much more evocative than most of the modern stuff

This will be the first kickstarter I've ever backed, and I've honestly been counting down the days! You've done an awesome job with this.

I haven’t tried Shadowdark yet, but your 5e adventures are featuring heavily in my current campaign and both my players and I are really enjoying them! (I never mention how easy they are to run, but that’s my favorite part!)

"I didn't know what I was doing then, and neither did my friends, but we had a lot of fun with it." - this phrase is thieves' cant for - 'I have completed the TTRPG rite of passage. I am one of you!'

Glad to have creators like you in the community. I'm just a grognard waiting for the Kickstarter. Game on!

You definitely get bonus xp for that backstory. You're living the dream now!😀

The whole OGL fiasco motivated me to take an idea of an Urban Fantasy setting I had, God Complex, and I began to write the core rules for a completely new system. I am a newbie game designer and this is a bit overwhelming but it is coming along. I really admire the work you've done and have certainly been a huge inspiration. I look forward to seeing Shadowdark when it comes out!

I highly respect what you have done. I started playing late 1E and we mixed basic rules and 1E before converting to 2E. And even then we used all the old modules. I hope you have a blast playing

Great story! I can’t wait to back the Kickstarter!!

Invincible Overlord and Village of Hommlet were my gateway drugs. You are my people.

Can't wait to back the project! What a great story and thank you for sharing your background in gaming.

My best friend is Rose Estes’s youngest son. Lots of funny stories about Gygax and the rest of the founders.

Shaowdark looks so slick. I just bought the physical book. In addition to being a fun system the art is amazing.

I'm in! Can't wait! Glad to find you 🥰

Been with you for a while now. I started playing dnd in the 70's with the basic blue book. Loved it then and played constantly through the 80's and 2nd edition. Stopped when I life got busy and had kids in the early 90's. Picked it up 3 years ago and was negatively blown away by the complexity of everything. I really longed for the simplicity of what I played in the 70's (I also had the city state of the invincible overlord, what a map!). Have backed Shadowdark and am looking forward to a game that does not take weeks to prepare for. Thanks for your work. I am finishing a campaign and have used several of you adventures (running Karina with her mutants tonight).

Proud of your growth and thankful for the love and care you add into the community

I can’t wait to show off all your hard work! It’s going to be incredible!

Your sincerity and wholesomeness shines through your work. Or shall I say art ;-) Tapping my foot waiting on that KS! So excited!

Kickstarter saved; cannot wait.

I love how this looks and as I said before I am eagerly waiting for this to hit Kickstarter. You are truly inspiring.

It's been a year since this video and your game system has inspired so much in my gaming group one of my players is now dming professionally and he is using your game system in order to get people into the hobby quickly and with the maximum entertainment. I've sat in on a couple of his sessions and it really works people that have never played before come in and they really enjoy the game they really enjoy the streamlined rules so they can pick it up very very quickly they love the aesthetic and simplicity, you have revolutionized fantasy tabletop role-playing. I never thought anything could top advanced dungeons & dragons and certainly years after there was no proof of that but now I'm eating crow, you most certainly have proved me wrong, bravo!

I'm especially interested in how you decide to implement arcane and divine magic, as well as exploration. Eager to see all your hard work!

I saw PDM's and Questing Beast's review and this looks great. I see the KS is going swimmingly, good luck!

Love the idea of the game. Thanks so much for this. Just downloaded the starter kit and all the content I could from drivethrurpg. Cant wait to get the hard copy of the book.

Good for you! Looking forward to playing,

This is so cool. I’m late to the party and missed the KS but recently ordered a copy of the core book. It’s absolutely beautiful!

"Shadowdark" looks great, and was interesting to hear your story. Thanks, and all the best!

You are doing fantastic work! Keep it coming

Thank you for this & can't wait to play it.

This is cool. I started playing D&D in the BECMI days, when I was 14. That was... some time ago. In recent months I have been thinking about producing some gaming stuff, particularly after ShadowDark came out. But I have to say, I find myself hesitant to do so for fear of inadvertently breaking the licensing agreement. I'm pretty sure I would mess it up somehow.

You are AWESOME, your book looks freaking AMAZING, and as of right now you've got like $319,000 in pledges. Well freakin' earned!

I found your channel after the whole OGL debacle, and been following ever since. I look forward to reading Shadow Dark soon.

Howdy, Kelsey! That's really cool that you started out in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. That was the setting for my very first session as a player way back when. I was immediately hooked. The 1st Edition DMG hadn't even been published yet so I had to borrow the white box set and hand copy all the DMs rules so I could run my own game. My life has been ruined ever since. In a good way. Looking forward to getting the new game on Kickstarter.

I worked in Madison Wisconsin for 2 years at Raven Software and loved the gaming culture and community of artists, designers and writers. I'm really happy to see the Indie spirit I experienced there thriving with this project.

I'm looking forward to this game!

Good luck with the kickstarter, I enjoyed having a look through the preview/quick start that you released before. Can't wait to get in on building things for this rule set!

I just found out about this campaign the other day and absolutely love it. I couldn’t click “back this project” fast enough.

I'm so excited for this! Awesome job! Subbed.

Really looking forward to your Kickstarter been a big fan of all you adventures!

Very cool origin story. I'm really looking forward to Shadowdark. I plan to be a day 1 backer, and sharing it out to my community. I wish you all the best.

Looking forward to the official release! You have been an inspiration to me ever since Skyhorn Lighthouse... I cannot wait to see where your talent and imagination takes us from here :)

So excited for this to come out and get it on our tables and streams!!!

This looks like an awesome project! Looking forward to the launch!

Great video! Very inspiring for future creatives!

I love so much about your project/RPG and can't wait to help Kickstart it! My only quibble, and I can easily home brew this, is I hope there are more talents/features coming in supplements? Some more classes as well. Even if that's not in the plans, it is such a modular system I can add my own. This is 95% the exact type of system I would make for my ideal RPG. Thanks for all you do!

2nd Ed FTW, Loved that system. *wish i still had all my 2nd Ed stuff, lost all of it due to moving many times* - backed your K.S., looks really nice and well done. 👍

Seeing this video and the kickstarter is something that just makes me smile. Your adventures are always a master class, and Shadowdark it's gonna go into my library, somewhere between AD&D and Old School Essentials, when I can afford it that is (living in Colombia doesn't help my hobby, lol). Keep it up, excited for the future of OSR with you as its main voices.

Love hearing your story Kelsey. Thank you for sharing this with us all. Can't wait to get my hands on Shadowdark when it arrives.

This is super rad! I just heard about this today! Love the project!

I love the vibe of that art and layout! And those three pamphlets remind me of Chainmail. Very cool.

Backed the kickstarter, had to grab the complete package.

Just discovered your channel recently and I have to say I am very impressed, I have been gaming since 1982 and I am not easily impressed. I let slip on one of my own livestreams (I am a esotericism and theology KZfaqr) that I am developing a game. My channel is called Grail Country so the game is called Grail Country RPG. I am known for my Pendragon games but there are people who I have played with for years who won't play Pendragon. I have long wanted to design something that had some of the Romance and Beauty of Pendragon, but with more classic fantasy elements so it would have a broader appeal. I started work on the concept back in 2013 and had some very pleasant communication about it (at that time I was calling the project Canticle RPG) with Greg Stafford. I got seriously ill about six months into the project and set it aside for nine years. Lately my health has been better and I have started writing again, and when I let it be known publicly that I was working on it, that put the pressure on for me to really do something. In any case I have really found your channel inspiring as I start to flex those muscles again.

You are such an inspiration for me! I'm rooting for you and Shadowdark RPG!

Just kickstard Shadowdark full premium complete. Can't wait!

I can't waite to hopefully find softcover Shadowdark Rulebook sold on Amazon possibly. I seen some reviews and the book looks outstanding. Hope to see a charecter sheet with a list of to hit slots 1-10 where different peices of armor can take dmg and be payed for if repaired quick enough. I like to see a game system that has realistate rentals and purchases along with a simple investment table for more pc gold losses and payouts. So far I only found such systems in D100 Dungeon. Love roll d6 for abilties and work with what the player has! Best of luck to all involved with Shadowdark. Thank you.

Thanks for sharing your story! I can't wait for the Kickstarter. Hopefully I'll be able to run into you at Gary Con and have a chance to play at your table there.

Saw your round table with Questing Beast (I think?), and heard you mention your roots. I love the history of gaming, and D&D's and RPG's history specifically has always been a huge interest to me. Looking forward to the Shadowdark RPG and best of luck!

Backed! Best of luck.

My credit card is ready when your campaign is. I really love the old-school look of SD, very reminiscent of the time when I started playing. Best of luck with the campaign! ⚔🍻

i was literally just trying to find info for your RPG, great timing

Thanks for sharing this with everyone. I think a lot of us would like to one day write our own game and it's really inspiring to hear examples like this.

Your history with D&D now makes all the sense in the world to me how you developed an "old school"-like RPG with 3e+ ability score modifiers. Count yourself lucky you were able to experience the old Gygaxian way of playing. Many gamers from the 2000+ era have no clue what that is, sadly. But Shadowdark can serve as their introduction! Something I really like about Shadowdark is that it contains plenty to fully play with, but is bare-bones enough so a game master can easily add to it what they like for their particular games, and have little to nothing that would need to be removed. So far I say great job on Shadowdark!

Great video! Can't wait for the kickstarter to launch!

Nice video! I've been playing D&D since 1981 and the Moldvay Basic Box, and Shadowdark really seems to have the potential to be THE go-to version of "D&D" that I'll play at my table going forward. Looking forward to the Kickstarter next week!

Can't wait to see where this project goes!

This game has ALOT of attention and anticipation and the freebie sample is amazing thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you for this video. Your story is really inspiring, thank you for sharing it❤

i cannot wait for shadowdark rpg!!!!!!

Backed... It sounds like my jam.

I am 8 days late, however yesterday I saw that PDM did a review of your game! IF the game is Dungeon Craft approved, THEN it will definitely get played! Congrats!

I backed this happily and I look forward to running this as my new go-to RPG as soon as it ships. I absolutely love the Old School artwork and vibe you have going on. My maps just might look a little different than yours. ;) Thanks for doing this. I wish you all the success in the world and may all your adventures be epic!

Love hearing the story and hope you’re doing well!

I am obsessed with the art in this game.

SO STOOOOOKED

It's very exciting to see this as an old school D&D player that hasn't really played much D&D since 2E. Due to health and vision issues, I can't back it until all those out of pocket deductibles are paid, but hope to get my hands on one by the time it is released in print. I would love to see what newer players find so exciting about newer rulesets, but with what looks like the heart of those old AD&D books. (The art, to me, feels more like 1e than 2e.). I would love to get my old friends back around the table for a game.

Great story and congratulations on achieving an amazing goal!

Thanks for the video! Great origin story!

Looking forward to the launch!

Can't wait to start running Shadowdark!

Genuinely just so excited to see more women in the space, especially in game design. Everyone is talking about Shadowdark! Genuinely excited for this RPG, and I've only heard great things from everyone else online. Didn't know you had a youtube channel, subbing right away :) Please continue writing and making the TTRPG space a better place!!!

Woohoo! Looking forward to Shadowdark!

It’s nice to see a creator of a new RPG that welcomes Old Bearded White Guys to play her game. So many new games are obviously not written for us and are directly hateful towards us old time gamers.

Totally cool and get pretty excited for the Kickstarter

Can't wait to get my hands on this game!

I cant wait. Looks like such a great system.

No mention of 4th edition. As it should be. Now I KNOW you are legit ;)

I'm really looking forward to this kickstarter :D I love the art and the blend of old and new sounds interesting indeed. Can't wait to see more. Will you be releasing any playtest material or videos explaining the system in a bit more detail?

Cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to receive my Shadowdark materials. Is it July yet?

This is going to be aweome.

Nice cave!

Your courage and passion are one!! Seriously cool An inspiration

Kelsey makes shrewd choice of place to grow up with a view to future career.

Nice!

Patiently waiting.... I am using something else for now, but my players know where I am headed. Into the darkness, beyond the shadows! Can't come soon enough.

Good luck on the funding campaign, Kelsey and team.

Huzzah!

Just set the notification on Kickstarter. I am definitely going to back you on this! I will let my friends know as well. After the recent fiascos, I am all about supporting 3rd Party and Independent designers!