Yes, we’ve done it! We started a Patreon! A Patreon? Yes, a Patreon!
One of the founding principles of Legendary Pants is that we are ad-free. Initially, this was a reaction by Kiokri and I to the smothering number of ads we see all over the internet. However, these days, internet ads are pretty much the shittiest form of revenue anyways, so it’s not a big loss. Don’t worry, we’re going to stay firmly entrenched upon our moral high ground. Ad-free for life!
Apparently, running a site like this isn’t free. Well, shit.
So, we started a Patreon in order to beg, quite literally, money from our readers. The primary goal is to cover our basic operating costs, which include web hosting the site and advertising our articles on the Facebook. It’s not much, a few hundred a month right now, but it is money that’s going out and not coming back in (yet). Eventually, we will have products in our shop which will cost some actual money.
Furthermore, we’d like to start hiring some freelance authors to help flesh out our weekly content. Right now, it’s pretty much just me and dad working on the articles, and he has a real full time job. Psh, loser.
So, because this world is all about give-and-get, there are a couple things you can nab by throwing us a few clams every month (in addition to supporting this totally awesome site).
Monthly Module
As a content creator and a GM, I love cranking out a good ol’ fashion module for some easy playin’ around. Basically, I like makin’ stuff.
At the $5 and up tiers on Patreon, our patrons will get a free digital copy of a monthly module that I’m going to start cranking out. At first, these will be small single-session one-shots that will be very loosely tied together (and thus able to be tied into any larger campaign). However, as I get more comfortable packaging them and as my art asset library grows (I’m going to personally make all of the art for these things), I will get more and more ambitious with these. My eventual goal will be to create a weekly session’s worth of content, packaged into a monthly release, that plays out an entire campaign over the year (or maybe over less time, depending on how it flows).
I’d like these modules to, in large part, remain Patron-exclusive, but we may package some particularly hit ones into collections to be sold. Rest assured, though, that you’ll receive it way ahead of any such release.
West Marches Campaign
At the higher tiers of patronage ($20+), I am offering a limited number of you access to a West Marches game.
Don’t know what a West Marches game is? Well, you can read about it here! You can watch Matt Colville explain it here!
Briefly, a West Marches game is a way to allow a bunch of players to participate in the same D&D game. Basically, there is a vast wilderness that can be explored, and the players assemble parties and set out to explore, dungeon delve, raid goblin camps, or what ever they want to do. The GM (that’s me) listens to what the players want to do, then build a session or a series of sessions based on that. He also keeps note of how the map fills out and how the world interacts with itself and with the players.
Initially, as soon as we get enough patrons to make a full party (minimum 3), I will be hosting a weekly session inside the West Marches game. As more and more people get added into the pool of players, we’ll eventually find another GM or two to host additional sessions. These will, in all likelihood, happen over Roll20 and Discord.
I, as the over-arching GM, keep track of the greater world, even when other GMs start to take control of sessions.
This is somewhat of an experiment, but I can guarantee a couple things:
- As long as the players can come up with a common time, LP will prioritize West Marches sessions over some of our other stuff. I know we’re all busy, so it may be that the only time your party can get together will be when we run our Monday sessions. Fear not! I will sacrifice my Monday nights for the greater good of providing you good content for your generous support.
- GMs will always be LP-approved. We’re not going to scum through the bowels of the internet searching for people to run these things. Instead, I will be the first, and then other LP regulars (Kiokri, Shawn, etc.) will step in as we need more. If our need outgrows our supply, we’ll make damn sure to vet them before they run.
- We’ll guarantee one session a month, but you’ll likely get two. This is, of course, dependent on the current GM-to-player ratio, but we will definitely get you into at least one session, barring some extraordinary event.
Hopefully, this answers any preliminary questions you may have. Once we start getting patrons at this level, I’ll do a full detailed write up of the basic rules, how it works, etc. Since there will likely be some time between our first West Marches patron or two and the actual start of the playing, I promise to make up any extra cost to those early adopters in some other way. We’ll talk about it.
So that’s it! Please support us if you can, we really appreciate it. We’re going to stay ad-free forever, so help us make sure that “forever” is forever.
Have fun!
