Satanic Panic: A Terrible Kickstarter

2021 UPDATE: I could probably write another long post about what’s happened in the meantime, but one thing I’m sorry about is that I referenced Brandon Dixon/Swordsfall as an example of a “good” Kickstarter, when it turns out there are several allegations of abuse. I’m leaving this article untouched, but more information can be found here.

Warning: This is going to be a long post. 

If you've followed my twitter for the past year, you might have seen me grumble about a Kickstarter that I backed in 2017 and still haven't received yet. I've posted about how frustrated I am with the creator and his attitude towards giving updates and his responsibility on the project. All of those times, I did not name said creator or Kickstarter because said creator is a big persona in the tabletop RPG industry and I was worried that naming him would result in nothing but me looking petty. However, at this point, I feel like I have a responsibility to be transparent and warn other people about this person in case he runs any more Kickstarters in the future.

The Kickstarter is called Satanic Panic, and the creator is Jim McClure. 

Some background on Jim: he runs Third Act Publishing, the company that produces all of his games. He is also the host of "Talking Tabletop", a podcast talking with various RPG creators. The show used to be on the One Shot Network, but I am not sure of its current status as episodes are now very sparse. Jim has also made various appearances on other podcasts such as One Shot, Campaign, and The RPG Academy. I even had him on Boards & Swords back in the "interview style" days of the show. At the time of the Satanic Panic Kickstarter, I had been following all of his work and even backed his first Kickstarter, Reflections (which we also played on the Dirtbags of Holding). the show.  

At the end of 2016\beginning of 2017, Jim began to promote his upcoming project Satanic Panic. The idea behind the game was that it was set in the 80's during the "Satanic Panic" when the original editions of Dungeons and Dragons were out and people lost their minds thinking that kids were summoning demons. In Jim's game, the twist was that the kids were *actually* summoning demons, and players were federal agents charged with finding RPG groups and interrupting their rituals. There was a 14 episode actual play on his Talking Tabletop podcast where we ran a small campaign of the game. The Kickstarter campaign ran from February 28th, 2017 to March 30th, 2017. Jim raised a total of $30,469 with the original estimated delivery date of March 2018. 

It's now November 2019 and I haven't seen a completed PDF, much less a printed version of the game. How did it get this far? And where is the game at now? What little information I have is through Jim's Kickstarter updates, which I will share with you for now. Some of them I will paraphrase if there wasn't much in the update, others I've screenshot so you know I am not making this up. 

End of Campaign – Rest of 2017: About a handful of updates, all the kinds of stuff you'd expect to hear (working on the book text, here's some pics, etc.). In November 2017, he publishes an update saying he is finalizing the book text and is expecting to get books shipped by the end of February 2018. 

January 16, 2018: We get the first sign of trouble. It has taken longer than expected and the text is just now at the editor. New deadline: off to Printer by end of March 2018 

January 27, 2018: On the final stages of editing. 

February 2018: Everything is on track, finalizing everything to get it to layout. Very similar to the previous update, but whatever at least he is keeping us up to date on the progress. 

March 2018: Original Estimated Delivery date 

April 2018: We've officially missed the original delivery date. Jim apologizes to backers and state that 2 things have kept this project from moving forward A) he's been busy at his day job and B) he's been pulling things back from the editor and rewriting them. He mentions Jim Merritt managing the project, which I would have thought would include keeping the author from halting progress, but whatever. Also, I couldn't blame the real world job for getting in the way, as that's what pays the bills and allows him to keep working on the project. In May, he posts a quick update saying that all of the text has been sent to the editor and he is getting chapters sent to the layout artist as chapters are completed. 

August 2018: Funny how he describes his update as "the other shoe drops" because that's exactly what I thought. You see, at Gen Con 2018, the website Roll20 made an announcement that they were launching their own new exclusive RPG called "Burn Bryte". Several popular figures in the RPG space were included as designers on the project....including Jim McClure. 

Wait....I thought Jim was busy with the day job? How has he had time to work on this new RPG? So now we discover in his update that he lied before and it wasn't just the day job that took the project off schedule. Jim got the opportunity to work on an exciting new project when his plate was already full, which he acknowledges in the update. He had planned everything out so it would work, but reality changed all of that. Instead of doing what he should have done and dropped out of working on Burn Bryte to focus on the project that he has already been paid for, he decided to let Satanic Panic fall behind schedule. 

Remember, back in April he said he was "staying on light duty at my employment until this game is at the printers" and "I am working very hard, now harder than ever, to bring you Satanic Panic". At this point, kind of feels like was straight up lying to us to make us feel better. 

October 2018: Things are looking good! Surveys are sent out (filled mine out immediately), and things seem to be back on track. New deadline: November 12th for PDF, Print version by Christmas or start of 2019. What could possibly go wrong now? 

December 2018: So much for getting the book this year. Also, I feel like Jim can't really complain about someone falling behind on work due to "life issues", as his "life issues" are the reason he missed the availability window of his first layout artist and got himself into this mess in the first place. Also, I don’t know a whole lot about the contracting side of RPGs, but do people not sign contracts with deadlines in place? In just about any other job, contract violations are a BIG deal. In the later update that Jim mentions here, he says that the current layout artist can't finish because of personal issues, but PDF is "mostly complete". Have new layout artist selected, just need files from old layout artist. 

January 2019: Turns out "mostly completed" means 25% completed. Also, even though we still haven't received the game, he now decides to launch a new game, Reach of Titan, on Kickstarter. Another reminder he was "staying on light duty at my employment until this game is at the printers", and the reason this project fell behind in the first place was because he put too much on his plate, but he goes and decides to add ANOTHER Kickstarter on to his plate. Sure "there is nothing more [he] can do" right now, but what about the Reach of Titan backers? Why would you add development of a new game on a full plate, when this is what threw off this Kickstarter? What does that say about the possibility of you being able to deliver Reach of Titan on time?  

Looking at this almost a year later, this smells to me like Jim needed more money to complete Satanic Panic, so he used the Reach of Titan Kickstarter to get him the funds to complete his existing projects. He's been through 4 different layout artists, so he either didn't pay for any of that work, or there's a good chance he's blown through his budget at this point. I'm making a big assumption here, but the timing of the Reach of Titan Kickstarter after all the layout artist fiascoes is highly suspicious.  

February 2019: In the previous update, he mentions getting the "final" version of the PDF from layout by February 28th. This is the ONLY deadline that he has made to this point (and since). In his update in February, he talks about using a suggestion from the comments of letting backers look at the PDF for a month to help fix any errors before sending the document to the printers. I've mentioned in my podcasts that I think more creators should use their backers to help their rule books in this way, so I really can't fault him for that. 

May 2019: Wait, I thought the PDF was "final"? In the February Update, he said he was only going through the PDF and making minor edits. That has taken more than 2 months? Was he lying before when he said the layout was finalized (maybe to actually appear to make a deadline)? Okay well at least we are seeing some stuff, and more updates are promised.... 

September 2019: Um what? You've been all quiet on the Kickstarter front for most of the year (remember, 2+ years after funding and 1+ years after expected delivery date) and now you are *only* posting an update because people asked it? Also, what "adversarial nature" have you been getting? Did Jim honestly expect everyone to be completely on board with the way he has ran his Kickstarter? I'm trying my best to keep my rage suppressed for this article and I know for a fact that it is still bleeding into my writing. 

That brings us to today, Mid-November 2019. No update with the completed PDF. At this point, Jim McClure has practically nothing to show for almost 3 years of work. We have been fundamentally getting the same update, that is the PDF is coming soon, since January 2018, almost 2 years ago. 

To put some balance to this article, Cory from our Dirtbags of Holding podcast suggested I provide some examples of Kickstarter creators doing it RIGHT. Earlier in the year I backed the new Millennium Blades Collusion Kickstarter from Level 99 Games. The game was expected to ship in December 2019, but awhile back they published an update saying it was going to be another 6 months before the game delivered. I am completely fine with that – want to know why? It's because EVERY SINGLE Monday, I get an update from Level 99 Games with new content: new cards, new artwork, etc. Every week, I get some sort of info on the game that assures me that work is being put into the game. In the past 6 months, Jim McClure has put out 2 updates. 

A second example is Brandon Dixon and his Welcome to Tikor Kickstarter. Here is a game that looks completely different from a lot of RPGs out there, melding the Science Fantasy genres with a cool Afropunk setting. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to back his Kickstarter (which isn't even expected to deliver until March 2020). However, I don't have to have backed the Kickstarter as Brandon is CONSTANTLY putting out links to his work on his twitter page, showing off what he is working on. 

So why did I write this post? Was it to put pressure on Jim to finish the game? Maybe, but no not really. At this point, my interest in the game is gone. The best I can hope for the game is that I get one or two neat ideas that I can utilize in other RPGs that I run in the future. No, the reason I wrote this is that it is easy for Jim to get people to support him. He has a lot of charisma, and when you hear him talk on a podcast he sounds like a man that knows what he is talking about. When you hear him run actual plays, he has a lot of in depth planning and story lines behind the scenes. Unfortunately, that's all Jim McClure is: talk. When it comes to results, he has let down his backers time and time again. Yet, when you look at Third Act Publishing's website, they list the following projects under their control (with notes on the project's status):

Reflections – Jim's own design and his first Kickstarter. Fulfilled with no real issues 
Satanic Panic – Yeah.... 
Domina Magica – Magical girl game designed by Jim's partner Emily Reinhart. Funded in September 2018, Estimated Delivery in March 2019, currently still in the layout process as of the Update on November 7th, 2019. 
Axon Punk – Cyberpunk game designed by Colin Kyle. Fulfilled and available on DriveThruRPG 
The Tearable RPG – Free one page RPG designed by Jim McClure 
Tiny Guardian – Game that the website lists will be available for his Patreon backers soon. I have no way of telling if this ever happened. 
Reach of Titan – Jim's third game, funded in February 2019. Estimated Delivery in December 2019, currently finished with the rules as of an update on July 31st, 2019. 
Orpheus Protocol – Cosmic horror game designed by Rob Stith, funded in June 2019. Estimated Delivery in June 2020, currently finishing up writing up core rules as of November 15th, 2019 update. 

So for a guy that let his own project fall behind because he had too much on his plate, he now is responsible for fulfillment on 4 different Kickstarters, and is also still working on the Burn Bryte RPG. Jim McClure is probably not intending to come off as dishonest, but at the very least he seems to be overwhelmed at the moment, and I would not trust him with any more money until his current projects get back on track.

Be careful when supporting people on Kickstarter. No matter what you may have heard of them on podcasts or social media, take a look at their previous work. What promises have they made? How many of them were kept? How many of them weren’t? Don’t assume that big names in the RPG/board game communities will deliver just because they are big names in the RPG/board game communities.