Andy: TBZ is a role-playing game of "hyper asian" drama, designed by a famous manga author and game designer (Junichi Inoue) from Japan. "Hyper asian" was the author's own words he used to describe a setting seeped in Japanese history, culture and mythology, but cranked up to "11": Mecha, magic, gun-katana, supreme technology, all with a deeply Japanese theme. All this is accompanied by rules which encourage play in a manner similar to anime shows or kabuki plays, and an entire story unfolds from beginning to end in just 1-2 sessions.

Andy: Interesting question! I won't lie and say "ABSOLUTELY!" In truth, it's more complicated than that.

If you like Japanese console games (personally, I'm a huge fan of FFX/X-2, the Persona series particullarly 3, Shadow Hearts 1 and 2, and anything that Vanillaware makes), then I believe you will absolutely love the rich, detailed setting and art behind the world. The game itself reads much like an artbook for a video game like they release in Japan, and the further you go into the game the more deep--and culturally rooted--the world feels.

I believe that most CRPGers will also like the rules behind the game, providing that they dig JRPGs for their stories: The drama is high, and the focus on Acts, Scenes, Intermissions and personal change, as well as awards for good role-playing, will appeal to the folks who like the drama of titles like Odin Sphere, Persona or Final Fantasy X.

However, combat in Tenra is very fast and quite simple to learn. Rather than being a complicated and intricate system like you see in games like Shin Megami Tensei and the like, it's a very novice-oriented combat system that relies heavily on using role-playing rewards to overcome obstacles. So if you love Japanese CRPGs mostly because of their combat, and difficult and intricate combat systems, the combat system of Tenra might not be complicated enough for you.

Finally, it requires some face-to-face time with your friends, which of course is slightly more complicated to organize than coming home from work, turning on your console and grinding for a few hours.

So I'd say, if you like the Story side of CRPGs, you will love Tenra, period. But if you favor the puzzle-like nature (the brain-engaging factors of particularly brutal games like the SMT series) of Japanese CRPG combat and leveling, you might not be as interested in the combat side of the game; it's very story-focused, even at the combat level.

Andy: In the story? A lot.

The characters are intended to be movers and shakers in the world. A typical game scenario might be staging a revolution against an oppressive lord, hunting down and destroying a ghostly or demonic menace, being hunted down by a clan of ninja assassins, exploring the undersea ruins of an ancient Shinto order city, or protecting a runaway kugutsu worth millions of gold. The games are supposed to be dramatic and "big": Big goals, big challenges, big enemies, big rewards.

And it all plays out in 1-2 sessions with friends: No need to spend weeks trying to complete a story!

Andy: Part of it was because I've had some seven years to develop it: By posting about it semi-regularly, talking about it on forums, and running it at conventions like GenCon, Origins, and Camp Nerdly (all the while taking notes on how to run games of it better; notes which were then added into the book), people tuned into the RPG hobby online knew this game was awesome LONG before the Kickstarter came along.

Another reason? It's genuine. People want something new, and Tenra has it. Sure, it's got gun-katana, techno-ninjas and hulk-samurai. But more important than that, this is the second RPG ever to be translated into English, but the first ever of its size and cultural relevance. People can look at the book and the art and see that it's not just some Western company taking Japanese culture, filing the serial numbers off, and adding "kewlness" until it appealed to gamers; the game reeks of its cultural placement. Between the in-depth details of Shinto, the three orders of Buddhist monk (and not just one placeholder group for "all Buddhists"), and tons of other cultural minutiae blown up and represented, it's something new and unique on the field that has never been seen before. People want to be a part of that, just like I did when I bought my copy of Tenra Bansho Zero in Japan almost a decade ago, falling in love with the crazy world of Tenra.

Andy: The greatest console RPG to tabletop RPG crossover project I can think of is surprisingly enough another work by Junichi Inoue, a Japanese RPG called "Alshard", a light RPG with a console feel in a magic-meets-technology final fantasy-esque world. It was created as a reaction to the drying up of tabletop gaming as more people turned to console gaming instead: Not only did it score its target and get old and new gamers back to the tabletop, it revitalized the industry and was the top selling RPG in Japan for years!

In the US, I would definitely recommend the games Anima Prime, which was built specifically with the drama-meets-detailed-combat feel of games like Final Fantasy X and Shadow Hearts; You create your characters and the world from scratch, and combat really has a "console feel" to it while at the same time being light and easy to manage.

Another great is the new "13th Age" RPG by Dungeons and Dragons designer Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinso. It combines a traditional "D&D-esque" setting with a fast-action combat system that's light, fast while still staying intricate and fun.

Daniel: My original plan when I thought of using Kickstarter to fund my project was I actually wanted to do it earlier in the summer. And I started revising my timeline and I thought, "Hey, I really should make it coincide with Gen Con so I can get that extra exposure and really reach out to the players face-to-face, rather than try and do everything online." So you're absolutely right, Gen Con was really a big deciding factor in scheduling my campaign for this time.

Daniel: I'm trying to balance my expectations. You're absolutely right that people come to Gen Con with the expectation of spending it here. But if I can make contact with them, give them a flyer advertising the Kickstarter, then they can go home, kinda look everything over, kinda recoup some expenses, and once they're home, then they can support the Kickstarter at that point, before the September 1st deadline.

Daniel: Already, we've achieved the goal of $20,000 for the Kickstarter, so we're already funded. We're looking at the next level: we're looking at stretch goals. The first stretch goal we're looking at is we're about $2,500 away from having a Kickstarter-exclusive Shadowfist promo [card].

Another $5,000 after that, we're going to option up the Kickstarter-exclusive Shadowfist poster. It'll be a pretty good sized one they can put on their wall. That one will only ever be available for Kickstarter. No one can ever get that poster anywhere else.

After that, we're looking at other things we can offer up: Shadowfist card sleeves, .pdfs, fiction, stuff like that. So we're really looking to take care of our fanbase who supports us from the get-go. We're really looking to take care of them.

Daniel: There's a long history between Shadowfist and the Feng Shui RPG. Way back when Daedalus owned it, Daedalus had both. They were linked, they were in love, and it was fantastic. After Daedelus went out of business, the Great Schism happened, and Atlas Games took the roleplaying game and Z-Man took the card game, and since then the ties have been coming slowly undone.

At this point, Robin Laws is the only connection between the two. Robin is, of course, the owner of the world of Shadowfist. So he's got the creative ownership of both products. But the companies are taking the products in different directions. Inner Kingdom Games is now doing new and interesting things with Shadowfist, transitioning it from a CCG to a dynamic cardgame model. Atlas Games hasn't released any new books in a while, but they're always keeping in reserve the option of really expanding it as they see fit down the line.

Daniel: They're waiting for a Golden Comeback. Exactly.

Daniel: This is a great time to start Shadowfist if you've never played before. The Kickstarter is going to be a great entry point. Refined, well-made, balanced starter decks that are playable right out of the box. If you've been on the fence about Shadowfist or you played way back in the old days and you're looking to get back into it, this is the right place to do it.

Elizabeth: They Became Flesh is a game about fallen angels just after the fall. There're two GMs: one controls God and the other controls humanity. They entice and coerce the fallen angels into going in various directions.

Elizabeth: Yes.

Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah! I think we funded at 400% [495%].

Elizabeth: I think part of it was that when you're doing a Kickstarter, it's really important to leverage your social network. I'm a little Twitter-obsessed. I spend a lot of my time on social networking, so it was really easy for me to tap into the people who are interested in who I am and what I do.

We were funded in the first day. I think we were funded in the first twelve hours. That was really awesome.

I think another of the things that really helped was the subject matter. I didn't realize how popular the whole fallen angel thing was going to be. This was supposed to be my pet/mini/side project. I didn't know if anyone was going to be interested in it. It just grew exponentially based on the popularity of the Kickstarter.

Elizabeth: Yes! Yes! I've done some writing for Failbetter Games. They do the Fallen London browser RPG that everybody loves. Right now they're funding a prequel called The Silver Tree, and the night before last we hit $30,000 of the $10,000 goal.

Elizabeth: I think a lot of it is the stuff that's sort of hinting at--I mean, the love story is a really, really awesome thing between the Khan's Daughter and William of Paris. Finding out more about that, and also a little bit about the Masters and a little bit about how they steal cities is pretty exciting.

Elizabeth: You would have to ask Alexis Kennedy. He's the Chief Narrative Officer of Failbetter Games. He might kill me if I said anything.

Elizabeth: (Laughter)

Elizabeth: Yes. We are... still figuring things out about that.