Justin Handlin and Crit Academy are a D&D discussion podcast group that have been streaming their playtests for Capes & Crooks for months. Now, during Superhero Week here on Geek Native, they’ve launched the Kickstarter campaign for the project.
Capes & Crooks are looking for $30,000 to bring unique characters, superpowers, roles, origins and high technology to D&D 5e. The campaign is 1/3rd of the way there already and with weeks still to run. You can see progress or join in on the project page.
The RPG is set in an ultra-modern world called Terra. That makes a lot of sense. In the Capes & Crooks setting, supers (deviants) have been appearing for years. The world is trying to adapt to this. Now about 20% of the population has some powers, and that includes super-geniuses.
You can imagine what a few years of active super-geniuses would do to our already rapid rate of technological progress.
Throw in the occasional alien visitor, and it’s easy to imagine transformative change. However, Capes & Crooks is a superheroes game that feels more X-Men and Fantastic Four than Blade Runner or Star Trek.
There’s a free to download 16-page preview (PDF link) as a sample, so you can see it for yourself.
That preview shows the font and size used; they’re packing a lot in here and the crisp layout. Art, often an essential part of the genre, isn’t too scarce, although they’ll have picked good pages to preview.
Most of all, I suspect you’ll find that the preview screams 5EEEEEE at you off the page. This isn’t a hero game in which you abstract things to the extreme; it’s a game that provides tables and options to shop from, with the mechanics enjoying that rate of pace 5e offers when it finally does move into more abstracted systems.
This one book contains a full world setting, character creation rules, equipment statistics, powers, personal enhancements, magic items, tech items, monsters, villains and NPCs. In addition, there are two adventures included! This volume is three sourcebooks rolled into one!
It’s a $20 or more pledge to unlock the hi-res PDF, and at $30, the Adventurer’s Bundle: Player Options PDF and Witiker’s Wall of WOndrous Magic Items are both added in PDFs.
You’ll get the core rules for Capes & Crooks in PDF and hardcover for $50, but shipping is extra and limited to certain countries. The additional two PDFs are added back in at $60.
At $80, you get the Capes & Crooks hardcover and PDF, along with the Memorable Monsters hardcover.
After that, the pledges creep up with limited offers or retailer bundles, one of which has been sold, so we know one person who knows the market believes Capes & Crooks will sell.
Irrespective of the tier you land on, Capes & Crooks has an estimated delivery date of May 2022.
This Kickstarter write-up is part of Superhero Week, and so you can use this teleport link to load up something else from the series.
