2026 PWG Pre-orders

BackerKit Surveys & Path Apparatus Announcement!
about 2 months ago – Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 09:38:07 AM

Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend!

We still had ~100 unanswered smoke tests as of Sunday morning, so I wound up giving it another day, but I'm happy to say we've had ZERO issues so far! Thanks so much to all of our guinea pigs, and the rest of you should have received your surveys as well!

These surveys are sent to your Kickstarter-associated email (the one you log in to Kickstarter with) so be sure to check that address as well as its spam folder. I know we've had some trouble with email forwarders already, but usually these surveys make it through. As before, if all else fails shoot me a message and I'll send you your survey link via Kickstarter DMs. 

For those of you new to the platform, BackerKit is a service that lets us collect and charge shipping costs AFTER the conclusion of a campaign. That way, we're able to calculate and charge exact shipping costs once copies of the games are in hand, not just guesstimate shipping rates before the fact. Shipping is not being charged now—we're simply starting the process of collecting addresses and add-ons. You'll receive another email/update alerting you before any orders are locked or any shipping is charged so that you can confirm and/or adjust anything.

The other thing BackerKit lets us do is add items to your pledge from the larger Possible Worlds Games catalog. If there's another game you'd be interested in—and you don't mind waiting until November to get it alongside your pledge—you can add it to your order to put everything in the same package and save on shipping! 

You can also switch your pledge if you decide you'd like to upgrade from a PDF-only tier to print. Just select the Switch You Pledge Level option at the start of your survey below the "Get Started!" button. This will let you apply your current pledge amount to any other tier, essentially giving you a discount equal to however much you pledged already. 

So what add-ons are available?

You already know about our shirt (available in Small-5XL) and art print, but we're rolling out something else new as well—an entire book!

New from CMRN Kunzelman and M.G. McWhorter, Possible Worlds Games is proud to present Path Apparatus! The result of an extensive study of “lifepath” systems—a character generation method that minimizes player input and instead relies on random chance to determine how a character’s life progresses before beginning play—Path Apparatus is a system-agnostic supplement for fantasy settings informed by the pair's findings. Players progress through multiple jobs, accumulating weird, specific, and interesting details, producing a narrative background and the mechanical silhouette of a character rather than detailing the minutiae of their character sheet.

Fans of Austin's work may already know CMRN from their podcast together Shelved by Genre, other Ranged Touch shows such as Game Studies Study Buddies or Just King Things,or his academic writing. Last summer, CMRN and research assistant Maret McWhorter (plus co-writer & illustrator!) embarked on an academic study of lifepath systems in TTRPGs, and before long realized they wanted to make their own! The result is not only an extremely fun and useful tool for fantasy gaming (or other creative pursuits) but an example of what can be achieved through a close study of TTRPGs past and present.

Path Apparatus will be available later this year, but launching it as a pre-order add-on allows us to reach out core audience without engaging in the crowdfunding hype machine for a smaller title. Plus, you get to save on shipping! Rest assured, though, the book will be in print and retail later this year regardless—there aren't any minimums to meet.

Speaking of pre-orders, you can also add any of our three other forthcoming titles!

Successfully Kickstarted last year, we're taking advantage of Realis' success to combine freight and distribution hubs while fulfilling three other titles this fall—fellow streamer/podcaster-designed TTRPGs Homecoming (Meghan Cross) and Cosmic Century Knights (James D’Amato & Andrew Mierzejewski) alongside my (Tyler's) meeple-based solo game Chuck. That means they're easy to pick and add to Realis fulfillment as well! You can learn more about the games here, and if you're already a backer of both campaigns, we'll be manually combining pledge fulfillment to make sure you only pay for shipping once.

That's all for now!

More soon, including some updates on GenCon plans later this month. Thanks as always for your support!

All best,

Tyler

PDF Fixes & BackerKit Smoke Test
about 2 months ago – Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 11:44:07 AM

Hello everyone! Two quick updates before a longer post later this weekend.

First, itch.io files have been updated! Official copyediting is still in progress, but with our post-campaign BackerKit rolling out (along with mirrored file hosting) I've updated the PDF to reflect all fixes implemented since the document's original upload. Simply redownload files for the most up-to-date versions.

Thank you to everyone who flagged errors—your help is invaluable, especially with a book this large! If you catch anything else, please continue to use this form to submit any overt or even just suspected mistakes.

Second, our BackerKit set-up was approved, so Smoke Test surveys have been sent! BackerKit's Smoke Test system lets us send early surveys to 5% of backers across all pledge levels (386 of you) to make sure nothing goes wrong before pushing it to remaining 95%. If you received an email, simply follow the process as it's presented to you and reach out if anything is unclear or doesn't work as intended. I'll include more detailed survey instructions in our next update (including an announcement for the one surprise item) but since it's never guaranteed an update will be read, part of what I'm testing for is whether the survey process is intuitive on its own.

If you haven't received a survey email yet—you're in the majority! With a campaign this large I plan on giving the Smoke Test at least today and tomorrow to hopefully flush out any issues. If all goes well, expect a larger roll-out and update on Sunday (or Monday if it gives us trouble).

That's all for now! Thanks as always for your support, and more soon!

All best,

T

Missing PDFs & Error Reports!
3 months ago – Tue, Jun 09, 2026 at 02:42:38 PM

Another quick update for y'all regarding the Early Edition PDF release!

Missing PDFs

When exporting pledge data, CSVs will always give us your Kickstarter-associated e-mail address (the one you log in with). If you can't find your download code e-mail from itch.io, make sure you're checking the correct inbox! Along those same lines, if you use an email re-router or proxy address like an AppleID to log into Kickstarter, missing emails may be due to their not recognizing itch.io and/or forwarding them.

In any case, if you can't find your download email for any reason, simply message me here on Kickstarter so I can quickly verify your backer status and I'll manually generate a new code for your straightaway. Everyone whose done so SHOULD have a new code by now, but I'll to check and repond to those in waves.

Typos Spotted

Thank you also to everyone who's flagged typos and/or formatting errors for us! As a reminder, this document was intentionally distributed pre-copyedit to give you the earliest access possible, so rest assured everything will be caught eventually by our team.

In the meantime, though, extra eyes are always helpful on a project this large, even if it's not expected or necessary! If you find yourself compelled to report a text or layout error of any kind, you can do so via the following form: https://forms.gle/6FaofDPWEQHqsRMU8

If you've already commented elsewhere on Kickstarter, no need to submit the mistake a second time unless you want to (we've been tracking them), but keeping reports to this form will let us organize them by page number for editorial flow and quickly identify any repeat reports.

That's all for now!

Since releasing the PDF, I slept 17 hours one day and drove 6 hours the next to visit family on vacation. I'm still around, but am trying to pace myself! Thanks for your patience, and I'm SO happy to hear how much folks are enjoying the game. Keep the comments coming!

All best,

T

Early PDFs sent out via itch.io! Check your e-mails!
3 months ago – Sun, Jun 07, 2026 at 08:18:54 AM

The update title says it all, folks! 

After some long hours in the layout mines and digital distro hiccups, PDF download codes of Realis have been sent to your inboxes! Specifically, you'll want to look for an email with the subject line [itch.io] Realis: Early Kickstarter Edition - Digital Download Key that looks like this:

Simply click the "your download page" link in your email to claim your code (or create and account if you don't have one already)! I typically don't require accounts for games to be downloaded, but since Realis won't officially be released for a couple of months now, the extra step helps me keep things at least semi-contained.

Speaking of, please be cool about not sharing this PDF around! 1) Austin & I will still have rent to pay post-release and 2) this PDF is not the polished, final version of the game. All 462 pages are there, but we still have copyedits, PDF bookmarking, and a number of other pre-production and optimization steps to go before the print-approximate PDF of Realis is ready. This is simply an early access version for folks who want to start playing now and don't mind a few typos.

If you'd rather wait for the final, frozen PDF release, you're more than welcome to! You'll all receive a separate download code and updates when it's ready. If you have any issues accessing the files via itch.io, though, simply send me a message over Kickstarter so I can verify your backer status and I'll take care of it.

This was a pretty herculean effort, so I'm going to be trying to catch up on rest some over the next few days, but both Austin & I wanted to make sure you could start exploring Realis as soon as possible! Enjoy, and more updates soon on the status of backer surveys, print production, and etc.

Enjoy!

T

Playable PDFs coming this week! Thank you for your patience!
3 months ago – Sun, May 31, 2026 at 04:44:16 PM

Our Ready-to-Play PDFs are Nearly Ready!

Don't take my word for it, though! Here's a roughly 250 page cross section of the book:

I'm really, really proud of how everything's fitting into place, and there are only a few hurdles left to clear! Namely:

• A pair of images one of our illustrators is doing a quick fix-up on.
• A few trickier spreads I want to put some extra time into (namely the Sphere of Semantics—five classes that break/reinterpret both the game's layout and rules).
• A pass making sure all "on page XX" references are directing readers to the correct page numbers post layout shenanigans.
• Some due diligence exporting the PDF with the right balance of file size to image quality. Coming in at ~400 pages with over 100 illustrations, I want to respect your hard drive space as much as possible without compromising the art itself.

The biggest hurdle, though, has just been hours in the day! Things have never been better at Possible Worlds, but as I staff up in a way that's smart/ethical, a lot of day-to-day operations still fall to me—from packing and mailing orders, to paying out royalties, to showing up for my local games community. 

Our goal has always been to deliver a playable PDF by the end of May, and I got damn close! I personally just need a few more days to close the hood, kick the tires, and make sure we're road-worthy. Expect another update in the coming days as well as a PDF download.

BackerKit surveys will also be coming soon!

Nothing's been sent yet, so you haven't missed anything! I'll be posting a dedicated update once surveys go out too. This is another "double/triple-check" situation as we make sure everything's coded in correctly for shipping regions, add-ons, and etc.

A few of you also had issues with dropped pledges or expired cards after the campaign funded! BackerKit will let us recover your pledge/tier and give you the option to try (or retry) a different payment method. This first round of PDFs is going to be distributed through Kickstarter's new Digital Files system, though, so if you're one of the people still dealing with this problem, I'll be posting alternate download instructions for you while we sort things out.

Lastly, a teaser for your trouble:

We're excited to share our next Possible Worlds t-shirt, designed by Realis contributor Artyom Trakhanov and featuring The Band of the Empty Cup—the four PC stand-ins that appear throughout the book in various settings and situations (now in streetwear). Exact blanks are still being priced and sourced, but we'll be hosting pre-orders as an add-on once we launch the BackerKit. We'll also have a black and white print option for folks who'd rather hang their art than wear it.

That's all for now!

Thanks for your patience, and you'll be hearing from me again very soon!

Until then,

T