Green Ronin Patreon Roundup!

Patreon is an online platform that creators can use to run subscription services for all kinds of content. As a creative bunch of people, a number of the Green Ronin Publishing staff have their own Patreons, where they provide more of the kind of amazing game-related material and expert writing that Green Ronin fans have come to love. As gamers look for more ways to connect with favored game lines and game creators, we thought this was a good time to do a roundup of the various Patreons run by Green Ronin and its staff.

Mutants & Masterminds on Patreon!So, let’s start with the big news: Green Ronin has launched a company-supported Mutants & Masterminds Patreon! With amazing content by Crystal Frasier and Steve Kenson, this is the place to get a regular fix of official M&M material. Currently the Patreon focuses on projects that are too small or too niche for a full-sized book on them to make sense, but that fans are still clamoring for, such as updating 1st– and 2nd-edition characters. This Patreon is brand-new, so if you like being on the ground floor of new projects, the time to join is now!

One of the questions we’ve been asked quite a lot since the M&M Patreon was launched is if Green Ronin is going to do similar subscription services for other game systems, such as Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE, Blue Rose, Sword Chronicle, and so on. While we don’t have any announcements to make on that front yet it’s safe to say all options are being considered, and the more successful the M&M Patreon is, the more excited we’re going to get to expand this experiment.

That said, if you want more Patreon options now, many of the Ronins have ongoing subscriptions available already.

Our Publisher, Chris Pramas, has a Patreon of his own, where he gives us a tour of his (vast) gaming collection. The Curated Quarantine Patreon is a series of multiple posts per week, each looking at one game from Chris’s shelves. Each post talks about the history of the featured game, how and when Chris first interacted with it, and often gives some crucial context of the product’s place in the history of tabletop games. These are rare behind-the-curtain looks at the games one of the icons of the industry has in his own collection, and his thoughts on what makes them interesting.

On the other hand, if you want even more superheroic RPG content you should absolutely look at Steve Kenson’s Icons Roleplaying Game Patreon. Launched at the beginning of January 2021, this is a way for the award-winning designer of Mutants & Masterminds and Icons to produce and share short articles and other content (character write-ups, adventure ideas, and so forth) about Icons, the game he publishes through his own company, Ad Infinitum Adventures. It’s obviously a must-join for fans of Icons, but it’s also a great opportunity to see designer notes from one of the sharpest game creators in the industry.

Speaking of M&M designers, veteran creator Crystal Frasier also has a Patreon, where she focuses on presenting new gaming material and essays. Her creativity is boundless, as seen even in just the titles of her backer levels (Crystal glitter, Crystal shard, Crystal stone, and Crystal jewel). In addition to making blogs and game articles available to backers, Crystal does polls to give her backers a chance to help guide the direction of the Patreon’s offerings.

You can also find our Expanse RPG developer on the platform. The Ian Lemke Patreon features his posts on RPG content and designing a new game. At various levels of support, you’ll get exclusive updates on what he’s currently working on as well as news, notes, map sketches, and links to his stuff and previews of his blog postings to Grand Pooka’s Grimoire. At higher tiers you can also get sneak peeks at characters, setting material, and adventures, a look behind the curtain at design documents, rules, and pages of projects as they progress and access to his personal Discord channel where you can ask questions about his projects, offer your own input, and ask him anything about the RPG industry. At the highest level, you even get free copies of his self-published pdfs.

Finally, I have my own Owen K.C. Stephens Patreon. It focuses on my essays about game design, writing, and the game industry in general, and offers new game content. Right now, that game content is mostly focused on 5e, Pathfinder 1st and 2nd edition, and Starfinder, but a few bits of Fantasy AGE material find their way into my writings as well. I also occasionally post videos, and backers at higher tiers get  a pdf each month with all my free content from social media, including every Tweet and FB post with game- or genre-related content.

If Green Ronin Publishing or any of our staff launch more Patreons in the future, we’ll be sure to update our Roundup.