Unknown Armies: Understanding the Backer Levels

As we approach the final hours of the Unknown Armies Third Edition Kickstarter, I thought we might use this occasion to summarize what folks are going to actually get with their pledges, since so much content has been unlocked.

The Ponies

The Pony levels occupy the lower third of the tier ladder. These levels give you PDF and EPUB versions of Book One: Play, with variations. If we unlock the Godwalker novel from Greg Stolze, all the Ponies get that, too.

• Digital Sparkle Pony adds Book Two: Run, Book Three: Reveal, Book Four: Expose, and Book Five: Mine all as PDF and EPUB, and all the Campaign Starter Kits and the PDF Reference Companion.
• Super Digital Pony adds the two Crazy Packs to all of that content.
• Real Live Pony and Real Live Random Pony don’t include all of that additional stuff, but they do include a print copy of Book One: Play, and Real Live Random Pony includes dice.

The Checkers

The Checker levels start with a base reward of all three print books (loose, no slip case) and all the digital books (Book One thru Book Five, the Campaign Starter Kits, the PDF Reference Companion) plus the UA soundtrack cycles from James Semple.

• Stacked levels means they include Crazy Packs.
• Stones levels means they include dice.

The Chargers

The Charger levels start with a base reward of a Deluxe Set (that’s the three hardcovers with a GM screen slipcase) and all the digital books (Book One thru Five, the Campaign Starter Kits, the PDF Reference Companion) plus the UA soundtrack cycles.

• Stacked levels means they include Crazy Packs.
• Stones levels means they include dice.
• The Adept level takes all of the above and adds a handmade postcard.
• The Avatar level takes all of the above and includes your photo or a photo of an object you like or a place you like in the game, somewhere.
• The Patron is the Avatar level but it switches out the postcard for being a patron of content in Book Five.

The Merchants

The Merchant levels are only for retailers who can verify that they are actually retail sellers. The baseline is two sets of loose hardcover books and extra copies of Book One, with the Charged Merchant including Deluxe Sets instead of loose hardcovers and the Ascended Merchant being all of that plus your store’s logo or photo in the game somewhere.

The Medium Well Done Level

This is the $999 level that throws in a ton of print and PDF content and bonus goodies and doesn’t require any additional shopping costs, plus one of two unique predictive boards handmade by Greg.

Add-Ons

If you want to custom-build your own reward, you can use a combo of any of the above reward tiers and one or more add-ons, which include more print copies, more dice, and so on. You can increase your pledge within Kickstarter to cover the cost of the add-on, but there’s no button to push or place to list which add-ons you want until we get around to migrating everything over to BackerKit.

So there you have it! Probably the best deal if you’re just wanting to go digital or you don’t want to pay for much shipping is the $55 Super Digital Sparkle Pony. Otherwise, we think the best deal for print is the $160 Stacked Charger with Stones, but even the $125 Charger level gets you all the printed stuff and all the digital stuff, so that’s a pretty nice place to park your pledge.