Outside the Wire Kickstarter Funds, Opens Late Pledges

AT THE ASHFORGE — Outside the Wire, the tactical sandbox tabletop RPG from Kazmo Studios, closed its Kickstarter campaign on October 1 well past its goal, and late pledges are now open. A disclosure before the specs: I'm the lead editor on this book. The numbers below come from the campaign page, the studio, and outside outlets, so you can check every one of them.

The game was designed by Derek Roberson, a retired US Marine whose 35 years of service included Desert Storm and Fallujah, Geek Native reports. Players run a small unit through asymmetric counterinsurgency operations, and the sandbox tracks three numbers as they go: Local Trust, Command Confidence, and Insurgent Activity. Checks are a 2d10 roll-under. There are no hit points; wounds come from an Individual Effects Table. It plays with a GM or solo, the solo side driven by reactive encounter cards and automata flowsheets. Roberson told Wazza's Whimsical Wanderings that non-violent actions can do more good than violence, and added a warning: "The combat is deadly; enter at your own peril."

The order slip

• Goal: $10,000, reached in under three hours (Geek Native)
• Pledged: $74,464 from 824 backers, per the Kickstarter page as of October 14, with eight stretch goals unlocked during the campaign (Kazmo Studios)
• Core rulebook: hardback, more than 300 pages, with real-world regional profiles and three operational sandbox settings
• Campaign tiers: $18 for the digital Ambush at Dawn starter set, $25 for the core rulebook PDF, $50 for the hardback, up to $110 for the Deluxe Box Set
• Delivery: digital rewards from November 2026; physical books and boxed sets in April and May 2027

Late pledges run through the same Kickstarter page. Kazmo's announcement features the Deluxe Box Set (the physical core rulebook, campaign trackers, punchboard combatant tokens, and regional grid maps) with every digital stretch goal from the campaign included: the scenarios Drop Dead Echo, Red Lantern Boondoggle, and Scorpion's Nest, plus tactical map packs and one-page missions. An official Foundry VTT module is an optional add-on. The studio hasn't posted a closing date.

The design borrows from older military games, Twilight: 2000, MERC, and Recon among them, and the far tables that grew up on those will know the shape of it. Anyone who wants to try before pledging can start with The Shepherd's Transit, a free quickstart scenario listed on the official Outside the Wire site.

— M.A., from the forge