Fanning the Flames
about 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 02:30:23 AM

Greetings, heroes! Today we're writing once more from Dragonsteel Mini-Con, surrounded by our fellow fantasy fans!

While the campaign climbs toward our next stretch goal, Brothers One and Two are enjoying a quick pre-Thanksgiving trip to lovely Provo, Utah. We're here to connect with fans and indulge our love of all things Brandon Sanderson.

We've already sold out of all the games we brought to the convention, and we've been having a great time running demos of Epic Origins and The Stormlight Archive. Today Johnny attended a panel on making licensed Stormlight products, and dropped an exciting announcement: next year we'll return to Kickstarter with a campaign for Stormlight miniatures. For more on that, head to r/Stormlight_Archive.

You Make the Call

Dragonsteel Mini-Con is a perfect representation of what we love about fan communities. It’s a small con, but the people here are all passionate about Brandon Sanderson’s worlds and stories, and they are effusive in celebrating that passion. Speculative literature fandoms like these are part of what inspired Call to Adventure in the first place. Bringing our game system to Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind series and Brandon’s Stormlight Archive was a natural next step for a game about heroes and the decisions they make.

So as long as we’re here and thinking about fandoms, you tell us: what work would you like to see represented in the next Call to Adventure licensed expansion? Tell us the book, movie, or show that you'd like to see on your tabletop, preferably one with a wide array of potential backstories and challenges. Leave some +1’s for suggestions you agree with. It could be another fantasy set, or perhaps it’s time to break into a new genre... Is there a sci-fi or horror series you think would be a good candidate?

We look forward to seeing your suggestions and we’ll take them seriously. Player requests are how we decided to create Epic Origins, after all!

Tomorrow we’ll be back in Los Angeles and hopefully posting a new stretch goal. See you then!

Adventuring Together
about 3 years ago – Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 09:33:58 PM

Hello to all you heroes and antiheroes! Today we’re writing to you from Provo, Utah. The brothers have made our way to Dragonsteel Mini Con for two days of geeking out and playing games. It’s our first convention since GAMA 2020, and we’re enjoying the journey.

This is just the latest step in our lifelong co-op adventure as brothers, and it’s an appropriate backdrop for today’s topic: Hero and Antihero cards.

Feats of Heroism

Hero and Antihero cards have always been a part of Call To Adventure. While most of the game is about building your engine with story cards, Hero and Antihero cards are a crucial tool to ensure success when you need it most. Collectively known as “feats,” they represent moments when your hero digs deep and defies the odds.

In Epic Origins, feats are designed for both co-op and competitive play. Most feats can target “any hero” (including yourself). Due to the “semi co-op” nature of the game, that can lead to interesting choices where you have to decide exactly how much you want to help another player. There are no cards that are designed purely to thwart other players, but a few Antihero cards give you more competitive options.

To bring another high fantasy trope into Epic Origins, we included some item-themed Hero and Antihero cards in this set. They don’t work any differently than regular feat cards, but the flavor is fun. The artwork for these six cards also includes a fun “easter egg” of sorts.

Feats of Villainy

In Epic Origins, the Adversary uses their own deck of six poker-sized feat cards. You’ll flip over the top card whenever the “twist of fate” rune is cast. Some force you to make a choice that could help the Adversary at your team’s expense, while others simply make life more difficult for you.

Think of these as the Adversary interfering in your adventures. You might have a Challenge well in hand …until you come across a Booby Trap or Wandering Monster!

A Feat of Crowdfunding

Speaking of Adversaries, Epic Origins now has six! (Plus the five double-sided versions of the original Adversaries we unlocked last week.) We’ll let you see The Old One for the first time when you play the actual game, but here’s a peek at what else you’ll find in that Adversary pack.

The Old One pack is an awesome stretch goal, but there’s another one that’s been requested throughout this campaign. Our original Call To Adventure Kickstarter included six feat cards that we haven’t printed since then. A new Kickstarter is the perfect chance to print a limited quantity of those Hero and Antihero cards, this time with updated wording to clarify that they can be used for co-op play. We'll unlock this pack if we reach $365,000.

So we have our next goal, and it’s a big addition to the already awesome value in every pledge level. Thanks to all of you who have been joining the campaign, increasing your pledge levels, spreading the word, and showing your support. We’re thrilled by our progress so far, and excited to make this game the best it can be.

The Road to Adventure
about 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 04:32:32 AM

Greetings, heroes! Today we’re celebrating another milestone as we passed through $320,000 and unlocked the Ghost Origin card! But first, some behind-the-scenes news...

On the Road Again

After a painfully long pandemic hiatus, the Brothers are on the road again, this time to Provo, Utah, where we’ll be participating in the Dragonsteel Mini Con, a celebration of all the work of best-selling author Brandon Sanderson. Brandon is a master of writing memorable heroes. His characters have strengths and weaknesses, they make good choices and bad ones, and the little decisions they make can have far-reaching consequences. Capturing that in game form was one of the big reasons we made Call to Adventure in the first place. And of course, Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive is a direct adaptation of our favorite series of his. You can get the Deluxe Edition of that game as part of the Chosen One pledge, or as an add-on at the end of the campaign!

The Making of a Game

While we’re traveling today, the rest of the Brotherwise team will be hard at work. You’ve already met Matt Molandes, our social media and campaign manager. Matt will be answering your questions in the comments, and generally keeping an eye on things. Behind the scenes, the development team is putting the finishing touches on the design and mechanics of Epic Origins and getting this one ready to take to layout. That team is led by Hayden Dillard, and they're the ones you can thank for the delightful play of our games.

A Brotherwise game typically begins its life as a (not very pretty) physical prototype that can go through multiple iterations as the brothers pass it back and forth, hunting for that final design that plays well and offers something new and interesting. 

After that, the prototype gets handed over to Hayden and his team. The development team takes each of our games through a continuous cycle of play testing, modification, and re-testing that can last months. No matter how clever a game design (or how clever the designer), early versions of games invariably have rough edges and balance issues that only become apparent after hundreds of cycles of playtesting. Hayden and his team are able to take the rough, imperfect game designs we send them and polish them smooth. This job is even more complicated when designing an expansion like Epic Origins. In that case, the development team has to not only balance that game, they have to balance it with all the other expansions it might be combined with.

This is a daunting job, made even more challenging since the pandemic started. For the past two years, game development at Brotherwise has been done primarily on Tabletop Simulator, and we’ll be making an announcement soon about an opportunity to help us put the finishing touches on this one using TTS. 

In the meantime, when you play one of our games, offer up a little word of thanks to the developers who played the broken version so you don't have to!

Unlocked!

Well, like a ghost in the night we quietly blew through $320,000! That gets another Origin card added to the mix. This time it's the Ghost, a haunting Origin card that let's you revisit Traits and Challenges that were discarded from play (either when someone Journeyed or failed a challenge). The Ghost's "past life" ability provides tremendous flexibility in controlling the board, and in competitive play, means players can't easily remove cards from the board that you might favor!

And because we don't want to leave you hanging while we're on the road, here's peek at the next stretch goal: an all new Adversary campaign pack!

See you on the road to adventure!

Taking Your Adventure to 5e
about 3 years ago – Sun, Nov 21, 2021 at 12:19:23 AM

Hello again, adventurers. Let’s start by celebrating today’s stretch goal: the Beastfolk heritage!

We’ll share the next stretch goal at the end of this update, but tonight we wanted to talk about one of this game’s most unique features: the ability to use it as a character generator for the 5th Edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. If you’re not a tabletop RPG player, you can skip tonight's update. But if you are, keep reading to learn about another way you can have fun with Epic Origins.

A Hidden Feature

There’s always been a character-building tool hiding in the design of Call To Adventure. It was part of the game’s original DNA, but we’ve been waiting for a set like this to really highlight it as a feature. To coincide with the release of Epic Origins, we’ll be releasing an online conversion guide that’s compatible with the new set and the original Call To Adventure.

The core of the conversion guide is the fact that your final tableau can be used to generate your six Ability scores:

It’s not unusual to end the game with 10-11 ability runes in your tableau, so this might give you an array like 16, 16, 14, 14, 12, and 10. Compared to rolling dice or the point-buy system, this will tend to generate higher scores, but the conversion guide helps adjust for this with how it handles heritage/racial bonuses.

Here’s an example in action:

The conversion guide will also provide guidance on how Call To Adventure cards convert into 5e backgrounds, skills, and feats. For example, the Pickpocket and Beggar origins would both use the Urchin background. Collecting certain story icons (like Arcana and Nature) corresponds to proficiency in those skills. The guide will even include some fun bonuses, like getting extra gold if you have the Filthy Rich trait card.

Building a Better Backstory

There are plenty of character-building tools out there for TTRPG fans, but Call To Adventure stands out when it comes to creating a detailed and compelling backstory. Here’s a guide to reading your story:

•  Act I is your life before the call. The story cards you tuck under your Origin reflect your “ordinary world.” They’re key moments that set the stage for your adventuring life.
•  Act II is how you become a hero. These are the events that truly represent your call to adventure. You achieve some impressive feats and begin training Class skills, but you’ve still got a lot to learn.
•  Act III is your destiny. As a level one character, everything after Act II represents a possible future for your hero. One day you’ll slay a dragon and bring down the Adversary …or at least that’s what a fortune-teller once told you.

Click here to download the character sheet. On the second page, you’ll notice a special section to write a recap of your Act I, II, and III story cards.

The conversion guide has been a long time in the making, but is still underway. So if you have any questions or feedback, now’s a great time to chime in with your thoughts!

Saturday Night and I Ain’t Got No Body

Sorry this update is so late tonight! The good news is that it means our next stretch goal is now less than $3,000 away. Since day one of this campaign, our artists have been working around the clock on new art for us to use as stretch goals, and this piece is not quite ready. But here’s a look at the sketch for an all-new Origin!

We’ll tell you more about the story behind this card tomorrow. See you then!

Off to the Races
about 3 years ago – Sat, Nov 20, 2021 at 04:24:08 AM

Happy Friday, heroes! We passed another big milestone today, so thanks to everyone who’s been spreading the word. This afternoon we surpassed $300,000 to unlock the next stretch goal: revamped versions of the original Adversary cards!

This is a big deal because it’s a lot of content: five double-sided cards… doubling the amount of Adversary options available to you. Thanks to everyone who pushed for this, because we think it’s a really great addition to the Epic Origins experience!

Our next stretch goal is a new Heritage card, and it’s less than $10,000 away:

 So this feels like a great time to talk about Heritage cards!

Know Your Heritage

Like classes, the concept of fantasy races is a standard trope in tabletop RPGs. The very earliest drafts of the original Call To Adventure included Elf, Dwarf, and other heritage cards. But as we worked to build a game that would be compatible with fantasy worlds like The Name of the Wind and The Stormlight Archive, we set aside those Tolkien-derived races.

When setting the design goals for Epic Origins, races were at the top of the list. At first, we made them a type of Origin: about a third of the Origins were backgrounds or professions (like Villager and Laborer), and the rest were non-humans like Gnome and Halfling. The goal was to keep the three-card tableau, but that approach had a couple of problems.

Thematically, we wanted you to have the option to be a Half-Orc Artisan or a Gnome Pirate. Mechanically, we didn’t want the non-human options to be diluted when you combine Epic Origins with other versions of Call To Adventure. Heritage cards were the solution.

Now, your Heritage sits just to the side of your Story tableau. Every Heritage has a power triggered by the “twist of fate” rune. On average, that means half of all rolls will give you the chance to trigger your Heritage power! Twist of fate results also trigger Adversary cards, so you’ll often face dramatic challenges where your Heritage power saves the day.

One Fur All

When we came up with the idea for a Birdfolk stretch goal card, we realized we should have something to balance it out. Beastfolk is fun because it’s a great catch-all for whatever anthropomorphic animal you want to be. You don’t have to decide that your character is a ratfolk or catfolk – even though they look really cool here. You could be a turtlefolk, a frogfolk, a minotaur… the choice is yours!

Just like the card’s theme, its power emphasizes flexibility. When you “journey” you replace one story card from the table, and this card rewards you for journeying often. That allows you to find exactly the Challenge or Trait you’re looking for, whether it’s to fit your character concept or prepare for a confrontation with the Adversary.

Another Adventure

The campaign already includes a How to Play video and two great gameplay videos. But if you want to see more of the game in action, you can head over to the Watch It Played Twitch channel! Yesterday, Paula Deming and Matthew Jude sat down for a game of Call To Adventure with Johnny O’Neal, the game’s lead designer.

 Gameplay begins at the 20-minute mark and continues for quite a while, mostly because Johnny kept stopping to pontificate about how the game was designed. But if you want to watch this intrepid trio have a great time overthrowing the Dark Lord, check it out!

We’re headed into the weekend now, but this campaign will be active every day. Stay tuned for another update tomorrow, and head to the Comments section if you have more ideas for stretch goals. Thanks so much for your support, and have a great night!