Vol 28: Shadowheart & Skarsgård
The Keep, a Round Table, and the Lists. Managing action, Andor exercise, and Headless Characters. Thoughts on social encounters, fighting hard, and spinning duelists. Then, how to run a negotiation, guess if the kid is haunted, and use body parts. Plus: free apps, art, and adventures.
SPOTLIGHT
While Jennifer English graces the spotlight for her appearance in the upcoming Age of Umbra sequel, our minds are on the engine that makes this possible. Critical Role, like their friends at Dropout, are steadily accumulating world-class talent to attract, retain, and—at the best of times—electrify their audiences. Where Dropout is, in Sam Reich's words, "comedy-as-a-service," Beacon is becoming "AP-as-a-service"—an always-on universe of actors, characters, and shows to keep us company while we do the dishes, tide us over until the next season of Vox Machina, or inspire shenanigans in our own campaigns.
NEWS & RELEASES
The Icing on the Cake
The candles are out and the cake eaten, but the Darrington gang left behind a trail of presents to commemorate Year One. The Wish Thief, a light-hearted Tier 1 adventure designed by Rob Hebert. An “adventure pipeline”—aka digital-only adventures between mammoth projects like Hope & Fear. H&F in the SRD, which means you can include things like Transformations in a commercial adventure. The aforementioned Age of Umbra: Sallowlands. And a new Adversary creator and theme song.
Bookborne
Pre-orders are back for the Deluxe Hope & Fear edition, but also The Art and Making of Daggerheart, a book teased last year but now in production and featuring the development chain that produces some of the industry’s best artwork, along with stories from behind-the-scenes.
Shadow of the Colossus
Carlos Cisco released a roadmap for his breakout hit Pistolheart, providing details for Part III while adding that work is underway on a T1 adventure module and Pistolheart Jam. If you become what you make, the colossus of the drylands is, indeed, Cisco. Bonus: if the thought of being mentored by Cisco appeals to you, check out Fear Fest.
Buckle Up, Backers
How’s My Driving Part II: Thank You For Shopping debuted to critical acclaim, and has been followed up with a Kickstarter for the engine that drives the action: Jack Panic’s Daggerheart hack. If you want some early aughts stranger danger at your table, go ring that bell.
Cult Calculus
Heart of Cthulhu 1912 topped out their Kickstarter with an astounding $140k haul, just beating out Demonheart which will land at ~$120k. In a private note, we observed that—brands aside—the outsized returns on these crowdfunds suggests not enough creators are using advertising to drive awareness of their projects, relying instead on community interest. We'll add: many customers will never join your community, and many community members will never buy your product. You need both to win.
Headless and Hassle Free
Alchemy VTT added two major improvements this week: Headless character creation, which allows players to control multiple PCs/NPCs, and GMs to create PCs that aren't assigned to a player (which means you can pre-fill your PC roster ahead of time); and Modifiers to all items. Swinging a longsword? The system will add your AGI mod. That dagger? FIN. Battle axe? STR. It’s all baked in.
Of Marketplace & Margins
RPG Trader is up and at 'em. Clean, creator focused (keep 80% of your sales), and ready to sell digital and print-on-demand. Just out of beta and there's already some Daggerheart goods on supply. Bonus: Chris Hutton interviews the founder.
Ciao dall'Italia!
We were charmed by this short video of Daggerheart Day in Bologna, Italy. From the upvotes, it seems many of you were too.
Minimasterpieces
Spanish artist Andrés de Mingo has a stunning array of Daggerheart miniatures on offer as part of his Kickstarter. While he’s occasionally shared images of them on the sub, to see the gallery is to witness a master at work.
DISCUSSIONS
Social Anxiety
To raise the tension in social encounters, Creative Sink Hole added an experimental rule: when a Vulnerable PC makes a Social action, the roll is automatically done with Fear. Good discussion on the outcome.
Prescription Description
Reflecting on the chase sequence in The Wish Thief, Patchwork Paladin wonders if “the adventures that are coming out of Burbank seem unnecessarily directive.”
Fiat for Framing
The more world building is shared among players and the GM, the more you run into problems of coherence. Over at Walking Hat, Rob Donoghue thinks this is where the GM’s ultimate power resides: not general assertion, but veto power so the unfolding story can be properly framed and editorialized.
