Heroic Deeds Late Pledge Store

September Update - Development Update, Delays (for good reasons), and Late Pledges
over 1 year ago – Sun, Sep 01, 2024 at 03:28:19 AM

Hello Backers and other associated onlookers,

Today I wanted to do two things. Provide you with a set of nice visuals from the layout of the book that show the development that is ongoing across the four pillars of Heroic Deeds: Combat, Exploration, Journeys, and Downtime. All artwork in the images below is from Dean Spencer, and you can find his stuff here. The scroll work used for backgrounds and examples is from Mustafa Bekir, and you can find his stuff here.

I also wanted to announce a delay in the fulfillment of the project. I’m guessing you’re more keen to hear about that first. So here we go….

Project Delay (don't worry)

In March of this year I had a rather intrusive operation to remove a large benign tumour that was between my spine and lung. Needless to say, it was quite an experience and has required a period of recovery. The good news is that I’m now in a great place, with few problems left over, and in full flow on development of the game. The bad news is that it has taken longer than expected to get to this stage. Below you’ll see the progress I’m making, and I’m super excited about sharing this and more with you. But I think this has put me back by 2-3 months. 

So I’m going to push back the fulfillment date of the project from December to March. Again, I’m not going to specific a date in the month, but March is achievable. I hate having to do this, but I’m hoping that all the cool stuff below will offset the instant sense of dread that might be creeping into your mind as you read this. I’m not sodding off with your cash, I’m trying to make this a great game for you, and your table.

So my sincerest apologies, but a necessary delay.

Project Development

Now that all the pain and discomfort is largely done with, I've been rocking on with the development and layout of the game. The core mechanics were confirmed through our live play of The Red Hand of Doom campaign that you can see here. I learned a lot about how things work during those 12 episodes, and had a load of fun playing it. We’ll soon be doing a playtest campaign to work through the Exploration, Journeys, and Downtime. However, those are built on a strong foundation and I think will only need tweaking.

Alongside the work I will now be sharing a Development Diary with our Discord- so make sure you join up to see that unfold. This will be a stream of consciousness and considerations while making the game in the dev forum I already share particular rules or visual updates in. Some of the work below has been shared or discussed there, but not all.

So what’s been going on?

Exploration

The Exploration Phase I’ve developed is designed to create a sense of old school dungeon crawling, but in a way that I don’t think has been specifically done before. We have exploration turns and group actions that the party can take, but we also have a GM Playsheet which helps the Gamemaster to run the Adventure Location quickly. This sheet has the highlights of all the things the GM needs to remember and any key information tied to them. All of these elements help structure the dungeon delving experience, but have enough flexibility to allow roleplaying moments and for the party and GM to get creative with the events that occur.

Journeys

Journeys in Heroic Deeds are done on a hex grid, like all great wilderness games, but it’s not a hex by hex crawl. Instead heroes always get where they want to go, but have to make rolls to see how well the forge their path (Navigation), how much it takes a toll on them (Hardship), and whether or not anyone senses their presence and intervenes (Encounter). The party and GM work together to create a narrative of the roll results, fill out a Journey Log and share any fireside moments that the rolls and narrative require. Imagine this like a montage in a movie. We don’t track every step Conan takes, we see a montage of landscapes and witness a character building conversation by the fire with Subotai.

Combat

I’ve tidied up combat from the Quickstart, and added in some visuals to help with Line of Sight, Area of Effect, and Movement specifically. Combat is the most play-tested element so far, and is pretty robust now. So this has been more of a layout and expansion process rather than any real new design. I think the main element streamlined was Area of Effect. I've used Inkarnate to create combat grid examples to illustrate these elements more clearly.

Downtime

The Settlement is the safe zone that heroes return to from their forays into the wilds and dungeons of Bargdumiraz. It’s here that the party resupply, tool up with new weapons, improve skills, learn spells, make magic items, and much more. Like all other phases there are standard actions that Emberwatch permits, but each Archetype adds more as they advance through levels. Heroes can also gain influence with different elements of the outpost, gaining benefits and access to more restricted gear as they undertake certain deeds or actions.

What’s next?

I’m really looking forward to working on the Rumours system which sees heroes gather information in the Downtime Phase to attach to Adventure Locations out on the Region Map. Rumours add rewards to a location, but also make them more dangerous. The heroes might hear from Krilge the Outpost Chronicler that the texts tell her an ancient dwarven blade is hidden in a location, but any location they assign it to will have more hazards, obstables and monsters guarding it.

I’ll be looking to provide a dev diary update at least every Thursday on the discord, and potentially the odd video about development as the next few months go on. So please join the Discord so you can get involved.

What’s later?

After those core elements are finalised I will return to the Archetypes. I currently have them mapped out to Level 6 in terms of Deeds, Abilities and Talents. However, this map needs to adjust now that some new rules and tweaks have been added to the other pillars of play. I want every Archetype to be relevant and useful in each phase of play, but in different ways. Darkdelvers will be more useful than Battleragers in Exploration, but the Battlerager gets the talent Bend Bars/Lift Gates - which can come in very handy in overcoming Obstacles.

Late Pledges?

I have also launched the late pledge Backerkit page - so if you’ve read through this but haven’t backed and think it sounds cool then click here to get in on the adventure.

That’s the update today. There is a delay, but hopefully you can see that dev is in full swing and we’re headed towards a distinct, fun roleplaying game that provides a well defined gaming experience at the table.

More soon.

Pete

Some bits now sorted out and BackerKit surveys are coming!
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jul 01, 2024 at 10:30:53 AM

It's been a long time coming. 

Soon, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. It’s essential to respond to your survey as quickly as possible since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.

You do not need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the survey invite email, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!

After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.

Due to the volatility of shipping prices globally right now, shipping fees for this project will be calculated at a later date once we have the best estimates for everyone. We plan to enter & charge backers for shipping a month or two before fulfillment when we have better estimates of what it will cost to ship backers rewards. We will alert backers when shipping costs are finalized & before we charge your cards in your BackerKit survey. We will keep you informed all along the way!

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page here

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your crowdfunding account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address associated with your Facebook account.

After surveys are sent, if you did not receive the email, and you Signed in with Apple ID, your email address might be a private relay email address. We can help locate your survey and update your email address, please message us or post a comment with your Backer ID or Pledge # found on your confirmation. You can learn more about your email hiding for your Apple ID here.

More soon,

Pete

Backerkit + Discord + Facebook
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 05:46:35 AM

Hello adventurers!

I wanted to send out a quick update just to say that I'm getting the Backerkit sorted so that we can capture addresses for all of our physical pledges. Its taken a while to get sorted as I've been recovering, and was more focused on keeping the development of HD on track than other elements.

Backerkit surveys will go out soon, but fulfilment costs are still to be determined, as previously discussed, so this won't include those costs yet. They will be added once I have product weights and confirmed costs with Blackbox Fulfilment.

So please look out for that and complete as necessary.

There have been some community changes recently. I'm trying to streamline my processes, and give you appropriate spaces to discuss the games development. So, I've recently closed the Heroic Deeds Patreon (as this crowdfunding replaced it), I hadn't been charging on there for some time.

In order to better home the development of this game, and the future games/adventures I create, I am going to close the Heroic Deeds specific discord and have instead opened a Heroic Deeds development forum on the Garblag Games main Discord. Click the image below to join the Discord and the discussion.

I have also just set up a Facebook group for just Heroic Deeds. This feels like the right place to have more informal chats, share pictures of games in session, and give quick updates on how things are going. Click the image below to join the Facebook group.

So Discord will be more of the game design side, and Facebook will be the experience of actually playing the game. That feels like the right split to me.

Something I'm really proud of from recent work is the Exploration GM Playsheet. This sheet will be provided for every adventure location, giving the GM all the pertinent high level facts and tools to run an exploration phase. I think it's a pretty novel idea. I just thought "the players get sheets, why not the GM". I think this will help people run, build, play, and even solo adventure locations.

So development is proceeding apace and more and more of the game is down on digital paper. I hope you come and join the community if you haven't already. I'm super excited to get this game complete and on your table!

More soon,

Pete

Quick Update - Archetypes & Artwork
almost 2 years ago – Sat, May 11, 2024 at 12:52:08 AM

Hello Adventurers!

The game is progressing well and evolving as I go. Right now I am tackling dual issues: non-combat phases and archetype progression. So far the development of characters has been primarily about combat, which is fine. Combat is a large part of the game, but there are 3 other pillars and I want them to be solid parts of the experience. 

So I'm working on the other phases base rules, the core elements of how they work in terms of actions, rounds, challenges, and more. Each phase will be a different state of play and there will be guidance for the GM on how to move from one to the other, but we already do that with combat (roll initative) in most games, so I don't think it will be a problem. 

This basis allows me to then start to figure out how each archetype will be useful in each phase. They won't all be as useful in each phase, but I want them all to have something to do. So I'm laying out the deeds for every archetype at each level. I think I've shown this before, but below is the ever evolving archetype grid, which shows what rewards they get at each level. I'm trying to not have each be exactly the same, based on how the experience of playing through the deeds will take shape. But certain levels will introduce similar benefits across the board.

This Miro board has been super useful, so I used some of the kickstarter funds to upgrade to a paid subscription as I was limited to 4 boards. I need more boards!

I've laid out levels 1 to 12 and this will allow me to consider how each archetype will progress in terms of each phase of play. I'm listing out separately the kinds of things that they'll each be capable of and at what level I think that should arrive. It's tricky, but I'm getting there. So these two things will come together. At what level should an Oathsworn get their squire? Good question, we'll see.

At the same time Douglas is making progress (after I finally gave him all he needs to get going) on the cover art front, and I'm really excited to see how this turns out. The dragon is going to be awesome (our discord members got to help me decide on what it would look like - so join the discord for future input like this), and the heroes will be standing on that hill challenging it to combat. Should be awesome!

So it's all coming along nicely. That's it really, some cool stuff happening and Heroic Deeds ploughing on!

More soon,

Pete

April Update - Recovery and Return to Action
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 08:41:11 AM

April draws to a close and it’s been quite a year so far. 

The successful Kickstarter campaign was fantastic. The support for Heroic Deeds was amazing and encourages me that I’m on track to a solid game. Creating the campaign and executing it all kept me busy for January and February. With the funding in place, I’m now able to get art secured and devote the time required to complete the book. 

Dean Spencer and Mustafa Bekir have been providing the art so far. March saw the addition of Douglas Deri, a brazilian artist, to the art team. Douglas will work on larger chapter plates and a bespoke cover. I also managed to “convince” some of the Garblag Games crew to work (paid obviously) on the Adventure Locations section of the book.

The rest of March was used up recovering from a rather invasive thoracic surgery. Everything went extremely well, but it took a lot out of me. I spent 8 days in hospital, and as I type this now am still recovering at home. I’ve had quite a year in fact, with the discovery of the issue and build up to the operation. It’s made me want to make this game even more.

So April has seen me doing a few bits (I’m still recovering) to improve the layout and work on the book outline. I want to get the book plan laid out so I can get ahead on where it will need art, and how much space I have for each element. It’s all coming together and I’m really excited to expand on the core pillars of the game. Once I’m over the lion share of the surgery, which will be soon, I’ll be working away on the content of those sections.

I’ll get the Backerkit Pledge Manager up and running soon, but I won’t be taking fulfilment payments for a while so it’s slightly lower on my list of priorities. I’ll do at least one update a month, but it’s still early days. I just wanted to let you know that the game is progressing well.

More soon.

Pete