CEPHALOFAIR DESIGNER DIARY ISSUE 8: GLOOMHAVEN RPG

June 05, 2024

Greetings Mercenaries!

I’m so sorry this update is later than normal. I spent the last part of May (and the first part of June) at the UK Games Expo, so I wanted to wait to update you all on how things are going until after it was over.

First, a few small updates on the book’s progress. We’re making a great amount of progress on getting the documents into a final state and off to editing. I’d say about half the book is at the editor, and the other half is just waiting for me to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. I’m on track to get everything off to editing within the next few weeks and because we’re sending it along piecemeal, it’s already coming back. I’m working out an art budget with the fabulous Arch so that we can start hiring artists and getting beautiful full-color art to show off the world that Gloomhaven inhabits. All in all, I’m feeling good about this stage of development and we should be able to get the book into layout in July.

Now, for some UKGE news! I spent my time in the vendor hall at our booth running short demo games for folks all weekend. We ran a tiny scenario as a first look at the new rules and how everything works together. I’m pleased to report it was a smashing success. I was able to teach people how to play the game within 15-20 minutes, then we jumped right into the scenario. Some of the players I met were old-hat at Gloomhaven and only needed to hear the differences between the board game and some people were totally new to Gloomhaven, having never played the board game before. Both groups of people were able to easily pick up the flow of the game and play through the scenario with only a small amount of time taken to remember some smaller “this is a way you can use your abilities.” All in all, I was able to teach the game, introduce a small mission objective, watch as the mercenaries finessed their way into a location, and ran a combat all within an hour and a half. 

 

Some major takeaways from the experience:

• Combat is lightning fast compared to other TTRPGs. The longest combat I ran went on for about 5 rounds and that took at most 45 minutes. 
• The ability to freely mix combat and non-combat actions was both intuitive and flexible. People quickly decided to do all sorts of interesting things in the middle of combat and before it.
• I had one group complete the mission with almost zero combat because they got some lucky draws on some clever activities. I love to see this kind of result!
• Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their sessions and I kept hearing over and over again how pleased people were with how natural and effortless it felt to switch between roleplay and mechanics.

These are all very good signs that the game is as good as it can be, and doing everything we wanted it to do. All the playtesting we do in the upcoming weeks will be to identify individual balance or mechanical issues that need tweaking. Which is all extremely normal and on track for where I thought we would be after our changes at Gloomcabin.

Some other highlights from UKGE were meeting so many fans who had backed our campaign and had nothing but glowing things to say about their experiences with the board game. So many people were thrilled to tell me how they couldn’t wait for the RPG to come out so they could get their hands on it. Several people told me that they were looking forward to a quality project, and were unbothered to wait a little longer to ensure it was the best it could possibly be. This is always heartening to hear, because I feel the same way, and I’m dedicated to making the Gloomhaven RPG the best product it can be, and as enjoyable an experience as playing Gloomhaven when it first arrived way back in 2017. I really think we’re making something so good and special, and that kind of product takes time to get true quality. We’re smashing it out of the park right now, and I can’t wait for you all to see it.

Speaking of which, I’ll be attending a lot of conventions this year as we gear up for the RPG’s release. I’ll be at Origins Game Fair in Columbus in the middle of June and at Gencon in Indianapolis at the start of August. I’ll be running games there, and hanging out at the booth, so if you get a chance to stop by and say hello, I’d love to meet you!

That’s it for now. Next month I’ll have another preview to show you.

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