The First Steps on an Adventure

I spend a lot of my time thinking about The Hero's Journey, Second Edition. The game itself, in one form or another, has been in my head for over ten years and when the first edition released around 2017, I was both proud and dissatisfied. On one hand, I had created a complete game that focused on the themes that I wanted present when I played a fantasy roleplaying game. On the other time, the game had quite a few concessions that were made to ensure it was compatible with the White Box rules set.

I'd initially made this choice for a combination of reasons. First, and perhaps least important, is because it was easy. I know the White Box rules set forwards and backwards so writing for it was as easy as falling off a log. (I also happen to be very good at that too.) Another reason was that I was known within the self-publishing community for creating quality White Box content. It felt expected that any game I wrote would, by default, be a White Box game. So, whenever a major rules change to make the original edition of The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying would have made it incompatible with other White Box products, I favored rules over that the themes and tones I loved so dearly.

That was a mistake.

As I started to make those concessions more and more of them came. I started including things simply because I liked them and not because they fit beloved theme. Yes, Monks and Jesters are cool. But they are not well known iconic archetypes rooted in western European folklore and classic fairy stories. They're just cool. Yes, dragons divided by chromatic colors are neat and familiar to almost every gamer who ever dared to roll dice - but again, they don't really have a firm place in that source material. Sacrifice after sacrifice was made in the name of pragmatism and in the end while The Hero's Journey Fantasy Roleplaying is a fine game, it's not quite the game I set out to create.

Yes, it was well reviewed and well received, but I hadn't been true to my vision and more than anyone else, I had failed myself in its creation. That doesn't make the first edition of The Hero's Journey a bad game, it just didn't end up being the game I set out to create.

When I partnered with Gallant Knight Games in 2019, I was told that I still had complete freedom to produce whatever I desired. That was a strange thing. I am fiercely independent as a creator and had previous offers to partner with other publishers in the past. When I partnered with Gallant, I expected there to be a "catch" once all the paperwork was signed. Turns out, there was. The "catch" was that Gallant challenged me to not make the concessions I had. Not to worry about what people would think. But most of all, Gallant challenged me not to do things by a half measure. So once the contracts are signed I was asked "What do you want to do?" I casually mentioned that I'd always wanted to do a revised edition of The Hero's Journey. But most people never get even one shot at a fantasy heartbreaker, let alone two. My off-hand remark was met with an enthusiastic "Then do it!"

So, for three months I went back to the final draft of the original document of the first edition and started trimming, editing, cutting and rearranging. That took about three months. Then I turned it into Gallant Knight Games. Knowing me better than I know myself, the folks at Gallant handed the manuscript and said "Now, stop writing the game you think other people think you want and write the game you want."

That was when the work began in earnest. I gutting the game almost to its foundation and as I cut away secret cows of fantasy gaming like Alignment and Divine Magic, it became easier to forge the game that I had inside me - the fantasy game I wanted. By the time I'd made all the changes it was no longer a retro-clone. Heck, it wasn't even White Box compatible anymore. Not by a long shot. It was its own thing. And instead of being afraid it wouldn't sell, I was proud of the game I had made on my own. It might even be the first game I ever truly made on my own. And after over a year of work, I was in love.

How did I know I was in love with The Hero's Journey, Second Edition? When I'd finished previous large scale projects like White Star or Class Compendium, I was exhausted. I put them down and knew for a time that I wouldn't even want to touch them, let alone write more material for them. Sure, I was proud - but I was also more than a bit burnt out. But not so with The Hero's Journey, Second Edition. I still remember closing the document on the core book and immediately opening a new one to begin The Hero's Companion. Meanwhile as I'm writing the Companion, I was writing The Curse of Cormac's Hollow, Goblin Promises, and Troll Knoll. Instead of wanting to run away from the finished product, I longed to continue to drink deeply from that well.

Even now, with nearly a quarter of a million words written or drafted across very products, I still have countless pages screaming to get out and into print. I can confirm that there will be a supplement focusing on Fey and Fairies tentatively titled Betwixt and Between, a sister book to The Hero's Companion tentatively titled The Narrator's Tome, and a few stand alone adventures. When Mike Brodu showed me his early draft for Of Beasts Brave & True, I loved it. I wanted it to be a part of the game's official product line and I immediately offered him a place at the table on the condition that we expand his foundation into something we could turn into a short supplement for publication as an official part of the line. There's more to come too. I have plans for other large supplements and several short ones - including a few stand alone adventures and books that focus on different elements of the themes and tones of The Hero's Journey, Second Edition.

In addition to my work at Barrel Rider Games, I also freelance pretty regularly. Lately I've been wanting to do so less and less because I can't get The Hero's Journey, Second Edition out of my soul. Every fiber of it is infused with things I love - right down to Nic Giacondino's art. You see, many of the iconic characters who appear and reappear in the product line feature the likeness of real people. Friends, family, and even pets (and yes, the author too) are present throughout the product line and will continue to appear because The Hero's Journey, Second Edition is an unfettered expression of the things I love about both gaming and fantasy.

The Hero's Journey was born in my mind almost a decade ago, and it just set off in earnest on its first adventure this year with the release of the second edition. I sense a long, perilous road ahead. Dragons will be slain. Kingdoms will be saved. Heroes will rise and fall. Boon friends will arrive at the most unexpected moments. But I hope, more than anything, that many people will join me on this adventure and maybe, just maybe, find a little bit of that fierce love I've put in these pages at their own gaming tables.