Gloomhaven Grand Festival

Hello there! I hope you are enjoying your Saturday. I know I am looking forward to a little R&R after a very busy week. In case you missed it, we announced an entirely new stand-alone game, Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, on Wednesday, and then yesterday we announced upcoming digital tools for the Gloomhaven RPG, both a VTT through Roll20, and digital character management through Hero Lab.

So while we're at it, I've got one more smaller, but still exciting announcement: we have lined up Rolling Solo to produce a how to play video for Buttons & Bugs upon it's release! Here are some words about the channel from creator Adam Smith:

"My passion and focus is providing you with the highest quality and most in-depth video showcases of solo board games! I create authentic playthroughs, providing you with everything you need to come to your own informed decision on whether a game works for you. No clickbait, shotgun reviews or generic high-level content here. You decide what you like based on what you see in action!"

Also in case you missed it, we had some great streams yesterday. Joe and I tag-teamed a couple of scenarios of Buttons & Bugs, and we got through scenarios 1 and 2 in about 45 minutes. Joe played the Tinkerer for scenario 1, then I played the Mindthief for scenario 2, so you can check out that video to get a look at how those two play.

Then Alice from Rage Badger was joined by some Gloomhaven: Second Edition play testers to run through a scenario of that. They got through an entire 4-player scenario in about an hour and a half, while still being entertaining, which I thought was quite impressive.



And then the fireside chat, where I talked to my friend Jon about his experiences with the Gloomhaven RPG, but more about his experiences with RPGs in general. We talked about playing D&D together back in high school, what he's playing now, and how he's gotten his kids into RPGs as well. It was a lot of fun, and you can watch that here.

We unfortunately don't have any streams going live today. We had some scheduling conflicts with both the Old School RPG campaign, which will be airing tomorrow at 9am PST instead, and Price's talk with miniature painter Chris Woodgate, which is still TBD. What I have instead, though, is a write-up from Chris about his process and tips for painting miniatures, so let's move on to that!

                                 

Hi everyone, so Ross asked me to take a swing at talking about some of the miniatures I’ve painted up for this campaign.

A lot of you may be new to the world of mini-painting and indeed Gloomhaven so I thought I’d go over some of the basics and discuss my process a bit focussing on one of my favourites from the campaign. 

First up, prep! 

Never skip the preparation stage, it will help your finished minis look so much better. A simple wash in warm, soapy water, followed by some mould line removal and sanding before a prime with your favourite primer will really help get you off to a good start. I’m a big fan of zenithal priming as you can see, it allows me to easily visualise the different light values on the figure.

The minis themselves have a lot of detail sculpted into them, right down to the moulded bases, these are a big improvement on the original Gloomhaven figures. When it came to painting them, I couldn’t help but be inspired by the fantastic artwork from the standees. Features such as the tabard design and scale under-skirt here were really going to help this figure pop as they say.

For these miniatures I used a traditional layering approach to painting. Building up from a darker base and adding incrementally brighter colours, keeping the saturation down to maintain the moody feel of the game. 

We’d discussed varying styles and had settled on using True Metallic Metals or TMM for the armour. To help sell the effect I decided to create a simple, shadowed design on the shield to boost the feeling of depth and draw the eye up to the sword and head.

You can see that these new minis really do have a lot of detail sculpted into them, it can almost be a bit daunting when you get started. I tend to spend time on those focal areas that match the art and keep things simple elsewhere. The scale underskirt here is a prime example. Although not sculpted into the figure it added an interesting sense of texture to the bold, plain tabard design and was a relatively straight forward feature to paint on freehand.

Finally, when working with big batches of figures like this I think a cohesive basing scheme, per model, can really help bring together that sense of unity. With the guardsman here it was going to be simple to paint that moulded base like a cobbled street, so to add a little interest I cut up some grass tufts to act as weeds in the cracks. Perhaps for multiples I’d add other debris, leaf litter, rubbish etc. to really sell the ‘dirty city streets’ feel. 

I hope this little insight into the figures and my process has helped any aspiring new mini painters out there. My final parting piece of advice is don’t let anyone judge you on your work! Everyone starts somewhere & anything looks better than grey plastic. Above all else have fun, play around, enjoy the experience and as a good friend always says, happy painting.

                                 

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and reading! I'll catch you tomorrow with another update and the next episode of the Old School RPG!

Good day! We're going to jump right into the big news today, which is that we now have an option for digital tools for the Gloomhaven RPG! We've partnered with both Hero Lab and Roll20 who together are providing a way for groups to play the RPG digitally. Roll20 will provide all the hex grid maps, tokens, and combat tracking, while Hero Lab will provide character creation and management tools, alongside full card functionality.

So through Hero Lab, you'll be able to manage all the cards your character has access to - ability cards, modifier cards, and background cards - while also being able to reference and customize any of your character sheet data. Or if you are a GM, you can reference NPC data, track initiative order, and use the NPC modifier deck. Plus all pertinent information, like initiative choices, modifier flips, and element status, can be communicated across devices so everyone has all the information they need to play.

Here's a video demonstrating the Gloomhaven Hero Lab capabilities:


If you want the full virtual experience, you can use Hero Lab in conjunction with Roll20. On the Roll20 virtual tabletop, you can find (or easily create) simple hex-based maps using lots of Gloomhaven assets we are pre-loading in for you. That way, you can use Roll20 to manage character and creature locations and scale, dynamic lighting & vision (Plus or Pro subscription required), and all of the other bells and whistles, with custom Gloomhaven tokens for PCs and NPCs to track everyone's stats and conditions.

You can use one or the other or both, according to your needs. The basic Roll20 integration will be freely available to everyone soon, while the Hero Lab character creation and management tool will be a $29.99 purchase upon release. But you can pre-order it right now on their website for $22.50. Hero Lab is also a subscription service, so there is also a $9.99 charge for the standard version of that for six months, but if you don't own any other Hero Lab products, the subscription won't activate until the Gloomhaven RPG product goes live (which will happen the same time the physical version is delivered next year).

I know having digital tools was a big question for some about the Gloomhaven RPG, so I am very pleased to finally announce this. A lot of work has already been put into the Hero Lab implementation, and I am hoping we'll be able to show it off to you in the coming weeks!

                           

In other news, we had some great streams yesterday. First off, Drew and I jumped into a chill and entertaining Watch It Played stream with Paula Deming and Matthew Jude to play a game of Gloomhaven: Second Edition. And, look, I don't want to brag, but I think Drew set the new Bruiser record for amount of cards lost to negate damage. Just saying.

And then we had a marvelous play of the RPG with Good Time Society! This was seriously great, and you should watch it, whether you love giant, floofy cats or weird, creepy ooze.



And there are more streams today, if you can believe it! We're starting off with some miniature painting from Tabletop Minions at 8am PST (which has already passed, but he'll be going for a while). Then I'll be jumping on a stream with Joe Klipfel to play a little Buttons & Bugs at 1pm PST. This'll actually be the first time I play the latest iteration, so it should be exciting! And finally, as it is Friday, we will end the day with a nice, relaxing Fireside Chat at 4pm PST. Who will join me at the fireside? A baby? No one? You'll just have to come and see.

And we are not done with the update yet, because Drew and Dennis wanted to share another Gloomhaven: Second Edition preview with you. So I now present... the Bruiser!

                           

Today we’ll take a look at the updated Inox Bruiser (formerly Brute) in Gloomhaven: Second Edition.

First let’s reflect on the Brute in the first edition. 

This class was intended to be the absolute baseline low complexity Gloomhaven class. It primarily used very simple actions like an “Attack 6” or an “Attack 3, Range 3”. Looking past the really standard stuff, the class had a mechanical theme of forced movement, represented by pushes and pulls, as well as a theme of translating movement to damage with cards like Balanced Measure and Immovable Phalanx. There were also a few light tanking cards.

So what did we want to address?

Like the Tinkerer, this class needed a bit of a tune up in terms of numbers. It was simply outperformed by many other classes. The tanking theme was a bit undercooked and not quite powerful enough, making it a trap for newer players, who are used to tanky RPG characters wanting to take the hits. We wanted to highlight Bruiser’s mechanical themes, giving the Bruiser more mechanical identity, while avoiding unnecessary complexity.

So let’s see how Bruiser handles themself in Gloomhaven: Second Edition:

We hope you enjoy this new-and-improved Inox Bruiser.

                           

I think that'll do it for today's update. Remember that Friday also means a new puzzle, so go check that out on the bottom of the main page, and I'll catch you tomorrow!

Good day! And welcome to all the new backers who joined the festival! It was great to see the huge surge of people coming in excited about Buttons & Bugs, pushing us past the $3 million mark! I am happy you all are here!

So yesterday we aired two gameplay videos for Buttons & Bugs. One with designer Nikki Valens that was very quick and efficient, and one with Watch It Played, where Matthew Jude did some serious derailing. So, yeah, take your pick on that.



Watch It Played link

Afterward, we all got together to discuss how Buttons & Bugs came to be and why we're excited about it. For those more interested in reading than watching videos, I'll try to cover a lot of what was said here in the deep dive below.



But first! We've got some streams going on today too, of course. First up, Watch It Played will be doing another live stream, this time of Gloomhaven: Second Edition with Drew and myself. That will start at 8:30am PST.

Then at 1pm PST, we have got an absolutely amazing play of the RPG from Good Time Society, featuring Alex Ward as the GM, along with Michelle Nguyen Bradey, Xander Jeanneret, Joe Johnson, and Laser Webber. They really went all out for the set on this, and I quite enjoyed watching them have fun with it!

And finally, as always, if you want to discuss the solution to yesterday's puzzle, you can do so here. Also I forgot to credit MadMullet in devising this brain-burner in the first place.

                           

So let's talk a little more about Buttons & Bugs. Jaws of the Lion and its distilling of the Gloomhaven system down into a much smaller, more approachable box was a great success for us. So when Joe Klipfel came out with his design for Gloomholdin', showing that the game could be distilled even further - down to a mind-boggling 18 cards - we decided we could explore this small-box business further. And the community seemed to agree. There was huge support for Gloomholdin', and it even ended up winning the Golden Geek that year for best Print-and-Play game.

So was it as simple as licensing Gloomholdin' and releasing it as is? Well, not quite. We knew we wanted to tune up the graphic design, add some new art in there at least. Plus Gloomholdin' only had one (plus one more secret) character to play, and we knew we wanted to have at least all starting six characters available. Plus we wanted to vamp up the story a bit, not just have a re-tread of similar themes to Gloomhaven, but provide something original and fun.

Turns out there was a fair amount of work to do, so we reached out to Nikki Valens to see if they were interest in joining the team and developing this thing further. Luckily, they agreed, and the project took off after that. Eventually, however, we hit a bit of a crossroads. You see, Gloomholdin' values card count above all else. It was designed with an upper limit of 18 cards in mind, and a lot of really interesting innovations came out of that, like the way elements are handled or the sheer number of uses each card has. But it also made the rule set more complicated than it needed to be to fit all these restrictive design quirks.

The biggest issue was that monsters were stationary so that you didn't need anything to track them, but that introduced an entirely different set of rules not familiar to Gloomhaven players about how to engage with monsters and how to track distance between you and them when you did. So we ended up in a bit of a moment. And we asked ourselves, who is this game for? Is it just a novelty we want to make so we can say, "We made the smallest Gloomhaven possible"? Or did we want to take the opportunity to really set a new bar for accessability into this world. With a game that is easy to play and easy to understand, and so what if it takes a few more cards to do so?

Hint: it was the second one.

So now we've got a hundred cards, plus some dual-layered card trays, little cubes for tracking monsters and stats, and miniature miniatures for all the characters, because why not? It's fun.

The original goal was to keep it to something you could play in your hand without a table, which, sure, may have been useful to some people, but we decided we could serve more people better by streamlining the rules as much as possible. What we ended up with can't be played in your hand, but the table space is still fairly minimal. Think an airplane tray table.

What you can see here is a typical setup. Each of the dual-layered trays with cubes are standard 2.5"x3.5" card size, along with the scenario map and the player mat. Then all the other cards - the character ability cards and monster stat cards - are mini euro size.

Each scenario is a single room depicted on a single card, where you place your mercenary figure on the starting space and then all the monsters are represented by cubes that correspond to same-colored cubes on the monster trays. The monster trays are universal and track hit points and action sets, and then monster cards can get slotted in to depict stats and potential action sets. If you have more than one monster of a type, you can simply use multiple trays and group them together.

Each round, after you pick two cards for your mercenary as in normal Gloomhaven, you will roll a die to determine which action set a monster group will use. So instead of having a deck of 8 cards for a monster type, everything is contained on a single side of a card.

Then initiative order is acted out like normal, with both the character and monsters performing the abilities on their card by moving around the map attacking each other. One important thing to note is that this is just a single character, and there are no summons, so there doesn't have to be any in-depth focusing rules, because the monsters will only ever have one focus. They will always just move to get in range to attack you.

And if you can kill the monsters before you run out of cards, that's the scenario! Of course, running out of cards is a bit more tricky, because you only have four of them. The upside, though, is that they're double-sided. So when you use the A side, you flip it to the B side and return it to your hand. Only once you've used the B side is it discarded. This can lead to lots of interesting decisions because you don't actually have access to all your actions at the start of combat. You'll have to use one side before you can use the other. And it gets even more interesting with the element system, where if an element is showing on one of the cards in your hand, you have access to it and can use it through one of the cards you played for the round. But a needed element might only be on the B side of a card, so you'll want to flip it early to get the element and then not use the B side for a while to keep the element in your hand.

And we've also simplified loot and experience. In fact, it's all automatic. You will level up after completing a certain number of scenarios, which gives you access to one more level 2 card (swapping out a level 1) and upgrading your modifier card. Oh, did I not talk about those?


Instead of a deck of modifier cards, you instead have these trays - one for you and one for the monsters. Each time you attack, you roll a die that will show a symbol matching one of these columns, and then that intersects with the row where the tracker cube is to give you the resulting modifier. Then after that's resolved, the tracker cube moves down one. This is interesting because you can see when some of your big bonuses (or that dreaded X) are coming up and plan accordingly. Maybe you give yourself advantage when there's a big swing in outcomes, or you do a small attack when your X is coming up to hedge against it missing. And then, like I said, as you level up, this chart improves to give you better, more character-specific results.

And the loot! Each scenario card is also two different items you have access to, but you can only equip items from the scenarios you've already completed. So as you progress, you naturally get access to more and more cool stuff. There are 20 scenarios total, but six of them are character-specific, so an actual campaign is 15 scenarios. But through that, you will face a myriad of different enemies and some challenging and fun bosses.

Anyway, that's probably enough rambling about this exciting new game. I just really hope it resonates with people as an easy-to-play accessible version of the game we all know and love. That's it from me for the day, so I'll catch you next time!

Good day! We've got a big update written by Drew Penn on everything that has changed in Gloomhaven: Second Edition, but first we'll do a little review. We didn't do any streaming yesterday, but we do have some upcoming streams!

Pixel Circus is back today to play good old game of Frosthaven at 11am PST. Like the games with Good Time Society and Penny Arcade, this was a custom scenario that will be available after the episode airs. Unlike the others, which were a bit on the easy side, this scenario is pretty brutal. It's a real nail-biter!

And the Tabletop Minions will be back at 5pm PST to paint some more miniatures!

The only other thing I have to tell you is that it is Monday, so check out the Cragheart puzzle (created by Mike Clinton) at the bottom of the main page. This one should be a little more challenging than previous puzzles.

And before we get into this mega set of info below, I also want to let you know we'll be off tomorrow for the holiday, so I'll catch you Wednesday!

                                 

The question of how much has actually changed in the second edition of Gloomhaven has been asked a lot during this campaign, and many people may still not have an accurate idea. We’ve provided individual examples (and will continue to do so) but wanted to take the time to break it down by the numbers, looking at many of the components in the game.

Classes
While most of this article is quantifying the number of changed game components, classes are simply too difficult to classify in terms of the degree changed - “how much a class has changed” is too subjective. So rather than try to break that down here, we invite you to take a look at the individual class previews below. As a general note: all classes received three new non-AMD perks, standees for their summons, and an initiative token. And there are now 18 classes in the box instead of 17.

Scenarios
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 101 scenarios (up from 95). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from scenarios in the first edition mechanically. We will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means. General note: all scenarios have received some degree of narrative updates, from small tweaks to fit the new campaign flow to entirely new stories (you can find out more about that here). 

First of all, the scenario effect was removed, although this is simply because the scenario is now in the first three in the game and it doesn’t make sense to have scenario effects before many people may not have a single perk.

In the first room, we moved the Hounds further from the starting position. This scenario could start off really brutally depending on what the Hounds did on round 1, and giving the party more space will make this a bit less punishing. 

Most of the difficulty in this scenario came in the first and third rooms and with the changes to make the first room a bit easier and more forgiving, we slightly increased the amount of enemies in the second room to provide slightly more even difficulty throughout. 

As above, this scenario being in the first three, it no longer has a scenario effect. 

More attention has been paid this time to making the first few scenarios for new groups more forgiving and with this being the second scenario, we’ve added an additional starting room to give groups some breathing room against the aggressive Night Demons (while still helping to teach the tactic of approaching enemies late in the round after their turns).

This scenario is also the first introduction to Cultists and monster summoning in general, so we’ve provided a very low number of Cultists and set up exactly what they’ll be doing each round so that players can learn how to play around it.

This scenario previously featured Flame Demons, a tricky enemy for new Gloomhaven players to face as they require very specific tools to deal with. As players are just learning the game at this point, we didn’t want them to face the unique difficulty of Flame Demons this early on and thus replaced them with a much simpler enemy in Earth Demons.

The old version of Ritual Chamber threw the party in a room with a bunch of Cultists and told them essentially to hope the Cultists didn’t summon too soon or too often and essentially wipe the scenario with limited player control of the outcome.

The new Ritual Chamber presents a similar scenario but with different mechanics to introduce the Cultists gradually such that their ability card flips for a given round are not so significant in the success or failure of the scenario.

And alongside all of the changed scenarios, you’ll find 14 completely original scenarios like this one. 

Items
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 152 different items (up from 132). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from items in the first edition. I will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means.

Modified

The old Minor Stamina Potion was simply too powerful and also scaled far too well. The new Stamina Potion had both its power and scaling reduced, making it still a strong item for gaining an extra turn or repeating a good level 1 action, but without all of the extra unnecessary power that made it one of the strongest items in the game. And it has been made unrecoverable to avoid potentially degenerate combos that gain too many extra turns or repeat the same actions ad nauseam.

We wanted to keep the existing theme of moving a long distance to gain experience, but incorporated it into something much more regularly usable so you wouldn’t have to give up a valuable item slot for the pleasure. And what makes someone happier than looting?

Prosperity 1 items were largely dominant in the first edition as many of them were far too cost effective. This time around, we aimed to make Prosperity 1 items that provide smaller bonuses to allow for more room to improve as you progress through the campaign. Scouting Lens is still useful, especially for any class that struggles a bit with shielded enemies, but it’s never going to be so cost effective you hesitate to replace it as you unlock additional head slot items down the road.

Personal Quests
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 22 personal quests (down from 24, as envelope X has been integrated into the Town Records book). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from personal quests in the first edition. We will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means. As a general note: all personal quests now end with a scenario or a section book entry, even those that did not change mechanically.

Modified

Finding the Cure is actually an amalgamation of two first edition personal quests: Finding the Cure and Elemental Samples. We removed any personal quests that required finding specific monster types because these had such high variability and many times led to parties feeling stuck between no foreseeable retirement or being forced to replay a scenario. With 101 scenarios in the game, we never want people to feel like they need to replay a scenario to advance their character’s personal quest. So that meant cutting the old Finding the Cure. Meanwhile, we had something else to do in place of Elemental Samples, so we could easily move the mechanic from that personal quest to this card and fit the narrative accordingly.

The old Fall of Man personal quest was infamous for players who started the campaign with it (like myself!) and took forever before they could retire. This one was reworked as part of our goal to change any personal quests where players were often stuck. Instead, we were able to make this mechanically follow the theme even more so than before.

In addition to fixing up old personal quests, we also made some new ones that avoided the existing issues and let characters explore and interact with the world in unique ways (such as becoming a politician).

Monsters
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 36 different monster types (up from 34). Of those, let’s break down how different they are from the monster types in the first edition. I will not define these categories precisely, but will provide examples below the breakdown to give an idea of what each means. 

The biggest change for City Guards was in their ability card deck: previously both of the 15 initiative non-move actions were the reshuffles, which could lead to Guards in general spending a lot of time sitting around potentially doing nothing (and also meant a big difference between the difficulty of facing them as a melee or ranged character). Now one of the two reshuffles is on their 55 initiative action which self-strengthens. Beyond that, they’ve had the same level 6 and 7 stat increases that all monsters have been given to help increase the difficulty of late campaign for groups who choose to increase the difficulty level.

Most of the threat of Cultists in the first edition was their ability to summon Living Bones. This is certainly still their most threatening action, but we’ve taken steps to reduce the randomness and swinginess overall. Now, when they summon, they take less damage than before but also stun themselves, meaning they won’t typically be able to summon multiple rounds in a row, which could previously be a scenario-ender. Their heal abilities now apply Safeguard (the new condition that blocks a negative condition and then goes away), which can actually prevent the self-stun, giving your party a big incentive to try to get any negative condition on a Safeguarded Cultist as soon as possible. And as we made their summoning weaker, we wanted to keep their average threat level similar by increasing the strength of their non-summoning turns through slightly stronger actions and better stats.

We introduced two new monsters to Gloomhaven: Second Edition, Chaos Demons and Crystal Rot. Chaos Demons you’ll already recognize if you’ve played Jaws of the Lion or Frosthaven - these popular enemy types fit in very easily in the base game as well. Crystal Rot, on the other hand, are entirely new enemies. One of the most common scenario types in Gloomhaven is facing off against mostly undead enemies. We wanted to add a new, mechanically different undead monster to add more variety to these types of scenarios. Crystal Rot are powerful support casters that bolster their undead allies, making them high priority targets in combat without the swinginess of summoning.

Bosses
In addition to the monster changes, most bosses and their scenarios have been substantially reworked. There is also one brand new boss.

Events
Gloomhaven: Second Edition has 180 events (up from 160). Of those, 17 are from the first edition. 15 of those had edits ranging from rewrites to match the existing theme down to minor mechanical tweaks. Two cards had no edits at all — they're the only ones that made it through unscathed. The other 163 are all-new.

And More…
While we’ve primarily focused on quantifiable component changes in this article, there’s plenty more that’s new in Gloomhaven: Second Edition. To learn more, check the pledge page here.