Another Bundle - The Hero's Journey
May. 9th, 2022 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffutureshttps://bundleofholding.com/presents/HerosJourney
This Hero's Journey Bundle offer presents The Hero's Journey, Second Edition, the Barrel Rider Games FRPG of danger and magic inspired by timeless folklore. Designed by James M. Spahn (White Star), The Hero's Journey is a standalone hybrid FRPG, originating in the Old School Revival tradition (based on Swords & Wizardry) and now enhanced, in its 2019 Second Edition, with modern design elements like advantage, flexible spellcasting, and Myth Points used to customize magic items. And, more important than its updated design, the 2019 edition of The Hero's Journey focuses and reorients the game's central themes.
In a March 2021 blog post James Spahn took pains to distinguish The Hero's Journey from ordinary OSR tropes: "It's a game built on the bones of classic fantasy adventure games: six attributes that, along with a Lineage and an Archetype, define the bare bones of a character. Combat, along with much of its conflict resolution, is resolved with the toss of a 20-sided die. Characters earn experience points, level up, and earn magic items. But that's simply the 'how' of the game. It's not what the game is. [...] At the core of all these wonderful stories I've loved for my entire life are a few central themes: The forest is dangerous, and you shouldn't wander from the path. There are dragons beyond the edge of the map. Magic is wonderful and inspiring. Fairies are strange and dangerous. Heroes, as long as they have a pure heart and a few good friends, will triumph over evil.
"Somewhere deep down in our hearts, when a cynical world tells us just to kick in the door, kill the monster, and take its treasure, we still believe Good is more powerful than Evil and the True Love's Kiss see us through. That's what The Hero's Journey, Second Edition is. It's a game about hope and faith, the belief there is a happily-ever-after to be found at the story's end [...] where friendship matters, where wizards are truly strange and magical, a farmhand with a sword can save the kingdom, where the dragon's voice still roars like thunder."
The Hero's Journey journey from Swords & Wizardry to faerie-and-friendship involved tweaks to Lineages (adding the mysterious Changeling) and Archetypes (removing Cleric and adding Yeoman, a Sam Gamgee-like protector who is "the personification of the ordinary and its importance"); magic (a small list of 21 spells, each with three levels of effect); plus Despair rules, Myth Points (that empower magic items and bind them intrinsically to your own legend), and bonuses for characters who bond while camping at the end of a day's travel.
This all-new offer lets customers commence their heroic travels with the entire Hero's Journey line for an unbeatable bargain price. We provide each title complete in .PDF. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.
Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this Hero's Journey offer's pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief sends protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.
The total retail value of the titles in this offer is US$57. Customers who pay just US$12.95 get all seven titles in our Heroic Collection (retail value $57) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete The Hero's Journey Second Edition rulebook (retail price $15), the rules expansion Hero's Companion (retail $10), the standalone companion game Skaldic Sagas: Heroic Journeys in the Viking Age (retail $10), and the supplements Adventures & Interludes (retail $10), Hero's Grimoire (retail $4), Of Beasts Brave and True (retail price $5), and The Hero's Journey Narrator's Screen (retail $3).
It's nicely presented, but I'm not really interested in running fantasy RPGs at present, and I've never really bought into the monomyth idea as an especially good approach to role-playing. It seems to go into game-speak fairly fast, without much discussion of the underlying ideas, but that's true of most systems. I can't honestly say I particularly want to play it, but I can't see anything that says it's worse than comparable systems, and you do get a fair bit for your money.
