Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Sometimes things get in the way of gaming. Life happens. Schedules change. Or the world goes on lockdown for two years. Sometimes you just want to learn a game at your own pace. Or give players a chance to experience a new game.

Saethor's Bane provides this opportunity. It presents a short-but-epic campaign arc for martial character types to experience the Dungeon Fantasy RPG starting at 100-125 points, and rapidly escalating to 200-250. It's not quite zero-to-hero in one tutorial adventure, but it's close.

What You Get

Saethor's Bane is a conversion to the Dungeon Fantasy RPG of David Pulver's excellent Dark Lord's Doom, available for both TFT and OSE by Gaming Ballistic.

It is designed to showcase the capabilities and options of the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, taking four martial characters - the spellcasters would be assigned to a different unit - through a full campaign arc.

The characters start at 100-125 points (Journeymen level from Delvers to Grow) and rapidly grow as the adventure progresses. Very rapidly. Artificially rapidly. Showcasing how the capability of characters grows, what options it affords, and giving an escalating scale of challenges.

I suspect the book will ship in excess of 40 pages (the TFT/OSE versions are each 28 pages), but I'm not going to constrain page count artificially. It'll be what it'll be.

Pledge levels are likely to be as minimal as I can get away with.

All of Gaming Ballistic's other DFRPG materials will be available as add-ons during the campaign as well.

Campaign Scope

This campaign will run for a relatively short time on Backerkit Crowdfunding, and is designed to gauge interest in this type of product for the DFRPG.

It will fund at $5,000 converted to DFRPG in greyscale/black and white. Using the existing art assets, but a whole new layout, all actors converted to the DFRPG, with pre-gen characters, probably some new Delvers to Grow modules, and whatever else makes it interesting. Use of Delvers to Grow will not be required to run the adventure.

The campaign will have a single stretch goal, which will transform or reimagining the art into color: maps, interior illustrations, and character portraits/monster images.

If the project does well, expect more solos, both conversions and original work!

Key Dates

Campaign Launch: Tuesday, February 20 - 9am Central
Campaign End: Saturday, March 2 - 9pm Central

The converted, B/W file will be made available as close to the campaign close as possible. The next day if the Backerkit system allows it. If we unlock the color stretch goal, anything including the new content will be updated digitally at a later time, but you won't have to wait for the core content.

When they're all done, physical assets will print and ship. From print purchase to books-in-hand usually takes 4-6 weeks in the USA and ... longer ... for international shipments.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I’m in! I have a soft spot for Solo gaming. Thanks Douglas. That’s a creative yet simple project.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

BackerKit Crowdfunding has approved Saethor's Bane for launch. It shall go live this coming Tuesday.

This is a conversion of the Dark Lord's Doom solo adventure by David Pulver to the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, Powered by GURPS, published by Steve Jackson Games.

It is a "programmed" Choose-Your-Own style adventure, targeted at a newcomer-friendly 100-150 points. It is well supported with fast character generation by Gaming Ballistic, LLC's Delvers to Grow product, which gets you from concept to table in 10-30 minutes. Try out different professions and tactics, learn the game alone or with friends.

If you've wanted to try out the Dungeon Fantasy RPG ... there are digital jump-starts available that provide you with the tools you'll need.

Launching on BackerKit Crowdfunding on Tuesday, Feb 20 at 9:15am Central time.

Please sign up to be notified upon launch. Share the landing page with your gaming or gaming-adjacent friends.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Saethor's Bane, the first system-specific solo adventure from Gaming Ballistic, LLC for Steve Jackson Games Dungeon Fantasy RPG is now LIVE on Backerkit Crowdfunding.

With pre-gen characters, options for solo or GM'd play, and generous permission from SJGames to make the core rules and supplements available through the campaign ... this is the perfect time to try out the system.

The solo is engineered to be significantly faster in time-to-table than usual, reducing the system mastery required from beginners.

If you've been curious but tentative...I encourage you to jump on.

If you've wanted to introduce your friends to the system, this is a fantastic vehicle for it.

Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Nearly funded already! Perfect opportunity to go for the stretch goal!

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I did my budgeting on an anticipated, if conservative, 60-40 mix of Print+PDF and PDF-only. I did allow for 20-25% of folks opting for the $15 and $35 tiers. That left me with an anticipated average pledge of $17-19 depending on mix.

We're running hot at $30 or so. That would mean getting there at 700 backers, rather than the somewhat unlikely based on past performance 1,300 we'd have needed if the more pessimistic projections came true.

I would LOVE to get 100% of this in color print and PDF. That would be sweet.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Fully funded in 8 hours. I hope folks jump in - that stretch goal will be awesome. There's also lots of add ons available that are discounted or not normally available - it's a great release.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

https://youtube.com/live/IPzuQ1j0kVI?feature=share

I'll be on Tenkar's Talking Crit Live to yammer on about Saethor's Bane, the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and Gaming Ballistic's plans for the future in 2024.

It goes live at 7pm Central on YouTube. The update has a link and embed code, I hope.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

OK, I'm checking this out. I just gave it a Like and Subscribed based on you're being there. Happy to see Omnibus edition of Delvers to Grow is available as an option for backers.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Can you provide more details about Saethor's Bane, the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and Gaming Ballistic's plans for the future in 2024, as discussed during your appearance on Tenkar's Talking Crit Live?

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I could. It would be easier with more specific questions.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

It's the last TWO DAYS for Saethor's Bane: A Dungeon Fantasy RPG Solo Adventure!

The project funded in the first eight hours and now stands just a bit shy of the $21,000 full-color-interior stretch goal. It ends at 9:30pm Central Time, Saturday March 9.

This solo adventure is a great way to learn or teach the Dungeon Fantasy RPG. It gives you a chance to try out new professions and rules with no time pressure.

Please jump on board before time runs out!


If you are in forums where you don't see me posting that would welcome such things, I'd appreciate a shout-out or helping spread the word. We only need about 40 new backers to hit the goal, and there should be lots of folks who would be willing to try out a game by themselves that might not have a group.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Almost there, only a few hundred dollars more!

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

As of now, it's there.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Hurray! Looking forward to it. Guess I'll buy the digital TFT version to have a preview.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

While I will never dissuade anyone from buying anything from me ... I hope to have the digital version of the actual GURPS book in "ready for proofing and fight-testing" within the next week or so.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Everything is color now.

We passed the $21,000 goal in the night [1] so I'll be reaching out and giving the go signal (translated as a contract and money in advance) to the art team, who will mostly be revisiting their old works. A few have indicated that they're prefer to do entirely new pieces, so that's even better.

Expect this to take 1-2 months for full completion, but that's just for the print works. As soon as the conversion of the main material is done, backers will get greyscale versions of the books to play and test. When the art comes in (maps are already in) they'll be added to the color interior

I'm very excited about this, as I do prefer color and all my DFRPG books before have been color. The cards will look spectacular and be useful.

This is great news ... and there's still a day and a half left!

[1]I can't help but hear this in the voice of Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings: "Oh ... we must have passed the stretch goal during the night."

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects...umsStretchGoal

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I went to the campaign page just now, curious as to how it's going... and by chance hit it just as the final seconds rolled down to zero. Done!

Congrats on the successful funding and stretch goal! Looking forward to seeing and playing the result.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Ok, thanks. Guess I'll wait as I wouldn't get to use it for about 2 weeks. Thanks. Never fear, I'll surely buy something else from you this month!

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I just wanted to say, literally the only reason I backed this is because I want to have something to hand out to possible players to do solo & decide whether or not they join a game. I'm 99% of the time, the GM, because nobody else will be. So, I appreciate having this thing to hand out, which is similar to what I used to do with "All in a night's work," I think was the name of that solo adventure...
Thanks Doug.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I got the preliminary version in PDF after backing the project. I plan an trying a solo run using the included characters. I really like the color art work. That makes a big difference for me and was one reason I jumped in to back this project. I really want to continue to see full color art work.

BTW, I'm very excited to hear the Infinite Archipelago (IA) is planned for future inclusion to Gaming Ballistics DFRPG product line. I'll be back to back that project also. I hope it happens soon. I love seeing DFRPG supported with a setting. I prefer my campaigns go beyond just dungeon crawls.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

The real test will be the next couple, as I won't bother doing the stretch goal thing ... just set the bar for funding at "colorize stuff" and go from there.

It also means future projects - like the manuscripts I just got for a module and a solo from David for TFT - will custom color artwork from the start and then convert to grayscale for the TFT/OSR versions. That amortizes the cost over three product lines instead of one.

So Saethor's Bane was a fulcrum in a few ways.

Yah. I really like the concept, and have wanted to do more with Nordlond and the implied world anyway.

We'll see how things go over the next few years. I've got some big stuff on my plate right now - mostly Mission X - but will always be looking to leverage older product into new for both speed to market and profitability.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

As is came up in discussion in Discord, I thought I'd mention (as someone who has seen the pre-releases through Patreon) that the formatting is just excellent. Space is well used, text is easy to read, and the artwork sits wonderfully. It's a real pleasure to read and to use and I think it greatly enhances the reputation of GURPS publications (official and licenced) as high quality productions.

Doug has really made an effort to not only ensure the mechanics and gameplay are great (and they are, even more so as they receive final tweaks through playtesting), but that the aesthetics every bit match the functional aspects.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

Well said. Very high quality. GB is putting out great DFRPG material. I think I've got almost every title in PDF format. I should've done the physical for the Monsters and Foes book (I can never get the name right) and the physical version of Omi edition for the Delver's to Grow book.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

For what it’s worth it’s not too late. If you want to change your add-ons ping me and we can play around with the pledge manager and make it happen.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

I have pushed what I hope is the last "temporary" file, in that in the next few days I expect to get the last color artwork required to complete the book. After that, it's "check all the links" time and that should wrap up the PDF of the actual adventure.

With all the artwork in hand, I can then spool the quick-reference cards, the Map pack JPGs (actually I can do that now), the token files, and finally engage with the Foundry Gang to make the small VTT actor pack.

So we should be edging up on completion of content creation, at which point it'll be time to order physical materials.

Re: Saethor's Bane: A DFRPG Solo Adventure
 

For what it's worth: Saethor's Bane is in its more or less final form now. 52 pages, full color, all art in, hyperlinks checked and fixed.

I will be closing late pledges and locking addresses later this week, after a few things happen below the waterline.

There are seven Box Sets left in my allocation of 50 that could be claimed at those pledge levels. I just approved the proof for the quick reference card deck from my card vendor, but it looks like those guys aren't going to be the long pole in the tent. I can probably handle almost 90 new backers with the order I'm placing so I'm not too worried about overflow.

But based on the feedback so far from those playing through the adventure, it's hitting its mark. It's also a fairly good-looking book, even if I say so myself.

Almost all of the digital content is now available. I think the Foundry VTT module with the character actors is all that remains, and I'm working on the required materials for that today. The GGA team seems to think that it won't take long to get from where we are to a ready-to-go module, though that has to run through Foundry VTT first. Still: not too much longer.

In any case: if you want to jump on board now, it's a good time. You'll get instant gratification on most PDF materials, and the wait time on physical stuff is minimized.

https://saethors-bane.backerkit.com/survey_stores