The game box itself slips into a pocket and the riff coins happily slide into the box.
It wasn’t designed specifically to be portable – it just is.
The Silver Road, our minimalist sorry-telling rpg and our newest release, is similarly portable. You need the eight inch square booklet while you learn the minimalist rules, and a six-sided dice. Having a dice for each player is ideal, but that’s no hardship. Your character fits easily on an index card or till receipt.
Like Bang and Twang, The Silver Road wasn’t specifically designed to be portable, but it really is. Clearly small games are something we like making!
If you happen to be in Birmingham at the beginning of June you can catch us at UK Games Expo. We’d love to see you, so swing by the booth for a chat!
The Silver Road is a minimalist story telling game. It’s setting-free, allowing you to bring your own, and is light enough to be incredibly versatile. The game was created under heavy influence of 1970s children’s books like Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, but it can happily work for any setting.
The Silver Road is an experimental game that thrives on player participation, group story telling, and creative narration to create stories together.
As a minimalist game there’s no tracking of numerical resources, and the rules are stripped down to the bare minimum of procedures.
The game uses one six-sided dice per player, and your character fits on an index card.
As written, The Silver Road is played with a GM but recent games without a GM work well with the right group.
The Silver Road was written by Jon Hodgson (Writer on The One Ring 1e, Adventures in Middle-earth, BEOWULF Age of Heroes and the Terminator RPG) and illustrated by Mike Franchina (illustrator for Magic the Gathering and Blizzard)
The Silver Road is an experimental, minimalist story telling rpg we’re releasing tomorrow, the 24th of May, in both PDF and print. Its a 24-page, full-colour booklet with amazing art by Mike Franchina.
Jon Hodgson: If you’re a games designer (and who isn’t these days?) you’ll know it can be both complicated and interesting to sift through your influences and inspirations.
When I think about where The Silver Road came from, there are a few intriguingly awkward things to talk about in the mix. It’s probably not politic to talk about negatives. But let’s do it.
There are things I see in games which I personally don’t enjoy or think are “not good”, but which have a use in inspiring me to create something different. And I don’t like a mechanic or process I call “advanced coin flips”.
“Advanced coin flips” are where a mechanic adds lots of work to create a very limited result. We’ve all seen it – complicated dice mechanics where maybe you’re throwing a ton of dice which you then have to sort through, and ¾ of them don’t mean anything. For me, sorting through a bunch of dice isn’t all that much fun. I have to do a lot of work to get a result.
Likewise, rolling two dice and subtracting one from another – which manages to remove the intuitive and fun qualities of dice rolls, (“yay a six! Go again!”) and severely limits the outcomes, despite it being a lot of work for players.
Now sometimes, he says hedging his bets, this kind of mechanic is fun – when placed in the right context, and of course different people like different things. When we design somethign we have to make harder decisions than perhaps we would when just enjoying a game.
Most often, my thinking is that if you’re better off flipping coins for what amounts to a fifty fifty result? Then flip coins. Flipping multiple coins could make the basis for a really good game. (Ahem)
This kind of thinking was a big part of what inspired the experimental game that is The Silver Road, and all this stuff was floating around my brain while The Silver Road coalesced.
I was looking to remove as much “procedure” as possible, and explore how that changed the focus of play. I should qualify that with the idea that this was a starting point – it wasn’t rigorously adhered to once that ball got rolling. I was more keen to just see where that ball went once it was in motion.
The Silver Road, somewhat precociously and provocatively, does away with the very common, traditional RPG idea of rolling dice when your character is middling at something, and the likely outcome is somewhere broadly around 50/50. (Or 60/40 – I’m talking in very broad terms here)
This is pretty much accepted through most trad games as the meat of most die rolls, and to some degree the meat of “what you spend your time doing”. By comparison, The Silver Road is a mechanical vegan. (That’s a ridiculous sentence but sometimes arising thoughts can’t be denied)
Rather than focus on characters being middling in their abilities, and what happens being determined by die rolls around that middle ground, the Silver Road takes a different, more story-inspired approach. We’re not looking to somehow simulate “real life”. We’re looking to facilitate and inspire the kinds of things we see in stories.
In The Silver Road, your character is either good at things – meaning you will succeed, with a slim possibility of enduring some consequence, – or you’re bad at things, which means you have a very low chance of success and a high chance of consequences occurring.
A protagonist is at worst very likely to attempt something, struggle briefly, and then succeed.
It’s quite a shift of outlook and expectation, and we’ve found it to be a really interesting space to explore if you’re into this kind of thing. It is self consciously different and experimental.
In Silver Road, the content that the mechanics and procedures provide doesn’t come from undertaking a closely-matched probability test, aimed to tell you if your character can do a thing or not.
You’ll know ahead of time with some certainty that your character can do the thing. (With a little glimmer of risk that they can’t do the thing on this turn, but they will succeed on their next turn). Or perhaps that they almost certainly can’t do the thing. (With a similarly rare likelihood that they might fluke it).
The fun comes from describing how they do the thing, and how your fellow players interact, since there’s a high chance they will get an opportunity to add to your narration with a “but…”. (That’s a story for another blog).
The Silver Road Important Game Facts
24 pages long (plus cover)
21cm x 21cm full colour book (portable, loveable)
Rules-lite, minimalist story telling game (if you like rules this might not be for you)
You can grab a bunch of cool BEOWULF merchandise at Redbubble. We sporadically add new designs, so keep checking back. The various designs are available of a ton of different items, including large desk mats, art prints, drinking bottles, T shirts and loads more!
We’re off to the first big event we’ve attended since before the pandemic! UK Games expo is on in Birmingham from Friday 3rd of June until Sunday the 5th.
We’ll be there with a stand in the trade hall.
We’re in Hall 1, stand 228. That’s on the left hand side of the hall as you come in.
We’re bringing a curated selection of our favourite things. Here’s the planned list of what you’ll be able to grab at the booth.
a|state Second Edition: it’s not printed yet. The PDF is out now, and printing begins this week! Pre-orders are open now.
Trials of the Twin Seas: it’s not printed yet. The PDF is almost done though!
Map tiles. We’re due a reprint of several sets with only one or two copies in stock, Bringing along a less than complete range seems like a lot of weight to bring. You can get them on our web store.
Battle mats. They’re 36” square and once you’re dealing with more than a couple they weigh a ton. We’ll happily send you one through the post though!
BEOWULF inspiration mats. We’re down to just a couple left. We might bring those along in Jon’s suitcase but they won’t be “in stock” as such. We’re printing a new one for the Twin Seas campaign.
Posters: These are too tricky to transport and display well, and much easier for you to mail order than carry around Expo!
Jon will be be at the booth all weekend, with various helpers popping by too. We’d love to see you for a chat after such a long time away from shows, so please do swing by and tell us all about your adventures!
At Handiwork Games we all talk about games all the time. One strand of that chat for the longest time has been about indie, minimalist story games: the things we like, the things we don’t. The Three Coins for a|state grew out of that very conversation.
And suddenly out of that same chat the potential for an entire new game appeared.
(This is Jon writing by the way) While we waited for the Twin seas Kickstarter funds to arrive I had a bit of spare time, and so I started writing and testing.
The Silver Road is the result.
When playing The Silver Road, you and some friends can get together and tell stories.
This is an unashamedly minimalist story telling game. It has a simple core mechanic that is applied any time there’s uncertainty about what happens next.
For the most part in this game you’ll succeed in whatever you narrate your character is doing.
Even where you don’t succeed, if your character is good at doing the thing you’re attempting, you’ll succeed on your next turn.
The obstacles which you face in the game will have a chance to provide a consequence for your characters, which add to the story, and then they’re overcome, and the story moves on.
For a long time I’ve mentioned in passing that I tend to run games in a very loose way, and I thought it was about time I made that into something other than a slightly awkward confession. I like running a loose game where everyone throws in their contribution on what happens, and where we don’t get hung up too much on the finer points of system stuff.
And don’t get me wrong – get this – I can like several things at once. I do also enjoy it when we play crunchier games “properly”. I certainly don’t object to tracking arrows, and facing challenges based on the specifics of what my character owns and precisely how good they are at skills.
I also have a special place in my heart for very light games that rely much more on improvised creativity. And that’s The Silver Road.
I also wanted, as is our eternal mission, to make a beautiful thing.
The game is illustrated by Mike Franchina, an old friend and incredible artist. Each page has a unique illustration.
For this game Mike has made use of Midjourney, an AI art creation tool. It (in the hands of Mike) is brilliant at creating the kind of startlingly weird and evocative imagery you’ll find in The Silver Road.
We’ll release The Silver Road in PDF (and pre-order with free PDF) next week. We’re hoping to have some advance print copies of The Silver Road at UK Games Expo.
The Silver Road Important Game Facts
24 pages long (plus cover)
21cm x 21cm full colour book (portable, loveable)
Rules-lite, minimalist story telling game (if you like rules this might not be for you)
Step inside a baroque urban nightmare, the world of a|state.
In The City you’ll fight off threats to your canalside home, trying to make this grim and haunted place safer and better, somehow.
a|state brings a new, hopeful approach to the much-loved Forged in the Dark ruleset. Your ability to Care counts as much as your ability to Fight.
Create Troublemakers such as the deft and deadly Ghostfighter, the caring and curious Lostfinder, the persuasive and passionate Activist, and the striking and stealthy Sneakthief. If they can trust each other they might have a chance.
Defend your corner from selfish authorities, angry gangs and heartless industries, and deal with the spiralling consequences of your own actions as you struggle for a better tomorrow.
Bringing the wine-dark visual vibes of Dark City and The City of Lost Children, a|state delivers Dickensian anti-Thatcher sparks and knives sci fi.
Here’s a glimpse of some of what you’ll find in a|state second edition, in chapter order:
A smooth, powerful iteration of Forged in the Dark
Seven character playbooks with many more variations to explore
Rules for creating your own threatened corner of The City
Guidance for going on missions as you struggle to bring hope to your community
New rules to bring downtime between missions to life
A toolkit for exploring the unknown reaches of The City beyond your home
Focused assistance for the GM to create missions, support players and manage the whole struggle
The Trouble Engine, an innovative creation system that will throw problem after problem at the corner and those who defend it
A vibrant and instantly usable guide to life in The City
Playable details of 20 locations (or more, depending on stretch goals!)
Full descriptions of every major faction in The City and how they will make life difficult for the corner
Insights into the deepest mysteries of The City and the strange beings known as the Shifted
And throughout, there will be songs, poems, folk tales, advertising, and ephemera that vividly bring to life the world of The City.
This is the story of how you fight back.
Written by Malcolm Craig, Morgan Davie, and Gregor Hutton with Tanya Floaker, Brian Nisbet, Gareth Ryder Hanrahan and KC Shi. Illustrated by Paul Bourne, Jon Hodgson and Scott Purdy.
Each day during our current Kickstarter campaign to print Trials of the Twin Seas, we’ll share updates here.
Hello! Welcome new backers!
It’s going alright eh? 🙂
So this morning UK time we broke through our first stretch goal – all print books will get a spot UV design on the front (and we’ll probably pick out some other bits and bobs to make shiny too). If you’ve never seen spot UV on a book take a look at this video.
It’s quite hard to replicate in 2d, but here’s an artist’s impression of what the book might look like.
And here’s a look at the design we’re planning to add:
Coming Up…
Coming up next, and we’re closing in on this one fast, we’d like to commission Dave Oliver of www.rattleboxtheatre.com to write us three poems for the book. You might have seen his work in the free intro adventure to BEOWULF The Hermit’s Sanctuary. It’s very good stuff, and I think it’ll really add to the overall magic of the book.
Would you like to help?
Over at the backer discord I’ve mentioned just how helpful your shares of the campaign, or discussion of the adventures, or BEOWULF Age of Heroes, truly are. It really, really helps us carry the word to people who are unaware of BEOWULF and this campaign. Thank you in advance for any shares you can give us, or conversations you can start in your own RPG circles. We’ll keep updating and promoting across the internet, but nothing beats word of mouth.
Book Club
Today’s book is:
The Meadhall by Stephen Pollington
This is a book which I wish I’d picked up much earlier in the process of creating BEOWULF Age of Heroes. It really sums up so much of what we gleaned from a wide variety of sources about the importance of the Meadhall in historical Anglo-Saxon culture, and focuses it in one place. Pollington’s work in general is very good, and well worth your time.
The text is well referenced and pleasingly digestible despite it’s level of rigour.
Like many academic style books this is a Lightning Source print-on-demand title, so is of a relatively basic production quality. But that’s splitting hairs – the text is excellent, and all the diagrams and illustrations are very crisp.
The Meadhall by Stephen Pollington is published by Anglo Saxon Books ISBN 9781898281542
Discord
Don’t forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you’re a Twin Seas backer, and he’ll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
Thanks as ever for your support. Let’s see how far we can take this one!
[Jon speaking] It never ceases to amaze me when a project funds. I know that for many folks Kickstarter has become the norm, or even a bit hum-drum. But for me, the magic is all still here. We’re going to print a book! it’s going to be so lovely!
THANK YOU, and thank you for being here early. Later backers can read this, and know they also have our heartfelt thanks. But YOU get early thanks, you glorious early adopters. We really appreciate your support on day one.
I guess this means we need to talk about stretch goals? The next stop is Spot UV on the cover, to match the BEOWULF core book.
And beyond that we’d love to add some poems by Dave Oliver of Rattlebox Theatre to the book. You may have seen his amazing work in our free introductory adventure for BEOWULF, The Hermit’s Sanctuary.
Add Ons
I wanted to dive right into a key point of this campaign. We have a ton of add ons available. A lot of them are things we have already made, which are useful for BEOWULF in general, including the core setting book.
But in amongst those things are some new stuff, and I dont want you to miss it.
(and hey – I want to be clear – we don’t expect you to grab everything, or indeed anything! But I want to be super sure you don’t miss anything you might actually want and enjoy.)
So fresh for this campaign, alongside the main Twin Seas book are:
Beowulf Story Cards in print. We have these all proofed, and Jacob has a copy and I have a copy. (Although mine has… issues… as ver 1.0) We thought this was an ideal opportunity to get those in bulk and allow everyone who wants a printed deck to get one! You can read how they work here.
There’s also the new and exclusive Twin Seas Inspiration Mat – the prior design from our first campaign is all but sold out, so a new one seemed in order!
The Twin Seas Dice Tray is much the same situation – the previous campaign tray is sold out. If you have one take care of it! It’s more precious than a monkey NFT (is it? Maybe? I dont know)
And the Twin Seas Art Book is another new thing for this campaign.
There’s a bunch of stuff that has been released between our last campaign and this one – we like to keep BEOWULF well supported. I’d draw your attention in particular to the BEOWULF Annual and Art Book. They’re cool.
Book Club
If you backed our last campaign you’ll hopefully remember I like to use updates to make some reccomendations for inspirational reading. And this campaign will continue the tradition.
Our first book club entry for this campaign is:
The Word Hord, Daily Life in Old English by Hana Videen
This is one of those books that’s a pleasure to just dip in and out of. And there’s loads of inspiration for the Old English mindset and world, which is always a help when it comes to writing your own BEOWULF adventures, or just running NPCs.
Presented as a very portable but portly little hardcover, The Word Hord is just packed with fascinating info into historical Anglo-Saxon life. Each section examines an aspect of life and language and gives you lots of historical and cultural info, alongside a bunch of Old English words. I really enjoyed this one.
The Word Hord, Daily Life in Old English by Hana Videen, is published by Profile Books, ISBN 9781788166102
Discord
Don’t forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you’re a Twin Seas backer, and he’ll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
THANKS
Right that’s it for now. Thank you once again for joining us on this voyage into ADVENTURE (oh my days how brilliant was that voice over on the video? Owen Staton. Time Between Times Storytelling – look him up.)
We produce a range of additional material for BEOWULF Age of Heroes in bite-sized digital packs. They began life as a stretch goals on our original BEOWULF Kickstarter campaign, and have delivered regular new content to our backers for a year!
BEOWULF Digital Packs are released monthly, apart from months where we have big projects on, which sometimes pause the flow, like March where we’re building up to the Trials of the Twin Seas Kickstarter plus Jon got Covid!
Digital Packs are eminently affordable, and expand your game options with inspirational material, new Followers, monsters and weapons, battle maps, atmospheric background music, VTT tokens and more!
At the time of writing there are Eight Digital Packs in the wild for you to explore. Let’s take a look at their contents:
