thornwatchfan

The Eyrewood has fantastic lore - what is your favourite part of the lore/setting?

Thank you for sharing this. You two just being who you are, having a positive friendship, and creating Penny Arcade is a huge force for good in the world.

What surprised you the most about creating Thornwatch and developing it into a game that's come this far?

Gabe/Mike K. has discussed how Thornwatch grew out of a desire to fix pain points in his Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Could you expand on what types of pain you felt in D&D sessions and the Thornwatch design goals for addressing these?

For example:

• Not every player can make it to a session: Thornwatch characters appear magically and are stateless - it's easy to pick up a game and at the end they disappear
• Some people don't enjoy games with heavy preparation or 'homework': Thornwatch characters come from a pre-constructed deck; characters are stateless and already powerful
• Some players have never roleplayed/are nervous/don't want to roleplay: Roleplaying is not required, but there are mechanics and flavor to introduce it gently and encourage it (Hero Dice and prompt text)
• Players don't pay attention to the game: Some character skills activate based on what other players are doing; initiative is shuffled every round; amazing art to draw you in!
• Players always take the same actions in-game/no thought or variety: character skills have to be powered and can't be used every turn
• Players don't cooperate: Once an enemy is "on the edge", excess damage from that attack is ignored; players must work together to deliver a one-two punch to remove enemies from the board
• High-level characters don't care about hit points: Wound cards don't kill you immediately but do restrict your options; players have an incentive to get rid of them so they can have more fun playing/more cards
• If a character dies that player may stop having fun: with the Wounds system the entire Thornwatch either succeeds or fails together; no one is left out watching the action

Are there other pain points or design goals?

To me the game mechanics are the most fascinating part :) You have a very nicely designed set of systems!

Thornwatch will use custom dice - what do you think of a Kickstarter add-on or separate pack to let players buy more Thornwatch dice? It would be great to have enough Hero Dice so everyone at the table can have some.