RUNEFIRE PLAYTESTING CALL
Runefire is in development by Catalyst Game Labs, in conjunction with Paizo. A cooperative, narrative deckbuilding game based on the popular Pathfinder roleplaying game,
Are you a Pathfinder player? A Dragonfire player? Or just love deckbuilding games? If you answered yes to any of those questions and want to participate in the Runefire Open Beta playtesting, we’d love to hear from you!
The following requirements need to be met:
- You have a group of 2 to 6 players.
- Gameplay will occur via Tabletop Simulator (TTS), so you must be comfortable with it.
- We will request at least 4 games be played in the allotted month timeframe.
- You will answer a questionnaire that will include at least a dozen questions.
If all of that poses no issues for you, please email your interest to kfrosig@catalystgamelabs.com, with the subject line: Runefire Open Beta Playtest!
Just under eight years ago I spent half a year designing and building Dragonfire, our Dungeons & Dragons deckbuilder. And in April 2017 I started to publish a long series of blog posts discussing all aspects of that process and game. Which led up to the release of Dragonfire at the Gen Con Game Fair 2017.
And all these years later, I’m sitting down to mirror those design blogs for Runefire, our upcoming Pathfinder deckbuilder game. Hard to believe it’s been that long, already. Then again, as I write this, I’m just under one year away from hitting thirty years working in this hobby I love so dearly. As I did with that first Dragonfire blog post, I can’t help but run back through some personal history.
I’ve roleplayed my entire life. And while much of that did not involve heavy Dungeons & Dragons play–High School was mainly games like Palladium, Rifts, Ninjas and Superspies, TMNT, Paranoia, Cthulhu, Shadowrun, with only a dabbling of D&D–like so many in this hobby, that’s where I started. A tiny town in the middle of Nevada, in 1982, discovering that magical door of a red box that led into endless caverns of adventure that I’ve embraced with abandon for over forty years. If there’s a cool RPG, I want to read it. And play it!
Fast forward many years and my oldest son, Bryn, has a pile of friends in High School, all wanting to learn RPGs. And with D&D Fifth Edition just out, it was a perfect time. A lot of years and campaigns run, loved, and enjoyed. And when the opportunity arrived to develop a game set in this universe that crafted nearly everything that has been my job and my hobby and my love, it was a dream come true. I’m exceptionally proud of the game that Loren, Jay and I built, upon the crazy good foundation of the previous iteration of that game, Shadowrun: Crossfire, designed by the insanely talented team at Fire Opal.
And now I get to do it all over again. Jordan Weisman–the creator of BattleTech, Shadowrun, HeroClix, and more–has often told me if you stick around long enough, you get to steal from yourself. And this feels like one of those moments. Where I have the chance to take what already is an amazing game in Dragonfire, and I’m given the opportunity to embrace another huge, much-loved universe and see if we can make an even better game.
I’ve known about Paizo and Pathfinder from its beginning. When it was published in 2009, I was already fifteen years into this career, and working for a newly-formed Catalyst Game Labs. But for various reasons, my paths never really intersected with Pathfinder.
Then things abruptly changed. Around eighteen months ago we were talking about this game engine we love, and where we could take it next. And Bryn mentioned Pathfinder, which was entering a whole new phase of Remastered books and popularity. And we all slowly looked at each other, and within twenty-four hours I’d already had a meeting with Mike Webb–whom I’ve known for long years–and within that month multiple meetings with Paizo occurred, and we were off and running.
But where to start? Well, despite what you might think, it wasn’t with the mechanics, but with the story. With the lore. It would always start there.
Here, I want to get a huge shout-out to the Mythkeeper. His fantastic videos have allowed me to consume an ocean of lore in a shockingly short amount of time, because the depth of what Paizo has built here is just fantastic. Though I’m a late-comer here, I’ve fallen in love with this complex, interwoven narrative that just has a wonderfully-authentic, real-history feel. With an endless series of hooks that let you weave in your own stories effortlessly. And in doing so, I’ve joined several others of our team with that same love and respect–including our Boardgame Director, Mike Richie, who's been playing the RPG from the beginning.
And then here’s the place to also immediately thank the Paizo team. And for so many reasons.
Having worked on BattleTech and Shadowrun for decades, we are a team specializing in massive, shared universes that love to weave in as much fiction as we can (as stated above, it would also begin with the story). Dragonfire includes a whole campaign, with fiction prologues and epilogues, that tell our story within the Forgotten Realms. And a story where players have different roleplaying moments at the gaming table, with each playing group having a divergent experience unique to their game.
We immediately wanted to mirror that within Runefire, but we didn’t think the Paizo team would let us play on the big stage. So I actually built the first story proposal set in Iobaria, which is off the right side of Brevoy, just off the Inner Sea map (and not even on the Avistan continent).
The Paizo team immediately wanted to know why we were so far off the beaten-path, so-to-speak, and invited us to put a pitch together for the Impossible Lands. I again had a blast putting that pitch together. Yet by the time we brought that back to Paizo, they internally had realigned their own thinking and decided they wanted to give us nearly the keys of the kingdom! They not only wanted us to switch the start of our campaign straight to the star region of the Inner Sea in Varisia, but then also to weave our narrative directly into the War of Immortals epic new story line. That was both incredibly exciting and humbling to have such trust from Paizo!
So a new, exciting storyline has been built, with those same epilogues and prologues for each Adventure bringing the experience to life on the table. And because we simply can’t help ourselves, there’s an even bigger campaign within Runefire, with multiple-choice paths. We can’t wait to start sharing some of those details.
And just as much as we want the story to feel as authentic-Golarion as possible, we’ve also put huge effort into rebuilding those elements of Dragonfire that needed to change to fit well within established Pathfinder mechanics. Especially to mesh with the new Remastered books. So the core of the game, of course, remains what you will recognize and love. But any change we needed to make to ensure that Pathfinder feel, we embraced. From Hero points, to Runic items, to starting your first full game with a Core Primary Feature, and so on. Not to mention the inclusion of Narration cards to bring more RPG moments to the table; Region screens to bring Golarion’s unique lands to life; and beyond. In the coming weeks and months we’ll devote a dev blog to every one of these elements.
Ultimately, I hope you can tell how incredibly excited we are with this game. And grateful for the opportunity. From the scope of the story that we’re able to tell for the campaign, to remaking Dragonfire into what we believe is an even better story-based deckbuilder game. We hope in the coming months you’ll become as excited as we are, and can’t wait to dive into another brilliant way to experience the fantastic Pathfinder universe.
See ya next time!
Randall
