Wednesday, June 4, 2025

13th Age 2E: Chapter 1 Example of Play

(art by Lee Moyer and Aaron McConnell)

Today's image is the opening spread from Chapter 1 of the Heroes' Handbook.

When I suggested that we reorganize the book by putting the combat rules ahead of the character creation chapters, Jonathan's counter-offer was to write a detailed example of play, showing everything from the GM's initial campaign concept through character creation, backgrounds and One Unique Things, icon connections, and several battles, all with definitions and references to the pages with more information. It's the type of explanation we pretty much skipped in 1E and I've already heard from one new GM who says it makes them feel much more comfortable starting a campaign.

Every chapter opening in the Heroes' Handbook and in the Gamemaster's Guide uses a full color image of one of the icons. This extended example of play is blessed by the Priestess, usually thought of as the most benevolent of the icons, with compassion and guidance for all. I'm going to run the rest of the opening chapter spreads over the next few weeks to introduce what's new and comment on what's still familiar.

Some of you have already seen an earlier draft. We shared drafts of both PDFs with Kickstarter backers to get help spotting typos and unclear phrasing. It worked! At this moment, layout artist Jen McCleary is handling the final round of found-typos and corrections. The books should be off to the printer this week, and then we'll turn to getting the PDF copies ready to share with both Kickstarter backers and folks who have pre-ordered. At the moment, pre-orders are still being accepted on Backerkit. I believe that will change soon and that pre-orders will move to the Pelgrane online store.

See you soon with the opening of Chapter 2!

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