In July 2016 we resurrected the February 2015 Hillfolk Bundle featuring Hillfolk, the Pelgrane Press tabletop roleplaying game of high-stakes interpersonal conflict by acclaimed designer Robin D. Laws (Feng Shui, HeroQuest, GUMSHOE).
Can’t wait for the new season of Game of Thrones? Why not start your own episodic series of tense, character-driven drama? Hillfolk brings HBO series-style drama to tabletop roleplaying. Hillfolk focuses on characters, their relationships, and the conflicting dramatic poles that keep their actions fresh and exciting. Using Hillfolk‘s DramaSystem rules, you can weave enthralling multi-session sagas about Iron Age tribes, fantasy intrigue, Regency socialites, border town drug kingpins, troubled Sopranos-type crime families, posthuman cyberpunks, and more.
Hillfolk‘s spectacular October 2012 Kickstarter campaign earned over US$90,000 and spawned a support line of “series pitches” — new settings written by many of gaming’s greatest designers. (See this entry’s postscript for a list.) Now we revive our highly successful Hillfolk Bundle, with the complete game and all the series pitches, plus custom print-and-play Hillfolk playing cards and music.
As with the original run, our revived Starter Collection (retail value $24) presented the Hillfolk rulebook and no less than six series pitches. Cast your own series about engineers battling zombies in the Imperial court of a magical 1920s Russia — or the gladiatorial arena of a steam-powered flying city on the brink of revolution — or even the dreamers, has-beens, and never-will-bes in a touring jukebox musical. (In that one, you sing!)
Customers who paid more than the threshold price also got our complete Bonus Collection (retail value $40.50), including the nigh-essential companion volume Blood on the Snow, a .PDF of a complete deck of Hillfolk playing cards, and another slew of series pitches. And we included three DRM-free .MP3 music tracks especially created by composers James Semple and Marie-Anne Fischer to enhance Hillfolk game sessions. For this revival we added Do What Thou Wilt, a new series pitch debuting in this offer, that makes players occultists in Britain between the wars.
That’s a US$64.50 value for less than the price of Game of Thrones Season 1 on Blu-ray. Ten percent of eachpurchase (after gateway fees) wentto the charity selected by Pelgrane Press co-owner Simon Rogers — the United Kingdom’s anti-racism educational charity, The Red Card. And don’t worry — those who already bought this offer during its original February 2015 run got the newly added series pitch “Do What Thou Wilt” too. When you buy a Bundle of Holding early, you never worry about missing titles added later — even waaay later.
PS. For lack of a better place to include this, here are the designers who contributed Hillfolk series pitches that range across time and space: Angus Abranson, Kevin Allen Jr., Becky Annison, Keith Baker, Meguey Baker, Wolfgang Baur, Scott Bennie, Jason L. Blair, Emily Care Boss, Jennifer Brozek, Jesse Bullington, Ken Burnside, Jon Creffield, Steven Darlington, Graeme Davis, Paula Dempsey, Steve Dempsey, Cédric Ferrand, Matt Forbeck, Ed Greenwood, Dave Gross, Gene Ha & Art Lyon, Ian “Lizard” Harac, Rob Heinsoo, Will Hindmarch, Kenneth Hite, Richard Iorio II, John Kovalic, Kevin Kulp, Chris Lackey, ASH LAW, Robin D. Laws, Steven S. Long, T.S. Luikart, Ryan Macklin, Jason Morningstar, Michelle Nephew, Sarah Newton, Jack Norris, Andrew Peregrine, Jason Pitre, Mike Pohjola, Chris Pramas, Sean Preston, David L. Pulver, Mark Rein-Hagen, Jeff Richard, Josh Roby, Wade Rockett, John Rogers, Aaron Rosenberg, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, Mac Sample, Lester Smith, Greg Stolze, CA Suleiman, James L. Sutter, Mark Diaz Truman, John Scott Tynes, Allen Varney, James Wallis, Caias Ward, Eddy Webb, Rob Wieland, and Pedro Ziviani. Whew!
