I have personally been play-testing the setting of Samhain for six years now.

A few weeks back, I decided to resurrect the 13RPG system I had put together, lay it over Samhain, tweak what needed tweaking, and begin using it exclusively in my weekly games.

It has very quickly become the closest version yet to the game I have always wanted to play within the Samhain Vale.

This week, I released the first official play-test version of Samhain: Hearth & Horror to my top Patreon tier, The 13th Circle patrons.

And, with their hawk eyes, they have already found a few places where things needed to be clarified or shored up.

Most of those have been little remnants left over from when the book was still aimed at running Samhain through a heavily home-brewed version of B/X D&D. References, assumptions, or explanations that made sense then but no longer quite belong in what Samhain has become.

Thanks to those play-testers, my weekly players, and some excellent feedback from Rocket Punch Press, the game is starting to feel more and more official.

If that makes sense.

Opening Up the Play-Test

As the bigger issues are addressed and the rules continue to tighten up, I will begin opening the play-test to the other Patreon tiers.

First will be the Silver Dragon Tier, followed by The Red Hand.

This initial play-test pass will close on October 1st.

After that, I will go through the feedback, suggestions, questions, and places where the rules simply need better explanation. Once that work is done, another play-test version will go out.

Then we do it again.

That is the point of all this, after all.

What Am I Actually Testing?

I have a video coming out this Monday, September 7th, where I talk about some of this in greater detail.

The interesting thing is that I am not particularly worried about the core resolution mechanics of the game.

Samhain uses a d20 system.

Roll a d20, add a modifier, and meet or beat a Target Number (TN).

Simple.

Traditional hit points have also been replaced with a HIT and Wound system, taking some inspiration from games like Star Wars WEG, TORG, Savage Worlds, and EZD6.

That style of damage has always appealed to me. I actually thought Deathbringer RPG might head in a similar direction, but from my understanding it is sticking with traditional hit points.

In my own play-testing, the HIT and Wound system has been working beautifully.

It is fast.

It is easy to understand.

And it keeps combat dangerous without needing enormous pools of hit points to chew through.

But that really isn't the part of Samhain I am most interested in putting under the microscope.

The thing I most want tested is Hearth & Horror.

Because Hearth & Horror is where Samhain really becomes Samhain.

Hearth & Horror

The entire idea is built around leaning into the comfort represented by the Hearths a character has taken on and contrasting that comfort against the horrors waiting throughout the Samhain Vale.

A Hearth represents those things that keep a character grounded.

People.

Places.

Traditions.

Belonging.

Things worth returning home to.

Then there is Horror.

The darkness beyond the hedge.

The unnatural things wandering beneath the perpetual autumn sky.

The places where something is simply wrong.

The Hearth & Horror system puts those two ideas against one another and asks the characters to maintain some balance between comfort and chaos as they move through the Vale.

Mechanically, I suppose Hearth & Horror could be treated as a subsystem and removed by some tables.

But I think doing so would remove something fundamental from the game.

You could still roll the dice.

You could still fight monsters.

You could still wander around the Samhain Vale.

But you would be leaving behind one of the primary things the game is actually about.

And that is exactly why I want people hammering on it during play-testing.

Building the Foundation

There are still a few things I want to add to the core book.

Some basic Harvest Master (HM) tools.

Advice about running the game.

A little more explanation about how I approach situations at the table.

Perhaps a bit more lore where it is needed.

But I am also trying very hard not to let the core book become bloated.

This is the foundation.

The book needs to explain the fundamentals of the game system, establish the Samhain Vale, and give the Harvest Master enough material to begin playing.

After that come the Mugwort zines.

Those will become gazetteers covering the six Hexatic Counties of the Vale, allowing me to dig much deeper into individual places, settlements, people, customs, horrors, and all the strange little details that make each county its own thing.

And I am very excited to get to that part.

But first things first.

The core book needs a solid foundation.

That is the top-top priority right now.

It needs to be tight.

It needs to be useful.

It needs to contain everything necessary to play without filling pages simply because pages can be filled.

Not too little.

Not too much.

Just right.

And at this point, watching the book slowly take shape through actual play and actual feedback, I am very much looking forward to seeing what Samhain: Hearth & Horror becomes.