BMDev8: Editions and Release Plans
Addressing questions about BMD's releases
With the First Blood1 release looming, it’s time to clarify the plan and organizational philosophy carving the path forward.
Goals of First Blood Release
The upcoming First Blood release of BMD is coming at a stage midway through the game’s full development. Why make an early-look release? In short, it is a step taken to unlock the game’s fullest potential in the most time-efficient manner.
A Single Source
Our experience in playtesting the game has made it clear that a rulebook is a requirement for real playtesting—a body of notes can (and does!) contain contradictions and cause confusions even in the midst of certainty and clarity. It is infeasible to test ideas against a moving backdrop of systems at various levels of vetting.
We cannot truly enter the RGE cycle2 unless we have a rulebook to follow. This guarantees that additional systems and support are added into an existing game with well-targeted constraints rather than merely stored away in a library of design notes.
Conqueror, King, Adventurer
BMD can be thought of as a more primeval kind of TTRPG, closer to its wargame roots than most every other example. From a design perspective (rather than a historical one), BMD exists as the missing link between early wargames and AD&D.
ACKS (the Adventurer Conqueror King System by
) has, in name and in practice, solidified the beauty of the Adventurer → Conqueror → King path as a concise expression of TTRPG progression. As a work, ACKS is a full-chested exploration of this insight into TTRPG campaigns.BMD works on a different path altogether—the Conqueror → King → Adventurer path. In its “older” way of thinking, BMD campaigns begin at the Conqueror stage. The Sol Crusaders are a small militant band armed only with a fleet! They are in a sector without any settlements or other stable assets to their name. They have nothing behind them politically except the fire in the souls of their volunteers.
We start the campaign trying to conquer enough territory to establish permanence (Conqueror → King). When player characters become powerful and wealthy, they can take expeditions into Uncharted Space (King → Adventurer) to become even more powerful and wealthy—by confronting unprecedented dangers. Thus empowered, they may eventually be able to wipe out the aliens, officially winning the campaign.
Since every BMD campaign begins the same way, it is the most important stage of gameplay from a pragmatic perspective. The First Blood release is equipping players with the tools to navigate the Conqueror stage and shift into the King stage.
Structured Entry
For many, this will be their first opportunity to support BMD and experience its design philosophy. The First Blood release is not a finished, polished game! But having a canonical release—even an early-look one—gives interested onlookers something more concrete to evaluate. In the future, this release will serve as a historical point of comparison.
The Path to BMD’s Success
Ventures that make it somewhere must have an impetus to move forward and a structure to support that movement. In our view, BMD will be successful if it deepens the player’s understanding of what TTRPGs can be and provides them with efficient rules to explore the gameworld and create intriguing campaigns.
The business analysts are also wanting us to come up with ways to allow potential players to financially support this vision for BMD’s success. We have prepared a few points to address that, though this is an in-progress effort.
Release Date
Setting a firm release date is, unfortunately, unrealistic. November (the previous month, as of this writing) just ended; while enormous progress was made, it was a difficult time to be a rulebook writer. But the First Blood release is imminent, and our excitement for that event ignites the engine of our efforts.
We aspire to have First Blood released on December 15th, though it is admittedly a fragile and arbitrary deadline. Ultimately, the one thing to rely on is that our release will provide a fully playable experience with all the necessary tools to enjoy and understand the game. No broken releases!
The Revision Cycle
The practical payoff of an early-look release is quickly achieving strong editorial revisions. To accomplish this, the First Blood revision strategy is a cycle of Test → Focus → Compile → Test.
1. Test
In the process of assembling and reviewing the rulebook, we are frequently surprised at the number of outright omissions spotted. In addition, there are occasionally some oversights and incompatibility and—of course—some level of confusion about where different ideas belong in the hierarchy. Playtesting is the forge-fire that reveals these flaws.
2. Focus
Through feedback and play reports, we hope to spot where the game falls short of our vision. Omissions, oversights, and confusions are important, but we hope for playtest output to indicate the design pathways that fit best. We want to target development energy towards adding and supporting elements that enhance the game as a whole. The First Blood release will not quite be the Complete Game System we envision—it is important that additions down the line are targeted to achieve this goal!
3. Compile
Just as we combine the collections of notes and designs to craft the BMD rulebook, we must also gather and sort feedback about possible changes. Compiling playtest notes and feedback allows us to build links between problem points to find underlying issues. The highest priority is implementing the overarching vision into the game rules; this can only be achieved by keeping the larger picture in mind.
Three Editions
Thus far, BMD’s journey from vision into game has been highly informal. With an early-look release imminent, it is time to provide more structure.
Simply put, BMD will exist in three editions: Basic, Warrior, and Master. The names are temporary. For now, we are only discussing the digital versions (PDFs). We are seeking solutions for print versions for the future, but they may be farther out—more on that in the future.
The Basic Edition is just the rules—simple! Want to play the game? Here are the rules. Pricing is not something certain, but we envision this being around $7-10.
The Warrior Edition is exactly like the Basic Edition but with added illustrations, a fully worked out example Star Sector as a campaign starter (or reference), and a great deal of additional information about the metafiction. “How did Terran history develop to this point?” “What were the aliens up to before the campaign start date?” “Where is Earth? For that matter, what are the alien borders in the galaxy?” If you’re interested in these kinds of questions, you’ll find their answers—and many more—in the Warrior Edition. We envision this being around $30-35.
The Master Edition is exactly like the Warrior Edition but with everything. You want to know more about the holy book the Hierophants rail on about? It’s here. You want to read the full Annals appendix that covers the history of Terrans? It’s here. The hidden histories, unknown to Terrans, of the alien races and their homeworlds? It’s here. Add in extra illustrations and additional appendices to help fill out the gameworld, and you’ve got the Master Edition—and we are sure to find even more things for this edition along the way. We envision this being around $70.
Because we reward loyalty and vision in our followers, every paid subscriber at the time of publishing this article will receive the Master Edition. We salute your ferocity in battle!
One Set of Rules
Despite the existence of three editions, it’s important to us that the game is the same across all of them. We do not want a situation where one campaign is playing with ruleset A and another is playing with ruleset B—ideally, every person playing BMD is playing exactly the same game!
The additional elements, then, in the Warrior Edition and Master Edition are ideally not additional rules. Background information, timelines, story vignettes, artwork, lore, helpful appendices, examples etc.
Juggling this may be difficult going forward—after all, there is a lingering question of a 4th and possibly 5th canonical character class—but the target is that no additional rules are added to the game after its eventual 1.0 release (not including fixes and revisions, naturally).
Platforms and Additions
For single purchases: As of now, we can confirm a release will be available on Gumroad; a handful of other distribution channels are being looked into!
For subscriptions: Substack (obviously!) and Patreon are planned as avenues for subscription.
The value proposition for subscriptions has been informal thus far; dedicated men with an intensive interest in the hobby have decided to patron the projects at work here. From this point on, we will be making an effort to organize and communicate a more systematic value offer.
Even at these very early stages, there are already strong candidate ideas for providing additional support to subscribers. Example vehicles with fully illustrated design sheets, example creatures from the creature creator to populate the various different world biospheres, example Sites that illustrate and highlight how to integrate game mechanics with campaign events, and so on. These are only the “obvious” (from the designer’s perspective) elements that subscribers may appreciate; it is a certainty that we will discover more.
Subscribers that reach certain target values in the duration of their subscriptions will automatically qualify for the PDFs. As they reach higher target values, they will receive the Warrior Edition status and eventually the Master Edition status.
Plans Within Plans
We are excited to get BMD out there—back to the grind! In the meantime, we are thankful for your questions, comments, and suggestions. The future is with us! The Enemy, blinded by the Light of Sol, is soon to be haunted by His righteous mushroom cloud of reckoning!
Thank you for your readership! Primeval Patterns thrives on the basis of the sincere interest and support of hobbyists like you.
Liked the article? Some other interesting things:
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Check out BMD, a far-future wargame-infused TTRPG about slaughtering aliens. See the latest intel on the war.
Think carefully when designing or using skill systems!
Understand starting an ACKS campaign from scratch.
With work, we can achieve TTRPG Supremacy!
If you are a true fanatic, take the oath of battle and become a paid subscriber here on Substack. This directly supports the war effort (and the development of BMD plus the design research on this blog.)
BONUS: paid subscribers can read extensive BMD development blogs and are guaranteed a PDF copy on BMD’s release!
Details about the First Blood release content are in BMDev7: Updates and Targets.
The cycle of player mastery over a game is decisively outlined in Secrets of a Primeval Cycle.
It has been fascinating watching the game develop over the last year. Very excited!