Rules Update v2 + Kickstarter for Print Copies

Hello everyone! I have a lot to announce today, including the most comprehensive rules revision that This World Summons Too Many Heroes!! has seen so far. Classes have been rebalanced, multiclassing is much easier, a new ritual spellcasting system has been introduced….

But first! I’ve been getting comments for years now asking about print copies, and this month I will be launching the Kickstarter to make it happen:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1604517945/this-world-summons-too-many-heroes

This definitive edition of the game will include the core game and all three expansions with a new layout from Ettin, who as well as being a writer for the Goddesses expansion has designed and published several games such as Hard Wired Island and Breakfast Cult. The usual TWS2MH!! artist limelemons7 will be making a new fully illustrated cover for the game, and if we reach the stretch goals I’ll get some other guest artists and writers involved as well.

For this v2 rules update, I wanted to address a few issues with the game. The one that has bothered me the most is that spellcasting outside of combat isn’t really addressed in the rules. Tomes were meant to be ambiguous and left a lot up to the player, but some people didn’t really get what they were about. I’ve made two changes here: the introduction of Ritual Spellcasting rules, and a suggested ritual spell for each tome.

Ritual Spellcasting is powerful and creative magic, and it requires you to use two of your attributes rather than just one. Sorry to all the 5-1-1 mages out there: spreading your attributes evenly is the new meta (although if you are playing a Megumin type character, ignoring rituals altogether to just focus on big explosions is still very valid). Of course, I’ve more than doubled the number of tome tags on offer in the core book to include as many ritual suggestions as possible.

Another issue with the game was with multiclassing, something that should have been encouraged more with how modular and simple classes are. The Class Trainer stuff wasn’t well explained and left a lot of work to the GM, so I’ve scrapped it entirely and replaced it with a new concept somewhat inspired by The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How To Game The System. Characters now learn new classes from one-use items called Class Treatises, which differ in rarity and value depending on the class.

The classes themselves have all had a touch-up, with many receiving small balance tweaks. The only ability I have removed entirely is Illusion from the Mage class, replaced by an ability called Grimoire Expert that lets you recharge your SP by drawing on the magic inside of your tome (with more powerful tomes giving you more SP). I’ve also made some rewording changes in response to commonly asked questions, so you may find these helpful.

The archetypes have seen some changes too this time around, with the most significant being those made to the Tragedy (formerly the Experiment) and to the Myth. These archetypes have been less popular than the others, and I wanted to try and amend that by re-theming them a little. The Tragedy archetype benefits Parent Figure and Vengeful Loner make a little more sense than the ghost stuff (I don’t even remember what manga I got that from), while the new Myth archetype benefit Cerian Spirit allows characters to start the game with the soul of a dragon, demigod or other mythical beast inside of them.

Outside of that, I have reworded a couple of weapon tags (the Enchanted tag is now the Lucky tag for instance, to avoid confusion around enchanting) and reworded some of the Gifts. The Class section now starts with a Class Directory, and the section on levelling up has received some new clarification text as well.

If you have any questions, my best points of access are on Bluesky at @duffo.bsky.social or via email at duffhounds@gmail.com. Please go ahead and bookmark the Kickstarter page and send it to your friends too! I’ll be running a pre-launch sale on itch.io starting today, so it’s a good time to get the word out there.

Thanks for reading this far! Let me recommend you some stuff I’m reading lately as thanks:

• Nomadic Life with the Elves' Terrible Food is probably my favourite isekai at the moment. It’s a unique take on the cooking genre where a guy has to reinvent a bunch of ingredients from first principles (you will learn so much about cheese)  while navigating the politics and relationships between several nomadic tribes. Great art and storytelling!
• When I Started Streaming in Another World, I Ended Up Creating a Large Number of Yandere Followers is a bizarre story about a guy who gets reincarnated and decides that the best use of his infinite magic gift is to create a magic talk radio broadcast. Every one of his fans is obsessive to the extreme and I fear for his life.
• Goodbye Dragon Life, Hello Human Life is about a dragon reincarnated as a human and learning to appreciate the value of life from the perspective of the shorter-lived races. There’s some great banter between him and the goddess of this world, as well as an excellent array of monster girls if that’s your thing.

Thank you and please enjoy the game!

Nick.