Shortly after we had started our initial work on the Cosmere RPG, we sat down with Brandon in his epic “secret lair” to talk with him about his vision for the game and how it fit into his books. Sitting at the massive wooden table, surrounded by curios, tropical fish, and beautiful stained-glass windows, I could imagine myself as some explorer of the Cosmere. As part of a wide-ranging discussion about RPGs, Brandon told us stories of the characters he would create when he used to roleplay with his friends

I was very interested in including a limited format in Hubworld: Aidalon. “Limited” is a term from Magic the Gathering referring to a format where players don’t bring preconstructed decks. Instead, they follow a set of rules to construct decks from a limited pool of cards and then play those decks against each other.

To those of you new to Earthborne Rangers, the “mechanical ecology” is a term we use to refer to the dynamics created between the various beings and features you encounter in the game. Inspired by the interactions of a natural ecology in the real world, the interactions between path cards create emergent moments and make the world feel alive as you play

We started expansion development by creating the lore and general layout of the underground sections. The new areas simply expanded the original map, creating one giant world for the Rangers to explore. This seemed like a slam dunk, and we felt it would provide players with the maximum amount of freedom. Unfortunately, however, it didn’t work as well as we had hoped.

Earthborne Rangers can look a bit intimidating when you first sit down to play it. There are a lot of words on each individual card. Taken as a whole, a collection of cards like the picture above can seem like a lot. Based on that, I’ve gotten a lot of questions from people asking how complex the game is, and a lot of raised eyebrows when I answer “pretty simple actually.”