By Zbigniew "Zed" Zych, Lead designer and owner of LM Publishing
I’ll start with a few personal thoughts. When Modiphius Entertainment approached us on behalf of Ubisoft with a proposal to create a game set in the Heroes of Might and Magic universe, we felt both excitement and fear. On one hand, we had the opportunity to work with an IP we’ve loved since its inception (at least I have, as my journey began with Heroes of Might and Magic 1). On the other hand, we knew this is a world and game beloved by passionate fans, who tend to look critically at anyone officially tinkering with it.
At our first creative meeting, we established that the core principle of this game’s design would be staying as faithful as possible to the original computer game while incorporating two decades of our experience with TTRPGs. A tabletop role-playing game is not a board game nor a computer game, and thus it can’t compete with one. We understood that the final product would inevitably be some sort of hybrid between Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and the Might and Magic cRPG series. However, the biggest challenge was the license itself, which only covered the Heroes world—meaning we could only draw inspiration from it.
Early Decisions
From the start, we agreed on a few key points:
- Players must have the ability to engage in battles, but in a way that feels distinctly tied to the Heroes universe rather than resembling just any military game.
- Players must be able to explore the world and uncover the "fog of war," but without requiring a massive number of additional maps and handouts.
- Players must have access to a wide range of playable characters, but this needed to make sense within the game’s universe and preserve TTRPG immersion.
- Players should have access to some kind of economy, but one that is intuitive and doesn’t demand endless calculations.
All of this needed to come together in a game about the players’ heroes, ensuring these elements wouldn’t distract from roleplay or storytelling.
The Foundation
We were fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Modiphius Entertainment, as this collaboration allowed us to use a game system that has been successfully utilized in other games. The 2d20 system (as it’s called) has been featured in adaptations of games like Fallout, heroic fantasy settings like Conan, and worlds rife with military conflict such as Dune and Cohors Cthulhu. We decided to use it as the foundation for our game.
The core mechanics are quite simple. A target number (TN) is determined, and then players roll two 20-sided dice; at least one die must roll equal to or below the TN for a success. There are, of course, additional modifiers and combinations, but this basic premise gives a clear idea of what the system entails.
First Steps
We began by listing all the mechanics from Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and determining which ones could be directly adapted to a TTRPG and which would need modification. Initially, player Heroes were intended to have access to four attributes:
- Attack
- Defense
- Spellpower
- Knowledge
Additionally, there was a list of about 20 skills from the computer game, along with a large roster of special abilities unique to each Hero and an extensive list of spells. However, it quickly became clear (as we had anticipated) that since the computer game focuses exclusively on military aspects, other elements essential to a TTRPG were underrepresented.
We decided to approach this differently. To preserve the four main attributes, we turned them into key stats that define a Hero’s mechanics, while also introducing two sub-attributes for each:
- Attack: Daring and Cunning
- Defense: Tenacity and Adaptability
- Spellpower: Zest and Focus
- Knowledge: Mind and Intuition
This approach allowed us to retain the original attributes while adding depth, ensuring Heroes would differ more distinctly from one another and giving players clear options for tests in various situations (not just on the battlefield).
The Challenge of Skills
Skills proved to be a greater challenge. In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, skills provide narrow yet critical in-game advantages—Offense, Intelligence, or Estates, for example. While these covered many functions, they completely overlooked significant aspects of a Hero’s ability to embark on and survive adventures.
We initially tried adding new skills to fill the gaps, but the list grew enormous. At one point, we had nearly 40 skills, with some—like Diplomacy—being very versatile, while others, like Fire, Water, Air, and Earth Magic or Ballistics, were highly specialized. This wasn’t ideal.
We scrapped the entire list and returned to our initial goal: capturing the feel of playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 while creating a fully-fledged TTRPG. We decided to keep only some of the well-known skills, expanding their utility, and then introduced new ones to cover the gaps. This resulted in a final list of 10 skills:
- Fight
- Scouting
- Diplomacy
- Management
- Tactics
- Command
- Sorcery
- Scholarship
- Mysticism
- Necromancy
What’s Next
That’s all for now. In the next post, I’ll share more details about the mechanics and what you can expect from the game. I’ll also talk about why we initially wanted players to control two characters simultaneously—and why that turned out to be a bad idea.
For Erathia! For the griffins! ;)