Adapting the Stormlight Archive to a Tabletop Roleplaying Game (With the Brotherwise team!)

Hey there! Thanks for joining us for Dragonsteel’s coverage of GenCon 2024. We’ve had so much fun interacting with fans, collaborating with the excellent Brotherwise team, and diving into the Stormlight Roleplaying Game. Today is the final day!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Brotherwise team’s panel where their core team leads spoke about the process of adapting The Stormlight Archive into a TTRPG. Johnny O’Neal, the co-founder of Brotherwise Games and champion of the Stormlight RPG, led the panelists through an insightful conversation on the creation of this incredible game. 

The panel discussed two major projects: the Stormlight RPG and the Mistborn deckbuilding game. The former is hitting Kickstarter in just a couple days (Tuesday, August 6th) and the latter will be available for pre-order this fall! 

For Cosmere fans and RPG enthusiasts alike, you’ll find some fascinating exclusive teasers in this post. And, if you want to watch the panel, check out the video below.

Team Introductions

If you don’t know the amazing Brotherwise team, Johnny kicked off the panel by asking each member to introduce themselves:

Katie Payne, Art Director of the Stormlight RPG, joked about her caffeine intake before the panel, saying, "Too much investiture!" I resonated heavily with that statement.

Lydia Suen introduced herself as the lead writer for the Stormlight RPG.

Andrew Fischer added, "I'm the lead designer and a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, especially of The Stormlight Archive. When I read the books, I couldn't help but imagine it as a game. The magic system is already systematized. The Shattered Plains was practically begging to be a board game!"

Q&A Session

Now, let’s get into the meat of the panel. Johnny opened up the panel to the audience, inviting them to ask their burning questions. The below responses are paraphrased to capture the major points, but should not be taken as a full transcription of the panel.

Question 1: What is your process of adapting these books and narratives to the game system?

Andrew: There are a few different angles you take when doing an adaptation. You want to identify the narrative themes that run through it. Ultimately, RPGs are a storytelling medium. We want people to be telling stories that feel like Stormlight stories. We spend so much time in literary analysis, talking about what makes Sanderson’s stories different. From there, we start building systems and narratives.

Lydia: From a writing perspective, my goal was to make everyone feel like they’re truly in Roshar, with the right support to go on adventures like the characters. The narrative framework needs to be simple yet robust enough to allow for complex storytelling and character growth.

Katie: As an art director who started as a fan artist, my goal is to capture and convey the deep emotions and details of the series. I want every visual element to resonate with fans who, like me, felt the books.

Johnny: In our world guide, we include personal, journal-like depictions of places like Jah Keved and Kolinar. This helps enhance the immersive experience.

Question 2: What’s the hardest part of playing in a world where people will look for so many easter eggs? And a world that’s still ongoing?

Johnny: Part of answering this question is asking when you get to set your campaigns. First of all, we wanted to make rules that work for any period of Roshar. Of course, we have more information about the Era of Solitude and the True Desolation than the Silver Kingdoms era of Roshar. But it was important to us to accommodate the ongoing nature of the story and ensure you could set a story in any era.”

Lydia: One of the things we wanted to do is have your character go through the story. The World Guide was important, because it’s a clear picture of nations and cultures before they were plunged into war. If you know how something is built up, then you can figure out how it breaks down. We wanted to make sure there was support for both of those things. In terms of easter eggs, we want to give them to you! The point of the game is that it’s a self insert. To make an immersive experience, you need to be able to poke around and talk to NPCs. Let me give you an example: When I’m playing video games, I hate it when I can see an incredible structure in the distance and I’m hit with that invisible boundary. It’s so frustrating! For our game, we wanted to see what happened when we removed that boundary and let players explore every corner of this expansive world. Brandon’s hope for this project is that everyone has fun exploring and finding those important, niche stories. 

Question 3: Will there be any original short stories from Brandon appearing in this RPG?

Johnny: The time that Brandon would’ve put into writing a new short story, he invested into working closely with us to make this game canonical to an unexpected degree. To us, that was the most important place to use his valuable time. He’s taken that time and energy and funneled it into working hand-in-hand with our team. He wants to make this the absolute best it can be. 

Question 4: What is a specific win you had during this process that you were excited about?

Katie: There's a vignette of Lift with her Shardfork that makes me incredibly happy.

Lydia: We are providing iconic builds as a way to kickstart your campaign. If you’re like—hey, I want to play as an ardent, or a shardbearer duelist, or other iconic builds. But, we also offer some unique ones that I’m really proud of. We asked questions when talking with Brandon like “what exactly is a kaluk’i’iki… turns out they’re these really cool Unkalaki matriarch huntresses who are a perfect example of our Hunter heroic path. Basically, we have the chance to take these tiny, niche things that appear briefly in the books and build them out so people can jump into their games. 

Andrew: Some of my favorite moments were working on the surges with our design team. In the game, surges function like skills. You roll a skill test and there's also a talent tree to represent the special abilities that characters figure out, like using Gravitation. We're going to see more of this in Book 5, and Brandon shared a lot with us about it. But there are gaps—we haven't seen all the surges used. We got to go to Brandon and ask, “Can this surge do this?” and “Could you use it in this creative way?” Brandon engages with everyone he works with and trusts them. I expected him to tell us exactly how it should be used in the books, but his eyes would light up and he'd say, “You can totally do that!” Figuring out how Tension works was particularly interesting. Using his internal rule sets, much like his characters might, was a lot of fun.

Johnny: I got to write the table of blessings and curses examples for visiting the Nightwatcher. In general, this is a modern RPG with cutting-edge mechanics and narrative tools. But for this part, I went old school! This table is like something Gary Gygax would have written. Be careful what you wish for!

… the crowd let out an audible gasp at that reveal. 👀 

Question 5: What’s the relationship between the GM and the players in this game?

Andrew: A core mechanic of our game is the d20 system to resolve skills. We also have the plot die, which is completely original. On tests that are important or risky, you can roll the plot die and get either an opportunity or a complication. This gives players mechanical permission to inject interesting details into the story that would normally be ordinary. GMs always have the final say on how you spend the complication, and players have the final say on how to use an opportunity. We encourage collaboration—pitch your ideas! “Do I fall into the chasm? “Why… yes, you do fall into the chasm!” (The crowd laughs.) You'll see a lot more abilities in the game. We have a decent amount of crunch. Some abilities might not give you a numerical bonus but instead allow you to say, “I have connections to an unnamed illicit organization in this area,” injecting that into the story.

Lydia: One of our design pillars was to balance the crunch with a rich narrative fabric. Expansive storytelling builds in cognitive load, but it creates an exciting experience where people can gather around a table. After all, what is tabletop roleplaying if not shared storytelling? Personally, I have ADHD—where's my neurospicy crowd?

A chorus of cheers and hand raises.

Lydia: I realized my superpower is that I can stay hyper-focused. I need a game engaging enough to keep everyone off their phones. Those moments where everyone gasps, because they’ve been down on their luck and then get an opportunity, are priceless. We all know what happens to a campaign if people start checking out. Having a game with this narrative fabric encourages engagement and emotional resonance.

Andrew: You mentioned cognitive load, and that's a great point. It was a challenge with the world of Roshar. What is the GM’s narrative load? If you have five Radiants, you also have 5 NPCs with the spren. Telling five introspective stories, including the spren, could be a massive cognitive load on the GM. Empowering the players to help tell the story was essential. By handing some narrative control to the players, giving them their spren, and allowing a bit of collaborative storytelling, we eased the burden on the GM and enriched the storytelling experience.

Question 6: Do you have plans to make a monster manual? What would be the most powerful creature in that manual? And why is it Hoid?

Johnny: Actually, that's in the World Guide! It’s the encyclopedia and art book from Roshar that people have always wanted. The final chapter has profiles for all the iconic creatures of Roshar, as well as various adversaries. In terms of the most powerful... currently, it’s the Servant of Yelig-Nar. Someone who has swallowed an Unmade and gets nine of the surges. So, big threat. Chasmfiends are also up there!

Andrew: Though Chasmfiends are powerful, there are other threats with unique abilities. Regarding Hoid, how do you represent such larger-than-life narrative characters? His stat block should go beyond the 21+ levels we cover in these first books. You won’t see Hoid in our adversary profiles, but you’ll see characters like him in our adventures. There are rules to represent that character in the adventure, but Hoid's stat block would be a bit unwieldy.

Johnny: I will say, you will get to meet Nale in the Stonewalkers campaign. We don’t provide a stat block for him, but we do reference a Fourth Ideal Skybreaker stat block that appears in the World Guide and suggest how you might scale it up if people try to fight Nale. However, you really shouldn’t fight him. You should be nice or run away.

Again, lots of laughs from the audience during this response.

Question 7: Lydia, earlier you mentioned not wanting to have to bounce up against the invisible wall in a video game. In this game, can you journey beyond western Roshar? Can you venture into the cognitive realm?

Lydia: Am I allowed to answer this, Johnny?

Johnny: Yeah, yeah you can.

Lydia: You will be able to explore the Cognitive Realm. The World Guide explains how you can do that. We learn about many nations in Roshar that are only mentioned once or twice, including their economies and trade relations. To answer your question, yes, we support exploring the Cognitive Realm. We're going to tell the story of what's happening behind the scenes there. We've had a lot of internal playtests to ensure everything is well supported.

Johnny: We do have support for Shadesmar in the rules, but I'd love to explore that area more. Shadesmar could be its own book!

Question 8: Would you consider this game to include other worlds and books?

Johnny: Expanding beyond Roshar into the rest of the Cosmere is something we’d love to do. For now, we’re going to do our best to make Stormlight as big as possible and build from there. To touch on Worldhoppers, there’s a Ghostblood in the stat guide, giving you a glimpse into that part of the universe. It’s like being Marvel and having a little bit of access to Spider-Man.

Question 9: Given the vast potential of this IP, how do you compare it to something like Star Wars in terms of content? Where do you see it going?

Johnny: There are so many places we could go. This year we have the Mistborn Deckbuilding Game, which I think is the best looking and best playing game Brotherwise has ever made. I love deckbuilding games, and I believe this is one of the best ever. We’re also working on a trick taking game called Shards of Creation, which is lighter but incredibly fun. Finally, we’re working with John D. Clair on an epic Stormlight game in the style of War of the Ring or Star Wars Rebellion. These books were written by a gamer, so they’re made to be games.

Question 10: I’d love to talk more about the Mistborn Deckbuilding Game. I demoed it yesterday and it was awesome. What else can you tell us?

Johnny: I’d love for Katie to talk about the art side of it. From a game development side, the key twist in this game is the metal burning mechanic. In any deckbuilding game, there are cards in the center of the table, and you can purchase cards to improve your deck as you play. The metal burning mechanic means you can only burn so much in a turn, so you have to choose which card to activate. You can also flare metal to go beyond that limitation. But if you flare a metal, you can’t use it on the next turn. That meaningful choice adds a lot to the gameplay. The best comment I got was from a fan who said, “I almost didn’t need to look at the rules—since I’m a Mistborn fan, I already knew how to play just by looking at the board.” Our goal is to have the theme translate seamlessly into the mechanics. It’s also the most Mistborn art and the most canonical art in one place.

Katie: For each card, we’d look at the theme and figure out where to go from these. Like we’d say, “Okay, it’s Brawl.” Then we’d dig into the books to find scenes with brawls. But we also wanted to make it fan service. There’s a card called Spy, inspired by that one time Zane is standing perpendicular on the wall outside Vin’s balcony. Some of the art is entirely original, while other art is illustrating specific scenes in the books. The cloaks? Canonical. Vin’s face? Canonical. Her hand position when she’s Iron-pulling? Canonical. Fans should look at the art and feel joy and elation because it’s so true to the books.

Question 11: D&D 5E can be wishy-washy with the lore, but with this game, the people I’m playing with know the lore as well as I do. Out of respect for the material, I’d be worried about changing the lore. What kind of tools can GMs use to come up with new stories in this world that has such specific and canonical stories?

Johnny: There are so many stories to tell in this setting. In our game, there isn’t just one Radiant—there are many. There’s a war raging across the entire world. Brandon has said that the interludes are permission to tell other stories in this world. Even if you don’t think you’ll play the official adventures because you want to make your own, I recommend checking them out to steal specific scenes or characters or maps and use as inspiration for your own game.

Lydia: When we’re talking about narrative design, it’s an intricate world. Characters and settings are both important, but characters are the heart of the story. Roshar allows you to explore characters and settings with new perspectives. The setting is amazing, but the characters drive the story. They have beliefs, laws, and goals that make everyone at the table shine. Progressing through goals and earning rewards is central to our game. Unlike 5E, where loot is a big focus, we encourage using goals and rewards to tell compelling stories. Whether your character is a Radiant or not, their goals can be incredibly cool and the rewards are amazing: a Shardblade, a Ryshadium, a deeper bond with your spren, or another powerful ally. These goals help signal to the GM and players how to weave all the stories together. When everyone has goals, it creates unique conflicts and makes you feel like a real protagonist.

Johnny: Roleplaying is a fascinating mix of rules and creativity. It rewards those who enjoy math, narrative, performance, and characters. People who love crunchy games will find that this game has that depth. At the same time, it offers a character development-focused narrative. People who want a more narrative game will find great support for that. There’s something for everyone, no matter what.

Question 12: How do spren function as a mechanical element in the game?

Johnny: Tell us Andrew, are spren just a storytelling tool, or can you do something mechanical with them?

Andrew: They start off as a narrative tool, but as you progress and bond with your spren, they gain abilities that manifest, depending on their distance from you. You can spend focus, which is our mental resource, to interact with your spren for tasks like spying or alerting you to hidden dangers. Roleplaying your spren is a really rewarding part of play, and a collaborative process with your GM. If you’re a Radiant, your path involves three talent trees. One is all about swearing your oaths and improving your bond with your spren, which includes increasing the distance they can operate from you and upgrading their other abilities.

Johnny: So the answer is yes!

A Thank You from Team Dragonsteel

To close our this article, on behalf of Team Dragonsteel, we want to say thank you to every fan we've connected with here at GenCon. You all have been so enthusiastic, engaging, and insightful with your comments about this incredible game. We appreciate each and every one of you. We know that the Brotherwise team feels the same way!

We can't wait to share this project with you on Tuesday, August 6th! Don't forget to join the pre-launch list and back the Kickstarter so we can keep making cool things for you.

And, remember... there's always another secret. 😉