A Conversation With: Tristan Hall
Tristan Hall designs games. Ones with cards. Beautiful ones. Historical ones and fantasy ones. I like card games. And I like beautiful games. So I decided to reach out. Technically, I also like historical games and fantasy games, but I only have to meet a few criteria before I starting looking into something.
And, yet, Tristan is a mere mortal. He needs something bigger than himself in order to get all of these games published. Thankfully, he’s got that part figured out, too.
Hall or Nothing Productions is powered by the awesome duo of Tristan and Francesca Hall. The game publisher is known for the Historic Epic Battle System games 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, 1565, St. Elmo’s Pay, and (now on Kickstarter) 1815, Scum of the Earth. But that’s not it! There are also the fantasy titles, Gloom of Kilforth and Shadows of Kilforth, and the upcoming Call of Kilforth.
I thoroughly enjoy playing games and writing about them but I also like talking to people so it only felt natural to talk with Tristan and learn more about his experience in the industry and his mindset as a designer.
Enjoy the conversation!
Devon: Hey Tristan! Thanks for stepping away from the grind for a moment to have a chat.
Tristan: Cheers. It’s been a pleasure to hear you (and of course the Duck and the Goose themselves) talking about my games. I’m excited to be here.
Devon: Yeah, they talked about 1815 on the most recent podcast episode. It was fun to hear someone else discussing what you're doing with the HEBS series of card games.
Tristan: It’s come a long way since 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, but we’re going strong.
Devon: I’ve definitely been impressed with everything that you’ve accomplished between the historical series and the fantasy series you’ve released. Is it crazy looking back on it now?
Tristan: Well, Francesca and I work hard at Hall or Nothing to keep the momentum going. With 1815 live right now and Call of Kilforth launching on Kickstarter soon, it’s been a lively year.
Devon: Speaking of lively, let’s chat!
Devon: In past interviews, you’ve discussed the early days of designing with the Lord of the Rings LCG content. Can you attribute your move into board game design to any other influences?
Tristan: Sure, the scenarios I designed for The Lord of the Rings LCG are probably the most popular of the game variants that I’ve developed. But if you were to deep dive into my BoardGameGeek history of tinkering with other games, there is a whole trove of stuff.
Devon: Oh really? Like what?
Tristan: Fanmade heroes for the Arkham Horror 2nd Edition board game (including a playable monster), heroes and scenarios and campaign rules for the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System games like Castle Ravenloft, extra danger decks for Fortune and Glory, as well as stuff for much older games that I’d designed growing up—like a full solo/coop campaign ruleset for HeroQuest—which I’d love to revisit when the new edition lands—and Space Crusade.
Devon: Wow, that’s a prolific history of tinkering.
Tristan: Reading about board game designers who’d developed games as children made me (eventually) realize, “Hey, that’s me too!”
Devon: I’ve got one main design idea that keeps swirling around in my head without making it on paper so that definitely pales in comparison to what you accomplished before your first game came out!
Devon: And then you’ve also talked at length about the nervous mix of risk and success that Gloom of Kilforth wrought with the 2015 Kickstarter.
Tristan: Yeah, that was a whirlwind of emotions.
Devon: Looking back, what were the best decisions you made during that campaign, and what mistakes did you learn from?
Tristan: The best decision was to let the campaign run to the bitter end come what may, even though it seemed almost certain that I’d fail from the very first day onwards.
Devon: How long did it take to fund?
Tristan: It took 27 days out of 30 for the campaign to fund, and along the way I listened to or read every single piece of feedback, which was mostly brilliant, but I also soaked up some of the negativity that Kickstarter can breed. My naivety in believing that everyone wanted the best for the game meant that it took me some time to learn how impossible it is to please everyone.
Devon: How did those negative interactions hurt you?
Tristan: In fact, I made so many mistakes it would be difficult to list them all here, but off the top of my head here’s one in particular that blows my mind when I think of it now: free worldwide shipping for every backer.
Devon: I can’t even imagine a campaign doing that in today’s world.
Tristan: It was lunacy!
Devon: You now have two very successful game series—Kilforth and the Historic Epic Battle System (HEBS), which includes 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, 1565, St. Elmo’s Pay, and 1815, Scum of the Earth.
Tristan: I’m certainly thankful for the communities that have built up around my work.
Devon: Where does your design process overlap between these two types of games and where does it differ?
Tristan: They’re necessarily different, though they do all feature my favorite board game components: beautifully illustrated cards.
Devon: They are drop-dead gorgeous.
Tristan: Agreed. But on to your question. After designing Gloom of Kilforth I wanted to prove I wasn’t a one-trick pony and to create a compelling, narrative-driven game that doesn’t take an evening to play.
Devon: An admirable goal.
Tristan: In that respect, I believe that the HEBS games are a clear departure from the world of Kilforth: chopping the playtime down from 50-180 minutes to 30-40 minutes, and delving deeply into real historical research for the card contents, flavor text, and card abilities. Kilforth can be wherever my imagination takes me or whatever I want it to be, whereas the HEBS games always begin with me reading lots of history books and carefully poring through them with a highlighter pen to make copious notes.
Devon: Interesting. When you designed 1066, did you know at the time that you wanted to create the HEBS system and publish new titles under that design umbrella?
Tristan: Not entirely. I had thought about other battles I’d like to cover with the system too, but at the time when I was designing 1066, my first game Gloom of Kilforth hadn’t even launched yet, and I was still very much designing games as a hobby whilst working full-time at my previous job.
Devon: The game was just coming to life.
Tristan: Yes, so pivoting 1066 into an ongoing game system (HEBS) was a luxury that came later after the game sold out, and then was reinforced by the successful funding of the second game in the series 1565, St. Elmo’s Pay.
Devon: How has the design of the series been fine-tuned or changed over the last several years?
Tristan: When I originally designed 1066, every single card was hand-made and scribbled on pieces of card, then built up with graphics individually—one card at a time—in PhotoShop, because I didn’t know any other method.
Devon: That sounds brutal.
Tristan: It was. Now I have the game system’s template pre-built using a combination of Google Sheets—which helps to calculate and balance each game’s statistics—and InDesign for when we’re ready to roll out the card decks with art and graphics into printable PDFs.
Devon: Much more streamlined.
Tristan: It still feels like it takes ages to assemble, but looking back at how bloomin’ long it took to put together the original prototype we’ve moved ahead by light-years.
Devon: Going back to your comment about your favorite component being the artwork. Many games designed around military history don’t seem to embellish the art or theme of the game as much as your titles.
Tristan: Well, what puts my friends and family off of playing wargames with me (and sometimes what puts me off tabling them) is a combination of heavy complexity, lengthy playtime, and bland art/graphics.
Devon: I can also attest to that.
Tristan: So those are the main factors I’m kicking back against with the HEBS games—there are tons of wargames out there but I haven’t seen anyone else doing what we’re doing yet.
Devon: What do you think your focus on the theme and the immersion brings to the game that others lack?
Tristan: The stories of these battles are so incredible; I just want to make these amazing historical narratives much more accessible for non-wargamers too, and to make them visually more lifelike, using an almost Magic the Gathering-style aesthetic with terrific art, and historically researched rather than fantastical flavor text.
Devon: For what it’s worth, I think it’s working.
Tristan: And without the pay-to-win collectability of Magic.
Devon: Speaking of collecting, is there a plan in the future for a HEBS big box that includes all of your games to date?
Tristan: Logistically I believe the core games would still have to be sold separately. But for the fourth game in the series maybe we could look at offering a Legendary-sized add-on box to fit all of the games into.
Devon: Oooh, confirmation on a fourth HEBS title! And I’m all for anything that’s Legendary!
Devon: With Gloom of Kilforth and Shadows of Kilforth, you’ve got a really popular solo gaming series on your hands. What are you most proud of with the Kilforth games?
Tristan: First off, thank you. I set out to make my own “D&D in a box” that you can play through and complete in an evening. My goal was to create a fantasy game that focused on the story and lots of different types of events—quests, friendships, exploration, and narrative beats—rather than just fantasy violence because at the time I designed it all fantasy games were just hack-and-slash and loot scenarios.
Devon: (feigning offense) What’s wrong with some good ole hacking and slashing?!
Tristan: There are elements of combat in Kilforth but it’s not the primary focus. I’m dead-proud when people post up session reports or talk about playing the game in terms of the narratives they’ve experienced and developed themselves whilst playing because you can sense how immersed they’ve become in the world.
Devon: The stories that a game creates are one of the most beautiful parts of the hobby to me.
Tristan: One gamer spoke to us at length about how playing Gloom of Kilforth had helped him deal with grief at losing a close family member because he was able to lose himself in the game whilst playing. I know that reading The Lord of the Rings can help with grief and anxiety, so if playing in Kilforth can provide even a tiny fraction of relief from pain for even just one person then that would have to be the most brilliant achievement of the game.
Devon: That’s a wonderful story that captures some of the magic in the game. What do you see in the future for Kilforth? How are you looking to expand that world and improve upon what you’ve already built?
Tristan: I’d love to keep returning to Kilforth between other projects because it’s an entire world, and there’s no real limit to the scale and scope of it, whether that ends up being games, music, books, RPGs, comics, even movies.
Devon: Oh, that would be interesting to see the world expand out like that.
Tristan: The three Kilforth games Gloom, Shadows, and the upcoming Call of Kilforth are really my fantasy RPG-style wheelhouse. But already I’ve been able to turn that world on its head with our latest game Veilwraith: A Veil Odyssey Game.
Devon: What’s new about Veilwrath?
Tristan: Veilwraith was in many ways highly risky and experimental for us, being a completely new game system, launched in the middle of the pandemic, illustrated entirely in monochromatic black and white to deliver a deliberately colourless world, plus it’s solo-only (with a multiplayer variant), and set in an apocalyptic world where Kilforth has been destroyed.
Devon: Just a few differences…
Tristan: A hard sell for sure, but it’s already become our most successful non-Kilforth game yet, and I have some neat ideas for what to do next with the Veil Odyssey Game System. VOGS?
Devon: Definitely what it should be called.
Tristan: Vog is air pollution caused by volcanic emissions so maybe that kind of works.
Devon: How does Veilwrath expand on your design pedigree and what does it do that makes it special compared to your other projects?
Tristan: I believe it has a really cool and unusual theme. But what seems to keep hooking players back in is the action track and memory card combo mechanism—how you have to manage your different powers, and also evolve and respond to your changing game state as new threats are thrown at you each round.
Devon: Sounds like it gets you engaged really well.
Tristan: If you win you move to the next Vignette, if you lose you play again, but either way it triggers the “just-one-more-go” type of feeling that I get from my favourite board games and video games.
Devon: When does it arrive?
Tristan: Veilwraith lands next month so it’s too early to say how gamers at large will respond to it, but I’m quietly confident that this is the cleanest and most robust game design I’ve developed yet. Did I mention that Tabletop Gaming Magazine already gave it a Must Play award?
Devon: You did not, but that’s pretty awesome!
Tristan: It’s also the first time that I’ve not hired someone else to edit the rulebook, so if that sucks you know who to blame.
Devon: I’ll haunt your dreams if it’s bad.
Devon: As I’m thinking about all that you’ve done, I’m curious about the lessons you’ve learned while designing games and getting Hall or Nothing Productions off the ground. What’s a mistake that you think all designers make that ultimately makes them better at what they do?
Tristan: Mistakes in game design are a seemingly numberless, but crucial part of the process. Identifying and course-correcting your design mistakes is a big, juicy part of the puzzle (and fun) of game design. Making those mistakes more and more quickly each time is a great way of measuring your improvement as a game designer.
Devon: Making mistakes more quickly. Huh.
Tristan: So fail fast and fail regularly until you have no mistakes left to make, and then one day you’ll wake up and Vlaada Chvátil will be staring back at you from the mirror! I hope anyway...
Devon: That’s either a horror movie or designer nirvana… Maybe both?
Devon: Either way, thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Tristan. I really appreciate it!
Tristan: Happy to do so!
Devon: And that’s a wrap everyone! Get out there and play some games (maybe even ones designed by Tristan Hall)!
For more information on Hall or Nothing Productions , check out their recent Kickstarter for 1815, Scum of the Earth or visit their website for all things Kilforth and Historic Epic Battle System.