Huckleberry's... in Danger?! And a Manufacturing Mistake.
Howdy, pardner! Steven here and, oh boy, have I got some news.
The Small Announcement
You might've noticed that this account was renamed from "Huckleberry RPG" to "Adventures in Lollygagging", which is the game's publishing label. For context, Adventures in Lollygagging is the actual play channel run by my good friend, Jeff Baker, who is also one of Huck's editors and scenario writers. Years and years ago, a step dice system with a 1930's supernatural noir setting was designed and then rebranded (pun intended) into a weird western called Huckleberry. Jeff was one of the playtesters for that original noir system, so he's been involved with this project from the literal beginning.
I've been a cast member on Adventures in Lollygagging for years now and when I made plans to print Huck, I begged Jeff to be my publisher. It was an easy choice on my part. Jeff has been one of Huckleberry's chief supporters from the get-go. He's smart, driven, creative, and I knew he'd have my back the whole way.
"Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit" - Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
But Huckleberry isn't the only game we want to make here at Adventures in Lollygagging. Jeff's been working on his own system for just as long as I've been working on Huckleberry (maybe even longer, but if we check the dates, I'll just feel old). His system is called We're in Danger and it perfectly emulates all the classic slashers, disaster flicks, and sci-fi horror films of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Ya know, back when movies rocked.
So we're renaming the account to Adventures in Lollygagging to reflect the broader publishing label rather than a specific game.
Coming to Backerkit this October!
The Big Announcement - We're in Danger!
We're in Danger is a tabletop roleplaying game that pits a group of would-be survivors against life-threatening Dangers. The term Danger describes the deadly villains, hazards, and situations players must overcome. The game takes inspiration from an array of sources, and aims to create the tense and immediate experiences of horror and disaster stories. Flexible rules allow for a variety of genres. Coming to Backerkit this October!
I've been fortunate enough to playtest We're in Danger for dozens of sessions and to be a sounding board for Jeff when he needs feedback. I can't stop gushing about the system. As a designer, it's one of those games that I look at and go "Man, that's so clever, I wish I had thought of that". I'm genuinely excited to have been part of its development.
Now that Huckleberry has gone to print (more details below) and almost to fulfillment, we're announcing We're in Danger as our next project, coming to theaters Backerkit this October! This project is going to be lean and mean. The rewards are focused on the book with minimal accessories, in order to get the game into your hands as soon as possible. Huckleberry is delivering in under 12 months from funding and we hope to shave some time off that number for We're in Danger.
For a Few Announcements More
I've got two big pieces of news regarding Huckleberry's manufacturing progress. Starting with the good news: the books are at print! I've been working with our printer for the past two weeks to ensure the digital proofs are as perfect as can be. I owe a huge thank you to all of the people that reached out to me asking for rules clarifications or flagging typos before we went to print. Your help was invaluable and together we've polished Huckleberry into the best possible book it can be. I also just dropped v1.51 of the PDF, incorporating all of those tiny little fixes. You can redownload it from your DriveThruRPG library for free. I'm so excited for you all to get your physical copies!
And now for the manufacturing mistake. There was a miscommunication between myself, my fantastic partners at Awesome Dice, and our dice manufacturer. This kind of thing happens when there's three parties involved, unfortunately, but I cannot thank the good folks at Awesome Dice enough for working very quickly to find a solution. But I'm getting ahead of myself - you don't even know what the problem was, yet!
Here's a picture of the dice I received from the manufacturer. As you can see, despite the poor quality phone camera, the dice are beautiful. The premium resin and sharp edges feel incredible to roll. The picture does not do justice to the colors, fill, or transparency either. They sparkle in all the right ways to make my inner dice goblin as happy as can be. BUT! There's supposed to be a Huckleberry spade logo in place of each "1" on the dice. 4 dice of each set of 6 are missing that logo. Since rolling Snake Eyes is an important mechanic in Huckleberry, the dice need to make it easy to spot when that critical fumble appears. And on a personal note, I've been looking forward to saying "Aw, Huck my life." when both of those logos pop up... :P
I first became aware of this mistake a few weeks ago. There was a delay in shipping, with the dice first going from China to my US fulfilment partner in Florida, then to myself in California. This issue was my fault. Pre-campaign, I agreed to have sample dice made from the resin and fill materials without new molds so that I could wait to pay the mold fees until after the Backerkit funded. Mold fees are the most expensive part of creating new dice, so I was hesitant to pay upfront and out of pocket. After the project funded, I gave the go ahead to create the entire line of dice, without requesting new samples to be made. The original samples were amazing, Awesome Dice had incredible communication with me throughout the entire process, and I felt confident we were all on the same page. This was my mistake - I should've asked for new samples after the molds were made. Lesson learned! Always measure twice to cut once.
Is the Problem Solved?.. Mostly.
Again, Awesome Dice have been great partners and as soon as I informed them of the error, they had a solution to me within an hour. In the past few weeks, the manufacturer created new molds and recast sets of 4 to replace all of the misprinted dice. In fact, the second casting finished three days ago. The new dice are currently in-transit to my fulfilment partners in the UK and US. Here's some pictures of the newly re-made dice.
So while the manufacturing error is fully resolved, I'm now left with a logistics problem. It would be a real pain to replace 4 of the 6 dice in each set with the new dice. We manufactured almost 400 sets of dice and they're currently split between two different warehouses - some in the UK and some in the US. To sort and replace the dice, I would need to coordinate with (and pay) two different teams. And what would I do with the misprints anyways? I love dice as much as the next gamer, but I don't need 400 single d8s or d12s lying around! (I'll concede that we could all use more d6s and d10s, but 400 is still a bit much.)
TL;DR - Here's the fix:
All backers that pledged for a set of dice will receive 10 dice instead of 6. If you pledged for two sets, you'll receive 20 dice instead of 12. Each expanded set will contain the 6 dice with Huckleberry logos as promised, along with the 4 misprints that are still premium, sharp-edge resin filled with either a liquid core or silver foil flakes. The only "flaw" in the misprints is that they have a 1 instead of a spade logo. There will be no increase in shipping charges for the extra dice. Any additional costs from picking fees, extra weight, or larger packaging, will be covered by myself.
Hopefully, y'all will find this a satisfactory solution. And it shouldn't slow down our fulfilment timeline, as the dice are already being shipped to my fulfilment partners.
Howdy, pardner! I've got a few small, but exciting updates about Huckleberry to share with ya. Overall, things are still progressing nicely and so far any headaches we've experienced in the production and manufacturing process have honestly been little more than hiccups and speed bumps when looking at the big picture. Files are being sent to the printer at the end of the week and they're the last reward to be manufactured. As soon as they're finished, we're starting fulfilment!
Wanted: Convention Trailbosses
Con season is here and along with it is an opportunity to spread the Huckleberry gospel! I plan to take Huckleberry on the road as soon as fulfilment to you is complete. Unfortunately, that means I'll be missing Origins and Gen Con this year. If you're attending a convention this year, please consider running a one-shot of Huckleberry. If you run the game at any convention, send me a screenshot of the event listing (or a selfie with the table if it was a pick-up game) and I'll add a free deck of playing cards and a shipping credit to your pledge.
If you want to run a pre-written Bounty, Showdown at High Moon and Reap What You Sow were both originally designed as convention scenarios. We also have a bundle of pregenerated characters, ready to ride.
Shipping Rates
I've touched a bit on the current state of international shipping in previous updates (spoiler: it's a mess), so I won't go too much into that again. What's new is that I've received up-to-date quotes from my partners and applied them to the surveys. Backerkit has reviewed and approved, so they are live now. (Backerkit does not set or comment on the costs, they only look for errors in calculations, weights, and SKUs.) If you look at your survey here, you can now see what the S&H charge will be. (And if you have not completed your survey, please do so!)
We will not charge shipping until a couple weeks before fulfilment, so you still have time to make changes to your pledges. We are locking orders on June 22nd, 2026. After that date, you can change your shipping address, but cannot change your pledge level or add-ons. We estimate that shipping will be charged in mid-to-late July, depending on how long the book printing process takes.
Heart of the Marshes
Now that A Season of Avarice is in your hands, we are digitally releasing the new Bounties to the public. The first to be released is Heart of the Marshes and we're dropping another Bounty each month for the next few months. These are the same versions of the scenarios as have already been delivered to you. As a reminder, A Season of Avarice is not a single digital file, but rather a bundle of the following 10 titles:
The Divine Comedy by Steven Alexander
Showdown at High Moon by Steven Alexander
Wranglin' Cattle by Morgan Eilish
Whether the Weather by Dylan Halsted
Reap What You Sow by Steven Alexander
The Whealing Wallow by Paul Ligorski
The Slaughterhouse by Jaime Reyes Mondragon
Veils & Vengeance by Jeff Baker
Heart of the Marshes by Jeff Baker
Magnum Opus by Eren Ahn
If for some reason you notice that some of these titles are not in your library, check your email's spam folder for links from DriveThruRPG. Otherwise reach out to me and I'll resend the links.
As always, if you have any questions for me, shoot me an email at [email protected].
Are you sick of hearing from me yet? This is the 4th Huckleberry update in 3 weeks! We're moving so quickly at this point that it can't be helped. Let's start with the best update, then we'll get to the rest of the (also good) updates.
A Season of Avarice is Delivered!
Isn't that cover incredible? George knocked it outta the park yet again!
As you might remember, during the campaign we expanded the digital rewards for the Critter and Folk tiers to include the PDFs for A Season of Avarice. That means if you backed Huckleberry at the digital tier or higher (basically everyone), then by now you should have received an email from DriveThruRPG with links to download the four remaining A Season of Avarice Bounties.
The printed book will clock in at 224 pages with all 10 full-length and standalone Bounties. To put that in perspective, Huckleberry's "Season" mechanic expects the players to pursue 3-4 Bounties each Season and a full campaign lasts 3-5 Seasons. Avarice has enough content to see your Mavericks go from unknown gunslingers to absolute legends of the Wyrd Frontier.
We also reformatted the previously released digital bounties from US Letter to A5 so that the softcover of A Season of Avarice will have similar dimensions to the hardcover corebook. This reformatting gave us the chance to touch up some of the older Bounties (Divine Comedy was originally released in 2024!) and bring them in-line with Huckleberry's current ruleset.
As always, each Bounty includes a printable poster and art handouts. As a bonus, I uploaded VTT-friendly assets for each scenario - even the scenarios that have been previously published. If you're using our Faro Board asset pack, you can easily incorporate this new content to your online game.
This is the first ever release for these Bounties (and three of the four were stretch goal unlocks). As a backer of the campaign, you are the first to receive Heart of the Marshes, Magnum Opus, Reap What You Sow (previously titled Make Hay While the Sun Shines), and Slaughterhouse. Each Bounty will receive a standalone public release on DriveThruRPG over the next few months, but you get it all right now. Happy Huntin'!
The full list of Bounties in A Season of Avarice:
The Divine Comedy by Steven Alexander
Showdown at High Moon by Steven Alexander
Wranglin' Cattle by Morgan Eilish
Whether the Weather by Dylan Halsted
Reap What You Sow by Steven Alexander*
The Whealing Wallow by Paul Ligorski
The Slaughterhouse by Jaime Reyes Mondragon*
Veils & Vengeance by Jeff Baker
Heart of the Marshes by Jeff Baker*
Magnum Opus by Eren Ahn*
* = Never before released
If you are missing any of these titles, double check your Backerkit email address for an email from DriveThruRPG. If no luck, shoot me an email and I'll resend your links.
Surveys
As of right now, 76% of backers have completed their survey. That's an incredible number, but I'd like to get it higher. If you haven't done so, please go to https://huckleberry-a-wyrd-west-rpg.backerkit.com/ and fill it out. I cannot deliver your rewards without the survey. Surveys will be locked down in a few weeks, so keep an eye out for the shipping charges. We're gonna be moving fast and you don't want to miss being in the first wave of deliveries!
Production Both styles of dice are finished and currently being shipped overseas to our fulfilment partners. Manufacturing of the cards, trays, and All Rolled Ups is also complete, with the product safely stored at the warehouses. Some product still needs to be sent from US to UK and vice versa, but we're waiting for more completed surveys. Once our counts are set, then we'll make sure each hub has the correct amount of each product.
As for books, I have been working with the printer for the last couple weeks to finalize details on papers, formatting, and so on. I am on schedule to deliver the print PDFs by June 1st. The books are our final piece of the logistic and fulfilment puzzle. As soon as they are finished, they'll ship to fulfilment partners and delivery to backers begins.
If you haven't done so, please download Huckleberry's corebook and the Avarice titles, then give them a thorough read. The more typos we find now, the less we'll accidentally send to print! If you do find any bugs to be squashed, let me know on the discord where we have a forum chat dedicated specifically for typos and errors. Having all reports compiled in the same location does wonders for my sanity when I'm editing the files. ;)
As always, if you have any questions for me, shoot me an email at [email protected].
Just a quick update today to let you know that surveys have been sent. The smoke test was a success and thankfully no fires were detected.
This survey is needed to collect your shipping address and for you to choose any reward options you might have. It is also your last chance to grab add-ons. Add-ons are now limited to the two books and the playing card decks.
Surveys will be locked down in a couple weeks and that is when shipping will be calculated and charged. I cannot fulfill your pledge until you complete the survey, so please do so as soon as you can.
I know I sent you an update last week, but things are starting to move very fast and I've got more great news!
Huckleberry: Faro Board
If you reserved your pledge pre-launch or you added the VTT Asset add-on, you're getting a link today from DriveThruRPG with your digital asset pack! I'm very proud of how this pack has shaped up. It includes:
The entire deck of playing cards, modified for digital use with borders and shadow for a 3D feel.
Border templates for tokens and art handouts.
Grid, tacker, and rules reference overlays.
Digital doodads to decorate your table with Big Irons, Wyrd Chips, and more.
Additionally, I've bundled in the Bounty Board asset pack that used to be a reward for joining our mailing list. The Bounty Board has been repackaged and optimized for compatibility with the Faro Board, offering the ultimate VTT experience. Combine these asset packs with our form-fillable character sheets to easily play Huckleberry online with your friends. If you did not pledge for the VTT pack, you can get it now at DriveThruRPG.
Surveys
In the next few days, I'll send a survey smoke test to about 5% of backers. The smoke test gives me the chance to detect problems with how the survey is set up. If there is, I'll iron out the wrinkles before sending the main survey. ALL backers will receive their survey a few days after the smoke test is completed. I cannot fulfill your pledge until you complete the survey, so please do so as soon as you can.
The survey is needed to collect your shipping address and it is also your last chance to grab add-ons. Add-ons at this stage are now limited to the two books and the playing card decks. If there are any dice, war bags, or trays left over after fulfilment, they'll be very limited and likely sold in-person at conventions or on the Huckleberry webstore (coming soon!). When the surveys are locked down in a couple weeks, shipping will be calculated and charged.
Tariffs & Shipping
Time to talk about the elephant(s) in the room. Let's start with tariffs. U.S. tariffs have eased a bit since last year, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that some of them are unconstitutional. However, other tariffs still apply and the administration is signaling a renewed desire to impose new tariffs in the coming weeks. In other words, things are better now, but it's hard to say by how much.
Huckleberry's campaign has manufacturing in the EU (Corebook and Bounty Book), US (Playing Cards), UK (War Bags, Dice Trays, Patches), and China (Dice Sets). This diversity was intentional. Most projects at our scale use a single manufacturer to save costs, but with last year's tariff volatility, a single manufacturer became a potential risk. If manufactured in the wrong region, costs could double or triple. To that end, Huckleberry is partially protected from the current tariff talk. For the international backers not affected by VAT or tariffs (which were built into the pledge price), your shipping rate has been subsidized by a similar cost.
Unfortunately as soon as one logistics and shipping crisis slowly resolves, another crops up to take its place. The rapidly rising price of fuel directly leads to an increase in shipping costs. This affects freight shipping pallets to our fulfilment partners, as well as shipping pledges directly to you. Domestic shipping in the US alone has increased by 8% since just 2 months ago. For the foreseeable future, shipping costs will continue to rise for all crowdfunding projects, especially small ones like ours.
Despite the gloom and doom, I am working with excellent fulfilment partners to quickly adapt to these new developments. As I've said before, we've done our very best to keep your costs as low as possible. I appreciate your patience and understanding, as my goal has always been to create a great game at a great value for backers.
A Season of Avarice
The bounty book is in the final stages of layout. Nathan has delivered the files to me, it's going to get a thorough proof-read, then I'll be releasing the PDF to you. Expect to get a link next week!
Printing
PDFs are scheduled to be delivered to our Printer on June 1st. After that, it'll be 4-8 weeks for printing and delivery to my fulfilment partners. Once stock hits the warehouses, fulfilment begins. We're in the final stretch and you should have your books in a few short months!
With that in mind, please go download Huckleberry v1.5 and give it a read! If you see any typos, please report them on the discord so I can clean them up before sending the books to print. I've already cleaned up a handful and re-uploaded the PDF, so it's worth downloading the book again if you already grabbed it.
That's about all the news I have today. Expect another email next week as I continue to deliver more digital rewards. As always, if you have any comments or questions, you can email me at [email protected]. Or come hang out with your fellow Mavericks on the discord!
PDF v1.5 Available Now! Plus a Creative Commons License!
Howdy, pardner!
It's been a long ride, but we're very close to the end. I know I was supposed to drop an update last week, but I knew something special was right around the corner, so I pushed it back a wee bit. Hope you can forgive me. ;)
Before we get into the big news, I'd like to show off some new art! Some incredible backers have left their mark on Huckleberry. They've created three new Mavericks to be added to our roster of "Legends." You'll be seeing more of these characters soon, as we add their character sheets to the stack of pre-gens and release their backstories.
Character design by Simon Aspirot, Pasa Mangiok (Prim), Thad Schrader, and Marc from Tales of Myth & Mayhem. Art by George Sellas.
The Leaper by Thad Schrader
The Murre by Pasa Mangiok (Prim) and Simon Aspirot
The Stag by Marc from Tales of Myth & Mayhem
Creative Commons
Huckleberry's mechanics are now published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. While the BackerKit campaign was live, I sent a poll asking everyone what license they would prefer Huck to be released under. Creative Commons was by far the favorite, receiving 62% of the vote and more votes than all of the other options combined. Ask and ye shall receive!
What does this mean? Basically, anyone who wants to make a game using Huckleberry's mechanics can freely do so. You can release your own bounties, player options, or campaigns. You could even adapt Huckleberry into a wholly new system. Been wanting to play Huckleberry, but in space? Now you can make it happen—you can even sell it!
The important thing to know is that this license is very open. The biggest requirement is simply that you attribute Huckleberry somewhere in your copyright text. If you want more details, check out www.HuckleberryRPG.com/hucksrd. Don't be afraid to reach out with any questions.
Homebrewery Templates
If creating for Huckleberry sounds exciting to you then you're gonna love this. LongJohnJones has created not just one, but two different Huckleberry templates for Homebrewery, the free and open source markdown editor. The templates mimic the style of the Corebook and our Bounties. Directions to get started are built into the template, making this the quickest way to make high quality Huckleberry content.
If you like the templates, give him a big "Thank You!" He put a lot of work and love into these. He's also offered to answer anyone's questions in the discord!
Production Update
Our accessories continue to work their way through various stages of production. Dice are in full swing, All Rolled Ups are almost finished and shipping to my fulfilment center next week or the week after. As of yesterday, Huckleberry's playing card deck is out of production and safely delivered to my fulfillment center in the US!
It'll still be some time before these accessories ship out, of course. Books have yet to start printing and we are shipping the entire pledge together to keep shipping costs as low as possible. But it's quite a bit of fun for me to see this project becoming a reality!
Huckleberry v1.5 is released!
Speaking of books, we are very close to sending the PDFs off to the printer! Season of Avarice is in layout right now and the Corebook is now finished. It's been automatically updated in your DriveThruRPG library, so go give it a download! This is by far the biggest update Huckleberry has received, adding 89 new pages. Dylan Grinder and Kienna Shaw's contribution was so meaty that we needed to break it into two chapters. Here's an overview of the major changes:
89 new pages.
Two new chapters, instead of the promised one chapter.
17 new hostiles, for a total of 43.
An 18 page glossary of the game's mechanics and terms, fully hyperlinked in the PDF.
And of course, tons of new art!
What's Next
I need your help! The Corebook is going to the print in a few short weeks, which means I'm on a bug hunt. If you spot any typos, contradictions, or references to outdated mechanics, please report them to me on the Adventures in Lollygagging discord. We have a forum dedicated to squashing all the bugs and typos. Together, we should be able to take down the swarm. After that, A Season of Avarice is on its way to you and the process starts all over again!
Sometime in the next couple weeks, I'll send out surveys. It'll be where you pay for shipping and is also your last chance to add-on extra accessories. You can't have too many decks of playing cards... ;)
We are incredibly close to the end and I'm so grateful you put your trust in me to see this project through. If you're happy with Huckleberry v1.5, it would mean a lot if you told your friends, your favorite forum, or left a review on DriveThruRPG. As far as I'm concerned, this is just the beginning and the more people along for the ride, the better.
It's been a long ride, but we're very close to the end. I know I was supposed to drop an update last week, but I knew something special was right around the corner, so I pushed it back a wee bit. Hope you can forgive me. ;)
Before we get into the big news, I'd like to show off some new art! Some incredible backers have left their mark on Huckleberry. They've created three new Mavericks to be added to our roster of "Legends." You'll be seeing more of these characters soon, as we add their character sheets to the stack of pre-gens and release their backstories.
Character design by Simon Aspirot, Pasa Mangiok (Prim), Thad Schrader, and Marc from Tales of Myth & Mayhem. Art by George Sellas.
The Leaper by Thad Schrader
The Murre by Pasa Mangiok (Prim) and Simon Aspirot
The Stag by Marc from Tales of Myth & Mayhem
Creative Commons
Huckleberry's mechanics are now published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. While the BackerKit campaign was live, I sent a poll asking everyone what license they would prefer Huck to be released under. Creative Commons was by far the favorite, receiving 62% of the vote and more votes than all of the other options combined. Ask and ye shall receive!
What does this mean? Basically, anyone who wants to make a game using Huckleberry's mechanics can freely do so. You can release your own bounties, player options, or campaigns. You could even adapt Huckleberry into a wholly new system. Been wanting to play Huckleberry, but in space? Now you can make it happen—you can even sell it!
The important thing to know is that this license is very open. The biggest requirement is simply that you attribute Huckleberry somewhere in your copyright text. If you want more details, check out www.HuckleberryRPG.com/hucksrd. Don't be afraid to reach out with any questions.
Homebrewery Templates
If creating for Huckleberry sounds exciting to you then you're gonna love this. LongJohnJones has created not just one, but two different Huckleberry templates for Homebrewery, the free and open source markdown editor. The templates mimic the style of the Corebook and our Bounties. Directions to get started are built into the template, making this the quickest way to make high quality Huckleberry content.
If you like the templates, give him a big "Thank You!" He put a lot of work and love into these. He's also offered to answer anyone's questions in the discord!
Production Update
Our accessories continue to work their way through various stages of production. Dice are in full swing, All Rolled Ups are almost finished and shipping to my fulfilment center next week or the week after. As of yesterday, Huckleberry's playing card deck is out of production and safely delivered to my fulfillment center in the US!
It'll still be some time before these accessories ship out, of course. Books have yet to start printing and we are shipping the entire pledge together to keep shipping costs as low as possible. But it's quite a bit of fun for me to see this project becoming a reality!
Huckleberry v1.5 is released!
Speaking of books, we are very close to sending the PDFs off to the printer! Season of Avarice is in layout right now and the Corebook is now finished. It's been automatically updated in your DriveThruRPG library, so go give it a download! This is by far the biggest update Huckleberry has received, adding 89 new pages. Dylan Grinder and Kienna Shaw's contribution was so meaty that we needed to break it into two chapters. Here's an overview of the major changes:
89 new pages.
Two new chapters, instead of the promised one chapter.
17 new hostiles, for a total of 43.
An 18 page glossary of the game's mechanics and terms, fully hyperlinked in the PDF.
And of course, tons of new art!
What's Next
I need your help! The Corebook is going to the print in a few short weeks, which means I'm on a bug hunt. If you spot any typos, contradictions, or references to outdated mechanics, please report them to me on the Adventures in Lollygagging discord. We have a forum dedicated to squashing all the bugs and typos. Together, we should be able to take down the swarm. After that, A Season of Avarice is on its way to you and the process starts all over again!
Sometime in the next couple weeks, I'll send out surveys. It'll be where you pay for shipping and is also your last chance to add-on extra accessories. You can't have too many decks of playing cards... ;)
We are incredibly close to the end and I'm so grateful you put your trust in me to see this project through. If you're happy with Huckleberry v1.5, it would mean a lot if you told your friends, your favorite forum, or left a review on DriveThruRPG. As far as I'm concerned, this is just the beginning and the more people along for the ride, the better.
Howdy, pardner! Steven here and, oh boy, have I got some news.
The Small Announcement
You might've noticed that this account was renamed from "Huckleberry RPG" to "Adventures in Lollygagging", which is the game's publishing label. For context, Adventures in Lollygagging is the actual play channel run by my good friend, Jeff Baker, who is also one of Huck's editors and scenario writers. Years and years ago, a step dice system with a 1930's supernatural noir setting was designed and then rebranded (pun intended) into a weird western called Huckleberry. Jeff was one of the playtesters for that original noir system, so he's been involved with this project from the literal beginning.
I've been a cast member on Adventures in Lollygagging for years now and when I made plans to print Huck, I begged Jeff to be my publisher. It was an easy choice on my part. Jeff has been one of Huckleberry's chief supporters from the get-go. He's smart, driven, creative, and I knew he'd have my back the whole way.
"Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit" - Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
But Huckleberry isn't the only game we want to make here at Adventures in Lollygagging. Jeff's been working on his own system for just as long as I've been working on Huckleberry (maybe even longer, but if we check the dates, I'll just feel old). His system is called We're in Danger and it perfectly emulates all the classic slashers, disaster flicks, and sci-fi horror films of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Ya know, back when movies rocked.
So we're renaming the account to Adventures in Lollygagging to reflect the broader publishing label rather than a specific game.
Coming to Backerkit this October!
The Big Announcement - We're in Danger!
We're in Danger is a tabletop roleplaying game that pits a group of would-be survivors against life-threatening Dangers. The term Danger describes the deadly villains, hazards, and situations players must overcome. The game takes inspiration from an array of sources, and aims to create the tense and immediate experiences of horror and disaster stories. Flexible rules allow for a variety of genres. Coming to Backerkit this October!
I've been fortunate enough to playtest We're in Danger for dozens of sessions and to be a sounding board for Jeff when he needs feedback. I can't stop gushing about the system. As a designer, it's one of those games that I look at and go "Man, that's so clever, I wish I had thought of that". I'm genuinely excited to have been part of its development.
Now that Huckleberry has gone to print (more details below) and almost to fulfillment, we're announcing We're in Danger as our next project, coming to theaters Backerkit this October! This project is going to be lean and mean. The rewards are focused on the book with minimal accessories, in order to get the game into your hands as soon as possible. Huckleberry is delivering in under 12 months from funding and we hope to shave some time off that number for We're in Danger.
For a Few Announcements More
I've got two big pieces of news regarding Huckleberry's manufacturing progress. Starting with the good news: the books are at print! I've been working with our printer for the past two weeks to ensure the digital proofs are as perfect as can be. I owe a huge thank you to all of the people that reached out to me asking for rules clarifications or flagging typos before we went to print. Your help was invaluable and together we've polished Huckleberry into the best possible book it can be. I also just dropped v1.51 of the PDF, incorporating all of those tiny little fixes. You can redownload it from your DriveThruRPG library for free. I'm so excited for you all to get your physical copies!
And now for the manufacturing mistake. There was a miscommunication between myself, my fantastic partners at Awesome Dice, and our dice manufacturer. This kind of thing happens when there's three parties involved, unfortunately, but I cannot thank the good folks at Awesome Dice enough for working very quickly to find a solution. But I'm getting ahead of myself - you don't even know what the problem was, yet!
Here's a picture of the dice I received from the manufacturer. As you can see, despite the poor quality phone camera, the dice are beautiful. The premium resin and sharp edges feel incredible to roll. The picture does not do justice to the colors, fill, or transparency either. They sparkle in all the right ways to make my inner dice goblin as happy as can be. BUT! There's supposed to be a Huckleberry spade logo in place of each "1" on the dice. 4 dice of each set of 6 are missing that logo. Since rolling Snake Eyes is an important mechanic in Huckleberry, the dice need to make it easy to spot when that critical fumble appears. And on a personal note, I've been looking forward to saying "Aw, Huck my life." when both of those logos pop up... :P
I first became aware of this mistake a few weeks ago. There was a delay in shipping, with the dice first going from China to my US fulfilment partner in Florida, then to myself in California. This issue was my fault. Pre-campaign, I agreed to have sample dice made from the resin and fill materials without new molds so that I could wait to pay the mold fees until after the Backerkit funded. Mold fees are the most expensive part of creating new dice, so I was hesitant to pay upfront and out of pocket. After the project funded, I gave the go ahead to create the entire line of dice, without requesting new samples to be made. The original samples were amazing, Awesome Dice had incredible communication with me throughout the entire process, and I felt confident we were all on the same page. This was my mistake - I should've asked for new samples after the molds were made. Lesson learned! Always measure twice to cut once.
Is the Problem Solved?.. Mostly.
Again, Awesome Dice have been great partners and as soon as I informed them of the error, they had a solution to me within an hour. In the past few weeks, the manufacturer created new molds and recast sets of 4 to replace all of the misprinted dice. In fact, the second casting finished three days ago. The new dice are currently in-transit to my fulfilment partners in the UK and US. Here's some pictures of the newly re-made dice.
So while the manufacturing error is fully resolved, I'm now left with a logistics problem. It would be a real pain to replace 4 of the 6 dice in each set with the new dice. We manufactured almost 400 sets of dice and they're currently split between two different warehouses - some in the UK and some in the US. To sort and replace the dice, I would need to coordinate with (and pay) two different teams. And what would I do with the misprints anyways? I love dice as much as the next gamer, but I don't need 400 single d8s or d12s lying around! (I'll concede that we could all use more d6s and d10s, but 400 is still a bit much.)
TL;DR - Here's the fix:
All backers that pledged for a set of dice will receive 10 dice instead of 6. If you pledged for two sets, you'll receive 20 dice instead of 12. Each expanded set will contain the 6 dice with Huckleberry logos as promised, along with the 4 misprints that are still premium, sharp-edge resin filled with either a liquid core or silver foil flakes. The only "flaw" in the misprints is that they have a 1 instead of a spade logo. There will be no increase in shipping charges for the extra dice. Any additional costs from picking fees, extra weight, or larger packaging, will be covered by myself.
Hopefully, y'all will find this a satisfactory solution. And it shouldn't slow down our fulfilment timeline, as the dice are already being shipped to my fulfilment partners.
Howdy, pardner! I've got a few small, but exciting updates about Huckleberry to share with ya. Overall, things are still progressing nicely and so far any headaches we've experienced in the production and manufacturing process have honestly been little more than hiccups and speed bumps when looking at the big picture. Files are being sent to the printer at the end of the week and they're the last reward to be manufactured. As soon as they're finished, we're starting fulfilment!
Wanted: Convention Trailbosses
Con season is here and along with it is an opportunity to spread the Huckleberry gospel! I plan to take Huckleberry on the road as soon as fulfilment to you is complete. Unfortunately, that means I'll be missing Origins and Gen Con this year. If you're attending a convention this year, please consider running a one-shot of Huckleberry. If you run the game at any convention, send me a screenshot of the event listing (or a selfie with the table if it was a pick-up game) and I'll add a free deck of playing cards and a shipping credit to your pledge.
If you want to run a pre-written Bounty, Showdown at High Moon and Reap What You Sow were both originally designed as convention scenarios. We also have a bundle of pregenerated characters, ready to ride.
Shipping Rates
I've touched a bit on the current state of international shipping in previous updates (spoiler: it's a mess), so I won't go too much into that again. What's new is that I've received up-to-date quotes from my partners and applied them to the surveys. Backerkit has reviewed and approved, so they are live now. (Backerkit does not set or comment on the costs, they only look for errors in calculations, weights, and SKUs.) If you look at your survey here, you can now see what the S&H charge will be. (And if you have not completed your survey, please do so!)
We will not charge shipping until a couple weeks before fulfilment, so you still have time to make changes to your pledges. We are locking orders on June 22nd, 2026. After that date, you can change your shipping address, but cannot change your pledge level or add-ons. We estimate that shipping will be charged in mid-to-late July, depending on how long the book printing process takes.
Heart of the Marshes
Now that A Season of Avarice is in your hands, we are digitally releasing the new Bounties to the public. The first to be released is Heart of the Marshes and we're dropping another Bounty each month for the next few months. These are the same versions of the scenarios as have already been delivered to you. As a reminder, A Season of Avarice is not a single digital file, but rather a bundle of the following 10 titles:
The Divine Comedy by Steven Alexander
Showdown at High Moon by Steven Alexander
Wranglin' Cattle by Morgan Eilish
Whether the Weather by Dylan Halsted
Reap What You Sow by Steven Alexander
The Whealing Wallow by Paul Ligorski
The Slaughterhouse by Jaime Reyes Mondragon
Veils & Vengeance by Jeff Baker
Heart of the Marshes by Jeff Baker
Magnum Opus by Eren Ahn
If for some reason you notice that some of these titles are not in your library, check your email's spam folder for links from DriveThruRPG. Otherwise reach out to me and I'll resend the links.
As always, if you have any questions for me, shoot me an email at [email protected].
Are you sick of hearing from me yet? This is the 4th Huckleberry update in 3 weeks! We're moving so quickly at this point that it can't be helped. Let's start with the best update, then we'll get to the rest of the (also good) updates.
A Season of Avarice is Delivered!
Isn't that cover incredible? George knocked it outta the park yet again!
As you might remember, during the campaign we expanded the digital rewards for the Critter and Folk tiers to include the PDFs for A Season of Avarice. That means if you backed Huckleberry at the digital tier or higher (basically everyone), then by now you should have received an email from DriveThruRPG with links to download the four remaining A Season of Avarice Bounties.
The printed book will clock in at 224 pages with all 10 full-length and standalone Bounties. To put that in perspective, Huckleberry's "Season" mechanic expects the players to pursue 3-4 Bounties each Season and a full campaign lasts 3-5 Seasons. Avarice has enough content to see your Mavericks go from unknown gunslingers to absolute legends of the Wyrd Frontier.
We also reformatted the previously released digital bounties from US Letter to A5 so that the softcover of A Season of Avarice will have similar dimensions to the hardcover corebook. This reformatting gave us the chance to touch up some of the older Bounties (Divine Comedy was originally released in 2024!) and bring them in-line with Huckleberry's current ruleset.
As always, each Bounty includes a printable poster and art handouts. As a bonus, I uploaded VTT-friendly assets for each scenario - even the scenarios that have been previously published. If you're using our Faro Board asset pack, you can easily incorporate this new content to your online game.
This is the first ever release for these Bounties (and three of the four were stretch goal unlocks). As a backer of the campaign, you are the first to receive Heart of the Marshes, Magnum Opus, Reap What You Sow (previously titled Make Hay While the Sun Shines), and Slaughterhouse. Each Bounty will receive a standalone public release on DriveThruRPG over the next few months, but you get it all right now. Happy Huntin'!
The full list of Bounties in A Season of Avarice:
The Divine Comedy by Steven Alexander
Showdown at High Moon by Steven Alexander
Wranglin' Cattle by Morgan Eilish
Whether the Weather by Dylan Halsted
Reap What You Sow by Steven Alexander*
The Whealing Wallow by Paul Ligorski
The Slaughterhouse by Jaime Reyes Mondragon*
Veils & Vengeance by Jeff Baker
Heart of the Marshes by Jeff Baker*
Magnum Opus by Eren Ahn*
* = Never before released
If you are missing any of these titles, double check your Backerkit email address for an email from DriveThruRPG. If no luck, shoot me an email and I'll resend your links.
Surveys
As of right now, 76% of backers have completed their survey. That's an incredible number, but I'd like to get it higher. If you haven't done so, please go to https://huckleberry-a-wyrd-west-rpg.backerkit.com/ and fill it out. I cannot deliver your rewards without the survey. Surveys will be locked down in a few weeks, so keep an eye out for the shipping charges. We're gonna be moving fast and you don't want to miss being in the first wave of deliveries!
Production Both styles of dice are finished and currently being shipped overseas to our fulfilment partners. Manufacturing of the cards, trays, and All Rolled Ups is also complete, with the product safely stored at the warehouses. Some product still needs to be sent from US to UK and vice versa, but we're waiting for more completed surveys. Once our counts are set, then we'll make sure each hub has the correct amount of each product.
As for books, I have been working with the printer for the last couple weeks to finalize details on papers, formatting, and so on. I am on schedule to deliver the print PDFs by June 1st. The books are our final piece of the logistic and fulfilment puzzle. As soon as they are finished, they'll ship to fulfilment partners and delivery to backers begins.
If you haven't done so, please download Huckleberry's corebook and the Avarice titles, then give them a thorough read. The more typos we find now, the less we'll accidentally send to print! If you do find any bugs to be squashed, let me know on the discord where we have a forum chat dedicated specifically for typos and errors. Having all reports compiled in the same location does wonders for my sanity when I'm editing the files. ;)
As always, if you have any questions for me, shoot me an email at [email protected].
Just a quick update today to let you know that surveys have been sent. The smoke test was a success and thankfully no fires were detected.
This survey is needed to collect your shipping address and for you to choose any reward options you might have. It is also your last chance to grab add-ons. Add-ons are now limited to the two books and the playing card decks.
Surveys will be locked down in a couple weeks and that is when shipping will be calculated and charged. I cannot fulfill your pledge until you complete the survey, so please do so as soon as you can.
