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View Full Version : Does anyone remember Legend? [Rule of Cool]



Koeh
2018-01-09, 11:59 AM
Well I do!

I got sucked into this system semi-recently by finally being able to DM a few games for it. But sadly the system has died around 3 years ago. The last major announcement was for the 1.1 edition:

http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,1341.0.html

Today only a few people seem to lurk on the forum still to check on random games or posting. Well I've been working on a large passion project over the last year. A sort of Players Handbook 2, containing more options, classes, tracks, etc. Cobbled together from home brew material by myself and others, as well as unreleased official material. I wanted to post it here for anyone whom might be interested in what might still become of Legend.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0swh2rPFIUoM2JMQmFIS0I0T1k/view?usp=sharing

My big project for the next year is a large piece that Legend has been missing. A Monster Manual. It's going to take a while and I'll be sure to post when completed. In the last week, our members created a Discord server to talk about how to proceed with the project, join us on Discord and chat, or post here if you have questions or comments. Hope to hear from you all.

https://discordapp.com/invite/jJBUc76

Koeh

Fable Wright
2018-01-09, 02:02 PM
Ages ago, I had started posting a list of sample monsters on the Legend forum, though at the end of it I had given up on coherent fluff, and eventually adding things altogether due to the lack of general interest. The thing that I think killed the system was, I think, a lack of flexibility and ability to stockpile meaningful resources as combat rewards. If you have found some way around that, I might be curious to see what's become of the system.

Koeh
2018-01-09, 02:53 PM
Ages ago, I had started posting a list of sample monsters on the Legend forum, though at the end of it I had given up on coherent fluff, and eventually adding things altogether due to the lack of general interest. The thing that I think killed the system was, I think, a lack of flexibility and ability to stockpile meaningful resources as combat rewards. If you have found some way around that, I might be curious to see what's become of the system.

You know, we have not thought of anything about the meaningful combat rewards. It hasn't been an issue in my personal games, but I can totally see it being one. As part of the monster manual, we're going to be putting in some alternate rule sets. I think one good one would be establishing a sort of economy and possible different ways to use consumable and equip-able items, I think it's a totally solvable problem.

Though as for the flexibility issue, could you expand on that? I hope the PHB 2 had some effect on that. Doing some quick calculations.... new totals of, 15 playable classes, 57 non-exclusive tracks, 20 racial track options.... gives us a total of 855 different options for playable standard or multiclass characters and 3.5 million monsters with racial tracks. That's not including options like full buy in for characters (giving up items for another track), feats (for extra multiclass or other goodies), items, non-monsterous races etc.

I like to think a lot of these options are viable, but if even only 10% are, that should be quite a lot of flexibility in creation and design.

Fable Wright
2018-01-09, 03:55 PM
The problem with Legend's flexibility is, well, the fact that when you pick a track, you're locked in for life. I know about a lot of casual D&D games where someone goes "You know what? We need more stealth focus in the party", and picks up a few levels of Rogue. Doing something like that in Legend would unquestionably handicap you.

More than that, though, tying into the rewards thing, there were precious few noncombat or non-adventuring powers available. There was nothing like D&D spell slots that could let you help build a castle one day and then fight in the next, or odd systems like the Totemist from Magic of Incarnum that could let you be a variety of different monsters depending on the day. The modularity is inherently powerful and difficult to balance well, but removing it entirely was probably not the right answer.

Finally, to steal a term from D&D 5e design, there were also no ribbon abilities tacked on. Freebies with little if any mechanical relevance, but lent a specific, cool flavor to characters. Players are encouraged to make their own fluff, but... well, ribbons were amazing as springboards to kick that off.

Dragonus45
2018-01-09, 08:14 PM
Finally, to steal a term from D&D 5e design, there were also no ribbon abilities tacked on. Freebies with little if any mechanical relevance, but lent a specific, cool flavor to characters. Players are encouraged to make their own fluff, but... well, ribbons were amazing as springboards to kick that off.
This reminds me of the issue I saw with the Summoner in Pathfinder. When you had the freedom to create literally anything with any fluff description you wanted I saw perhaps three interesting Eidolons in the entire time I was running PFS. But once unchained dropped and they started giving various limitations combined with some ribbons attached to a creature type I started seeing a lot more flavor built from that small bit of fluff.

stack
2018-01-09, 10:41 PM
I remember Legend fondly. Didn't get to play it much, but it has influenced my design work.

Doorhandle
2018-01-09, 11:49 PM
I reckon the lack of premade monsters was also a nail in it's coffin: sure they operated the same as players, but it still takes out a LOT of grunt work to have even a vague monster manuel, and it would be extra important for legend due to the complexity of the various tracks.

Though I reckon fable wright hit the nail on the head more than I did.

Koeh
2018-01-10, 09:43 AM
I reckon the lack of premade monsters was also a nail in it's coffin: sure they operated the same as players, but it still takes out a LOT of grunt work to have even a vague monster manuel, and it would be extra important for legend due to the complexity of the various tracks.

Though I reckon fable wright hit the nail on the head more than I did.

I agree completely about the lack of pre-made monsters being an issue. The monster manual is going to be slow going. But I'm going to have it done before the end of the year. With all the help that we seem to be getting on the Discord server I'm actually way more confident about getting it done faster.

Heres a small sample of stat blocks and testing we're doing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uKG94POiKMH2PPozz3retU8m2PAiw9En/view?usp=drivesdk

And in response to Fable's concerns. One thing I'm now going to absolutely Implement in the monster manual is a retraining mechanic so that way nobody feels stuck in their tracks or skills they have chosen. One of the alternate rules I was going to implement was skill points so that way someone could become more of a jack-of-all-trades style character with some alterations to the awareness and social defenses to compensate and make that more of a viable option. And as well Im going to add a consumable items that would have very limited use but would allow you to reselect a trained skills, a track, ability score increases, etc.

So don't get me wrong Legend definitely had its problems. But my goal in this is to be very solution-focused. So please if you have memories of Legend and there were just some issues that you could not get past (flight was one for me, making alt rules for that too) please post here or join us on Discord.

bioa10
2018-01-10, 02:51 PM
The problem with Legend's flexibility is, well, the fact that when you pick a track, you're locked in for life. I know about a lot of casual D&D games where someone goes "You know what? We need more stealth focus in the party", and picks up a few levels of Rogue. Doing something like that in Legend would unquestionably handicap you.

More than that, though, tying into the rewards thing, there were precious few noncombat or non-adventuring powers available. There was nothing like D&D spell slots that could let you help build a castle one day and then fight in the next, or odd systems like the Totemist from Magic of Incarnum that could let you be a variety of different monsters depending on the day. The modularity is inherently powerful and difficult to balance well, but removing it entirely was probably not the right answer.

Finally, to steal a term from D&D 5e design, there were also no ribbon abilities tacked on. Freebies with little if any mechanical relevance, but lent a specific, cool flavor to characters. Players are encouraged to make their own fluff, but... well, ribbons were amazing as springboards to kick that off.

I don't think the flexibility is too big of a problem since there are ways to change your character after creation. I think the main way is the Guild Initiation feat which lets you swap any track with any other track. If you talk to your GM you may be able to keep features from the track before the feat and new abilities will come from the new track if that's what you want. Another way is that if you aren't Full Buy In already, you could work with the GM to change into a FBI character after creation to gain a new track, of course you will lose some items, but it may be worth it for new abilities. I mean, FBI is viable from character creation so it should still be viable to change to mid campaign.

Though, it might be nice if the Legend community does homebrew some more ways to change character builds mid game, so I may talk to some people about that.

bioa10
2018-01-10, 03:01 PM
Snip...

My big project for the next year is a large piece that Legend has been missing. A Monster Manual. It's going to take a while and I'll be sure to post when completed. In the last week, our members created a Discord server to talk about how to proceed with the project, join us on Discord and chat, or post here if you have questions or comments. Hope to hear from you all.

Snip...

I also just noticed that that bit sounds like the discord is for the Monster Manual creation. As the creator of the server, I will say that it is a general server for Legend fans to hang out and chat about Legend and Legend homebrews.