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Legend: Tabletop Gaming For a Good Cause
danaris writes "On Friday, Rule of Cool gaming released Legend, a d20-derived tabletop roleplaying game system designed to be easy to learn, easy to play, and just really fun. As the names suggest, they recognize that people in an RPG frequently want to be playing epic characters with cool abilities, so they provide that — while making sure all such characters are reasonably well balanced against characters and monsters of the same level. For a nice overview of the system, there's a review up on RPG.net by one of the playtesters, and another review by a moderator from Reddit's RPG section. The game is initially being distributed as a pay-what-you-want benefit to the Child's Play charity, with all proceeds (not just all profits) going to the charity."
Hmm, given that I play in a DnD 3.5 game and GM another one, i'd say it went undead at the very least.
Given how awesome it is, i'd say the undead species is Demilich
from the paypal money transfer page:
Contribution to Child's Play! by Rule Of Cool (jake.kurzer@ruleofcool.com)
+1 tax avoidance
All proceeds (not just profit, as the summary points out) are going to child's play, and you're concerned about his taxes?
The money collected would have to count as income, so it would be a wash at best.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
They're not collecting money, it goes into a ChipIn straight to Child's Play.
Actually, we never touch the money. It goes straight to CP, so it's never income. I did consider rolling an NGO to dodge taxes with it, I won't lie, but it seemed like it was mean-spirited.
No flash here. Can someone post a non-flash link to the donation page please?
The Rule Of Cool site uses a flash link only.
Can't wait to rule!
An article about a d20 RPG is news for nerds? I think not.
No, you're not, you're just a troll.
Legend like down, most likely /.ed. Back to my dreary life....
Check the paypal address, please.
Looks like it's working again.
Not everyone can have a smokin' hot mom, like you.
I disagree vehemently that tabletop RPGs are dead.
I currently play in 5 tabletops (3 of which are supposedly LARPs, but play more like traditional ttRPGs with a large number of players and pvp action), GMing another, and I am in the process of writing a system and content for a high fantasy tabletop game. I realize it isn't a tremendously popular activity (though I regularly game with about 30 individuals and know of many gamers in my locale with whom I do not play), but it never really was all that popular.
I've even seen something of a resurgence in the activity, as MMO gamers branch out from behind their keyboards to engage in a more social and flexible experience with drastically fewer limitations on what they can do.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Speaking of this, how does one exactly break into this hobby?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I didn't realize Gygax was as alive and well as he's ever been...
Look for a nearby hobby shop, they tend to have people who know local gaming groups.
I started playing D&D not too long ago after hearing about it for ages, and it is a lot of fun, but the complexity of the system can be daunting to say the least. The games I've played also burn an inordinate amount of time on checking rules and spell behavior and keeping track of all sorts of mindless minutia. This system looks to retain much of the good but do it in a simpler and more streamlined way, which should make for fun gameplay.
If I can convince some of my D&D buddies to chip in as well, might have to pick it up. The biggest problem with tabletop games (especially obscure or new ones) is that it can be hard to track down people to actually play with.
>>Speaking of this, how does one exactly break into this hobby?
If you're in a major city, look up your local RPGA club or gaming convention. If you're into 4th Edition, D&D, that is, which grognards like me sort of poo-poo, but it's easy to get into. The D&D website has a tool to look up local game stores that are running D&D Encounters, which are short, 1-hour adventures that run once per week at local game stores.
If you want to play 3rd Edition D&D, which this product is a variation on, Paizo has been carrying the torch on this with it's Pathfinder system. The Pathfinder Society (http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety) is their organized play branch, which means that you don't need to have an established game group to play... just show up at a Pathfinder Society game day, say you're new, and they'll help you out.
FWIW, Pathfinder (and quite possibly Legend, too, though I've only started digging into the meat of it) and 3.5 in general are better systems than 4th Edition D&D, but it's probably easier to find a friendly local game store running D&D Encounters every Wednesday night.
I got into it because I could find some friends who were willing to try it. This was around the time 4th edition D&D was released, so we use that. We still play.
Speaking of this, how does one exactly break into this hobby?
The easiest way is to have friends who are into it, or friends that you can sucker into it...
So Mongoose says they'll put out a game called Wayfarer using RuneQuest rules. Someone points out that there's a game called Wayfarers. So they changed the name to... Legend. Now we have two Legends. Maybe they should rename one to Firebird.
FWIW, Pathfinder (and quite possibly Legend, too, though I've only started digging into the meat of it) and 3.5 in general are better systems than 4th Edition D&D
I would disagree with you there, fairly vehemently. 4E certainly has it's flaws, but I think those in d20 are far more severe.
Problems with 4E largely stem from two areas: 1) overemphasis on combat, and 2) vastly increased demands on players to master the system. Both of these two situations can be boiled down into one basic fact: there are too many powers to choose from and characters have too many powers overall. A lot of players liked the simplicity of earlier editions for, well, any non-spellcasting class. 4E forces that to change, but it gives too many options. There are too many races, too many classes, and too many powers. They should have started simpler, and tried to keep the number of classes as low as possible rather than maximizing choice and trying to instantly make 4E comparable to 3E. The Paradox of Choice means that every time you level up, every time it's your turn in combat you must re-examine all your choices and make a new decision. I think the martial classes in particular could benefit from having far fewer powers at each level. One at-will, one encounter, one daily, class powers, and that's it. Combat simply takes too long in 4E to be enjoyable, and while you can do some things to speed it up, if you focus on speeding up the game too much you sap all the enjoyment out of it. It feels like work.
There are some minor issues as well. Skill Challenges is the obvious one, which are cool in concept but simply doesn't work well in execution outside of very few situations (tracking over long distances, opening a complex lock) and completely fail for skills which involve interaction. It also has the side effect of making your players want roleplaying encounters to just be more dice rolling, and that's not very fun. Lack of compelling magic outside of combat; making all rituals cost money made them feel useless. Solo encounter monsters are designed badly. The monsters are supposed to represent 5 individual monsters, but can easily be crowd controlled. They should be immune to stuns and most cc, and able to deal out damage in ways which really threaten the party. As it is now, solo encounters are about 5 rounds of terror and 10-20 rounds of cutting through all that HP while not really threatened because the buffs and debuffs are in place. 4E also seems significantly more delicately balanced. A simple +1 to some die rolls can be game breaking simply because those die rolls happen so often. I don't think that would ever happen in previous editions.
Things 4E does right or improves on: basic class progression, skills, character creation, feats (barring bad ones like Expertise), hit points. Minions. Emphasis on making the DM's life easier. Emphasis on position and movement in combat, and the ability to actually tank enemies. Working to make sure PCs get treasure they want rather than using random tables. Better healing system. Better balance between classes. The character generator was absolutely amazing. Overall I consider 4E to be a very good first edition of a new RPG system. I haven't kept up with the more recent books which introduce different class styles as my play group had abandoned 4E by the time it came out. We played it for a year and were tired of two encounter nights.
Problems with 3.5, on the other hand, are IMO far more severe and fair more inherent to the system. Class balance is and always will be a huge problem as long as Vancian casters are present. Prestige classes and the lack of multiclassing restrictions completely defeat the purpose of having classes. Lack of good heavier armors. Difficulty in healing. Difficulty in identifying magic treasure. The arbitrary alignment system. The skill system is completely ridiculous (Search, Spot and Listen... but most classes only get about 4 skills per level after modifiers). I think there a
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Unfortunately local hobby shops (at least the ones that carry tabletop RPGs) are dying out. Too many people prefer to buy from Amazon rather than support local businesses, and the neighborhood game store can't survive the contraction of the customer base.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Funny, I met my wife at a tabletop RPG, but no one has ever gotten laid by trolling on Slashdot.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Another combat-feat paper implementation of WOW. Mostly just different flavoured ways of dealing damage.
OK, Basic and 1st Edition Advanced was much the same, but extensive non-combat spells, thief abilities and milieu helpers in the DM's guide at least gave a grounding for something beyond chipping away at hit points.
Eh, I'm probably just jaded. This'll fly well with WOWers and geezers looking to get back to basics, and you can't argue with the price.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Are you sure you're on the right website? What exactly do you consider worthy "news for nerds" in games.slashdot.org if not this?
People are really starting to stretch the whole "slashdot worthy" cliche these days. Before you know it, articles about Apple won't fit into the Apple category anymore!
I got "into" this about half a year ago. With friends, we all hadn't played before, only 1 person had played DnD 2nd edition once. And we wanted to play DnD 3.5E.
The biggest challenge is a DM. The Dungeon Master defines the game. The Dungeon Master needs to know the rules. We didn't go look for a DM, I just became DM. Starting by reading the player handbook, understand the key parts of combat and stats. And then just go play. Figure out the rest as you go. With a new group nobody will complain if you make a mistake.
The first game we did was with 3 people, me as DM and 2 players. Just to get a feeling for the rules. We didn't have any dice or miniatures. Filling in the character sheets took about a hour. We only used melee/ranged character, no spellcasting. We used paper to draw out the maps and crosses and lines as characters and enemies. And an Android app to roll dice. It was a blast, and I killed one of my players near the end (just to show that I could).
As we progressed with more games, we added more players, dice, miniatures (combination of old board games, and new warhammer miniatures) until we had a full DnD game. We also noticed we had used a few rules wrong. Which is no problem really, it's all about the fun, and we fixed those.
Finding a paper copy of the 3.5 DnD edition is pretty hard because they are no longer sold, but your favorite torrent site should have them in PDF form. However, on http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:System_Reference_Document you have the "DnD 3.5 SRD" which is almost all the rules (except for EXP/level up rules) in a free form. With monsters and everything. Once you get the basic rules the SRD is all you really need, if you want to play D&D 3.5. (We just skip anything "epic" and "psionic", to keep it a bit simpler)
I took a look at Legend, and it looks quite a bit like 3.5 in my eyes. But I miss monsters. With the 3.5 SRD I have a whole huge list of monsters to use, for free.
If you have a group of friends willing to play, then it's just as simple as "go for it" really.
IMHO, combat only drags on too long because people are being munchkins instead of role playing. You shouldn't be asking yourself "which one of these 40 combat skills would kill the most goblins". Instead, you should be asking yourself "what would my berserk warrior with an INT of 8 do?"
Yes, this is a generalization, and isn't true in all cases. But it's true more times than not in my experience.
"Legend has removed half-breeds like half-elves and half-orcs citing the impossibility or unlikelihood of inter–species breeding. I mean, horses and donkeys may look similar, but they can’t interbreed. What would you even call them? Dorses? Honkeys?" --http://www.oldschool.geek.nz
I can not take anyone seriously that can not be bothered with fact checking before open their mouths first.
Its called a MULE, you jackass.
Look it up.
I met *my* wife trolling on Slashdot.
Or am I trolling?
The answer to that is likely to be "my berserk warrior wants to kill as many goblins as he can". Then you need to translate it into game terms, which still means figuring out which of the 40 skills kills the most goblins.
It seems to me that while some skills are being selected by the character (such as spells), some are not. The player is more like a writer--some things the writer writes are 'what would the character do" but others are "what would I want to happen to the character". When the player chooses to have the character use a powerful move, that's the writer deciding that the character should be striking a mighty blow at this exact moment. In-character, the character is always trying his best to strike mighty blows and is not making decisions at all.
If you met *his* wife than you would be trolling.
AD&D 1st Edition FTW!
Everything else is sloppy seconds.
I still play (A)D&D with friends from time to time, but we play the way old versions of the game. We played Basic D&D (the "Moldvay" version that came out in 1981 with the magenta box) for a couple years, since it is extremely simple and easy to run for the DM. (There was also an Expert book for when characters went above 3rd level) Recently, we jumped to the first edition of AD&D, which many of us in the group have experience with, so it isn't a tricky change for us. AD&D is definitely more involved (more rules for everything you can think of), but it doesn't have to be. The older versions of the game were almost modular... you could choose to use rules you liked and ditch the ones you didn't. (It is almost like a make-your-own-RPG kit.) You can obviously do this with newer versions, but the older versions are a bit more "rules-lite" and are easier to do this with. In fact, our DM just recently decided that he wanted to start using some of the rules (basically for combat) from the Basic/Expert game in the AD&D game to make things easier on him. Nobody complained at all. I always felt that the game is the DM's to run and he/she can do what they want.
In fact, I recommend running the game and if you don't know a rule for something, if you don't know where it is in the books and can't look it up inside of a minute, just wing-it and make something up that makes sense to keep the game flowing. Being a DM is definitely an art. I think a by-the-book rules-happy DM that is always pausing the game to leaf through books drags the game's momentum down.
All in all, I recommend the older versions to people that are daunted by the heaviness of the rules for most versions of D&D. You can get the older books from used book stores or off of eBay for quite cheap. I originally learned from the Molvay (1981) magenta boxed set, and I heavily recommend that book to newbies, since it is easy enough for a child to learn and play. :-) Once you know it well, you can always move up to more advanced rules systems, if you choose to.
btw... I recently bought a couple extra (reading) copies of the Moldvay basic rulebooks from eBay for like $3 each, so it definitely doesn't have to be a big investment, unless you want to get minty copies still in the box... with the original dice included, etc...
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
I want to see "Wesnoth: The Tabletop Game"
I took a look at Legend, and it looks quite a bit like 3.5 in my eyes. But I miss monsters. With the 3.5 SRD I have a whole huge list of monsters to use, for free.
There is a monster book on the way, but it will not be free. (It is, in fact, how the Rule of Cool folks are planning to recoup some of their costs for the core book's release, so they don't have to eat quite so much ramen.)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The problem is that your Berserker doesn't have 5 minutes and a calculator.
As others have said, the best option is to find a local gaming or comic shop and ask around or join their Encounters session if you like D&D.
But if, like me, you have a hard time finding large blocks of time to play with friends, you could consider Play-By-Email (PBEM). It goes much slower than a face to face game, but you can play in small chunks of time at your convenience. I average around 10-15 minutes per day at the time most convenient for me instead of trying to coordinate schedules. If you are upfront with the gm/moderator that you are new many will go far out of their way to help you. Many PBEM games emphasize the role playing and downplay or streamline combat just to help keep things moving, whether or not that is a good thing depends ont he style you like.
4th Edition has a lot of powers, as you say. It also has a lot of feats and magic items.
"Fortunately", most of them are utterly terrible. Of the 3000 feats in the game, there's maybe 300 that are good. So that's 90% dross that's utterly wasting the time of the players and space in the source books (which they hardly print any more anyway). A similar ratio exists for powers and magic items.
The reason for this was that, unlike with 3e, the 4e PHB1 set the power bar very very low, and they've been (admirably or not) trying to do a good job keeping the power curve fairly flat. So if you have a "+1 to damage" feat at 1st level, and they're not going to release anything better than that, then it leaves you with a pretty boring field of options. They've even done a second pass over most of the overpowered options, to bludgeon the power curve back down.
While this is a refreshing change over the power creep model most RPGs use (Rifts, I'm looking at you), because they set the power bar very low to begin with, most people who get into the system realize how, well, boring it is. You end up filling up all your feat slots with the "feat tax" feats which fix the broken math that's been part of 4e since the beginning (they took out stat boosting items at the last minute, which leads to a scaling decrease in power between PCs and the monster defenses they try to hit), so it's not like you don't have some competition for your feat slots, but the original criticism still remains: 4e is boring.
I'm an active member of the 4e character optimization forums, which spend their time trying to find twinkish things to exploit in the game system, and, better or worse, there's just a lot less to work with in 4e than 3e. Which is both good and bad. It's good in that it takes a lot less to balance 4e vs. 3e (though it WAS possible, unlike what you claim - I did it in the Living Planar campaign), but the downside is that, again, 4e is boring. Character building is one of the most fun parts of a roleplaying game for a lot of players, and 4e takes the power away from the players they had in 3e, and just hands them a premade character sheet, essentially. And it's getting worse - 4e Essentials is just a bunch of premade classes that you get to slap a character name on.
As you say, Skill Challenges are an abomination, and should be taken out back behind the barn and shot like Old Yeller.
Sorry, I didn't answer everything I realized.
Agreed mostly on:
Fighters finally being able to tank monsters (though the way they did it wasn't especially elegant - there's both opportunity attacks and immediate interrupts that a fighter can trigger, and they're not the same)
Minions (though they're kind of broken in a bad way - far too easy to sweep off a battlefield)
The character generator. (though they pitched it into the bin and released a horrendous online version - thank goodness for CBLoader)
Making the DM's life easier (premade monsters is good, but having monsters be completely different from PCs, rule mechanics-wise, is bad)
Disagree on:
Class progression (some higher levels have powers that are worse than ALL of the lower levels' powers, and some levels are just dead levels)
Treasure (the wishlist is awkward, magic item creation is awkward, and random treasure generation is wonky in 4e)
Healing system (healing surges are a pathetic mechanic for a variety of reasons, but if you completely ignore them, yeah healing works better in 4e)
Recent books (there aren't any - they're down to just a couple books a year now. =)
It can be hard to break into (but well worth it) alas I can only provide a UK perspective but I suspect its valid elsewhere
The main problem is finding people to game with options include
one really radical solution is to start your own games day!! I go to one that was started by a guy who wanted to play games but didn't have any so he advertised a games day. For the first few meets you need somewhere free but with luck you have an entry fee and hire a hall.
The main thing to remember is that you may need to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your perfect group. There are a lot of styles of play from the hyper stimulationist where they endlessly discuss agrarian economics and the effects that low level magic usage would have on it, to group that likes to hang out and crack poor quality jokes
try reading GM of the Rings and Darths and Droids to get a idea of different play styles (I'd give my eye teeth to be in the Darths and Droids group!!!)
There are many, many, many game systems out there that are better-written than 1st edition.
One such is Moldvay's B/X version of D&D.
That's just it.
In 3.x, a 10th level Fighter realistically has the choice of the following:
1) Move & attack
2) Attack & move
3) Full attack
4) Double move
In 4E, a 10th level Fighter has the choice of:
1) 2 at-will powers
2) Racial power
3) 3 encounter powers
4) 3 daily powers
5) 3 utility powers
6) Class powers (depending on build)
7) Movement (where to move to best utilize your class power)
And the 4E character has to make the same decision each round. The simplest character in 4E (which, granted, the Fighter is not due to the importance of movement and position) has more choices than your average Druid or Cleric in 3.x (that edition's champions of possessing a large number of possible actions). Of the 7 members of my D&D group, only about 3 of us ever got to the stage of mastery this system requires in order to play at an acceptable pace. Most other people consistently forgot they had anything other than at-will powers. One poor player who I witnessed at a D&D Encounters session never used anything other than a Melee Basic Attack. The game is simply too complicated and requires too much thinking for most people. It's just not fun for them, and why play a game if it isn't fun?
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Alternatively, for getting into the hobby, jump onto G+ and check out things like RPG+ (https://plus.google.com/116151006662155954175) or MeetUp where you can find plenty of players in your area (or playing online) who are interested in just about any game you might want to play. G+ is especially good if you are not located near a city with a game store...
If you live near any colleges or universities, there is a decent chance that a gaming club exists. Often they are lumped together with the sci-fi/fantasy club, anime club, or various other "nerd" clubs. Depending on the school, your age/gender and the specific group's dynamic, it may be more or less difficult to get into the social circle. I actually do most of my gaming with a club at a nearby women's college, despite the fact that I am (slightly) older than a typical college student, never attended the college, and never can or will attend (being male and all). All of the games they run/sponsor are open to the general public, advertised on their publicly available website, and have online forums: in theory, anyone could find them, if they were so inclined.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.