Anyone played Open Legend? I'm thinking of moving systems for my fantasy 5E campaign, as it's too rules heavy for about half the group and has too boring martials and not enough options for the other half. Open Legend looked relatively interesting as a rules-lite ish game with more options than DnD. The alternative is 4E or Strike where it's much more like a video game and my players are all gamers.
I've just had one player complain about how his fighter was boring, one complain her ranger just shot her crossbow and did nothing else every turn and two others be a bit confused by the rules in general as they are new. The rules unfamiliarity can be overcome but i feel like as 2/3 of the group has directly complained then it might be time to look for alternatives.
It's free on their site. I don't know if it is up to date. There is a HTML version of the rules on the site which is.
Hunter Roberts
>one complain her ranger just shot her crossbow and did nothing else every turn Impress on the player that it is possible to do things other than what is explicitly stated in the book. That's one of the DM's jobs, coming up with rulings on how to handle that shit.
Jaxon Myers
>shill trying his best just give up you fuckin' retard
Justin Brooks
Yeah, I mean the thing is then I have to come up with environments and battles that make it obvious. Also, having to ask the GM for every action as a martial is just a facet of DnD I hate. Spell casters have a huge list of spells and effects, whereas a martial has to improvise everything (and ends up being less effective).
Kayden Harris
Hell, Pathfinder even makes it clear that martials are shit and they will never make them as good as casters as it goes against their interpretation of the dnd philosophy
Wyatt Reed
I mean, if that's a big problem for you guys, 4e and Strike! (and other 4e-like like 13th Age, Gamma World, etc.) are bretty gud.
But I haven't read Open Legend yet so maybe it's also good?
Landon Peterson
Yeah I was also looking at Strike - was just wondering if Open Legend was worth a look too.
Julian Taylor
I'm actually going to start running it for my group, starting this Saturday. Session 0 was fun as we hashed out character concepts and setting details, and I helped guide them through a bit of character creation. There's an online character builder that makes it all a lot simpler to run through for first-time players; Roll20's Open Legend character sheet works well for it, too. Overall they seem excited to try the characters they've built and I'm looking forward to putting theory to practice.
There's a possible issue on the horizon, however: a consistent problem player seems to be trying to inject some power creep by being intentionally vague with some of their abilities. So, main piece of advice I have is to make sure that players start with a character concept already in mind, especially including specific details about how they use their Extraordinary Attributes, and work from there. I think the rules already tell you to do this, but it bears repeating. The Boon/Bane/Feat design is freeform and 'effect-based', like Mutants & Masterminds or Marvel Heroic--and like those games you need to have a firm hand as GM, and proactively involve yourself in making sure everything makes sense and nobody tries to cheese anything too hard. It's important to be able to say no when you need to.
Matthew Price
Nice try you fucking shill piece of shit, get the fuck outta here
Matthew Myers
Shitpost harder, maybe your wasted time will start meaning something.
Maybe everybody will come out ahead on this and you'll burst a blood vessel in your eye. To our delight you'll stop shitting up a thread, and you'll finally have something happen in your life to break your soul-crushing monotony. Exciting!
Evan Morgan
Oh look this shill is fucking furious that nobody gives a fuck about the product he's pushing. Maybe he'll fuck off back to the suicide hotline where he belongs
Jaxson Campbell
Could you just go away and troll the D&D threads or something?
Nicholas Nelson
Really took that 'shitpost harder' to heart, huh? I'm earnestly a bit surprised a newfag like you knows how to sage.
By the way, several of the 'shills' you were talking about an hour and a half ago (by the way, get a hobby) were actually talking about running D&D and not Open Legend. Way to fuck up being belligerent.
Evan White
Kill yourself shill rat
Eli Parker
Thank you! Yeah, I am aware of the power creep that can occur in more free form games. I'm quite lucky in that they are all quite well established characters - they would be a port from 5E, we've done about 16 sessions so far and are level 7. We've been having a ton of fun with 5E but some of the bits of the system we don't like are becoming more than just minor annoyances.
Jeremiah Rodriguez
Giving it a read-through, I'm past the example characters.
So far it looks good for a class-less system, but I think in combat it has a very good chance of falling into the "I have 1 optimal action I always want to do" trap., and also lets you do things like create actions you only have like 50% chance to succeed on. I need to look into it deeper, as said, I'm only past character creation.
Parker Miller
It's interesting you think that, I can totally see for some groups how they would just want to use their highest stat over and over. I'm hoping that my players would use more creative applications but we shall see.
On that note, what are other good class-less systems?
Nathaniel Scott
I like Savage Worlds, with some tweaks.
It also has exploding dice like Open Legend, as well as Dice as Stat, but doesn1t use a d20.
It's actually quite similar, thinking about it, except a lot simpler.
Anthony Cooper
GURPS FATE Savage Worlds BRP-based stuff SenZar
Justin Cox
GURPS is on my shortlist of systems to try, but it seems quite heavy on the book-keeping side so I am not sure I really want to switch mid-campaign. I'm tempted to run a sci-fi gurps campaign at some stage.
I might actually give Savage Worlds a look then, if it's similiar. I've never really had a look at it in earnest but I've heard good things. What are the tweaks you tend to run with?
Alexander Cooper
Not him, but when I run Savage Worlds I dump the card-based initiative system and run with 1d12, roll Swimming/Climbing/etc into an all-purpose Athletics skill and swap a few firearm statblocks around for more modern settings.
Xavier Smith
I dislike vigor being its own thing and roll it into strength. This makes Strength have an offensive and a Defensive bonus (dmg and toughness vs Agility's attack and dodge).
I remove skills, you default to attributes instead (you can still take skill related edges that "kick in" when you use a skill, and get a few for free). This makes attributes more important.
I use Savage Armory for weapons. This kills the Katana meme. d12 initiative is not a bad idea either, if you dislike the cards. Since the cards have some downtime use, it's not a bad idea to have a deck around anyway.
Sebastian Lee
>I remove skills, you default to attributes instead (you can still take skill related edges that "kick in" when you use a skill, and get a few for free). >This makes attributes more important.
But almost all your derived stats are based on attributes, isn't that important enough? Not to mention melee damage is determined by Strength.
Oh, I forgot: I allow Fighting to be linked to Strength as well as Agility because fuck Agility being such a godstat. Plus I like the idea of swole motherfuckers just brute-forcing their way past an enemy's defenses.
Grayson Thompson
Thanks, will make a note of this - I'll prob run a one shot in each system I choose as candidate.
I'm not too bothered about katanas as none of my players are weebs
Jaxon Ortiz
>But almost all your derived stats are based on attributes, isn't that important enough? Not to mention melee damage is determined by Strength.
It makes them more important for out of combat. Your Strength 12 brawny asshole can hit people really well with a sword, but can't lift for shit makes no sense to me. Skills acting as something that builds on top of your attributes instead of it only influencing their cost feels more natural (again, to me).
David Miller
>I'm not too bothered about katanas as none of my players are weebs
I'm bothered about them because they are ridiculous. "easily bisects a knight wearing plate armor" ridiculous.
Other weapons also make no sense, where Armor Piercing 1 and bonus damage 1 somehow are valued at the same rate.
Henry Morales
There isn't a skill for Lifting, that is a case for actually rolling attributes. Same way Agility is employed for dodging high explosive blasts, or Vigor is used for resisting disease. I don't think you quite grasp the system, and with something like Savage Worlds you really should before cutting bits out and tinkering with it.
Kevin Cox
>I dislike vigor being its own thing and roll it into strength. >This makes Strength have an offensive and a Defensive bonus (dmg and toughness vs Agility's attack and dodge). >I remove skills, you default to attributes instead (you can still take skill related edges that "kick in" when you use a skill, and get a few for free). >This makes attributes more important. Just skimmed a bit of Open Legend, and now that you've said this I'm seeing some even stronger parallels between it and Savage Worlds--like, that's practically the core of Open Legend.
Ryan Edwards
I admit, it's been a while since I played, and the example was a spur of the moment thing.
In practice the changes worked, it simplified and quickened character creation, made stats more balanced in both in and out of combat, and made the characters proficient at wider areas of skill, making everyone feel generally more competent.
Daniel Wright
I'm definitely going to check out Savage Worlds then - it's been around for longer and has more books so is likely better balanced etc... Am still interested to hear about Open Legend but it does seem like very few people have actually played it.
Oliver Nguyen
Okay, I read through it. Now I feel even more convinced that the way to go for combat is focusing on a single attack action. Since Banes don't deal damage and can be shaken off, AND you get to apply a Bane anyway if you beat the target's defense by 10. So ensuring you get a high attack is your most important goal, everything else feels secondary.
It feels like attempting anything without some feats supporting it is a bad idea. for any of your max level boons you have less than 50% chance to invoke them, for example, which makes it a risky proposition, to say the least.
I'd need to invest more time to see what builds I could come up with (first thought is that the DoT Bane combined with the double bane feat could be a good way to actually make a versatile character).
That said, if your players don't optimize, I think you can have fun with the system. It needs some sort of glossary (that I hope I didn't miss) that lets you see the boons/banes grouped by level of your attributes. Also, you'll be spending a lot of time looking shit up.
Carson Murphy
Yeah, I might give it a shot and put a glossary together. Savage worlds does look very similar too.
Ryder Bennett
A followup, after mulling it over.
If I had to put into words why I prefer 4e/Strike! approach it's this:
The way it's set up, you'll really only be able to do what you focus on reliably. There'll be a bunch of tangential stuff that you could attempt, but 90% of the time won't be worth the risk of failing and doing nothing. You could consider those your "encounter" powers, except there's no guarantee you can use them even once/encounter.
This means that it's basically only ends up superior to the Strike!/4e system in obscuring info. If anything, your characters are less broadly competent, since 4e doesn't have such a strict limit on what effects you can apply with your improvised actions. Also, powers are allowed to be a lot more complex than what you can do with banes/boons anyway. There's also the fact that classes and roles give everyone a well defined niche in a fight, which I think encourages good dynamics for gameplay, but I know some people prefer classless.
These are just my impressions, but I feel like whoever designed this looked at "how do we make a classless 4e that doesn't shatter my immersion with arbitrary daily/encounter powers" and not actually making a good game.
Isaac Sanchez
Thanks for the thoughts user. I feared something like that would be the case, I've never really played classless systems so I have very little experience on what makes them good or not. I think my group will prefer Strike, or maybe dnd 4E but I would need to get a good read of the books as there's an awful lot of content.
I'll also look into GURPS and Savage Worlds as they look like they are well designed.
Logan Martin
>Open Legend looked relatively interesting as a rules-lite ish game with more options than DnD.
So what are these options for Open Legend martials?
I'm curious because I'm compiling a list of fun martial stuff that doesn't veer off into "war magic" too much.
Sebastian Adams
You should still try it I think. It may end up being good for your group. Again, these are just my first impressions and I didn't crunch it out. I may be absolutely wrong.
There's technically no "martial/caster" split since everything can be fluffed as tech or martial arts or whatever. However, if you take it at face value and make a character who can only access non-exceptional attributes, you can still use a lot of boons/banes, and can do just about anything with perks.
Thomas Hughes
Yeah, I'm definitely going to try it but I was wondering if there was something weird lurking in the rules and you're absolutely right. I'll organise one shots for all the systems I wanna try and get my players to vote.
Jose Wood
Good luck and report back if you feel like it, I'm interested how it goes.
Brandon Hall
>how do we make a classless 4e that doesn't shatter my immersion with arbitrary daily/encounter powers That's actually a good design goal.
Cooper Hall
A good design goal defines itself by "how do I make a game that does X" not by "how do I make game that doesn't do X".
And again, only personal opinion heavily influenced by my preferences, but this game shows exactly the dangers of the second approach.
Samuel Scott
Thanks for the discussion user - I'll definitely report if I get a chance. I'm not sure when I'll get to play it.
Ryan Williams
4e is about as rules heavy, with a cleaner core system with the powers but more modifiers and situational bonuses to keep in mind. Strike! seems like it would work well for what you describe though.