What does Veeky Forums think of Open Legend RPG?

What does Veeky Forums think of Open Legend RPG?
To those who're not familiar, it's a new free "rules light" classless RPG that just overshot its Kickstarter campaign by 560% with a month left to go.

Notable features, for good or worse:

No classes or races, fluff your free choice of supernatural or physical attributes and feats to create any character

Exploding dice

No trackable/expendable resources (except for hp I guess which recovers completely in a short rest)

Attributes define bonuses to d20 rolls in the form of more dice, rather than a static number

No spell list; you decide which effect ('bane' or 'boon') and/or damage you try to convey, fluff it, and roll with relevant attribute (this also applies to physical moves) against relevant attr.

Every roll must advance the story, failed or not. On a fail:
> "the player succeeds with a twist.
>- OR -
>he player fails, but the story progresses.
>(GM’s Choice)"

IMO it looks promising, but I haven't played it myself yet.
The last rule really irks me as a GM, because trying to force every roll (such as a failed knowledge roll, or a failed roll to pick a door) to advance the story is putting the rules above the story, which is what their system supposedly tries to avoid.

In their own example of the rule, a failed roll defines the contents of the next room. I feel it is a betrayal to the consistency, or rather the fairness even, of the game, that the world remains in a 'quantum state' waiting for the players to fail to lunge upon them.
This is the result of a failed lock pick attempt from the rulebook:
>"[The GM] might rule that [the rogue] is able to open the lock; however, just as he finishes the job, he begins to hear a faint hissing sound from the door. A poison gas trap!"


Home ruling it away though, the system looks very promising to me.

Other urls found in this thread:

drivethrurpg.com/product/190330/A-Star-Once-Fallen
twitter.com/AnonBabble

It looks pretty good, except I don't really like having the multitude of spellcasting attributes. I don't understand the system enough to simply rule it away though. I'd have to run a few games.

The general rule (according to the game's creator) is that players shouldn't roll for things on which failure either won't matter in the long run or won't make things more interesting.

So, for instance, if you fail to pick the lock on the door, the zombies smell you before you make it through or you take too long and the baddie on the other door completes the ritual before you can open it (defined as failure because the goal was stopping the ritual).

The "quantum state" rules look like such in the microcosm of that example, but in an actual campaign there would likely be consequences for failure. Having an extended conflict or overarching plot contribute on their own.

Oh yeah, and Open Legend is pretty good. My "we hate new things" group actually asked if we could find a way to play more of it this evening.

What would you say then, to players wanting to roll to find hidden doors, or see if anyone's sneaking on them, when no one is?
Do you simply tell them, flat out, "You take care to watch your back as you advance, no one seems to be following you.", "You spend some time searching the room, finding no hidden passage or secret openings.", without rolling?

Or a knowledge roll? By granting partially/completely wrong information?

Essentially, you can tell them flat out without rolling.

In reality, would it change the situation?

If they fail a perception roll where they would see nothing, are you going to tell them that they see something? If so, will it have a consequence other than wasting a bit of their time as they go to check it out?

Because there's no need to learn individual abilities, just having one magic attribute for everything would leave it clearly overpowered.

I'm finding it hard to generalize so I'll just use a "thought experiment" to articulate my concern.

Lets say the party had earned the attention of the Prince of Shadows through their last encounters. They're suspicious right now, and rightfully so. They want to roll an active perception check to see if someone's following them.

Situation A, D&D: No one is. They roll perception, and get low to decent scores. They are at ease. but remain alert to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, a high level thief is following them, knowing that they could've rolled higher.

Situation B, D&D: One of the prince's elite agents follows them. They roll perception, and get low to decent scores. They are at ease. but remain alert to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, a high level thief is following them, knowing that they could've rolled higher.

Situation A, OLRPG: No one is. You tell them, and they know they're fine for now.

Situation B, OLRPG: One of the prince's elite agents follows them. They roll perception, and get decent scores, and they either spot him anyway, furthering the story in one way or another, (taking this option every time means espionage on the NPC's part is impossible) or they fail, and the story progresses... how?

My point is, basically, sometimes a failure is a failure. Some scenes in the story are there to setup the next, the silence before the storm, the uncertainty of having failed your Arcana check, of not knowing if you are watched; the impending doom of not bashing the door down with moments before your aggressor catches up on you.

I like the idea of "yes, but..." or "no, and...", but it looks to me that trying to force it into every single roll, no matter what, only takes those moments away.

In those cases, the roll is more of a formality and you might decide to offer it just in case because the players asked for it.

Open Legend is a system that assumes that the GM is going to ask for the majority of rolls. It's somewhat different from the D&D philosophy in that sense: there are no universal guidelines to follow or anything like that to provide an immediate result (e.g. no DC to climb a brick wall).

In the event that players ask for a roll that is irrelevant to the story (e.g. they fail and they don't learn anything), you just keep going.

In the case of that perception roll, you are already failing forward anyway: they fail to spot the bad guy, so the plot continues as is.

The story doesn't come to a grinding halt because of the failure; the players desire to take a moment to see if they spot anyone, which is entirely separate from the story as it stands and is resolved by continuing with the story as it stands. If they succeed, then the story changes.

Failing forward doesn't mean the story changes path. It just means that the story doesn't come to a halt because of the dice.

I see. I read it as far more limiting, but I definitely agree with this philosophy now.

Basically: don't waste players' time rolling for stupid things, do not let a failed roll stagnate the game.

I've done a bit of reading on the core site. Is there any pdf released yet of the core rules. Personally I really like that you can make any sort of character based on the banes/boons stuff, combined with feats and your ability scores.

I suppose that it works better like that.

I guess when I looked at it initially, I was expecting them to simplify the magic system a lot more than they did. From what they were saying, I thought that most of the magic stuff would be added on in later.

It does look to be easy to modify and add on to, so if I have a game where magic is more limited than what they have in their setup, I could easily trim it down. For example, say I were to be using a setting like Strike Witches, each player has only one kind of magical effect they can produce. In that case, it would be more efficient to reduce it to a single casting stat, as players wouldn't be able to simply cast willy nilly.

Maybe the best solution then would be to limit them to investing points in a single school?

No, though there is the A Star Once Fallen quick start which does contain most of the basic rules. The Kickstarter is to make a formal core rules PDF, as well as fund the creation of the system creator's homebrew setting as a PDF with professional writing.

Have you seen the Boon Access feat?

For banes, you would need to be careful if you wanted to implement a similar feat, because RAW it has some major flaws with early level characters gaining access to banes that are very powerful relative to the amount of firepower they should have.

Because the Boon Access feat treats a character's effective supernatural rating as equal to the Power Level of the boon being activated, and in combat a bane is activated when the roll beats a target's relevant defense, you would have characters almost always hit with something like Death, which is a Power Level 9 bane, even with a 2nd level character.

To avoid this, you could make a magic attribute that has a catch-all effect for what they roll to activate the effect that they have.

If you are seriously reducing the number of attributes, it might behoove you to house-rule in attributes to fill the void or decrease the number of attribute points characters receive: I've messed around with non-magic settings and 40 attribute points spread pretty far across 10 attributes. By level 5 where you have ~80 points, even a character who's a specialist in certain things will have almost all non-supernatural attributes at around two or three if they are just trying to bleed off points.

I'd need to actually play the game before doing anything drastic. There's a lot of moving parts that I don't have a grasp on after simply reading it over a few times. Like I still don't have a hold on what many of the feats do in practice. My brain keeps trying to think in other systems.

Thanks for the info. you wouldn't happen to have the link to that Star Once Fallen thing then.

Different user, but here drivethrurpg.com/product/190330/A-Star-Once-Fallen

Yep, that's the one. Sorry I'm a little late in replying. I'm off for the night, but if you need anything else you might want to comment on the Kickstarter or otherwise on one of the Open Legend sites (they have a mightybell [caps?], reddit, Trello board, and a WordPress-based forum that nobody seems to use except the game's creator), since people tend to be prettty quick with answering questions.

I like it quite a bit, though I think equipment and damage needs a bit of houseruling. Ex: Rolling 0-4 points over the difficulty means you end up being able to do less damage than a miss, but at least you don't get the drawbacks.

The goals sound nice but the devil is in the implementation.

As for that dice thing, it's a currently popular design meme, in part because it's so easy to add to things. That makes it equally easy to subtract.

What's wrong with that? Unless there's only one non-magical attribute.

On success:
You can either come up with some secret thing that they stumble upon (whether that's what they were looking for or not) or just say "you successfully ascertain that there's fuck all of note here" and give a little description about the make-up of the area and how it is that they can definitively know that.

On failure:
They can find a random sneaker by detecting his knife in their back or the sudden absence of a coin purse (which may have actually been lost some time ago) and the same "successfully ascertain" thing works just the same here.

For a knowledge roll, just spin out some bullshit and it can be true but not relevant or relevant but of questionable veracity, or irrelevant bullshit depending on your capriciousness.

The failure doesn't have to be directly related to the aims of the player, does it? You can be checking for the elite agent, and instead you encounter an urchin doing urchin things. Though I agree that it doesn't have to be always something major tied to a roll, and is correct about the ideal application of the philosophy. It arose because of cases where you have a thing that the party needs to roll to progress, and then they end up failing the roll and it's like "now what?". That's what you're intended to avoid.

As I explained above, it's unnecessary complexity for specific campaigns where magic is quite limited. Plus, it throws off the balance of attributes if you try to do a low or no magic campaign.

Not every system needs to support all campaign paradigms, though.

looks like a polished game, and though I don't gravitate towards rules lightness (based on the character sheet, it doesn't look that light) I only really worry if the system is trying to do something new and fresh or something classic in a good way.

Here's one thing though
>Every roll must advance the story, failed or not. On a fail
I throw out these sorts of metarules straight away. It's good to try new things, and new ways of storytelling, but there's also no point adding needless restrictions to storytelling. If moving 'THE story' along is a virtue, it can be done without rules and is why the GM is there.

I understand this. My difficulties with the system were founded on the pretense it was described to me on. One of the main draws being that it would be easily modifiable to a large variety of campaign paradigms. It's not as easily modifiable as was initially presented to me, and thus my complaints with it.

I still find it an interesting system, and worth looking into. I also still feel that the number of magic attributes could lead to it being clumsy in practice, though I don't have experience to substantiate this claim. For example, while I somewhat despise the 6-stat system and its copies, it's easy to explain and is within the number of things that a normal person can keep track of in their head. This system has between ten and eighteen attributes that a character can have. From what I see, an average character will have something like twelve or thirteen attributes to worry about. This is more than double that of the six-stat system. What it gains in precision and separation of duties, it loses in ease of memorization. Not to mention the fact that you won't always have the same attributes to worry about as everyone else at the table, which makes referencing against other players difficult.

The system presents itself as being a "rules light" base to build off of when in reality, it's not that light and actually comes with quite a bit of inherent complexity built into it. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing that it has these things, but it isn't quite what it's been sold as. The banes and boons system is quite a neat idea. It does simplify from the paradigm of Dungeons and Dragons, especially 3.5/Pathfinder. It, however, still has a lot of information contained within it compared to a few of the rules light "pick up and play" systems I've played before.

Maybe I got the idea that it was a system to be built upon from them saying that they would be selling products that you add on top of the core rules. Maybe I got it from the last Open Legend thread

Got a PDF or is this another shilling thread?

It's free on their site.

Those storytelling rules seem to be inspired from apocalypse world-like games. But they feel half-assed.

The cruch feels like the right ammount but the dice you use are very counter intuitive. One of the tables goes from 1d6 to 1d8 to 1d10 to 2d6 for example, instead of using a d12, that would allow for a more or less even spread.

Also it still uses a d20, the shittiest dice imho, and that likely only was put in to pander to players who only play dnd. Replacing it with d6s or d10s would be a milestone improvement.

I have ran a lot of Savage Worlds and exploding dice were something I didn't like about that game, but theye where pretty much needed.

The perks and flaws rules are pretty neat. But a quick look at the perks show they're not as easy to convert to other settings than medieval fantasy, a shame because some could fit in every setting by just changing a few words. So it's a general use for everything system, but it isn't formulated like one, see GURPS and SW for how it could be improved.

The open source part is promising but they have a long way to go.

It's there to alleviate the retry mentality. Or the "Bob failed so now Sam will try"

I think you're slightly missing the fact that it combines stats and skills into attributes. In the 6 stat system there are typically 4-12 other skills to worry about as well. Along with class powers, spells, etc. This boils it all down into just attributes.

that's less of a problem than introducing spontaneous complications forcing everything onto a narrative cruise missile
If a GM wants to fail forward, or reserve roles for events with meaningful outcomes, that's something they decide to do when they find that it helps, not when the rules say it.
Those rules are going to necessarily be interpreted in ways that devalue their emphasis anyway.

The reason why shilling threads are so popular is because idiots like you keep bumping them just to complain about how popular they are.

If you want them to die, deny them exposure.

>while I somewhat despise the 6-stat system and its copies
Honestly, I think that the only real problem with it is that it's overused due to popularity, and applied in cases where it really shouldn't be. It works out pretty well in Mutants and Masterminds though.

While that's fair enough, remember that what a campaign paradigm can mean is different to different people. Consider, for example, Song of Swords. It supports a vast array of settings with wide ranges of magic presence and indeed with vastly different magic systems, to the extent that the core setting has several to choose from and model your own on. Yet it is pretty narrow in play style: If you don't want combat that takes a reasonable portion of the game's time and which is reasonably realistic in mechanism and consequence, then it's not a good choice. Perhaps this setting endeavors to be varied in the opposite way from SoS.

Well, I haven't really studied the PDF to any real degree yet so this is just speculation though.

Sounds like glorified freeform and I never understood the point of such systems.

> ten ability scores
> saving throws
> D&D 4e-ish bullshit
> feats and perks as separate things
> shittons of magic-related stats
> "legend points" are almost certainly meta-narrative bullshit
> unironically using hit points

Looks pretty fucking bad to be honest. Just another D&D rip-off trying too hard to get on the "failing forward" bandwagon. And falling off of it. Hard.

Oh, and:

> exploding dice
> d20 mechanic
> abstract wealth mechanic that looks even worse than d20 modern's
> (((challenge ratings)))

It's not, it's even worse. It's basically D&D and Dungeon World's bastard love child with some FantasyCrap thrown in for good measure. At least it uses one of the few good parts of Dungeon World (the abstract encumbrance mechanics which actually worked fairly well). The rest of it is just the dumbest shit imaginable.

>> D&D 4e-ish bullshit

This line alone singles you out as a moron.

> D&D 4e-ish bullshit

Suddenly I'm interested in this game. What's 4e-ish about it?

>ten ability scores
Eighteen, but no skills. Seems like too many to me as well, but it depends on what your playstyle is like, I reckon.

>D&D 4e-ish bullshit
Gonna have to elaborate on this.

>shittons of magic-related stats
As long as not every character needs all of them, seems fine to me.

>saving throws
>meta-narrative bullshit
>hit points
These are perfectly acceptable for certain types of games.

>exploding dice
Literally nothing wrong with this.

>abstract wealth mechanic that looks even worse than d20 modern's
Not like you've seen enough to actually know that, is it?

The defense, and "attribute versus" bullshit. Also the HP bloat. keep in mind I did say "ish"

I also fail to see how not liking D&D 4e singles me out as an "idiot" but I guess if my favorite edition was the only game not to get picked up by another company, I'd be pretty pissy too.

>As long as not every character needs all of them, seems fine to me.

So they are unnecessary and could be restructured as skills. Got it.

> These are perfectly acceptable for certain types of games.

No, they are shit, and automatically disqualify you as a roleplaying game because it is now a storytelling game.

Exploding dice are unbalanced as fuck. Just look at Savage Worlds, perhaps the shittiest game ever when it comes to exploding dice. In fact I don't think there is a single Veeky Forums-approved RPG that uses them. They are a sign of lack of bounded accuracy which is inherently a sign of shitty design.

So yeah, you're wrong and have no argument. Sorry.

>The defense, and "attribute versus" bullshit

Ah, I see, you don't like consistent mechanics.

Thought it was actually 4e like in gameplay.

>kickststarter

Translation: This thread is self-advertising


Unless there's an entirely free print of the game (e.g. maybe artless, but all the text is there) so I could actually preview the rules and quality of writing, I can't say what I think of the game, or whether or not I'd even consider it worth the purchase. I'm only assuming this is going to be a commercial game since its author is asking for crowdfunding.

The fact that you consider "4e" enough of a negative qualifier signifies that your critical skills about role playing games are subpar, and your elaboration on that point only consolidates that deduction.
Try playing some better games in your life, kiddo.

>I also fail to see how not liking D&D 4e singles me out as an "idiot"
You're not an idiot for not like D&D (of any particular edition) but for seeing some arbitrary thing and saying "it's like 4e!" as if it's sufficient as both descriptor and criticism.

>and could be restructured as skills. Got it.
How exactly would you restructure them as skills?

>automatically disqualify you as a roleplaying game because it is now a storytelling game.
Playing a role and telling a story are mutually exclusive now?

>Exploding dice are unbalanced as fuck.
Not inherently. They're the same shit as criticals.

>In fact I don't think there is a single Veeky Forums-approved RPG that uses them.
Magical Burst is the immediate and obvious example, though it's true that the mechanics aren't why it's liked.

>you're wrong and have no argument.
Well, I wasn't really trying to have an argument, but I'd like to point out that I could say the same of you.

>Unless there's an entirely free print of the game
Did you even google the name of the game? Literally the first result is their site and the whole game is right there.

nah, I like consistent mechanics, just not this shitty redundant d20 rip-off garbage.

Plenty of games have consistent mechanics without being like 4e, the origin of the "using constitution to make attack rolls" meme because it ables Con v.s. AC bullshit. Fuck that.

All assertions, no truth. Yeah being like 4e is a negative qualifier just like being like Pathfinder is a negative qualifier.

> play some better games in your life
> implying I play D&D

>Playing a role and telling a story are mutually exclusive now?

You're a stupid fuck. In a roleplaying game you take the roll of your character. Luck mechanics mean you are making metanarrative decisions for your character. Hence, you are taking the roll of a writer, not the character. Hence, a storytelling game not a roleplaying game.

> Not inherently. They're the same shit as criticals.

Except criticals are bounded, usually. Most exploding dice allow the dice to explode to infinity with no context for what happens. Or allowing a 1 in 400 chance for a player to do something impossible because he rolled a 40 on his d20 check.

> Magical Burst is the immediate and obvious example, though it's true that the mechanics aren't why it's liked.

Exactly. Also Magical Burst is a shitty game.

bump

You're over thinking it and might be autistic

>So they are unnecessary and could be restructured as skills.
This sentence reveals your idiot level.

I like my homebrew more. Both share some similarities but the things I don't like in this are different in mine.

Interesting game anyway.

>This sentence reveals your idiot level.

How so.

You may as well look at an apple orchard and say "there are no oranges, so we should instead plant trees with prettier flowers". You have a vision that you expect to see, and when a thing deviates from it, you do not endeavor to understand, but instead merely grow wroth.

What, after all, is a skill? What is an attribute? What defines one as inherently separate from another? Recall that we are talking about a system, not a permutation of a given other system.

"HP Bloat"?

You realize that Open Legend is liked by many people who play it because it gets away from having the immense HP pools that D&D has: the only way to increase HP is by attributes, and the cap is ~3 times the average starting value if you go all-in for that.

It's all free on the website, and you can also check out A Star Once Fallen, which is an introductory adventure (not quite to the quality level of what the Kickstarter wants to provide, though).

It starts out bloated and most RPG players are casuals who never make it past level 6 anyway so the HP bloat doesn't really matter. It's easy-tier RPG combat made for pussy-boys who can't handle playing a rael game where their characters actually have a chance of dying.

64. 64 is the maximum amount of hp possivble. Due to exploding dice, it is entirely possible - and actually probable - that any character could be felled in a small number of blows. It's actually quite lethal at all character levels.

>Every roll must advance the story, failed or not. On a fail:
>> "the player succeeds with a twist.
>>- OR -
>>he player fails, but the story progresses.
>>(GM’s Choice)"
Like any other game.
Except Dungeon World.

>Every roll must advance the story, failed or not.

Isn't that kind of how all games work? I mean, is there ever a time when you are faced with, say, a locked door the rogue can't pick and the party just calls off the whole adventure?

As I've always understood it, a failed roll means that shit just got tougher. A locked door that can't be picked means your party's barbarian is going to kick it down, and suddenly you're going to have the enemy on high alert and the dungeon just got tougher. If you fail your climb roll, instead of scaling that wall and making a quick exit from the city, you now have to take the more dangerous route of dodging the guards. In the game I'm running now, the player got in a fight with an orc and lost, so instead of dying she wakes up in a house taken care of by an old lady, totally stripped of valuables and has to spend the next few days resting. The story is going to keep going forward, but now she's going forward dirt poor and several days behind.

I honestly can't think of a time where a failed roll means the story doesn't keep going forwards. Sideways for a short time, perhaps, but always forwards in the long run.

>I mean, is there ever a time when you are faced with, say, a locked door the rogue can't pick and the party just calls off the whole adventure?
There are some DMs like that. You don't succeed, so you either roll until your hands bleed or fuck off. Worst case scenario: they were dumb enough to make this roll crucial and there's no way around making it

>There are some DMs like that. You don't succeed, so you either roll until your hands bleed or fuck off. Worst case scenario: they were dumb enough to make this roll crucial and there's no way around making it

That sounds really awful. Whenever I create a challenge for my players I always try to think of at least three ways the players could overcome it. Going up against an immovable object isn't very fun.

>That sounds really awful
It is. So, essentially, the whole "fail but the story progresses" is really a Best Practices thing encoded into rules and should probably be read "Situation changes whether you succeed or not, just differently"