Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstarter

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SquireNed
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Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstarter

Post by SquireNed »

Open Legend is a tabletop roleplaying game with a heavy background in the Open Source movement. Unlike most tabletop games, it has a git repo, and an online rules document that is updated based on changes to said repository.

It has recently launched a Kickstarter to create formal PDF and print options for its ruleset and an accompanying setting that the system's main creator has been working on.

Rules-wise, Open Legend functions a little like a D&D-lite on the surface, but has some noteworthy differences:

Combat goes a lot quicker because it skips a damage roll step (and outcomes are determined by the quality of an attack), and instead of pre-defined spells a comprehensive list of boons and banes allows a character to activate any ability they are eligible for at any time.

In place of modifiers, the game uses small dice to supplement the core d20. Whenever a die hits its maximum value, it explodes, allowing for some great upward variability in results.

You can find the Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/62 ... -dawn-sett
(In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a stretch goal writer.)

And the site for the game itself:
http://www.openlegendrpg.com/
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raevol
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by raevol »

Ed Greenwood is working on it? Interesting!

I glanced through the rules, and they seem a bit cumbersome, but it's cool to see a p&p system get open sourced!
SquireNed
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by SquireNed »

The interesting thing is that most people classify it as rules-lite, though I could see how they could seem cumbersome.

Some of that comes from the fact that tabletop game rules tend toward the complicated.

One of the things about Open Legend is that it throws you in at the deep end: a level 1 character has almost full access to the range of abilities, and abilities open up very slowly after that.

Once you get used to it, it's very liberating, however.
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raevol
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by raevol »

The thing that kind of concerns me is that there are 8 "supernatural" attributes? Seems a little strange. But I should really read the whole rules before opening my big mouth, please don't mind me.
SquireNed
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by SquireNed »

raevol wrote:The thing that kind of concerns me is that there are 8 "supernatural" attributes? Seems a little strange. But I should really read the whole rules before opening my big mouth, please don't mind me.
It's so that magicians train in individual schools. Picture it like TES's magic instead of D&D's magic.

Because there's no distinction between what magical abilities a character has trained or hasn't (they simply choose the attribute that relates to the school/effects they prefer), they are forced to choose where they want their specializations to lie. There is some overlap (e.g. Creation and Alteration, which both have Regeneration).

The upside of that is that you don't have to worry about spell lists, just knowing what effects you can use.
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raevol
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by raevol »

I see, ok. Interesting!
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johndh
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by johndh »

After reading through the core rules, it seems pretty simply to pick up, and very versatile. The banes and boons, for example, work just as well with magic, psionics, or technology in many cases. I remember having to flip through endless pages of charts and obscure rules back in my AD&D days, so this seems vastly simpler. Granted, any given campaign setting may introduce a lot of new rules (like spaceship combat, for example), but the core seems intuitive enough. I'd have to playtest it to really know how that works out in practice, but it seems good. If I ever get back into tabletop gaming...

It would be nice to be able to type things directly into the character sheet PDF, though. I've seen forms that allow that sort of thing, but I know nothing of how they're made.
SquireNed
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Re: Open Legend: An Open Source Tabletop RPG now on Kickstar

Post by SquireNed »

Ugh, I need to get around to making one.

There's a little difficulty to it; ideally I'd be clever enough to go into Javascript and actually get a PDF that will autocalculate values, but a simple form fillable sheet is pretty easy (though it's been a long while since I've done it).
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