“Previous College” fantasy tends to discuss with video games tinged with parts of sword and sorcery fiction. These are your video games with Conan-like vagabonds and harmful magic. Nevertheless, time strikes each ahead, and for a lot of, old fashioned fantasy now refers to movies like Willow or Ladyhawke the place magic can safely be wielded by the protagonists and all the pieces takes on a medieval really feel. Legend In The Mist by designers Amit Moshe, Erin Aviram, Itamar Karbian and Kelly Black payments itself as “rustic fantasy” aiming for someplace in between the 10-foot-pole-from-death of OSR video games and the excessive fantasy heroics of contemporary D&D. Son of Oak Sport Studio despatched the core PDFs for me to assessment. Does the sport slay the dragon it got down to discover? Let’s play to seek out out.
Legend In The Mist makes use of the identical primary system as its predecessors Metropolis of Mist and :Otherscape. Characters are constructed from 4 themes which replicate an essential ingredient of the character, akin to their coaching or relationships or a cool magic merchandise they possess. These themes present phrases or phrases referred to as tags that have an effect on the quantity a participant provides when they should roll the cube. The sport makes use of a PbtA type stage of success; 10 or higher means you do the factor, 6 or much less means you endure penalties and 7-9 means you do the factor but additionally endure penalties.
This isn’t too totally different from earlier video games within the Son of Oak portfolio. What it does is additional refine the system. The sport has at all times been a mix of PbtA mechanics combined with parts of Destiny. This time, the designers lean again towards the Destiny aspect of issues. Cube rolls are cut up into three sorts; easy, fast and detailed. Easy rolls are checked to see if the tag is powerful sufficient to grant narrative permission. Fast rolls are cross/fail checks. Detailed checks whole up the facility modifier and use it to trigger numerous results. The system is pretty easy however for these on the lookout for examples of the totally different rolls and how much penalties, there’s a large ebook of examples that may break down all the pieces from failing to climb a cliff to what you would possibly get for impressing a duke.
Detailed checks are additionally how the sport handles fight and battle. Antagonists have particular standing checks at a sure stage to be overcome, akin to injured-5 or scared-3. When gamers hit these thresholds, the battle is over. These results are additionally how gamers replicate damage, which presents for fascinating concepts if a personality may be bodily effective however maintain their fear-3 of dragons for a very long time after a battle. Very like tags, I appreciated this refinement to the idea of Destiny’s penalties. It makes battles quicker however nonetheless offers choices for gamers who wish to do extra than simply grind out an opponent’s hit factors.
Examples are one of many massive issues within the ebook and a delicate shift helps make this recreation extra accessible. It kicks off with a protracted comedian ebook type pattern journey that not solely explains the principles however provides gamers a giant chuck of the attractive artwork inside the ebook to take pleasure in. Earlier video games assumed that gamers would construct every of their themes from scratch and provided pre-built ideas as a building help. Right here, the sport leads with archetypes which have many of the themes pre-chosen to make it simpler for gamers popping out of sophistication primarily based fantasy video games. There are further themes too, so if you wish to swap out one thing from the knight archetype to present them some magic, it’s quite simple.
The designers additionally provide a number of choices in terms of magic. Most kinds of magic can be utilized immediately as a theme to maintain issues fairly easy. However the designers additionally know that many gamers need various kinds of magic to really feel totally different so that they embrace a number of totally different colleges with totally different mechanics within the ebook. This additionally applies to the “energy ranges” within the recreation which tie in to the kinds of themes gamers can select. Sport masters might begin a low energy recreation by saying solely origin themes can be found to start out or they may kick off one thing extra implausible by letting a participant construct a dragon PC and it might nonetheless be in keeping with everybody else’s characters.
The one space the place Legend In The Mist shares one thing with Destiny that some would possibly see as a unfavourable is the way it handles character growth. Whereas utilizing unfavourable tags is rewarded by theme development which unlock particular strikes and talents, this isn’t a recreation of linear development. Characters develop, themes change and the story strikes ahead, however for those who’re a participant that likes to see your dude’s numbers get larger or your capacity listing develop, this isn’t a recreation the place that occurs a lot. I felt my characters develop and develop as we performed however I do know some people actually like spending XP on the finish of the day.
Backside Line: Legend In The Mist refines a design to deal with an underexplored facet of fantasy gaming.
