Legend In The Mist Reveals A Retro Fantasy Feel

“Old School” fantasy tends to refer to games tinged with elements of sword and sorcery fiction. These are your games with Conan-like vagabonds and dangerous magic. However, time moves every forward, and for many, old school fantasy now refers to films like Willow or Ladyhawke where magic can safely be wielded by the protagonists and everything takes on a medieval feel. Legend In The Mist by designers Amit Moshe, Erin Aviram, Itamar Karbian and Kelly Black bills itself as “rustic fantasy” aiming for somewhere in between the 10-foot-pole-from-death of OSR games and the high fantasy heroics of modern D&D. Son of Oak Game Studio sent the core PDFs for me to review. Does the game slay the dragon it set out to find? Let’s play to find out.

Legend In The Mist uses the same basic system as its predecessors City of Mist and :Otherscape. Characters are built from four themes which reflect an important element of the character, such as their training or relationships or a cool magic item they possess. These themes provide words or phrases called tags that affect the number a player adds when they need to roll the dice. The game uses a PbtA style level of success; 10 or better means you do the thing, 6 or less means you suffer consequences and 7-9 means you do the thing but also suffer consequences.

This isn’t too different from previous games in the Son of Oak portfolio. What it does is further refine the system. The game has always been a blend of PbtA mechanics mixed with elements of Fate. This time, the designers lean back toward the Fate side of things. Dice rolls are split into three kinds; simple, quick and detailed. Simple rolls are checked to see if the tag is strong enough to grant narrative permission. Quick rolls are pass/fail checks. Detailed checks total up the power modifier and use it to cause various effects. The system is fairly simple but for those looking for examples of the different rolls and what kind of consequences, there’s a giant book of examples that can break down everything from failing to climb a cliff to what you might get for impressing a duke.

Detailed checks are also how the game handles combat and conflict. Antagonists have specific status checks at a certain level to be overcome, such as injured-5 or scared-3. When players hit those thresholds, the conflict is over. Those effects are also how players reflect injury, which offers for interesting ideas if a character might be physically fine but hold their fear-3 of dragons for a long time after a battle. Much like tags, I liked this refinement to the concept of Fate’s consequences. It makes battles faster but still provides options for players who want to do more than just grind out an opponent’s hit points.

Examples are one of the big things in the book and a subtle shift helps make this game more accessible. It kicks off with a long comic book style sample adventure that not only explains the rules but gives players a big chuck of the gorgeous art within the book to enjoy. Previous games assumed that players would build each of their themes from scratch and offered pre-built concepts as a construction aid. Here, the game leads with archetypes that have most of the themes pre-chosen to make it easier for players coming out of class based fantasy games. There are additional themes too, so if you want to swap out something from the knight archetype to give them some magic, it’s very simple.

The designers also offer a few options when it comes to magic. Most types of magic can be used directly as a theme to keep things pretty straightforward. But the designers also know that many players want different types of magic to feel different so they include a few different schools with different mechanics in the book. This also applies to the “power levels” in the game which tie in to the types of themes players can choose. Game masters could start a low power game by saying only origin themes are available to start or they could kick off something more fantastic by letting a player build a dragon PC and it would still be in line with everyone else’s characters.

The one area where Legend In The Mist shares something with Fate that some might see as a negative is how it handles character development. While using negative tags is rewarded by theme advancement which unlock special moves and abilities, this isn’t a game of linear advancement. Characters grow, themes change and the story moves forward, but if you’re a player that likes to see your dude’s numbers get bigger or your ability list grow, this is not a game where that happens much. I felt my characters grow and develop as we played but I know some folks really like spending XP at the end of the day.

Bottom Line: Legend In The Mist refines a design to handle an underexplored aspect of fantasy gaming.

 

[Valetudo]

Wtf is pbta?

 

[Distracted DM]

Wtf is pbta?

Powered by the Apocalypse, a tabletop roleplaying game engine/system.

 

[Valetudo]

 

[VHawkwinter]

Wtf is pbta?

Games like the Avatar RPG, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, etc.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

TLDR: Seemed interesting on paper, but had a hard time with rules & solo play. Still interested in playing with people one day, but likely won't try to run a game myself.

DISCLAIMER: Please, for the love of god, I am not asking for help or an explanation. I read the rule book, I looked at their example, I watched their youtube videos. I'm just sharing my experience.

When I first found out about this game, I was super intrigued by the tag mechanic, played the tutorial game, and obsessed over it for almost a week. I really liked that the mechanics made a character's story relevant to the game play, as well as the idea of a character's evolution is both of mechanically & fictionally significant. I also liked the idea of not having to look through a list of of moves in playbooks, or feeling constrained by the playbooks (yes, I know playbooks aren't suppose to be, but it certain feels like it does).

However, the lot of my enthusiasm cooled off when I actually tried to engage with the game. I had trouble reading through the rule book—maybe because English isn't my first language, but I found it difficult to comprehend parts, so I had to re-read multiple times. The game was a lot more mechanically complex than I originally thought—in particular, found statuses really difficult to wrap my head around.

Then, I tried to do a little solo run. Trying to write tags were actually a lot harder than I thought. I always had trouble with writing summaries, and making or choosing tags (or deciding which tags don't gef selected) for my character was not fun. Once my character was created, I struggled a lot with tag management—deciding which tags were relevant or not relevant was a lot harder than I thought. Each roll really took me out of the fiction in a way that I don't feel like Starforged or DND did. Yes, looking through playbooks in Starforged can be a bit annoying at times, but once the move was found, playbooks were informative enough to guide me through what to do next. My brief interaction with LitM really gave be an appreciation for PbTA playbooks.

All that said, I'm still interested in playing the game with an actual group one day.

 

[BenjaminPey]

As a long time player and enjoyer of City of Mist, though somewhat disappointed in Otherscape, I'd say Legend in the Mist will (and already began to) occupy a lofty slot in my gaming schedule for years to come.

The core of what I like in the Mist games is perfectly preserved: a system designed around the positive reinforcement of the most enjoyable and useful themes for each player, in order to give characters true emotional and personal arcs through the shared story, made of well-timed changes in self-imposed goals, and numerous dilemmas.
The standard mechanics around tags and statuses are there to put meat on the bones of the scenes, ready to give weight and meaning to any details you want to highlight or emphasize. It's one of the most direct and natural way to translate fiction into mechanics I've encountered in forty years of roleplaying.

As to what LitM, specifically, brings to the table, I'd say its chapter on Magic and the various ways and means it provides to make your own magic system is top tier. The themebooks are also well thought-out (way better than in Otherscape), and the various kits really useful to come up with any kind of character you want. And of course, the art is delightful (Alejandra Piñal has done a fantastic job, in particular, she gave this book a unique touch, a strong and striking identity, all by herself).

I'd recommand the game to anyone eager to play to see what happens.

 

[robowieland]

I ran City of Mist for my AP crew. While I enjoyed the game, I felt like sometimes the PbtA influences and the Fate influences were pushing against each other. One of them had to go and Otherscape shows that getting rid of moves for the most part is the right call.

Reading this reminded me of reading Dungeon World in that it helped me grasp a lot of stuff about the system by putting it in basic fantasy terms.

 

[aramis erak]

Wtf is pbta?

Any game based upon the rule system of Apocalypse World, not quite synonymous with AWE (Apocalpyse World Engine). PBTA is generally a wider term, but the narrower AWE isn't that much narrower.
Key aspects (pun intended) of AWE:

• Move Rolls: 2d6+asset vs ≤6, 7⋯9, 10+, for fail, complicated success, and full success, respectively.
• limited aspect list with low numbers
• playbook character sheet, just answer a few questions for Char Gen
• Moves
  • "To do it, do it!" To use the mechanical move, your character must do some recognizable variation of that move in the fiction.
  • There are a certain number of moves all characters get.
  • Each playbook has playbook's archetype-specific moves.
  • If it's not a move, it gets handled by "Say Yes"
• Say Yes, or Roll the Dice for the move. Noting that you only get to roll the dice if you did a move.
• Narrate until you're done, you've triggered a move, or you do something that requires/triggers/depends upon action by another.

PBTA can be seen to include a wide range of games changing some part of that formula.

 

[Retros_x]

I backed it because I was a player in a City of Mist game and really enjoyed the systems - but I really hate superheroes. To see this system refined for fantasy made me very excited and I backed. The whole tag system and character development system scratches some itch in my brain I can't really put a finger on. I can't really name what it makes sounding so intriguing to me. I think the adapability and flexibility of the system really hits a "good design" feel good button in my brain. If this game will play good I can imagine it being a staple for years to come, especially for my theatre kid friends.