[Late Legends] New RPG system here for feedback

[Qumatah]

Hello fellow forumfolks,


I am a stubborn and ambitious lad who is creating a new kind of table-top RPG called Late Legends (LL).


The idea started off simple: Put some game systems from newer video games and try to apply them in a table top game. Make it balanced, fair and provide lot's of customization while putting the players in more in control of the story. They are the Legends, while the "DM" serves more as a storyteller.


This project quickly ran wild as we kept creating new classes and ways to play the game. It has been an amazing experience to create this in my spare time together with my close friends the last 3 years. At this point I am looking for feedback.


I am hoping some veterans out here would like to take a peek into LL as a game system and could help me develop it further. Keep in mind that this project has become way too large for me to fully finish yet, so a lot might still be missing. The big bulk of content I have at the moment focusses on Legend Creation and playing a Legend.


All feedback is very welcome but please be nice. All information about Late Legends can be found on: http://latelegends.com


I thank you very much for your time.

 

[Blue]

There a lot here and I can tell you put a lot of work into it. It will be a while to just go through it, much less assimilate it. I'll put up some thoughts along the way as I go through it.

First comment - I'd love a "Welcome to Late Legends and here's the type of experience we're looking to provide. Here's how we're different then other games you might have played." section. What you had up above talked a little bit about that mechanically - gathering ideas from video games, making it uber customizable.

I'm going to skim a number of sections to try and get an idea how it fits together as a game, and then come back to read the sections in more detail.

Grabbed the first sheet. Looks rather D&D derivative. Not the same stuff, especially some elemental affinities, but the same type of thing: ability scores, to hit, HP-equivalent, etc. So I'm getting the feel this is a fantasy heartbreaker - something that fits in the same niche as D&D but aims to do it better. Let's see how that idea holds up.

First bit in creating is your backstory. And focusing on goals, morality, fears - this is good stuff. makes me think we're going to be looking at a RP heavy game where goals and sacrifice, fears and flaws are going to come into play. Excited to see if there are mechanical support for that. Connecting with the world, and the party; taking a fate-like idea to have inter-character connections. Also thumbs up. The song is interesting. I must admit I'm not a musical person, and one of my players takes care of adding background music based on the feel I'm evoking other ways, but music is a powerful tool.

Races is disappointing after that. At this point we've got the idea that there's no base setting from the background page, but nothing about these races have any feel to them. No hooks, just a collection of mechanical stats. Like D&D, more then half of them seem to be primarily used in combat. There is a slight implied setting in racial languages, but that for me often (a) leads to monocultures and (b) commonly used languages not all characters speak can remove people from RP.

Classes - 38 of 38. Wow. You said lots of customization, but these many separate rules sets might make balance hard. Also one useful design pattern is using classes to help with niche protection, but if there are too many and only a limited amount of things to do in-game it could end up with a lot of overlap.

I picked the first one that leaped out at me from a "hey, looks like fun to play": the Corsair.

Hmm, lots of stuff that here that hasn't been explained. 1st stat and 2dn stat of LUCk and AGIlity, okay but not sure what that means mechanically. Range: Hybrid? Target: Hybrid? Weapon size: hybrid? Not sure what that means.

Hmm, multiple skill trees, it looks like each class has more customization. Not quite sure exactly how all of this fits together, might need to skip ahead to the how-to-play sections. My biggest worry is that almost everything looks like it has to do with combat. Combining video game aspects (often battling) and D&D heritage makes it looks like the character creation is mostly focused on creating what they can do in combat, which is at odds with that wonderfully evocative background section. Let's read on as see more.

Stats section seems very D&D flavor, though it avoids having a number and working out a modifier. On the other hand, it is not possible to be below average in anything. You can only raise them on level up, there are 10 levels, and you start at all 0s. So it looks like the range in 0-9.

Talents seem to be a skill system. Interesting that some are "+5 to X type of roll" which is very much what trainign ina skill in D&D 4e did, while others are "permission" type, such as you can do certain skilled jobs with no rolls associated.

Maneuvers are special abilities, but only ones that can be performed in battle.

Jumping to the how to play section, and it doesn't seem to explain how to make rolls. It explains how something is a STR roll, and something else is a VS STR roll, and that the second is opposed, but what are we rolling. Some things refer to percentile and d100, are we rolling that and adding in our 0-9? Is it a d20? 3d6 for a bell curve?

Late now, will look at more tomorrow.

 

[Jhaelen]

This project quickly ran wild as we kept creating new classes and ways to play the game.

Imho, that's the biggest enemy of homebrew RPGs or settings.
When I created my first RPG system, over time I ran into the same mistake. There's all these cool new novels, movies, tv shows, games, etc. that inspire you and scream to be integrated into your system.
Until, a few years later you have a hodge-podge of everything and nothing. That isn't to say it cannot be fun, but it's not as great as it could be.

Imho, it's important to impose limitations on yourself. Have a clear vision and follow it through. Otherwise you'll never end up with a sound, satisfying, and most important _finished_ RPG or setting.

 

[Qumatah]

@Jhaelen
Yeah you're right. Do you think it be wise to focus on a set of max 10 classes that are recommenced for now? With 38 classes there is a bit of a scale issue, especially since I'm still doing most of the work in my spare time without in-depth help.

 

[Qumatah]

[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION]

Thank you very much for you in-depth feedback. I will take all your impressions into consideration and I'am very motivated to provide more clarity on those topics in the near future. Thanks so much. I'll let you know if I have an Update on all of this.