#legacy - life among the ruins 2e

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Legacy: Life among the Ruins 2e

More of an engine than a system at this point, Legacy is a game about... legacy, each player plays as an entire faction of people, guiding their history, their conflicts, and their choices. Eventually, the game zooms in, showing the story of a couple of notable heroes from each PC faction going on dangerous quests to save people. Legacy is on the complex side of things, so I wanted to save it for later, but I'd be doing a disservice to everyone by not recommending this sooner rather than later

[dicebound]

RPG Spotlight

✨ A game I wish more people were talking about.

Free From the Yoke Is a Slavic Fantasy TTRPG by UFO Press based on their other game, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2nd Edition. The players takes on roles of Houses as well as Characters in that house, dealing with the aftermath of a revolution in which they regained their independence from the Empire. I recently purchased this game and have been diving deep into its rule book and I am terribly impressed with it. It seems like the most comprehensive system for collaboratively building a world with your players and playing both the small and big players in its political sphere. It only has one actually play series and a single review on Youtube. I need more people to know this game! 🌱 An unreleased game I’m looking forward to. I recently backed Dolmenwood by Necrotic Gnome on Kickstarter after seeing it talked about here on Tumblr and covered by QuestingBeast on his Youtube Channel. It's a beautiful OSR Style Fairy Tale RPG inspired by Celtic and Irish Folklore. The artwork is absolutely stunning and the setting has been lovely crafted for over 10 years. Its got highly detailed, useful information to run a game in its world and I literally cannot wait to get my hands on the full version. You can get the free Quick Start here. 🌠 A game with a mechanic I love. I recently got ahold of Household by Two Little Mice when it was on sale on DrivethruRPG and I have been engrossed in reading the books cover to cover. I've already covered it on this blog, but it's basically a High Fantasy Setting about little fairies living in an abandoned house complete with tiny cities, saddle mice, and spider hunters. After reading the Core Rulebook, I discovered a quite lovely aspect of their Aces mechanic. Aces are metacurrency players get and their tied to the four suites (Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs) as well as a Joker. The Aces can be spent to do things like get an additional die to your dice pool for a check, remove a condition, get a another use out of a once-per-session move etc. The Joker is all that and more with one aspect I found very fascinating. It can be spent by another player to prevent someone else's character from Bowing Out. Bowing Out removes a character from the story for a while and can be as serious as dying depending on the fiction. The Idea of a Meta Currency used to prevent character "death" that can only be used for others was really fascinating to me and I'm looking forward to seeing it in play.

You can get the pay-what-you-want Quick Start rules here. 📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game. We played Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games for the first time a while back, using the critically acclaimed Sailors on the Starless Sea adventure. It was my first time encountering the concept of the 0th-level funnel, in which you each player controls 3 or even 4 no-class no-powers peasants, such as farmers, chicken chasers, and cheese makers, and tries to take their 1st level in adventurer without dying. We had 15 characters overall and lost all but 3 of them by the end and it was a BLAST. So, I'm gonna say 0th Level Classless is my favorite class from a game and I'd like to see more system implement this. I was begging to play more DCC by the end. Free Quick Start Rules here. 🌺 A game with stunning layout or visual design. Frontier Scum by Games Omnivorous is the first thing that came to mind. It was the 2023 Silver Ennie Winner for Best Layout & Design and it absolutely deserved it. Frontier Scum is an Acid Punk Weird West Rules-Light Western TTRPG inspired by Mork Borg. It is an absolute blast to play with wild and weird characters but the book's layout is absolutely stunning. It really looks like a diegetic chapbook from the setting complete with odd ads and interesting locals laid out in a similar fashion to an old-timey newspaper. It is an overall treat to look at.

💡 A game that inspired my own creative process. I tend not to play an RPG if it doesn't creatively inspire me, but I'm going to call out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition by Cubicle 7 as it is the system my group is currently playing as we work through the Evil Within Campaign. Starter Set Here. I was very inspired by this game's "Class" system, in which you're very likely to start off as a Rat Catcher or a Servant but slowly work you way into being a Knight of the White Wolf or a Duelist. It feels like the best of both worlds between classes as jobs and classes as feature grab-bags. I desperately want to see this type of profession system implemented into an more OSR style game or a PbtA Game, or even base DnD, the longshot that it may be. It inspired me to start conceiving how I might make such a thing a reality and really consider which games I plan to run might benefit from said system.

🔥 A game designer whose whole design corpus I admire.

City of Mist by Son of Oak Games is just an all around impressively design game and piece of narrative fiction. The core idea is that all the players are living in a world covered by the mist, which obscures the supernatural happenings of the world. Additionally, they're all vessels for legendary stories and powers, walking around and influence by the tales. We're talking a journalist rift of Don Quixote, a guttersnipe rift of Little Red Riding Hood, a Mob Boss rift of Hades, etc. Their Theme Book, Logos vs Mythos, and Power Tags system is so versatile that you could build literally anything with it and get a mechanically balanced, narrative focused and interesting character. It can be a bit difficult to get your head around it at first, but once you do you'll likely find City of Mist as revelatory as I did. Free Quick Start Rules Here. 🔮 One of my favorite memories playing a game.

After a decade of playing all sorts of TTRPGs its so hard to call out a single memory. I'll call out a more recently one, that occurred Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu 7e system in which we played the one-shot adventure the Lightless Beacon. Quick Start Rules Here.

My Character was Horse Driver and Trick Shooter by Trade in an Wild West Show (look it up, it's a real thing). She was also a Catholic. Myself and another PC were being chased by fish men after they'd swarmed and killed our other companion. We had no way off the island, but saw a boat in the distance rowing towards us. When we signaled for help, it was then that it tried to turn around. I was very nervous about shooting an innocent person and it was only after my GM assured me that the rower was also a fishman that I proclaimed, in character, "Wait, You aren't made in the image of God!" and shot the fishman dead where he sat. We all broke out in raucous laughter and we still quote the phrase from time to time.

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: Gods & Myth

This week's recommendations are for games that give you the ability to play gods or the children of gods.

LOOM by Yuigaron

The Knot hangs ponderous, heavy - pulling taut the tangled threads of the Fabric Between Worlds. Tired, callused hands pick at the threads, easing the tangles, bit by aching bit. Slowly, deliberately, they pull at loose threads to scrutinize with weary eyes, as they mutter amongst themselves. Piles of threads form at their feet, growing ever larger, until the eldest amongst them finally speaks. ‘That is… enough. For now. With these Thrums - these tangled, fraying threads - They can return.’ 

The others simply nod, and gather together what threads they have found. 

The eldest stares at The Knot that threatens all that exists in the worlds, ‘The rest… is up to Them.’

LOOM is a Fantasy Action TTRPG where players take on the roles of fallen Gods - tricked out of their Domains - trying to reclaim their seats of power. LOOM is a combat heavy game taking inspiration from video games like Hades. This game is Illuminated, and is made using the LUMEN system created by Spencer Campbell of GilaRPGs.

The LUMEN system is designed for action-packed games, and uses only d6s for the whole of the game. LOOM also contains an Overload system, which is meant to represent the cost of immortality: the Gods may persist, but at the cost of their powers. The key to regaining your power is unraveling the Knot, which contains unknown dangers along every Thread. If you like the idea of choosing your own rewards while facing unknown hordes of foes, LOOM might be worth checking out! Right now it's just the ashcan version, but it's funding on itch.io.

Godsend by UFO Press

These are times of trouble: the days are numbered. Legends told us about them. We have names for them in our sacred scriptures: the Ragnarök, the War of Gods, the Apocalypse, the Arrival of Avatars, the Eternal Night, the Infinite Void. The end of days.

But we are not alone, we are not powerless: the gods are walking among us. They are here to guide us, to save the world as we know it – or to help us reach the land of the Dead. If we pray faithfully enough and prove our worthiness, perhaps we can be spared.

In Godsend you roam the lands as the avatar of your god, cursing mere mortals and presenting gifts to the chosen ones. Your memories are numerous, made of the lives of your predecessors, your power is almost limitless. Will you use it to fulfil the will of your god? Or, as the end times draw near, will you try to save the world?

Godsend uses the same system as Legacy: Life Among The Ruins, which is Powered by the Apocalypse. However, this game doesn't use dice at all; instead players will be forced to make choices about what can happen based off of the stats and abilities they select at character creation. (You're gods, you don't leave things up to chance!) Each player has two playbooks to control: a god and the god's avatar. As you play through four ages, the gods may rise and fall, while their avatars may ascend to become gods in their own right.

Divine || Mundane by Hamblet Games

You are a god of good, of light and truth.  You are god of evil, of rot and decay.  You are a mortal hero, steadfast and loyal in a world of the divine.

Divine || Mundane is a game in which you build a world together and find out what happens when gods clash with mortals and with each other, when rivals must work together, when enemies become lovers, when war brings people closer.

Divine || Mundane uses the Firebrands system, which is built off of a series of mini-games the players will engage in. It's very similar to to Powered by the Apocalypse games in that you play to find out what happens, rather than exploring a narrative that the GM sets up beforehand.

SCION 2e by Onyx Path

You are the child of a God, born to the magic of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow. You live in a World of myth, where every ancient story is true. Your ancient enemies, the Titans, stir in their prison beneath the lands of the dead. Their spawn issues forth from lands of myth, and the spectre of war falls across the heavens. In this age of turmoil, you seize your birthrights and feel the call of your blood.

Find your destiny. Live the myth. Embrace your Fate.

Scion is a game about Gods and humanity, and everything in between. It’s a game about mythic Deeds and the reasons people talk about those mythic Deeds. Scion: Origin details the Scions when they’re still (mostly) human, before the Visitation that introduces them to the divine World — they’re exceptional humans, perhaps, blessed with luck and skill or cursed with ill fortune and strange trials in their lives, but humans nonetheless.

Scion underwent a big upgrade with its second edition, from sensitivity readers, to an expansion of the rules to allow for the inclusion of gods not listed in the book's lore sections. The books are split up according to power levels, so Origin will give you the basics, but Hero will get your characters to the level at which legends are made. Demigod is out, and God is currently in production. The books themselves are on the pricier side of things, and the the index leaves a lot to be desired, but if you're looking for a system with a wealth of options, a lot of inspiration, and mechanics that prize investigation and social scenes just as much as combat, Scion 2e might be worth checking out.

Part-Time Gods, by Third Eye Games

Long ago, an entity known as the Source visited humanity and gifted certain people with divine power. For a time, the world existed in a state of balance between order and chaos, between life and death, between divinity and mortality. That is, until the gods waged war against the Source and eventually against each other, until the gods were close to extinct.

The gods of today are shadows of what the old gods possessed. Their power has been heavily diminished, and many choose to live a regular, mortal life, revealing themselves as gods only when absolutely necessary.

The gods exist today in a state of flux. They have a mortal life, a job (or career if they’re lucky), friends, family, and everything that comes with being human, and they work hard to protect these things from harm. On the other side of the coin, they also have a Dominion to command and oversee, a deific Territory to defend from intruders, secret societies to which they owe allegiances (called Theologies), and other gods in their pantheon to try to get along with. This becomes their life, the balancing of the mortal and the divine, the normal and the supernatural, the mundane and the strange. The gods belong not to either world completely, and each of them knows that delving too deeply into one means losing pieces of the other.

Part Time Gods requires a large amount of d10s, and optionally, poker chips or some other token that can represent Free Time and Wealth. Character creation is flexible enough to bring a concept to the table and build toward it, while still containing complexities that dive into different pieces of your character's personality, from their Occupation to their Archetype to their Theology. Your character will have a combination of practical skills and supernatural manifestations to wield when problems come their way. If you like a heavy amount of lore, a lot of moving pieces to keep track of, and the theme of balancing both mundane responsibilities and supernatural birthrights, Part Time Gods is the game for you.

Our Minerva by Vagabond Pen & Paper

Pilgrims come from the far reaches of the Microcosmic Plane, from the various worlds over which the divine rule. They undertake a great journey across the stars to offer their services to the divine in Sport. 

In private though, far away from the cameras and microphones of Coliseum, they whisper of ulterior motives for their athletic exploits, both benign and sinister. It has even been said that some give voice to the heretical lie that they come from other planes altogether, beyond the domain of the gods both dead and undead. A claim as impossible as it is profane. 

Our Minerva is a GMless, slice-of-life tabletop roleplaying game about the athlete children of undead gods. You'll portray their exploits in Sport, their responsibilities in Duty, and especially their interactions and relationships in a quiet, rural Town where they never actually lived. Our Minerva is the sequel to Revenant World: A science-fantasy tabletop role-playing game about brave kids and undead gods. It stands on its own, but takes place in the same universe, 150 years later, incorporating and reimagining elements from the first game. 

Instead of dice, you'll use a pack of playing cards to draw out the narrative. This game is great if you like the idea of mythology combining with the teenage struggles of romance and teamwork. It's also a great option for groups without a GM, or where the GM would like to take a bit of a break.

Heart and Lightning by Swords and Flowers

You are Daughters of Lightning, a rider of storms, and breaker of mountains. You are warriors, lovers, and legend.  

You are also teenagers.  

Barely of age for the throne, you have been kicked out of your immortal homeland and stripped of your powers for another one of your stupid (brave!) antics (deeds!!!).  As outcasts, you must work together, prove yourselves, and return home.

HEART & LIGHTNING is a rock-inspired, sword and sorcery tabletop roleplaying game about teenage gods, rebellion, and the troubles they get into. Play as the Daughters of Lightning, almighty children who embody storms, its power, rage and tenacity. Stubborn and young, you've recently been evicted from your heavenly home and must complete a quest to return.

One of the elements of HEART & LIGHTNING that really stands out is the character creation. You have two main traits and three side traits. Then each character chooses a Domain, a Gift, and a Talent. You can mix and match these options to create the Daughter of your choice. For GMs, there's a number of factions to play with, and a horde of npcs and antagonists to pick up and drop into your game. The rolling mechanic uses 2d6 and a graded success, like most PbtA games. If you like playing to find out, and more character customization options than a regular PbtA game gives you, you should check this one out!

AGON by John Harper

In the mists of ancient time, a poet sings of great deeds wrought by mighty heroes—of monsters slain and justice restored, of wise counsel and devious strategies, of courage, valor, and daring—defiant of the gods themselves.

In AGON, you create these heroes, crafting their epic tale into an immortal legend. On their way back home from war, a band of heroes become lost among strange islands populated by mythical creatures, dangerous villains, legendary kingdoms, and desperate people—each entangled in strife, at the mercy of the capricious gods.

AGON is designed for session-contained play that is easy to contain in 2-3 hours thanks to a streamlined rolling system. Characters will increase in power and fame with every great deed, and their actions will inform both the abilities they gain and the legacy they leave behind. AGON uses a number of different dice - from d6s to d12s - and is the parent of the PARAGON system, which is a new but quickly-growing family of games. If you like self-contained sessions with an emphasis on storytelling and minimal work for the GM, AGON is for you.

[atamajakki]

tabletop RPG kickstarters are an unending nightmare of things fucking up and because of that i feel the need to give the most emphatic shoutout to Legacy: Life Among The Ruins 2e for successfully funding, and ten months later not only is the game out (and great!), but so are five spinoff games that were funded as stretch goals, with the two supplemental book stretch goals in playtesting

literally one thing is late, and it’s because the author faced a severe medical emergency... and his book should be out in two months

the guy running the project has been completely transparent and completely communicative the whole time, and has been super receptive to feedback and criticism and is just genuinely enthusiastic

why can’t our entire industry be like this

[gmortschaotica]

More Legacy 2e Life Among the Ruins RPG releases via Modiphius...

http://gmortschaotica.blogspot.com/2018/06/modiphius-entertainment-rpg-news.html

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Legacy: Life among the ruins (2e)

In honor of Fallout London's successful release

Touchstones: Fallout, Mad Max, general post-apocalypse media

Genre: Sci-fi, Post apocalypse

What is this game?: Legacy life among the ruins is a game about taking control of a faction of people, rather than individual players

How's the gameplay?: Legacy has each player take control of a different faction in the map, then they work together to add small bits of the map according to their faction, for example a faction of merchants might have a specific trading hub, or a group of crash landed aliens could have an ancient alien temple they built millennia ago. Gameplay is split between wide scale faction-based conflicts and interpersonal character conflicts, with the game zooming in and out according to what the players find most appropriate. Factions and individual characters both have playbooks, although they're totally different types of playbooks.

What's the setting (If any) like?: Legacy Life among the Ruins has a vague post-apocalyptic setting, however some setting books have been made that can take players to cryosleep spaceships that were turned off before their time, medieval city states released from an evil empire, the dawn of intelligent species, and even a castlevania inspired cursed city

What's the tone?: Player-dependent, Legacy has books for both a dire apocalypse that you cannot escape from, and a hopeful rebuilding of a dead world

Session length: Fairly long, 4 hours is realistic

Number of Players: Due to the amount of stuff at play, I recommend keeping it on the lower end, 3 players not including GM is recommended

Malleability: Most of the settings in Legacy are kinda generic, they'll give you vague concepts and let you fill out the rest

Resources: A bunch of setting books are available, I swear I've seen a google sheet before too, but its not the most complex game, it doesn't really need too many resources

Legacy is one of my personal faves, while its not what a lot of people are looking for, it works perfectly for what its made to be

[atamajakki]

What the heck have you been reading lately?

I have a copy of Last Call sitting untouched for months and I’m excited to listen to my audiobook of The Storm Before The Storm once it comes out. Reading for pleasure is hard for me.

If you specifically meant RPG stuff, I just skimmed a copy of Starfinder’s Alien Archive, and before that I went through A Nocturne and some of the Legacy: Life Among The Ruins 2e stuff. I’m currently evangelizing about Night Witches to a friend as well!