Campaign settigns for a new player

[GreatPotato]

Hey everyone, looking for a bit of guidence.

I have played D&D4e in the past and that was alright, but I have been reading about systels like Legend and I find the intriguing.

I would like to get a game together with some of my friends to try it, but Im having trouble finding sutable settings, thta are ready for use with Legends ruleset.

I know that there is much material out there, but I just don't know where to start.

I would most prefer a typical fantacy setting with humans, elves and orcs etc But with uncommon magic, but I will take what I can get.

What would be great would be a list of different settings, a brief explanation of tem and where to get it on a sticky. Would make it mush more accesable to a newbie.

Thanks everyone

 

[strega]

What you are asking for isn't that easy. Legend is based off a system that came out at the same sort of time as the original white box D&D. Much of what has been published since for what are known as D100 systems is compatible or easily converted as creature stats haven't changed that much over the years. So some forty years of setting material isn't easily labelled and listed.

I'd suggest that getting the Xoth material, a swords and sorcery Conan-type setting book that has been recently published by Mongoose will give you a number of linked adventures that you can easily run. Look it up on the MGP site as Spider God's Bride.

You could also look out for Monster Island put out by The Design Mechanism. It's for Runequest 6 (the immediate successor to Legend by the same authors, different company) but should work very easily with Legend.

Much of the material published over the years for the world of Glorantha is usable with minor work (although the material published for Heroquest in Glorantha will be useful more for background and flavour as the stats do differ (it's not the D100 game system)).

Many other eras such as German Crusaders (Crusaders of the Baltic Coast, Alephtar Games) or Ancient Greece have settings out that will work with Legend.

I suggest that you head over to http://basicroleplaying.com and take a look around. You'll find huge amounts of information and links to many game settings and variant material.

 

[GreatPotato]

OK fair enough, I will check out the stuff you mentioned, and the stuff in your sig. I should be able to sort out some sort of basic campaign so my group can try it.

Still open to other tips or advice though.

Thanks.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I'd second the recommendation for the Xoth books - provided that your tastes run towards Swords and Sorcery rather than High Fantasy.

If you can find a copy of the Age of Treason books they are also excellent if you are looking for a cool fantasy setting. However these are currently out of print as the author is working on a new edition for Runequest 6. Speaking of which, I definitely recommend Monster Island too.

If you like historical fantasy, you might like to try Deus Vult - this is a medieval setting with hidden magic where agents of the church wage a secret war against supernatural threats. It sounds like there is a new edition of this on the way in the near future.

And if you want something with a more traditional D&D feel, take a look at Wraith Recon - it was originally developed for 4e. In it, you play elite military forces working for a powerful kingdom.

 

[The Wolf]

I'll third Spider God's Bride 1 and 2.

 

[Hopeless]

I believe Signs and portents issue are still available on drive thru rpg, they have a number of adventure ideas you might want a look at.

Please remember Legend uses the same engine as Runequest II but when i ran a Legend game I just converted over a d20 scenario and ran from there.

My campaign background is that its set 1500 years from now and the PCs have just arrived at a village thats been recently attacked by raiders with the opening adventure was a rescue mission.

This was followed by an investigation of the site where the raiders held up and discovering who was behind them eventually revealing the hilltop they were using hides a long forgotten crypt containing part of a ducal rainment that confirms the bearer as the heir to the ducal throne (2 of the Pcs were nobles).

It just went from there.

Is there something specific you fancied or just a premade campaign setting like the releases for Runequest 6th edition, named Monster Island and Caravan Quest which are both available as pdfs?

 

[torus]

It would be great if there was a guide to running traditional high fantasy settings with Legend. You know, elves and dwarves and orcs and all that stuff. Wouldn't have to be too long, and could be quite generic.

 

[strega]

I'm not sure why you need a guide? I mean there are the non-human/demi-human races in the Monsters of Legend book and that's all you need for creating a pseudo Tolkienish game like D&D. I mean you don't need any imagination to rip off the Professor any more than that.

Creating your own setting or taking one from a novel and developing it is so much more satisfying than YATR (Yet Another Tolkien Ripoff). Personally I'd rather have something like Dragonborn as a fantasy race, if we have to have one, than another take on pointy eared archers or short bearded axemen. All this wasted effort to emulate a world that is a poor imitation of Tolkien's Arda without the rich history and language or his sense of story.

 

[Hopeless]

It would be great if there was a guide to running traditional high fantasy settings with Legend. You know, elves and dwarves and ours and all that stuff. Wouldn't have to be too long, and could be quite generic.

I explained away elves as being humans who adapted to life in the forests, whilst dwarves literally live under mountains delving away at the stone and metal ore there with their living conditions playing a part in how they evolved over the centuries.

I didn't make them long lived I merely looked at what would be different between those that say lived on the coast, those who lived in the forest and those who lived underground whether under mountains or hills and those who survived the intervening centuries by using the survival shelters that survived from the time of the cataclysm that ended the modern world.

Goblins and other monstrous creatures are the results of surviving in polluted or contaminated areas where life is at least very difficult at best, then there's the mainland where pestilence, famine and far worse things still persist it doesn't mean its uninhabited just that life is very difficult but life persists regardless of the adversities involved.

If you want generic backgrounds for your setting have a look at what other games you've run and see if you can work that into your game?

 

[soltakss]

I have played D&D4e in the past and that was alright, but I have been reading about systels like Legend and I find the intriguing.

I would like to get a game together with some of my friends to try it, but Im having trouble finding sutable settings, thta are ready for use with Legends ruleset.

I know that there is much material out there, but I just don't know where to start.

The Xoth series is meant to be good, but I haven't used it myself (Too busy with my current campaign).

There are a lot of historical settings available for Legend and similar systems (BRP/RQ3/RQ6/OpenQuest) and you can find a list at http://www.soltakss.com/alternateearthrq/AESupplements.html.

I would most prefer a typical fantacy setting with humans, elves and orcs etc But with uncommon magic, but I will take what I can get.

What would be great would be a list of different settings, a brief explanation of tem and where to get it on a sticky. Would make it mush more accesable to a newbie.

You might want to have a look at Classic Fantasy http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/82084/Classic-Fantasy - which shows how to use BRP with a D&D-styule setting. It should be usable with Legend very, very easily.

 

[Prime_Evil]

The problem is that the market for traditional D&D style fantasy is saturated and it is very difficult for a new game like Legend to compete on that turf. Also, that style doesn't play to the strengths of the game system. Legend can do Tolkien-inspired high fantasy quite well and as well as Swords & Sorcery adventure, but the strange hybrid of tropes that make up the D&D experience are a bit alien to it. Part of the reason for this is that back in the early days, Runequest was developed partly in reaction to D&D out of a desire to get back to something more grounded in historical experience as well as more faithful to genre tropes. People often forget that before he worked on Runequest, Steve Perrin was best known for the "Perrin Conventions" - an influential set of house rules for D&D that attempted to achieve many of the same results by different methods.

 

[JP42]

The problem is that the market for traditional D&D style fantasy is saturated and it is very difficult for a new game like Legend to compete on that turf. Also, that style doesn't play to the strengths of the game system. Legend can do Tolkien-inspired high fantasy quite well and as well as Swords & Sorcery adventure, but the strange hybrid of tropes that make up the D&D experience are a bit alien to it. Part of the reason for this is that back in the early days, Runequest was developed partly in reaction to D&D out of a desire to get back to something more grounded in historical experience as well as more faithful to genre tropes. People often forget that before he worked on Runequest, Steve Perrin was best known for the "Perrin Conventions" - an influential set of house rules for D&D that attempted to achieve many of the same results by different methods.

The only counter to this I would apply is that Legend (et al) are different enough from D&D that some people aren't sure there's an entry point for them. A "generic fantasy" world would be just such a point - a worked example of what you can do with Legend that has a familiar ring to it, if you will.

GURPS has had some success in this manner with their Dungeon Fantasy line of products, using their generic game engine to produce a world that would feel familiar to anyone who has gone into a dungeon with fifty feet of rope and a ten foot pole before.

 

[warlock1971]

The problem is that the market for traditional D&D style fantasy is saturated and it is very difficult for a new game like Legend to compete on that turf. Also, that style doesn't play to the strengths of the game system. Legend can do Tolkien-inspired high fantasy quite well and as well as Swords & Sorcery adventure, but the strange hybrid of tropes that make up the D&D experience are a bit alien to it. Part of the reason for this is that back in the early days, Runequest was developed partly in reaction to D&D out of a desire to get back to something more grounded in historical experience as well as more faithful to genre tropes. People often forget that before he worked on Runequest, Steve Perrin was best known for the "Perrin Conventions" - an influential set of house rules for D&D that attempted to achieve many of the same results by different methods.

The only counter to this I would apply is that Legend (et al) are different enough from D&D that some people aren't sure there's an entry point for them. A "generic fantasy" world would be just such a point - a worked example of what you can do with Legend that has a familiar ring to it, if you will.

GURPS has had some success in this manner with their Dungeon Fantasy line of products, using their generic game engine to produce a world that would feel familiar to anyone who has gone into a dungeon with fifty feet of rope and a ten foot pole before.

You make a valid point, I recall feeling the same sense that I was lost, initially. Once I felt like I better understood the differences between D&D and Legend I could adapt my thinking to better suite the new campaign style. We have a much more socially-focused campaign, as opposed to a combat-heavy campaign now.

I have successfully run 4 sessions in the World of Greyhawk, and my players are about to enter their first "dungeon". This will require serious recon and general sneakiness as they will die otherwise.

 

[Prime_Evil]

When it comes to fantasy, it's always difficult to develop something that feels familiar enough to make newcomers feel welcome but also different enough to make them feel excited about the possibilities offered by the new setting. On the one hand, you don't want a setting that is too much like traditional D&D campaign settings or they might as well simply play D&D (or Pathfinder...or a retroclone). But at the same time, you don't want it to be too different or newcomers will have no points of reference to help them work out how to use the setting in play. A brilliant author can overcome this problem and build up a dedicated hardcore fan-base (as M.A.R. Barker did with Tékumel and Greg Stafford did with Glorantha), but this is rare because it is so difficult to pull off. Of course, the danger of producing something too close to a generic D&D setting is that your products are simply lost amongst the hundreds of competing products. The ones that succeed tend to take the standard formula and add a clever twist - for example, the classic Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game depicts a fairly standard D&D world shifted forward into Renaissance times and seem through grim-and-gritty sensibilities. One possible option for Legend might be to head in the other direction and depict a typical D&D world shifted back into the ancient times of the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Persian empires.

 

[Hopeless]

There's supposed to be a new series based on Atlantis I think on BBC, this might provide a bit of inspiration for a game around that time?

 

[torus]

I agree that for experienced players, Legend + Monsters of Legend provides pretty much everything you need to handle most fantasy settings, if they are prepared to put in some work.

However I do think Monsters is pretty bare bones. There could be more material on non-human adventurers; as it stands they are simply humans with slightly different characteristic dice and a couple of traits. And there are a bunch of standard monsters missing: Half-orcs; different flavours of Orc, Troll, Giant and Dragon; Ghosts; Wraiths; Wights; other lycanthropes..

Less experienced players would definitely benefit from some example encounters and perhaps a short scenario, along with some guidance on how to generate tougher or elite versions of existing monsters. Also, how to modify things if you want a high or low magic setting. I could easily imagine a useful short book filled with this kind of stuff.

 

[strega]

Monsters of Legend is the pared down version of the MRQII Monster Colosseum. The remit for that book was that the creatures be useful in a gladiatorial style environment.

MoL II is designed to fill out some of the missing 'standard' creatures as you call them.

Should you desire variety most 'monsters' can be easily varied with judicious application of different Traits and Chaotic Features so that what people think of as the standard isn't anywhere near standard for some creatures.

 

[JP42]

I agree that for experienced players, Legend + Monsters of Legend provides pretty much everything you need to handle most fantasy settings, if they are prepared to put in some work.

However I do think Monsters is pretty bare bones. There could be more material on non-human adventurers; as it stands they are simply humans with slightly different characteristic dice and a couple of traits. And there are a bunch of standard monsters missing: Half-orcs; different flavours of Orc, Troll, Giant and Dragon; Ghosts; Wraiths; Wights; other lycanthropes..

Less experienced players would definitely benefit from some example encounters and perhaps a short scenario, along with some guidance on how to generate tougher or elite versions of existing monsters. Also, how to modify things if you want a high or low magic setting. I could easily imagine a useful short book filled with this kind of stuff.

While this is likely true, I think there's a whole lot of work hidden in the notion of "some work" that you reference. It's just not all about monsters. A "starter" system for Legend needs Legend, one or more Monsters books and a book that gives you some sample cults, brotherhoods, grimoires and the like, as well. Because a newbie, stepping into the game, has to create a whole lot of stuff from thin air otherwise.

 

[strega]

I just had a look through the issues of Signs and Portents found on the front page of this site.

I found the following items in the last five issues:

S&P 93 - p36 - The Skybolt Cult - cult writeup
S&P 93 - p50 - Bad Blood - Viking adventure
S&P 92 - p66 - Devil's Gulch - adventure
S&P 91 - p18 - Race against Madness - Glorantha adventure
S&P 91 - p48 - Lawbringer Cult - cult writeup
S&P 89 - p58 - Xiombarg's Children - culture and cult
S&P 89 - p78 - The Initiation - cult initiation
S&P 88 - p20 - Penitence - adventure

If someone can't use those as templates or for ideas then they really need to think if they are really playing the game that will work for them.

 

[strega]

I've just browsed over to the BRP website and found more material for those that didn't use my link in an earlier post.

Someone did something for all those games that start in an roadside inn.
Alcohol in Legend http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=460

Some different settings. They are set up for the Basic Role playing rules but these are so similar to Legend that they are great for inspiration and modification.

Ancient Rome material http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=15
Middle-Earth material http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=32
Vhraeden setting material http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=31