Does Mongoose have any plans for Legend?
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alex_greene
Guest
At risk of sounding like a Vorlon, I have always been here ...
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
auyl said:Prime_Evil said:With all of these recent posts, it sounds like the band is back together. Now we just need some new products to fire up everyone's enthusiasm
Don't worry I've been working on compatible products vis Eternity Realms but the day job makes it slow going.
Eternity Realms is intended as a long-term project? I've got everything released so far in PDF and was wondering what your long-term plans for the setting are.
Indeed it is! I don't plan on letting this go. I love the title and some of its unique additions too much to just let it die offPrime_Evil said:auyl said:Prime_Evil said:With all of these recent posts, it sounds like the band is back together. Now we just need some new products to fire up everyone's enthusiasm
Don't worry I've been working on compatible products vis Eternity Realms but the day job makes it slow going.
Eternity Realms is intended as a long-term project? I've got everything released so far in PDF and was wondering what your long-term plans for the setting are.
alex_greene
Guest
The thing about all this continued interest in Legend is that it's always being brought to the attention of Matthew and anyone else who's involved in the development of Legend. We're keeping the flame alive here, and hope that one day soon you'll start to see that new Legend material coming out.
Meanwhile, I'm with DamonJynx 100% here about giving this project a home in Abbott & Greene.
Meanwhile, I'm with DamonJynx 100% here about giving this project a home in Abbott & Greene.
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Since the entire thing is OGL, why not just publish it yourself?
Even using MS Word, you can make it look very professional and publish it on DTRPG...
Sure you don't get that automatic paycheck from Mongoose, but your potential is higher since you get 75% of the cover price for each sale...
Even using MS Word, you can make it look very professional and publish it on DTRPG...
Sure you don't get that automatic paycheck from Mongoose, but your potential is higher since you get 75% of the cover price for each sale...
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Sorry Matt, not trying to take stuff away from Mongoose, but if things are really moving this slowly for this line, than 3PP and the OGL is the only way to go.
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
Although the whole of Legend is released under the OGL, it would be nice to see updated versions of the remaining MRQ II books - for example, Empires and Necromantic Arts. When the Glorantha-specific material is removed, it is possible to bulk these out with relevant game mechanics from Elric,Hawkmoon, Lankhmar, and Wraith Recon. There's also a wealth of MRQI material that could be converted in a generic fashion. And that's not even considering the volume of d20 material that could be reworked for Legend.
Perhaps a short-term approach might be to look at things like the Earth Power section of Slaine and consider releasing generic versions as short PDF-only releases. A slow feed of brief PDF releases would be better than the long delay we are seeing now. It would be fantastic to see the backlog of works currently stalled in development hell released to the world, but given resourcing constraints and the popularity of Traveller, we might not see them for a while. So maybe the answer is to release some shorter PDF works to keep the game alive until the production queue clears a bit?
As for a new OGL game based upon Legend, I suspect there is a place in the market for a d100 game with a complexity level somewhere between OpenQuest and Mythras - perhaps a bit more "crunchy" than OpenQuest, but not as "crunchy" as Mythras. Such a game could serve as an entry-level introduction for new players - now that Chaosium's Magic World is dead, nobody is scratching that particular itch. Mythras Imperative comes close, but isn't a complete game system with a supporting product line - it's designed to push you towards it's big brother. And although the upcoming Chaosium version of Runequest may hit the right level of complexity, it will be very tightly integrated to Glorantha. Mongoose had the right idea by pricing the PDF of the core rules so low to encourage newcomers to pick up the game, but never developed a coherent strategy around that.
Althernatively, Legend could be tightened up to focus on a particular style of fantasy. At the moment it's aimed at generic fantasy. But the Xoth releases showed that it does Swords and Sorcery very well, so why not focus the game on that particular sub-genre to differentiate it from its peers - Mongoose has a wealth of Swords and Sorcery rules content that could be adapted from the defunct Elric and Lankhmar product lines, plus the old d20 Conan line. (I'm working on my own homebrew variant along these lines under the working title "Savage Legends" - I'm aiming for the sweet spot between classic Swords and Sorcery and midern grimdark / dark fantasy).
To be honest, I suspect Mongoose has never quite known what to do with Legend. Given the low sales of MRQII, they released Legend under the OGL and gave it a low price point to stimulate interest. But I suspect that the initial surge of interest took them by surprise and they haven't really worked out what to do with the game. However, there is still an opportunity to position the game in the market in a way that clearly distinguishes it from the other d100 games out there.
Perhaps a short-term approach might be to look at things like the Earth Power section of Slaine and consider releasing generic versions as short PDF-only releases. A slow feed of brief PDF releases would be better than the long delay we are seeing now. It would be fantastic to see the backlog of works currently stalled in development hell released to the world, but given resourcing constraints and the popularity of Traveller, we might not see them for a while. So maybe the answer is to release some shorter PDF works to keep the game alive until the production queue clears a bit?
As for a new OGL game based upon Legend, I suspect there is a place in the market for a d100 game with a complexity level somewhere between OpenQuest and Mythras - perhaps a bit more "crunchy" than OpenQuest, but not as "crunchy" as Mythras. Such a game could serve as an entry-level introduction for new players - now that Chaosium's Magic World is dead, nobody is scratching that particular itch. Mythras Imperative comes close, but isn't a complete game system with a supporting product line - it's designed to push you towards it's big brother. And although the upcoming Chaosium version of Runequest may hit the right level of complexity, it will be very tightly integrated to Glorantha. Mongoose had the right idea by pricing the PDF of the core rules so low to encourage newcomers to pick up the game, but never developed a coherent strategy around that.
Althernatively, Legend could be tightened up to focus on a particular style of fantasy. At the moment it's aimed at generic fantasy. But the Xoth releases showed that it does Swords and Sorcery very well, so why not focus the game on that particular sub-genre to differentiate it from its peers - Mongoose has a wealth of Swords and Sorcery rules content that could be adapted from the defunct Elric and Lankhmar product lines, plus the old d20 Conan line. (I'm working on my own homebrew variant along these lines under the working title "Savage Legends" - I'm aiming for the sweet spot between classic Swords and Sorcery and midern grimdark / dark fantasy).
To be honest, I suspect Mongoose has never quite known what to do with Legend. Given the low sales of MRQII, they released Legend under the OGL and gave it a low price point to stimulate interest. But I suspect that the initial surge of interest took them by surprise and they haven't really worked out what to do with the game. However, there is still an opportunity to position the game in the market in a way that clearly distinguishes it from the other d100 games out there.
Prime_Evil said:
I was thinking much along the same lines.
I firmly believe that Legend needs an OGL setting; D&D has Forgotten Realms, Eberron & Greyhawk as its mainstays (not sure about the latest iteration), Pathfinder has Golarion and obviously, Runequest will have Glorantha, and Mythras could use Mythic Britain/Korantia. As Prime Evil states, Legend does the Sword & Sorcery genre very well, much better than the D20 games IM not so HO. So, I was thinking that the dark ages period would make a good default timeline for such a setting and could easily incorporate the best elements from Xoth/Conan, Elric, Lankhmar and with a bit of judicious Cthulhu horror thrown in, it would be damn near perfect. Additional chapters could be included with suggestions for playing in say, the renaissance period, allowing for pirates and Solomon Kane type action and for playing high fantasy, allowing GM's to incorporate Mongoose's Cities and Arcania series'.
Would anyone be interested in such a setting? I certainly am. I wouldn't mind co-writing/publishing such a work but I feel it's much too much work for a single freelancer (particularly one as slow as me!).
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
Well, I'm already doing some work on tweaking the system for this purpose for my own homebrew games. It's slow going as it requires a lot of work.
You might be interested to know that I'm abstracting the summoning rules you wrote for the Elementalism book and making them more generic to support a Swords & Sorcery style gameplay where the real power of sorcerers depends upon their ability to summon demons, elementals, and eldritch horrors from beyond space and time. The result is similar to the summoning rules from Elric, but with a few interesting quirks
I draw a clear distinction between Magical Skills (such as Grimoire and Manipulation) and Magical Techniques (such as Ritual Magic or Summoning). Magical Techniques can be used to modify the effects of any magical skill (with the exception of common magic). For example, a priest can use Summoning to call for aid from divine servitors, a Sorcerer can use it to conjure demons and elementals, and a shaman can use it to call up ancestral spirits and potent nature spirits. It is possible to use more than one technique with a magical skill, but this raises the difficulty. For example, you can combine Summoning with Ritaul Magic (formerly Concert Casting) to summon entities of frightening power, but it can then be extremely difficult to control or bind them.
I'm building some custom rules for Corruption due to exposure to tainted magic, tainted items, and tainted places that extend the model in the Xoth books to allow for slow mental and physical degeneration.
You might be interested to know that I'm abstracting the summoning rules you wrote for the Elementalism book and making them more generic to support a Swords & Sorcery style gameplay where the real power of sorcerers depends upon their ability to summon demons, elementals, and eldritch horrors from beyond space and time. The result is similar to the summoning rules from Elric, but with a few interesting quirks
I draw a clear distinction between Magical Skills (such as Grimoire and Manipulation) and Magical Techniques (such as Ritual Magic or Summoning). Magical Techniques can be used to modify the effects of any magical skill (with the exception of common magic). For example, a priest can use Summoning to call for aid from divine servitors, a Sorcerer can use it to conjure demons and elementals, and a shaman can use it to call up ancestral spirits and potent nature spirits. It is possible to use more than one technique with a magical skill, but this raises the difficulty. For example, you can combine Summoning with Ritaul Magic (formerly Concert Casting) to summon entities of frightening power, but it can then be extremely difficult to control or bind them.
I'm building some custom rules for Corruption due to exposure to tainted magic, tainted items, and tainted places that extend the model in the Xoth books to allow for slow mental and physical degeneration.
Well, I can honestly say, I think the work Loz did on the Elric game is superb. I love it and, ideally, would like to re-work it to be OGL, but I'd be concerned with ruining the feel of it when modifying it to avoid copyright issues...the whole magic system in that book, is hands down, the best so far that I've seen published and is absolutely perfect for gritty, S&S gaming.
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
Absolutely agreed there!
Over on the BRP forums, Loz recently discussed the possibility of using the supernatural patron rules from Elric to simulate the patron system from Dungeon Crawl Classics and a lightbulb suddenly went off over my head
An OGC reimplementation of these rules would be very, very useful for a number of reasons.
Over on the BRP forums, Loz recently discussed the possibility of using the supernatural patron rules from Elric to simulate the patron system from Dungeon Crawl Classics and a lightbulb suddenly went off over my head
An OGC reimplementation of these rules would be very, very useful for a number of reasons.
alex_greene
Guest
Consider including Concert Casting as a third Sorcery magical skill to go alongside Manipulation and Grimoire - oh, and it would be nice, if there is e Legend 2, to use the Intensity trait (which, by the way, happens to have the same value as the Grimoire skill's critical range, one-tenth of the Grimoire skill, rounded up) from Blood Magic when describing the power of Sorcery spells in the core rulebook. I have been calling it the "Intensity trait" since Blood Magic.
I'm going to post something on Concert as a magical skill in a separate post.
I'm going to post something on Concert as a magical skill in a separate post.
Just a quick note on this - we are in the process of hiring a new Layout Person, so things should start to ease. And yes, Legend books are in the mix of Things To Do!
alex_greene
Guest
Excellent news. Thanks for updating us. Good luck.msprange said:
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
This is excellent news. Any chance you would consider a line of shorter Legend PDF releases similar to the ones in the Referee's Briefing series that you've been producing for Traveller or is that not economically viable?
Prime_Evil said:
It is certainly possible - but let's get the current projects done and dusted first!
Prime_Evil
Emperor Mongoose
Fair enough! Don't let us slow you down
Having community a Community Created setting (like WotC has done with Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft) could definitely help bolster the line, however it would be difficult because Matt would have to have a line created from the ground up. I can't imagine any third-party IP holders willing to allow their licensed IP to be released as Community Created material.
That may not work against a new line however. Matt could release a setting book and then let loose and have the community create the all the details of the world. It may take a bit of work, but could well be worth it!
That may not work against a new line however. Matt could release a setting book and then let loose and have the community create the all the details of the world. It may take a bit of work, but could well be worth it!
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