GM advice for Legend

[jux]

I am quite new to the arts of game mastering and since the Legend core book touches quite little this subject, it is interesting to hear how do you run this game and what advice can you give.

There are some published adventures for MRQ/Legend, what do you recommend for starters, which are your favorite? How compatible are the old Chaosium RQ adventures with Legend? Do you use adventures from other games/systems, like dnd?

What most intrigues me and I think is very good style for Legend game, is sandbox type of games. Does any of you run games in sandbox, where plot is up for the players to make? Any advice on that? Any published sandbox adventure out there for MRQ/Legend? Are the setting books good material for that, I am mostly eyeing the Viking book, but have not bought it yet.

There is a free sci-fi game, which is published by Mongoose - Stars Without Number, by Kevin Crawford. This game emphasize the sandbox style and provides lot of very good advice on how to do it. He has also written a sandbox setting for fantasy game (Labyrinth Lord) called Red Tide. A good portion of the book is also good advice on running/building sandbox adventure. I bought it, but have not read it yet and I wonder if anyone has used it for Legend game and what do you think of it.

 

[rust]

All of my settings are sandboxes, although I usually start the
campaigns with a structured introductory adventure to intro-
duce the characters to the setting and demonstrate any new
setting specific rules. However, after that it is up to the cha-
racters to decide how to continue from there.

In my view the key elements of a sandbox setting are events
and the options they create for character decisions and cha-
racter actions. A sandbox works best with a very dynamic set-
ting, where lots of things happen in the background and give
the characters lots of opportunities to get involved one way or
the other and the option to pick and choose where they want
to get involved, and in which way.

It is also useful to give the characters many personal connec-
tions and interests, someone with responsibilities for others is
more likely to develop plans and get involved than a carefree
wanderer who does not mind whether the familiy, the village
or whatever prospers or is destroyed because he will move on
anyways.

For the referee of a sandbox setting one of the main problems
is to avoid overthinking and overpreparation, there is often a
temptation to design far more details in advance than are actu-
ally needed in the campaign. So, never design an entire locati-
on with lots of nonplayer characters unless you love to do it or
the players have announced that their characters will go there,
necause otherwise you run the risk to create more unused than
used material.

Just some thoughts ... :wink:

 

[Vile]

I was just going to point you in rust's direction, but I see he got here before me. :wink:

You should check out some of his sandbox setting creation threads on the BRP Central and SFRPG forums for a masterclass in sandboxing.

 

[rust]

Thank you very much.

Two very good examples of sandboxes I would recommend are
Chaosium's Griffin Mountain for Runequest (now available as an
expanded reprint from Moon Design) as the kind of sandbox that
covers an entire region and Columbia Games' The Dead of Winter
for Harnmaster as the kind of sandbox that describes a specific si-
tuation. Taking a close look at these two sandboxes can show you
more about good sandbox design than anything else I could think
of.

 

[Dan True]

I was just going to point you in rust's direction, but I see he got here before me. :wink:

You should check out some of his sandbox setting creation threads on the BRP Central and SFRPG forums for a masterclass in sandboxing.

Could you throw some links? My search-fu has been unable to locate them.

- Dan

 

[soltakss]

I am quite new to the arts of game mastering and since the Legend core book touches quite little this subject, it is interesting to hear how do you run this game and what advice can you give.

What advice can I give? Ignore people's advice. Everyone will have conflicting advice as Games Mastering is sometimes dependant on the gaming group, the system, the campaign and the scenarios. Some people prefer fast games, others slow ones, others deadly ones, others with little combat and so on.

1. Rules are not sacrosanct. If you find a rule that you are not happy then change it or use a better one.
2. Rules and settings are guidelines - base your games on them but change whatever you want to.
3. Steal ideas from as many sources as you can. Don;t be afraid of using a film, TV Series or book as a base for a scenario or plotline.
4. Let the players do a lot of the work - they can spawn as many scenarios as you can.
5. Be flexible - if someone comes up with a good idea then go with the flow.

There are some published adventures for MRQ/Legend, what do you recommend for starters, which are your favorite?

Dara Happa Stirs and Blood of orlanth are very good campaigns if you like Glorantha. There were some Living Glorantha scenarios that were good starters as well. Have a look at Signs and Portents for scenarios that you could run fairly easily.

How compatible are the old Chaosium RQ adventures with Legend?

If you are the kind of GM who says "But, someone with 13 HP should have 5 points in the head and this says 4 - I can't use this" then it will drive you mad. However, if you can take the stats and use them on the fly, papering over the slight differences then pretty much all the RQ2 and RQ3 scenarios are pretty much compatible with MRQ/Legend. They don't have Combat Actions and Combat Manoeuvres, so you might have to make things up but you should be able to use anything fairly easily.

If you like Glorantha then there is a wealth of Third Age material out there. Get the Gloranthan Classics series on PDF as you can use most of it with Legend.Most of the RQ3 material is not available, or is hard to get hold of, which is a shame as it is generally very good.

Do you use adventures from other games/systems, like dnd?

Sometimes. I used a D&D module for a desert arc in my Pavis and Prax game. It needed a bit of conversion and I only used the outline of the plot, not the characters as they were written. But, it was doable.

What most intrigues me and I think is very good style for Legend game, is sandbox type of games. Does any of you run games in sandbox, where plot is up for the players to make? Any advice on that? Any published sandbox adventure out there for MRQ/Legend? Are the setting books good material for that, I am mostly eyeing the Viking book, but have not bought it yet.

Sandboxes are good, but I prefer Directed Sandboxes.

The problem with Sandboxes are the "What do you want to do today?" "Um, we don't know ..." conversation that I have had many times. You really need a few standby scenarios that you can use in a sandbox.

So, I have some background plotlines that I introduce here and there. Sometimes I do it as "random" encounters, sometimes as part of a scenario, sometimes as an actual scenario.

The players can generate their own plots and scenarios, either as part of other scenarios or through things that they want to do.

There is a free sci-fi game, which is published by Mongoose - Stars Without Number, by Kevin Crawford. This game emphasize the sandbox style and provides lot of very good advice on how to do it. He has also written a sandbox setting for fantasy game (Labyrinth Lord) called Red Tide. A good portion of the book is also good advice on running/building sandbox adventure. I bought it, but have not read it yet and I wonder if anyone has used it for Legend game and what do you think of it.

Ah, I didn't know it was free - I might just go out and get that.

 

[DamonJynx]

Stuff...

That's pretty much the best advice I've heard. Take what you want from any source you like and mod it to suit.

Modifying BRP and previous versions of RQ to work with the Legend rule set isn't that difficult, you can pretty much use the characteristic scores as is and just calculate out HP and CA's.

I do the same thing with DnD stats, it's not that much work: I use POW as Wisdom the rest are OK as is and I 'roll' the SIZ. Having a basic spreadhseet to calculate the derived stats is handy but not essential.