It seems that Justin's Legends & Labyrinths project has been officially cancelled and full refunds are being provided.  In addition, if you were like me curious to see what he had cooked up, the Black Book Beta is now available for public download:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/30465/roleplaying-games/legends-labyrinths-black-book-beta

It looks very interesting, I need to give it a closer look.

Also, it seems Justin has had ill health lately, best wishes Justin!

Cheers

That's a shame, as much as I can't stand Justin's antics, he probably deserved hard pay for his hard work.

t was actually a pretty decent version of the d20 rules that focused on a known problem with D&D 3.0/3.5/PF -- namely complexity and optimization.  Removing feats and making skills a class feature kept 90% of the flexibility of the system with about 10% of the complexity.

I was a bit mixed about the decision to keep spell preparation.  It was one of the last elements of d20 that could have used the simplification of a purely class based approach.

Quote from: Rincewind1;680604That's a shame, as much as I can't stand Justin's antics, he probably deserved hard pay for his hard work.

After all the years I spent in clowning school, I feel like I deserve hard pay for my antics.

Quote from: Votan;680623I was a bit mixed about the decision to keep spell preparation.  It was one of the last elements of d20 that could have used the simplification of a purely class based approach.

It's interesting that you mention that. I actually spent a great deal of time considering the idea of going with just the Sorcerer and eliminating the Wizard while also somehow standardizing the spell list. My primary concern was in simplifying character creation to what I eventually realized was an ideal that never actually existed, so I moved away from the idea.

I found in playtests that the reaction to this was massively negative. There is definitely something to the idea that fighters are for players who don't want to spend time customizing their characters while the spellcasters are for those looking for the customizing experience.

Quote from: Teazia;680600Also, it seems Justin has had ill health lately, best wishes Justin!

Thank you! I am doing much better. My biggest problem now is that, after being sick and largely immobile for 4 weeks, I've put on 10 pounds and my physical stamina is completely shot. I've been slowly building back up an exercise regime this past week, so hopefully I'll be healthy enough to handle all the walking at Gencon (which should, in turn, also prove immensely helpful).

Time to go borrow/steal the Walmart electric carts!  Travel in style baby!

Also thank you for releasing the file.  Do you intend to progress it any further and have it POD?

Cheers

Great of him to be up front about everything instead of letting the whole thing go into limbo.

As for the book, I chipped in my few bucks for the beta book way back when and felt I got my money's worth. Don't think I'd ever run the system though basically:
-The presentation of the rules, general organization and how the book teaches the reader the rules are fucking brilliant. A real inspiration there.
-Just didn't like the content of the rules at all. By stripping out a lot of the complication of 3.5ed, just about everything that I preferred about 3.5ed over other editions got stripped out as well. But a lot of that was due to the basic goal being something simpler and easier to learn than 3.5ed while being 100% compatible with it. Just basically not in the market for an intro-box version of 3.5ed (which is works well as) and any appeal it had for me as a rules light stand-alone game got hobbled by the basic design idea that it had to be 100% compatible with a very different sort of game.

Still, would like to buy a supplement by Justin that's a 90 page or so guide to hexcrawling with Vornheim-like design goals. Lot of good ideas on his blog that I'd like to have gathered into one well-organized place.

I second the notion to a GMing guide.  There is so much cool stuff on his site, but it is getting to be too much to reasonably consume.  A well organized resource would be fantastic.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;680636After all the years I spent in clowning school, I feel like I deserve hard pay for my antics.



It's interesting that you mention that. I actually spent a great deal of time considering the idea of going with just the Sorcerer and eliminating the Wizard while also somehow standardizing the spell list. My primary concern was in simplifying character creation to what I eventually realized was an ideal that never actually existed, so I moved away from the idea.

I found in playtests that the reaction to this was massively negative. There is definitely something to the idea that fighters are for players who don't want to spend time customizing their characters while the spellcasters are for those looking for the customizing experience.



Thank you! I am doing much better. My biggest problem now is that, after being sick and largely immobile for 4 weeks, I've put on 10 pounds and my physical stamina is completely shot. I've been slowly building back up an exercise regime this past week, so hopefully I'll be healthy enough to handle all the walking at Gencon (which should, in turn, also prove immensely helpful).

In regards to spell preperation, I feel a choice is best.

Let the players that love spell books and memorizing do that, but let the people that prefer spontaneous casters have that option.

I can see fighters being simpler by design as a natural thing, but why force the casters to be complex?


Glad you are recovering; that sounds like a rough illness!

Quote from: Bill;680728In regards to spell preperation, I feel a choice is best.

Let the players that love spell books and memorizing do that, but let the people that prefer spontaneous casters have that option.

I can see fighters being simpler by design as a natural thing, but why force the casters to be complex?


Glad you are recovering; that sounds like a rough illness!

In some ways it is a pity there isn't a spontaneous divine caster in the core set of classes.  It's really the missing piece to giving people the option to go either way (well, that and some spontaneous rules for Rangers and Paladins).

Quote from: Teazia;680668I second the notion to a GMing guide.  There is so much cool stuff on his site, but it is getting to be too much to reasonably consume.  A well organized resource would be fantastic.

Thirding. The node articles and the dungeon keying stuff were both pretty useful.

I have to admit its good to see someone owning up to not being able to complete a project and trying to do right by those involved, rather than just trying to duck out or disappear or endlessly delay.

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