Quote from: Lunamancer;872869

Quote from: Atsuku Nare;825440Thread of old, arise from your grave!

Dittos on that.

I'll third it.  Far to little love for LA as far as I'm concerned.

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Quote from: Atsuku Nare;825440I liked some of the concepts of Lejendary Adventure, and wished Gary had had time for a good editor to come through and give it a good presentation. Does anyone know what its fate is at the moment? Are there plans to revive it along with other stuff he was working on (Castle Zagyg, which I missed the first time 'round), or is everything still in limbo?

Yeah, with a few fixes--and by fixes, I mean addressing some errors, not some other designer rebuilding parts in his own image--it's pretty much exactly what an RPG ought to be. The core system is simple and straight-forward but flexible enough to apply to almost anything. Once you get the hang of how it works, it in a way re-educates you so you can go back and play older games and get even more out of them, running them far more smoothly.

Largely agree, though I expect Luna and I would disagree on what those errors and awkward parts are.  As simple and straightforward as the system was, I never ran a single session that didn't come to a grinding halt because of some weird hole in the rules.  Some of that was probably me, but there were plenty of loose ends that, once tied down, would have made the system really cook.

And yeah, it looks like the Gygax estate is content to sit on...everything.  The original rumor was Gail was holding out for deals in the CRPG industry where the real money () is these days.  But at this point?  I have no idea whatsoever.

QuoteOne of the guys from Lejendary.com ripped off the game almost whole cloth, modifying it to plug in his two cents, his laundry list of things he wanted different, and has self-published it under the title Perilous Journeys. I feel it's too full of gratuitous add-ons to capture the spirit of the original. The most recent edition switched the core mechanic over to a d1000 system, if that's any indication for you.

Perilous Journeys has a lot going for it, but you're right it just doesn't scratch that LA itch for some reason.  But aside from the "stunt die" the new edition is adding, pretty much all the changes would have been an improvement on LA as well.  I think it's issues lie more in the decoupling of the orders as vocations and moving character gen in a purely point buy direction.  I would really love to see someone do a true retro-clone of LA.  I'm weird, I guess.  Every time I look at 5e DnD, I can't help but think, this is almost as good as LA.  I expect you'll be able to count the people who feel that way on one hand but whatever.

To bring this back to the original point, it would have been amazing to see what happened if Troll Lords had brought Asterogues to the market.  It's a very quirky retro sci-fantasy setting.  Would it have found a footing?  Who knows.  For me, it would have all depended on ship to ship combat rules.  I don't believe anyone ever developed naval combat rules for LA.

Tom

Quote from: Blusponge;872919Largely agree, though I expect Luna and I would disagree on what those errors and awkward parts are.  As simple and straightforward as the system was, I never ran a single session that didn't come to a grinding halt because of some weird hole in the rules.  Some of that was probably me, but there were plenty of loose ends that, once tied down, would have made the system really cook.

Well, let me take a step back first, because this isn't an issue specific to LA. Some people look at all the choices of RPGs we have and think it's a good thing. To me, it's like the aftermath of the Tower or Babel. Content for one game can't be easily ported over to other RPGs. To me, it smacks of narcissism. Too many people demanding their own niche be carved out, too little willingness to give a little to build a community.

And I think the solution comes in two simple steps. And the way internet forum gamers approach things is basically the antithesis of the solution. First, you need to always think in terms of "How can I do XYZ with this system?" and never think in terms of "This system can't handle XYZ."

A classic example of this from Lejendary.com was, almost like clockwork, every 3-6 months, a newb would show up and say, "In LA, your character can't do anything to defend himself." I responded to that claim so many times, I had an enumerated list of 6 or 7 by-the-book ways of every different flavor (some ability-dependent, some not, some opportunity-dependent, some not, some working as dice rolls, others just as modifiers) of how your LA character can defend himself.

Second point, gamers need to stop thinking in terms of features and instead think in terms of benefits. No, you do not need or even prefer a bell curve mechanic. What you prefer is that the system provide you whichever benefit or benefits you derive from the bell curve mechanic. The pitfall of failing to recognize this is--well, a mechanic can't be simultaneously linear and non-linear, so you're necessarily dividing the audience on just this one arbitrary point. Now stop and think of how many different features commonly go into an RPG. No wonder we have the Tower of Babel.

But if we go back to step 1 and ask yourself, "How can I get benefit XYZ with this system?" we not only find that we can play together, we legitimately improve both our understandings of the possibilities of RPGs and how they operate as well as improving things like our core mechanics by trimming the "cool" fat that ultimately leads to compatibility dead-ends.


So, back to LA. How would we resolve our differences with those two points in mind? I think Initiative in LA was a hot issue. Initiative seems to be one of those mechanics everyone fiddles with and does their own way in just about every game. This fits precisely the profile of when we need to stop and think about what benefits we're looking for and then find ways the existing system can service them.

I have a method of syncing up casting time and initiative in LA all based on the by-the-book givens and expectations, and it works. We don't need to have some way of converting seconds of casting time to pips on an initiative die or vice-versa. What an updated, cleaned-up LA needs is to explain how to use the system that's already there to tie up these loose ends.

QuoteAnd yeah, it looks like the Gygax estate is content to sit on...everything.  The original rumor was Gail was holding out for deals in the CRPG industry where the real money () is these days.  But at this point?  I have no idea whatsoever.

CRPGs don't make money unless they actually catch on. I don't know exactly what it takes to make one successful. But I know you are killing every chance by sitting on the material instead of constantly getting it out and constantly generating public awareness.

QuotePerilous Journeys has a lot going for it, but you're right it just doesn't scratch that LA itch for some reason.  But aside from the "stunt die" the new edition is adding, pretty much all the changes would have been an improvement on LA as well.

See above. An improvement would have been asking how do you get X out of what's there. Instead, they went in with a hatchet. From the Lejendary.com discussions, they were constantly trying to shout down parts of the game they found problematic which were parts of the game I actually liked. That's what happens when you're feature focused. You can't reap new benefits without taking away benefits other people are already reaping.

I would use this analogy. It's like LA was a car with a flat tire. PJ just threw on a donut. Yes, technically it drives better that way than leaving it with a flat, but if you just fixed the flat and stuck with the same size tire--sticking to the spirit of the game--the ride would be even better. I am being EXTREMELY generous in this analogy, considering I prefer LA as written to PJ. I'm just giving the benefit of the doubt and saying, okay, suppose that wasn't my preference.

QuoteI think it's issues lie more in the decoupling of the orders as vocations and moving character gen in a purely point buy direction.

I'm all for having a hundred different ways to generate a character. I actually created one that was originally intended for rolling up NPC adventuring parties. No reason it couldn't be used to generate an Avatar.

This is an example of how LA re-educated me in RPGs. In AD&D, if I have a level 2 fighter with 15 CON who has 25 hit points, this should raise red flags. Why, that is impossible by the rules! Nay. Once play begins, any number of extraordinary and unique benefits (or maladies) may befall the character. Characters don't have to be reverse-engineerable.

That said, don't you dare suggest taking away the benefits I see of having those Orders in the game. If you don't like them, you can always play unordered. You can even create a chargen method that allows the selection from a dozen pre-generated starting archetypes if that's what you want.

QuoteI would really love to see someone do a true retro-clone of LA.  I'm weird, I guess.

Well, let's talk. I'm doing a ton of stuff with LA right now. And I'm honestly stuck which direction to go in. A part of me wants to bridge LA and AD&D for no other reason than I have a shit ton of content for each system, and when I sit down to run a game, it would be nice if I could tap that entire massive library.

So I'm currently writing about a half dozen books at the same time. The three that bubble up to the surface the most for me are: 1) A waterfaring guide to LA (wasn't SpaceGnome supposed to be doing one, then he disappeared) that focuses on encounters on water, magic items of special interest while sailing, powers that are especially useful at sea, a variety of ships with stats for naval combat, featuring the most appropriate Orders--like reprinting the Mariner/Pirate just in case you don't have Canting Crew, maybe creating one or two new Orders specifically for maritime adventures.

Second is one where I'm just trying to take classes, spells, monsters, and items from D&D, stat them in LA while keeping their D&D feel and identity. And third is kind of a "rogues gallery meets keep on the borderlands" sort of thing that's been a working idea for over 10 years, Thirty Thieves and the Thunder Chief.

QuoteEvery time I look at 5e DnD, I can't help but think, this is almost as good as LA.  I expect you'll be able to count the people who feel that way on one hand but whatever.

3E killed the brand for me so bad, to the point where I never once gave a shit to even find out what 4E or 5E is like. I really haven't the faintest idea. The unforgivable sin is exactly the Tower of Babel thing I was talking about above. The designers basically said, "Okay, let's repackage the same old shit we've been selling for the last 25 years, adding absolutely nothing creative or new, but making it totally incompatible with everything that came before it."

QuoteTo bring this back to the original point, it would have been amazing to see what happened if Troll Lords had brought Asterogues to the market.  It's a very quirky retro sci-fantasy setting.  Would it have found a footing?  Who knows.  For me, it would have all depended on ship to ship combat rules.  I don't believe anyone ever developed naval combat rules for LA.

HA! Exactly what I've been working on.

I don't know AsteRogues would have been my cup of tea. Like you said, it is quirky. And it's not science fiction but science fantasy. But in some ways it's perfect for LA, because I think that was the measuring stick that when into LA's design. It had to be able to handle a setting like AsteRogues. And the game is stronger for it.

But this is exactly how I felt about Dangerous Journeys. I would have loved to have seen what might have been if they published Unhallowed. I mean, Mythus was published in 1989, right? And the 90's was a decade where the horror genre was pretty damn hot. Ravenloft. Vampire: the Masquerade. There seemed to be a CoC revival going on then as well.

Having Gygax's imprematur (and imprematura) at the end of his life, those Arkansas Troll jokers really mucked up a whole bunch of things that could have really gone their way if they hadn't been stepping on their own feet at all times (Part of the reason they were late late late on Castle Zagyg was that they couldn't find a reliable USA supplier for dice and then boxes, and when they did, those suppliers couldn't handle the job as their carport was too crowded for anything above true hobby scale).  IIRC right before Gygax passed, the Trolls seemed to have refocused their efforts on his legacy products, but the effort was too little too late.  Too many Dr. Peppers makes a man weak!  

Its true Gail schlonged them, and schlonged them good, but you can't say they didn't have it coming.

It would be interesting to see any of the Gygax/LJ material come back into print (even digitally), but this does not seem to be happening soon.  Which is too bad, Gygax Games could quite easily revise the current files and toss em onto rpgnow for pdf and pod.  Distribution above and beyond what the Trolls offered is genuinely not a bad thing.

Quote from: Lunamancer;872929Well, let me take a step back first, because this isn't an issue specific to LA. Some people look at all the choices of RPGs we have and think it's a good thing. To me, it's like the aftermath of the Tower or Babel. Content for one game can't be easily ported over to other RPGs. To me, it smacks of narcissism. Too many people demanding their own niche be carved out, too little willingness to give a little to build a community.

Yeah, I'm not sure we're talking about the same things. I'm not really talking about loose ends in the sense of wiggle room for player and GM interpretation.  I'm talking about things in the game that just felt...sloppy.

Initiative, for instance.  I believe that between the LR4AP and LML, there are three versions (options?) for initiative.

Extraordinary (Magic) Item bonuses sometimes add to your dice roll, other times your Ability score.  There's no standardization.

Base Ratings work on three different scales (even though you essentially end up multiplying Speed by 4 for everything, which puts it almost on the same scale as Health).

And, yes, spell casting times are spelled out by the second in realtime while everything else is measured in rounds (block counts).

Ability overlap sometimes made things awkward as well.  The character wants to sneak past a guard post.  Do I call for a Stealth roll or a Stealing roll?  Maybe a Tricks roll?  That's quite a mouthful.  That may have more to do with my style of play than fault in the game, but asking for any of there options for a roll is a bit of a pain.  I like overlap in theory.  In play, it makes for a rougher experience, IMNSO opinion.

QuoteA classic example of this from Lejendary.com was, almost like clockwork, every 3-6 months, a newb would show up and say, "In LA, your character can't do anything to defend himself." I responded to that claim so many times, I had an enumerated list of 6 or 7 by-the-book ways of every different flavor (some ability-dependent, some not, some opportunity-dependent, some not, some working as dice rolls, others just as modifiers) of how your LA character can defend himself.

I don't really remember that, but you're right, that is silly.  The rules for Parrying were in there at the very least.  Minstrelsy covered tumbling.

QuoteSo, back to LA. How would we resolve our differences with those two points in mind? I think Initiative in LA was a hot issue. Initiative seems to be one of those mechanics everyone fiddles with and does their own way in just about every game.

That's because the game offered three different methods as THE method.

QuoteI have a method of syncing up casting time and initiative in LA all based on the by-the-book givens and expectations, and it works. We don't need to have some way of converting seconds of casting time to pips on an initiative die or vice-versa. What an updated, cleaned-up LA needs is to explain how to use the system that's already there to tie up these loose ends.

No, but it would have been nice to have a cohesive system where all the cogs were running on the same machine.  I suspect the whole "seconds realtime" business was a clumsy way to incorporate segments (ala AD&D).  I had a system that kinda worked too, but it still felt (to my mind) kludgy.

QuoteSee above. An improvement would have been asking how do you get X out of what's there. Instead, they went in with a hatchet. From the Lejendary.com discussions, they were constantly trying to shout down parts of the game they found problematic which were parts of the game I actually liked. That's what happens when you're feature focused. You can't reap new benefits without taking away benefits other people are already reaping.

Some of that I'm sure was because no one could (or should) agree on which parts were kludgy.  Frankly, it's been so long I don't really remember a lot of the rules arguments on Lejendary.  Since PJ is kinda trying to be its own thing while building on the foundation of LA, rather than trying to be a true emulation or clone, I can forgive them their liberties.  But, like I said, it just doesn't quite scratch that itch.

I'm all for having a hundred different ways to generate a character. I actually created one that was originally intended for rolling up NPC adventuring parties. No reason it couldn't be used to generate an Avatar.

QuoteWell, let's talk.

Ok, but this conversation is starting to wander far afield.  So lets take it to PM.

QuoteI don't know AsteRogues would have been my cup of tea. Like you said, it is quirky. And it's not science fiction but science fantasy. But in some ways it's perfect for LA, because I think that was the measuring stick that when into LA's design. It had to be able to handle a setting like AsteRogues. And the game is stronger for it.

I know there were some aspects of the setting that I wasn't thrilled with...that all the Alfar races were essentially aliens from our own solar system.  But that seems like an odd criticism for a game about 17th century sailing ships IN SPAAAAAAACE!  It made as mudh sense as Treasure Planet (the Disney movie).

QuoteBut this is exactly how I felt about Dangerous Journeys. I would have loved to have seen what might have been if they published Unhallowed. I mean, Mythus was published in 1989, right? And the 90's was a decade where the horror genre was pretty damn hot. Ravenloft. Vampire: the Masquerade. There seemed to be a CoC revival going on then as well.

Yup.  I think the whole FRPG thing was an albatross around Gygax's neck.  If Unhallowed had been released prior to Mythus, would TSR have had grounds for their lawsuit?  If LA (generic fantasy) hadn't been released at the GenCon DnD 3e was announced, or if it had been something other than generic fantasy, would it have gotten more traction?  Don't give me wrong, I love both of those games.  But it's fun to speculate.

Tom

Quote from: Blusponge;872979Initiative, for instance.  I believe that between the LR4AP and LML, there are three versions (options?) for initiative.

I've never even counted. So little attention is given to it in LA. The key to "fixing" initiative in LA is not to pick one method, hold it up as holy and official and eschew all others. The key is coordinating die pips and activation times and whathaveyou. Once that's done? I think what to print is an unmodified d10 roll for initiative, with optional rules for modifying it by speed or whatever else.

QuoteExtraordinary (Magic) Item bonuses sometimes add to your dice roll, other times your Ability score.  There's no standardization.

There is a method to the madness. The problem was it was never explained succinctly and the examples found in the book contradict how it really works. However, there is a benefit to having the different types of modifiers. It's one of those ideas that gets me more mileage when I go to run other RPGs. What's needed is a new way of explaining how it works. That way I retain the benefits of how it works, and you can have your standardization.

QuoteBase Ratings work on three different scales (even though you essentially end up multiplying Speed by 4 for everything, which puts it almost on the same scale as Health).

And I've never in particular been a fan of that. Why, just yesterday, I was going to create some pre-gens with the idea of facilitating quick and easy start up with a new group who has never played LA before. I immediately thought of a new player looking over the character's stats, seeing a 15 in Speed vs a 60 in Health and concluding, "Well, I guess my guy is a little slow." (To preserve the game as-is and correct this issue, my mind immediately went to the idea that the scale for each ought to be noted on the character sheet.)

All that said, there are some benefits to things as is. I like that it's relatively cheap to max out speed at the start of the game. Most Avatars won't have any Speed-based Abilities, so I think it needs to be a cheaper buy at char-gen. The big benefit, though, is how Speed is used in the game, with avoidance rolls being multiples of Speed. I know that violates one of the commandments of table top RPGs, thou shalt not multiply, but it's a whole lot more straight forward than to have starting Speed instead be 32 to 48, but if I want to "save" vs Seduce to Evil, I have to divide my Speed by 2 first. Worse still is with Orcs and Oafs that get a one-multiplier bump.

It might also be worth tossing out there that "average human" stats in LA are 20 Health, 20 Precision, 10 Speed. If you wanted to multiply Speed by four to put it on the same scale as the other stats, it still looks goofy to write 20 Health, 20 Precision, 40 Speed. This is part of what's happening in LA. The "heroes" are multiple times tougher and skilled than the average person. But they are still human. They may be a little quicker, but not by much.

That said, I'm open to ideas that don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. One of the ideas I'm considering (because I do want to bridge LA and AD&D) is to convert LA over to a d20 mechanic. So rather than rating Speed on a larger scale, I make Health and Precision run on a smaller one. Then I could just run LA-style Avatars through AD&D content.

QuoteAnd, yes, spell casting times are spelled out by the second in realtime while everything else is measured in rounds (block counts).

What if I told you, a brilliant solution was staring us in the face all along, pre-dating LA?

QuoteAbility overlap sometimes made things awkward as well.  The character wants to sneak past a guard post.  Do I call for a Stealth roll or a Stealing roll?  Maybe a Tricks roll?  That's quite a mouthful.  That may have more to do with my style of play than fault in the game, but asking for any of there options for a roll is a bit of a pain.  I like overlap in theory.  In play, it makes for a rougher experience, IMNSO opinion.

This is one of the key areas in which LA re-educated me to playing other RPGs. I find it exceedingly practical to have that kind of overlap because it makes the game easier to learn. Rather than having to understand the intricacies of 40 different skills to know when to apply Waylaying vs when to apply Ranging in an ambush, I know they both cover an ambush, so either one works.

So the question is how do you communicate more succinctly to the player what they should roll. To be honest, I've never really examined this question because my group has I guess "solved" this problem kind of organically. We've found there are certain game procedures that are frequently called upon. So when I say "Make a hit roll," players just know if their character is using a melee weapon, that means Weapons Ability, +20% of Chivalry if possessed, +10% of Savagery and Nomadic if possessed. We never have a dialog as to which skill they're rolling against. Similarly, there are certain Abilities that right in the skill description have "anti-surprise" capacity, so if I say something like, "Roll to see if you notice the orcs before they attack," or "Roll to see if you're surprised," they just know I'm talking about checking against Hunt, Ranging, Scrutiny, or Stealth, whichever is highest. If it makes you feel better, you can actually add "Perception" to the character sheet.

Don't let me give the wrong impression. It's not a long list of common procedures. Those are really the only two that come to my mind. Something like sneaking past a guard is such an active task, I expect the players to tell me which Abilities they're using. Using Tricks to sneak past the guards is going to involve misdirection rather than skulking whereas Stealth just the opposite. Either one will get the job done if successful. But I'd imagine the consequences for failure would be different depending on exactly which the Avatar is undertaking. For this reason, I need the player to make that determination.

Where I see it being trickiest is not in actual play but rather in writing adventure modules.

QuoteI don't really remember that, but you're right, that is silly.  The rules for Parrying were in there at the very least.  Minstrelsy covered tumbling.

And Unarmed Combat mitigated harm. If you had Luck Ability, a lucky dodge was possible. Based on the sit mods given in the book, moving erratically would make you harder to hit (might also take you longer to get where you're going, but hey, pick your poison). There was also using Speed BR in diving to avoid an attack. That would leave you in a prone or half-prone position, but it's an option you always had.

QuoteNo, but it would have been nice to have a cohesive system where all the cogs were running on the same machine.  I suspect the whole "seconds realtime" business was a clumsy way to incorporate segments (ala AD&D).  I had a system that kinda worked too, but it still felt (to my mind) kludgy.

Wasn't yours just applying an initiative penalty equal to 3 times the number of segments the Avatar spent activating the power in that ABC?

You're right that what's present in LA mirrors AD&D identically. In 2nd Ed, they just went and made casting time an initiative modifier. Kind of like what I think your fix for LA was. But 1st Ed never integrated it at all, and only even addressed it in one little hidden detail regarding spell disruption where the winning initiative roll was subtracted from the weapon speed of the character trying to strike the spell caster, inexplicably treating negative numbers as positive, and then comparing that to the number of segments of casting time.

It was weird. It was one of those things where I had to take a step back and ask, "Okay, exactly what is this trying to accomplish?" In other words, what are the important benefits. In this case, it's really about the possibility of spell interruption. And this poses a unique challenge--to all initiative systems, even ones that seem to be smooth and elegant without big gaping holes.

If I'm going to interrupt a spell, how is that going to happen? First, I have to be aware that the spell is being cast, and the combat system has to allow me to react--to make my decision after I'm aware of that fact. So declaring all actions BEFORE initiative is rolled, which is what AD&D by the book actually calls for, just isn't going to work. But at the same time, if we just roll initiative first and then decide, then someone can go around playing a mage with the idea that they'll only cast spells when they lose initiative, that way their enemies have already used up all their attacks and have no opportunity to interrupt.

Neither one of these options actually gets at the key benefit of integrating activation and initiative. I mean I could be mistaken, but by-the-book in LA--not that I play this way--but doesn't it say the effects of activations only take place at the end of the ABC in which the activation is completed? If so, initiative/order of action is completely irrelevant for timing the effects. Again, this issue is 100% about whether or not the activation will be interrupted.

Once I was clear on that, I saw that, whether it's LA or D&D, measuring casting times in seconds rather than abstract initiative die pips was an advantage to achieving the key benefit.

QuoteSome of that I'm sure was because no one could (or should) agree on which parts were kludgy.  Frankly, it's been so long I don't really remember a lot of the rules arguments on Lejendary.  Since PJ is kinda trying to be its own thing while building on the foundation of LA, rather than trying to be a true emulation or clone, I can forgive them their liberties.  But, like I said, it just doesn't quite scratch that itch.

Agreed. It's Darius' game, he can do what he wants with it. It's not something I'm crazy about, but I thought it was worth mentioning since I think someone in the thread asked about the state of further development of the LA game.

Quote from: Lunamancer;872990I've never even counted. So little attention is given to it in LA. The key to "fixing" initiative in LA is not to pick one method, hold it up as holy and official and eschew all others. The key is coordinating die pips and activation times and whathaveyou. Once that's done? I think what to print is an unmodified d10 roll for initiative, with optional rules for modifying it by speed or whatever else.

Well sure!  And that method should have been front and center in the LR4AP and that would be the end of it.

QuoteThere is a method to the madness. The problem was it was never explained succinctly and the examples found in the book contradict how it really works.

Which is typical of LA and what makes it so frustrating.  I'm not sure we would forgive that of anyone else in the business as long as Gygax had been.

QuoteIt might also be worth tossing out there that "average human" stats in LA are 20 Health, 20 Precision, 10 Speed. If you wanted to multiply Speed by four to put it on the same scale as the other stats, it still looks goofy to write 20 Health, 20 Precision, 40 Speed.

Well, ideally everything could have been scaled at 20/20/20.

The real issue with the numbers, I think, has to do with the point-buy aspect of chargen.  Human characters are given 100 points to spend on their Base Ratings.  But each BR has a different floor and ceiling.  And since they are all scaled differently, its very hard for a player, new or experienced, to really jump in.  It's a speed bump.  So you spend your points and then, depending on your race, you roll a different set of dice to augment your starting scores.  And Speed gets "half-points", which can leave you with a fractional BR score.

Now, is this a big P-I-T-A?  Not really...unless you are trying to walk a group through character generation.  Then it absolutely is.

And that's without even having to explain how the BRs represent both Physical and Mental aspects.

QuoteThat said, I'm open to ideas that don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. One of the ideas I'm considering (because I do want to bridge LA and AD&D) is to convert LA over to a d20 mechanic. So rather than rating Speed on a larger scale, I make Health and Precision run on a smaller one. Then I could just run LA-style Avatars through AD&D content.

Interesting.

Personally, being the Mythus fan I am, I'd rather see the whole BR scheme ditched and substituted with a simplified M/P/S breakdown.

Something else I was playing around with the other day was to ditch the point buy part of chargen and instead increase the Initial BR bonus of the abilities.  So instead of spending your 100 points.  You would look at your Order Abilities and add points based on those.  Instead of 2 point bonuses, they might add +10, or +5 (+2 for Speed, assuming we're keeping the same scale).  This would be added to a based BR (40/20/10 for humans, IIRC), plus any random generated bonus.  It takes a step out of chargen and moves things along faster.

But really, having everything on the same scale would make a lot more sense.

QuoteWhat if I told you, a brilliant solution was staring us in the face all along, pre-dating LA?

I'd believe you, since I think its meant to shoe horn segments in there.  You know where it would have been nice to find that brilliant solution?  In the rulebook!  

QuoteI find it exceedingly practical to have that kind of overlap because it makes the game easier to learn. Rather than having to understand the intricacies of 40 different skills to know when to apply Waylaying vs when to apply Ranging in an ambush, I know they both cover an ambush, so either one works.

That may be, until the player wants to know what to roll to ambush someone.  "Do you have waylaying?"  "No."  "Do you have Ranging?" "No."  "Tricks?" "No."  "Ok, then roll this..."

Overlap works well when you have a ridiculously low skill list (Barbarians of Lemuria or BareBones Fantasy), or a base roll with skills as bonuses (Fantasy Age Focuses).  In LA, I think it works better in concept than in play.  And the idea of knowing an Attack roll is X ability + 20% of Y + 10% of Z is getting very unwieldy for a rules light game.

QuoteWasn't yours just applying an initiative penalty equal to 3 times the number of segments the Avatar spent activating the power in that ABC?

Something like that.  It's been awhile.  Again, looked good on paper, but in play was a PITA.  If I were going to play tomorrow, I'd simplify it a lot more.

QuoteYou're right that what's present in LA mirrors AD&D identically. In 2nd Ed, they just went and made casting time an initiative modifier. Kind of like what I think your fix for LA was. But 1st Ed never integrated it at all, and only even addressed it in one little hidden detail regarding spell disruption where the winning initiative roll was subtracted from the weapon speed of the character trying to strike the spell caster, inexplicably treating negative numbers as positive, and then comparing that to the number of segments of casting time.

See, that would have worked too: just giving spells a casting time and a speed factor.  So a Moderate spell might have taken a round (ABC) to cast and had a speed factor of 5.  If an attacker's weapon has a speed factor of <5, he can get in an attack before the spell goes off.  Easy enough.  Instead, everything works on two different scales.

Like I said, I love the game.  But it frustrates me.

Tom

Quote from: Lunamancer;872869I haven't heard a peep. Which I suppose is a good thing. The guy who ran Lejendary.com, putting in time and money to develop it and keep it running, shut the site down completely after hearing from the family, because all they did was demand he hand over this and that and the other thing.

To be fair, I think the reason this was done was there were so many things going on at the time Gail couldn't keep track of all the dozens of official and unofficial partners at the time.

Quote from: Lunamancer;872869My understanding of the priorities just before Gary died was that Castle Zagyg was supposed to be the top priority. It was supposed to be a mega-campaign that served as his legacy, adding a lot of content that the hobby in general was missing. If that's gone off the radar, you can forget about everything else. If someone actually get around to publishing his backlog, there's a good 3 to 5 years worth of releases there, at least.

I think the biggest things missing from the LA project are the trilogy of supplements:  Key of Sand, Maladicted Plateau, and Well of Souls, along with LAR.  I do wish they'd get published someday but then again--these adventures were mostly written in 1997-1999 and were never published for a long time.  They languished for 10 years before Gary actually passed.  LA is actually in better shape since much of the unpublished stuff was done a few years before he had his health issues.

Quote from: Blusponge;872919And yeah, it looks like the Gygax estate is content to sit on...everything.  The original rumor was Gail was holding out for deals in the CRPG industry where the real money () is these days.  But at this point?  I have no idea whatsoever.

Since the "rumor" came from me, it came from actual discussions with Gail.  I don't know any specific details--I've specifically setup a personal "I don't want to know" wall since I think one of the reason Gail pulled all the existing deals is that a few people in the pipeline betrayed or angered her early after Gary's death, and I think there were too many people loyal to the material over the man in certain cases.  

Quote from: Lunamancer;872929CRPGs don't make money unless they actually catch on. I don't know exactly what it takes to make one successful. But I know you are killing every chance by sitting on the material instead of constantly getting it out and constantly generating public awareness.

Ironically LA was originally a computer game treatment, and Gary had actually abandoned Tabletop gaming for a few years trying to get a CRPG made.  CRPGs are pretty much the future of the RPG I think, though in this industry most companies are less willing to license products because they'd rather own the IP.

I do agree that I think some things need to be printed, but at the same time, you never know.  Of all the games out there, the guys behind The Witcher RPG chose Cyberpunk 2020 to adapt, and that's not a very popular game in this day and age.  I could potentially see a Gord the Rogue computer game taking place using the LA system, for instance, but I do agree it's a long shot.

I share the wish that something gets published in the future.  But I'm content and just grateful we got three good games out of Gary.  :-)

Quote from: JRT;873022I think the biggest things missing from the LA project are the trilogy of supplements:  Key of Sand, Maladicted Plateau, and Well of Souls, along with LAR.

I was begging for Key of Sand for years.

QuoteIronically LA was originally a computer game treatment, and Gary had actually abandoned Tabletop gaming for a few years trying to get a CRPG made.  CRPGs are pretty much the future of the RPG I think, though in this industry most companies are less willing to license products because they'd rather own the IP.

Yeah, I see the popularity of CRPGs. What annoys me is the divide between P&P RPGs have been slow to adopt technologies that would enhance play. CRPGs haven't really tried to adopt the way human GMs would manage a living campaign to produce a dynamic game world.

QuoteI share the wish that something gets published in the future.  But I'm content and just grateful we got three good games out of Gary.  :-)

One thing I love about RPGs. They don't have expiration dates. It's pretty wild to still be playing with books I've owned for 25 years.

Quote from: Blusponge;873012Personally, being the Mythus fan I am, I'd rather see the whole BR scheme ditched and substituted with a simplified M/P/S breakdown.

Remember those 18 attributes from Advanced Mythus? They were arranged with all the mental ones on the left, spiritual on the right, and physical in the middle. Each category also had capacity, power, and speed, arranged with capacity on top, speed on bottom, and power in the middle.

If you take that matrix, then add up the columns, you get the three traits (Mental, Physique, Spirtual) from Mythus Prime. If you instead add up the rows, you get Capacity, Power, and Speed, which could be analogs to Health, Precision, and Speed, the three LA BR's.

So I see both as being equally simple derivatives from the same master matrix.

The LA choices I believe have unique benefits. From what I recall, point-buy systems were really popular in the 90's. I got sick of certain themes that kept popping up. Like if you want to have an awesome combat character, he's gotta be dumb as dirt. Spending points on intelligence are points that could have been spent on physical and/or fighting capacity.

Compare that to strictly random stat generation. A good roll on one stat doesn't prevent you from also getting a good roll on another one. You could have intelligent fighters. LA brings this back while also giving the player the control of a point buy system. Because the three stats don't differentiate mental from physical, you don't have trade off the mental for the physical.

The scale differences correct another annoyance I saw creep up in a lot of point-buy systems. This idea that if you're super strong, you have to be slow. Since it only takes 4 points more than the minimum allotment to max out Speed, you can be fast while still piling the bulk of your points into Health.

So it's been my experience that LA's BR system sets players up to play the sorts of characters they actually want to play, which is something point-buys claim to do but I feel actually fall short.

QuoteSomething else I was playing around with the other day was to ditch the point buy part of chargen and instead increase the Initial BR bonus of the abilities.  So instead of spending your 100 points.  You would look at your Order Abilities and add points based on those.  Instead of 2 point bonuses, they might add +10, or +5 (+2 for Speed, assuming we're keeping the same scale).  This would be added to a based BR (40/20/10 for humans, IIRC), plus any random generated bonus.  It takes a step out of chargen and moves things along faster.

I have something of this idea in my random generation method for NPC adventurers, where the ability selection has a stronger influence over BR's. The base BR scores are 20+d20 for Health, 20+d10 for Precision, and 7 +1d6 half points for Speed. Then there's a table where points are added to each of these based on rank. So if we're talking about a 9th Rank Avatar, it would add another 20 points to Health, 16 points to Precision, and 2 full points to Speed.

9th Rank also comes with four Abilities with base scores of 50, 35, 20, and 10. According to the skill ranking, a die roll is added to the score. The 1st Ability adds d8, 2nd adds d6, 3rd adds d4, 4th adds d3. These points add not only to the corresponding skill but the corresponding Base Rating.

QuoteBut really, having everything on the same scale would make a lot more sense.

Would it?

I mean, look at AD&D. As you level up, you can accumulate many multiple times as many hit points as an average person. Your probability of hitting AC 0 can get to be 17 times as likely as that of the average person. But when it comes to speed, the most extreme example, the 17th level monk, tops out at 2.67 times as fast as the average person.

Incidentally, if you assume the average person takes 10 minutes to run a mile, then you divide that 10 minutes by 2.67, you get 3.75, which is about the fastest anyone can run a mile. And yet we can still imagine actual people multiple times tougher or multiple times more competent than an average schmo.

It seems to me that any game system that features characters with heroic capabilities but are still human is pretty much going to have to put Speed on a separate scale from hit points or skill. In LA, Speed just happens to be a core stat.

It's not a bad thing. It's almost bound to happen when the rules become lite enough. I mean what if you wanted to simplify AD&D by stripping it down to just the stats that really matter. Wouldn't it be the exact same thing as an LA monster stat block? Health/Hit Points, Precision/THAC0, Speed/Movement, Attack (weapon damage, STR modifier), and Defense (Armor, DEX modifier).

QuoteThat may be, until the player wants to know what to roll to ambush someone.  "Do you have waylaying?"  "No."  "Do you have Ranging?" "No."  "Tricks?" "No."  "Ok, then roll this..."

What you were instead running AD&D and the player wants to know what to roll to ambush someone? "Do you have Hide In Shadows/Move Silently?" "No." "Are you a lightly armored elf?" "No." "Ranger?" "No." "Ok, then roll this..."

Not only do my LA games not go as you describe it, I've never seen an AD&D game go like that either. Players know this sort of thing. Heck, it may have even been why they built the character the way they did.

Quote from: Teazia;872955Having Gygax's imprematur (and imprematura) at the end of his life, those Arkansas Troll jokers really mucked up a whole bunch of things that could have really gone their way if they hadn't been stepping on their own feet at all times...

Its true Gail schlonged them, and schlonged them good, but you can't say they didn't have it coming.

HHhhhhrrrm? What?...

...Gary was extremely depressed after having his new Dangerous Journeys project effectively shutdown by Lorraine Williams and TSR in the mid 90's. It's true, he released his new rules set Legendary Adventures independently with Tri-Gee in 1999, however this was a very limited edition self-published print run (1000 copies) which didn't have a very deep reach into the hobby... going only to dedicated RPG fans.

I met Stephen Chenault for the second time in 2000 at Origins right when they formed Troll Lord Games and originally released some new d20 stuff for 3.0e. At that time they were in the process of creating Castles & Crusades to accommodate the Aihrde campaign setting that was his home campaign that he had converted to d20 with the 3.0 Opening gaming license and d20 SRD that WOTC had just released. They were extremely successful with th original d20 release of Airhde.

This was right about the time he also met Gary. After years of being idle, Gary had finally decided to get back into making RPGs after TSR, his Nemesis, had collapsed and been absorbed by WOTC.

With the exception of a handful of loyalists, Lejendary Adventures had met only a Lukewarm reception from the RPG community in general, and Gary was busy looking for some new income sources (i.e. paying RPG projects) to work on.

The Troll Lords (back then it was just Stephen and Davis) made a deal with Gary that went something like this; Gary would help them publish Castles & Crusades if they would help Gary get some stuff published too... and they just happened to have a new project they were working on, Castles & Crusades.

So the Trolls put their pet project, C&C, on the back burner, and managed to get Gary Gygax's Worldbuilder published in 2002, which really kicked off Gary's successful return as an RPG publisher. While the Trolls were selling their print runs of d20 Aihrde stuff, they were funding Gary (and getting the Gygax's some additional monies), They were also getting Gary some really positive exposure both in the RPG Industry, and with D&D fans who had been severely alienated by the retarded TSR policies that were in place from the time they kicked Gary out until TSR collapsed in 1996.

So they were helping Gary... And Gary was helping them.

In 2003, I just happened to be the Assistant Dealer Coordinator at Pentacon, a regional gaming convention in Indiana that usually draws between 2,000 and 4,000 gamers a year for a fun filled weekend, usually the first weekend in November. I called Stephen and asked him to book a booth and attend with us for that year, and he readily agreed. He paid in advance for his booth, and then loads up his beat up pickup truck, and Stephen and Davis set off for our show.

Our show starts on Friday Morning. Trolls didn't show up Thursday night... So I call Stephen and leave a message... Friday afternoon rolls around, and the convention is running full steam, we are still missing a couple vendors though, including the Troll Lords. So I call Stephen again, it's about 4 PM on Friday now... and he finally managed to call me back. He's about 30 minutes from coming in and can I have a crew ready to help him load-in and setup his booth since he has lost Davis...

I'm like what?, ...sure thing and go round up a couple of show volunteers to help me when he gets in.

So we get him setup and going,and I politely inquire as to the delay, and he's like "We'll we got pulled over in Tennessee and Davis got into an altercation with the Sheriff there and was promptly arrested. I thought I was going to make some money on this show, but I'll really be needing that money now to bail Davis out..."

...and so it went.

So you see now, it wasn't Stephen "...Mucking things up". He was usually fixing things, and making things right, and trying to eke out a bit of a profit, and make a bit of money for himself, ...and for Gary ...and for Gail (and for all of us in RPG gaming) while doing all of this. He helped pay for PentaCon.

He felt bad about not showing up on time on Friday and automatically booked for 2004 and 2005 as well, just to make it up to us (and for the d20 RPG fans that were looking forward to his visit).

That's the kind of guy he was. And that is in addition to being a really great GM, by the way.

In 2004, ...after the Troll Lords published Gary's Extraordinary Book of Names, they also finally published their own RPG, Castles & Crusades as well.

They helped Gary first.

...and then they started what is now known as Garycon... it was the lake Geneva Gaming Convention (LGGC) which the Troll Lords had organized and ran from 2006 until Gary's death in 2008.

I know because I bought tickets for LGGC I and II, however due to requirements at work was unable to attend both in 2006 and 2007.

So that's the real Arkansas Trolls imprematur...

I'm pretty sure that the Troll Lords would have gotten some more stuff published working with Gary, but they got delayed again, I want to say in the Autumn of 2004, or Spring of 2005, not because of anything the Troll Lords did, but because Gary had a minor heart attack, or some heart problems or something. His doctor made him both quit smoking and quit gaming and Gary was out of action except for some email correspondence for most of 2004, 2005, and I only finally saw Gary at Origins again in June of 2006.

The doctor told Gary to stop gaming?! Talk about the cure being worse than the disease.  I mean, smoking I get. But gaming??

Tom

Quote from: Blusponge;873195The doctor told Gary to stop gaming?! Talk about the cure being worse than the disease.  I mean, smoking I get. But gaming??

Tom

Yes, we invited him to PentaCon in 2004, he had originally agreed to attend, however he subsequently declined citing this health issue, it actually was a stroke, ...not his heart (I looked it up, because I wasn't sure...), and he really did like going to PentaCon because we still had designated indoor smoking and gaming areas back then... unlike GenCon.

I actually had not met him yet, and was really looking forward to this visit... and then didn't get to actually meet him and Thank Him in person for such an awesome game until I saw him later at Origins with Duke Siefried in 2006.

2006-2007 were truly amazing year for me in gaming. In addition to finally meeting Gary, I also met Frank Chadwick from Avalon Hill and GDW, and Jim Dunnigan from SPI at the SPI reunion at GenCon. I think Marc Miller was there that year as well, on the low down, and I got to play the re-released edition of Streets of Stalingrad with Dana Lombardy.

I was set to attend LGGC II in 2007, and actually was off from work. There was a freak spring snowstorm that closed I-70 though, so I couldn't make the Drive up to Lake Geneva for the second convention that the Troll Lords had organized.

Davis tussling with a sheriff?  Wasn't expecting to read that one!

I just wanted to say, thank you for resurrecting this topic. (I know, not the best way to start in a new forum). As Atsuku Nare, I'm looking for a more updated version of Lejendary AsteRogues. And as Blusponge, I agree. Far to little love for LA.

Last Christmas I returned to my home and one of my few precious things I bring back to US was my copy of Lejendary Adventures.

I'll reply in order some post that I find really interesting. In advance, sorry for the extension of this post. I couldn't help myself.

Quote from: Lunamancer;872869(...) People, including Gary, just started asking my permission to lift my message board postings for publication. I finally caved and agreed to co-author a book for the LA line with Gary himself. It was about 99% complete when Gary passed.

I haven't heard a peep. Which I suppose is a good thing. The guy who ran Lejendary.com, putting in time and money to develop it and keep it running, shut the site down completely after hearing from the family, because all they did was demand he hand over this and that and the other thing.

This is truly a sad story. In other topic, what was this book about? Was an adventure or a source book?

Quote from: Lunamancer;872869My group and I are so sad at how his family not just dropped the ball on LA, but flat-out killed it. It's to the point we're starting to think of just republishing the whole thing and just let the family try to find us and stop us.

One of the guys from Lejendary.com ripped off the game almost whole cloth, modifying it to plug in his two cents, his laundry list of things he wanted different, and has self-published it under the title Perilous Journeys. I feel it's too full of gratuitous add-ons to capture the spirit of the original. The most recent edition switched the core mechanic over to a d1000 system, if that's any indication for you.

Quote from: Blusponge;872919I would really love to see someone do a true retro-clone of LA.  I'm weird, I guess.  Every time I look at 5e DnD, I can't help but think, this is almost as good as LA.  I expect you'll be able to count the people who feel that way on one hand but whatever.

I have been working on a Spanish translation (and summary) for LA encompassing most sources available (LR4AP, LML, Erratas and Lejends). I have to confess that I loose momentum: I reach over 50 pages, all Orders, all Abilities but I got stuck at Activations... there are so many!! I would love to see a retro clone, but at the moment I don't feel capable of writing one yet. Please consider me interested to see additional material for LA.

About Perilous Journeys... yeah, is not my cup of tea. The thing is, there is no mention to Lejendary Adventures (or reference), and for me that's a no go. The author recognized is based on LA in other forums, but when the book does not acknowledge that I feel uneasy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;578481I see it as "worship" because if Cyborg Commando had any name on it other than "Gary Gygax" no one would be trying to claim it was anything more than a horrible pile of shit.

There are people that like all kinds of games, up to and including Phoenix Command, no matter who wrote them:).
There was a thread on TBP whether there exists a game nobody has ever played. Someone said that he wrote once a game as a joke, never played it and didn't expect anyone to have played it, but later got a letter with thanks from some guys who had just concluded playing a campaign with it;).