Source
r/RPGdesign•
Valanthos

Legacy Boardgame Designs in an RPG

Theory

In the world of boardgames over the past several years there has been a wave of a new style of boardgame called Legacy. Legacy boardgames are designed to be played over a multitude of sessions with the same group and as players play the game extra rules and mechanics enter play as well as pre=existing rules may get slightly altered.

In many ways RPGs are perfect for this design style as they are already being played over multiple sessions with a regular group of people, have evolving characters that change the state of play with time. So the typical RPG is already somewhat a type of Legacy game without doing too much extra.

But if an RPG was designed to be discovered with play with the rules, lore and everything slowly being unveiled during play I feel that would allow for a good sense of discovery in addition to possibly being able to reduce rules burden on starting players. The experience may be too tailored, however the current trend in Indie RPGs is for more specific experience deliveries and one of the most popular Legacy boardgames, Gloomhaven could fairly be described as an RPG.

The question becomes how do you deliver such a system and "hide" away mechanics only to reveal new mechanics in play? Looking at Legacy boardgames they'll often have small additional boxes containing their own rules only to be opened after certain conditions have been met, stickers to put over old items to change their behaviour and new pieces on the board. So we could always do the old don't go beyond this point in the rulesbook that you'll see in games like Deadlands and so on, this is typically reserved for GM sections and whilst it may be used to some success it is all too easy to just flip on ahead. It could be possible to embrace the digital age and sell GM copies of the rulebook which come with say 10 player copies that they may send which update as the GM ticks boxes adding pages, additional lore and so on as they play the game.

So these are my current thoughts on the topic. But I'd be interested to know if anyone would be interested in playing a Legacy RPG either as a GM or as a Player? If they'd play as one and not another, why? Do people think some themes fit better into a Legacy RPG? Is the concept just too significant of a design challenge as you are essentially designing multiple games as the rules change? If anyone has any insights or has heard of a project that has done something similar I'd be really interested to hear about it.

Posted Nov 27, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

818
scavenger22•

The very old D&D "BECMI" did exactly this.

Start with dungeon crawling (Basic), move to the wilderness (Expert), learn how to rule a domain (Companion), become a god (Master), be a god (Immortal).

From expert onward you could also introduce new options, lore and rules by using the gazetters.

Each "set" was really small (the basic set was 64 pages for the players, including a full cyoa introduction) and each set was less than 192 pages in total for the DM & the players so each of them only added a little more over their predecessor.

8
ValanthosOP•

It might be worth seeing if I can dig some copies up. Nothing wrong with looking back to look forward.

1
scavenger22•

The idea is to give each set a different scope (the power creep is a D&D-ism), this would enable each GM to pick which areas they want to focus and ignore/downplay the others.

Another good alternative is how GURPS does: you have a core book which contains the basics for everything* and than a huge number of small books about things like a setting, country, historical period or the advanced version of a single broad concept (like martial arts, magic, guns, vehicles, embroidery** and so on)

*: Gurps is really about everything.

**: ebroidery may not actually be an existing book, here is the list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GURPS_books

2
ValanthosOP•

I'm familiar with GURPs and have run a lot of GURPs in the past. The intention would be to walk the group and GM through the expanding rules a little more systematically, in addition to changing the rules in a way to match story beats.

1
merurunrun•

I think that a lot of RPGs already create this sort of experienced half by accident.

For example, the GM picks up a new game and wants to run it, but has to give a condensed version of the rules to the players so they can pick it up quickly enough. Maybe they use pre-gens the first session, but afterwards players start customizing their characters or roll new ones once they have a better understanding of the rules, or want to use more complex options.

Similarly, sometimes games with a supplement treadmill end up doing this if you just play them long enough, but don't want to start over from scratch every time a new splatbook comes out. Houserules getting added to a game as players come up with more ideas not covered by the printed rules have a similar effect over time. Many games also gate certain content specifically for it to only be available at higher levels.

Of course, I suppose a lot of the real oomph of a Legacy game also comes from the "surprise box" effect of adding things nobody knew about beforehand, including the GM. I've actually thought about trying to leverage this for Shinobigami, a game that could be functionally GM-less already if it weren't for scenario creation, and Legacy-style pre-packaged content would work perfectly for giving it that final push into a GM-less game. It's also well-positioned for episodic play as it tends to assume a large amount of "wiping the slate clean" between sessions. That makes it a particularly good vessel for adding modular mechanics with each session, since its session-to-session consistency is already extremely low to begin with and you don't run as high a risk of the "new content" contradicting with something established in the game previously.

4
TheGoodGuy10Small Ambitions•

Ive pursued this idea from the perspective that players would be able to interact with it proactively, bringing mechanical oomph to narrative beats they were pursuing. There would be a catalogue at the back of the player book listing each of the legacy "achievements" and their requirements to unlock - the effects of these achievements are separated into the DMG. For example - they could be "Release an Undead Horde" or "Fall in Love." Once the requirements for these things were met (I imagine theyd mostly be narrative prereqs), the GM turns to the appropriate page in the DMG and reveals the new rules module that come with it. For the Undead Hordes it could be straight up rules for undead if they werent in the game already, the price of equipment quadruples, and "unprotected" NPCs significant to the story have a chance to be infected every [time unit]. Falling in love could give you a "saviour" action in combat between you and your spouse, resistance to charm effects, a bonus (or penalty? haha) to assisting skill checks, and a rage mode if your love goes down in combat. I think it would satisfy a lot of different players, people who like exploration will enjoy the surprise, expressionists will enjoy seeing their "fluffy" choices so rigorously recognized, challenge-seekers will find a way to min max it after a few games (Im gonna build a barbarian and then fall in love with you for double-uber rages! so cool) etc.

Only problem is that this is all stuff that GMs kinda do already, to more or less of an extent...

3
ValanthosOP•

I think guiding and encouraging the various kinds of play the emerge with changing rules and behaviours both as a way to ease groups into a new game and to create a sense of exploration would be really helpful to newer GMs who are less willing or scared to change things.

It might also be worth pursuing for GMless RPGs as a way to help direct play a little more strongly.

1
JavierLoustaunau•

Personally I'm doing some design using cards so awarded items leave the pool or things enter the pool as players unlock stuff. Strictly as a variant or useful DM tool.

3
twoerd•

In a way, that's what part of what leveling does. Many games that have well-defined levels have starter characters that are quite simple, and as they level up more and more complications are added in the form of additional abilities.

3
ValanthosOP•

Leveling does a little of this, that's true and it's part of the reason I mentioned RPGs were already kinda Legacy games already. And as some other commenters have mentioned some withholding and altering rules to ease players into a game and match story beats is often done by a good GM. But I'm more thinking about how we could lean more into those Legacy elements to create a unique experience.

1
malpasplace•

A certain amount of the legacy aspects were stolen from RPGs.

A lot of RPGs have character creation, then leveling that gets more complex as one goes up. The same with monsters more simple to more complex. You might start out with basic melee damage and simple armor, before environmental effects, and before weird magical effects.

A lot of RPGs do this.

A certain amount of the special item revealing can be handle by the GM, but I think it is hard for the GM not to know what's coming. They have to have an idea of how they are going to adjudicate things.

The hard part is that being the legacy game is sort of the GMs job. It is the adjusting challenges over time, it is the rewarding.

Now might games better help a GM do this? Yes. Better show in a legacy layout how things get more complex? Yes. More tools to make your world less static? definitely.

But I think it is very hard to add more unknowns for the GM, and have that be for them something outside their control, and sort of stressful when it appears.

3
ValanthosOP•

Legacy games definitely pinched a bit from RPGs, but some of the most successful Legacy games I would say have more in common with Engine Builder style boardgames where each new game starts with the engine prebuilt.

How about as a tool in GMless games to help provide structure for the game?

I definitely feel that for a GM it could be done more as recommendations and written up as ways to adjust the game over time to create a degree dynamism. I can see a bit of this big bit of unknown rulebook creating stress for the GM, but only if they can't explore it until it's required. If for example we encourage the GMs to start reading things that they plan on expanding into a week or two before it opens up it might be useful to reduce the initial amount of game knowledge the GM needs to bring to bare at the start of the first session.

2
malpasplace•

GM-less games to me aren't really traditional ttRPGs. That mechanism of the GM adjudicating actions and providing a ridiculously adaptive AI is impossible to replicate.

This is coming from a person whose current project is a game that uses a lot of RPG mechanics, a lot of RPG like combat, and a lot of RPG like character creation, but no DM. I still think my game has more in common with a computer tactical RPG like Fire Emblem or a boardgame like Gloomhaven.

I have a great heart for DM-less games, and yes legacy mechanisms I use a lot of. I think the best legacy games it is more like in each iteration you have to build an engine for a new vehicle. The basic premise is the same but the goals and possibilities are tweaked.

The one thing I know about players in traditional ttRPGs. They will create characters they don't know how they work and expect GMs to adjudicate their actions. It makes it really hard on GMs to know a limited amount of the rules without limiting players. This isn't so bad when everyone is new to a game, as often the case with a single play through legacy game. But can get hard as people don't want to player the starter set over every time they make a new level 1 character.

The nice thing about my legacy game is that I can make the game an endless tutorial of more complex and variation like Plants vs Zombies. I can make that part of the discovery part of the fun. But that is cause mine is a very strict walled garden. There is one campaign, there isn't any home-brew. Yes, I have to make everything work through the mechanics of the game and I won't get the role-play of DM/player encounter. But easier intro of rules I have down.

But I just started GM-ing a Call of Cthulhu game recently. And it is a game I find easier than most. But first session, there I have the player. How does my character do x, cause they don't know. But as GM I do, or can quickly double check, and it's all good. I can adjudicate because I know the system. I read the damn book again. New edition, hadn't played in a decade. Because that is what a GM does. That is hard to chunk out.

3
hokieboat•

I think that could be really cool. I also think it would need to be a two pronged approach, where one prong is adventures that build on the specific outcomes of the previous one (kinda like the choose your own story books). The second prong would need to be new mechanics, yes, but it would also need to upend previous mechanics and structures, like class abilities get changed or initiative order is calculated in a different way. The game would have separate/optional packets, thematically coded, so the sequence of legacy packets work in tandem with the sequence of modules and you can pick the set of packets that matches the theme of the game you want to run.

2
FheredinTipsy Turbine Games•

The key genre difference between legacy boardgames and RPGs is that legacy boardgames have many, many more physical components. Discounting dice--which are used about the same in both cases--the average difference is probably about two orders of magnitude. If the RPG uses about 5 game components (character sheets and rulebooks) the legacy board game will have about 500.

This naturally means that designing a legacy RPG will be hindered by their own lack of game components, and you will have to move in a hybrid game direction with cards or tokens or stickers. I think that if you have an idea this is a project category worth pursuing, but bear in mind that you are going into hybrid game design, and you will not be able to sit comfortably on RPG design tropes only or boardgame design tropes only.

2
Defilia_Drakedasker•

I’m thinking a little along these lines for my game. For example player-levels; the first time you play, your character will be a human in a human society. As the player becomes more familiar with the setting, more options are introduced; lvl2 magic-wielder, lvl3 gnomes and spirit-creatures, lvl4 servants of Death. Or something. I’ve also been thinking about customizable cards, maybe using sleeves, one could add a narrower centercard to keep the main values and categories printed at the sides, while changing whatever’s in the middle. But I’m probably not going to create any barriers on information, just present the easiest way to get started, and recommended escalation of modes.

2
Jlerpy•

To me, a big part of the appeal is that the new elements are a fun surprise for everyone. Not really doable with a GMed game, but could be good for something GMless.

2
Jlerpy•

I did hear of a friend's GM who kept advancement surprising by making the character sheets with scratch-off panels, so the players didn't know what they'd get.

2