Legends of Today RPG

Working on a sci-fi game makes me think of scale. A starship is bigger than a person. A capital ship is bigger than a starship. I have 2 big influences in dealing with scale: Star Wars (esp. the Fantasy Flight Games version) and Blades in the Dark. The Star Wars games have always handled scale well. I've enjoyed the mechanics from both West End Games and Fantasy Flight Games versions. Blades in the Dark has a great system for understanding position and effect. As a system, it understands the difference between throwing a dagger at a person and at a brick wall, which is important and impressive for a system. This sounds like an unusual concept, but saying a system 'understands' scale is important to me. Some things like D&D have very abstract concepts of damage and resistance. Other games, like Fate, have a basic way of dealing with Armor or adding Aspects that reflect the toughness of a substance. The idea of a starship being disabled by a handheld weapon is really...

There are stories that told you this day would come. Over the ages, they mutated and changed, losing their original meaning. Now, you know the truth: this is the time of the second coming. Your distant relatives have come for you, because Earth has a part to play in saving the galaxy. Our species did not originate on our planet. Life as we know it was seeded and designed to reach its current shape. On many other worlds, similar processes took place with more or less oversight. Protectors, creators, stewards that once watched over humanity across the stars have retreated in the face of a looming challenge. Now, after all these ages, humanity is expected to save itself. It's time to learn how to pilot a starfighter. To explore unknown worlds. To unlock the secrets of the universe, hidden inside your DNA. To speak with ancient intelligences that can teach humanity to battle back entropy.

Having run Open Legend with a few different groups, I have some opinions on how to get character creation going and have fun playing at level 1. To really maximize character creation: Make it an event! Schedule character creation with your group (commonly called a Session Zero), especially if this is the first time the group is playing Open Legend. This works best as a face-to-face session, whether that's in person or over video chat. I have done this through Messenger as well, but time delays and message threads make cohesive campaign prep harder. Explain some of the rules and how they work. My quick list would be: All Attributes, no Skills. Everything is a roll, no modifiers. All dice explode! Explain Banes and Boons. No spell lists, more than just Attacks. Explain the game campaign concept that you have. Hopefully your players know what they are showing up for and are interested, but now take that large concept and allow players to contribute and add to it. Make it i...