This is mostly hypothetical, but it’s something I’ve been pondering for a while - how well would Open Legend’s ruleset adapt to a video game environment, serving as a basis of an RPG game engine?
Legally, is this even allowed by the OpenLegend license, though? I know that OL is a tabletop RPG first and foremost, but I’m curious if doing something digital would also be allowed.
Of course a perfect 1:1 replica of the rules would be…difficult, due to the inherently more linear nature of cRPGs compared to their tabletop cousins, but there is a lot of merit to having one relatively small set of rules supporting almost any kind of game theme or setting.
this conversation has been had before. Can’t remember it if was here in the forums or on Discord. Was that you as well?
Theoretically, of course it could, mainly b/c anything could. Many of the games like that used basic concepts from DnD for attacks and defenses, so it wouldn’t be hard. It would all be in the background for the rolls anyways and then just skill trees of feats to add stuff on.
Naturally it would be pretty difficult for some things, as they are up to creativity of players and GM, so you’d lose a tone with that. Have to strictly define things like phantasm, etc.
It could be done, and the license would probably extend to it. But as in all things, your best bet is to talk directly to Seventh Sphere and/or a lawyer to know for sure, so not totally feasible to answer from just members of the community.
I feel like the exploding dice system would not be a good fit for a format without a living GM. When sat around a table (or playing online) the GM can step in when a level 1 goblin rolls a 78 and flattens the party tank, or when a party member rolls 64 to persuade the king not to lock them up (in the tutorial), or the final boss is killed in a single roll.
The necessarily more linear structure of a cRPG takes away from the freedom of action, of course, but it also comes with an expectation of predictability. The increased speed of gameplay also comes with a problem: if every level 1 enemy has a 1% chance to instantly knock out a party member then it might happen once or twice in a tabletop session but a dozen times each time you sit down to play a long session on the PC, which makes the characters much more fragile.
Overall, I’d love to see it attempted but I just don’t think Open Legend is a good fit for the format.
I think the best way for it to work is a game that’s heavily invested in storytelling and showcasing its world, where the mechanics are almost secondary.
Reading a Reddit thread the other day people were talking about divinity orginal sin 1 and it seemed like the majority did not like the rng crowd control.
This also raises another question about rng games that if you’re sosial encounters have a rng chance of making the persuade check many people will load game on failure.
When it comes to the one shot potential there is always the diehard feat.
So however think it could be a fun game structure, but I’m also a fan of unforgiving mechanics
The way to deal with that if you wanted would be a single game save slot and the game auto saves after social encounter rolls. The issue with that is if the save game gets corrupted your shit out of luck.