Legacy Rules

[jdizzy001]

Is the term I use for the rpg mechanics which include rules for aging your character and replacing them with their protege when they retire from adventuring. The 1 ring has them, Pendragon is notorious for sporting legacy rules, and even DnD 5e is rumored to include some form of legacy rules.

I really like the idea Legacy Rules. I measure time differently depending on the campaign. One game year can equal 1 or 2 sessions (What I prefer to do) or a single session could represent a season (thus 4 seasons would be 1 game year, spring, summer, fall, and winter). These measurements of time are used based on the theory that most people live very uneventful lives. For the PC's, going out to save the Duke's daughter may have been the only exciting/noteworthy event that occurred during that year. The rest of the year was spend honing their profession or tending their land.

There are lots of different things one can do with legacy rules, like "passing" on xp (usually 1/4 of total xp or something is transferred to protege to represent shadowing and training under such a great hero). It does require a little extra something (such as corruption scores) to ensure the longer lived races are only out adventuring for a comparable time frame to that of the shorter lived races (though this is not always the case). I am currently trying to write up a set for a fantasy game system I'm building, but I wanted to hear what other player's thoughts are regarding legacy rules. I know they kind of go against the grain of old school dungeon crawling rpgs, but the idea (at least to me) of using a PC who is the son or, the daughter of, the son of, my first PC is really cool and allows for deep backstories.

[Treebore]

I do Legacy Rules rather realistically. Its the PC's kid, they decide what they give it to get started off, IE gold, gear, and other worldly goods, but not XP and the like. However, with a little thought, they can help their children get XP pretty quickly.

[Rigon]

I've never run anything like that, but it intrigues me.

R-

[Arduin]

There are lots of different things one can do with legacy rules, like "passing" on xp (usually 1/4 of total xp or something is transferred to protege to represent shadowing and training under such a great hero).

If a novice is hanging around with such a high level guy what are the chances of getting killed? It would be pretty high I imagine.

[jdizzy001]

You are correct Arduin. That is one reason why some XP is passed on from Master to Protege, to shrink the gap. Legacy rules also don't work super well in leveled games like dnd or cnc due to the level gap. However, they can be used. One way around it is to have PC's retire around the same time. Another option is to (as a CK) select monsters for encounters that would be catered for the lower leveled heroes. This will make the higher leveled heroes look even stronger, but as those heroes retire and are replaced with their protege's it won't matter too much. It isn't a perfect system, but it focuses way more on story than mechanics. This can also be offset by implementing aging rules. As each session or 2 is 1 year of game time, the age of your PC becomes very important (especially if you are one of the shorter lived races). After each year is complete dice are rolled to determine how your stats are effected due to age. Yes, they decrease as you get older and the older you are the greater your chances are that you could see a huge slip 2 to 4 points in a single stat. This encourages the PC's to train and use proteges. This also encourages the CK to include some other way to "age" the longer lived races of elves and dwarves. By use of a corruption meter CK's can encourage the longer lived races to settle down and found sanctuaries instead of adventuring for hundreds of years. When I talk about corruption I don't mean JUST doing bad stuff. Adventuring is hard, and rubbing shoulders with liches, ghosts, demons, goblins, and basically eveything every child in the world is afraid of will take its toll on an adventurer. Instead of corruption, to better reflect this, I call it depression. The long a PC adventures the greater chance he has to acquire ranks in depression. When his depression score equals the value of his LOWEST ability score, the PC goes insane and can no longer be a viable character to use. That is why it is important for a long lived race, such as elves, to eventually settle down and pass the mantel on to a younger, more hopeful, protege.

[Traveller]

I don't do legacy rules. If the character dies, let the player create a new one and leave it to me to find a suitable means to work the new character into the adventure.

[Arduin]

You are correct Arduin. ...<snip>

Okay, so what is the chance that the proteges dies getting all that experience? (my original question).

[jdizzy001]

Unless the CK has a way to kill them during training, the idea is that by virtue of being your PC's apprentice they inherit 1/4 of their master's xp when the master retires. When the PC's go home after an adventure to tend their crops or professions that is the time they are "training" a protege. Depending on the CK, the protege can enjoy a bit of plot immunity during their training and only become usable once the current PC retires. There are ways to kill a protege in training which can end your character's line (much like Denethor thought his line had ended when he thought Faramir was dead). Basically, you don't take your protege with you into the field, you train them when you are home.

Like I said, it doesn't translate over perfectly to a level system like C&C. It works best with the one ring, pendragon, star wars d6, savage worlds and other skill based games. But with a little patience and imagination it works fine with cnc. It just adds another layer of background.

The best example I can think of would be the lord of the rings. Aragorn and Gandy were obviously the highest leveled members of the fellowship. The hobbits were the lowest followed by Boromir then the dwelf combo of Gimli and Legolas. I say Boromir was lower leveled than the dwelf because once the uruks were introduced into the mix, he died. Where as gorn, gimli and legolas were all able to hold their own. Once boromir died the "player" had to make a new PC, Faramir! Faramir only fought orcs and never uruk hai (much like his brother, he was rather low leveled and would have died). The hobbits who were clearly our of their league being the lowest leveled pc's knew it was best just to run. So they lived.

So using these "legacy rules" the lord of the rings which is a journey that lasted ~9 months would have been 1 or 2 sessions of game play. At the end every one would have applied their XP and returned home to roll out their winter phase, player's turn, or fellowship phase (what ever you want to call it) stuff.

I am also working on shorter down time rules for when the company is at a sanctuary but not really done with their quest. Such as when the fellowship hunkered down at Tom's or Galadriel's. This "pit stop" would allow the characters a chance to use skills or attributes checks such as song or craft to attempt to decrease their depression score so they could push back the weariness of the road. This pit stop would afford some of the same options as a longer end of year phase, but on a much more limited scale with a lot less rolling. Basically, they can train something (which is how I allow players increase their stats), meet the patron of the sanctuary, and attempt to decrease their depression with a good old SIEGE check. Something like 12/18+depression = TN. Failure means nothing happens, success means you can decrease your depression stat by 1.

[Arduin]

Unless the CK has a way to kill them during training, the idea is that by virtue of being your PC's apprentice they inherit 1/4 of their master's xp when the master retires.

Yes, that is pretty unworkable for a game like C&C/D&D. As gaining XP requires consummate risk. Otherwise, no XP rewarded. You don't gain levels via safely training.

[Dracyian]

What about this scenario?

Lets say you are th PC and you pretty bad ass like level 10-15ish you get some pretty decent equipment for the character and give him some gold and then let him lead you on a level 1 adventure. With a level 10 in tow on a level 1 adventure who outfitted you have a fairly good chance of survival. Now lets say that 2 PCs retired together per town now you have two level 1's and two level 10's on an adventure like Knight's rising or assault on blacktooth ridge. The CK will be able to assume i would say with a pretty good amount of certianity if the two level 10s would be aptly prepared. There is still risk for the two level 1s but it is mitigated by the two level 10s. They definitely would get at least half of the xp from the dungeon even though they didn't do much of the work but you can still repeat this a few times till the epic hero pcs are too old for the game and pick the novices up around level 2-3, 4 if you are being exquisitely nice.

Another thought for Legacy rules is breaking the game slightly and instead of providing the apprentice characters with XP provide them with enhanced abilities or new abilities. Like training under a master rogue you are going to be able to sneak, pick locks and detect traps with a higher profficency than the common street rat or burgular. You will be able to throw daggers a bit more accurately, now you can argue since you have never thrown them in the heat of battle that there is no true comparrison and you would be right but what about a back attack or for an assassin a killing blow, after a year or two under a master's tutelege suggesting this was covered and practice you can argue a better ability to do these feats. Since there is no true XP gained there is no leveling, no increase to bth from battle experience.

I guess for me its like Sojourn where Montolio teaches Drizz't how to be a ranger, netween battle arts, woodland knowledge, the ability to lear and discern quickly. Now in this case one could bestow bonus to wilderness that is similar to Montolio's grove where he learned, like an additional +1 or +2 to ranger checks when made in forest wilderness and to communicating and judging animal instincts, but you could also argue that Drizz't already had experience and just redistrubuted some of it

[jdizzy001]

Unless the CK has a way to kill them during training, the idea is that by virtue of being your PC's apprentice they inherit 1/4 of their master's xp when the master retires.

Yes, that is pretty unworkable for a game like C&C/D&D. As gaining XP requires consummate risk. Otherwise, no XP rewarded. You don't gain levels via safely training.

I don't think so. that is like saying you can only learn in a class room setting. It really depends on what xp represents to the group. I've always viewed xp as a numeric representation of learning. Therefore, I have no issue offering pc's xp for training (within reason. simply stating "i train every night we set up camp" won't afford you extra xp, but If a fighter were to acquire an esoteric tome of ancient sword techniques I would be more than happy to give him some bonus xp for reading it).

[Arduin]

What about this scenario?

Lets say you are th PC and you pretty bad ass like level 10-15ish you get some pretty decent equipment for the character and give him some gold and then let him lead you on a level 1 adventure. With a level 10 in tow on a level 1 adventure who outfitted you have a fairly good chance of survival.

Same problem. The REAL risk isn't there. Very little XP as a result.

[Dracyian]

What about this scenario?

Lets say you are th PC and you pretty bad ass like level 10-15ish you get some pretty decent equipment for the character and give him some gold and then let him lead you on a level 1 adventure. With a level 10 in tow on a level 1 adventure who outfitted you have a fairly good chance of survival.

Same problem. The REAL risk isn't there. Very little XP as a result.

But the real life learning experiences are. I do understand that there will always be a difference between fighting without that safety net and having that safety net you can fall back, but if you are taken out to the feild of battle and forced to spar relentlessly and practice with a true trained weapons master there is a very real possibility to in bloody true to earth life on the line combat there is a very real chance that you can, because of the training you received kill the war hardened battle veteran because of your training

[Arduin]

What about this scenario?

Lets say you are th PC and you pretty bad ass like level 10-15ish you get some pretty decent equipment for the character and give him some gold and then let him lead you on a level 1 adventure. With a level 10 in tow on a level 1 adventure who outfitted you have a fairly good chance of survival.

Same problem. The REAL risk isn't there. Very little XP as a result.

But the real life learning experiences are.

Hence, greatly reducing the XP awarded under those circumstances. Ya still get some xp. Just nowhere close to the full amount. Otherwise it is just a variation of the Monty Haul paradigm...

[Dracyian]

What about this scenario?

Lets say you are th PC and you pretty bad ass like level 10-15ish you get some pretty decent equipment for the character and give him some gold and then let him lead you on a level 1 adventure. With a level 10 in tow on a level 1 adventure who outfitted you have a fairly good chance of survival.

Same problem. The REAL risk isn't there. Very little XP as a result.

But the real life learning experiences are.

Hence, greatly reducing the XP awarded under those circumstances. Ya still get some xp. Just nowhere close to the full amount. Otherwise it is just a variation of the Monty Haul paradigm...

Must have been misunderstanding where you stand on that specific idea