The Mushroom Press Design Blog

Building on the legacy of Legends of the Wulin

Legends was a fantastic game. Our work originally was revamping and simplifying this system, rather than authoring a wholly original one.

It wasn’t perfect. Its most dangerous flaw, from a product standpoint, was how “heavy” it was during play. Even as veteran gamers, single turns in combat could take my group upwards of 20 minutes to play.

As well, there was a punishingly steep learning curve which served as a barrier to entry. And there were some elements (most notably for my table it was the Chi Conditions) which did not feel in play as they were described in the system, which created a feeling of dissatisfaction about the game.

During our initial redesign, we latched on to several of these points with a list of “trouble areas” marked for improvement. In that draft of the design, our goal was to cleave as close to the original material as possible. However, once we decided to generate a new system, we instead wanted to diverge more radically.

The list of trouble points ranged from the severe to the trivial, and so I won’t list them all here. Rather, I want to highlight some of the critical areas we decided to change, how we changed them, and why.

Rolling the dice

The Problem: This was swiftly identified as the biggest contributor to combat bloat. Rolling the dice was done for every stage of initiative, attack and defense for every character, with multiple decision points on each roll.

Our Solution: One roll. In Brahamanda!!! The dice are rolled at the start of every round, with every die rolled then becoming a “facing”. These facings are then used as a pool of resources for performing actions, including initiative.

The Wound system

The Problem: There was a threefold issue with the wound system in our estimation.

1.  Combats could drag on interminably, prolonged by the nebulous nature of wound assignment.

2.  The wound system would routinely result in a lot of rolling for little to no payoff.

3.  Chi Conditions (which tracked damage narratively) recovered easily and had little game impact, despite having a massive word count in the rules

     Our Solution: Our solution was likewise threefold.

1.  First, we added a simple health track to give combat a defined endpoint.

2.  Second, we re-designed the system for applying narrative “lasting” wounds (We use the term “Imbalance”) so that as more damage was applied, the likelihood of taking these more permanent wounds become higher.

3.  Finally, we designed an escalation mechanic into the health track that guaranteed deadlier Imbalances as more health was lost.

The Combat Resource system

The Problem: The system of Chi (which powered special attacks and defenses) in the original game had an issue between different types of Chi being significantly more powerful than others. This resulted in lopsided power levels in play and was never adequately amended because of its intrinsic place in the system.

Our Solution:  We decided at an early design stage to eschew the different “types” of resource (Which we dubbed Prana). It was simply easier both from a design and play standpoint to have a more unified resource system. This effectively sidestepped the original problem completely.

One of the biggest changes to our resource system is that it escalates during combats, in addition to between them (with the expenditure of experience points).

Actions are taken during combat that create new pools of Prana (These pools are called Chakras; activating one is called “opening a Chakra”).

This change has radically altered the nature of combat, making it increasingly grandiose and explosive as it continues.

Modifiers

The Problem: Dozens of unique modifiers for almost every important roll bogged down the action with tedious reference. The math, although simple, was a little awkward.

Our Solution: We simplified the system of modifiers down to its bedrock form. We removed the “categories” of modifiers, replacing it with a rule that only one modifier could apply to a particular action. We also removed the +5 flat modifiers and replaced them with a system that created particular facings. Finally, we linked all modifiers to techniques, eschewing static modifiers entirely.

These changes, in aggregate, allowed us to directly link a character’s mastery and power of their martial training to the rank of techniques they had mastered, and their mystical might (as represented through Prana). This more satisfactorily captured the themes and structure of the Wuxia genre, while streamlining and providing a balance framework for the system