Legend in the Mist

Legend in the Mist is a narrative gem, but new GMs should know it comes with a heavier prep load than expected. I say this as someone who loves Son of Oak’s work. City of Mist is my favorite game of all time, and I’ve run a lot of Otherscape too (their cyberpunk variant). Anything crafted by Son of Oak will always be at the top of my list, because their systems don’t just allow storytelling, they demand it. The mechanics are designed to fuel narrative at every turn, and that’s what I love most. Legend in the Mist carries that same spirit. It’s poetic, introspective, and filled with tools for character-first drama. The tag-based approach is elegant, and the Fellowship concept adds emotional weight to party dynamics. But I want to be real for any new GMs coming in: this system front-loads prep hard. Designing a Series with the Narrator rules took hours and that was for just one Adventure. A full Series is a serious undertaking. Once you're past that initial hill, it runs like a dream. But this isn’t a plug-and-play experience. If you're hoping for a light-prep fantasy game, this might not be it. If you’re willing to put in the work up front though, you’ll get a rich, roleplay-driven world in return.

As someone who's a big fan of City of Mist who backed this game on Kickstarter, I think Legend of the Mist is a brilliant successor to the classic urban fantasy noir. After running the Tinderbox Demo several times, I am in love with this game's streamlined mechanics and rustic fantasy atmosphere, and eagerly await the game's full release. It streamlines the prior system to remove extraneous core moves and simplify them into a robust core resolution mechanic. This removes some of the newbie traps from City of Mist, like explaining the difference between Go Toe To Toe vs Hit With All You've Got, or having moves like Convince or Sneak Around being more situational variants of Take The Risk. This system keeps the narrative-first versatility of City of Mist but smooths and polishes it into something beautiful. I love the atmosphere that this game evokes, moving away from sword and sorcery pulps and focusing more on high fantasy epics in the style of Lord of the Rings or Princess Mononoke. This is not for games about collecting gold or slaying monsters to get XP. It's not about starting as a peasant and eventually becoming a god - progression isn't as linear as that. This is a game where Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf can be in the same party and all have interesting things to do without overshadowing each other. If you want a fantasy game that's less about five foot squares and spell slots and more about character arcs and heartfelt storytelling, Legend of Mist is the game for you.

A very light-weight system with endless possibilities for storytelling.

Legend in the Mist is a weird one for me. The art is some of the best art I've seen out there, the setting is different and refreshing, the lore is intriguing and very well written, the system is... well... different. It's a matter of taste, for sure, but when I ran Legend, it left me (and the players) a bit unsatisfied. It's a narrative system, in the veins of City of Mist, and it has interesting ideas inside, but it just felt hard to run and a little bit too loosey goosey, with some weird, very specific, intrusions of complexity that were hard to justify with the rest of the ruleset. Still, running it was great fun both for me and my players, and I would gladly run it again. I think it might just be a matter of getting used to the more narrative style, and making sure that the table is comprised of collaborative players, willing to share the spotlight and help each other to create a great story. Legend in the Mist definitely has the potential to create great stories.

I as a game master have found that you will at times find players who are far more interested in cinematic story telling than playing a game. games like D&D are too nitty gritty for these players and trying to force them to play it will often lead to them making the most simple choices in character building or the choices that just sound good and lead to weak character or they dont use all their skill or abilities. Legend in the Mist solves this issue, allowing players to have their character just made up of Descriptor tags will always feel more intuitive to players like these. but the game lacks depth or complexity for players who enjoy building interesting and powerful characters. now if you want to make a strong character it's about describing them as powerful, not making choices in character building that mechanically and definitively make them more powerful than other characters which can lead to players not in the right mind set to feeling like their character isnt special. But if you can find a group of avid story tellers (or even more actors) this system will be simple enough to have some amazing stories.

Legend in the Mist, that's a toughy to explain. I enjoyed playing it, really enjoyed playing it, despite the fact that it was quite different from systems that I'm used to. It's a system that encourages thinking beyond the character sheet, but also be creative in your character sheet. Instead of abilities etc. that you roll you basically have shrot descriptors of your character. It also encourages you to act your character would since that's what gets them bonuses. It's simple and fun to run. I look forward to the full game being released!