Easily the biggest impediment to trying a new tabletop RPG is learning the rules. Reading them all can be a marathon in itself, but then actually digesting and internalising them can be an even bigger ask. As a GM who loves to flit from game to game, I’m always looking for ways to make that process easier and more accessible, both for me and my players. And I think the designers behind Legend in the Mist might have come up with my favourite approach yet.
I’ve been following this upcoming game for a while now—in fact, last year I chatted to the creators at Son of Oak about their vision for it, while they were still crowdfunding for its creation. Legend in the Mist is a fantasy game in a similar vein to Dungeons & Dragons, but using a lighter system that puts more emphasis on your character’s place in the narrative rather than mechanical abilities. It’s intriguingly flexible, designed to allow characters of wildly different power levels co-exist without issue in the same party—allowing, for example, a humble hobbit to be as crucial to the campaign as the elven prince, experienced ranger, and mysterious old wizard he travels with.
The latest Kickstarter update offers backers a look at WIP versions of the first two chapters of the upcoming core book, and there’s a lovely surprise in there. Before the introduction in chapter one comes a 50 page choose-your-own-adventure comic that takes you through a solo Legend in the Mist session.
As a young hunter called Gerrin, seeking a magic herb to cure a poison afflicting his mother, you move through a series of scenes that teach you the rules step by step as they come up. At various stages you choose how you want to approach an obstacle—for example, in a confrontation with bandits threatening a local peddler, you can either rush to the rescue, try to scare them off with a warning shot from your bow, or attempt to rally the peddler to your side.
Different choices lead you to different pages, which take you through how that action is resolved, before you roll and find out your results. Despite the limited format, it’s a proper implementation of the rules—you not only succeed or fail, you can have mixed successes, gain bonuses or take conditions, find items, and more. Like a videogame tutorial, you learn by doing, and there are even two different endings based on whether your quest succeeds or fails.
It’s a really clever approach, and a visually impressive one too. Even with most of the art still WIP and uncoloured, the comic book quality art really sells the style and atmosphere of the game. It feels like a distinctly modern approach to an age-old problem—but the irony is, it’s actually just running with an idea that’s over 40 years old.
One of the earliest D&D starter boxes—the iconic “Red Box” Basic Set—featured its own singleplayer tutorial. It wasn’t a comic, but like Legend in the Mist used some of the conventions of choose-your-own-adventure books to take new players through the rules, and similarly invited you to not just pick options but also roll dice and track your stats. In retrospect, it’s strange that the idea didn’t catch on—and it’s certainly welcome to see it revived in a more lavish form than ever.
After the comic, the sample goes into the game’s introduction—laying out how the game handles different styles of fantasy—and then an extensive chapter on character creation, which covers making everything from a clueless farmhand to a vampire king to a talking beaver. Right now this is a preview for backers only, but if you’re curious about Legend in the Mist, it’s worth checking out the free demo kit, and you can also preorder the game on Son of Oak’s website. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking a second run at the tutorial—I swear I’m going to show those bandits who’s boss this time…