A few days ago, I promised a large announcement regarding the future plans of Dream Machine Productions. I was waiting to receive a signed contract from a cover artist so that I could legally show the cover we had designed for that product. Now, with that contract in hand, I’m proud to announce Legends & Labyrinths.

3RD EDITION LIVES!^TM

COMING JULY 15th FROM DREAM MACHINE PRODUCTIONS!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q1: WHAT IS LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS?

Legends & Labyrinths takes the most popular fantasy roleplaying game and strips it down to its most basic components. It removes everything non-essential, leaving behind a simple, fast-and-loose, easy-to-use system.

Legends & Labyrinths is based on a simple belief: Not only is 3rd Edition the most popular gaming system on the planet, it’s also one of the best. Its designers created a small, elegant set of core mechanics, resulting in an extremely flexible system. They then used those core mechanics to implement a wide array of carefully research and thoroughly playtested guidelines and supplementary rules. The result was possibly the most robust and detailed system ever created.

Legends & Labyrinths, on the other hand, was created with a simple methodology: If it’s not a core mechanic, it’s not in the game.

The result is a slick, tight, elegant system that doesn’t get bogged down in the details. Legends & Labyrinths jettisons the rules and guidelines which make 3rd Edition so robust, but it leaves behind the simple and flexible game which lies at the system’s core.

For experienced gamers, Legends & Labyrinths is a fast-and-easy game that jettisons the baggage of 3rd Edition. For new gamers, Legends & Labyrinths serves as the perfect introduction to roleplaying games — simple enough to learn in an afternoon, but also a complete game that can be played for years without ever needing another supplement or rulebook.

Q2: WHAT ABOUT 4th EDITION?

Legends & Labyrinths was actually one of the first products put into development by Dream Machine Production at the beginning of 2007. The original plan was to release it in the fall of that year. However, when Fourth Edition was announced in the summer of 2007, development of the game was put on hold (along with almost all development at Dream Machine Productions). We thought it prudent to wait and see how 4th Edition developed before making a decision about our future.

We have now come to believe that 4th Edition is a significantly different game from the series of games that culminated their development in 3rd Edition. The fundamental play and design of the game has been altered to a point where it no longer feels like the same game. As a result, we have a strong desire to continue playing 3rd Edition — and we feel that this desire is echoed widely in the gaming community.

As a result, the decision was made to put Legends & Labyrinths back into production as a game 100% compatible with 3rd Edition.

Later, in a separate decision driven primarily by the terms of the GSL, Dream Machine Productions determined that they would not be doing any development work for 4th Edition.

Q3: WHAT DOES “100% COMPATIBLE WITH 3RD EDITION” MEAN?

It means that any stat block or mechanic usable in 3rd Edition can be used in Legends & Labyrinths without conversion. It also means that any character created with Legends & Labyrinths can be used in a 3rd Edition game without conversion.

Got a 3rd Edition adventure? It can be used with Legends & Labyrinths. Got a book full of new monsters? It can be used with Legends & Labyrinths. Got a supplement of new spells? They can be cast in Legends & Labyrinths.

It also means that you can incorporate any core mechanic from 3rd Edition into your Legends & Labyrinths games without any difficulty. For example, Legends & Labyrinths features a stripped-down combat system. But what if you really like the detailed combat rules of 3rd Edition? Well, all you have to do is use them. Legends & Labyrinths is 100% compatible with 3rd Edition.

On the other hand, what if you really like all the different character creation tools 3rd Edition gives you (allowing you to tweak your character just the way you like), but you feel that the complexity of the rest of the system chokes the life out of your roleplaying? Well, all you have to do is use the full character creation rules to create your PCs and then play them using Legends & Labyrinths. The game is 100% compatible with 3rd Edition.

In other words, you can think of Legends & Labyrinths as being the streamlined foundation of the game: It’s a complete game all by itself, but you can also add whatever additional functionality you want whenever you want to.

This is one of the reasons Legends & Labyrinths can be an ideal way of introducing new players to your existing 3rd Edition game: It gives them a simplified set of rules to learn and use, and then you can gradually add complexity to that foundation until they’ve learned all the bells and whistles of your full 3rd Edition campaign.

Q4: WHAT IF I LIKE MY CORE RULEBOOKS THE WAY THEY ARE? WHY SHOULD I BUY LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS?

Actually, if you like having all the bells and whistles of the existing core rulebooks, there’s no reason for you to buy Legends & Labyrinths. A streamlined, fast-and-loose, easy-to-use system is not what everyone is looking for in a roleplaying game. The robust and detailed nature of the existing core rulebooks may be exactly what you’re looking for.

If that level of robust detail is what you’re looking for, however, you might be interested in Dream Machine Production’s line of Rule Supplements, each of which expands the depth and detail of your game.

Q5: WHAT ABOUT PAIZO’S PATHFINDER?

Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG is being designed to replace the void left by the original 3rd Edition rulebooks going out of print.

Dream Machine Productions feels strongly that this is a void that needs to be filled, and we champion Paizo’s efforts. In the fall of 2007, when it became apparent that 4th Edition was going to be radically divergent from the design traditions of 3rd Edition, we began exploring the idea of re-tasking Legends & Labyrinths as a replacement core rulebook to fill that void.

In March 2008, however, when Paizo announced their plans for Pathfinder, we scrapped those plans. We feel strongly that 3rd Edition gaming should continue to be supported, and we feel equally strongly that this can’t be accomplished if our collective efforts are diluted through unnecessary competition.

However, Legends & Labyrinths was not originally designed to compete with the 3rd Edition core rulebooks, nor do we feel that it competes with Paizo’s Pathfinder. Rather, Legends & Labyrinths complements those products and serves a unique niche in the market. Think of it as the red box Basic Set for 3rd Edition.

Q6: WHAT TYPE OF SUPPORT WILL THERE BE FOR LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS?

Because Legends & Labyrinths is 100% compatible with 3rd Edition, when the game is published it will already be the best-supported roleplaying game in print. Dream Machine Productions will also be continuing its development of Adventure Supplements and City Supplements, compatible with Legends & Labyrinths and all 3rd Edition games.

We tend to think of mechanical support for a roleplaying game in terms of depth and breadth. Depth support increases the complexity and detail of the game. Breadth support, on the other hand, increases the number of options (without increasing the complexity of any given option).

If you want to add depth to your Legends & Labyrinth game, you will immediately be able to tap into the 3rd Edition core rulebooks and hundreds of supplements to provide that depth.

Legends & Labyrinths: Expert Expansion, on the other hand, will expand the game’s breadth. It will feature additional classes and races, alternative magic systems (and psionics), chases, social duels, vehicles, and warfare. All of these options, however, will be designed with the same streamlined design ethos as Legends & Labyrinths itself.

Q7: WHAT IS THE SRS?

Legends & Labyrinths will be using the Sidebar Reference System originally developed for Dream Machine Production’s line of Rule Supplements. Using this format, rules are presented exactly when and where you need them.

For example, page 8 of Rule Supplement 1: Mounted Combat deals with the rules for mounted movement. The rules on that page reference the rules for jumping; prone characters; mounted reach modifiers; kneeling and sitting; penalties for squeezing; and tumbling. Some of these rules are located in the PHB, while others are found elsewhere in the same book.

In most rulebooks, you would have to start flipping pages to find all the relevant information. But with SRS, the relevant rules are printed right in the sidebar on the same page. And even when a rule is too lengthy to include, a specific page reference is given — not only making it easier to reference the rule you need (since you’re being told exactly where to look for it), but also keeping those page references and other unwieldy repetition out of the actual body of the text (which makes the explanation of the immediate rule being discussed smoother and easier to use).

You can see a sample, here.

It’s a fairly basic concept, but in practice it makes for the easiest rulebooks you’ll ever use.