I’m continuing the story from yesterday regarding the long road which Legends & Labyrinths has journeyed from its earliest inception, through its many delays, and finally to its release a few days ago.

We left off in July 2007: The original release date of July 15th had been delayed due to a severe computer crash and the revised date of July 31st was delayed when I contracted Lyme disease. Although I publicly announced that it would be “done when it’s done”, privately I was anticipating a release date in early September.

In late August 2007, however, it all fell apart.

The cover art I had arranged for the original cover of Legends & Labyrinths had been painted by a Russian artist. I had discovered his work on DeviantArt, gone to his website, sent an e-mail, negotiated a contract, and then sent payment according to his instructions. It had been a done deal for months.

… or so I thought.

Because apparently the Russian artist’s website had been compromised by hackers. When I sent him an e-mail, that e-mail was intercepted by the hackers. It was with the hackers that I had negotiated a contract and it was to the hackers that I had sent payment.

The details of how this got resolved are… messy. The short version was this: I had no cover art and the budget I had established for art in general was gone.

It’s at this point that the development of Legends & Labyrinths essentially went into hibernation. In October 2008 I released Spells of Light and Darkness in a silent attempt to raise money for L&L’s art. But it didn’t sell well enough. (I was also attempting to save money from my personal finances, but during this time I was first buying a house and, after that, getting married.)

THE 2010 REVISION

In February 2009, I ran my first session of the 1974 ruleset. It was supposed to be a one-shot, but the game proved so successful that my players asked to play it again. And then again. And again. And again.

Over the course of that year, I rediscovered the open gaming table and my old school campaign expanded to include 20+ players and dozens of PCs. At some point in the near future I’m likely to discuss in more detail how these old school sessions influenced the design of Legends & Labyrinths, but for now let it suffice to say that they did: Over the course of 2010, I was slowly revising and reworking the L&L manuscript and material from L&L was being playtested at my old school tables.

By late 2010, several freelance editing projects were meeting with particular success and with major personal expenses now behind me I was able to start putting some serious money towards an art budget. By early 2011, I was ready to bring Legends & Labyrinths out of hibernation..

2011: THE FINAL LEG

Unfortunately, the long odyssey of Legends & Labyrinths was not yet complete. Just a few days before I was scheduled to start contacting artists, I was notified of a major legal impediment that someone was attempting to create which would threaten not only the release of the game, but all of the game supplements I’ve published and kept in print since 2007.

I am not yet at liberty to go into much detail regarding this matter (although it probably wouldn’t take much ingenuity to figure it out), but I was basically forced to take my newly re-established art budget and dump it into legal fees.

At this point I was near despair. Even with the legal issue resolved, I was right back at square zero as far as getting the book into print was concerned.

During 2010 I had considered the possibility of using Kickstarter to raise the art budget. But I hit the impediment that the book had already been vaporware for 2 years: Could I really expect people to put money towards a project that was already so late? Not really.

But now, in early 2011, I had the idea of creating the Black Book Beta rulebook: It would let me put something out there and say with authority, “No, really. This thing does exist. It’s real.”

So I spent the next 2-3 months revisiting the entire manuscript. In June 2011, I transitioned to layout. The layout took much longer than I anticipated: Partly because I was learning Adobe InDesign, partly because I had forgotten how time-consuming the SRS system is, and partly because those delays ended up carrying the whole thing into the middle of a major theatrical project.

But, at long last, it was done!

… and then Kickstarter rejected my project proposal.

So I swapped over to 8-Bit Funding, created the Legends & Labyrinths project (which is actually cooler than the Kickstarter project would have been), and then waited several days for it to be approved.

Which brings us to today.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There’s a large part of me that wished Legends & Labyrinths had been properly released way back in July 2008.

But, on the other hand, I honestly think it will have been worth the wait. I also think Legends & Labyrinths is a much better game because of the extra development it has received in the interim.

On the gripping hand, however, I’m glad to have this monkey off my back at long last. Not only because I’m excited to see what you’ll do with the game now that it’s in your hands, but also because it will free me up to pursue other RPG projects that have been long dormant while I’ve struggled with the project that would (seemingly) never end.

Encumbrance by Stone – Design Notes 101 Curious Items – Reflections Gilted Fiends – Part 4