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.

Many of the readers on this site have been waiting years for Legends & Labyrinths to arrive. Now that it has, at long last, done so, I wanted to talk a little bit about the long road it’s followed.

SIMPLY D20

The origins of the Legends & Labyrinths project actually go all the way back to 2003 when I began work on a project known as Simply D20. Simply D20 was a deconstruction of the 3rd Edition and Modern D20 rulesets into a basic, generic game system suitable for any genre. It stripped down the class list to a “generic core” of Expert, Fighter, Mystic, and Rogue. It would have included separate skill lists for Fantasy, Modern, Cyberpunk, and Space Opera settings. It would have included six “sample races” (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Saurian, Felines, and the Klingon-like Battaks). And so forth.

The project began running into development problems, however, because its design goals ended up conflicting with each other. I wanted:

1. A very small rulebook (50 pages).
2. A generic set of rules to handle any genre.
3. Compatibility with 3rd Edition

But these could not all be achieved at the same time. Primarily, the additional options required for a fully functional and generic ruleset made the small rulebook unattainable and maintaining compatibility with 3rd Edition an ongoing struggle.

The release of 3.5 killed the Simply D20 project along with a lot of other projects I was working on and, ultimately, drove me out of the RPG freelance biz for a few years.

SIMPLY D20 FANTASY

In the spring of 2006, the project (sort of) rose from the ashes as Simply D20 Fantasy. Naturally revamped to use 3.5 as a base, the game’s main selling point was now “100% compatible with 3rd Edition!”. Its core design principles were now fundamentally identical to Legends & Labyrinths as it exists today.

Now, however, I let the project get out of control in a different way: I wanted to include mass combat, siege warfare, naval battles, chases, social duels, tourney, castle building, and realm management rules… all in 100 pages!

My problem was that I had been seduced by a false vision of the “good ol’ days”. I wanted a rulebook like my old BECMI Basic Set and so I said: “That was only a few dozen pages! I should be able to fit the full rule system into 50 pages or so and then use the rest of the space to include stripped down versions of all these other rulesets (just like I’m stripping down combat)!”

But, of course, the BECMI Basic Set only included rules for levels 1-3 — which allows it to conserve a lot of space when it comes to things like magic items and spell lists.

I’d later face a similar design problem in trying to recapture the simple glory of “roll attributes, pick a race, pick a class” as a method of character creation. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to realize that the reason I couldn’t capture that simplicity of character design is because it had never actually existed. (Legends & Labyrinths now features a character creation process which is pretty comparable to OD&D and BECMI in terms of the time and complexity involved.)

Problems like these bogged the project down and I laid it aside for awhile.

FINDING A NAME

When I returned to it in late 2006, I decided to abandon the name “Simply D20”. Instead I started chewing my way through alliterative titles trying to find one that worked: The game almost became Wizards & Warriors, but a succession of people had used the name and it had most recently been registered by a CRPG company in 2000 and I couldn’t determine whether the mark was still in use. Other possibilities included: Warriors & Warlocks, Mazes & Minotaurs, Magic & Monsters, Wyrms & Warriors, Spells & Swords, Swords & Sepulchers, Myths & Magic, Nymphs & Nightmares, Fable & Fantasy, Runes & Reliquaries, Chronicles & Catacombs, Sword & Saga, Princes & Perils, and Swords & Scrolls.

Some of these got rejected because they were already in use. Others because they sucked. Others because they didn’t feel as if they represented the totality of the game. Eventually I settled on Legends & Labyrinths (which had only been used previously in the early ’80s for a shareware Japanese CRPG that was long since defunct).

At this point, however, the project was still stuck in the same development trap it had been stuck in before. And I decided to add another bit of developmental stupidity by trying to go all-inclusive with my simple, stripped-down game. The race list now included: Humans, artathi, centaurs, dwarves, elves, gnomes, goliaths, half-elves, half-orcs, halflings, orcs, reptakkens, and siarrans. I was also trying to include not only every class from 3rd Edition, but also cavaliers, duelists, psions, psychic warriors, scouts, and spellsongs.

There was a method to this madness, but it wasn’t negating the fact that the project was still fighting with itself. After struggling with the project in this state for several months, it was collapsing under its own weight. In early 2007, however, I changed direction and began stripping everything back down to the simple core it was always supposed to be.

LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS

But then 4th Edition was announced at GenCon in August 2007.

The announcement prompted me to put Legends & Labyrinths on hold. Remember that this same project had been killed by the 3.0 to 3.5 transition, and I felt it didn’t make much sense to get burned again in the same way. At this point my plan was to wait for 4th Edition to be released and then release Legends & Labyrinths as a 4th Edition game.

This, of course, was predicated on the assumption that: (1) 4th Edition, like 3rd Edition before it, would be a continuation of the same game that had existed since 1974. (2) That WotC would continue supporting the OGL.

By the end of May 2008, it was clear that neither of these things were true. At this point I decided to put L&L back into development. By late June it looked like everything was falling into place: I had a draft that was 85% complete. I had lined up some beautiful cover art. I had put together a significant art budget that would allow me to purchase reprint rights for existing, high quality fantasy art.

Based on previous projects, I knew that I had roughly 2-3 weeks worth of work ahead of me. I also felt that, with 4th Edition coming, I needed to strike while the iron was hot and let people know that the game was coming. So I rebranded my existing OGL products, announced a July 15th release date, and got down to work.

EVERYTHING FALLS APART

What follows may sound like a litany of excuses. They’re not meant as such. It’s meant to be simply a description of what happened. I hope it can be taken in that sense.

In early July 2008, my computer crashed. This turned into a nightmare: I had all my data backed up, but I couldn’t recover the machine. So I spent money like a drunken sailor to buy a new computer… only to discover that the versions of Quark and Acrobat I owned wouldn’t run on Windows Vista. So then I tried to install Windows 2000 on the new computer, but necessary device drivers didn’t exist for Windows 2000. So then I spent more money to get my old computer reconstituted. (If I recall correctly, it turned out that both the motherboard and the auxiliary hard drive controller had burned out.)

By this point, I had lost 10 days of work. After describing the situation, I rescheduled the release date for Legends & Labyrinths to July 31st and continued work.

… which is when I contracted Lyme disease. (I was apparently bit by an infected tick while working at an outdoor Shakespeare company.) The Lyme disease turned into its own little odyssey: The first doctor I saw prescribed 10 days of antibiotics. I took them… and then, a few days later, I started getting sick again. So I went back to the clinic. This time I saw a different doctor, who promptly opened a medical reference book, looked up Lyme disease, and read: “Prescribe 14-21 days of antibiotics.” The first doctor had under-prescribed and the antibiotics hadn’t actually wiped out the disease. Since I had been off the antibiotics for several days at this point, I needed to start the regime over from scratch. And since the remaining disease was probably more resistant to antibiotics (having survived the under-prescribed round of treatment), I’d need to take a full 21 says worth of pills. (I did do and fully recovered; but by the end of it my kidneys weren’t too happy with me.)

By this point the deadline had slipped again. This time I simply announced that it would be “done when it’s done”. I also decided to take advantage of the extra time to retrench, rewrite some problematic sections of the book, and tweak the layout.

In late August 2008, however, it all fell apart.

Continued tomorrow…

Answering a few questions about Legends & Labyrinths. If you’ve got more questions about the game or funding project, post ’em as a comment and I’ll answer them ASAP.

Q. WHY 8-BIT FUNDING?

At this time, I felt it was the best fit for the project.

Q. DO I NEED A PAYPAL ACCOUNT TO CONTRIBUTE?

No. Although 8-Bit Funding uses Paypal to fulfill payments, you can just use a credit card.

Q. WHEN DO I GET MY COPY OF THE BLACK BOOK BETA?

When the project reaches its funding deadline, 8-Bit Funding sends me a spreadsheet with the contact information for all donors. This will allow me to send and/or arrange all of your perks. However, after talking things over with 8-Bit Funding I’ve found something of a work-around. It’s a bit time-consuming for me, but it’ll give me a way to distribute the Black Book Beta rulebooks early.

On the 8-Bit Funding website, I can post updates to the project. This includes updates which are visible only to contributors. When the project hits $1500 (getting halfway to my goal), I will post an update with information on how current sponsors can claim their copy of the Black Book Beta. (I’m doing it this way so that I can fulfill them all at once, which will make things considerably easier on my end.)

Q. CAN I UPGRADE MY SPONSORSHIP LEVEL LATER?

8-Bit Funding’s infrastructure doesn’t support this. (There’s information on their website about why, but I don’t think it’s really important.) But, once again, there is a work-around.

If you want to upgrade your perk at a later date: When you make a contribution at 8-Bit Funding you have the option to contribute without requesting a perk. Select that option and pay the difference between your current perk and the perk you want. (For example, if you were a Beta Warrior at $12 and want to upgrade to a Labyrinth Exemplar at $50, you’d make a contribution of $38.) When I get the final report of contributors, I’ll see the un-perked contribution and be able to contact you to confirm your intentions.

You can follow a similar procedure if you want to purchase multiple iterations of the same perk. Select the perk you want but then simply multiply the contribution amount by the appropriate amount. (For example, if you want to purchase copies of the rulebook for your whole gaming group — nudge, nudge, hint, hint — you can select the $30 Labyrinth Prowler perk, but then enter $$120 as the contribution amount to get 4 copies of the rulebook.)

Q. HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR THE FINAL VERSION OF THE RULEBOOK TO BE PRINTED?

This depends pretty much entirely on how long it takes for the artists to complete their work. Based on previous projects, I would estimate roughly 3 months. Possibly slightly longer; possibly quicker.

My intention is to anticipate the end of the funding drive and begin contacting artists as soon as I know that I can afford them, which should speed things up on the back end. This is also another reason for the Black Book Beta rulebook: It’ll give you a fully playable version of the rules ASAP to tide you over until the final edition is completed.

CLIMB INTO YOUR LABYRINTH AND FORGE YOUR LEGEND TODAY!

LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS

The 8-Bit Funding drive for Legends & Labyrinths continues! Here’s our plain-and-simple pitch video:

LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS

As I mentioned yesterday, Legends & Labyrinths is being initially released as an 8-Bit Funding project. Today I’m going to talk about the Funding Perks you can claim by sponsoring the project:

REGISTERED ADVENTURER ($5): You’ll be listed as a Registered Adventurer and sponsor in the L&L rulebook. You’ll also receive a PDF copy of the Black Book Beta rulebook which will be given to all sponsors as soon our goal is met.

BETA WARRIOR ($12): You’ll be a Registered Adventurer (as above), but you’ll also receive a PDF copy of the final, full-color rulebook when it’s released.

LABYRINTH PROWLER ($30): As above, but you will also receive a signed, full-color, softcover copy of the rulebook when it’s released.

LABYRINTH CONQUEROR ($35): As above, but you also get a limited edition, full-color poster commemorating the artwork you’ve helped to sponsor.

LABYRINTH EXEMPLAR ($50): One of the great things about the L&L rulebook will be the Sidebar Reference System (making it the easiest rulebook you’ll ever use). The SRS sidebars include many examples, and as an Exemplar sponsor your character will be starring in one of them! You also gain all of the above perks. (Subject to approval of your character name.)

LORD OF THE LABYRINTH ($150): As per the Labyrinth Conqueror, but you’ll be listed as a “Lord of the Labyrinth” among the sponsors. Plus you get an exclusive “LORD OF THE LABYRINTH” t-shirt. These t-shirts will only be available during this limited sponsorship period.

LEGEND IN YOUR OWN TIME ($450): As per Lord of the Labyrinth, plus your adventuring group will be immortalized in the Legends & Labyrinths rulebook: Provide us with a campaign journal describing your adventures and we’ll commission an awesome piece of art ripped right from your gaming table. (Subject to approval of content.)

INTO THE LABYRINTH ($300): As per Lord of the Labyrinth, plus Justin will personally run a 4 hour adventure for you and your group online using Google+ video chat. This also includes PDF copies of the Black Book Beta and final rulebooks for up to 5 additional players in the group (for a total of 6 including the purchasing sponsor). And the entire group will be listed as an Adventuring Party among the sponsors. (Justin has final approval over scheduling of the session. He will run the adventure for more than 6 people and everyone playing will be listed in the adventuring party, but this sponsorship only includes PDF copies for 6 players.)

(TIP: Talk to your gaming group. For six people, this sponsorship splits into reasonable $50 chunks.)

LEGEND IN YOUR OWN TIME + INTO THE LABYRINTH ($700): As per Legend in Your Own Time, plus Justin will personally run a 4 hour adventure for you and your group online using Google+ video chat. (The commissioned illustration can be taken from this online game or from your home game.) This also includes PDF copies of the Black Book Beta and final rulebooks for up to 5 additional players in the group (for a total of 6 including the purchasing sponsor). And the entire group will be listed as an Adventuring Party among the sponsors. (Justin has final approval over scheduling of the session. He will run the adventure for more than 6 people and everyone playing will be listed in the adventuring party, but this sponsorship only includes PDF copies for 6 players.)

A LOCAL LABYRINTH ($1000): As per Lord of the Labyrinth, plus Justin will personally run a 4-hour gaming session for you in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. (Justin has final approval over scheduling of the session.)

A LABYRINTH ON THE ROAD ($1500): As per A Local Labyrinth, but Justin will run a 6-hour gaming session for you anywhere in the United States within 450 miles of Minneapolis/St. Paul. (That includes Chicago, Kansas City, Bismarck, Davenport, Milwaukee, and more.) (Justin has final approval over scheduling of the session. You must be able to provide a reasonable location for the playing of the session and the location must be within reasonable driving distance of an acceptable hotel. Winnipeg and other Canadian destinations within range may be doable. But you may need to wait until Justin gets his passport renewed.)

A LABYRINTH ANYWHERE (SOME RESTRICTIONS APPLY) ($3000): A per A Local Labyrinth, but Justin will run a 12-hour gaming session for you anywhere in the continental United States. (Justin has final approval over scheduling of the session. You must be able to provide a reasonable location for the playing of the session and the location must be within reasonable driving distance of an acceptable hotel. Justin also needs to be able to get to you, which means having an airport nearby that Justin can fly to at a reasonable ticket price.)

(If you don’t live in the continental United States, we may still be able to make arrangements. Send me an e-mail and we can hash out details.)

BOILING THAT DOWN

PDF Rulebook: $12

Softcover, Full-Color Rulebook + PDF: $30

Beyond that, I’m offering nifty perks for people who want to contribute more than that. But, for the most part, the larger contributions are there for people who want to help make this rulebook as awesome as possible.

CLIMB INTO YOUR LABYRINTH AND FORGE YOUR LEGEND TODAY!

LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS