What’s A Legacy Game?

A Legacy game is a non-replayable campaign game. Basically you are possibly unlocking rules, changing the state of the game board, character boards, or components of the game as you play through a series of games. The experience of the game is mainly going to be contained in those plays of the game. Some are not playable after the fact and some are playable. And a lot of them have you destroy game components.

So, for some examples, Pandemic Legacy unlocks new rules as you play through up to 24 games, once you are done, there are no rules to continue playing because it wouldn’t be easy to play base Pandemic on that board. Charterstone on the other hand you can play after the fact. As you unlock rules, you end up with a game that is customized on the board but that you can play again. Gloomhaven is not really a legacy game because while you put stickers on the board, the game is completely resettable with minimal effort or you can easily ignore what is on the board.

What Do I Look For In A Legacy Game?

1. Good Mechanics
2. Evolving Mechanics
3. Story
4. Unlocking New Content/Story
5. Unlocking or changing state mid game session
6. Unique Characters

Good Mechanics

This basically means that I want a fun game. If the game doesn’t work, isn’t balanced or isn’t fun, I don’t want play it. While I pay attention whenever anyone puts the word Legacy on a board game, I still want it to be a good game. This will obviously differ for people depending on taste, I might not like a euro legacy game as well, for example, but you might be. So good overall game play that is fun.

Evolving Mechanics

I also want the game play to change over time. If I start with the game and nothing changes except adding a few stickers to the board, I’d be less interested in it. As much as I want story in a game, for a legacy game, how I play needs to change as well. This can be different objectives, but I like it when they add in rules.

Story

So, I just mentioned story, I want an interesting story in the game. Both Pandemic Legacy and Aeon’s End Legacy might not have a ton of story to read, but you get it from the game and from the cards in the legacy deck. But the story also needs to make sense. For Seafall the story is too scattered and in Chartertone, it is less story more just random text with tiny choices on them. So give me a story that makes sense, and just enough to keep things moving.

Unlocking New Content/Story

Obviously, I want to unlock new things as well. I like it when I can unlock new pieces for the game. Pandemic Legacy has some great moments across all the games where it just says, here is something new. Aeon’s End Legacy gives you story and moments where things change, you open up something new and there are different cardboard tiles that you use. But also just additional story, stopping and reading a card, or discarding a card you won’t read are a lot of fun.

Unlocking Or Changing Mid Game Session

I also really like when that story happens during the game. This isn’t something that I need, but something I prefer. I like when I stop and open a box or read some story cards during the middle of the game. There is just something exciting knowing you unlock something new. The idea that when you start a session the story might be different or how you play might be different by the time you end.

Unique Characters

Finally, I like feeling as if I am unique in a game. This is generally true, but I think it helps out a lot with legacy games. It is one spot where you can add in stickers, powers, give new or more options and you feel like you are different. I generally want this in a game though. If I am playing a character, give me something unique to do. And I appreciate it when I can become more unique as I go.

Are All Criteria Equally as Important?

No, I don’t know that all of them are. For me the story, the game play being fun, and the progression of the mechanics are what is most important to me. I think the unique character gives it a cooler factor to what is going on. Also, stopping mid game to unlock something is really cool as well. But I don’t think that is a requirement for a good legacy game. Aeon’s End Legacy is a good legacy game but doesn’t unlock anything during the middle of a game.

Let’s Do An Example

We’re actually flipping the script from sometimes, and I’m going to go with Seafall, a legacy game that I thought was okay at best and sometimes just bad. Let’s see what that one got wrong from my list, or got right.

Good Mechanics

To start off, we are going to go with a negative here. The base mechanics of the game are fine. They are fairly luck dependent on rolling dice, and really too much so. The level of mitigation just wasn’t there. So things that took a while to work towards could just be destroyed really quickly. And other things, that you developed throughout the game could just be there for points and you’d never use their ability.

Evolving Mechanics

Now, they did add mechanics throughout the game. But I’m not sure that the ones they added in were that great. The base mechanics of the game stayed the same. So as the board became bigger and you pushed out further in your exploration, everything just took longer. So while we got new advisors, new decks of cards to use, and new islands to go to with new symbols and spots on them, they didn’t evolve in an interesting way.

Story

This is also a negative. The story was supposed to be an interesting pirate story. And I think that it could have been. However, the story was all over the place. You would explore a location and get random story. It was only the few times when you opened up something big that you’d get a big chunk of new story.

Unlocking New Story/Mechanics

That actually brings me to the next one here, how it unlocked. We got a major piece of story and then got the hints of that major piece of story after the fact. Because you could pick the passage for the type of spot you explored, story was not really in order. And because of that, unlocking story was weird. It was also weird how you could unlock three things in one game and then nothing for the next five. There was no progression between games really.

Unlocking or Changing Mid Game Session

This it got right, actually. You unlocked a lot of big stuff during the game. In fact, sometimes you could unlock a lot of it, which made already long games go even that much longer. That wouldn’t have been that big a deal, if the game had been very interesting. But you had a chance to progress story and find out cool things as you played.

Unique Characters

Finally, I think they did a solid job with this. Everyone started out with their own ability. You got to keep an advisor as well. But unlike something like Aeon’s End Legacy or even Pandemic Legacy, you never really built it that much further. It was basically how you built out your ships, which could have been interesting, but it wasn’t. I wanted to upgrade my town as well, not by just giving me an extra point, but letting me keep a building. Make the buildings harder to get but when you get them, you get to keep them.

Seafall almost was a great game. There were just too many things that got in the way of it. And it was also a game that said it was for a lot of players and honestly, might have been best at two or three. Though, you’d get through the story way slower. I think there is a good game potentially hidden in there, but it needed more focus overall.

Will This Work For You?

I think, like the campaign one, that this actually works pretty well. Keep in mind that all parts aren’t made equally. If the game is good and engaging then it’s more interesting and I’m willing to put up with less in other areas. But generally, I want to feel a consistent sense of progression throughout the game.

What is your favorite legacy game? Or do you not play legacy games?

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The Game

Super Fantasy Brawl is a two player, though there are ways to play with more, game where players take a team of three fantasy race heroes into an arena style battle. The goal of the game is to be the first to five victory points. You get those points by knocking out your opponents heroes and completing objectives. The game play is quite interesting because of how simple it is.

Each player has the ability to activate characters up to three times per round. Once for each of three different aspects. But each aspect can only be activated once. The ideal way to activate them is by playing cards from your hand. Playing a card uses up one of these cores as they are called and will match the color of the core. So you can only play one red, blue, or yellow card per turn. And each character has cards of each color. You can also do basic abilities, but those aren’t as good. Once you’ve done all three it passes to the opponent and the process repeats.

The Bad

So, this game has a lot of good things, I want to talk about the bad things in this game first. And really, they aren’t with the game themselves. The insert to store the pieces is horrible. There is tons of wasted space in the box just because someone decided to stretch everything out. The box could have been half the size without this, or had room to store expansions. And really that’s the biggest negative in the game. It packs away well enough, but why is it impossible in a giant box to fit in the expansions, that is embarrassing. I talk about it in the Back or Brick, but I wish that Mythic Games had given an option to purchase corrected Game Trayz for the box.

The other minor quibble that I have is the towers. These pillars are cool looking and huge, but they kind of get in the way. When you reach around them, you bump into them and they can topple over. Now it’s a very minor quibble, it makes the game look epic on the table. But the bases are a little bit hollow, and had they been solid, they might have felt less like you’d topple them over.

The Good

Now, there is a ton that’s good, and really, the bad are generally cosmetic issues. I might find a way to weigh down my pillars so they stay better. And I can just toss the insert and use baggies and deck boxes and get it to the table just as fast, the only downside will be the loose minis. Mythic Games is offering a carrying case, but while it’s reasonably priced, it isn’t cheap. But enough about that, more good stuff please.

The Characters

This is the first area that the game really shines. Not only are the minis for the characters a really nice size, in fact, they could be smaller and you wouldn’t miss it, but I’m glad they are so big. The game as a whole shows off how you can make things massive in a game that plays smaller. But back to the characters, the fantasy characters that they use are unique. It isn’t a standard elf with a bow or a halfling bard. Sure, you get some archetypes in there, I played a wizard type character who could cast a fireball. But most of them are unique. And even with that one being a bit more traditional, it plays so differently from other characters.

Character Variability

That’s the other thing with the characters, each of them plays differently. I talk about the spell caster who casts a fireball, that is completely different than a tank barbarian who hits everyone directly around them. There is a bird creature who swoops in and moves other champions around, and some push or pull on most every attack. I even played a character who is better when they attack from a trap spot and one that rides another creature to move around the board. And the variability adds so much replayability to the game and depth. I need to delve more into what the characters and create teams that’ll synergize together.

Card Play

The card play works really nicely as well. Yes, it sucks ending up with several hands in a row where you don’t have every color of card, but the basic actions do work. But the cards play out so nicely, I had a turn where one champion managed to move, attack, move, attack, and move attack again, just a single character, to take out another character. That was a really epic moment in the game, and the game encourages them. Other plays like pushing an enemy so they go into a trap add in more fun. There is really a ton that can be done through the cards.

Objectives and Knock Outs

How you get points works nicely as well. I went for the objectives fairly often and ended up 2-1 last night in game play. But I never won because I only went for objectives. I always took out at least one opposing champion to get to that point. And you can’t just focus on one or the other. If you only focus on getting objectives, you’ll spend all your time moving about. If you only attack, you can’t defend against someone getting objectives as well. And it makes things like pushing and pulling more useful. A lot of the objectives are being next to a statue, and once your opponent is there, you need to kill, push, or pull to stop them from scoring. With that, though, scoring happens at the start of players turn, so the opponent always has a chance to stop it.

Game Length

Finally, the game length is great. A game like this, which plays with cards, shouldn’t be too long. And Super Fantasy Brawl is a fast game. The first game, with learning, took maybe an hour. Two more games took about the same time as that first game. The last game probably was under half an hour. But you don’t feel like you can’t play everything you want. The deck of cards is so small you see every card multiple times, even in a short game. And not really a negative, because I like the length, but the components of the game feel larger than the game itself. Everything is so fancy for a light and fast battle game.

Final Thoughts

I like Super Fantasy Brawl a lot. Mythic Games has created a really fun experience. Now, I wish they would fix the production issues that I see, but those are minor quibbles. When the Super Fantasy Brawl Round 2 stuff comes in, I will remove or modify at least some of the Game Trayz. The big box is large enough to fit everything without them in there. And that kind of sucks, because I do like Game Trayz for storage, these are just bad.

That said, I think a lot of people will like this game. There is enough going on to keep players who want strategy engaged. The card play is simple enough that non-gamers can probably pick it up. It reminds me a little bit of Magic: The Gathering at times, Dice Throne at others, both those games are in my Top 100. The fact that characters are never completely knocked out makes it better as well. Plus the game length is a huge selling point, the game doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Overall, Super Fantasy Brawl is a really good game.

Overall Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: A-

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First, I would say that you can’t truly make those moments happen. It’s going to happen naturally in your game, but you can try and encourage those situations. Whenever you have a huge aha moment, that might get remembered, but the ones that are going to be talked about are going to happen more organically.

Now, like any good organic garden, you still have to plan the seeds and tend it, this stuff doesn’t happen on it’s own.

So you can lay the groundwork, starting in session zero to encourage those fun moments. In session zero, when players are creating their characters, don’t just think about combat and what you’re going to do with that. Your character is a whole lot more than just swinging a sword for a lot of damage or shooting some crossbows for damage. And while you might have a martial character who really cares about combat, put ore into your character than that. They can easily not know social norms because they grew up with the sword being their best friend. Or maybe they have a very unique set fighting moves and sword preparation, but let your character be unique and don’t create Joe Soldier who has no personality except for hitting stuff with a sword.

Also, consider giving the character a signature move. Now, it might be in combat or it might not be. But in combat, maybe you are a rogue who uses a crossbow. So your special move is a dive and roll while firing and getting yourself in hiding. Or maybe you are a hopeless flirt and every single bartender that you meet hoping to get information from them.

Why would those things give you cool moments?

Because as the rogue, you roll behind the pillar and find a surprised enemy who is also hiding behind the game pillar, now what do you do? Or you are in a dark cave and you roll behind a rock outcropping and find that there are stairs going down, as you slowly roll and bounce down them. Or for the character who flirts every time with the bartender for information, it will be a running joke that they never get any good information and maybe you end up on wild goose chases (literally) because of some information that you’ve gotten. Or, what happens when the bartender flirts back, or when the bartender actually has some real information. The cheer that will go up around the table because it was actually worth it, people will remember those moments.

So, those are some things that are more player focused, what can you do as a DM?

First, keep combat interesting. While you don’t need to do something super special every time, make it unique from time to time. Also go with alternate objectives. Combat doesn’t just have to be about knocking heads. I’ll touch a bit more on alternate combat objectives, but if you want a good podcast on it, check out this one by Total Party Thrill. Alternate objectives in combat can be things like stopping a sacrifice from happening. Sure, you might lop off a few heads of the acolytes guarding the cultists, but will you get to the cultists before they finish their chanting in four rounds of combat. Or are you having to try and keep the villains away from the caravan that you were hired to protect. These alternate objectives will give some memorable moments and keep the combat feeling different.

Likewise, it doesn’t have to just be an alternate way to beat the combat, it can be a unique combat setting. Maybe you are fighting on a narrow ledge next to flowing lava. Now, you could give advantage for having the higher ground, because as Star Wars Episode III taught us, that’s important. Also, don’t take any more life lessons from Star Wars Episode III than that. That one has a clear idea of pushing someone into the lava, but you can make unique terrains. Recently I ran a combat where there were two different levels of the combat. A barbarian jumped down into a pit to fight some monsters while two other character stayed up top, however, some of monsters crawled up to them as well. That gives a combat moment that is different than it would have been before.

Then, there are ways you can do that out of combat. And the easiest way is to just have interesting characters. I need to be better at this personally, because a lot of the NPC’s, I’m coming up with them on the fly, so they aren’t always the most unique. Thankfully, I have a player who is good at giving me a lot to work with in terms of dialog and lies that he is telling the NPC’s, so that gives me time to build out the character that I came up with. But we had a fun situation, one time, that players will likely remember, where one of the characters had gotten to the shore of a pirate island, found a very flirty dwarf pirate captain, and they had to figure out as a player and for their character, how not to insult the pirate captain so that they didn’t lose their head. It ended up being pretty memorable, because fake in game flirting can be hilarious a lot of the time, just make sure everyone is comfortable enough with it.

What are some other ideas that you have to help those more organic moments of surprise and stories that people remember happen in your game? Have you used any of these before? Keep in mind, if you do use some of these ideas as a player or as a DM, there is no guarantee that you will have those really memorable moments, but some of these ideas might tease out more. And find what works best for your group, maybe you have modules that you like to run, and what your group really remembers is the big boss battles at the end, that is equally as good a memorable moment for your group, but figure out if it’s social interactions, weird combats, big combats, or shocking twists that your group remembers most and go from there.

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