The Kickstarter for Magpie Games’ Avatar Legends RPG went live only August 3, 2021 and by this writing (Aug. 4, 2021) had almost $2,000,000 pledged (of a $50,000 goal)! So it will definitely fund on September 2, 2021 at 6:30PM CDT. The Avatar RPG allows for any era depicted in the TV shows, comics, and novels – Avatars Kyoshi, Roku, Aang and Korra, plus Hundred Years War. The RPG uses Magpie’s own Powered by the Apocalypse system, which is very centered on character development, both during the game and Session Zero.
I’ve checked out both their Kickstarter pages and the game’s Quickstart, which is also available for download on the KS page linked above. This looks great, folks. Pledge levels (not including the $10 no rewards level) start at $20 for the Core Book PDF (Fire Ferret) and $50 for Hardcover and PDF Corebooks. Both of these also include all digital rewards unlocked during the campaign! These rewards (there are other physical rewards at higher KS tiers, as well) are all Legends (NPC mentors/opponents your PCs might meet, who appeared in the TV series) and Playbooks (Apocalypse’s name for the PC archetypes players fill in during character creation) that aren’t part of the Core Book. The Core Book includes five Legends (all are Avatars, except for my favorite character, Uncle Iroh) and ten Playbooks, so you will have plenty even without the stretch rewards. I am not going to go into any more detail about the levels and stretch goals, as that KS page is full of information, including two videos.
Mini Try Before You Buy: I will tell you that the Quickstart is worth picking up. Of course it has a scenario and basic mechanics are covered thoroughly, plus there are pre-generated PCs. Avatar Legends QS also has a rare addition for a quickstart. There are character creation rules and playbooks so you aren’t limited to the pre-gens. I understand publishers wanting to confine this to the paid version, but many players either don’t care for the pre-gens or just want to get a feel for how PC creation works in a new system. Magpie has found a good compromise with Avatar. Five of the ten Avatar Legends playbooks (Bold, Guardian, Hammer, Icon, Idealist, Successor) are included as blanks. However, these playbooks don’t include all options for all abilities. I think that’s fair. Potential buyers get most of the character creation experience (which is time consuming, in case you’ve never used Powered by the Apocalypse), but the Avatar Legends developers get to keep a few “secrets” for the full game.
I am going to do this Kickstarter, and a friend has already offered to run the beta for our group. I hope you’ll check it out, too, if you enjoyed the Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra shows.
Last-minute update: My friend told me that the quickstart has had some non-minor changes made. So if you picked this up already, make sure you downloaded the latest version.
Linda Whitson
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