Adam E. Bell Games launched its Kickstarter for the card game Legend Has It on January 25 and it continues through February 25 at 10am CST. This Kickstarter has only three tiers (plus the usual No Reward tier), which makes sense as a card game doesn’t lend itself to multiple stretch goals the way an RPG – with multiple supplements, custom dice, etc. – can. Besides the retailer tier, there are Digital (print and play) and Physical Copy tiers at $20 minimum and $30 minimum respectively. Both tiers include files to import to Playing Cards VTT for online play.
Now that we have the numbers, what is Legend Has It? It’s a storytelling card game, one that uses actual books. The game is suitable for solo or group play. Yes, the only item needed besides the game deck is a stack of assorted books. That deck has several types of cards. Timeline cards to keep track of the multiple threads in the tale you create. The Numbering cards tell players what page, paragraph, and sentence to read and are shuffled each round. That sentence is used to start or continue the story, which can be one of 6 assorted types (Hero’s Epic, War Story, Legendary Object, etc.). There’s a Mythos card for each story type.
The other three card types (Turn Order, Bookmark, and Table cards) help keep the game organized. There are some supplementary cards as well. There is a Safety Card and X Card included, to help when a player feels uncomfortable about a story element/topic. I applaud the designer for thinking about this important issue.
The other set of supplementary cards are alternate rules that can be used with Legend Has It. Use Wikipedia instead of books as the prompt source or use dice rather than the Number cards are two called out in the demo I mentioned. There are other alternate rules.
Note that the plot and genre of the books you use in a game don’t affect the type of story/Mythos you and any fellow players tell. The YouTube demo I watched, for example used a Discworld novel to start out the story of a new religious text and went on to what I think was a sociology textbook (judging from the sentences used in the gameplay).
This looks like a fun game but more involved than other storytelling games I have come across. There are no age guidelines, but I would say this is for mid-teens to adult. Why? First some of the Mythos, notably Religious Texts and War Stories, lend themeelves to more mature subjects. Secondly, the complexity of stories you can generate. The Timeline cards can generate up to three storylines/subplots, which begin and end at different times. Younger players may get confused, with the possible exception of advanced readers, who may be familiar with more-complex plotlines.
Legend Has It is a different take on storytelling games and the idea of using actual books appeals to me. As of this writing (less than 12 hours post-launch), the project is already half funded, so if this sounds like your kind of game, you’re guaranteed to get a copy when you back the Kickstarter.
Linda Whitson
Latest posts by Linda Whitson (see all)
- Astral Projections – The Ripperdoc Is In - May 8, 2023
