For a limited time, Bundle of Holding is making Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e and a number of its sourcebooks available for less than the cost of the core rulebook. On top of that, a portion of the proceeds go to support Mermaid UK, an organization that “campaign[s] for the recognition of gender dysphoria in young people.” Every week, Bundle of Holding rolls out a new RPG collection at an amazing price that also benefits a charity. Since I played Legacy: Life Among the Ruins at Origins Game Fair 2019 (which I covered on d20 Radio here), I’m reviewing the game and bundle.
What is Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e?
Created by James Iles through UFO Press and published in partnership with Modiphius Entertainment, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e is a tabletop roleplaying game that runs on a version of the Powered by the Apocalypse engine. Set in the post post-apocalypse, your gaming table will rebuild the world collaboratively before taking on the roles of its citizens and leaders. Each player is both a PC and their family (biological or assumed) as you compete and cooperate with the other players to guide the world back from the end of days. As the PC, you get to drill down to what your character does. As the PC’s family, you have the position and resources to effect major changes over the long haul.
The game has a different feel than many as you’ll play a best of, or highlight reel, of the events in your world covering decades or more. No need to figure out the day-to-day, this is a game of big moments both physical and dramatic. You’ll work with, and scheme against, the other PC’s families, sometimes united, sometimes divided as you vie to remake the world in your image. Mixed with the RPG experience, there’s an element of Catan as you trade resources to achieve your ends.
This game’s setup (building the world, your families, and their interactions) guarantees a level of player investment in the world’s backstory. Each player will contribute family and locations meaning they’ll be knowledgeable about the setting. Using the PbtA system, each family has moves distinct from the major characters and you’ll need all of them to win. There are areas your family can shine and areas where your lone PC will stand tall.
What is Bundle of Holding?
“Launched in 2013 by longtime adventure gaming writer and game designer Allen Varney, the Bundle of Holding has presented hundreds of bargain-priced, time-limited offers of tabletop roleplaying game PDF rulebooks and RPG-related ebooks.
Over 200 RPG publishers have contributed offers, including Pelgrane Press, Onyx Path Publishing, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Atlas Games, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Monte Cook Games, Catalyst Game Labs, Modiphius, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Palladium Books, Hero Games, Steve Jackson Games, Evil Hat Productions, Arc Dream Publishing, Kenzer & Company, 0one Games, Fat Dragon Games, and many more. Our 58,000 customers have bought more than a quarter-million bundles.
Ten percent of the revenue from each Bundle of Holding offer (after payment gateway fees) is donated to a charity. Since its founding, the Bundle of Holding has made donations totaling over half a million dollars to more than three dozen recognized institutions, mostly chosen by the contributing publishers.”
What Does This Bundle of Holding Include?
There are two tiers, the Core Collection and the Worlds Collection. You can buy either the Core Collection or both collections (you can’t buy Worlds on its own through this offer).
CORE COLLECTION:
- Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2E – The core rulebook
- The Art of Legacy – Over 90 pieces of art from Legacy
- Sounds of the Wasteland – Three 10-minute ambient tracks to set the mood for the game
WORLDS COLLECTION:
- Generation Ship – A setting for Legacy in which you awake on a decaying generation ship on a thousand-year journey
- Primal Pathways – A biopunk setting where you bring a new species/civilization into being
- Godsend – “You roam the lands as the avatar of your god, cursing mere mortals and presenting gifts the chosen ones.” With this setting, you’ll use the diceless version of the Apocalypse Engine
- Rhapsody of Blood – “A standalone game that adapts the Legacy: Life Among the Ruins rules, Rhapsody of Blood tunes the Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset to let you explore a nightmare castle and fight memorable supernatural adversaries”
- Worldfall – You play on a planet that is being colonized. This would act as an excellent capstone for a long-term Generation Ship campaign
I’ve only read and played the core rulebook for Legacy (Modiphius provided a review copy), meaning that the Worlds Collection (the settings) are unexplored territory for me. That said, of the settings offered here, the one that speaks to me the most is Aaron Griffin’s Generation Ship. That is not to dampen your enthusiasm for the other books (they all look exceptional), but this one warrants a spotlight because it started the wheels spinning in my mind. Conceptually, it maximizes the ideas of the game as well as the ruleset. You wake up and it’s 500 years into a millennium-long journey. The story can build through the most important moments of 1,000 years of play as you deal with the imminent crisis on a ship wasting away before turning the Age (advance the story by decades) to reach the next major event. This setting would be ideal to delve deeper into an epic sci-fi project.
What is Mermaid UK, the Charity Associated with This Bundle?
“Mermaids is passionate about supporting children, young people, and their families to achieve a happier life in the face of great adversity. We work to raise awareness about gender nonconformity in children and young people amongst professionals and the general public. We campaign for the recognition of gender dysphoria in young people and call for improvements in professional services. We work to:
- Reduce isolation and loneliness for gender variant and transgender children, young people and their families.
- Empower families and young people with the tools they need to negotiate the education and health services.
- Reduce suicidality and self-harm in the young people who contact Mermaids, equip their parents to support their children to the same end.
- Improve self-esteem and social functioning in gender variant and transgender children, young people.
- Improve awareness, understanding and practices of GP’s, CAMHS, Social Services and other professionals.”
Should You Play Among the Ruins?
Are you looking for a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG in which the Moves you make have generational repercussions that you can play through? It’s a post post-apocalypse option that lets you rebuild the world from a PC and PC-family level. This system is set up to play through something as sprawling as Dragonlance from the Age of Creation through the Age of Mortals or Tolkien’s legendarium delving into the Second Age and its conclusions in the Third Age. In these opuses, the major events/adventures are decades or centuries apart, and this game has the focus and rules to play through each.
Still not sure? Then try before you buy with the free PDF quickstart. Test it out and you’ll find it’s worth purchasing the game and various components (especially with this bundle). The Legacy: Life Among the Ruinds 2e Bundle of Holding ends Monday, September 23, 2019 at 11:00 PM EST.
Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e is available at:
- Bundle of Holding supporting Mermaids UK and at a reduced price that ends September 23rd here
- DriveThruRPG here
- Modiphius Entertainment here
- UFO Press here
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