Introduction

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Welcome to Legend Continuum!

Legend Continuum (or L-Con, for short) is a sci-fi/fantasy setting for you to tell stories of adventure, intrigue and wonder.
In this guide I aim to teach you how to construct and run the table-top roleplaying game (TTRPG) as the Game Master (GM). We will walk through the different entities that exist and their properties before moving onto the rules and mechanics of actual gameplay. You can then either use the guide to teach your players how to play, or let them read this guide themselves. As the GM, it is your job to control the narrative and the encounters that the players will face. To do this, you'll need a bit of background knowledge.
Time-travel was supposed to be impossible, but 31st century humans tried it anyway. Some, the player's characters included, knew this was a terrible idea. They assisted The Captain in building a ship within which they would be safe in the case of a 'Time-Crash' - an event where all of spacetime is compressed into a single point. Lo and behold, the time-crash did in fact occur. Worse still, that meant that those in The Ship had technically travelled through time - all of it. But since that was supposed to be impossible, the universe had to rewrite its laws to resolve the paradox. As part of this, forces of nature have manifested as mythical creatures, folklore tales play out in fantastical civilisations and the world is flat! Even the universe itself is a paradox; it shouldn't exist. Yet here it is, by playing it you make it exist.
However, reality has splintered and the current universe is unstable. Each time a character recalls back to the ship, the universe moves one step closer towards another Time-Crash. To avoid the crash, the ship must be recalibrated so that it can compute the new laws of the universe and move to a more stable reality. For this, there are a plethora of investigational tasks that must be completed, each delaying the collapse by a certain amount. A time-crash, however, is not the end of the world. Whilst the game reverts to the first time that characters awake from their stasis pods, their stats all remain the same and any knowledge the player has gained of the world is still valid. As a GM, you can decide how many recalls are allowed until the time-crash occurs and how long the crash is delayed by each recalibration. This is down to the style of play you wish to use for your campaign. Having crashes happen regularly (few steps, minimal delays) will lend the game a more 'roguelike' feel as characters repeatedly try to get as far as they can with retained knowledge and skills. If the crash is a distant threat (many steps, long delays), it can serve to simply add a sense purpose to missions.
Additionally, among the many things that don't make much sense anymore is time. Time is no longer linear and their is no clear way to measure it. This conveniently allows characters to be on more than one mission at once, or join a mission part way through. Yes - even if that means they start with lower stats or rejoin their last mission with new items. It all adds to the chaos!

What do I need to play?

Obviously, you're going to need some resources to be able to actually play the game. You can either use the Official Resources or bootleg your own. The essential bits are as follows:

• Access to this guide & the compendium - no-one can remember every rule and mechanic that exists (the Book is the most convenient but the site works too)
• A World Pad for the GM (or just a regular pad of A4 paper)
• Character Pads for each player (or a printed Character Sheet and a pad of A4 paper)
• Miniatures to represent characters and encounters
• Game Tiles for the arena (or print off a hex-grid on some paper)
• A d20, d12 & d10 (dX = die with X sides) - preferably a set each, to keep the pace
• A pencil & rubber for each player
• A large table for everyone to sit around
• Stance Cards for keeping track of what stance everyone is in (regular playing cards work as a substitute) - not technically essential but highly recommended

There's also some additional resources that you can use to make your life a bit easier:

• A GM Screen - to hide your notes from your players
• Counters - to track health and other limited resources
• Sticky notes - for passing secret messages and keeping track of status conditions
• A laser pointer - to save the GM getting up to point at things
• A calculator - though the maths should only include simple addition and subtraction

The last thing you and all your players will need is a positive attitude! Playing Legend Continuum is supposed to be fun, of course, so some enthusiasm and a cooperative mindset goes a long way towards that end.

Some Important Information

L-Con does not sit in isolation from the real world, and it is designed to be played as part of a real life. It should serve as a platform for self-expression(1), social recreation(2) and personal development(3). How it does these things is outlined here:
(1) Players can express themselves through their characters through their style of play - but it shouldn't end there. While there is plenty of pre-written material to explore in the compendium, I encourage you make your own! Want some eldritch horror? Design a creepy hamlet town and some mind-warping tentacle cryptids. Want monster hunter? Supersized titan-beasts! There are some helpful tips for going about this throughout the guide.
(2) People are busy. They don't always have time to play, but that should not mean that they can't play. To that end, L-Con does not require a static group, or even a static GM. The game mechanics should provide a framework that allows games to be set up with no planning time, and with whoever is available to play at the time.
(3) Characters should reflect their players and are designed to grow with them, gaining XP in professions for real-life accomplishments. You can, of course, completely ignore this and gain XP in your professions solely by paying for it... But where's the fun in that? Use your character to motivate you to write that book. Or to go to the gym. Or to learn to cook. Set yourself goals with your gaming group, then be rewarded in the game when you succeed!
Finally, the game accepts that players have information at their disposal that their characters would not (see: "Meta-gaming"). In fact, any and all information that a player has should be information that the character has. More on that later.

And that about does it for the introduction! So, whether you're a role-playing newbie or an ancient dungeon overlord, I hope you enjoy exploring this game as much as I enjoyed making it.

Guide

Table of Contents