Roleplaying     If you’ve played any RPGs before, you’re familiar with the general idea of roleplaying. If this is your first time, get ready for a whole new experience! But to keep that experience going smoothly, here are a few roleplaying basics to keep in mind.

What You Control    As a player, you have total control over the intentions and attempted actions of your particular character. You are playing the role of that character, like an actor in a movie or play. You do not necessarily control the results of your character’s actions. Just as in real life, you may or may not succeed at what you try, and things may or may not turn out like you intended.

    The GM controls the world outside of your character and those of your fellow players. It’s up to the GM to determine what happens to you and around you, with the help of the Legends rules. Not only are you entering the Legends world, but the world created by your GM. The GM is in charge - when things are uncertain or a rule seems unclear, the GM always has the final say in what happens.

    To have your character do something, simply tell the GM what you’re attempting to do. If there are dice to be rolled or other rules to follow, they will let you know.

What is Covered    When the game is going on, there will be a huge difference between real-life time and in-game time. Just like in a movie or novel, your RPG group will spend more time on things that are the most interesting, relevant, or challenging. A battle lasting under a minute in the Legends world may take over an hour of real-life time to play through. Likewise, an uneventful 5-day road trip may be over in just a few real-life words.

    As a player, this means you should expect to spend more effort on things important to your party’s goals. Simply saying “I sell my extra loot at the shop” may be sufficient for typical selling, and you won’t even need to say anything about your character doing completely ordinary things like ordering lunch or asking about the bathroom. But if you happen to run across an important conversation, be ready to think about exactly what your character would say.

Player & Character    There is an important difference between you and your character (although, for brevity's sake, the rules often just refer to "you"). You are playing that character, but they are not actually you. This is important in a few different ways:
Staying in Character    During the game session, you will obviously be able to talk as both yourself and your character. You might have an “out-of-character” real-life question about the rules, but you will also be speaking “in-character” to other PCs or NPCs within the game world. It can be disruptive to speak out-of-character while the GM and other players are speaking in-character. If it gets bad enough, it can even be hard to sort out if a certain comment was in or out of character, resulting in misunderstandings and aggravated players. If confusion becomes an issue, simply stay in-character, let everyone know when you have something to say out-of-character, and don’t interrupt!

Metagaming    It’s against the whole concept of an RPG to use something learned solely out-of-character to determine your actions in-character. It's alright to ask out-of-character if another player's nearby character is (for example) injured or fatigued, as this would be obvious to your in-character senses. On the other hand, if two player characters are having a private conversation in an entirely different in-game location from your character, you’ll probably hear that conversation in real life. However, you can’t use information from that conversation to help your character, as they didn’t actually hear it. Using out-of-game info to determine in-game actions is called metagaming, and it ruins the whole point of roleplaying.

    To help keep people from even accidentally metagaming, as well as enhancing the suspense, the GM may take measures in real-life to reflect what’s going on in-game. For example, the GM might take players into a different room for their characters’ private conversations, or pass private notes to reveal information to certain players.

Player Styles    The difference between you and your character doesn’t mean that your character can’t be similar to you. Some players enjoy thinking “what would I do in this situation?” As long as there’s no metagaming, there’s nothing wrong with playing “as yourself.”

    Of course, keep in mind that there are other players who enjoy creating an entirely separate character with their own personality and motivations. These players like to think “what would they do in this situation?” They will often talk about their characters in the third person, and sometimes laugh at how different they are from themselves. Still other players don’t really care about any of this, and just enjoy making a powerful character and succeeding in the game.

    Since there are so many kinds of players, don’t take personal offense when characters disagree! It’s just a game, and they’re just fictional characters. In-character conflict is simply part of the drama that makes RPGs so entertaining, but out-of-character conflict can ruin the fun.

House Rules     Even this rulebook cannot cover every circumstance your characters will encounter. It’s always up to the GM how your characters’ intended actions play out. Additionally, your group may need to establish house rules, which are extra rules not contained in this rulebook, but that your group agrees to follow. Examples of issues that sometimes need house rules include:

    -When someone rolls a die and it falls off the table, does it need to be re-rolled, or does it count wherever it lands?
    -Are there extra rules about when a player can speak out-of-character?
    -Can players sell their loot by looking up price values in the rules themselves, or does this need to go through the GM?
    -Most importantly, who brings the snacks?