I had alot of fun with this. I would recommend. I hope the author comes out with an expansion!

The book is concise and pleasant to read. The topics are discussed thoughtfully and the insights were good ones. It applies to writing as well as RPGs. It's one of my favourite drivethruRPG purchases

I love your book and it was one of the books that made me start writing on my own under ThinkDifferent

I've run MW a few times and I really enjoyed it. Right up there with monster of the week as my favorite Apocalypse world powered games. My favorite game for running mythos based games.

I ran this recently and thought it was excellent, a great alternative way of running "Call of Cthulhu" games. It's very much in the spirit of "Dungeon World" and "Monster of the Week" in that it suits mission based,episodic or short arc games.Very different to "tremulus",which is more of a slowburn weirdness game that i didn't enjoy running as much as this.

This is a great rpg! As a guy who's been looking for a simple, easy rpg for some time, with a group that aren't interested in a more crunchy rpg, this is my dream rpg.

The mechanics are easy to learn, but with a lot of depht to them. With rules for poisons, diseases, weapons, armor pretty much everything you need is here.

The price is also pretty good (it's hard to beat free!). The one thing that drags this one down for me, is that sometimes it's a little diffiicult to understand to understand a rule as the book (at least to me) is a little unclear. But that can be because my native language is not english.

Either way a great rpg, that me and my group has been having a lot og fun with.

It's definitely worth the 99 cents they're charging. It's got a handful of things in each of the categories they listed, and most are interesting enough--some are directly derivative from prior games' monster manuals and adventures. There is no art, and a hand-drawn map. The map is interesting in that the scale is "days on foot" which would be a pretty cool concept, but for the face that the map doesn't actually reflect that. Based on historical travel you'd create some interesting maps using a scale like that, with most civilization clustered really close together, and things like mountains and dense forest would spread out and occupy an inordinate amount of space. Don't get me wrong, the map still functions, but it's weird that it takes the same amount of "time" to travel between a city and a village as it does to cross a mountain range (without a trail or pass!). The cartographer in me went, "woah, this would've been so cool if it was done right!"

Anyway, worth the purchase, there's good stuff here that a GM could literally skim for 15 minutes and run a few games just from that...if that ain't worth a buck, what is?

The product starts with the premise that being a better story writer makes a better GM. As Justin Alexander already has pointed out, there are dangers of using linear mediums as RPG examples but role-playing games traditionally have been inspired by fiction writing. As there are similarities, it doesn’t hurt to begin with this assumption and as a theoretical model it is a good starting point. I also find the author’s notion that the GM creates a story misleading. It sounds like a GM telling a story where the players are only spectators without influence on the outcome. This smells like railroading (gasp!) to me. Ideally, the GM and the players create a story collaboratively which means that the result is not in the GM’s hand alone. Luckily, this is what Elusive Legends tries to help us with but the description of the product is a bit confusing. So, what is this book about? The goal of the book is to provide us with guidelines on how to create a story. The author, Russell Brown, approaches the topic by discussing story elements for beginners of fiction writing and suggesting ways to adjust it for RPGs.

He takes four game systems as a baseline: Dungeons & Dragons, Hillfolk, Dungeon World and Fate. Herein lies the problem that I have with this product: The following articles explain how these games already use the described concepts or how they can be adjusted for use with them. That means, in order to really understand what the book is talking about, you need to know these four game systems. While I am really familiar with D&D and Dungeon World and have at least a cursory knowledge of Fate I don’t know anything about Hillfolk. So every time the book talks about the concepts regarding Hillfolk I’m left out. Without prior knowledge of the aforementioned rulesets, the articles stay theoretical and thus inaccessible to me. It’s nice to read how Hillfolk handles things, but it doesn’t help me. Partly I’m feeling that the author approaches D&D somewhat one-sided. D&D is capable of a diverse playstyle and he sometimes seems to take the standard approach of “kill them and take their stuff” for granted. Admittedly, the rules as written may indicate that but I still feel it’s a limited view.

The 22 concepts are substantially explained. The author doesn’t waste your time by lengthy explanations but still manages to convey the important points. If you’re like me and didn’t know about story elements this book offers a wealth of information. It is delivered in a tight package and is easy to read. The content makes this product worth the investment despite its shortcomings.

What are the concepts exactly? I’ll give you an example: the Inciting Incident. That’s what sets the story in motion, where everything begins. The author explains that the incident should happen very early so that gameplay can move on. In roleplaying games, the inciting incidents refers to the moment when the players com in. And we will all agree that this should happen pretty fast, otherwise it’ll get boring. Furthermore, the incident should motivate the players to get involved.

The advice given for the four game systems is a mix of explanations on how these games handle certain story elements and actual examples. It is very general. I would have liked more detailed descriptions and some more illustrations on how to take the information to the gaming table. For all that, Russell Brown included a short segment about how to begin with the most important concepts. While on the short side it is a valuable tip on how to approach this book.

In the end, I feel that the author doesn’t deliver on his promise of providing guidelines for creating stories. He gave me a set of ideas whereas I’m a bit stumped about the actual implementation of those.

Appearance

The PDF has 57 pages total including cover and bibliography. The cover looks good. Interior illustrations are almost non-existent but are not necessary anyway. The layout is minimalistic but sufficient for an article series. I’m missing hyperlinks and electronic bookmarks in this document.

TL; DR

Elusive Legends delivers a nicely written package of useful tools for story-writing. The look at four distinctive game systems and how they incorporate the story-writing concepts is fascinating. Unfortunately, the advice on how to put theory into practice is mostly not tangential enough to be of immediate use. If you don’t know every game mentioned some parts of the book won’t be helpful. The author has a concise writing style which I like a lot. The product is a steal for 3 bucks considering what you can learn from it. Still, the guidance on how to apply the theoretical concepts into role-playing games could be more extensive. I would’ve also liked to see more examples for other gaming systems and other genres. D&D and Dungeon World use a fantasy setting while Fate and Hillfolk are genre-neutral. That being said, I recommend it if you’re interested in some theoretical concepts and ideas.

Really good tool for both GM's and game designers. There is time for shooting (intuitively) in the dark sky, and time for clear structure. I love how this book presents exact points to pay attention to - and also when and in which cases. Even more, Russel Brown analyzes how the story is built in four distinctly different rulesets: D&D, DW, Fate and Hillfolk. Great!

... damn, now I want to buy Hillfolk... :)

This fits in surprisingly well with the Plague of Storms supplement for Dungeon World which I am really enjoying.

I liked this tour of 22 different writing concepts. explained through a spectrum of roleplaying games. Showing how a concept needs to be targeted for a game is a great insight. The whole book is brief and to the point. I would have liked more actual examples but hey for the price its a great round up of gaming advice.

Well, it's worth a buck. 12 pages with moves, ideas, magical objects, monsters etc. Not 100% fresh and original, still well done, following all the Dungeon World rules (ie. the steadings have all their tags etc.).