Hacking Feast of Legends

A few thoughts on Wendys Burgers' Feast of Legends and what it would take to hack it for long term play.

I figure by now almost everyone will be aware that Wendys has released an RPG. Reddit has been buzzing with it. Some people seem fairly gobsmacked. But restaurants have a long history of giving out toys as a marketing gimmick, maybe they're just catching onto the idea that adults like toys too.

It's strongly themed, with monster names like pangs, grumbles and freezer burns. The BBEG is a clown, which suits me because I believe clowns are powerful and worthy of respect.

The game

Mechanically, this is familiar ground. Task resolution is d20 + mods vs target number. Criticals on 20 and 1. FoL drops Con and Wis from the traditional six stats (folding them into Str and Int) and adds Arcana as a measure of magical talent to make five. Stat bonuses are generated by rolling 4d4 and consulting a chart.  There are no spells, but all characters gain access to spell-like abilities or party buffs as they level. (The game calls them skills, but half of them are always-on passive effects.) Dex appears to be entirely about agility and aim, initiative is by rolling d20 with no mods or other bonuses and all characters get the same movement.

At chargen you pick an Order (which is effectively a choice between Bard, Fighter and Magic-user/Diplomat) and a class, which is a development path within that broad category. There are a bundle of classes. That's good, because picking your class provides most of your opportunity for differentiating characters. All members of a class gain exactly the same stat bonuses and abilities when levelling. 4d4 has a steeper bell curve than 3d6, so characters are going to start out closer in stats than under D20. A Baconator warrior is a Baconator warrior is a Baconator warrior.

There's no skill system or advancement mechanic. The rules are tightly focused on skirmish combat. You gain a level when the bundled adventure says you do. Levels come with HP increases and new spell abilities/buffs, by class. This wouldn't be a bad introductory RPG, there's nothing extra to the core game here. Advancement is capped at level 5.

The hack

I think that playing it RAW would benefit someone new to the hobby, but experienced players would be frustrated by the lack of character choice. To introduce some, I'd get rid of the individual classes, but keep the class levelling packages. Let players pick an order, and then choose a level-appropriate class package out of all the available selections when they advance. I like it with a small number of core classes. This might throw class balance out the window, but I'm okay with that.

I'd introduce a skill system with maybe ten to twelve broad skills. With the kind of stat bonuses 4d4 produces, a system like Sine Nomine's Stars Without Number uses might be a good fit. 2d6 + stat bonus + skill vs target of 8, adjusted up or down to account for difficulty. I should explain this - when I heard about a fast food RPG, I thought it would be thematically perfect for playing Dunkey and Matt Halton's The Gustatory. That setting's less about fighting your problems and more about problem solving and interacting with traditional enemies in a different environment. A skill system would add another dimension to to the game. No crits for skills, just pass or fail.

I haven't run a combat yet to see how it plays out, but the characters start at 4 HD and gain 8 + 2d4 hp per level. The first monster the players encounter has 5 HD. The median weapon damage for the equipment list is d8, so if combat doesn't run long it's only because the characters' team buffing abilities make a big impact. I'd like to stretch out advancement across 5 extra levels and try adding D20 monsters with their HD stepped up to d12 to see how they fill out the in-between levels.

Drop the arbitrary levelling and bring in advancement by XP. Calculate levelling requirements and monster XP using the B/X hit dice and powers table. (Figure out a multiplier that makes numbers from one system workable in the other.) Have all the classes advance at the same rate.

And lastly, drop the buffs and debuffs based on what the players are eating. Too meta.