It’s 1944 and the world is at war! In a bedroom in Brooklyn a boy is taken to The Dark by the Boogeyman, and it’s up to you, his favourite toys, to save him. The problem is, at least one of the toys has fallen sway to the Boogeyman’s wiles.
This is the fantastic theme of The Stuff of Legend, a semi-cooperative, hidden traitor, board game based on the best selling comics from Brian Smith.
Disclosure: Thank you to 3WS games for giving us a review copy of this creepy cool board game. Some links in this post are affiliate links, using them costs you nothing extra and helps support this website. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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What is The Stuff of Legend?
The Stuff of Legend from 3WS or Th3rd World Studios is a board game adaptation of the first book in The Stuff of Legend comic book series by Mike Raicht and Brian Smith which recreates events from the first graphic novel, The Dark. The game was designed by Kevin Wilson and features striking art by Charles Paul Wilson III.
Before we I get too far into this review I want to mention the tone and theme of this game. While this is a game where you are playing toys, this is not a kids’ game. This is not Stuffed Fables. The Stuff of Legend comics and game feature a dark and twisted story. This is not a tale of cute little toys trying to save an innocent child.
If the thought of playing a game where you could potentially betray a child in danger is not for you, I fully understand you skipping over this review and avoiding the game entirely. The game game also deals with topics of betrayal, which are also a core element of the gameplay. That said, while not a kids’ game The Stuff of Legend also isn’t “adult” in any way. It’s not sexy or disturbingly violent, and you won’t find any course language.
This semi-cooperative board game plays three to six players. We recommend at least four players and found the game played best with exactly five. Individual games can take quite a while, easily lasting up to two hours as long as the players are playing smartly and know the game. Interestingly your first few games tend to be shorter, but that is only because you are very likely to lose the game much quicker than an experienced group.
The component quality in this hidden traitor game is notable. I suggest you check out our The Stuff of Legend Unboxing Video on YouTube to get a good look at what you get. There you will see the awesome oversized miniatures for The Boy and The Boogieman, a cool plastic coin, various Forgotten Toy miniatures (the baddies), player and villain standees, two different decks of cards, tokens and more.
The version of the game we have is the standard retail edition. There is also the Deluxe Boogeyman Edition of The Stuff of Legend, which was a Kickstarter Exclusive edition that included miniatures for all of the characters and other upgrades.
Our only complaint about the game, component wise, is that the box insert is pretty much only good for protecting the big minis. Other than that there’s just some wells for tossing everything else into. There’s no organisation provided and you most definitely will have cards sliding around everywhere if you don’t at least add some baggies. While we haven’t done it yet we’ve been very tempted to just toss the insert and baggie everything, including the minis.
We originally reviewed The Stuff of Legend on Episode 251 of The Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast, Picking the Perfect Game, and I invite you to check that episode out (among other things, you’ll get to hear Deanna and Sean’s thoughts on the game).
Since originally talking about the game for the podcast we’ve continued to enjoy the game and often bring it out to public play events. One thing I’ve noticed is that we usually have to talk people into playing the game, they need to be sold on it before trying it, but once they do play they usually quite enjoy it.
It has been particularly popular with fans of Battlestar Galactica, Dead of Winter, and Shadows Over Camelot.
Saving your boy from the Boogeyman in The Stuff of Legend
You start every game of The Stuff of Legend by seeding the board with cards and adversary miniatures. Each spot on the board gets one or more face down encounter cards that are then covered by a location card. Baddies, in the form of Forgotten Toys, are placed where indicated. Next, you randomise the seven exit tokens and place four of them out on the board while the rest go back into the box without looking at them. The hero marker is placed on the Brooklyn space, and you place the Boogeyman, Boy, and Wound markers at the start of their respective tracks.
The goal of the game is for your group to move through the board and escape through the highest numbered exit, with a twist being that if both the seven and one are present the one is counted as the highest. The exists all start face down, and a big part of the game is trying to figure out which exit is the highest.
Now that the board is set up, players each chooses a character. You get both basic and advanced characters in the box and we recommend starting off with the basic ones. Each character in The Stuff of Legend provides two skill icons and has a positive special ability. They also each have a negative consequence that goes off whenever they use a ‘stained’ card. Speaking of cards, each player draws seven cards from the deck (the player playing the Jester gets two extra), and then you place the coin on top of the deck.
The final thing you do before starting to play The Stuff of Legend is to determine each player’s starting loyalty. A loyalty deck is built and the cards are dealt out randomly, including one hidden card placed on the board. One of these loyalty cards is the Colonel’s Heir, which gets flipped face up. Everyone knows who this is and that they are loyal to The Boy. The other loyalty cards either indicate that the player is loyal to the boy or loyal to the boogeyman, and these are kept secret from everyone else.
When playing with six players there’s also one more special role added, Scout’s Friend, which is also revealed and marks that player as loyal to The Boy. Note that this only sets everyone’s starting loyalty. During play loyalty cards, including the special ones, can be moved around, swapped for the one on the board, and manipulated in other ways, meaning that a player’s loyalty can change mid game.
One more note about loyalties: Everyone knows the distribution of the loyalty cards, which is based on the player count, and it’s possible when playing with three or four players for everyone to be loyal (at the start). When playing with five or six the group will know that at least one player has to start off as a traitor.
A key part of The Stuff of Legend and what makes it work as a hidden traitor game is that many actions in the game require that the group group take a vote. Votes can also be invoked by the players whenever there is a group decision and they can’t reach a consensus. Voting is done through a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with the Colonel’s Heir player breaking any ties.
Rounds in The Stuff of Legend alternate between the Player phase and a Boogeyman phase. In the player phase three players will take actions. In the Boogeyman phase events happen and the forgotten toys on the board move and attack.
The group decides what order to act in, which could lead to a vote if they can’t make up their mind. Once a character has acted they can’t be chosen again until all other characters have taken an action. The game include a cool toybox board and a system for tracking this.
When taking a turn with your character you can choose one of the basic actions, you can play an action card from your hand, or you can pass by discarding a card.
The two basic actions are moving or hiding. When you chose to move the entire group has to agree where you are moving to, with any conflicts resulting in a vote. Hiding on the other hand does not need consensus and moves the Boogeyman back one on the attention track.
This track represents how much attention the Boogeyman is paying to your group. It determines how far away the Forgotten toys can spot your group and how powerful they are. There are a number of things that can affect this track including action cards, or moving down quiet or noisy paths, as well as taking the hide basic action.
When your group moves onto a new spot on the board you flip over all of the adjacent location cards and activate any special text on them. You then flip over the encounter cards at the location you moved to and resolve them one at a time.
Instead of moving or hiding the group, the active player can play an action card from their hand. These include things like the ability to scout ahead, escaping from danger, battling the forgotten toys, challenging leaders (boss baddies), peeking at one of the exits, swapping loyalty cards, and more.
Many actions and some encounter cards require your group to pass a test in order to do the action listed on them. Tests each have a target number and come in one of three types, Talk, Fight, or Scout. The active player must meet or beat the target number to pass. Each character provides two skill icons, plus every card in the game can be used for it’s skill icons. If the active player can’t pass the test on their own they can ask for help and other players can contribute cards from their own hand.
Here’s where things get interesting, many of the cards in the deck are “stained”, tainted by the Boogeyman. When resolving a test, all cards contributed are placed face down and that pile is shuffled before you check to see if you pass. You then reveal the cards and if any of the cards are stained the active player must activate their character’s weakness (and these are all rather nasty).
Does revealing a stained card mean someone is a traitor? Probably, or it could just be that they had no unstained cards in their hand, or maybe someone determined activating the weakness wasn’t as bad as failing the test. This leads to all kinds of interesting and fun interactions of the kind you expect in hidden traitor games like this.
If a player ever runs out of cards they must draw a new hand. This isn’t a good thing as they must flip the boogeyman coin (which is why it’s placed on top of the deck as a reminder).
One side of the coin shows The Boy and the other side shows The Boogeyman. When you flip the coin, if The Boy side comes up the boy token moves down the “boy is lost” track. If the boy token ever hits the last spot on the track, the players loyal to The Boy lose and the other players win. If, when you flip the coin, The Boogeyman side comes up, you must reveal and enact a card from the Boogeyman deck. This is a stack of cards that do nasty things and make everything harder. These cards can end up affecting either the player who drew the card or punishing the whole group.
At any time, players also have the option to discard the cards left in their hand and draw a new hand. This requires a vote and if it passes the discarding player still has to flip the coin. This isn’t really safe but it can be better than failing a test or having to waste a turn because you have no valid action. It’s also a good way for a traitor to ditch good cards and speed up the end of the game.
After three players have taken one action each it’s time for the bad stuff to happen. First, all of the cards on the board with a Boogeyman symbol on them activate. Then any Forgotten Toys or leaders at the group’s location do damage to the group. Finally, troops within attention range (based on the Boogeyman track) move towards the group.
All damage taken in The Stuff of Legend is tracked on a Wound track. This starts off with players having to discard cards and then swaps to flipping the Boogeyman coin. If you reach the end of the track, you restart from the beginning. Each time damage is taken the group must decide who takes the penalty (loss of cards or a coin flip) which could lead to a vote.
Play continues until either The Boy mini hits the end of The Boy is Lost track, in which case the players loyal to The Boogeyman win, or the group moves onto an exit space.
When the group moved onto an exit space, you reveal all of the exists in play and if the one they moved onto is the highest numbered everyone loyal to The Boy wins and anyone loyal to The Boogeyman loses. However, if it turns out it’s not the highest exit, the players loyal to The Boogeyman win.
I think that pretty much covers the core game play in The Stuff of Legend. There’s quite a bit more going on through the various event cards, exploring the map, finding allies, getting to peek at or swap exit tokens, changing loyalties, etc. However, I think most of that is more fun to discover through play and I think this overview should give enough to give you a good idea of how the game plays and if it’s right for you and your group.
There’s some great stuff in The Stuff of Legend
The Stuff of Legend has everything I want in a semi-cooperative hidden role game. It has a roleplaying aspect where I’m playing a character, a toy. This gives me the step back I need, the extra level, that lets me lie as a character in a game vs. me lying to my friends directly.
The card mechanics work very well, both for letting players hide their role and for forcing loyal players to sometimes use bad cards. There are also ways to waste cards for even more involved obfuscation, things like discarding your hand early, contributing stronger cards than needed to a task, losing good cards when damaged, and more.
One of my favourite things in The Stuff of Legend is the fact that at the start of the game you know that at least one person is loyal to The Boy. No matter what those first few turns there’s someone you can trust. That’s a great touch. I also really like how, with four or less players, it’s possible that you have no traitor for the entire game, but then there’s always a chance, so everyone still has to be paying attention.
The only problem I’ve found with The Stuff of Legend, which is more prevalent during your first few plays, is that getting to the highest numbered exit is really hard. This makes the game easier for any players loyal to The Boogeyman. Until your entire group has figured out the ins and outs of the game, a very valid strategy for any disloyal players is to just play along with the group, because they will probably lose anyway.
I found that this improved as we learned the game and got better at dealing with the Forgotten Toys and encounters in the game. Knowing what to expect where really helps, though that does remove the feeling of discovery you get with those early play. There’s also an interesting thing where when it does look like the group is going to fail some players may try to swap sides to the Boogeyman’s.
Based on our experiences with The Stuff of Legend, I recommend that anyone picking it up play with everyone being loyal to The Boy for your first game. This will give everyone a chance to explore the game, learn how things works, see the effects of the different tracks, learn how bad a coin flip can be, etc. I could even see playing this way until you win a game and only then tossing in the loyalty mechanics. This could also make the game much more appealing to players who don’t like hidden traitor games, as it would be a pure cooperative experience. Just be aware that if you do this you are houseruling the game as there’s no pure-cooperative mode included in the rules.
One thing I did feel was missing from The Stuff of Legend is a lack of story and flavour text. Perhaps if I had read the comics I wouldn’t mind this as much, but the location cards are just names and it’s just mechanics on the back side. For the Leaders all you get a a graphic, a standee and what they do during the Boogeyman phase. There’s nothing about who they are.
This gives The Stuff of Legend a very mechanical and methodical feel. While the game does invoke feelings of desperation, exploration, and being lost, and presents plenty of challenges and adversity, I never really got any feeling that I was playing a toy that was brought to life, and our foes just felt like generic mooks. You really could re-theme this game to pretty much anything else and I wouldn’t feel like I lost anything, which bums me out as the setting sounds so cool.
Another thing to be aware of is that the game is based only on the first comic book, The Dark. What this means is that you aren’t getting a complete story. You don’t find out if you actually rescue The Boy or not, you just jump through a portal, which can fell a bit unrewarding. I have no idea if 3WS is planning a follow up board game that finishes the tale or not. There’s nothing indicating that they have anything like that planned as of right now.
One thing I recommend, is just not mentioning this fact to the players, let them think that getting out through the right portal saves The Boy and leave it at that.
If you enjoy semi-cooperative board games with the potential for a hidden traitor, and don’t mind dark themes in your games, you should check out The Stuff of Legend. This is one of the best games I’ve personally played in the genre.
If you have found you enjoy cooperative games in general, even if you don’t like those with hidden traitor mechanics, I encourage you to try out The Stuff of Legend if you can. Knowing from the start that some players are loyal and the low number of potential traitors combined with the unique card mechanics in this game makes it feel different from other similar games.
While I haven’t read The Stuff of Legend comics, my guess would be that fans of the comics will love this game. They are going to know who the Leaders are, will recognize locations from the comics, and various events will be familiar. I think that knowledge would bring this game to the next level.
FAQs
The Stuff of Legend is a game about toys coming to life, so it’s good for kids?
No, absolutely not.
This game, and the comic it is based on, feature a creepy and twisted tale where a boy has been kidnapped by horrors in the night. While not ‘adult’ as there is no gore, sex, or foul language, this isn’t a game for kids.
Do you need to have read The Stuff of Legend comics to enjoy the game?
Nope. While knowledge of the comics will help bring the theme of The Stuff of Legend board game to life, there’s no need to know the comics to play or enjoy the game. There’s also no reason to not read the comics, they aren’t going to give anything away or give anyone an in game advantage or anything like that.
Can you play The Stuff of Legend cooperatively?
The Stuff of Legend is a semi-cooperative game with hidden traitor elements and is designed and balanced to be played that way. Many cards and events in the game tie in to the loyalty mechanic.
While we do recommend you try the game without loyalty cards for your first play, just to learn how the game works, it is not recommended to remove them completely.
That’s all I have to say about The Stuff of Legend. As you may know we aren’t really big fans of hidden traitor games, but some games do it right and become the exception to the rule. For us,The Stuff of Legend was one of those games.
What is your favourite semi-cooperative, team based, or hidden traitor game, we want to know! Post a comment below, or better yet, start up a conversation on The Tabletop Bellhop Discord Server.
- The Stuff of Legend Board Game
- In The Stuff of Legend, each player takes on the role of one of the boy’s loyal toys, each with their own unique abilities.
- Players work co-operatively, scouring the Dark in search of the Boy before the Boogeyman can escape with him.
- 3-6 players
