The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermGeneral term2011

Legacy game

A board game that changes permanently as it is played, as players tear up cards, place stickers on the board and open sealed boxes, so that each copy tells its own campaign story. Gloomhaven brought legacy elements to the dungeon crawl.

A board game that changes permanently as it is played, as players tear up cards, place stickers on the board and open sealed boxes, so that each copy tells its own campaign story. Gloomhaven brought legacy elements to the dungeon crawl.

Origin

Pioneered by designer Rob Daviau with Risk Legacy (2011).

Quick answers

What does "Legacy game" mean?
A board game that changes permanently as it is played, as players tear up cards, place stickers on the board and open sealed boxes, so that each copy tells its own campaign story. Gloomhaven brought legacy elements to the dungeon crawl.
Where does the term "Legacy game" come from?
Pioneered by designer Rob Daviau with Risk Legacy (2011).

Nearby in the archive

Painting: an enormous tabletop campaign board game spread across a table: stacks of cards, standees of strange mercenary heroes, hex-tile dungeon rooms.

Gloomhaven

Board game2017

Isaac Childres's colossal campaign dungeon crawl: cooperative mercenaries, hand-management combat with no dice, and a legacy world of sealed boxes that changes as the story unfolds.

Dungeon-Crawler Board Games

Tabletop genre1975

Plastic heroes, cardboard corridors and a door about to open: the board game that stages the dungeon crawl room by room, with one friend playing the evil wizard or the deck itself springing the traps.

Meeple

General term2000

A small, flat, human-shaped wooden playing piece, now the unofficial mascot of hobby board gaming. The word is a contraction of my people.

Crowdfunding & the Kickstarter Era

Movement2012

From 2012 onward, Kickstarter and its rivals turned players into publishers' patrons: tabletop games became the platform's powerhouse category, funding everything from indie zines to Gloomhaven, Frosthaven and a record-breaking Sanderson RPG.