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LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing Grindhouse Edition
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The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=30658.
Dubbed as weird fantasy by the designer, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is an OSR product in the guise of Basic / Expert Dungeons & Dragons in a lighter version. The mechanics are designed with more simplicity in mind with what seems like an effort to move the game away from just combat and treasure hoards and into areas where the horror is turned up and the over-powering abilities of the Player Characters is turned down. Yes it contains the same core abilities as all OSR games and probably all the same spells, but skills are handled in a simplified manner (using a d6), alignments have more of a real meaning, there are no magical weapons, and characters don’t simply get stronger as they increase in level, they have to become better at what they specialize in.
Without looking at every single OSR game out there, and I’ve seen a few along with the originals, Lamentations of the Flame Princess has additional simplified mechanics over its equivalents such as static attack tables – there are no charts, just static target numbers according to armor. Saving throws are statically defined in the character class. Increasing melee attack bonuses only attack to Fighters (except for the simple +1 all others receive) again presented statically. There are no d% rolls when determining opposed checks, just simple target numbers. In other words, Lamentations of the Flame Princess takes out a lot of the fiddly mechanics from many OSR games to concentrate more on telling interesting (or weird) stories instead of just delving into random dungeons or clearing out the closest vanilla wizard’s tower (not that you couldn’t do it, but where’s the storyline?). This is an Indie game using OSR mechanics. The benefit there is that the amount of published material compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess is huge and thus can be incorporated into your games with little to no conversions necessary.
OVERALL
Before getting into the ratings, it should be made very clear that Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a game you have to want to play in order for it to be a desirable game. Why do I say that? Because if you’re a full-blown grognard and only play B/X or AD&D and their retro-clones, this may seem familiar and yet not familiar and not what you want. It’s not a traditional old-school system where you primarily delve into dungeons, castles, towers, or what-not and spend your time adventuring, collecting treasure, or just getting wealthy (or more powerful). This is an OSR game that tries harder to concentrate more on the story. This is an OSR game where player characters are extraordinary figures, but not epic fantasy almost-demi-god heroes. This is an OSR game where magical weapons may not exist and the creatures abroad are terrifying. This is an OSR game where you have to embrace the theme as much as you embrace the system.
Lamentations of the Flame Princess is not a retro-clone, it is a unique game powered by old-school mechanics utilizing a unique setting (loosely defined setting that is). It is fantasy horror (weird fantasy), not epic fantasy with high magic. At the same time, it is not horror as there are still standard fantasy tropes. Once you realize that, you’ll better understand what it’s about, and what it’s not about.
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 10 out of 10
The entire Lamentations of the Flame Princess package is beautiful. The writing is excellent, the layout and formatting and superb, and the weird artwork is creepy and terrific. If you pay close attention, in some of the sections, the headers change like a flip cartoon from page to page. I agree with the decision to break the system into three books, especially since not every player or GM needs to use every one of them. The fantasy horror of the setting definitely comes through vividly in the artwork.
Mechanics: 9 out of 10
Although based on previous versions of Dungeons & Dragons and slotting into the old school renaissance, the lightness of Lamentations of the Flame Princess is an excellent implementation of the retro mechanics, focusing more on the story instead of convoluted charts and fiddly bits. The absence of a bestiary can be a definite turn-off for many people, but I am within the camp that new systems and settings benefit from unique monsters that players have never seen before, or at least have never experienced in this way. It’s a matter of creating something new instead of rehashing everything old. I would prefer to have seen more guidance such as a bestiary creation toolkit, but there is no shortage of narrative to get you moving. If all else fails, there is an abundance of bestiary material out there that is compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess.
Desire to Play: 9 out of 10
As stated before, you have to want to play Lamentations of the Flame Princess to get the most out of it. You also have to embrace the flavor of the game presented within the content to understand the approach of the weird fantasy. You could very easily take Lamentations of the Flame Princess and play the same old dungeon crawls or campaigns seen for the past 35 years. The system presents a lighter version of those old mechanics, but you can easily play them and keep your epic fantasy experience. However, that’s not what the system and flavor is trying to promote. Everything within is attempting to explain and promote the horror of the setting above and beyond the high fantasy flavor and effects. The core mechanics keep the danger high, but you can overcome that. With that said, the desire to play a fantasy horror game is as much in the flavor of the game play as it is the mechanics of the system.
Knowing all this, I find Lamentations of the Flame Princess to be an excellent representation of fantasy horror and those ready to play weird fantasy will find the mechanics and flavor content embrace that to full effect.
Overall: 9 out of 10
I may be slightly biased here, but Lamentations of the Flame Princess is my favorite OSR game. Not because it allows you to play everything that you’ve played before, but because it presents a familiar system in a new light, with trimmed down mechanics and the removal of all those fiddly bits. I may also be slightly biased because the content truly embraces the weird fantasy flavor in every way possible, without forcing it through the mechanics. Published adventures and supplements can better demonstrate this, but the core mechanics are a perfect blend of familiarity, light rules, and opportunistic game play that brings out the storyline in the old school renaissance.
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I'd been wanting to check out LotFP for a while after hearing an interview with the author James Edward Raggi IV on a gaming podcast. "Weird fantasy role playing " sounded interesting, and the supposed graphic nature of the title peaked my interest. However after purchasing and reading through this product, I really wish that I had my $18 back so that I could purchase something else.
Honestly, I didn't see anything in the rules to differentiate LotFP from any of the other OSR game already out there. The same classes and races, the same list of spells, the same way to handle skills, the same way to handle combat, etc. I realize that OSR games are all fairly similar as they are all trying to capture a specific tone and feel (especially when it comes to the rules), but I really don't feel that LotFP provided anything new or innovative. This title really could have simply been an essay, system-neutral modifications, or just advice on how to turn any OSR game into a "weird fantasy" setting. It did not really need the included rules, which felt very cut and paste.
Speaking of the rules, only after purchasing this product did I discover that the author provides the full, 171 page rulebook for free. It just doesn't have any of the artwork. This really irritates me, as I now feel as if I paid $18 just for the artwork. Which is essentially what I did. Now it's true that some of the artwork in the book is pretty good, but the artwork alone was not worth $18. There are at least four different artists represented in the book which gives the product something of a random appearance in my opinion. I really wish that someone had created a style guide for the artists so that the images would all have had a similar look and feel. The layout of the book is decent for the most part, though the font used for section headers can be difficult to read at times. There is also a large graphic header that takes up the top fifth of each page, doesn't really add anything, and really only serves to waste space.
Someone who really loves OSR games might enjoy this product, but as I said before, I'd like my $18 back please.
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Publisher Reply: |
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Thanks for the review. I was just about to buy it, but your review convinced me otherwise. |
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I know I am going against the grain here, and I waited till this product had been out a while before I put this review up.
I don't like "Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing".
It tries, oh so hard, to be edgy, but really all I see is like watching a little kid dress up in their mother's or father's clothes and pretending to be big. It is like the author (James Raggi) feels the need to prove to whomever that if they thought AD&D was edgy or "evil" then they haven't seen anything yet.
Let's start with the suggested reading. This is now nearly boilerplate text in any RPG these days. Not just to include it, but to include these exact same authors. There is a reason though, the works of Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Howard and Tolkien are all fantastic as sources for a game. Each had a level of storytelling that was sublime. LotFP is not sublime and I wonder truthfully if the author actually read those books.
The idea, as I take it, is that LotFP is supposed to be "wierd", but outside of the splatter-porn art and questionable abundance of violence on women, there is nothing in the game that I don't have already in Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy. Except with those games I get monsters.
Now the author claims there are no monsters because monsters should be unique.
Frankly that is not only lazy, it's BS as well. The game has an introduction book aimed at new players, yet goes on to tell these new players to make monsters without ever giving them anything to work from? That's also just bad design. This of course is the bias of an author who has not seemed to have played many games outside of AD&D; I am not sure what games Raggi has played, but venture outside of AD&D and there are a lot of ways to have monsters and make each and every encounter with them unique and fearful.
Let's compare this to Call of Cthulhu the pinnacle of horror gaming for most. There is a whole chapter on monsters, right there in front of everyone. In fact there is even a skill in the game so characters can know something, maybe a lot of something, about each and every one. It still does not do them a bit of good. Raggi quotes Lovecraft and Smith, but his depiction of what you do with those elements are almost antithetical to what those authors were actually doing. Browsing through the art (which is fantastic by the way, when it is not over doing it with the violence on women) there is nothing here that would actually have appeared in any Lovecraft or Smith book. Yeah, there is the vague Nyarlathotep-looking creature on the back cover of one of the books, but that was the exception rather than the rule. He took the time (and use that phrasing rather loosely) to not include monsters, but didn't bother to say much at all about mood, tone and how to generate a sense of horror that doesn't involve a disemboweling.
Let's be 100% honest here.
There is nothing in this game that is not in all the other Retro-Clones. I see all sorts of blog postings and reviews talking about new ideas and mechanics, but it is also stuff I saw when the d20 deluge was going on. Thieves as "specialists" or "experts", that is found in True20. Only fighters getting better at fighting, I can think a half-a-dozen games that do that. Wizards/Magic Users as chaotic, possibly using tainted magic, try every grim-dark supernatural game of the 90s.
Plus I am not sure what the "Weird" is in this? I have read everything by Lovecraft, Poe and Ashton Smith. Those guys knew weird. Weird was evident even in their works that were not horror. I don't see weird here. I see the SRD, streamlined like a clone and then some other house rules and some art.
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LotFP is a unique gem among the retroclones. Many of them are trying to emulate one of the older editions of the world's first fantasy roleplaying game. LotFP is different: it only uses them as a starting point, then goes in refreshing new and interesting directions, where others don't dare to. LotFP embraces the elements of horror and weird fiction. The book is full of unsettling images, both in art and text. If D&D is metal, than this beast is some kind of totally wicked death or black metal. Someone said once, that Warhammer FRP is the game, where the players think they are playing D&D, while the DM thinks they are playing Call of Cthulhu. Bullshit. This is that game.
While LotFP is old-school in spirit, many of the mechanics are modernized, some of them being downright innovative. If you won't ever play the game as written, you might still find many useful elements of the system that you could steal - like the encumberance rules, the skill system and so on.
While I don't think I'm ever going to run a longterm campaign with this game, it's still a quality product, a great game and a huge eye opener. Those, who are getting bored of the repetative nature of the OSR, will find this refreshing - if they aren't disguisted by it's style. LotFP dares to be different, which is it's greatest strength and enemy too.
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Originally Published at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2011/09/06/tabletop-review-lamenta
tions-of-the-flame-princess-grindhouse-edition/
When I was FIVE, my family went to the TG&Y to do some shopping. I remember the trip vibrantly because of a record I saw: KISS! I asked my mother who they were and she replied curtly, “Some scary clowns that make loud music!” That was the end of the conversation. In those pre-Internet days, I could only wonder what these black-garbed miscreants in facepaint sounded like. They were surely harder and louder than Black Sabbath and Ozzy, who I heard through my teenage Uncle Reed’s door! I imagined them to sound like the gates of Hell opening and Satan himself stepping out and jamming on a guitar made of scorched human remains, the wind blasting through his enormous mane of hair. Then, one sad day, I actually heard KISS…
The video for “Let’s Put The X In Sex” debuted on MTV when I was nine. I was not prepared for what I saw. There were no flames, nor any screeching guitar solos, no, this was a bunch of skeazy old dudes singing about sex in a way that even a nine year old could tell was juvenile. This was not what I wanted, no sir. A little piece of me died that day. From that point on, I have judiciously avoided hype. If someone wants to sell me on how awesome something is, they better damn well prove it to me.
My D&D experience was much the same. I was told numerous times how bad it was, how sinful. This did not deter me from ogling the advertisements I saw in the “ten for a dollar” Marvel comics I read. Gammarauders! Star Frontiers! The Forgotten Realms! I longed to explore these worlds. I imagined D&D to be a dark, frightening game, on par to holding a séance with Ghengis Khan’s spirit while listening to a band that sounded like Kiss looked.
When I finally got ahold of the D&D Red Box, my parents had mellowed on the conservative Catholicism they practiced in the early 80’s and were more accepting. I played it with a group of long-haired metal kids, military brats like myself, though I was never allowed to wear my hair long. D&D was fun and cathartic, a place for me to be an epic hero or a cunning thief without the fear of death or imprisonment, at least any permanent variation of either. D&D gave me a place to go and friends to hang out with, a common language and written tradition. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson birthed a great thing into the world, a thing that, no matter what Chick Tracts said, was anything but dangerous.
I have not played anything that could be remotely called D&D since the late 90s. I have played Rifts and some other one offs in the interim, but D&D just sort of died for me when TSR did. I recall the day my fellow players showed up with copies of the 2.5 Edition books and being put off. They were bright and colorful and packed with illustrations. They managed to be safer and cleaner than even the sanitary 2nd Edition, the one with the charging Jeff Easley horseman. I did not want this. Edition 2.5 begat 3rd edition, which begat edition 3.5. 3.5 edition branched into Pathfinder, with its manga art and handholding style, and 4th edition, which seems like World of Warcraft with more paper. Each version got further from being a game I would actually want to play.
Lamentations of the Flame Princess pretends that the last thirty years of D&D did not happen. By ignoring the move to Advanced D&D, Lamentations of the Flame Princess has the feel of someone’s house rules in published form. Unlike several other products that could be described the same way, James Raggi’s house rules actually make sense. If 4th Edition is D&D flavored by anime and MMORPGs, then Lamentations of the Flame Princess is D&D flavored with stoner metal and Michael Moorcock novels. There are no builds or templates, no points systems or feats. This is D&D as a guy who listens to Mercyful Fate on vinyl would want it: bloody and bleak and fun as Hell.
Before I get into the guts of the thing, and these are books with actual guts in them, I do want to issue a disclaimer, of sorts. When we started reviewing RPG products, Lamentations of the Flame Princess was on the first list of items I wanted to review. I had read the reviews, added the excellent Lamentations of the Flame Princess Blog to my RSS, and made my desktop background a rotating gallery of art from the Grindhouse Edition. Without reading a word of it, I was a fanboy. As always, I will point out flaws as well as strengths, but do know that I am pretty smitten with this product. Besides, Alex let me put this review behind the Age Gate, so I can say motherfucker. Also, I put up this picture of a swollen and distended fertility goddess birthing a demon through her vagina whilst another demon suckles from her teet and a warrior is sacrificed by nude maidens. I am only posting this particular piece because I like it and not for any sort of artistic reason. This is why I love Lamentations of the Flame Princess: it is over the top in its excesses, terrible in its fury, and completely unapologetic. If you aren’t interested in a book that contains such filth, this is where you should take your leave.
If the artwork above does not give it away, Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition does not adhere to the same artistic guidelines more mainstream RPG products do. When the art credits include the guy who does Cannibal Corpse album covers, you should know what to expect. There is blood and gore and nudity, all things I would expect from a product labeled “Grindhouse.” Grindhouse does not mean Quentin Tarantino making movies for Disney under the auspices of Miramax. No, Grindhouse means watching Cannibal Holocaust in a dark room that smells of sweat salt and soda sweetness and the base scent of cum. Grindhouse is stale popcorn and people yelling back at the screen. That is where the Grindhouse in Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition comes from.
The art, and there is plenty of it, is evocative and puts the “Weird” in the subtitle Weird Fantasy Role Playing. The most eye-catching pieces are the paintings on the cover of the box and the three books inside. The box cover, which I think is the same as that of the previously released Deluxe Edition, is of a redheaded female warrior in clothing that would not look out of place in a Thanksgiving play fighting a topless snake woman. This image of a steely-eyed fighter, completely clothed, with a determined look on her face, is sexy in a way that Larry Elmore’s barely dressed damsels never could be. The only nudity in the painting is decidedly unsexy, unless you have a predilection for snake women. Excluding the crimson of the Flame Princess’s hair, there is naught but grey and black on the cover. The tone is set here, on the cover, and it continues within.
The Tutorial book has an equally striking cover image, though it is memorable in a completely different manner. A man in arcane attire is either assembling or disassembling a corpse on a table as a creature looks on. The man looks a fair bit like Sid Haig, which only makes the Grindhouse nomenclature even more apropos. The creature brings to mind a seahorse given human form, a vile chimera that evokes the debased folk of Innsmouth. The colors are off in a most peculiar and appealing way and a sense of dread permeates the grotesque proceedings.
The Rules and Magic book, the thickest and most important of the three, also has the most impressive cover. A familiar looking redhead, this time much younger, is pointing a sword at an unseen source of terror. Tears stream from her eyes; a dead man and a terrified woman with a baby are behind her. Her garb is decidedly chaste and has an almost clerical feel, perhaps she is a novice nun or the equivalent. The scene evokes the “Final Girl” trope common in slasher movies. Whether intentional or not, the chaste, presumably virginal, female taking up a phallic weapon against evil personified is a powerful archetype to draw upon and this painting does so with aplomb. Honestly, this painting, even more than the box cover, captures what I imagine that James Raggi means by “Weird Fantasy.”
Finally, we come to the cover of the Referee book. A bright yellow creature, looking like a cross between a moth and a Japanese sentai monster is perched amid an inky black background. The verve and action of a first encounter with an unknown and unknowable monster hangs off the page. I am reminded deeply of my earliest dungeon crawling exploits, when githyanki and even kobolds can seem new and exciting. While it is the weakest of the four covers, I would snatch up a book on the shelf bearing such a cover, no matter the utility or cover price.
I could espouse the art for several more pages, though I doubt that would serve this review well. The interiors are lined with interesting pieces, illustrations that give form to the idea of a pitiless, senseless world that is rife with adventuring opportunities. A series of illustrations depicting a duel comes to a surprising end when the female sword fighter comes out on the losing end, the obvious victim of a critical hit. As Something Awful’s review of Grindhouse Edition so eloquently put it, the illustration of the Dwarf class, “is like the recruiting poster for dwarfs,” an almost comical amount of carnage with a one-eyed stunty in the middle. There is a color insert in the Rules and Magic book, with several paintings as powerful as the covers.
One such piece, of what appears to be the end of the Flame Princess’s life, is as good a place as any to slay one of the hounds that has snapped at Lamentations of the Flame Princess’s heels: the charge of misogyny. Rules wise, there is no difference between male and female characters. There are no sex related rules, so push all of the hyperbole about F.A.T.A.L. and the ilk out of your mind. As far as the art being misogynistic, the males in the paintings are being equally abused. The feminine fertility creature birthing a demon is not exactly what I would call “humanoid.” That very same drawing has a man being murdered by what are very plainly human women. Yes, the female duelist loses, but so did all of the males beneath the dwarf. Female characters in RPGs die, just like the male ones. It is more insulting to make them unassailable than it is to show them losing on occasion. I suspect that a combination of the “Internet White Knight” instinct that many young men suffer from mixed with exposure to the sanitized D&D of the last twenty years has led to much of the chastisement sent Raggi’s way.
The physical components of the box are as follows. The box itself is a thick one piece box that feels like it can handle the travails of being tossed in my knapsack. The three books are of similar dimensions to the LBBs of D&D and the Vornheim hardcover, but each is much thicker than those slim volumes. There is a stack of character sheets, though I do prefer to photocopy my own so that they bear the familiar smell of Xerox toner. The final bit is the one that you will need to keep the closest eye on: a small bag containing the smallest set of polyhedral dice I have ever seen. So wee and adorable are these game randomizing plastic baubles that I can easily see them being swiped in a heartbeat. Mark my words, more than one set will be drilled through and worn as necklace beads or earrings before long.
The first book, appropriately titled Tutorial, is an interesting item. For one thing, I can scarcely imagine the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition boxset being someone’s first exposure to roleplaying games. Between the price, the limited print run, and the obscurity of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, it seems odd for it to be conceived as a starter product. With that in mind, what makes the Tutorial book interesting is that it is such a fine introduction to roleplaying games as well as being a fine primer for the experienced player. It would be interesting to play with players introduced to gaming via this book, as I suspect they would be different from the bulk of us who picked it up ad hoc. Of the three books in the box, however, the Tutorial book is the one with the least amount of use. The solo adventures, while fun, are simply not going to be played through more than once or twice.
The Rules and Magic book is a whopping 160 pages and contains the real meat of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Basically serving as a player’s handbook, Rules and Magic has all of the rules to create a character, fight a combat, and cast a spell. While the bulk of the rules feel familiar, there is real refinement here.
There are four human classes and three demi-human race-classes. The Cleric has no innate abilities in Lamentations of the Flame Princess, with powers like Turn Undead taking up vital spell slots. The upside is that weapon limitations are imposed by GMs setting and discretion. The Fighter is familiar, changed more by the lack of combat skill improvement by the other classes than by a change to the class itself. The Magic-User is as you would expect, though the Magic-User spells in Lamentations of the Flame Princess are a shade darker than you might recall them being in D&D and the more extreme spells, like Wish, are nonexistent in this world. Taking the place of the Thief is an odd specimen called the Specialist.
The Specialist is tied to Lamentations of the Flame Princess’s fairly novel skill system. Non-combat skills, like Climbing and Searching, are resolved by rolling a d6. If the player rolls a 1, then they are successful. Thus, even a Fighter can try to pick a pocket or build a trap. The Specialist starts the game with 4 points that may be allocated to the skills as the player chooses. This means a Specialist can be a pretty bog standard Thief, if one so desires, by putting poinats into Sleight of Hand and Open Doors. As well, an Assassin is possible by putting points into Sneak Attack and Stealth. Languages and Architecture could make for a scholarly type. By simplifying this often unwieldy class, Lamentations of the Flame Princess makes the Rogue style character both more balanced and more viable.
Race classes are an interesting anachronism. The convention of races being a class instead of an additional choice is a definite throwback to the original D&D. Some will argue against it, but I have to confess that I am for it. For one, race classes increases the number of human characters in a party, since playing a demi-human is more limiting. It also reduces min-maxing, though Lamentations of the Flame Princess is not likely going to appeal to the min-max crowd. Besides, it makes sense to me. Dwarfs and Elves and Halflings are an uncommon sight in human dominated lands, so it stands to reason that the most commonly encountered amongst them would be fairly stereotypical. Besides, how often do players actually want to play a dwarf cleric?
The Dwarf is similar to the Fighter, though he does not benefit from the ascending attack bonus. A Dwarf player can look forward to an epic amount of hit points at later levels. The Elf has the ability to cast Magic-User spells, though the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Elves are stranger than most. They must be Chaotic, since magic is inherently so, and are more fey and alien than they are in a setting like the Forgotten Realms. Halflings are as you would expect them and I would expect to see them played as often as they appear in the artwork, which is to say not at all.
The third, and final, book is the Referee book. The essential value of this volume falls on whether or not it can prepare a GM, or Referee, for running a game in the Weird Fantasy tradition. Ultimately, this is a very subjective matter. James Raggi’s philosophy of Weird Fantasy hinges on a simple idea: remove player knowledge from character knowledge. This is achieved with a couple of techniques. There are no established monsters in the book, save an example Vampire. This removes the age old problem of players knowing exactly what the clues the GM is leaving will lead to and how to deal with it and the characters magically having this same information. Making the GM create his own monsters makes the players stay in character in order to find a solution. An interesting side effect is that I suspect this will lead to an overall decrease in monster density in adventures, which keeps monsters special and unique. The best example I can think of is from G.I. Joe. When the B.A.T.S. first appeared, they were a frightening robot army that seemed invulnerable. Lasers bounced off of them and the Joes could not defeat them. After that initial appearance, the B.A.T.S. became so mundane that they exploded with a glance from Sgt. Slaughter. The same principal has applied to D&D from time since the LBBs.
Magic items get a similar treatment. There is no Sword +1 factory in the world of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, no sweatshops churning out wands and scrolls. Each magic item in a game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess is supposed to be unique and dangerous. The trick is to think more in terms of cursed items from a horror story than the “Gee, whiz!” party favors of D&D. This chilling effect means that when a magic item is the impetus for a quest, characters are more likely to put up with a magic item having a downside to match its upside. Even the money system leans towards a more hardscrabble existence, with silver as the standard instead of gold.
What all of this means is that a Weird Fantasy game is a lot more work for both the players and the GM. The players cannot coast on the inherent power of their characters and the builds they find on the Internet. Each encounter carries more danger and each magic could be potentially murderous, since a Weird Fantasy world is an uncaring one. The GM must make every monster and magic item from scratch, which can either be freeing or agonizing. The black metal darkness that must be evoked to make the Weird Fantasy world come to life must be handled with care, lest it tilt too far into nihilism or silliness.
For my money, the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition boxed set does a good enough job implying the world it is set in. The art, the specifics of the rules, and the thorough Recommended Reading section do a better job of telling me exactly what sort of game I should be running and playing than I ever got from the classic D&D books, even the beyond thorough D&D Rules Cyclopedia failed to shape the world it took place in this well. For those who want a complete, hand-holding world premade from them, this is probably not the set for them. For the GM who wants to play in a Weird new world, and is patient enough to build the details himself, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a breath of fresh air blown from a corpse’s mouth.
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Lamentations of the Flame Princess features a rules system inspired by the original version of D&D, coupled with art that pushes the boundaries of the gruesome and macabre. It's a clever, streamlined RPG and, for the most part, the artwork adds to the overall feel of the game without being juvenile or shocking just for shock's sake.
This is a revised version of the original Lamentations, with brand new artwork of a more adult nature that author James Raggi calls “grindhouse.” Personally, I'm not in the target audience for a “grindhouse” version of anything. I'm not looking for more blood or crawling eyeballs in my RPG books. I have to take my hat off to Raggi here, though, because grindhouse or not, what he's created is a pretty darn good.
As I said before, Lamentations is most definitely a version of Original Dungeon and Dragons, one of many products of the “old school renaissance.” It contains the usual mix of character classes and spells familiar to anyone who has played basic D&D. What's interesting is how the book presents these common elements; this is a game that emphasizes a different feeling than vanilla D&D. While the pulp influences of the early “weird tales” are present in OD&D, Lamentations turns them up to the maximum. Here is what the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft looked like before every tentacled monstrosity was named, statted, and cataloged.
Lamentations offers a lot of advice on building and maintaining a certain feel. The book dispenses with set lists of monsters and magic items, instead giving the referee tools and guidance on employing their own creations. Spells, while usually standard in their effects, often have their own “weird” flavor. The rules descriptions are brief, clear, and support the game's milieu. While I don't always agree with the mechanics (only fighters' improve at combat?), my nitpicks are small and easy enough to houserule.
This product is not for everyone, however. While I think that the new art meshes nicely with the feel Raggi is going for, art is always subjective and I get the feeling that some of this stuff is going to be very polarizing. When it works, it adds to the game, but when it doesn't the results seem gimmicky. I also have to pick on the font a bit. It might be a minor point, but the text uses an old-fashioned lettering that I find a little hard to read at times.
Also, Lamentations is written with a do-it-yourself philosophy that might be off-putting to some gamers. I agree with the author's opinion on keeping magic items rare and unique, but I sympathize with the neophyte GM who needs more examples to guide him. Sometimes, do-it-yourself can come across as incomplete design. There is a sample adventure in the referee book that lacks a map, which the author explains away as a lesson to the referee on thinking on his feet. I understand what Raggi is trying to do here, but I'm not sure if I buy it.
Overall, I'm very pleased with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I think that James Raggi took a risk putting out a product designed to push the envelope like this one does, and I believe he succeeded. If a modern version of old-fashioned D&D appeals to you and you aren't squeamish about art, I recommend this work.
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Unlike prior "retro-clones," LotFP isn't content to imitate what has come before. Instead it returns to the roots of the game and rebuilds it into something that is fresh and striking while still immediately familiar. If you are tired of every fantasy role-playing game feeling like a pale shadow of Tolkien, LotFP brings you a mysterious world of snake-gods and demonic cults, reminiscent of the masters of weird fantasy - Howard, Lovecraft, and Merritt. Factor in the high production value, and this is a must-buy.
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