At the moment, he’s only "leaked" the following information:
1) There will be more elements for maritime adventures; in particular, there will be a Seamanship skill within the set of new skills (see note #3 below).
2) The Cleric character class will be moved to the appendices as an optional character class; it will be more difficult to get healing! Demi-humans (in line with the more "Early Modern Europe" look and feel of the latest adventures) are also going to be moved to the appendices.
3) The skill system will be re-worked and expanded. There will be, in particular, more skills to choose from at character generation, and the players will get to distribute a set amount of points among these skills to create their starting character rather than all have the same set of starting skills [this is a good step towards a classless D&D-ish system, he he...]. The mechanism itself will move from roll-under to rolling a D6, adding the number of skill dots, and having to get 7 or more to succeed.
All in all, these are all very welcome moves in the right direction.
I was very disappointed by LoTFP when I read it. It promised gothic, it promised horror, it promised something exciting. All I saw was a competent retread of an old and broken set of rules. A step in the right direction would be 5e which is a good set of D&D rules, or Renaissance which a good set of BRP rules with black powder and horror sub systems, or WHFRP.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you like LoTFP?
Well, it would take me more than a comment to explain why I like LotFP. I will refer you to the following, and especially to Part II:
ReplyDelete- http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/08/review-lamentations-of-flame-princess.html
- http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/08/review-lamentations-of-flame-princess_26.html
- http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-lamentations-of-flame-princess.html
- http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-lamentations-of-flame-princess_04.html
- http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-lamentations-of-flame-princess_05.html
[BTW the latest version of the LotFP rulebook DOES include rules for firearms]
More generally, one cannot restrict LotFP to the ruleset per se, which, as you have written, is merely a "competent retread". LotFP is also defined by its art, which is very consistent from one product to another, and which has an early modern feel to it that most other D&D-ish games miss. And, above all, LotFP comes to life via its line of published adventures, which are also very consistent in the kind of bleak, desperate setting they depict.
I agree that some really good setting or adventure books have been published and some truly dreadful. The good ones owe nothing to the rules, the bad ones are just juvenile.
ReplyDelete