Big LotFP PDF Sale!

Yay!

James Raggi is having a big sale of all the Lamentations of the Flame Princess PDFs over at DriveThruRPG! All titles are sold at EUR 1.14, and there is even an “everything bundle” at EUR 47.70.

You don’t want to miss out on iconic titles such as Death Frost Doom, Carcosa, Vornheim, or on the more historical-oriented ones (if you’re a reader of this blog...) such as The Magnificent Joop van Ooms, Forgive Us, England Upturn’d, No Rest for the Wicked, Midvinter, Terror in the Streets... even if they are set in the 17th century rather than the 16th like the material in this blog.

Beware, the sale ends on Tuesday 16 May.

[Edit] James Raggi has just announced that there will also be a print sale starting on Monday 15 May so you can have the actual products in your grubby hands.

Because Fuck You, That's Why

From James Raggi on Google+: the artwork, by Yannick Bouchard, of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess catalogue at Spiel.

Pure LotFP-ey art.

Raggi Interview

I am not a big fan of podcasts, but there is one which I really like, called the Good Friends of Jackson Elias, that is devoted to Lovecraft and the weird~horror genre.

The latest episode features a long interview of James Raggi, the man behind the weird fantasy role-playing game Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Enjoy!

Slight Changes to LotFP's Skill Mechanics

James Raggi has announced on the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Google+ community that he was working on a slightly revised version of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules.

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.

LotFP Web-Store: Free Shipping Sale

Raggi is celebrating the fact that he's hit 1,000 followers on his Facebook LotFP page and on his G+ LotFP community by giving us free shipping on his web-store. Here are the exact details:

Coupon code 1000YOUNG at the LotFP web-store will get you free shipping worldwide as long as Idea from Space, Scenic Dunnsmouth, Qelong, Tower of the Stargazer, Fuck For Satan, Forgive Us, The God that Crawls, The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time, or The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children are part of the order. You can add other items to your order and still get free shipping as long as the order includes at least one of the listed books. The coupon code will expire MONDAY 30 MARCH 2015 10:00 EET.

(When ordering, the place to enter the coupon code pops up after choosing a shipping method, ALL ORDERS USING THIS CODE WILL BE SENT ECONOMY CLASS.)

Aperita Arcana Done

Ebon Gryphon Games have at last released the finalised version of Aperita Arcana to us backers — see my earlier posts for a description of the Aperita Arcana supplement for the Monsters & Magic role-playing game.

The cover art is nice, with a good balance of light and dark, if slightly too much on the dark side. I am not a big fan of 'digital' art [this is actually an understatement] but the elfin lady on the cover truly has an incredible expression, her eyes showing both surprise at the appearance of the demon and a firm will to control it. The demon is slightly less realistic but I really dig the "glow-in-the dark" pentacle.

Aperita Arcana is available in PDF format from RPGNow. I have no idea whether a dead tree version is in the works.

Edit: Aperita Arcana is now available from RPGNOW both as a softcover and as a hardcover book! Should you have bought the PDF, get in touch with Ebon Gryphon Games to redeem a $10 coupon to buy the book.

It is also available from Amazon but then only as a softcover.

Aperita Arcana Available by End of Month

Duchess Phenaella

If you don't know about Aperita Arcana yet, please refer to my previous posts, here and there. In a nutshell, it is a Monsters & Magic supplement by Ebon Gryphon Games that expands on the core M&M rules by adding new advancements, new spells and spell lists, rules for ad-lib spells, and much more. I warmly recommend this supplement, even if M&M is not your go-to system, if only for the excellent GMing advice scattered throughout the supplement, and for all the material that can be salvaged irrespective of your gaming system (e.g., the advanced ‘language’ rules).

Well, here's the good news: according to the latest KS update (12 January 2015), Aperita Arcana should be available before the end of the month!

First Preview of Aperita Arcana

The good folks at Ebon Gryphon Games, who have already brought us the fantastically useful Collectanea Creaturae bestiary for the Monsters & Magic frp game are up to a second supplement for M&M.

Aperita Arcana adds a lot of new character classes and sub-classes to the main ones from the core M&M book.

The nice thing about Monsters & Magic is that character classes are not simply a bland collection of die modifiers, hit dice, allowed armour/weapons, or numbers of spells per level. In M&M, each character class is fleshed out by a series of traits and advancements that it may use but, again, not as mere 'plus sometings' but as narrative tools to enliven your role-playing experience (and kick ass — that's the magic of the Effect Engine).

Anyway, as a backer of the Collectanea Creaturae Kickstarter, I have received my preview PDF copy of Aperita Arcana, and I am simply astonished at the quality. I was expecting a number of new character classes and sub-classes (see my previous post), but there's much much more in Aperita Arcana:

• Chapter 1, which is 62 pages long without the art, does detail the new classes and sub-classes, followed by
• Chapter 2 with new races, and with new twists for the already-existing ones, but there's more:
• Chapter 3 with lots of new spot rules and advanced rules for the Effect Engine,
• Chapter 4 with equipment,
• Chapter 5, new rules and variants,
• Chapter 6, sample cults, examples of religious organisations...
• Chapter 7, a lengthy discussion about the magical tropes in fantasy,
• Chapter 8, Magic Items,
• Chapter 9, Spells.

It thus appears that Aperita Arcana, which had initially been advertised as a small add-on to the Bestiary, has eventually become a kind of big "PHB+DMG+DDG" supplement — to use classic fantasy parlance.

Much like I believe that Collectanea Creaturae, because of the way it gives examples of monsters' motivations etc., is a must-buy supplement for any classic fantasy GM, I also believe that Aperita Arcana is a must-buy for any GM who wants to spruce up their classic fantasy adventures.

Monsters & Magic RPG is in the Latest Bundle of Holding RPG Pack

If you are True Role-Players I gather you already know about the Bundle of Holding web-site: it is an easy way to acquire a bundle of PDF files of role-playing games and/or supplements at a significantly lower price than the addition of buying each of them separately.

The other cool thing about the "Bundle of Holding" special offers is that ten percent of your payment goes to two charities, viz.
 - Amnesty International
 - Doctors Without Borders

Note that you get to set your payment yourself, but you have to beat a minimum amount to get hold of the "bundle". Also, there are usually two steps, one basic bundle, and one with more nifty stuff in it. However, there is no upper limit. This is a nice way to encourage giving to the charities.

But the bundles are short-lived, and you must act quick to grab 'em!

Well, all this premise to tell you that the current Bundle of Holding is  a treasure trove of seven indie RPGs by women RPG writers. Amongst the games of the second tier, the fantastic Monsters & Magic role-playing game (by Sarah Newton), which is currently my game of choice for high fantasy.

Aperita Arcana Nearing Completion

Aperita Arcana is a dual-system supplement for both the Monsters & Magic and the Fate game systems (to be honest, I want it because of what it brings to M&M).

It is being brought out by Ebon Gryphon Games, the very same good folk who are behind the fantastically useful Collectanea Creaturae supplement, also both for Monsters & Magic and Fate.

Aperita Arcana adds a lot of character classes to the basic ones in the M&M core book; the current roster is as follows:
 - Alchemist
 - Arbiter
 - Barbarian
 - Beastmaster
 - Blademage
 - Blood Mage
 - Bounty Hunter
 - Chosen
 - Cultist
 - Duelist
 - Elementalist
 - Enchanter
 - Gladiator
 - Inquisitor
 - Knight-errant
 - Martial Practitioner
 - Mercatant
 - Minstrel
 - Religious Scholar
 - Shaman
 - Summoner
 - Treasure Hunter
 - Vanguard
 - Wandering Sage
 - Witch Hunter

Some of these classes, e.g., the Alchemist, have already been posted on the Google+ M&M community. Check them out, they're really fantastic!

I used to hate new classes when I played AD&D, but for Monsters & Magic it is really different: since a class a mostly a collection of traits, they add wonderful role-playing potential in terms of what effect the player may try to attain.

The icing on the cake is that Aperita Arcana is going to be FREE for us backers of the Collectanea Creaturae kickstarter :-)

Collectanea Creaturae In Dead Tree

Collectanea Creaturae, the top-notch "monster manual" supplement for Monsters & Magic is now available in dead tree format from Amazon in the United States.

It should also be available soon from RPGnow and from the European Amazon web-sites.

Collectanea Creaturae Is Out!

I just love it when a Kickstarter project delivers on time. Collectanea Creaturae, the book of creatures (and more!) for the Monsters & Magic role-playing game has been funded in January 2014, and the availability date for my pledge level (PDF only) was shown as "Estimated delivery: May 2014". Well, I have just received from Ebon Gryphon Games the link to download my copy of the PDF, and it's only April :-)

The book is a whopping 170 pages long, with the following sections:

Introduction, 5 pages.
This is actually much more than a mere introduction. The 5 pages are chock full of great ideas about how to GM particular situations in Monsters & Magic. If you've ever tried GM'ing an old school module doing conversions on the fly, like I did, you'll find this part very useful.

A-Z List of Creatures, 130 pages
The creatures here are not mere stat blocks. Each of them is given motivations and effects, which are what makes Monsters & Magic really different from similar games. Some of the entries have so many ideas of cool effects and consequences that they provide all the necessary elements for an afternoon of gaming just by themselves!

Also, some groups of creatures are given their own stats, e.g., Bandit Gang has its own stats independently from Bandit. Wolfpack has its own stats independently from Wolf. Again, this is perfectly in line with M&M's elegant way of handling different "sizes" of encounters.

There are also many boxed texts interspersed through this section providing interesting facts about the various creatures such as etymology of the creature's name, differences with the classic fantasy version (if any, and why), possible variations (incl. powered up versions or "bosses"), constructs made or owned by the creature, suggestions to use some of the creatures as non-human races, etc.

Appendix 1: New PC Races, 7 pages
The races suggested as being available as PC races are: Centaur, Faun, Goblin, Lamia, Nymph, Orc, Tanuki.

Appendix 2: Familiars, Animal Companions, and You, 12 pages
The title says it all. Given the importance of companions, sidekicks, mounts, etc. in Monsters & Magic, this is again a very welcome chapter, chock full of interesting ideas.

I've only skimmed through Collectanea Creaturae, but I already know I won't be able to GM my M&M games without this book close by any longer!

40 Years Ago, the Birth of a 32yr-old Hobby

Apparently D&D —and hence our hobby— have turned 40 today. I only discovered the game through Dr Holmes' so-called "blue box" in March 1982, so role-playing is a mere 32 year-old hobby in my life.

Collectanea Creaturae

I am definitely not a big fan of kickstarter-advertised products. I'd rather an author wrote his or her product, play-tested it, found a publisher, and made it available to us in dead tree format through our Favourite Local Gaming Shop.

However, I also know that 99% of rpg authors have a day job, and the 'normal' procedure above may not always work out for them. Thus, in spite of being fully aware of the harsh realities in the life of a non-professional rpg author (hey, I am one of them, after all), I still do avoid kickstarters because they're usually not delivered on time — If and when they are delivered: most of them seem not to be, if one is to believe all the stories that get mentioned here and there.

This having been said, I sprang to my credit card when I saw the kickstarter for Collectanea Creaturae by Travis Casey and Julian Stanley. Travis and Julian have consistently been posting excellent stuff over at the Monsters & Magic community on Google+ (I love their Alchemist sub-class), so a book of monsters for M&M by them was a no-brainer.

At the moment, the kickstarter is fully funded by the current level of pledges. However you may want to jump on the bandwagon, especially if you live across the pond— the $25 level of pledge gets you a dead tree version of the book rather than the PDF. Unfortunately I did not choose that particular level because of the extra cost of shipping to Europe ($20). Sigh.

Monsters & Magic Is Out!

Monsters & Magic is available at last! For me it is the fantasy role-playing that bridges the gap between the 'Old' and 'New School' types of play — types of play that are complementary and not irreconcilable, by the way. I actually wonder why no-one had thought of such a system before.

The game is only available in PDF format on DriveThru at the moment, but again it's definitely the ruleset I recommend to everyone in the OSR movement, even if they prefer dead tree (the hardcopy version, by Chronicle City, should be available in August). I let the author, Sarah Newton, present her work:

Monsters & Magic is an “Old School Renaissance” fantasy role-playing game with a difference. Combining the atmosphere of classic fantasy games with modern RPG mechanics, it lets you use old school fantasy gaming material with little or no conversion [賈尼— basically: armour class and, in some cases, hit points] with a new and innovative set of rules [賈尼— this is actually the genius idea: it's a brand-new system, but it uses the well-known tropes of the most famous classic frp]. Battle giants, defeat dragons, explore deadly dungeons and mysterious wilderlands — and bring your favourite adventures, supplements, spellbooks, and bestiaries to brilliant new life!

This complete fantasy role-playing game features:

✠ the Effect Engine, a modular open-licence rules system
✠ action-packed adventure from 1st to 20th level and beyond
✠ rules for castles, kingdoms, guilds, and warships
✠ Silvermoon, an introductory adventure for levels 1-4
✠ new rules for alignment, hazards, encounters, treasures, epic and mythic gaming, and more!

I have posted two blog entries with regards to Monsters & Magic: a new cult, and a new sub-class. You may have a look at them to get the gist of the system, plus there are almost 20 pages of preview on DriveThru.

Also, check out Sarah's great interview here, with a good view into her vision of the game, and a few hints at future products!

Flashing Blades — News At Last

The following is almost taken verbatim from the Hill Cantons blog. Just in case you should've missed it. I think it's an important pierce of news, so sorry if you've already read this! Also this piece of news is (according to Hill Cantons) from the author of Flashing Blades himself, Mark Pettigrew.

"FGU already agrees that I [Mark Pettigrew] own the rights to Flashing Blades [this development is possibly a result of FGU's losing a case against the original authors of Villains & Vigilantes, which FGU was selling without the authors' consent, and without giving them any royalties!]. I'm even receiving (very small) royalties cheques again, after a 20-some year hiatus. I think I mentioned this before, but again, all of you are free to write, publish, etc. whatever you want for Flashing Blades without worrying about copyright. I'm happy that people are still enjoying the game."

Although it is centred on 17th century France, Flashing Blades is also a rules set I would recommend for running a Renaissance game, on top of LotFP (for a gloomer campaign setting), Renaissance (for a more realistic set of rules), and Monsters & Magic (my personal favourite at the moment).

Monsters & Magic — A New Old School RPG

Sarah Newton (well known for a zillion works, but especially for her Mindjammer novel and her Achtung! Cthulhu line of supplements) has been working since last year on a very innovative set of rules that will fill the gap between Old School and, er, new school (do they have a name?) role-playing games.

This new role-playing game is called Monsters & Magic, and I have been lucky enough to be involved in its play tests since the very beginning. I can guarantee that the system is terrific, very scalable, and that it will appeal to grognards and sophisticated gamers alike.

The extra bonus is that Sarah has striven to keep M&M backwards compatible with the most popular fantasy role-playing game, meaning that you will be able to re-use all the heaps of modules and supplements that you've been accumulating for years, as well as all the great stuff that the OSR movement is publishing these days.

M&M will be published by Sarah's own Mindjammer Press, and will be printed and distributed by Chronicle City [if I have understood the press release correctly].

An additional bonus is that M&M will feature great art (look at the gorgeous cover by Jason Juta!) and... British spelling!