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.

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.

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).

Firearms in LotFP — Semi-Official Rule (of sorts)

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (aka LotFP) is an Old School Renaissance role-playing game whose mechanisms are derived from those of the world's most famous fantasy role-playing game.

Several tropes of said classic role-playing game, however, are given a markedly different treatment in LotFP. To me, the most saliently divergent elements (and the reasons I love this game) are:
1. Although LotFP doesn't provide a default campaign world, the published adventures emphasise a humanocentric setting, as opposed to one with Tolkienesque demi-humans.
2. The rules explicitly advocate a paucity of monsters (there isn't even a bestiary), as opposed to the well-known over-abundance of critters in other OSR role-playing games.
3. The game is exceptionally deadly to player characters.
4. There is a general Renaissance feeling about the published material (art & adventures), as opposed to a pseudo-mediæval one again in most other OSR role-playing games.

Now with regards to point No.4 above, if you say 'Renaissance' you're also saying black powder and firearms. Alas, nor the LotFP core books nor the published adventures contemplate any rules for firearms. I have hence asked James Edward Raggi IV on G+ to give me some guidelines. Not only did he provide some guidelines, but he's also allowed me to post them here!

So, with no further ado, here are James' guidelines:

1d8 damage, ignore 5 points of armour. Rate of fire once/combat.

As a further bonus, a link to the Firearms Fumbles table from the Dungeon of Signs blog.

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!

Systems of Choice

Given the time period chosen for the setting, the systems of choice are Renaissance and Lamentations of the Flame Princess, both set in the early 17th century, and both fully or partially downloadable as free PDFs from their sites.

Both role-playing games are also based on well-known gaming engines: RuneQuest/BRP/D100 for the former, and the original fantasy role-playing game for the latter.