I began my adventures with Lamentations of the Flame Princess when I first bought the Grindhouse Edition a couple of years ago, drawn in by the promise of a crazy, weird-fantasy take on the original fantasy roleplaying game. What I got wasn't bad, but not quite what I was promised.
LotFP is a "retro-clone" system, using Wizards of the Coast's Open Gaming License to reverse engineer the rules of early fantasy roleplaying games, in this case, the Basic and Expert boxed sets of the original game, with a few adjustments to make the system easier to learn and play, particularly the use of ascending armor class in a similar fashion to the 3rd Edition SRD, and a simple, effective, and unobtrusive encumbrance system. While these are fairly nice additions to the old-school formula, the system still seems bare, containing only the core classes, without any sign of the more colorful sub-classes. In addition, the fighter is the only class which gets an increased to hit chance as he or she increases in experience. While the attempt to make the fighter more effective at higher levels relative to spellcasters is certainly noble, it seems like a crude patch which could have been much more carefully balanced without such a huge disparity in fighting ability between classes.
"So," you must be wondering, "where does the weird fantasy come in?"
Well, to be honest, I'm not sure. There's very little in this system that gives it any sort of identity other than an old-school revival RPG. There are no "weird" character classes or abilities, no particularly "weird" spells (most, if not all, of the spells will be very familiar to fans of the original games), and no collection of monsters whatsoever. At least, this was true of the Grindhouse Edition release, who knows, maybe monsters will be included in the referee book, which has yet to be released at the time of this writing.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but I feel the spell list and monster list would have been prime territory for illustrating a weird-fantasy world unlike anything you've seen before in a fantasy RPG. Instead, what I got was a fairly bare-bones retro clone.
If you already own the Grindhouse Edition, the new Rules & Magic book's only major addition is the inclusion of firearms rules, which was nice, but nothing that interested me particularly.
Honestly, if you're looking for weird fantasy, look to Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The weirdness is baked right into the system, all the way from the classes, straight through the spells and to the monsters. It's another retro-clone system (This one emulating the Advanced 1st edition of the original game), so you'll be able to scratch that itch.
If you're not interested in the weird, and looking instead for a refinement of the Basic/Expert editions, my personal favorite is Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS). It is easily the most streamlined, well-designed, fun retro-clone I've played to date. Instead of looking to the 3rd Edition SRD for inspiration, the author took the original rules and found his own way to streamline the system while keeping its essence intact.
I know I sound harsh, but LotFP is not a bad game, it just didn't do much to impress me. For what its worth, the encumbrance system is the best I've seen in an old-school revival product, and one I've house ruled into many similar systems. If you're looking for some inspiration, it may be worth picking up for that reason alone. If not, read the free rules, see how you like it, and make the choice for yourself.
|