Thursday, August 30, 2018

The Savant's Lamentations

An Iconic LotFP Fighter?
I've long been considering my reaction to the always exceptional, but often controversial, Lamentations of the Flame Princess (aka LotFP) OSR game and I've finally decided it's an excellent basis for my style of gaming - not just the mechanics, but also the design philosophy behind it.

To me, OSRIC is more a set of modern-styled rules and a toolbox than a game. LotFP is indeed its own unique Weird Fantasy RPG with its own sensibility and style.

And that's great in my opinion.

That's not to say I don't find some of the art scattered through the core books and supplements confronting or at times troubling in their depictions of the scenes and their mature content - I actually prefer the "Art Free" PDF primarily for its simplicity, lack of distraction and clarity - but the play style encouraged by the game is much more in line with my preferences than some of the more modern offerings available from the larger publishers. 

This means PFRPG and to a lesser extent, 5E D&D, being the most familiar to me in terms of successors to BECMI and 1E, but also my penchant for unconventional Ars Magica stories developed while writing for the ArM5 line over the years.).

So I'll be venturing into LotFP territory now and again on this blog.

This may either be directly by commentary, via conversion notes for the "All that Glisters..." / "Return to the Wind Walker's Passages" project(s), or even possibly some Ars Magica derived material cross-posting such as the Genoa / Corsica / Sardinia material. The latter should be readily adapted from my existing notes and research books from the early 13th-century default of ArM5 to the later time period of LotFP

Also, since I've long been a fan of the Silk Road region, I'm thinking that the default 17th-century setting of LotFP could be interesting to explore from a Central Asian perspective...