Sleepy Hollow

OK, I know I am going out a limb here. I have no desire to be thought of as a fanboy, or, worse yet, a Twilight-o-phile. But, I am really digging this show. I love over-arching themes drawn from Revelations (when they're well done). Being one of God's chosen in a great battle of good and evil is a dream of mine. I also love the character of Ichabod Crane. He's almost a Colonial James Bond. Very educated, proper English upbringing, but cool as the other side of the pillow when evil shit starts happening.

Even though it is set in our time, it makes me jones for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It is based on eerie and creepy and all-is-not-as-it-seems.

Oh, and as a final bit of irony, Clancy Brown guests in the pilot as a sheriff. You may remember Mr. Brown as the Curgan from Highlander (the original). I really like him and was happy to see he was in the trailers before the series actually started.

SPOILER FOLLOWS (highlight to read)

Well, as fate would have it, he is the Horseman's first victim. That's right, he loses his head.

Free Goodness from Lamentations of the Flame Princess

There are a couple of new things available for LotFP. The first is a pay-what-you-want pdf of the Free RPG Day adventure, Better Than Any Man. I haven't printed/read it yet. It looks completely awesome. There isn't a FLGS near me, so I'm not familiar with actual Free RPG Day offerings. I rarely even try to get in on them post-Day. My general feeling is that they are mostly introductory in nature, intended for either completely new players, or trying to get established players to try a certain rules set. Maybe I'm wrong about that and doing myself a disservice. I'm certainly glad I stumbled across this one. It is 180 pages(!) with a slew of advanced features in the pdf, including color maps that are printer-friendly. My impression of it is that is almost a mini-campaign, an impression which may, or may not, bear out. It is set against real-world history and seems to be intended to showcase LotFP's particular gaming proclivities.

The second link is to a new, no-art version of the Rules & Magic book. I'm not sure what has changed, content-wise, and of course I can't comment on the art in the for-pay version, but overall I think it looks much better. There is a new font that doesn't do that weird curlicue thing with the "s".

Better Than Any Man

Free No-Art Rules & Magic

Old World Backgrounds for LotFP

In my earlier go-round with this notion of setting LotFP in the Old world I concocted some rudimentary ideas for implementing a modified form of the backgrounds/careers. Yesterday I came up with a different way. This post will cover backgrounds.

The general concept is that the character's life has had three broadly-defined "phases". Their background, which predisposed them to a certain career path. This is randomly determined, since none of us choose where we are born or how we are raised. Secondly is the character's first career, chosen by the player, from a list based upon the background. Finally, is the adventuring class, again, chosen by the player.

Background

Roll randomly (d12) for background, based on race:

	Race
Background	Human	Dwarf	Elf	Halfling
Warrior	1-3	1-4	1-3	1-2
Ranger	4-6	5-6	4-6	3-6
Rogue	7-9	7-9	7-8	7-10
Academic	10-12	10-12	9-12	11-12

Description and Benefits

The player selects two benefits from the options listed.

Warrior
Leads to careers that focus on combat, whether melee or missile.

+1 attack bonus with melee weapon
+1 damage with melee weapon
+1 attack bonus with missile weapon
+1 damage with missile weapon

Ranger
Background as some sort of woodsman.

+1 attack bonus with missile weapon
+1 Bushcraft
+1 Stealth
+1 Searching

Rogue
Tomb robbers, charlatans, and outright thieves.

+1 Stealth
+1 Tinkering
+1 Finding Traps
+1 Searching 

Academic
A background leading to careers that are cerebral in nature or require special knowledge.

+1 Languages
+1 Craft (Specific)
+1 Lore (Specific)
+1 Entertain

Craft, Lore, and Entertain are three new, fairly self-explanatory skills.

Next post will go into the careers, and (hopefully, ADD permitting) I'll close out with Advancements.

Resurrecting an Old (World) Idea

I posted some stuff a while back about setting Lamentations of the Flame Princess in the WFRP Old World. I have been thumbing through LotFP the last couple of days and that idea has resurfaced in my rather shallow mind. There are a few reasons why I think this is a good match and I just wanted to share as many as time permits.

First off, I want to make it known that this is not a perfect marriage. The Old world does have the iconic and so-called "evil races", goblins and skaven most notably. It is also littered with undead. I know this may be a blasphemy against the spirit of LotFP, but I don't see a problem with this. As long as the goblins and skaven are portrayed as "citizens of the world" (so to speak) and not as targets for player aggression, I don't see a problem. There are elves and dwarves, after all, so the inclusion of entire species of non-human societies is not without precedent, rules-wise.

What I do like so much about this notion is that it plays perfectly into Mr. Raggi's assertions in the Referee's Book that the setting be pseudo-historical and weirdly familiar. the Old World has that in spades. The human-centric lands, known simply as "The Empire", is a fantastic homage to the Holy Roman Empire, complete with Germanic names. Oh, yes, and black powder weapons.

Even better, this Empire is blanketed in deep, mysterious, and oh-so-dangerous forests. The civilisation (the proper British spelling) of the Empire exists primarily along the highways and river-ways. No sane person strays very far past the eaves of the forests. The Empire is also bounded by stark and forbidding mountains to the south and east, and dangerous seas to the west and north. Any and all manner of threats may issue forth from these primordial places, and the populace perceives these threats, real and imagined, constantly. The strange and macabre lurk in the shadows of the forest trees and among the mountain slopes, just out of sight, but always near enough to snatch a goat. Or small child.

LotFP encourages the use of unique creatures, each designed individually by the Referee. The Old World supports this seamlessly with its concept of Chaos. The forces of Chaos and Law are constantly at war. Chaos is destructive, unpredictable, and ultimately corrupting. Its very nature is to pervert and destroy the totality of Order that the forces of Law strive to achieve. Those who dally with Chaos or succumb to its allure and offers of power, often find themselves the subject of mutations, ranging from mild and unnoticable to outright hideous. Some are known collectively as Beastmen. They are all unique in appearance and powers. There are also agents of Chaos and Chaos cultists. Most of these appear quite normal and move about in society in normal fashion. By night they hold secret meetings, offer terrible sacrifices, and receive blasphemous "gifts" from their twisted masters.

This just scratches the surface of how LotFP and the Old World complement each other, but my time grows short. Perhaps I'll delve a little deeper in future posts. For now, I'll leave you with a map of The Empire.

Anguish and Abandon

Disclaimer: What follows is not meant as a comparison of two fine games. I am merely using the two games to contrast two different play styles, since they are such iconic representations of their respective styles.

As you know, immediately preceding my current obsession with DCC I had a dalliance with LotFP. There is a fundamental difference in their implied styles of play that I felt like pointing out.

Lamentations is notable for its total lack of a bestiary. There are several reasons that the author chose to go this route, but there is one that matters most to this post. In the implied setting of LotFP there are no "evil races". There are no orcs, goblins, trolls, ogres, or giants. There are no dragons who wear their moral affiliation in their color. This means that every time a character kills it requires accepting that the character is killing. There are no free passes. There are no unrepentant races or groups. There are no creatures that it is OK to kill. In a way, this makes LotFP very story-driven. At least that is how I define such things. The more angst the game promotes, or the more focus a character's internal conflict (or downward moral spiral) is given, the more I tend to think of the game as story driven. For example, in such a game, the killing is often anti-climactic to the fact that the character made the willful decision to kill.

At the other end, we have DCC. With the exception of wizards needing to be ever vigilant of the dangers of their craft, killing is done with wild abandon. Spells can succeed spectacularly, raining death. Warriors can perform deeds of great daring in pursuit of their enemies. While DCC does encourage unique monsters, it also includes the old favorite "bad guys", ripe for the slaughter.

While there is a part of me that can really appreciate the style of LotFP, it's not really the way I want to play anymore. Maybe when I was in my "serious role playing" phase, sure. Now, if I can ever manage to get a game together, I just want to have a few laughs, some hair-raising chills, thrilling adventures, and ultimately kill some monsters and take their shit. And for all the angst-love I have for LotFP (and it is considerable), I want to do all that killing without having to anguish over it.

Old World Careers in LotFP

I've had this simmering in the back of my head a couple of days now, and here is where I am with it. The Basic Career Classes represent broad-stroke background influences. They'll give a direct mechanical plug into the game. Specific basic careers will give benefits in more specific situations. Obviously, you'll need access to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for this to make sense. So, here we go . . .

Warrior         +1 to-hit regardless of class. This is a one-time bonus.
Ranger          +1 to Bushcraft
Rogue           +1 Additional skill point at 1st level
Academic     +1 to Language skill

I'll admit, these don't seem completely balanced to me. The Warrior is the most useful, especially for characters that aren't going to be fighters. The Rogue career would allow the specialist to place his bonus wherever desired, while the Ranger and Academic get very specific bonuses, which will only come into play in specific situations. Unfortunately, I couldn't really think of another way without getting into either stat bonuses, which would be too much for a background system, or adding skills just so the background system would have something to work on, which is rather self-serving. Ultimately, what that means to me is that the Basic Career Class should be randomly determined. Roll on the following table:

                      Human     Dwarf       Elf       Halfling
Warrior            1-3          1-4         1-3        1-3
Ranger             4-6          5-7         4-7        4-7
Rogue              7-9          8-10       8-9        8-10
Academic       10-12      11-12     10-12    11-12

The iconic Dwarf Trollslayer

When considering this table, bear in mind that this table does not limit or direct the player's choice of class in any way. This merely states the likelihood of the character having pursued a particular career prior to play. A player with a dwarf character who rolls Academic on this table could explain it by saying his character's family is a long line of craftsmen. for example.

As for the specific careers, they can be randomly determined, but I think the player should choose. The choice should be guided by common sense. The further removed from the character's class, the more the player should do to explain the choice. I would be very tempted to not attach any particular mechanics to them. Leave the player to find ways to use the specific career in play.

So, there it is. I tried to keep it mechanically simple. I just wanted a way to hook the characters into the setting. I'm interested in hearing any thoughts, but most especially from anyone that is into LotFP and the Old World.

Collected Thoughts on LotFP

I've read some more of the game (Grindhouse edition), and I have a few random thoughts I wanted to share, in no particular order.

• I still love the way that fighters are the only class that ever get better at combat. Even though I posted about liking it, there was a snotty-nosed little whiner in me that was afraid to fully embrace the concept, just based on the fact that dwarves should be decent fighters. Then I read a little deeper and saw that there are such things as combat maneuvers. Some of them are pretty basic and anyone can do them. Some however, do require a certain combination of steely-eyed moxy and presumed combat experience from the character. In other words, they are restricted to classes that could be considered "decent fighters". Dwarves, for example. So, with a good Strength and judicious use of these maneuvers, certain classes can manage to fight fairly well.

• Specialist (read: Thief) skills are known by all. That was pointed out in a comment to my previous post. Specialists, however, are the only ones that can actually get better at the quintessential skills. In a way it is like fighting and Fighters. Everybody can fight, but only Fighters can get better at it. What's more, the Specialist is useful at low levels, unlike the crippled Thief. While I'm not crazy about the name, this is a version of the Thief that I can get on-board with.

• The power curve seems so delightfully low. I'm a huge fan of the notion that 10th level characters are near-legend, but that there are still things that they should fear. In LotFP all magic items are assumed to be rare and unique. With that base assumption, PCs aren't running around trying to decide which magic weapon they want to use today, and they aren't sporting an AC of -3 at 8th level. This in turn means that their foes don't have to possess a d8/d8/2d12 attack routine with an AC of -5 and a to-hit bonus of +11 in order to be a threat. All that self-serving power inflation is gone. Granted, the lower power curve is common to the older editions that LotFP is based on, but it is taken to another level in these rules.

• Lastly, for this post, I love the way that the Old World from WFRP (1st edition) is such an awesome fit for this game. The implied setting is late Renaissance/early modern, and just dovetails perfectly into the Empire of the Old World. The game's take on alignments is a good fit with the Old World's views, as well. The careers even provide a ready-made framework for backgrounds. They also suggest possible bonuses, such as a Dwarven Trollslayer getting a combat bonus in certain, very specific, situations. Dwarves are decent fighters, after all. 

I'll leave you with one of my favorite color pieces from the Rules book. This one also happens to scream "Old World!" to me.

A Grim World of Weird Adventure

A Genuine "A Ha!" Moment

I have had an on-again, off-again flirtation with Lamentations of the Flame Princess since I first heard about it some years ago. I think it is bound up with my never-ending quest for S&S in my RPGs. Many of the elements I have blathered on about are present in LotFP. Magic is strange and a little scary, even for the practitioner. Any monster can be a terror, and most "monsters" are bad men. Real monsters are uncommon and unique. For some reason, though, the flirtation can never achieve critical mass, and after a brief reading session or two, I put LotFP back on the virtual shelf.

That changed yesterday when I learned something much more deep, meaningful, and immediate about the underlying design of the game. I don't even recall where I read about it now, but some article brought up LotFP classes. In the game, fighters are the only class that actually get better at hitting in combat. When I first discovered the game I thought that was an interesting idea, especially considering my fondness for the class.

It has always bothered me that every other class in any edition, iteration, or clone of D&D can do what the fighter does. They can all fight, and they all get better at it. Not as rapidly as the fighter, but they do improve. Now, before you start calling me a crybaby and pointing out how inconsequential the magic-user's combat advances are, let me flip this coin.

The flip side of it is that the fighter can't do anything the other classes can do. He can't cast spells at all, not even ineffectively or as a last resort. He can't pick locks, turn undead, or inspire his allies with a song. He can't do these things at all. It's not the same as other classes' ability to fight "but not as good at combat as the fighter". Nothing about the fighter says he can cast spells "but will never match a true magic user" or pick locks "but never be as accomplished as a real thief".

Ok, enough ranting, before I derail my own post. The point is, that was always something I loved about LotFP. Which brings us to the "A Ha!" moment. With the game's focus on bad men being the bread-and-butter type threat, even classes that don't get a lot of combat bonuses as they progress can hold their own. Common men, no matter how "bad" they are, are still common. The +1 attack bonus that non-fighters receive at 1st level should be enough of an advantage against these common foes.

The fighter really comes into his own when we start talking about the not-so-common foes. The creatures with high ACs and lots of HPs are where the fighter earns his reputation. When shit gets real, the fighter is the guy everybody wants to have on their side. He's the guy with the armor and the big ass weapon, along with the balls and skill to stand in and bring down the hurt. It actually smacks of Chainmail, wherein only Heroes and above could even enter into combat with Fantastical Creatures (ie anything not "man-type"). I don't need to tell anyone who reads my posts that I love this. In fact, I have sought (without success) to replicate this aspect many times.

Now that it has finally clicked with me just how much LotFP falls in line with what I want in a game, my relationship with the game may finally get to the next level.