On Lamentations of the Flame Princess

[theduck]

I should probably preface all this by saying that I have never really played a retroclone or older style dnd game aside from the old computer days. That said, Lamentations has caught my attention - I like the simplicity of the mechanics, and the fluff beside some of the spells is fantastic. That said, I did have a couple questions for anyone who has played the game.

First - how do the non-humans fit in? On one hand, they seem to fit strangely with the fluff of the system - all monsters are supposed to be unique, so elves and dwarves seem... odd, I guess. Also, I guess I don't understand what role the dwarf and halfling serves - they don't really seem to have any spell, combat, or skill utility that increases with level, only the

Second - how do monsters work? I know that the game lacks a monster manuel, and I have seen the free rpg game pack, but how do you make monsters, or calculate their attack or saving throws or whatnot. They just listed ac, hitpoints, and damage on attacks.

Third - just, what is your overall feeling for the game - is it fun, do levels matter much, is there enough to play a full campaign, or is it better for short adventures?

Danke

[Yora]

LotFP is based on OD&D, where nonhuman races were classes instead of races. Which looking back was a really odd idea and it's often puzzling why people continue to do it in their retroclones.

In AD&D and older games, saves and attack bonus are based directly on the creatures number of Hit Dice. I use Castles & Crusades, since it's the most streamlined, but I would assume that the combat chapter should have a section where attack bonuses and save bonuses are listed, and there should be an entry for creatures as well.

OSR games and old D&D are based on a fundamentally different assumption than the current d20-based games. In these games it's all about story and exploration, with character advancement being only a rather minor element. Except for spellcasters, characters will mostly just become more durable and have more magic items as they level up, so they can face bigger monsters than low-level characters.
If character building and tactical combat is a major part of the game for you, then OSR games like LotFP will probably lose their novelty factor pretty soon. However, they have a huge advantage, and that is simplicity of rules, from which results faster play and significantly lower preparation demand for GMs. Since an OSR GM doesn't really have to worry about writing up statblocks for NPCs and customized enemies, you can make up a lot of things on the fly without any previous preparation, and what preparation work you do can go entirely into fleshing out the gameworld and its people. And since it's so much easier to improvise, you can give the players much more freedom in coming up with ideas you never anticipated.

While LotFP is considered an amazing game for the kind of games that it intended for, it might not neccessarily be the best one for you. I suggest that you also take a look at OSRIC, which is also free and based on AD&D, which might be a bit less unfamiliar while retaining the simplicity of the basic game mechanics.
I personally prefer Castles & Crusades for numerous reasons, but that one isn't free, unfortunately.

Edit: I just downloaded the free rules for LotFP and it is giving me a serious headache. I think the rules assume that you are already an expert in the BECMI rules and this is just a clean writeup of the houserules used by the adventures. I highly recommend getting an easier game, there are more than enough out there. OSRIC and C&C just to name two.

[Comet]

First - how do the non-humans fit in? On one hand, they seem to fit strangely with the fluff of the system - all monsters are supposed to be unique, so elves and dwarves seem... odd, I guess. Also, I guess I don't understand what role the dwarf and halfling serves - they don't really seem to have any spell, combat, or skill utility that increases with level, only the

Fluff-wise, the author himself has said that he does regret putting elves, dwarves and halflings in the book but felt at the time that it was mandatory to preserve the OSR "feel". I still use them in my campaign, but have put a twist on each race and made them exceedingly rare and encouraged players to approach them with suspicion in-game.

As for gameplay, dwarves have a load of hitpoints, can carry ridiculous amounts of stuff and have a keen understanding of stonework and such. The perfect dungeon crawlers, basically. Halflings have great saving throws, bonuses to dexterity and armour class and can hide and forage in the wilderness fairly expertly. So they're very much built to survive.


Second - how do monsters work? I know that the game lacks a monster manuel, and I have seen the free rpg game pack, but how do you make monsters, or calculate their attack or saving throws or whatnot. They just listed ac, hitpoints, and damage on attacks.
AC, hitpoints, damage, attack bonus and saving throws plus whatever special abilities you want are all you need, I would think. The older edition of the game ("Grindhouse", came in a box set with three books and some dice) had some guidelines for creating monsters, but I would think it's a fairly simple process. You could give a monster the saving throws of a certain PC class, attack bonus can just be equal to the monster's Hit Dice and its AC can be estimated by comparing to the armor that the PCs are likely to wear (14 for leather, 16 for chain, keeping in mind that only fighters get to increase their attack bonus so you should never go too high). Borrowing from other games is also allowed.


Third - just, what is your overall feeling for the game - is it fun, do levels matter much, is there enough to play a full campaign, or is it better for short adventures?

It's fun and fast. Levels matter to some degree but a lot of the really great things you're going to achieve are probably going to be due to your own cleverness as a player instead of numbers or letters on paper.
We've been playing for some two years now and intend to keep on going, we're at around the fourth level mark and are only just getting into some of the elements the rules have to offer, such as investments and owning land.
Short adventures are also an entirely viable alternative, especially since the author of the game encourages the kinds of adventures that leave three quarters of the party maimed and traumatised after the fact.

On a final note, I would maybe wait a while until the new hardcover Referee Book comes along. It should have all the tips on running the game you could need, mechanically and thematically, which is sadly lacking in the current edition of the rulebook itself. Or you could try to get your hands on the Grindhouse box set, which had more than enough for our group to start playing (keeping in mind that I had some experience with the Red Box of D&D beforehand).

edit: Oh, and if you decide to go with some other system after all, I can still recommend checking out some of the adventures published by the LotFP company. Better Than Any Man, for instance, is free to download, is compatible with most any retro clone out there and has a whole sandbox full of weird and sometimes even horrifying things for players to encounter. If the fluff side of things is what interests you the most there's plenty of inspiration to be had there.

[Rhynn]

1. The "default" setting (pretty much Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne by another name) is a weird fantasy Earth in late- or post-Renaissance, and I figure probably wouldn't have elves and dwarves (unless they exist in a Poul Anderson -style parallel world?). That's how I'd run it.

2. Monsters have HD. HD determines saves and attacks. Pretty much the same for all pre-3E D&D.

3. I haven't actually played, but it's a retroclone; it's there to provide you a basic framework to have fun in (in this case, your idea of fun needs to be "Call of Cthulhu meets low-level low-power D&D"). The published adventures are a mixed bag; I think Better Than Any Man is awesome, and would love to run it, but Death Love Doom is infantile (the basic structure is still useable). Death Frost Doom was better the way James Maliszewski ran it in his Dwimmermount campaign. The Monolith From Beyond Space and Time (I think that's right?) is outrageously useless and unplayable, except as a one-shot that has no point and negates all the implications... the modules are mostly invaluable as sources to mine for ideas.

[theduck]

I think I got it - as I said, I like the feel of the game, but was just hesitant because I don't have any experience with older editions. I think I will look through Better Than Any Man and some of the other retro clones, and see if I can't find anyone interested in trying them out. Also, thanks for the recommendations.