[Review] LotFP: Rules & Magic book

I’m not going to get too crunchy about the LotFP rules, because anyone with a passing familiarity of any edition of D&D up to and including 2e or any retro-clone inspired by any of them basically knows the score already: six stats, hp, ascending ac, d20 to hit, saves, blah… the full works… Races are [...]

[House Rules] Class and Combat

One of my problems with most RPGs is the emphasis they seem to put on the hardware. The net result of everything from Cyberpunk’s armoury of prophetic death-mongery to D&D’s endless catalogues of strangely prosaic magical items seem to be reduce a character’s innate abilities to irrelevant background colour. As the campaign wears on (and on) those thief’s skills and weapon proficiencies look decidedly underpowered compared to Cloak [...]

Tunnels & Trolls (Review Part 5): Unmagical Magic

I’m not going to go into too much detail about magic in T&T because, basically, it’s nothing you’ve not seen before: a mix of spell lists, divided by spell levels and casting costs, bahhhhh… But let me say that I absolutely hate the way magic is conceptualised in T&T. Basically it is described as a [...]

Maelstrom

Maelstrom by Alexander Scott (1984) No doubt the eagle eyed among you will spot the distinctive zigzag band along the top of this book and think to yourself that this is just some variant of the 1980s Fighting Fantasy game book phenomenon… however, you would be wrong! But you are forgiven for your eagle-eyed ignorance [...]