[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 [...]

[Review] LotFP: Referee book

I’m going to skip the Rules & Magic volume and jump right into the Referee’s book, as the rules are freely available thus it is easy enough to make up your own mind, however it must be said that this is really the third book in the set. The Referee book is basically the best [...]

[Review] LotFP: Tutorial book

LotFP takes a rather Mentzerian approach to the task of introducing itself to the reader. It simply takes you by the hand and walks you through various game concepts: what’s a RPG, dice and then straight into your first adventure… Nothing new in that, as such, but I’m struggling to think of another proper RPG [...]

[Review] Lamentations of the Flame Princess: (intro) Bring on the “Weird”

After much procrastination over which of the new (to me) retro-clones to sample I finally took the plunge for LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (Grindhouse Edition), which I realise isn’t strictly a clone as such, but really a reimagining of D&D minus much of its “vanilla” content, but with its genre “weird” content cranked up a [...]

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 [...]

Tunnels & Trolls (Review Part 4): Combat or the individual vs.society…

Combat in T&T is where the game really stands out. It’s almost unique in RPGs and it’s either going to be loved or hated… When I first read the rules as a young chap, I hated it – but today with the span of years between my past endeavours as a ref and today, I [...]

Tunnels & Trolls (Review Part 3): Saving Rolls or the first Unified Game Mechanic…?

“Next up, Combat!” or so I said in my last post… But thinking about it I think Saving Rolls are a better place to start, as they do crop up in combat encounters, albeit in a only a supporting role to the main combat system. Also, I’ve heard it said that T&T’s saving rolls were [...]

Tunnels & Trolls (Review Part 2); Character Creation and Improvement (or Is it Broke and Does It Need Fixing?)

Character creation in T&T is totally innovative and will transform the way you role-play forever… providing you can get your feeble mind around its pioneering concepts! Let me try to explain… Firstly you character’s physical and mental abilities, called Prime Attributes, which are neatly categories into six distinct areas. These are Strength (abbreviated to ST [...]

Tunnels & Trolls (Review Part 1): D&D rip-off or old school classic with a naff name?

Why one thing can be inherently acceptable and another inherently not is a strange intangible that must keep better read scholars than me awake in their ponderings until the cock crows (or the crow cocks), but for whatever the reason the name Tunnels & Trolls has always caused much mirth and an intense feeling of [...]

ElfQuest

Elfquest by Steve Perrin (Chaosium 1985) Long-time: no-post, but better late than never I suppose… Bit of a strange one this in my RPG collection: it being a relatively early second generation RPG that I only ended up owning about six years ago or so: at a time that I long since stopped gaming and [...]