Quite new to TTRPGs, would LotFP be a good game to learn to DM with?
Game seems quite fun, modules I've looked at seem good.
>>46068528
As long as you make sure that you're fine with, and your players are fine with, sudden game-ending events and random deaths.
>>46068528
rules are solid.
its not for your standard sword and sorcery high fantasy power games but it is good at what it tries to be ( weird horror)
and its a retro clone of B/X , one of the most beginner friendly version of D&D
if you and your group digs/tolerates the fluff, more power to you.
check the OSR general for advice/PDFs
modules to check out imo
Death Frost Doom
Scenic Dunnsmuth
Better than any man
>>46068546
I guess it'd be situational, I quite like the idea of random forces bringing about the party's death, but it might not always be appropriate.
Can't win all the time, right?
>>46068633
Those modules aren't any good for someone new to tabletop games. Death Frost Doom in particular is universally reviled
>>46068528
Ask here >>46068066
Ask in the OSR general
>>46068633
I've seen Better Than Any Man brought up a few times, thanks for the tips!
>>46068656
>Death Frost Doom in particular is universally reviled
bullshit,
Its not for everyone but I've had plenty of conversations with anons on tg about the virtues of DFD.
>>46068696
Don't worry, anon.
I'm going to look into it, despite what >>46068656 said.
>>46068971
Tower of the Stargazer probably is the best intro module LOTFP has
since it was literally made for beginners, he put little note blocks into to explain the mechanics to the DM
also consider checking out the Referee book,
the OSR general has like 2 OSR player primer also
>>46069012
I downloaded the entire collection from the trove, I'd like to gitgud at the system as best I can.
>>46069068
>gitgud at the system
You don't really git gud at a roleplaying game just by learning rules, man. Gotta learn to role-play instead of just roll-play.
Then again, have fun however you like.
>>46068971
>>46068696
http://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/2010/10/insurrection-at-death-frost-doom.html
There, I just saved you a wasted session and angry players. No need to thank me
>>46069128
nobody cares about your blog
>>46069117
I'm competent at RP, that's not what I'm concerned about.
>>46069128
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/07/review-death-frost-doom.html
http://www.ogrecave.com/reviews/death_frost_doom.shtml
http://dreamsofmythicfantasy.blogspot.com/2012/04/in-which-i-run-death-frost-doom.html
http://arcanacreations.blogspot.com/2015/01/weekend-r-death-frost-doom.html
https://rpggeek.com/thread/1319143/when-clever-adventure-becomes-five-star-dungeon
universally reviled my ass
I keep seeing this game.
What's 18+ about it?
The official modules are pretty good provided Raggi keeps his head out of his own arse. But sometimes he's just determined to plumb out the full depths of his own bowels with his nose and crap out nonsense.
>>46071556
How much of a qt flame princess is
>>46071936
qtπ level
>>46071556
>What's 18+ about it?
Supposedly, it's because dying a slow horribly gory violent death is the best possible outcome for your character.
I think in reality it's just trying to market itself as "edgy" and "hardcore" when it's nothing more than a D&D retroclone with an edgy coat of paint.
>>46068528
Been playing with GM and hosted a couple games myself with this.
You'll probably want to artificially bump up the hit dice at the start somehow to keep lvl 1 characters alive. Pay attention to follower rules, as they greatly increase chances of survival. And make it known to your party that they don't have to fight everything to successfully "encounter" it, dodging a fight that will most likely result in a TPK should be rewarded.
>>46071556
You'd have to google up the art but basically it reads like your older cousin who's really into doom metal decided to make an AD&D clone. You're given no bestiary or weapon list as the system encourages coming up with your own bizarre creatures and encounter methods.giant fetus demons and eye gore
>>46069128
Alexis is hardly an icon of the OSR.
Big showy post about what makes LotFP a useful system. http://dungeonsdonuts.tumblr.com/post/133219718829/you-seem-like-youre-a-pretty-big-booster-of
tl;dr Lamentations of the Flame Princess books are good about putting their useful bits for GMs (maps, tables, reference) upfront and easily accessible, and the game cuts out all the usual tiresome bullshit in memorizing RPG rules. Less talk more rock.
>>46069128
>When they learned that the hermit had been setting up grave markers for the thousands of dead, and that he'd been doing this for some time, living for decades nearby the site, the party answered, "Well, Zeke seems to have everything under control. Let's get the fuck out of here."
>They wanted nothing to do with the site, with its treasure, or with any investigations thereof. It seemed like the stupidest idea in the world to go anywhere near the place, and they only did because I railroaded them. In any ordinary circumstance they would have moved on. But they doggedly turned to invest themselves in the module, without much complaining.
>We talked it over at that point and the party's sentiments was that the horror played for the module was thing upon thing upon thing - to the point of stupidity. The party explained that they were not stupid teenagers in a slasher flick, but rather people who actually appreciated their lives and were smart enough to stay the fuck away from a place like that. "Why don't we just go to the next big city, tell a bunch of high level clerics that this thing is here and have them fix it?"
>Which is, as I said in my previous review, the equivalent of pulling off the planet and nuking the place from orbit. As I encouraged them to go ahead anyway, they wanted to know, "If it is inside the borders of a powerful empire (and it is), then how is it our problem?"
>Thus, the railroading.
Smolensk's table just isn't the audience for Raggi's stuff.
Let me remind you of this: Smolensk has dedicated 56 blog posts, thousands of words each, to make an equipment table where prices fluctuate according to the proximity of the cities that produce each item. And his table seems to enjoy that, unless he's making them play against their will, Misery style.
>>46071556
Grindhouse horror style aesthetics.
PCs and NPCs are exposed to gory deaths.
Murderhoboing as a default.
Contrast with: Dragonlance.Classic epic fantasy. Dignified deaths, altruistic lives.
>>46073933
>They wanted nothing to do with the site, with its treasure, or with any investigations thereof. It seemed like the stupidest idea in the world to go anywhere near the place, and they only did because I railroaded them.
Wow. What kind of people gather for a game and then try to do everything to avoid playing?
>>46071556
Mostly art, to be honest.
And then there is Fuck For Satan adventure.
LotFP is a good game to start with if you're interested in old school gaming (i.e. no storytelling narrative bullshit), and you're OK with weird/horror adventures.
Read the rules, and then read the Referee Book (can be downloaded for free here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148012/LotFP-Referee-Book-old-Grindhouse-Edition). It explains a lot of the rationale behind LotFP, and how to run it. It is an OK gamemastering book from an OSR perspective.
Death Frost Doom is an excellent module, but I'd suggest starting with Tower of the Stargazer. It is one of the best introductory modules I've run.
Go with Tower of The Stargazer first, it's an excellent introductiom to DMing.
>>46073933
What a shitty group. It's a game, not a fucking play audition. You're supposed to play greedy adventurers out for loot in OSR games, not act out a period drama.
>>46069159
>>46069281
>>46073789
>>46073933
It's amazing the anal devastation you can cause by posting nothing but unvarnished truth
Raggi is a shit game designer and I'm constantly amazed idiots like you rush to his defense at every opportunity
>>46068528
It is, but the rules are written sort of assuming you know about older d&d already in the sense that it doesn't really explain certain concepts and terminology clearly.
I'd read it through with a laptop and an internet connection to look up stuff that seems vague, but otherwise it's a really tight system.
>>46072136
>>46073790
>>46075093
>>46075128
>>46076803
Appreciate all the tips guys, I might show up in the game finder thread in a couple months.
>>46077282
>>46068528
Also look into Shadow of the Demon Lord.
>>46068644
>New player
>says "can't win all the time"
Are things looking up for this hobby?
>>46076783
Care to make an alternative suggestion?
His game seems to achieve the results he designed it for, and it's garnered respectable commercial success in a very crowded niche market.
>>46069128
"My party is a bunch of faggots that refused to play along" is hardly a damning indictment of the module. All that review did was show that the writer has a fucking awful group.
>>46076783
But that review was fucking awful. It told us nothing about the module itself. His only complaint was that "nothing happens" but he himself admits that his party was actively avoiding having anything happen.
>>46077780
IIRC death frost doom is explicitly written to play like grind house horror, or a slasher flick... I think Raggi even suggests in the author's notes that a wise party will just avoid the whole mess and look for an easier score.
Or, another way to look at is that you don't play it to win, you play it to see what happens.
>>46069128
>All I can say is that if the players don't fiddle with all the interesting compelling features in the adventure, NOTHING HAPPENS.
In other words, if the players have no intention of actually playing the module, the module isn't worth playing.
Gee, what a shocking revelation.
>>46068633
I really enjoyed Death Frost Doom
>>46077893
Who the fuck plays roleplaying games "to win"?
>>46068528
As much as I love Death Frost Doom, I would point you towards The God That Crawls as an opening adventure. If your group is into one-shots then check out DFD and maybe Forgive Us or Scenic Dunnsmuth, if they want a campaign then Better Than Any Man and The Deep Carbon Observatory are brilliant.
>>46078061
I'd say most people play modules in order to "solve" them or succeed at whatever task is set...
DFD seems to be more about enjoying the ride as your foolish characters are eviscerated, cast into bottomless pits for all eternity, have their soul devoured by ancient sorcerors, unleashing an ancient evil, etc.
>>46078688
When I ran DFD, no one technically died. Does that count as a success?
>>46079596
Depends on what you mean by "technically".
>>46079678
One had his jaw mangled, two fell down the infinite pit, one went nuts after being teleported to the dead child museum and left there for an hour without light and Maximus was released leading to NPCs dying horrible deaths.
One guy did escape unmolested though - abandonded the rest of the party, took the climbing gear from the cabin and proceeded to pass 3 climbing checks despite having no points in climb.
One of the best one-shots we ever did.
>>46079812
That sounds great
>>46076783
autistic people's opinions aren't unvarnished truth
>>46077748
i got one
Shadow of the demon lord.
Made by a game designer, imitates warhammer fantasy 1st ad 2nd edition, andhas a fucking bestiary
and does weird fantasy a hell of allot better.
>>46082527
Well you gonna dump it or what?
>>46078687
DEEP CARBON fucking sucks, I mean really is a pretentious pile of shit that's nearly unreadable with a premise murderhobos looking for gold (XP) won't give a fuck about. The writing is all coy about giving the DM the information he needs to run the adventure. The art is interesting so if you are feeling charitable, buy it for that, but christ not for the fucking adventure, reading it will annoy anyone not currently studying humanities at community college. It's not the worst hack associated with LotFP, but close and will hit all the numbers for raw pretension.
Forgive Us is a great OSR direct copy of WFRP's Oldenhaller Contract, but it's 4th level, so I think requires a lot of adventures before that where characters aren't killed, which is rare...
That said, Tower of the Stargazer is a good choice for first adventures with lotfp n00bs-- it's not too fucked up, but has some really silly and awesome things in there, and is appropriately deadly so you're going to have character deaths, which sets the stage properly for later adventures.
>>46082527
In what way? WFRP 1E was, admitted by the designers, a shit game design that was super rushed out the door, despite the fantastic adventures that came out of it. 2E was a pathfinderesque miniatures combat game with also some good adventures even as it descended more and more and more into only being about CHAOS which became so predictable it was boring.
>>46083568
I've only skimmed Deep Carbon Observatory, but the eponymous observatory looked pretty decent. I know I stole a few of the ideas for my own campaign.
>>46083771
>2E was a pathfinderesque miniatures combat game
...what?
Being charitable, I'd say that the action system in 2e probably took some cues from D&D 3e. And it does tend to use give tabletop scales as well as in-world measurements.
But the idea that it is a "pathfinderesque miniatures combat game" is ridiculous. With the notable exception of Karak Azgal, none of the adventures are based around combat.
Also, out of the last, say, ten books published for the system, only The Thousand Thrones had chaos as a primary component. Those ten include sourcebooks on Imperial organisations, Kislev, Religion, Vampires, The Border Princes, Careers and an adventure about a mummy's tomb.
>>46084101
I just checked the three big ones I have outside of Plundered Vaults, Ashes of Middenheim, Spires of Altdorf, Terror in Talabheim. All chaos (if you count Skaven, which I do). Maybe i'm looking at a small sample here of the library, and I just happened to buy the chaos ones only, but it's chaos chaos chaos in all three of these.
>>46084784
Ashes of Middenheim, Spires of Altdorf and Forges of Nuln are all part of the same campaign. And I'll have to disagree with you about Skaven.
I agree with you about there being a strong focus on chaos in 2e though, I just think it was the other way round. The Paths of the Damned campaign books were some of the first they brought out. The success of the classic Enemy Within was obviously a major factor in their choice of antagonists.
It was only later on, once they'd nailed down the basics, that they had the chance to expand out into Vampires, Skaven and the like.
And besides, what other enemies are there that fit the scope of WFRP? Orcs and Goblins can be a domestic threat, but there's only so much you can write about them wanting to hit things. Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Ogres and Chaos Dwarves are all too far away to be of interest to anything other than an expeditionary campaign.
Which leaves you with Chaos, Undead, Skaven and other Humans (or Dwarves/Halflings) as antagonists.
>>46082527
>Shadow of the demon lord.
Really? REALLY?
>>46088988
Really what, nigger? All this OSR bullshit is the same nostalgia trip with names changed to extort the idiots.
LL or Moldvay are in the damn trove, so there's no reason to even deal with the houserules of some spiteful middle aged neckbeard going through male menopause/a bad breakup/realizing he hasn't been able to see his dick in decades.
>>46089102
I dont get this. The average age of people on this board and probably in the OSR movement is really not old enough to be nostalgia fags.
>>46077893
dungeon world shills...
>>46089102
Except they're better than Moldvay and LL. Secondly, everyone hates fucking PDFs. They pretend to like them, and buy them but really, they hate them. We can get an actual printed book of LL or Lotfp that hasn't been beaten off over by 10 year olds in 1982.
Why are all the illustrated PC's women?
>>46083568
I found DCO brilliant. I can see why, skimming it, you might feel the writing pretentious, but it feels so atmospheric to play or run. You would need a pretty shitty group for them to murderhobo their way through it.
The observatory itself is a nice unconventional dungeon and the Giant is freaky as all hell to face. The Drowned Lands have the BTAM advantage of having so much stuff going on all over the place that you get the feel of having a bigger world going on around you.
Its not for every group, but if your players have a soul than its worth the run.
>>46088988
>>46089102
You dumb twats know that Shadow of the Demon Lord isn't even an OSR game, right? Lazy cunts. Can't even be arsed to look up what a thing is before bitching about it.
>>46090077
It's just what dumbshits do. They don't like thing, so rather than accepting that someone else might have different tastes, they come up with bullshit reasons to justify why their own opinions aren't objective facts.
>>46091590
>Why are all the illustrated PC's women?
Don't see why not.
>>46091590
Lamentations of the flame PRINCESS
>>46082527
>>46094557
Shitposting aside for a second, would somebody mind explaining to me what they find interesting about SotDL?
I did a quick read over and nothing really stuck out to me. I just want to know what direction the designer was aiming for.
>>46095273
It's dark fantasy d20. It's got some neat features, like you never roll for attributes in character creation, and the combat system is very streamlined.
What I liked the most about it was the HUGE selection of class paths and magic traditions, but the imposed setting turned be off a bit. I don't care if a game has a setting, but when dozens of pages in the rulebook are wasted to develop one, I expect it to be novel and interesting, and the setting in this one was neither for me.
>>46090077
People still play chess, and Super Mario Brothers. Often just because it's fun or novel to them.
IMO roleplaying games are more like literature than a technology like aircraft... if it was fun in 1974, it could be fun now. Just because new literature is being written doesn't mean the classics are "obsolete" (though some works may be more or less timeless as tastes change).
And even wrt to advancements in aircraft... we are still making single engine prop planes for certain jobs. Sure they use lightweight metals instead of wood and canvas, but the basic operating principles are the same.
