For some reason this game has the most amazing, cutting-edge adventure modules I've read in years. They are edgy as fuck but in a good, mind-boggling way.
>Bad Myrmidon
>Vornheim
>Deep Carbon Observatory
>Death Frost Doom
The Monolith from Beyond Time and Space is a betterCall of Cthulhuadventure than anyCoCmodule I've ever read.
Why did this particular retro-clone attract so many good writers?
>>47504692
Isn't the main writer, Raggi, more pretentious than John Wick?
A lot of the modules aren't really playable. Alternatively, they have no point. The Tower of Love and Death Frost Doom are especially bad, given the big twist to each of them.
Like, they seem gimmicky for no real reason.
>>47504692
Fuck it, I just like the system.
>fighters get to hit shit
>specialists get to do shit
>casters get to cast shit
>healers get to heal shit
I ran this for some first-timers and they picked it up quick as hell. Actually ended up being a decent session in a a generic homebrew setting.
>>47504835
I wouldn't say pretentious, I'd say very strongly opinionated.
The gimmicks do have a reason: horror. DFD is a homage to a specific series of movies and it works very well for creating an atmosphere of doom and no-win despair, something other games often fail at.
>>47504918
That too, but I was less impressed with the system than the bizarre adventure ideas.
>>47504918
It's a pretty damn good system, and my suggestion to people who are turned off by Raggi or other writers is to just have a look at it first before you write it off entirely.
I ran it for a group of people who had only played 4E and they had a blast. Granted, they all rolled up specialists and pulled off a museum heist while avoiding the horrific creatures under the floorboards, but yeah, it was fun.
>>47504692
>Deep Carbon Observatory
Is this LotFP? I thought it was just some guy?
>>47505412
DCO is LotFP and is also a pretty fucking fun module to run. There's plenty of weird shit, some fun interactions, and an interesting area.
>>47505533
Deep Carbon is done for LotFP, but it's written by...shit. Can't remember, it's either the False Machine guy or the Goblin Punch guy - both have a lot of batshit-crazy ideas they put on their blogs, which can (sometimes) be a lot of fun. (Zak S, of the DnD with Porn Stars site, can also have some great ideas, when he's not being as big a douchebag as the douchebags he complains about.)
The way Raggi does stuff means that the more unorthodox osr writers often do stuff with him. This can get gimmicky for some people, sure (and a few of the adventures have a 'push this button to accidentally end the world' button), but it's still pretty fun.
the group i was in thought it would be a good idea to break the skulls in DFD
>>47504692
Mostly it's just that Raggi contacted the people to publish their stuff.
I'd also say that a good 2/3rds of the LOTFP stuff is shit and i'm a card-carrying member who bought both original boxsets and the early adventures so YMMV.
So what sets this apart from other OSR or D&D Basic clones?
The only thing I'm finding in my (limited) research, is how odd and spooky the modules are...is there a reason to play this without using the pre-fabs?
Can I just run the Red Box or the Expert Set and homebrew my own Cthulhu?
>>47507224
Agreed. Death Frost Doom is legit the worst adventure I've ever read.
>>47507756
It's certainly... odd.
I'm reading through it now and the main thing that strikes me is that nothing is connected in a way that makes sense outside of an adventure module.Who the hell puts liquid time into moose eyes? Who the hell though an ice-skull-based clock was a good idea? What does it even /do/ outside of the apocalyptic end-condition. Why is the Sacred Parasite just chilling, totally undefended, in the middle of a room?
I get that horror is supposed to involve a certain amount of rule-breaking (see: Alien. You can be smart and do the right things and still die), but this module... it's just full of "why?"
>>47508140
It's just weird for weird's sake. Lots of stuff the players won't ever know, and don't have any way of finding out. To them, it just looks like a bunch of ~creepy~ bullshit happening for no reason. I can't imagine not being bored out of my mind while playing it.
>>47508226
Exactly! It rubs my GM-parts in just the right way, but from the player's POV, they're just fucking around.
Using logic and step-by-step methodology to investigate thecuckoo clock? Get penalized, potentially severely. Your character could skip the entire adventure.. But if you use logic while investigate thefountains, it's the only way to proceed /without/ being penalized.. The module changes the "rules" midway through. At least, in Tomb of Horrors, the rules were consistent - proceed methodically and carefully and test everything before doing anything.
Here, that will alternately get you killed or get you to safety. That's not horror gaming. That's just cruelty to players.
>>47505241
It is literally the most boring and generic OSR I have read, not that I've read many. What makes it good at all?
Every single LotFP release reads like it was created and edited by Virt.
>muh raep
>muh spoopz
>muh hoominz
>muh crawl
>>47508277
Part of horror is that your mind demands rules but the universe does not provide them. The universe is capricious and inconsistent and when the players realize it they just might figure out the only way to win is not to play.
And I can't believe you guys didn't get the Evil Dead references, among others.
>inb4 we totally got them but forgot to mention them
>Sure.
>>47508794
They're nice references, but that doesn't answer the "why" portion. Admittedly, Evil Dead is bad for that too.
Also, I don't think the number of references a module has is an indicator of quality. It's cheap nerd-cred, but it doesn't make it more scary. If anything, it's less, because a player might go, "Oh man, that's totally a Hellraiser reference, I know how that workes, hurr durr."
>>47508794
But anon, why would a horror game reference a comedy?
>>47508794
>The universe is capricious and inconsistent and when the players realize it they just might figure out the only way to win is not to play.
Translation:
>Why can't I keep players in a game literally designed to be LULZRANDUMXDDDDDDDDD
>>47507672
Unlike most OSR Retroclones, LotFP isn't afraid to go back to the source and just plagiarize wholesale from old AD&D modules.
>>47508970
So, unless I'm running one of their modules, just run D&D Basic instead?
>>47509102
Even then just run Basic.
>>47504692
Anyone have a PDF dump of these modules? Hard to comment on the quality if we can't read them.
I like like it too. most of the complaints seem to be about how that hate Raggi or heavily use the nebulous buzzword "edgy".
>>47507672
it embraces some modern ideas like ascending AC
>>47509555
check the OSR trove, most of them should be in there
God That Crawls
Death Frost Doom
Red and Pleasant Land
Scenic Dunwich
>>47504692
Raggi lets the artists and writers have a lot of freedom. He's probably a pleasure to work for.
>Then once in the dungeon, the characters
will eventually either all die or eventually
figure out the kids are simply not there,
but are nevertheless convinced they must
have missed a secret door somewhere
despite having completely mapped the
place. (The Referee is advised not to laugh
at either their efforts or their desperation.)
Then the Referee gets to spring the other
‘cult’ on them and have them deal with the
walking penis. The walking penis is much
more hilarious when half the party has
already died for no reason in the screw-you
dungeon.
>>47510208
>cherrypicking from the over the top tasteless joke module
Will tg ever hear legitimate criticism of LOTFP?
>>47510250
>over the top tasteless joke
You just described the tone of the entire base system or should I start posting the internal art until I get hit with an NSFW ban.
The shit's juvenile, it's FATAL with a fuckeasy ruleset.
>>47510448
so the answer is no then soccer mom anon?
>>47510484
Nah mate, it's fine if that's your thing.
This is /tg/, we've had a guy posting about tittymonsters in the gamefinder for a month plus.
My point is that not everyone's going to enjoy this sort of tone, and I don't think that saying the bar for what you can do with LotFP is set relatively low compared to other OSR material just by relying on it's tone. I don't feel it's illegitimate to say it's indeed a weakness that the entire base setting is essentially a hatefuck fantasy about Raggi's ex current gf or whatfucking ever batshit dynamic dude has with his significant others.
Kinda like Greenwood and Elminster?
FWIW it's a fairly passable retroclone in terms of straight mechanics but there are six other OSR games off the top of my head I'd rather play and could get more mileage out of than Lamentations.
>>47510593
>a hatefuck fantasy about Raggi's ex current gf or whatfucking ever batshit dynamic dude has with his significant others.
Sick to death of that disingenuous ancient meme. He moved on and married some other girl years ago.
he does the heavy metal graphic violence and nudity because he digs it and any controversy it generates lends the game free publicity.
And there's only one module where I would say the edgelord argument has an actual leg to stand on. Death Love Doom.He used it as some catharsis piece over that infamous girl drama nobody ever shuts up about. But you don't even the see the horrible shit, just what remains of the victims.
retroclones in general are by and large incestuous of each other and their respective mother system(s). they're just house rules neckbeards sell. My group and I are happy with modern games way of doing standard sword and sorcery so if we're going to play another fantasy game it has to be real different from what the current stuff does, fundamentally and tonally.
and LOTFP does just that. With some interesting modules and settings to boot.
Favorite LOTFP module?
>>47508140
I recently ran it and it went pretty successfully, i cut a few parts around like the stupid time clock. Knowing my players they woulda spend an hour figuring it out, ruining the spooky atmosphere. I didnt like the whole thing with the sleeping giant either. Overall it had some nice ideas to pick and choose from. Doing it vanilla seems like it could be boring.
>>47513083
Did you do v1 or v2? There seems to be quite a large difference between the two.
>>47511045
This. Raggi does weird freaky grindhouse horror shit because he's always been doing it, since he got into heavy metal and started his own magazine.
And he does it well.
Here's the giant Lamentations mega:
https://mega.nz/#F!3FcAQaTZ!BkCA0bzsQGmA2GNRUZlxzg!jJtCmTLA
>>47505015
It is incredibly pretentious, in that "old grognard tries to be edgy teenager from the 80s" way that seems to be endemic in the OSR movement. Ditto the surrealist modules that basically exist to give artistic pretensions to DM fuckery/laziness.
The Grindhouse edition of the game is an extended fuck you to an ex, too.
If I wanted retro stupid, I'd play Shadows of the Demon Lord desu senpai.
>>47506385
>the False Machine guy
It's that guy.
>>47513083
>>47513453
sleeping giant was in 1 iirc
v2 was more focused and refined
>>47513554
dusty old meme
full of green dust
>>47511252
Bad Myrmidon. I love the idea of Bad Lieutenant being turned into a hexcrawl. Blows my mind that someone would even think of that.
Does anyone have Towers Two? It's not in the mega archive.
>>47505015
>DFD is a homage to a specific series of movies
What series?
>>47508294
Maybe because it is generic? If you're a newbie or all you've ever played is 4e then something simple is probably a good thing.
>>47508656
Does it involve a lot of graphically murdered elves?
>>47513810
https://mega.nz/#F!olRimI5Q!SHmAzPVX_MYi7J08vFUYZw
surprised its not in the archive, they are usually on top of adding stuff to it
>>47514099
Thanks, fellow 4-dimensional being who definitely does not surf on photons.
>>47513637
Yes, old grognards trying to be cool is a dusty old thing. Only Cheeto dust tends to be orange in my experience.
Yeah Raggi and Luke Crane are pretentious. John Wick is pretentious for a whole different reason though.
John Wick just thinks his shit don't stink and he's the OG game designer and a proto weeb.
Luke and Raggi and John to some extent all seem to feel like they've discovered the magic formula, which is probably is for them, and everybody else is a pleb beneath their level because they just "don't get it".
You see the same shit with coffee, craft beer, music. It's just made it's way to RPGs.
No Raggi, we get it. Grindhouse shit has just never done anything for me, even though I think evil dead 2 is one of the funniest fucking movies. I just want different shit out of my pnp.
I feel like the split between the fans is the older OSR crowd and the younger kids who just discovered this shit or saw Tarentino's Grindhouse and thought it was the best shit ever and just haven't matured enough to realize that attacking the creator of their new favorite thing is not an attack on them personally.
Which now that I'm writing this just strikes me as more awkward neckbeard behavior.
It's OK to like someone that is pretentious. I met Guy Gavriel Kay in person, he's one of my favorite authors, but he's a huge smug shit.
tl;dr yes its pretentious and edgy, but like usual the fans are worse than the author.
>>47513990
>maybe because it's generic?
So... nothing. Gotcha.
I'm looking at some of the modules, but I doubt I will even give the game itself a try.
>>47514173
I've never played it so I don't actually know, it's just my guess. Like how D&D 5E doesn't do anything too amazing but is still better than the previous two editions.
>>47514131
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-suhRCpfME
>>47514147
>stop liking what I don't like
I don't remember Grindhouse being popular at all. and Deathproof was his weakest movie.
I'm sick of it because every LOTFP thread devolves into a sperg or two talking about how much they don't like Raggi. I don't agree with every he says and sometimes he's immature over dumb shit but I can still enjoy his stuff. I like the pseudo historical setting, I like a good chunk of the modules, he puts time and money into production values. There are many things I like about this game, warts and all
but do they ever get discussed?
Nope
every thread
every time
"edge", "girl drama bs", "lets talk about how much I hate Raggi"
I'm sick it. I don't want to talk about Raggi, I don't really care about him. I want to talk about the game.
Is that too much ask?
>>47514357
The art in the earlier modules really needs to be better. It was grade school quality in many many places.
But the new colour covers are fab.
>>47514357
>Deathproof
Why did you have to bring up Girls Talk About Fucking Nothing Twice: The Feature Film?
>>47504835
>Caring about who the hell made a thing.
You guys are the worst. Play more fucking games, talk less about nerds who create stuff.
It's especially bad when it's obvious you're just parroting some other faggots opinion that you picked up in some thread.
Lamentations of the Flame Princess is not for everyone, no rpg that's decent is. But it accomplishes it's goal very well when it comes to tone and theme.
>>47508294
The rules are tight, functional, light, and very well designed. How many games have you seen where the encumbrance rules are actually usable rather than just a headache?
It has good early firearms rules for OSR, too, something which is rarely done half so well.
It's also a system that knows precisely what feel it's going for at the table, and goes for it, instead of being indecisive and playing like mush, which is all too common.
>>47508843
>doesn't answer the "why" portion.
Answering the "why" portion is usually a terrible idea in horror. It makes the horror small and concrete, weakening it.
>>47511252
Tower of the Stargazer. It's the one most likely to actually see play at my table.
Deep Carbon Observatory is cool for stealing ideas but I wouldn't run it as written.
>>47513554
>Shadows of the Demon Lord.
Jesus fuck, you almost made it to the end of your post without anything worse than sounding hatewagony and pretentious, then you had to mention that shit sandwich of a game.
Shouldn't you be playing Diablo 3?
>>47514443
the guy I was responding too brought it up first
>>47514610
>Hurr muh vidya
Eat a dick.
If I want to play Basic, I play Moldvay or Mentzer. If I want AD&D, I play ACKS. If I'm going to play some over the hill neckbeard doing his best Poochie impression's fucking OD&D heartbreaker, I might as well do it with an actually semi-novel system.
Raggi is the Vincent fucking Baker of the OSR Movement: an out of touch piece of shit who sells transgression to sheltered idiots.
>>47515227
>OD&D
good to know you haven't played the game
>>47515227
LotFP tidies up all of Basic's shortcomings; namely the Specialist class, the Cleric's mandatory Turn Undead spell, Encumbrance and more. It's easy enough for beginners and thorough enough to keep OSR lovers interested.
The modules can be all over the place, but they're of considerably quality. The one's I've ran have been insanely fun.
Are the adventure paths easily converted to other systems? Which one would you recommend the most?
>>47515979
It's basically a retooling of D&D Basic. I'd just use that if you absolutely needed to use a different system.
>>47515979
should be pretty simple. its by and large a B/X clone, barring some differences, like encumbrance rules and ascending AC
some of the modules are even system agnostic.
i gotta say i love this though
https://www.docdroid.net/kHgwIZv/rotdp.pdf.html
I'm doing a retooling of LotFP for a post-apocalyptic setting. Takes bits from S&W and Mutant Future as well. Goal is to keep the final thing under 20 pages.
>>47515278
>>47515731
When you've run out of arguments, just shitpost. That'll show 'em! What next, a smug anime face?
>>47515903
That is true, but those are basic (heh) houserules. An OSR game needs to be more than obvious houserules to have a reason to exist, because you can just bloody well play the originals.
>>47516341
Well the game was initially invented because shops didn't want to carry his adventure modules based on 20+ year old systems. So he wrote his own, and now he's making a living off it.
>>47516341
>run out of arguments
>implying your nonsense warranted "arguments" in response
One of the AP's, Fuck For Satan, advertises that it has a giant penis monster. However, this is NOT the most interesting monster in that AP.
It has a fucking EVIL DOODLE. Not fucking kidding.
>>47516341
arguments?
you're just sperging over Raggi and bitching about retroclones
and since when did games need a reason to exist?
>>47514566
Literally the current most popular game in the market has functional encumbrance rules. Functional encumbrance rules have existed for a decade. And the firearms rules are not nearly as good as just outside of OSR.
I would sooner run these modules in 5e with the more gritty DMG options and have an audience, or run them as Edwardian era RuneQuest 6 and have better rules and more dramatic tension.
I know, it isn't designed with me in mind - but that's just my reaction to reading the rules.
>>47516746
>run these modules in 5e with the more gritty DMG options and have an audience
You can, they are pretty easy to convert, some are even system agnostic.
There's a play through of Death Frost Doom on youtube using 5e actually.the players are kinda boring though
I feel like Curse of Strahd has a bullshit happy ending assuming the party wins. What is a good high fantasy module to crush high level players in a satisfying way?
>>47516914
Tomb of Horrors?
>>47516914
Do you want the players to feel satisfied at the end too, or are you trying to make them not have fun?
>>47516980
Satisfied too.
>>47516914
oddly enough, I can't recall any high level LOTFP modules
Isle of the Ape was Gygax's toughest module. He's group couldn't beat it.
>>47516961
Not really a horror module, which is why I ask here
>>47517021
I have to convert anyways. I guess I really just want something with some length and that can draw the players into it before things go horribly wrong.
>>47516914
That really depends on your group...
>In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall love me and despair!
>>47517014
Write your own.
I ran a political intrigue adventure where the party was part of a house attempting to overthrow a shitty, selfish king. At the end, they'd captured the king and brought him to the lord of the family of which they were all members or friends. The lord humiliated and abused the king so badly that the party executed him out of pity. The events of the adventure led to one member of the party just saying "fuck it" and becoming the leader of a group of horrible murderous bandits later in life, another becoming an over-the-top violent crusader for his religion, the most sadistic, messed up member of the party becoming a major lord, and an NPC who was a good friend of the party doing just finebefore he fell through a wormhole into Sigil and lived the rest of his days wishing to return to his wife, then bumping into a different party run by the same players, who were supposed to reveal to my players that they were basically Moorecock-esque eternal champions who would save the universe again and again, but instead they all died and literally all of every universe forever and ever was overrun by the Great Old Ones and their infinite hordes.
>>47516746
5e's encumbrance rules are basically the same clunky rules you find in Basic, where you have to add up all your equipment's weight in pounds, and compare it to your carrying capacity, and act that basically requires a calculator, and is a pain in the butt.
LotFP's are way nicer. Pic related.
>>47517129
>that spoiler
What the actual fuck.
>>47517229
And an alternative set of OSR encumbrance rules somebody wrote, that is also nicer than 5e's.
>>47517062
Better Than any Man is set for like 1-4 but it should be easy tinker with stat blocks and theavoidablefinal boss is an InsectGod
Red and Pleasant Land is a setting that's Alice in Wonderland mixed with vampires.
either one should provide material to pilfer if nothing else.
the OSR treasure trove should have them all.
2 new ones were posted in today's general too. a haunted house and one set in the English Civil War as well
>>47517338
Wait someone posted the PDFs? I'm not seeing it.
>>47517408
Search in the OSR thread for hhtp or mega.
>>47517229
>>47517257
Both are neat, but the most common rule is probably still the GM going "Wait, you can't carry all that. You need to buy a donkey or find a few followers."
I've been thinking about running something like this forever and I'm about ready to pull the trigger.
With a group of mature players, many of whom have been playing for over a decade, what would be the most interesting introduction to lotfp?
>>47518278
Death Frost Doom
God That Crawls >>47511252
Better Than Any Man
Scenic Dunwich
There's a mega link with a fuck ton of modules in this very thread
>>47518328
I actually have the hard copy for better than any man.
I was mainly asking to see if someone were to say "this one is an awesome intro!" I'll go through those four and see if one really catches my eye
>>47518278
If you want a straight-up dungeon crawl, Tower of the Stargazer of The Grinding Gear.
If you want something more broad, No Salvation for Witches or World of the Lost.
If you feel like drinking beers together for a one-shot, this gonzo as fuck module is fun.
>>47518431
Intro tone wise to LOTFP's flavor or an intro to OSR?
Tower of the Stargazer for the latter
Death Frost Doom for the former. Its the module that got Raggi a lot of notoriety
>>47518503
Stargazer might be a little too traditional for a player group that's been at it for a decade. "Raid the evil wizard's tower" might not be enough originality for them. (Though it is a damn good module)
>>47518471
That's actually a pretty absurd one shot .
Stargazer has come up a couple times, so I'll give it a read. It might be fun to start with something seemingly generic only for twists and turns to break expectations.
I'll look over DFD, NSfW and WotL too
>>47504835
"The Tower of Love"
lol. Making modules up now?
>>47519369
I'll show you my Tower of Love if you show me yours.
>>47519369
What? It's an actual module.
I'll post the full name when I get back, but the whole module is a trap to lure the stupid and the greedy. It's the one where the players find a golden key, explore a short tower, and the 'princess' is an undead banshee out to murder them.
There is no treasure in the tower.
>>47519730
That is one of the short adventures, although it's not designed as a "fuck you" to the players. Its essentially a trap for the overly genre-savvy, best left somewhere in the campaign world.
>>47519875
I dunno, it sounds more than a bit like a 'Fuck you' to players.
>>47519893
I don't know about your group, but if my players heard a story about
>Hot princess!
>Epic loot!
>Hurry!
They would be smarter than to rush in all guns blazing.
The point is it sounds too good to be true (and is) but players used to having dragons and princesses land in their lap will march towards it blindly.
I suppose it just depends on campaign tone.
>>47519730
Hey, I'm just saying: I have all the modules (that I'm aware of) in some form, and don't have one called "Tower of Love"
