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Lamentations of the Flame Princess
Lamentations of The Flame Princess Player Core Book Rules & Magic
Beyond the veil of reality, beyond the influence of manipulating politicians, greedy merchants, iron-handed clergy, and the broken masses that toil for their benefi?t, echoes of other realms call to those bold enough, and desperate enough, to escape the oppression of mundane life. Treasure and glory await those courageous enough to wrest it from the darkness. But the danger is great, for lurking in the forgotten shadows are forces far stranger and more perilous than even civilization. The price of freedom might be paid in souls. LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing presents a sinister and horrific twist on traditional fantasy gaming. Simple enough for a beginner yet meaty enough for the veteran, this game will make all your worst nightmares come true. This book is a revision of the Rules & Magic book originally found in the LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing boxed set. It contains all the rules needed to play the game. (Explicit Content: Recommended for ages 18+)
167 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 10, 2017
My favorite OSR game system, very much in the vein of the OD&D boxed sets but with a number of little tweaks to give it personality. Also love that this was originally the title of the author's metal zine (I had a couple issues way back in the 90s), and that the game strives to capture the weird horror and fantasy aesthetics of the 70s and 80s that I so love. Smooth, simple to teach, but as good and clear as the rules are here, the strength lies in the adventures...which are often amazing and almost always bizarre. As someone who rarely even runs pre-published adventures and campaigns, I think the LotFP modules are among the best in the entire medium, at least for those into dark historical or weird fantasy with a healthy dose of nostalgia for old D&D editions. The Flame Princess herself is also a great mascot.
(Chris Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy-Roleplaying game is another quality OD&D knockoff I'd recommend if you have a younger crowd, and it's extremely inexpensive to purchase).
(Chris Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy-Roleplaying game is another quality OD&D knockoff I'd recommend if you have a younger crowd, and it's extremely inexpensive to purchase).
June 7, 2017
You know those takes on superheroes in the real world, like Watchmen or Wild Cards? This is it for heroic fantasy.
First off: no fireballs. Yeah. The spells and magic rules in the world of Lamentations are as bad for you as they are for your foes. No over-the-top badass sorcery. Plenty of rituals and spells and rules for invocations that will fuck you up (pardon my French).
The rules of the game are meant to make deadly incursions into the unknown. Get used to profuse bleeding (and death), rotting diseases (and death), and incapacitating traps (and death). Yet, they're very elegant, a veritable modern take on the 80s clunky fantasy game engines. It balances old-school feel with the modern need for streamlined game rules. It's as close to a perfect equilibrium as I've seen.
Just keep in mind the slowly rotting heads at the header as you flip through the book in case in lose track of the theme of this game.
First off: no fireballs. Yeah. The spells and magic rules in the world of Lamentations are as bad for you as they are for your foes. No over-the-top badass sorcery. Plenty of rituals and spells and rules for invocations that will fuck you up (pardon my French).
The rules of the game are meant to make deadly incursions into the unknown. Get used to profuse bleeding (and death), rotting diseases (and death), and incapacitating traps (and death). Yet, they're very elegant, a veritable modern take on the 80s clunky fantasy game engines. It balances old-school feel with the modern need for streamlined game rules. It's as close to a perfect equilibrium as I've seen.
Just keep in mind the slowly rotting heads at the header as you flip through the book in case in lose track of the theme of this game.
April 8, 2022
I've both read the book and have been running a hex crawl campaign using these rules for the past 3 or so months. Here are my thoughts.
This is part of the old school revival (OSR) body of works and hence is to a certain degree a clone of basic/expert (b/x) edition of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) from the 80s. Many criticisms I do have with it are in general for b/x DnD rather than for Lamentations of the Flame Princes (LotFP) specifically. However, I will point out when the criticism is leveled at LotFP specifically.
When I picked this book up, I was looking for a rules light system that recreates a DnD paradigm of old and in many ways this nails it really well:
Character creation is a breeze and has the "roll 3 dice" randomness which I do appreciate, after all we are all born with innate strengths and weaknesses and we make do with those throughout our lives. Another positive note would be the "Is this character suitable" and if all modifiers added up are < 0 then you re-roll the character. Minimum viable HP is also a fantastic addition.
It also uses Race as Class and while I was not that excited about the idea, it works and works really well at that.
The whole character creation took us an hour and a half for 5 people to do as part of a 3 hour session 0. That included collaborative world building and linking a sentence or two of character backgrounds together (neither are included in the rules). With people familiar with the rules It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to roll up a character....and another hour to choose the equipment to buy.
Here comes my first criticism and probably the least one as well, it would have been nice to have a starting package of equipment for each character to speed up the process even more, or even better a random table to roll on to make up a package.
The rules include everything from adventuring to healing, encumbrance, retainers, property and finance, dealing with encounters and of course spells, and a lot of them. It also has an optional firearms rules in the appendix.
Out of all of the above three things stand out. The Good:
Encumbrance rules - instead of tracking weight of every item, you count the items themselves, depending on your class (for most its 8 items) you go up a level of encumbrance. Anything worn on the character, clothes, amulets etc. does not count. Each 100 pieces of coin counts as 1 item. Chainmail and Plate armor ads a level or 2 levels of encumbrance respectively. This does not handwave encumbrance altogether but removes unnecessary math that is usually skipped anyway from more complex rules.
Spells - fantastic selection of spells that are thematically lean towards more weird and dark. As a side note we are using an updated spell system from "Vaginas are Magic" and/or "James Raggi's Eldritch Cock" (yep the names are pretty cringe) but the reworked magic system is better as it allows for miscasts and really puts pressure on the player to push their luck...or not.
Not so good:
There are 4 pages of Maritime adventures rules thats out of 63 pages covering rules not including spells. Great if you are doing a maritime campaign, but honestly we havent used them yet and space would have been better utilized by including other things.
This brings me to some of my criticisms. This is a players rules tome, it has zero GM tools.
The rules do a pretty poor job quantizing Dungeon Crawling process, with no GM advice on those either.
There are no hex crawling rules, with no GM advice on those either.
There are no ability score checks in the rules.
All of the above of course can be rectified by scouring the internet, getting other osr books etc. But the book would have been much more valuable having these as part of the package. I do appreciate that there is a GM tome that is out of date and doesnt seem like an updated version will ever be released. But some of the items above should really be in the player facing rules anyway.
So how does it all hold up in play?
Overall reasonably well, but in our group only me (GM) have ever played LotFP previously and we do have a new to roleplaying person as well. So here are the issues we have come across.
There is no strong central mechanic, Saving throws you roll under, attacks you roll over and there are even some percentage die uses as well.
LotFP also introduces an interesting d6 skill mechanic, but I am not sure that implementation is the best as most things can better be resolved by an ability roll which we have homebrewed in. Some classes like Specialist gain skills every level and for each point allocated into a skill you success chance increases. e.g. untrained you roll 1d6 and succeed on a 1. If you put 1 point into a skill you succeed on a 1-2 of 1d6 etc.
It is quite elegant, but to me it feels like a separate mechanic that somebody came up with and thought...huh that's neat, lets put it into this game.
As rules lack any mention of missiles tracking we house ruled a resource die for tracking missiles use.
Furthermore, we have put in rules from "Into Wyrd and Wild" for supply, exhaustion, hunting and cleaning the body to accommodate hex crawling and emphasize survival elements more.
As you can see a lot of house rules have been introduced to fill in the gaps to make them do what our group wanted out of the campaign. Good thing is that most OSR books are compatible with each other or even system neutral, in saying that, the book would have benefited tremendously by dedicating some space about discussing alternative rules and the philosophy of incorporating them and making LotFP your own.
Finally, and this is a really major plus that a lot of rpg books get wrong, LotFP has a tremendous layout. Inside front cover spread is dedicated to price list for all the items and back cover has cheat sheet for encumbrance, mounts, saving throws, weapons, attack bonus for fighters, armor & cover. This is absolutely fantastic and the whole game can be run just by looking at the front and back covers with everything at your fingertips. Inside of the book as well, the layout is very well done, with character classes taking double/single page spread and most of the rules being logically laid out.
As my closing thoughts I would say that LotFP is a great riff on the b/x formula of rules and while it has things that I would like improved like adding the rules for hex crawling and procedurally defining dungeon crawling, it does the job well and is quite modular allowing you to add OSR house rules very easily.
This is part of the old school revival (OSR) body of works and hence is to a certain degree a clone of basic/expert (b/x) edition of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) from the 80s. Many criticisms I do have with it are in general for b/x DnD rather than for Lamentations of the Flame Princes (LotFP) specifically. However, I will point out when the criticism is leveled at LotFP specifically.
When I picked this book up, I was looking for a rules light system that recreates a DnD paradigm of old and in many ways this nails it really well:
Character creation is a breeze and has the "roll 3 dice" randomness which I do appreciate, after all we are all born with innate strengths and weaknesses and we make do with those throughout our lives. Another positive note would be the "Is this character suitable" and if all modifiers added up are < 0 then you re-roll the character. Minimum viable HP is also a fantastic addition.
It also uses Race as Class and while I was not that excited about the idea, it works and works really well at that.
The whole character creation took us an hour and a half for 5 people to do as part of a 3 hour session 0. That included collaborative world building and linking a sentence or two of character backgrounds together (neither are included in the rules). With people familiar with the rules It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to roll up a character....and another hour to choose the equipment to buy.
Here comes my first criticism and probably the least one as well, it would have been nice to have a starting package of equipment for each character to speed up the process even more, or even better a random table to roll on to make up a package.
The rules include everything from adventuring to healing, encumbrance, retainers, property and finance, dealing with encounters and of course spells, and a lot of them. It also has an optional firearms rules in the appendix.
Out of all of the above three things stand out. The Good:
Encumbrance rules - instead of tracking weight of every item, you count the items themselves, depending on your class (for most its 8 items) you go up a level of encumbrance. Anything worn on the character, clothes, amulets etc. does not count. Each 100 pieces of coin counts as 1 item. Chainmail and Plate armor ads a level or 2 levels of encumbrance respectively. This does not handwave encumbrance altogether but removes unnecessary math that is usually skipped anyway from more complex rules.
Spells - fantastic selection of spells that are thematically lean towards more weird and dark. As a side note we are using an updated spell system from "Vaginas are Magic" and/or "James Raggi's Eldritch Cock" (yep the names are pretty cringe) but the reworked magic system is better as it allows for miscasts and really puts pressure on the player to push their luck...or not.
Not so good:
There are 4 pages of Maritime adventures rules thats out of 63 pages covering rules not including spells. Great if you are doing a maritime campaign, but honestly we havent used them yet and space would have been better utilized by including other things.
This brings me to some of my criticisms. This is a players rules tome, it has zero GM tools.
The rules do a pretty poor job quantizing Dungeon Crawling process, with no GM advice on those either.
There are no hex crawling rules, with no GM advice on those either.
There are no ability score checks in the rules.
All of the above of course can be rectified by scouring the internet, getting other osr books etc. But the book would have been much more valuable having these as part of the package. I do appreciate that there is a GM tome that is out of date and doesnt seem like an updated version will ever be released. But some of the items above should really be in the player facing rules anyway.
So how does it all hold up in play?
Overall reasonably well, but in our group only me (GM) have ever played LotFP previously and we do have a new to roleplaying person as well. So here are the issues we have come across.
There is no strong central mechanic, Saving throws you roll under, attacks you roll over and there are even some percentage die uses as well.
LotFP also introduces an interesting d6 skill mechanic, but I am not sure that implementation is the best as most things can better be resolved by an ability roll which we have homebrewed in. Some classes like Specialist gain skills every level and for each point allocated into a skill you success chance increases. e.g. untrained you roll 1d6 and succeed on a 1. If you put 1 point into a skill you succeed on a 1-2 of 1d6 etc.
It is quite elegant, but to me it feels like a separate mechanic that somebody came up with and thought...huh that's neat, lets put it into this game.
As rules lack any mention of missiles tracking we house ruled a resource die for tracking missiles use.
Furthermore, we have put in rules from "Into Wyrd and Wild" for supply, exhaustion, hunting and cleaning the body to accommodate hex crawling and emphasize survival elements more.
As you can see a lot of house rules have been introduced to fill in the gaps to make them do what our group wanted out of the campaign. Good thing is that most OSR books are compatible with each other or even system neutral, in saying that, the book would have benefited tremendously by dedicating some space about discussing alternative rules and the philosophy of incorporating them and making LotFP your own.
Finally, and this is a really major plus that a lot of rpg books get wrong, LotFP has a tremendous layout. Inside front cover spread is dedicated to price list for all the items and back cover has cheat sheet for encumbrance, mounts, saving throws, weapons, attack bonus for fighters, armor & cover. This is absolutely fantastic and the whole game can be run just by looking at the front and back covers with everything at your fingertips. Inside of the book as well, the layout is very well done, with character classes taking double/single page spread and most of the rules being logically laid out.
As my closing thoughts I would say that LotFP is a great riff on the b/x formula of rules and while it has things that I would like improved like adding the rules for hex crawling and procedurally defining dungeon crawling, it does the job well and is quite modular allowing you to add OSR house rules very easily.
August 3, 2023
I like this game's restatement of BX rules. Classes go to level 20 instead of 14, fighters and rogues (called specialists here) really stand out instead of being a bit bland or underpowered like in standard BX, and the wonky cleric spell advancement table is fixed. Dwarves are no longer just better fighters, as the actual fighter class is untouchable when it comes to fighting skill, but they do get the most hit points and are able to use fighter combat maneuvers so I feel it's a fair tradeoff.
I also like the magic item creation rules (I always agreed with Holmes D&D in that a level 1 mage should be able to create a scroll to offset their low power at early levels) and a lot of smaller touches like the silver standard for coinage and grouping many weapons into small/medium/large instead of endless charts of similar weapons.
I also like the magic item creation rules (I always agreed with Holmes D&D in that a level 1 mage should be able to create a scroll to offset their low power at early levels) and a lot of smaller touches like the silver standard for coinage and grouping many weapons into small/medium/large instead of endless charts of similar weapons.
November 30, 2020
This RPG is fucking awesome, Raggi is fucking awesome, the quality is fucking awesome, the format is fucking awesome. THIS BOOK IS FUCKING AWESOME.
5\5 Skulls
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
5\5 Skulls
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
October 13, 2017
A solid OSR game in most respects. I like the streamlined classes and the black powder equipment rules. The alignment rules are also interesting. Less impressed with the magic. The absence of boom boom spells is fine but some of the new options look mechanically very suspect and unlikely to see use.
April 23, 2016
My favorite rpg to date. Great combination of old and new rules. Best magic system by far. Low hit points, great in-between adventuring rules, and everything else.
December 28, 2022
Lamentations of the Flame Princess is an OSR that builds from the darker, weirder, stranger, and macabre stories of literature and film. I’m an H. P. Lovecraft fan and can see where the base setting of this game would fit some of the stories I have created and ran. Again, there is explicit material.
The Player Core Book is well made and organized. The charts are easy to reference, and the artwork supports the work and the overall setting.
I recommend LofFP revised Player Core Book for mature players/groups who enjoy horror setting. If you are already playing LofFP and don’t have the revised edition, you should check out what they have done.
You can read the full review at http://guildmastergaming.blogspot.com...
The Player Core Book is well made and organized. The charts are easy to reference, and the artwork supports the work and the overall setting.
I recommend LofFP revised Player Core Book for mature players/groups who enjoy horror setting. If you are already playing LofFP and don’t have the revised edition, you should check out what they have done.
You can read the full review at http://guildmastergaming.blogspot.com...
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June 15, 2023I suppose I had to read a proper old-school system at some point. I chose this one mostly because it's the basis for some of Patrick Stuart's work and I wanted to know how to read them stats. I think my preferred flavour is something a bit simpler, but there are things here--calling them innovations seems wrong when it's looking back rather than forward--that streamline in a way I do like, even if I'll never run it as-is.
October 3, 2021
These are really good OSR-rules! The rules are quite faithful to the old D&D, but are at the same time modernly tweaked to give the rules a smooth and elegant feel. I like the feel of them a lot.
The spell descriptions go a bit overboard sometimes.
The spell descriptions go a bit overboard sometimes.
May 15, 2019
The black metal of OSR games. It's good, but not the best, I feel. Too much growling, not enough melody.
May 14, 2023
I’m leaving my original 2-star review below as I still stand by it. However given some recent controversy involving someone who worked as an editor on this game in some capacity I wanted to bump up my rating based on the overall sentiment of the publisher, who favors freedom of expression, which I also support. So while I might argue that this core book in isolation is nothing particularly special, taken as a whole I agree there is something powerful happening here with LOTFP as a series. Yes I don’t agree with everything that someone might say, but I support their right to say it. So taken as a whole I’m adjusting my rating in consideration of my support for the publisher.
Original review below:
On first glance I don’t see the appeal. I do enjoy the alignment battle between law and chaos - this aspect of the game seems to be its chief innovation and yes I know even that is from an earlier version of D&D - however, Clerics as the servant of law are ‘the man’. Magicians as the pawns of chaos are the ‘rock stars’. You can see where this is going, straight to . . . adolescent rebellion. Watching the doc about Woodstock 99, Flea was naked and this performance reminded me of how a toddler acts out. This folklore kind of has a ‘flea-esque’ vibe I suppose is what I’m saying. This folklore is not about interdiction, but rolling in the ashes. In that light, the traditional ‘equipment lists’ and cost tables, rules like encumbrance, retainers, property and finance, ‘upkeep’, maritime miles per day based on the type of craft, etc. All this stuff which you still can find filling up this slim little volume almost seems a comical waste of space, a parody of a role playing game rather than a game. I suppose I am suddenly possessed by the idea of creating a solo game where the character starts floating in a raft in the middle of the ocean, so there is that good fun to be had. Still I wonder whether most people playing this game with its refined avant-garde taste have a few spare old school rulebooks or even reprints lying around to sift through for such mundane aspects of the world as crowbars and grappling hooks. Well grappling hooks are certainly a bit exciting and I suppose for the modern reader carrier pigeons are too. You can find all that information here. Carrier pigeons cost 100 sp in case you were wondering. Just a couple pages, and also in the inside cover for ease of use. Perhaps given the heavy street rep enjoyed by this game in my mind I am a little let down that the basic rules aren’t more exotic. That is expecting too much perhaps. “Teetotalers will be extremely rare” in such a setting they tell us on page 36. This is historical I know. I’ve read a few history books. I mean spell lists are fun but even these are not so very far from what you will find in any rpg rule book. Wall of iron. Unseen servant. So for what exactly did I pay my 25 bucks? I will say ‘it’s ok’ with my 2 stars and yes I understand I am clearly in the minority, but I don’t care.
April 8, 2018
This is, no doubt, the best RPG out there nowadays; it's even better than Call of Cthulhu (and, believe me, nothing is better than Call of Cthulhu) and Mage the Ascension (and, believe in me, nothing is better than Mage the Ascension.) (excepto LotFP.)
Imagine classic D&D. Now take away everything that was bad about D&D, which was a lot but not everything, and add a weird and pulp mood from HP Lovecraft, RE Howard's Solomon Kane, the Evil Dead series, Dario Argento, early Clive Barker, Junji Ito, Morrison's Doom Patrol, Heavy Metal, and female fighters in reasonable armor (chainmail bikini, that is). Add real-world early-Modern Europe, and the best supplements ever mafe for a game (Vorneheim, Veins of the Earth, Qelong) and ask yourself: "What am I doing reading this when I should be ordering this book?"
Imagine classic D&D. Now take away everything that was bad about D&D, which was a lot but not everything, and add a weird and pulp mood from HP Lovecraft, RE Howard's Solomon Kane, the Evil Dead series, Dario Argento, early Clive Barker, Junji Ito, Morrison's Doom Patrol, Heavy Metal, and female fighters in reasonable armor (chainmail bikini, that is). Add real-world early-Modern Europe, and the best supplements ever mafe for a game (Vorneheim, Veins of the Earth, Qelong) and ask yourself: "What am I doing reading this when I should be ordering this book?"
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews