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Barbarians of Lemuria
"It is a savage age of sorcery and bloodshed, where strong men and beautiful women, warlords, priests, magicians and gladiators battle to carve a bloody path leading to the Throne of Lemuria. It is an age of heroic legends and valiant sagas too. And this is one of them..." Barbarians of Lemuria; swords & sorcery roleplaying, inspired by Thongor, Conan, Brak and Elric. Barbarians of Lemuria has been acclaimed by many as one of the best roleplaying games of this genre. This 'Legendary' version features updates and extra goodies to give you much more swords & sorcery role playing goodness.
111 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 10, 2012
Awesome rules lite sword and sorcery system. Definetly one of my favorite systems.
February 9, 2015
simple, playable, powerful!
June 13, 2024
There is a lot packed into this little book. Mass combat, ship combat, a big list of deities, a gazetteer, a bestiary, adventures, etc. The system is super light and has one of my favorite methods of doing skills (for example: you are a blacksmith, so you can do anything and know anything a blacksmith would rather than having an endless list of individual skills. Fate has a similar way of working).
The only negatives for me is that it is very tied to its setting (I prefer to come up with my own settings) and the way that sorcerers regain magic points is pretty convoluted (they have to keep track of how powerful each spell they cast is and regain different amounts of magic points at different rates depending on what kinds of spells they used).
The only negatives for me is that it is very tied to its setting (I prefer to come up with my own settings) and the way that sorcerers regain magic points is pretty convoluted (they have to keep track of how powerful each spell they cast is and regain different amounts of magic points at different rates depending on what kinds of spells they used).
November 30, 2022
If you must get into this sort of thing, this is about as good an implementation of this sort of thing as it gets. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
January 31, 2010
Une très bonne surprise que la lecture de ce Barbarians of Lemuria. Après avoir survolé la version originale (en anglais), je m'étais fait une petite idée du produit. Mais la version reliée, illustrée, donne vraiment un bon cachet à l'ouvrage.
Et le contenu, au niveau règles, est tout ce que j'attendais : du fun, du simple, du rapide, tout en proposant quand même des personnages bien distinct et un vrai système. Et surtout, il est complètement adaptable, pour peu que l'on souhaite rester dans le même esprit. J'imagine déjà convertir la campagne Arkéos (dont le système m'a jamais botté) pour du pulp à la Indiana Jones.
JE pense que ce bouquin pourra ressortir pour des parties one-shots, sur des univers qui s'y collent. J'ai déjà hâte de m'en servir pour le prochain Colloque de Bob, mon scénario "Pirates" commence à germer, et j'ai déjà mes pré-tirés de faits.
Et le contenu, au niveau règles, est tout ce que j'attendais : du fun, du simple, du rapide, tout en proposant quand même des personnages bien distinct et un vrai système. Et surtout, il est complètement adaptable, pour peu que l'on souhaite rester dans le même esprit. J'imagine déjà convertir la campagne Arkéos (dont le système m'a jamais botté) pour du pulp à la Indiana Jones.
JE pense que ce bouquin pourra ressortir pour des parties one-shots, sur des univers qui s'y collent. J'ai déjà hâte de m'en servir pour le prochain Colloque de Bob, mon scénario "Pirates" commence à germer, et j'ai déjà mes pré-tirés de faits.
June 24, 2014
Un juegos de rol de Espada y Brujeria con unas reglas muy sencillas pero bien diseñadas,(normalmente cuando se quiere realizar una acción o un ataque se tiran 2d6 + caracteristica y hay que sacar un 9) y que buscan mas la diversión de los jugadores y del director de juego que una representación fiel de la realidad. En cuanto a la ambientación "oficial" esta inspirada en la saga de Thongor de Lemuria escrita por Lin Carter y que a su vez se basa en las novelas de Conan.
reseña mas completa en el blog: http://veteranosdelahojablanca.blogsp...
reseña mas completa en el blog: http://veteranosdelahojablanca.blogsp...
January 2, 2017
This game is so cool.
Rules light. Captures so many of the vibes of Pulp heroes. Wouldn't take a lot of work to mod it to Conan or Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser. I love the way it uses careers.
Rules light. Captures so many of the vibes of Pulp heroes. Wouldn't take a lot of work to mod it to Conan or Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser. I love the way it uses careers.
February 7, 2018
An influential Sword & Sorcery fantasy role-playing game with some great innovations. If you want to play in the footsteps of Conan, Kull, Thundar, or Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser, this is the game for you.
Character definition is quick and flexible. BoL eschews the "class and race" categories of many FRPGs. Its system of Careers to define characters by their colourful history evokes the genre that the game emulates. On day one, you can have a character who has already been a slave, a pirate, a courtier and an alchemist. What's next for you?
Character stats and task resolution are much simpler than The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game... except as they concern hit points, dying and healing, where I find them unnecessarily byzantine. I would probably house-rule this part.
Magic is mysterious, dangerous and unreliable, again evoking the classic s&s tales perfectly. Players are discouraged (but not prevented) from playing sorcerers and leaving such things to the villains. There are plenty of interesting career options otherwise.
And my favourite bit of tech: PCs do not accumulate wealth. After each adventure, the players free-narrate how they lose or fritter away all of their hard-won booty! This frees the game from the tiresome trope of playing to accumulate gold and power-up gear. It's really just about telling a good tale.
The book contains a complete history and geography of mythic Lemuria, including many flavourful locations and interesting non-human species.
Barbarians Of Lemuria has a real problem with sexism. In this respect, the game emulates the classic Sword & Sorcery tales of Howard, Lieber, et al too successfully, and uncritically. Men are muscle-bound heroes, while women are sexy bar maids or tricky sorceresses. The text constantly winks at the heroes' expected trysts with "wenches" between adventures. All this makes players who are female, queer or trans feel unwelcome at the table. Occasional declarations that "girls can be heroes too" do little to remedy this. Although the book has been re-written and re-issued several times, it needs one more complete re-write to bring it into the 21st century.
Character definition is quick and flexible. BoL eschews the "class and race" categories of many FRPGs. Its system of Careers to define characters by their colourful history evokes the genre that the game emulates. On day one, you can have a character who has already been a slave, a pirate, a courtier and an alchemist. What's next for you?
Character stats and task resolution are much simpler than The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game... except as they concern hit points, dying and healing, where I find them unnecessarily byzantine. I would probably house-rule this part.
Magic is mysterious, dangerous and unreliable, again evoking the classic s&s tales perfectly. Players are discouraged (but not prevented) from playing sorcerers and leaving such things to the villains. There are plenty of interesting career options otherwise.
And my favourite bit of tech: PCs do not accumulate wealth. After each adventure, the players free-narrate how they lose or fritter away all of their hard-won booty! This frees the game from the tiresome trope of playing to accumulate gold and power-up gear. It's really just about telling a good tale.
The book contains a complete history and geography of mythic Lemuria, including many flavourful locations and interesting non-human species.
Barbarians Of Lemuria has a real problem with sexism. In this respect, the game emulates the classic Sword & Sorcery tales of Howard, Lieber, et al too successfully, and uncritically. Men are muscle-bound heroes, while women are sexy bar maids or tricky sorceresses. The text constantly winks at the heroes' expected trysts with "wenches" between adventures. All this makes players who are female, queer or trans feel unwelcome at the table. Occasional declarations that "girls can be heroes too" do little to remedy this. Although the book has been re-written and re-issued several times, it needs one more complete re-write to bring it into the 21st century.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews