RPG Circus | The Greatest Show In Gaming

Interview with Phil Vecchione and John Arcadia from the Gnome Stew about Engine Publishing's Product Masks
We offer up suggestions to Mark about his campaign of new players
We talk a little about the Sociology of RPGs

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Season 3 Episode 11 - To Skill or Kill

Thu, 06/30/2011 - 09:02 |

Jeff

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 11 of RPG Circus

Episode Topics

Playing the Sidekicks
Skill Overkill

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For completeness, Here is the sections of Alex's Comment that we read online.

I have two comments regarding the discussion of playing in large or
small groups. The first point is about the difficulty of providing
equal spotlight to all players in large groups. In my groups of up to
seven players, I usually have one or two really quiet people. When I
ask them, they say they enjoy the game. I figured that they are either
casual players that just enjoy the company and the chaos at the gaming
table, or they just like imagining the events without necessarily
feeling the need to share what is going on in their head. That's how I
stopped worrying about unequal spotlight. The only thing I pay close
attention to is when shy people want to say something but they get
interrupted all the time. I'll make sure that everybody gets their
say, and if necessary that means we'll go around the table, player by
player.

The second point is about NPC characters in the party, or secondary
player characters. In my D&D 3.5 campaign with up to seven players, I
still encourage people to create secondary characters. I have a house
rule saying that all player characters will turn into NPCs of the
campaign setting when they reach level 10 because I don't like how the
rules slow combat down at higher levels. I also have a house rule
saying that new characters start at level one. Thus, there is an
advantage of bringing in secondary characters: if your primary
character dies, or gets taken out of the game, your secondary
character is no longer on level one. I had read about this so-called
entourage approach in the old school fanzine Fight On. Secondary
characters get half XP and that really works for me.

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Season 3 Episode 10 - There be Dragons Here!

Thu, 06/16/2011 - 06:06 |

Jeff

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 10 of RPG Circus
Episode Topics

Our Views on the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Beta
Dragons as Pets, Cohorts, and Mounts
Investigative Games - Moving Goalposts and Changing Endpoints

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RPG Circus Season 3 Episode 9 - How Do You Say 'Drow' Anyway?

Thu, 06/02/2011 - 07:23 |

Jeff

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 9 of RPG Circus

Episode Topics

Why Drow Need to Eat Babies
Using Leads instead of Clues in Gaming
Legal Systems in Game Settings

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Review : Lamenations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition

Thu, 05/26/2011 - 06:13 |

Jeff

Last week, in Season 3 Episode 8 of the RPG Circus Podcast, we talked to James Raggi about Grindhouse Edition of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Before that show, he was nice enough to send us a copy to prepare us for the show as well as to review. Since we done the show, it was time for a review.

One of first things you will notice about the product is the fact it's small. I think that's a selling point, This is something you could easily throw into backpack, luggage, or messenger bag (which is why I use for my gaming stuff). The books are about 7 inches by 9 inches. It bit of odd size, but since the printing is done in Europe and I'm an American, I'm not really familiar with the International Paper size standards.

There are three books in box with around 350 or so pages.

Tutorial
Rules and Magic
Refree

One of the more interesting pieces in this box set is the Tutorial book. I assume that the person reading it doesn't know what Role-Playing Games really are. For experienced people this seems like a waste of pages, but the truth is that things like this are needed. Hell, there is a D&D 4ed for Dummies book. I think this tells us something. It tells us there are people that want to Role-play but don't know how because the rule books themselves don't really tell you anymore. Why do you think the old Red Box was so important to so many gamers. It was where they learned to Role-play. I think my absolute favorite thing about this book is the essays on recommend reading authors. All too often we see a recommend reading list and we don't know anything about a certain author. Here James Raggi has put together some of recommend authors and written a short essay about each. This gives those reading them an idea about the author and the type of stories that they have written. I think this wonderful. All to often, I meet people who don't quite know who Jules Verne and H.G. Wells was.

In the Rules and Magic Book, you will find the rules. They are based in many ways on the older versions of D&D. Here will find where race does equal to class. Still James has his own spin on all these things. I think one of the ones I liked after giving it some thought was the rouge/thief class to specialist. I think this more accurately describes the class. After all most of the players are not common thieves. Hell anyone of any class/race could be a thief. All you have to do is still. Here the specialist takes on a more natural role of an adventurer with a wide range of skills to do just that. You will also not find hundreds of spells in this book. Not to sound lame, but most players can't remember all those spells and what they do. Here the choices are limited by varied. Something I think a new player could easily grasp while old players could instantly absorb and then move on to actually Role-Playing instead of looking up Spells and what they do. This is the only book that players will need to reference. Hell, just the summary charts on the back of the book enough for most people. One last note, I like how most weapons grouped into the Great, Medium, minor, and small categories, with those categories saying how much damage is done. I think this just makes for faster reference. Players can then also choose weapons based on what they think their characters would carry rather than based on the damage differences between a two-handed sword and a great axe, Here both weapons would do a d10 as they are both Great Weapons.

Finally, there is the Referee book, It's much smaller than the Rules and Magic Book. There really are not that many rules in this book. It mostly tells you how to be a Game Master and things you have do. It gives advices on NPCs, Adventures, Maps, Cultures, and even has an adventure. What you will not find in here is a list of monsters, instead they offer up rules on how to make the stat's you need for Monsters. I think Tim Kask would be proud, having once played Tim Kask at GenCon. I can say he was very much into creating Stuff on the spot without the need of rule books. Even if you don't like the idea of no monster stats, I think the monster section is a good read just for a different point of view.

So, your wondering, should I spend my hard earned money of this thing? Even if you never play LotFP, I think there is much to get out of simply reading the rules. However if you do that, I think you would be missing out on a lot. One last thing, while one could say that LotPF is "old school", I don't think so. While it has many elements of so called "old school" , It is a modern game with influences from games that James Raggi liked. Those games just happen to be what people call "old school"

If you want to pick up a copy of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, you can order it from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Online Store.