Carcosa

[GianniVacca]

I have just bought the Carcosa source book: http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/products/carcosa

Unfortunately the stats are not BRP-based, but the text is pretty light on stats and heavy on setting, so it shouldn't be difficult to use with BRP. Note that the basic approach is very different from your standard CoC and even Dreamlands campaign, it's more horror meets science fantasy (à la Brian Lumley: http://www.brianlumley.com/books/cthulhu/dimensiondreams.html)

[filbanto]

What is Lamentations of the Flame Princess about? It has a very evocative title. From what I've read it is a "DnD retro-clone". Is there anything that really sets it apart from the other ones?

[GianniVacca]

What is Lamentations of the Flame Princess about? It has a very evocative title. From what I've read it is a "DnD retro-clone". Is there anything that really sets it apart from the other ones?

Yes, definitely. The tone is very adult-oriented whereas most D&D products are (at least in my eyes) rather teenage-oriented. Amongst the adult oriented stuff are graphic representations of death, etc., to remind the players that when one dies it's actually a horrible thing. The adventures have little in terms of over-the-top D&D monsters but rather stick to humans and demi-humans with the occasional monster, which always has a history. This is very much like what you find in the old Gloranthan adventures for RuneQuest.

Then there are background books: Vornheim, possibly the best city supplement I've ever seen; Carcosa, already mentioned; Isle of the Unknown, which is a sandbox setting with a mysterious, large island (almost 100,000km²), and which I haven't read yet.

Frankly the only thing I do not like about LotFP is the engine [even though it's been somewhat improved compared with D&D; check it out it's available for free on the web-site] -- but then resourceful GMs can always adapt anything to their favourite game engine.

Edited December 23, 2011 by GianniVacca
background setting books - horrible grammar (tired!)

[deleriad]

Though I haven't read Carcosa yet, it seems from what I know of it that it's a classic case of desperately trying to shoehorn something into OD&D when it would work far better under a simple BRP version. It's basically classless and the increasing power of levels is undermined by the random combat generator so you can never be sure if one hit will kill. Anyone can cast magic because the sorcerer "class" is essentially the fighting man class with the ability to cast magic. So basically it's D&D mangled into BRP.

[Baron]

Hah, Deleriad! A very funny, but very useful observation!

[GianniVacca]

Deleriad, what you write is correct: Carcosa would've certainly worked better with BRP. However (and this ties in with the "2012" thread in the other forum), the standard engine for OSR products is D&D. I guess it's up to us to try and reverse the trend!

[Baron]

The trend should be reversed! I try to sound off in BRP's favor on most boards, when appropriate. Maybe enough mention of BRP on our parts will help whip up some nostalgic memories in other grognards. Or tempt those who never tried it back in the day.

[RosenMcStern]

On the contrary, I would really dislike to have BRP stuff around labeled as "Old School". We already have all those nice reprints of Chaosium Glorantha materials from the early 80s as an example of "Old School" d100 - and they are the real thing, not a revamp. Let us make all products that come out now for BRP labeled as "Fresh and New", not as "old".

[Baron]

Surely we want to market to, and appeal to, as many people as possible. Wouldn't that include the OSR crowd? And wouldn't it be simple enough to tout BRP and derivatives as original Old School pedigreed, as well as marketing and labeling new releases as cutting edge?

Of course, publishers can market their products however they choose, and fans can post however they choose. And remain fellow BRP enthusiasts.

[deleriad]

It's not so much that I think Carcosa would be better as BRP but that the mechanical changes the author is making to it are basically BRP in disguise. Which got me to thinking that a lot of "old school" interest in OD&D is about how it is mechanically simple, relies on GM fiat and is pretty close to classless. Carcosa seems to have taken that to an extreme to the point where basically the author might as well have taken Call of Cthulhu rather than mangling some form of D&D into the form. Again, one of the tropes of old school is that characters are vulnerable for a long time and die easily until they get enough experience. Another one is that there is no attempt to match the encounter level to the PCs and that most PCs try to avoid combat rather than wading into it.

When you look at it, they're basically trying to pretend that they were playing BRP all along...