1

(8 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

I became a LotFP fan after I ran (twice) Death Frost Doom. Great atmosphere and writing. I'd like to point out that I was not very fond of the "dungeon crawl" genre but Death Frost Doom changed my mind on the subject.

The Dark Souls artbook is a great source of inspiration as well

http://www.elbakin.net/plume/xmedia/fantasy/news/jv/darksouls1.jpg

Another idea that came after rereading the Dying Earth rules.

Skill checks
Each day a character can reroll a skill check a number of times equal to his attribute modifier.

Ex : My character has a dex of 16, his modifier is +2. I can reroll 2 times/day a skill roll if the skill is connected to Dexterity (like Stealth or Tinkering).

0 and negative modifiers have no influence, make skill checks as usual.

I'l try this with my group.

4

(3 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Your best bet is Ludikbazar (no, I am not sponsored by these guys). The second screen is unfortunately out of print.

Le Call of Cthulhu

the third one

5

(3 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Actually this is a GM screen for the french edition of Call of Cthulhu. IMHo it doesn't fit CoC at all but would make a nice screen for LotFP.

Of course we can still use this one, or this one.

Lord Inar wrote:

It's funny, I was really thinking about this both with respect to characters but also to a large degree retainers.
Hey man, if I'm hiring, I don't give a damn about how society perceives them. I want them to do their job. An elf will do that better than an MU every time.

Then it's the way the campaign world is described I guess. In my games players will never find an elf who will accept to be a retainer ^^

What I meant is that if a player wants efficiency, he'll play an Elf and if he think a Magic user is cool no matter what, he'll play one.

But hey, it's a just a matter of perception after all : the lack of balance just doesn't bother me that much.

Some players just don't want  to play an elf and have a good idea for a Magic-user character. Sometimes that is just simple as that : if your players' mindset is to choose "the better class" then maybe LotFP is not meant for them.

JimLotFP wrote:

I've got a rather large project on the drawing board involving Bathory as well.

That's good to hear ! Mine will be rather short and ugly.

Another thing of interest for those looking for really "Weird" monsters, the Dreamblade line of miniatures had some pretty wild designs.

Karl Edward Wagner is always a good bet. I almost forgot about We are all Legends by Darrell Schweitzer. Lots of inspiration for any LotFP game (and pretty much anything this guy wrote by the way).

I just saw the Countess, a pretty good movie imho :

"A 17th century Hungarian countess embarks on a murderous undertaking, with the belief that bathing in the blood of virgins will preserve her beauty."

But of course, there's more to the plot : the countess is very rich, provides many men to fight the Ottoman Empire and the King is indebted to her.

So, if someone says she kills virgins to stay young, well, some people would be more than glad to burn her at the stake...

I started working on a LotFP scenario based on this story, it just begs to be adapted.

10

(54 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Geoffrey wrote:

Oops. I apologize for not noticing your request sooner.

There was no hurry, thanks !

Any race that is described as dying gets a + in my book. But I love the "neanderthal" vibe. "You didn't get us all homo sapiens, now we're back to get you !" tongue

12

(54 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Geoffrey wrote:

2. I use delta's Target 20 armor class system.

3. I use Gary's coinage system found in his first Gord the Rogue novel.

Could you elaborate these options please ? I want to know more !

How do you portray the demi-human races in your fantasy world ?

I love the way Dwarves are described in Hammer of the Gods... But elves ?

To be quite frank the whole "Elves [...] enjoy living in the deep wilderness and adapting their homes to be in harmony with their surroundings" or "Once the epitome of enlightenment and responsibility" just doesn't cut it for me. It is not weird (in the weird fantasy sense). And the "hey look they are cannibals !" in Weird New World has not really convinced me as well.

So now the Elf class will be a "changeling" class as in Changeling : the Lost (text by C.W Richeson review on rpgnet, slightly modified) :

"A human, whether an infant or an adult, is whisked away to an Elven domain. There this ill fated person serves as a slave and a plaything, subject to the chaotic whims of the Elves. It’s a life of toil and horror, and it changes the human over time. The magic of the Elven lands and the new role this person has taken on change the body and the mind, so that this once human slowly becomes something new – a Changeling."

So elves are "ancient, fickle creatures that exist only to do whatever they think is fun at the moment" and changeling PCs are those that "managed to escape their Elven masters and flee back to the human realms"

I find this more in line with my interpretation of the Weird Fantasy tropes and the  source litterature.

Don't mess with the Faes !

As for Halflings... Well how did a race of midgets survived in a middle-age environnement ? For now there are no Halflings in my gaming group, I'll see to it when the the need arises.

What about your take on Elves, Dwarves and Halflings ?

14

(6 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

If you really want to go that way you may look at another alternative : when a character takes [constitution] points of damage make him save against Poison or die.

"when tweaking hit points, are there other issues than monsters HP and spells  ?"

Yes, players ! ^o^

Excellent AP. I ran DFD twice and it was awesome (and different) each time. This is my go-to module when I want to introduce people to LotFP. It's like the whole Referee's guide was compressed in this "little" scenario.

16

(54 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Yeah, maybe I'd go with this limit : your Constitution or Strength modifier (whichever is higher).

On the other hand, one of my players decided to play a dwarf because he thinks dwarves are fun. He decided that he was a grave robber and so his people kicked him out. He has a lot of fun with it.

So making the dwarf more sexy for players ? Naaah we'll just end up with spoiled brats ^o^

17

(54 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Aaron C wrote:

No one wanted to play a dwarf.  Its a shame really that they are so crap game mechanics wise! (the bonus to damage Kobayashi mentioned above certinaly make them a bit more attractive.  So would an active way of using those great saving throws but I havent though of one yet.)

Yeah, the "problem" (YMMV) is that most of the dwarf advantages (saving throws and HPs) are passive in nature.

One thing I haven't tried : let the dwarf trade hit points for bonus to damage rolls and save throws when he wants to. (3 points for a +1 ?).

That could work very well, I'd go with a Cajun. Native american ancestors, 6000 years old tribes, lots of alligators..., depraved nobility with a french accent ^o^

But the Aztecs make for a more "visual" reference to most players. For the cultural motifs maybe something close to the spanish colonisation of South America.

That would work very well, with a small touch of Bayou in the mix...

So, I guess you already have all available LotFP adventures (Death Frost Doom and Hammers of the God are my personnal favorites) but now ?

If you GMed  some good adventures, just let us know !

Blood Moon Rising
This one works really well as an introductory adventure, part sandbox, a little bit of Dungeoncrawling, social interaction... I introduced the gypsies that the PCs will meet again in No Dignity in Death, reworked some names, dropped the orcs (now a band of savage Picts), dropped most of the magic items... But there is a lot of things jammed in a little number of pages.

If anyone interested I'll post about other adventures as well (People of the Pit, Hangman's noose, etc...).

But I'm really interested about what you have found : what have you modified to get the "Weird" feel ? In another thread I talked about adapting Call of Cthulhu adventures as well, so don't feel limited to "fantasy" adventures.

Gunslinger_Games wrote:

The funny thing is that they appear to be LOVING it!  big_smile  Frankly, I am too.

Yes, before reading LotFP's referee guide I somewhat forgot that part of the fun in RPGs is that they can be challenging.

My players botched pretty much everything in Death Frost Doom but came back the next week for more !

Beedo wrote:

o how awesome would it be to reskin those from early 20th century to the Renaissance, and have the group tooling around Renaissance versions of Kingsport (The Terrible Old Man, The Festival), Arkham (Dreams in the Witch House... has a familiar ring to it, that one does...) and of course, Dunwich.

Exactly, I have to reread some old Cthulhu scenarios as well. Escape from Innsmouth would make a great module.

Yes the university would be based in another, bigger town.

For your smalltown, I'd try to answer the following questions :

Is the nobility fortune declining ? Why ? (Another seashore town became the commerce hub for the area, so less and less ships stop by...)

If the town is past its prime how did the merchants got wealthier ? (The uncanny ability of local fisherman to fish huge quantities of fish... Thanks to an old promise made by the town's nobility  ?)

Or maybe the town could reflect that : a new town, made of factories, inhabited by a poorly paid workforce, slowly starting to flourish. An old town, ruled by the nobility, where most of the fishermen live.

My two cents...

Someone posted this link on the storygames forums : http://johnkenn.blogspot.com/.

Use them as oracle cards, excerpts from a child's book found by your PCs, images from a dream/nightmare...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uq8Nul3Gos4/TIcsHkeITeI/AAAAAAAAASY/UqJIGhmdV_w/s1600/john140.jpg

An inspiring idea. I'd go with a small Town vibe as well.

"Translating" Innsmouth would be a very good starting point. You'll have no shortage of NPCs for your setting. In fact every other Lovercraftian town (Arkham, Kingsport...) could be used as well.  Turning the Miskatonic university in a kind of medieval university could be nice... ("We want to fund an expedition to the far north...").

Even if it's a little more over the top, the Freeport City guide from Green Ronin could be a good source of inspiration as well.