25 April 2020

Lockdown Challenge Day 20: Lamentations of the Flame Princess

I like Old School gaming, everybody knows that. However, and contrary to popular belief, Old School doesn’t mean “D&D-like”; Old School actually means “Rulings, not rules!”. We Old Schoolers fondly remember a time when a role-playing game was OK even if it didn’t have rules for breathing in thick smoke or flying a different plane than the one you had been trained for. Or maybe said rules were printed in a module where you had to survive in thick smoke or fly an unusual aeroplane.

So I like Old School but have been mostly playing and refereeing D100-based role-playing games for 25 years or so. I still like, however, the odd D&D-ish adventure and my favourite system, in this case, is Lamentations of the Flame Princess, a D&D retro-clone that is technologically rooted in 17th century Europe rather than in a vanilla high fantasy pseudo-mediaeval world. Also where LotFP really shines is in its adventures, which are amongst the very best that have been published for the last 10 years. And it has consistently had the best art of any non-Gloranthan role-playing game.


Loot and wounds. How Old School is this?

I have chosen to roll a Magic-User because of the way LotFP presents this character class: “Most of the world lies sheltered from the existence of magic, encountering it only as it victimises them. They huddle in their churches for comfort and trade their freedom and dignity to a ruler as they beg for protection, all for the fear of the supernatural which they do not, and cannot, understand. Magic-Users choose a different path. Instead of cowering away from the darkness, they revel in it. They see the forces of magic as a new frontier to explore, a new tool for the attainment of power and knowledge. If it blackens the soul to equal that of any devil, it is but a small price to pay.”

Name: Jeroen Visser
Class: Magic-User
Level: 1
Alignment: Chaotic
Age: 37
Sex: M

Hit Points 3
Base Attack Bonus +1
Mêlée Attack Bonus 0
Ranged Attack Bonus +1
Armour Class 12

CHA 11 (0)
CON 10 (0)
DEX 12 (0)
INT 14 (+1)
STR 8 (−1)
WIS 9 (0)

Saving Throws 
Paralyse 13
Poison 13
Breath 16
Device 13
Magic 14

Skills 
Architecture 1
Bushcraft 1
Climb 1
Languages 2
Search 1
Sleight of Hand 1
Sneak Attack 1
Stealth 1
Tinker 1

Spells
1 first-level spell

Starting money 90 sp

2 comments:

  1. So you normally get read magic and then roll 3d20 for the first level spell list. What spells does Jeroen know?

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    Replies
    1. I must confess I didn't roll... Why don't you roll for Jeroen? :-)

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