Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic Free Version

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic Free Version by James Edward Raggi IV is a role playing game system published by Lamentations of the Flame Princes. This is an OSR game system and, as such, is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

This is a 176 page PDF that is available for free from DriveThruRPG. A full version, which contains artwork other than on the cover, is also available from DriveThruRPG for $5 and printed copies of the book can be found on sites such as Amazon. Two pages are the colour front and rear covers, two pages are the front matter, two pages are the Table of Contents, two pages show the character sheet, albeit not in a usable format, and one page is the Open Game License. There are also many – as in probably at least a couple of dozen – blank pages and space in the book where artwork would normally be.

Character Creation is a section that should be familiar to players of OSR RPGs, although those mostly familiar with newer ones may find some oddities. Fist in this section is rolling ability scores, explanations of what the six scores do and a statement that a player can discard a character if the combined bonus from all the scores is negative. Also in this section are choosing a class, determining hit points, where to find and record attack bonus and saving throws, choosing an alignment – there are the OSR three – determining starting professions, buying equipment and choosing a name. Notably, the standard coin in LotFP is the silver piece, or sp; most games have the gold piece, or gp, as the standard coin.

Next in this section are details on the classes. There are four human classes, of which Cleric, Fighter and Magic-User should be familiar. The fourth class is Specialist, which is a bit different. This essentially replaces the traditional Thief or Rogue class. The Specialist can spend points to improve their ability in the nine skills available to all classes.

As in most OSR games, the demi-humans have their own classes. The Dwarf is the fighter, the Elf is the Magic-User/Fighter hybrid and Halflings are quick and good at hiding.

Equipment Lists has various items of equipment and its costs. There are some minor differences; weapons are divided into types and the player must decide what the specific weapon they are buying is. The weapon’s name makes no actual game difference; a battle axe and a mace will do the same damage, cost the same and weigh the same for instance.

Adventuring: The Rules of the Game starts with a number of topics organised alphabetically. These include the nine skills that the Specialist can improve, but other areas are also covered. These are how to gain experience points – being OSR, this is distinctly treasure-based – foraging, hunting, getting lost, various hazards – ability score loss, aging, damage, disease, drugs & alcohol, falling, poison, starvation and sleep deprivation, swimming, time and traps. Tinkering, the skill for disarming traps, may be a little different to more modern games; if a character cannot get to the mechanism of the trap – say, it’s hidden in a wall – they cannot disarm it. Encumbrance is perhaps handled slightly differently. Items do not have a weight; instead it’s the number of items that affects encumbrance. Some items encumber over and above, due to their nature – heavy armour and oversized weapons for instance – and others do not encumber at all. This is probably an easier way of handling encumbrance than the original, and often simply ignored, OSR method.

Maritime Adventures has rules for adventuring at sea. These cover water vessels, ship crews, conditions and combat, whether this be ship-to-ship or between ships and monsters.

Retainers are various different people that characters can, and in order to do some tasks efficiently or at all, must hire. These retainers have different skills, wages, living costs and skills, and some also get a share of any treasure recovered. There are also rules on hiring retainers and checking their loyalty.

Property and Finance is a brief section that has some rules related to the cost of property and some other rules on investing.

Encounters covers encountering other creatures, including surprise, starting attitude and, of course, combat.

Clerics has rules for cleric magic. This includes preparing spells, writing and using spell scrolls, creating holy water, spell research, time for magical activities, which includes spell research, and casting spells.

Magic-Users is similar to the previous section and has rules on handling magic for magic-users and elves. Some material, such as spell research and using and creating spell scrolls is essentially identical to that for clerics. Other rules include copying spells into spellbooks, creating potions, staves and wands and libraries and laboratories, and the effect such have on research, is new, and the time of magical activities is expanded as more can be created. Rules on casting spells are also different.

Next are spell lists for Clerics and Magic-Users.

Spell Descriptions continues with the various cleric and magic-user/elf spells, organised alphabetically. The vast majority of these spells, and their effects, will be familiar to those acquainted with D&D-based games, especially OSR and the original systems. Notably, Turn Undead is a cleric spell, not an innate ability, which will greatly limit how effective it is; no using that willy-nilly.

The Appendix starts with a Glossary of terminology. Anyone familiar with RPGs will probably be familiar with the terms. Then there are rules on Firearms. Much of the official LotFP material is considered to be set in the early modern period, where firearms are becoming more common. So this section provides optional rules for such, and for the type of armour used in the period. Whether a Referee – the GameMaster – wants to use such is up to them.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic Free Version in Review

The PDF is reasonably bookmarked, with the major and some of the minor sections linked, although the bookmarking could have been deeper. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is generally decent, but it could be better. The text maintains a two column format and appeared to be almost completely free of errors. Presentation cannot really be judged; this is the free version which lacks the interior artwork, so judging that cannot be done and the gaps where art has been removed can be a bit jarring.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is called “Weird Fantasy Role-Playing” but truthfully there isn’t much of the way of weirdness is this book; it will probably be how it is used. Where the edge of weirdness does start to creep in is the spell descriptions. These are far more evocative although the results are generally – but not always – the same that OSR players will be familiar with. Evocativeness is in bits such as in Invisibility spells which work because the magic-user “frightens the light of the world, causing it to avoid the subject of the spell.” An interesting description, but not really game changing.

Some spells do have slightly different effects, such as those related to animating the dead. Creatures animated by such retain faint memories of life and will always interpret any instructions in the most violent and destructive manner possible. Perhaps the biggest change is with the Summon spell. This may be a 1st level spell, but the description is nearly nine pages long and has some extremely dangerous potential side-effects. Covering the entire world in water to a depth of 50′ above the caster’s current location may be a bit extreme as a side effect of something going wrong with a 1st level spell. Though most spells may be familiar, some new and weird ones are included and some old stalwarts are missing – any magic-user wanting to throw fireballs and lightning bolts around are going to be disappointed. Most of the potent evocation spells are gone; Magic Missile is actually one of the most powerful. It is with magic that the weirdness comes in; it feels dangerous but not so much to foes as it once was. Incidentally, the description of how wonderful or horrific the afterlife can be in the description for the Commune spell contradicts the nothingness of the afterlife in the Speak With Dead spell. Oh, and Raise Dead and Resurrection are missing.

Alignments are perhaps slightly different to many OSR games. The alignments are said not to represent good and evil – a Lawful person can be evil and a good one can be Chaotic – a distinction that usually isn’t made until later systems with the full 9-point alignment system. Magic-Users and Elves have to be Chaotic; Clerics have to be Lawful. spells related to good and evil state in their descriptions that they are related to law and chaos, not good and evil, which does raise the question as why the names weren’t changed given this distinction is being made – unless it’s to keep the spells familiar.

The system should be generally familiar to players of OSR games, and much should be familiar, albeit less complex, for players of more modern games. However, this system is even more dangerous than a typical OSR game; players of Pathfinder and similar will probably be shocked by how lethal this game can be, especially given the lack of powerful offensive spells or bringing the dead back to life. There is rather more focus on skills than would be seen in most OSR games, but there aren’t really that many skills and they generally make the Specialist a more useful class, because that class can improve them.

This is perhaps a slightly darker, and definitely more dangerous, Old School system, one that also has the potential to be darker still. Players who rush in thinking they can easily handle combats as they can in D&D and Pathfinder may be sadly disappointed, and their characters will probably die. Making it truly weird will require the Referee to make some effort; this is, in general, a pretty standard framework. Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic Free Version is an interesting OSR system and it can be checked out for free by clicking here.