Warlock! (20/11/21)

 

Not entirely sure what put me on to Warlock! in the first place (though I would have got there eventually via the Mud & Blood podcast), apparently it single handedly created the #BOSR hashtag (British OSR), and is a completely understandable reaction by the author to the over-complex mess that is WFRP 4e. 

Warlock! takes the careers and ethos of WFRP and marries them to the simple stats of Fighting Fantasy (via Troika!), so you have simply Stamina, Luck and a bunch of Skills. The key departure from its inspiration is that its d20 based, roll + skill and score over 20 to succeed, with combat being simple opposed tests. Characters are rounded out with some OSR like career specific random details (What you’ve seen, Who you know etc). It makes me wonder if WFRP was a big influence on Electric Bastionland (re random careers and flavour).

If I had discovered this before I bought WFRP 4e I think I would have used this for playing The Enemy Within.

An elegant little detail I like; each career has its eponymous skill, so if you are a Beggar you get the skill Beggar and this is an average of all your career skills (careers are simply defined by their skills, starting possessions and the random details). Your Stamina increases by 1 when your career skill does (which amounts to every 5 improvements in your career skills). I like this clear indication of ‘level’, WFRP 4e does something similar, but nowhere near as clear or satisfying with no actual career skill. There's no explicit guidance on how to use this skill, but even if it was simply just to make money at your career that would be reason enough.

Combat is similar to WFRP but also feels like a cleaner version; damage done to Stamina is considered  just bruising and fatigue, but once Stamina is depleted every hit is a roll on the critical table with negative Stamina as a modifier. Stamina is regained quickly, criticals affect the character and take time to recover from or just outright kill.

All characters can use magic, they simply require the knowledge of spells via scrolls or books (Initiates & Wizards start with one random spell each). An Incantation Skill roll must be succeeded to cast and each spell consumes an amount of stamina whether successful or not. There is also a miscast table.

I just had a quick go at the combat right now, my Beggar equipped with a club vs an unarmoured, short sword wielding goblin. I did the goblin some damage but got butchered; the 2nd critical killed me after 5 or 6 rounds. It felt pretty fast. The attacker in the opposed roll gets a +5, which I was thinking in the case of evenly matched opponents would lend the combatant with  the initiative a big advantage, it didn’t help me too much though. I missed once with my 1d6-1 damage club when the goblin hit with his 1d6 + 3 shortsword. Our skills were matched and my Stamina (17) was almost double that of the Goblin (10), but the disparity in weapon damage was too much. 1d6-1 seems pretty stingy for a club! Also I’m surprised it doesn’t have critical hits on a straight 20, though the fight would have been even shorter then as that was one lucky Goblin.

I’d be tempted to use this for our WFRP campaign if I thought I could get it past the players, though keep WFRP Success Levels and make all weapons do their average damage plus the success level. Hmm.

I bought Warlock! from DriveThru

Lamentations of the Flame Princess (08-08-21)

 

I was very much looking forwards to reading this, having heard many sing it’s praises and listened to a great interview with the author. The presentation of the book is slick and oozes atmosphere. The subtitle is ‘Weird Fantasy Role-Playing’, it can’t be a coincidence that this would have the same acronym as Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, right? I was very hyped for it, to the point of thinking that when I finally get around to playing something this would be a fine contender. The Rules & Magic core book is fairly short, 159 pages, just over a third of which are spell descriptions, I managed to get through it all today (I skipped the spells).

I was, perhaps a bit unfairly, a little disappointed. 

This is an OSR retro clone of B/X D&D set in the late middle ages/early Renaissance, although the setting exists really only in the equipment lists and the fact that there is an appendix on firearms of the period. It feels like a tidied up version of the Basic D&D rules with a hodge-podge bunch of house rules on top, to cover everything from ship combat to property management.

 My single biggest criticism is that I’m not at all sure about the organization of the book, it all feels a bit random (I would have less of an issue if there was an index), and I think the explanation of many of the rules could be clearer, it could do with bolding key terms. There is however no fluff and no explanations of context, the thing is what you can read from the rules and see in the art. I may be being slightly unfair, it’s possible that my knowledge of Basic D&D was getting in the way, like I have an expectation of what should be explained when etc and that could have been fighting with the text.
If I had not listened to that interview with Raggi I wonder if I would have found the inclusion of Dwarf, Elf & Halfling classes weird? I know he only put them there because of expectation, but they feel at odds with the tone, or would they have made me detect a different tone?

The other key thing which sets it apart from its origins is in its spells, well, one spell.

It has the usual D&D, Vancian inspired magic system with all the usual spells; Magic Missile, Cure Light Wounds etc. with one paragraph devoted to each. Then we plunge deep into Lovecraft with Summon, a 1st level spell which runs to 10 pages! A 1st level spell, which as I'd heard from several sources, can destroy a campaign if it goes wrong!

The details of what comes through from the other sides is a hideous concoction of random tables, a bespoke horror with potentially awful powers rather than just a random creature from a subset of the Monster Manual. One possible disastrous outcome is a bit meta; the player who failed swaps roles with the GM until conditions are met for reverting play to normal!

I should note that there are also a whole slew of rule tweaks which evoke a more low fantasy setting; only Fighters hit chances increase with level and there are no damage bonuses due to Strength or Dexterity.

Reading it has not really dampened my desire to try it, although I do feel like it could maybe use an extra class or 2 in place of the non-human ones, and maybe a few extra skills. Oh and possibly a Sanity mechanic.

It and its many amazing modules and source books can be got from the publishers website.