Arduin's Experience Point System

The Arduin Grimoire is one of those rule sets that is hard to take seriously, and yet hard to dismiss. The Arduin Grimoire, Volume I -- the first of nine Arduin Grimoire volumes -- was introduced in 1977. The series chronicled the gonzo Dungeons and Dragons house-ruling of Dave Hargrave. The Arduin Grimoire is notable not only for its odd fusion of fantasy and sci-fi, and being the first published house-rules for Dungeons and Dragons, but also its early disagreement with the "experience points for gold" system employed in OD&D.

Hargrave had this to say about the awarding of experience points, in Volume I of his Arduin Grimoires:

"In the Arduin Universe, the ability to advance to higher levels is based on earned merit and not on the acquisition of treasure. Therefore, points are given for many reasons, but NOT for gold or other treasure. After all, it is the act of robbery, not the amount stolen, that gives the thief his experience." (page 2)

Hargrave had little to say, in the first Volume of the Arduin Grimoire, about experience for monsters killed. Presumably, he agreed with awarding experience for defeating monsters. However, he did provide an alternate experience points chart to replace the "experience points for gold" system, which I provide, below.

Death (with successful revival), reincarnation, curse changed into another type entity -- 400 xp

Being sole survivor of expedition, acquiring the mightiest of artifacts (Satan's own pitchfork, nuclear weapons, phasers, etc.) -- 375 xp

Defeating in single combat, demi-gods or major demons (above and beyond the normal points) -- 350 xp

Defeating in normal combat, any creature that is four times your size or is 20 hit dice or larger (whichever is greater) -- 325 xp

Acquiring a major artifact (machine gun, explosives, staff of black wizardry, wish rings with 5 or more wishes, etc.) -- 300 xp

Doing spells of tremendous magical import (the conjuring of major demon, using a gate spell, raising the dead fully and the like) -- 275 xp

Being cursed, acquiring a cursed item, dying but being regenerated back to life, using spells of major magical import (astral body, teleporting, prismatic wall, etc) -- 250 xp

Acquiring most staffs, major rods (lordly might), using a single wish, acquiring +5 weapons or armour, and doing heavy magic spells (wind walk, phase door, cure disease, raising the dead, regenerate manna points or limbs, etc) -- 225 xp

Acquiring items that are +4, magic items that are unusual (wands of wizardry, slaver's lash, etc), doing difficult spells like: limited wishes, all psychically draining one like: ESP and the like -- 200 xp

Acquiring +3 items, wands, most rings and amulets, and doing spells such as transmuting rock to mud, monster summoning and the like -- 175 xp

Being point man, acquiring +2 items, lesser rings, amulets, etc, doing spells like dimension door, deactivate traps, polymorph self, and the like -- 150 xp

Acquiring single or limited use items (single shot, spell storing rings, etc), +1 items, doing spells like: wizard eye, or throwing a thunderbolt that kills the B.E.M. just in time to save the party -- 125 xp

Being expedition leader, coming within one point of dying, acquiring potions (100 points per dose), scrolls (100 points per level/use), and for doing spells like: create food and water, mass invisibility, etc -- 100 xp

Being rear guard, doing simple detection spells -- 75 xp

Figuring out a trap, tripping one and taking damage, all lesser spell use (locks, knocks, winds) going over half damage, doing extra dangerous and uncalled for acts (checking for secret places, when you know there are traps, etc -- 50 xp

There's lots that can be said about Dave Hargraves alternate experience points system. At the higher levels, the experience points awards seem meager compared to the risks and accomplishments. 375 experience points for recovering Satan's own pitchfork? 300 experience points for acquiring the staff of black wizardry? Apparently Dave was pretty stingy with his experience awards.

On the other hand, there are some interesting observations here. Giving extra experience to the expedition leader, point man, and rear guard is a good idea. Experience for figuring out a trap -- assuming it was done with "player skill" -- is also appropriate. Experience points for magic spells cast is more problematic for me, since it is a character skill, and players already get experience for monsters killed by magic.

Other than slowing down the awarding of experience, all that the Arduin experience point system has done is to replace experience points for gold with experience points for magical treasure. If one can criticize xp for gold as being unrealistic, would the same criticism not apply to xp for magic items?

2010 WOTC 4E Red Box: A Review

Would it be vain to suggest that the old school community is having a measurable impact on the marketing efforts of Hasbro and Wizards Of The Coast? While its certainly comforting to imagine that the design and distribution of the new 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Essentials Starter Set (4E Red Box) is a reaction to the blossoming of the old school community, it is just as likely that the look of the new 4E Red Box is simply a clever marketing ploy by WOTC, to get those parents who fondly remember D&D to buy a copy of this new D&D game for their kids.

Whatever the reason, the announcement of a new 4E Red Box several months ago provoked old-school and new-school fingers to race furiously across keyboards. Those groups alternately predicted that the 4E Red Box heralded the end of civilization, or a new golden age of role-playing.

Having recently purchased a copy of the 4E Red Box, I thought some might find it useful if I shared my thoughts regarding this product, now that the game is "in-hand."

The 4E Red Box is $20, is 9" x 12" , and is 2" deep, but don't let the depth of the box fool you into thinking you are getting 2" worth of gaming materials. WOTC could have made the box 1" deep and still have provided all the materials in the box. A 1" high, sloped, cardboard boxliner (sloped so the dice fit inside) reduces the interior depth of the box, so the enclosed materials won't flop around. Inside, you will find two 8.5 x 11" booklets (a 32-page players book and a 64-page dungeon masters book), a set of black dice with white numbers, a sheet of cardboard counters representing characters and monsters, a double-sided battlemat, four character record sheets, and several sheets of power cards.

The production quality is top-notch, as one would expect from Wizards of the Coast. The booklet artwork is full-color and bleeds to the edge of the pages. The cardboard character and monster counters feature art typical of 4th Edition D&D. WOTC has recycled the crossroads battlemat, appearing in other 4E products, but the reverse battlemat reveals a dungeon, designed specifically for the 4E Red Box. While only four character sheets are provided with the game, WOTC gives permission to photocopy the character sheets for personal use.

The Players Book is simply a two-column choose-your-own-adventure book consisting of 100 entries (with the manual being 32 pages, that works out to 3 entries per page). In making several adventure decisions, those 100 entries take you through 4th Edition D&D character creation. For example, your first choice, upon being ambushed, is to determine whether you wish to cast a spell, heal a comrade, sneak around the attackers, or confront them in mortal combat. Depending on which choice you make, this determines your starting character class. During three in-book encounters (two combat and one information gathering), you make additional choices about your alignment, starting weapons and equipment, ability scores, healing surges, and powers or spells. Once you finish the Players Book, you are encouraged to gather three or four friends, and have them walk though the included adventure to create their own characters.

There appears to be very little resource management in the 4E D&D. Neither the Players Book nor the Dungeon Masters Book provide any lists of equipment for purchase. Every character is assumed to have all of the materials he or she needs for adventuring (rope, torches, etc.). The resource management in 4E is all in about your hit points, healing surges, and powers.

The 64-page Dungeon Masters Book provides additional encounters and advice on how to run encounters. By the end of the encounters outlined in the Dungeon Masters Book, each of the characters should reach 2nd Level.

Is this boxed set worth $20? If you are interested in playing 4E D&D, and have never played Dungeons and Dragons (or any role-playing game) before, it is, and may be the product for you. But, while the contents of this boxed set are quite nice, if you have played role-playing games before, you don't need to buy this product. The character generation in the Players Book is oversimplified, and you don't need 32 pages and 100 entries to accomplish this exercize. It should take someone, with even a passing familiarity with role-playing games, no more 2-3 minutes to make the choices that might take 15-30 minutes following the examples in the Players Book.

If you are someone who played D&D 20 years ago, and want to get back into the "most recent" version of the game, this product is still probably not for you. Wait for the other more comprehensive D&D Essentials game materials. Understand though, that this is not the D&D you played in the 1980's, or even the D&D you played in the 1990's. 4E is an "encounters-based" game, with experience doled out for completing quests assigned by the referee, battling monsters, and participating in "skill-challenges", where you roll dice against a certain skill, in order to continue the adventure.

Did the 4E Red Box convince me to play 4E? No. It reminded me why I lost interest in 4E to begin with. But that doesn't mean that it is not right for you. If your favorite part of D&D was engaging in combats, participating in heroic quests, and obtaining magic items, and least favorite was role-playing your character, solving puzzles, exploring abandoned ruins, and managing your material resources effectively, then 4E is worth checking out.

BX Companion: A Review

One of my fellow old-school bloggers recently remarked that its feels like a second golden age for Dungeons and Dragons. That comment was made in relation to the explosion of available rulesets, accessories and adventures compatible with early versions of D&D. In some ways, we are now experiencing an embarrassment of riches in the old school community.

One has to look no further, in verifying this observation, than to such newly-published works as James Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, Rogue Games' Shadow, Sword & Spell, or JB's B/X Companion.

While the former two are stand-alone games, JB's B/X Companion is intended to supplement the 1980 Moldvay/Cook Basic and Expert Dungeons and Dragons rulesets, thus provoking the title of this book, the B/X Companion.

When first published in 1980, the B/X D&D rulebooks promised a companion-level supplement would follow. That companion supplement was never published, due to the replacement of the B/X with a 'kiddified' BECMI set of D&D rulebooks. JB has corrected that oversight, by publishing his own version of a companion rulebook.

While ownership of the original B/X rulebooks is not absolutely necessary to get value out of the B/X Companion, it is presumed that a purchaser will also have a compatible basic/expert ruleset, such as Labyrinth Lord or some other similar game, in order to use this book for gaming.

The cover of the B/X Companion, by Brian DeClercq, fits in perfectly with the Moldvay/Cook rulebooks. The three adventurers from the covers of the B/X rulesets are shown, in a fitting homage to the original 1980 Erol Otus covers. The rulebook itself is 64 pages, the same size as the Basic and Expert books, and features 25 excellent interior B&W illustrations by Michael Cote, Kelvin Green, David Larkins and Amos Orion Sterns.


Above is an example of the interior artwork. The illustration is by Michael Cote, showing three adventurers, standing before a bas-relief that reveals a battle between themselves and a one-eyed, tentacled monstrosity. If you enjoy the artwork, above, and the illustrations from the original B/X rulebooks, you're in for a treat with the B/X Companion. The artwork in the B/X Companion captures the same feel as the artwork from the original books. JB was most fortunate to have such a diverse and talented group of artists providing him with illustrations for this rulebook.

The Companion title of this rulebook, refers (of course) to character levels 15-36, since the original B/X rulebooks only covered characters levels from 1-14. In early versions of D&D, high level play was not restricted to combat with larger and more dangerous monsters, although JB covers that ground in the B/X Companion. In addition to those sorts of adventures, the B/X Companion also provides rules for running Dominions, commanding armies and engaging in mass combat, and travelling to other planes.

The rulebook is laid out in a 2-column style, in keeping with the presentation of the original B/X rulebooks, and is well-written. It includes rules for advancement for the various classes, descriptions of high-level magic-user and cleric spells, additional advice on adventuring, new combat rules, along with a mass-combat system, new high-level monsters, additional magic items, dominion creation and management, advice on designing high level adventures, and rules for travelling to other planes.

All that in a scant 64 pages.

Among my favourite parts of this rulebook are the mass combat and monster sections. The mass combat section feels true to the role-playing conventions of Dungeons and Dragons, but also utilizes a wargame system that provides a sufficiently abstract combat resolution, in order to ensure mass-battles do not become bogged down in the minutia of individual combats. The section on monsters provides several novel creatures, such as animals of legend, jubjub bird, and ruinous powers.

At $28, this rulebook is expensive. But for sheer nostalgic bliss, fused with broad applicability to old-school and B/X gaming, the B/X Companion rulebook has few peers.

Doling Out Experience Points

I picked up the new 4E Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set ("4E Red Box") on the weekend. It was my first in-depth look at 4E, and it was illuminating to see just how far Hasbro's 4th Edition D&D game has strayed from the roots of original D&D. Nowhere is that more pronounced than in the doling out of experience points.

I'm a firm believer that systems matter, that rewards matter. The systems of rewards that a game employs sends a message about what is expected of its players. If a game rewards players for staying in character, they will focus on that. If it rewards them for looting ancient treasure-hoards, they will do so. If it rewards them for the completion of quests, they will seek them out. If it rewards players for engaging in combat, they will pursue that activity.

Tom Moldvay had this to say about experience points, in the 1980 Basic D&D rulebook:

"Experience points are given for non-magical treasure and for defeating monsters. For every 1 gp value of non-magical treasure the characters recover, the DM should give 1 XP to the party. Experience points are also given for monsters killed or overcome by magic, fighting or wits. The DM may also award extra XP to characters who deserve them (fighting a dangerous monster alone, or saving the party with a great idea) and less XP to characters who did less than their fair share." (page B22)

"The choices [of treasure] should be made carefully, since most of the experience the characters will get will be from treasure, usually 3/4 or more." (page B46)

B/X D&D allows for the earning of experience through combat, but also permits players to gain the equivalent experience points by overcoming monsters through magic and clever play. However, according to Moldvay, most (3/4 or more) of the experience points are intended to come from the recovery of treasure. Therefore, the main goal of characters is to seek out and recover treasure, and, to a lesser extent, fight monsters and use the player's wits.

Compare this to the new 4E Red Box. If I understand the rules correctly, you obtain experience in 4E by performing two activities: completing encounters and concluding quests. Following the experience point guidelines, in the adventure supplied in the 4E Red Box, the players obtain 80% of their experience from encounters (combat) and 20% from quests. Therefore, the 4E D&D players are expected to do two things: battle monsters, and, to a lesser extent, investigate and resolve the plot-hooks laid out by the DM. And while there is monetary treasure to be had in 4E D&D, i'm not sure what purpose it serves, since the characters get no experience from treasure, and never seem to need money to buy things in 4E.

In B/X D&D, characters get the same experience points, whether they defeat a monster by magic, combat, or clever play. But in the example adventure supplied in the 4E Red Box, if you avoid combat with a White Dragon through clever play (ie. rolling some dice during a skill challenge), you get only 300 xp for the encounter, rather than the 750 xp obtained for defeating the dragon in combat. Therefore, the message to players is that they should engage in combat, rather than role-play an encounter.

It's no wonder, then, that many people, who have played D&D since first edition, express bafflement at the direction the game has taken. It was drilled into our brains, from early on, that combat was dangerous. It was to be avoided if possible, and if it could not be avoided, players made sure they stacked the deck in their favour, prior to the commencement of hostilities. On the other hand, 4E encourages combat, discourages role-playing (since it punishes those who use skill-challenge rather than martial solutions), and rewards players that allow themselves to be led by the nose towards the satisfaction of pre-determined quests.

My FLGS had at least 100 copies of the new 4E Red Box on display over the weekend. Clearly, people are buying, playing, and enjoying, 4E D&D. I wonder if they are aware of, and agree with the system of rewards built into 4E? Is it okay with them that the 4E system explicitly discourages role-playing, rewards combat over all else, and encourages passive acceptance of pre-determined quests?

Anybody Wanna Trade For In The Labyrinth?

It seems I have two copies of The Fantasy Trip - In The Labyrinth, by Metagaming, and a copy of Advanced Wizard, but am missing a copy of Advanced Melee. Anybody out there have an extra copy of Advanced Melee, and would like to trade it for In The Labyrinth?

TFT Adventure: The Crown Of Kings

I've mentioned before that the programmed adventure format was adopted by Metagaming Concepts in 1978 for their The Fantasy Trip line of MicroQuest adventures. That same format was massively popularized in a series of choose-your-own-adventure books from 1979 to 1998.

Dark City Games resurrected The Fantasy Trip rules in 2005, by creating a free retro-clone called Legends of the Ancient World (LotAW). In addition to a fantasy ruleset, two other free rulesets, for science fiction and western adventures, are also available on the DCG website.

Publishing those retro-clone rules allowed Dark City Games to release 19 new MicroQuest adventures, compatible with LotAW.

According to the lore of DCG, The Crown Of Kings adventure was originally submitted to Metagaming some 30 years ago, just as Metagaming was imploding. The Dew brothers, George and Warren, created DCG and LotAW in 2005 in order to publish this, and other adventures, and keep the spirit of The Fantasy Trip alive.

The Crown Of Kings was published in 2005. It is priced at $12.95, and consists of a 44-page booklet, a sheet of cardboard counters representing the characters, monsters and opponents in the adventure, and a playing board used for encounters. The adventure consists of almost 600 paragraph entries, with the players moving from paragraph to paragraph, based on the choices they make at the end of each entry.

The premise of The Crown Of Kings is fairly straightforward. The players have heard rumor that a local warlord is in possession of the legendary Crown of Kings. They decide to break into his castle to steal it.

I must confess, when I read the premise of the adventure, I was hopeful. Surely the Crown of Kings is not simply a crown, I thought, just as the Sphere Of Power from the D&D adventure, The Lost Tomb Of Martek, was something other than a crystal ball. I imagined that the adventure would end with the Players a little wiser, but no richer, having discovered that not all legends are to be taken literally.

Unfortunately, the Crown Of Kings really is a crown, and a magic item to boot. While the adventure is reasonably well written, and features art by Dario Corallo that pleasantly harkens back to the role-playing art of the mid-70's, The Crown Of Kings adventure is a straight-up treasure hunt. There are lots of monsters and opponents to battle, but the authors claim that you can also complete this adventure without having to engage in a single combat.

If you are interested in some light role-playing, or would like to discover what The Fantasy Trip was all about, you may enjoy giving LotAW a chance. DCG has four free adventures available from the website, as well as the free rules. For those who have played some or all of the original MicroQuests, you may want to give The Crown Of Kings or some of the other DCG adventures a try. While this particular adventure seems a little overpriced, at $12.95, some of the other adventures, such as The Dark Vale, are well worth it.

The Fantasy Trip Retroclone

Like so many other great 'old-school' games, The Fantasy Trip (TFT), published by Metagaming Concepts in the late 70's and early 80's, has it's own retro-clone, called Legends of the Ancient World (LotAW, not to be confused with LotFP).

For those few of you that are not familiar with TFT, it began in 1977 with the game Melee, which was the third in a series of "microgames" published by Metagaming. Metagaming's microgames were small, 4" x 7" games that came in a clear pouch or cardboard box, and could be played, generally, over lunch. Melee became so popular, in the day, that it justified a second, related game, Wizards, and then a series of eight pre-programmed MicroQuest adventures, starting with Death Test. The Fantasy Trip system culminated in the publication of a set of three 8x11 saddle-stitched rulebooks, Advanced Melee, Advanced Wizard, and In The Labyrinth.

The demise of Metagaming, microgames, and The Fantasy Trip game is a sad tale, which I won't re-hash here. Fortunately, for those who are still fans of the game, there is a free retro-clone, and several new adventures published by Dark City Games. I have already reviewed two Dark City Games adventures, The Dark Vale and Wolves On The Rhine. Over the weekend, and quite by accident, I came across six more LotAW adventures at The Sentry Box, my FLGS. They included Little Black Book, The Crown Of Kings, The Island Of Lost Spells, and The Sewers Of Redpoint. Stay tuned over the next several days, as I intend to review three of them (Little Black Book is no longer in print, so i'm unlikely to give it a full review).

I'm A Wealthy, Wealthy Man ...

If the Troll And Toad webstore is to be believed, that is. According to the prices on their website, my metagaming and microgame collection is worth several thousand dollars.

To wit:

Ogre ... $70

Chitin:I ... $40

Melee ... $80

Warp War ... $20

Rivets ... $35

Wizard ... $55

Olympica ... $20
G.E.V. ... $30

And on and on and on it goes. Based on the prices Troll And Toad is quoting for those metagaming titles, i've made anywhere from a 5 to 10% annualized return on each of the items in my microgame collection over the last 30 years. Not a bad little investment!

Sadly, after checking out eBay, I've discovered that a punched version of Ogre went for only $16 at auction, rather than the $70 that Troll And Toad is asking. There go my dreams of selling my microgame collection, buying one of the Thousand Islands, and retiring in style.

LotFP Weird Fantasy RPG: Rules Review

In my estimation, Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing is yet more proof that there is still life in the original Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. Within Weird RPG's 48 page rulebook, James Raggi has married the OD&D ruleset with weird tropes and his own particular brand of lunacy, to create a game that feels like OD&D, yet is also vaguely unsettling and unfamiliar.

Right off the bat, Weird RPG re-arranges our familiar six prime abilities and places them in alpha order (Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Strength and Wisdom), making us re-think our assumptions about the relative importance of each ability. Abilities are generated with six 3d6 throws, in ability-order, and Weird RPG employs the traditional B/X ability modifiers, ranging from -3 to +3. Weird RPG considers your character unsuitable for play if the sum of your ability modifiers is less than 0.

Another somewhat unconventional choice: no experience-bonuses for high prime requisites. In fact, no prime requisites at all. While you have the standard four classes (Fighter, Magic User, Cleric and Thief/Specialist) and demi-humans (Dwarf, Elf and Halfling), none appear to need any minimum ability score to be playable. So a Fighter or Dwarf with 8 Strength is possible.

The Fighter (and I presume Dwarf and Elf, though it is not explicitly stated) are the only characters who can improve in combat ability. This is a marked departure from OD&D where all classes improve in combat, albeit at different rates, but one that I do not strongly disagree with, since Fighters in Weird RPG no longer possess the ability to inflict multiple attacks on multiple low-level monsters. This rule change certainly encourages the Clerics and Magic Users to focus on their strength, spell-casting.

The re-imagined Thief, named the Specialist in Weird RPG, uses a novel mechanic to resolve the traditional thief skills. A d6 system has been instituted, with each specialist skill converted to a certain chance in 6 of succeeding at a task, whether it be picking locks, finding traps or climbing walls. As the character advances in level, the players spread an additional 2 pips between all of the specialist skills, gradually increasing them over time.

Weird RPG uses a three alignment system (Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic) but assumes that most characters (other than Magic Users and Elves who both tend towards Chaos) will fall in the Neutral camp.

The Starting Equipment section occasionally slips into Gygaxian excess. For those who want to get on with playing, the Weapons section is mercifully short: most weapons are smartly grouped into four classes, of minor, small, medium and great weapons, with each weapon within the class priced the same and inflicting the same damage. No more min-maxing based on cost and the best damage within a given class! And nine specific weapons possess additional characteristics, with each profiled in its own paragraph. Sadly, the much-maligned d12 is once again left out in the cold, as weapons do anywhere from a d3 to d10 damage.

On the other end of the Gygaxian-excess scale, there are nearly 70 miscellaneous equipment items, 17 unique ship types, 14 food items, and four sizes of tents. Since I am a fan of Gygaxian excess, I felt like Scrooge McDuck rolling around in his vault of treasure when I looked at those item lists. The relative pricing of items is always a tricky business, and depending on how you approach your game economics, you may want to fiddle with Raggi's prices. In Weird RPG, livestock is priced at 50 gp a head, while a riding horse is 15 times that, at 750 gp. A warhorse comes in at 7,500 gp.

Weird RPG has nine pages of adventuring rules, such as opening doors, foraging and hunting, the effects of disease and falling, light and vision, the passage of time, and so on. Some interesting insights and approaches can be found in these pages. Of particular interest to me was Raggi's approach to encumbrance. Rather than tracking weight, you simply track number of items, with each 5 items moving you up to the next level of encumbrance. While i'm not sure that I am completely satisfied with this approach, it is a novel and simple way to handle the issue.

Considering that Weird RPG includes 17 unique ship types, it is only fitting that it should also have its own set of Maritime adventure rules. Finding a way to boilerplate subsystems like maritime adventures and combat to a role-playing game has always been a challenge for RPG designers. Weird RPG provides its own travel, water-bourne chases, combat, damage and boarding rules. I'd be tempted, instead, to find a board or hex-and-chit game and simulate ship-to-ship combats and chases that way, but the maritime rules provided in Wierd RPG will certainly fit the bill.

What better way to pay homage to OD&D, than to include a comprehensive and detailed section on retainers? You will find four pages of rules and information on hiring and using retainers. This is one of my favorite sections of the book, if only because it revels in more Gygaxian excess, with 24 different types of retainers, along with rules for determining their upkeep, maintenance and loyalty.

Weird RPG also includes rules for purchasing and maintaining property and investments. The mechanics are relatively straight-forward, because, let's face it, its more interesting to go adventuring than paying attention to how well your estate is doing.

Finally, we reach the section on Combat. Weird RPG has a very rules-light combat system, but gives you several interesting options, such as pressing (a vigorous attack that costs you AC to employ), holding (waiting to see what the other side does before intervening) and parrying (where you gain an AC bonus but lose any chance of hitting your opponent). I presume your Strength modifier can be used for both a bonus to your chance to hit and added to the damage you inflict on your opponent, but I had difficulty finding the reference to same.

The last page of the Weird RPG rulesbook provides you with instructions on how to complete your character sheet. The instructions are useful, even to old-hands like me, and I marvel at how effectively the character sheet was laid out.

Overall, I am very impressed with the Weird RPG ruleset. I did not find any rules that seemed particularly jarring or out of place: they all seemed to fit together rather well. And the art is in keeping with the weird theme of the game.

Lamentations Of The Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing

I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me in the mailbox on Friday. James Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing game! With my wife away on a business trip for the weekend, i'm only, now, getting a chance to open up the box and have a look at its contents.

Here's the box, which is about the same size as the original OD&D collectors edition boxed set, or the Swords & Wizardry boxed set. Actually, it appears to be about a 1/4" shorter and an 1/8" wider than those OD&D and S&W boxes, presumably to accommodate booklets printed on European A4 or A5 paper, rather than the North American letter or booklet-sized paper.

And here are the Referee and Rules booklets. All of the basic rules you need to play Weird RPG are in the Rules booklet, while the Referee booklet contains advice on running a campaign. For the next printing, James may want to white-line the text at the bottom of front-covers, or print the text in white, to make it easier to read. The box itself is a clamshell style with corner tabs to keep the lid secure, rather than separate box and lid.

The compete contents of the Weird RPG boxed set is pictured above (not pictured is a small pencil and set of mini-dice that also come with this boxed set). The box is crammed full of booklets and materials. There are four booklets (Rules, Referee, Magic and Tutorial) an introductory adventure, sample campaign world, a "recommended reading" booklet, character record sheets, double-sided graph and hex paper, open game licence and adverts for Dragonsfoot and Expeditious Retreat Press. The best recent analogy I can use to describe this boxed set is that it is a weird version of the Swords & Wizardry boxed set, on steroids. At 60 Euros, I paid about twice for the Weird RPG boxed set as I did for the S&W Whitebox set, but i'm getting at least twice the value. I love my S&W boxed sets (I bought two sets, plus several extra Character booklets), but, to give you an example of the additional value, the Character booklet for S&W is 24 pages; the Rules booklet for Weird RFP is twice that, at 48 pages.

Similar to the S&W boxed set, Weird RPG has a separate Magic booklet. I like this publishing choice, as it permits the Referee to decide whether or not the Magic booklet will be available to the players. My choice would be to keep this booklet out of the hands of the players, and thus maintain some mystery regarding how magic operates. The Magic booklet contains all of the standard clerical and magical spells you would find in an old-school RPG: missing is a list and description of illusionist spells, but perhaps James has decided to exclude the illusionist from the Weird RPG game. Again, the word "Magic" at the bottom of the booklet could have been white-lined, to improve legibility.

The addition of a Tutorial booklet is an interesting feature of Weird RPG. It assumes that the game will be marketed to and purchased by those unfamiliar with, or uninitiated into, the world of paper and pencil role playing games. I applaud James' optimism, and hope that Weird RPG does indeed attract new players to the traditional PnP RPG hobby. But this Tutorial booklet is also valuable to those of us who are already well-acquainted with RPGs, as it provides some interesting insight into how James sees the role-playing game process occurring.

The Weird RPG boxed set also included an introductory booklet-sized adventure, Tower of the Stargazer. Stargazer is a 16-page adventure booklet, with a separate, unstapled cover, with the maps printed on the cover's interior, similar to those early TSR modules. While Stargazer is the same number of pages as another excellent introductory adventure, found in the S&W boxed set, The Vile Worm of the Eldritch Oak, Stargazer has 26 detailed locations, while Vile Worm has less than a half-dozen. Stargazer looks like another excellent adventure, in the unique style of James Raggi: this can be a profitable adventure for the cautious and attentive, but not everything in the tower is meant to be touched or taken.

A complete wilderness adventure framework is also provided in the Weird RPG boxed set, and is appropriately entitled Weird New World. Like Stargazer, Weird World had been published as a separate 28-page booklet and unstapled cover, although the cover folds out to reveal a 4-page wilderness map featuring an arctic climate. Weird World is broadly designed in the sandbox style: James Raggi has designed and chronicled a few adventure locations to get you started, but the world is large enough that the Referee and players can participate in a long-running wilderness hex-crawl without ever leaving the map.

Another pleasant surprise: James' version of Appendix N, entitled "recommended reading." Among those appearing on James' list of recommended authors are Clive Barker, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells. Each author receives a detailed biography by a guest biographer.

I can honestly say that this is the closest anyone has come to publishing my dream old-school boxed set. Once I have a chance to delve deeper into the Weird RPG booklets and supplementary material, I will provide some additional comments.