Argumentum ad fireballum

I've been working up a blog post on the subject, but it seems Jukka's beaten me to it. By FOUR YEARS.

"As a discussion about realism in a fantasy setting grows longer, the probability of someone claiming the irrelevance of realism in the presence of magic approaches one."

Here.

Carcosa PDF Updated

The Carcosa PDF has been updated on RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, the LotFP Store, and the Paizo store.

Instead of displaying only as page spreads, it now displays as individual pages.

New Review at Yog-Sothoth's Silver Lodge

Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown are reviewed here!

If you missed it, Grognardia reviewed Carcosa here (57 comments for a review post? whew).

The Carcosa PDF

Eero's going to rejiggle the PDF to display as single pages instead of page spreads. When that's ready the current file will be replaced at RPGNow/DriveThruRPG, the LotFP Webstore, and Paizo. Anyone that's already bought it will be able to re-download at their convenience.

I'll let you know when it's ready.

What's An Orc Baby's Maximum Strength Score?

New official LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing rule:

Anyone offended that WotC would even joke about including sex-differentiated ability score maximums in 5e gets a -1 to their Strength score, and that's after checking that the character's bonuses are sufficient to keep the character.

God forbid that the people in charge of the new edition look back at the history of the game and have a chuckle at some of the unnecessary things that have been included over the years (like FEATS). Or have any chuckles at all, right? THEY MUST BE STONE-FACE SERIOUS.

I can't wait until people see the reprinted AD&D books and see that stuff is actually in there. And lots of tits. And random prostitute tables. And that fucking initiative system, that'll really open up the outrage.

(If they edit all of that stuff out I recommend tearing out the edited pages and mailing them to WotC, demanding proper replacements. Seriously.)

Me, I voted before the poll changed and the only votes I made were to bring back the sex-differentiated ability score maximums, THAC0, weapon speeds, weapon vs AC, and system shock. Why? Because I damn well ignored that shit when I was 10 years old* and would ignore that shit now no matter what's in the book... but the fury that would erupt by their inclusion would be more fun to watch than any gaming could ever be.

Not to mention the poll is pretty irrelevant. Game design is not a checklist, and a good game is more than the sum of its mechanics.

Questions like "Do female dwarves have beards?" and "Do dragonmen exist as part of the basic assumed setting?" are more important than any mechanic. What the world is, the types of places the game assumes you'll be adventuring in, the culture you attempt to create surrounding the game, those are much more important things than any dice stuff. If you screw up your setting and atmosphere then the coolest mechanics on Earth can't save it. You make it come alive for people and make it a place people want to adventure, the shittiest mechanics on Earth won't stop it. (Rifts!)

Fucking hell people.

* I used the to-hit charts and not THAC0 as included in the DMG back then because the multiple 20s in the charts make THAC0 inaccurate.

Podcast MADNESS! LotFP on Jennisodes, Atomic Array, RPG Circus!

The Jennisodes episode with me is here.

The Atomic Array episode with me is here.

The RPG Circus episode with Geoffrey is here.

And don't forget Geoffrey was recently on The Game's the Thing, listen to that here.

Whew.

Now Taking Sponsorships for the Next Two Adventures!

People kept telling me "Try the crowdfunding thing!"

So I am now trying the crowdfunding thing!

Sponsorships for The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time as well as The God that Crawls are open!

Here!

(woops, fixed the wrong word I'd used there :D)

Geoffrey McKinney Interviewed on The Game's the Thing

He talks about Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown.

Link here!

Update: Monolith and The God that Crawls

Works continues on the Monolith but instead of waiting on a few things I'm pushing forward and plan to release another adventure along with it.

So there will be The Monolith from beyond Space and Time, a 32 page adventure for levels 0-∞, with Kenneth Hite writing some for it, and all art by Aeron Alfrey.

There will also be The God that Crawls, an adventure for levels 1-3. I'm talking to the printer tomorrow about physical format specifics but I have the idea that it'll be 16 pages + a pullout section with maps. Jason Rainville will handle all the art for this one.

Monolith can be dropped into any campaign, and while God that Crawls will fit into 95% of campaigns out there, it will have some setting background info you'll need to customize for your home game (it features a church, you'll need to adapt it to a religion in your campaign, that's all).

More details to come, and when I have all the costs and budgets fixed I do believe I'll be doing an IndieGoGo pre-order/fundraiser campaign with all sorts of (hopefully) fun perks.

Both adventures have been played but once all the "for publication" spice has been added I'll be running them online for whoever wants to play.

I hope to have these to press in early April but seeing as this is LotFP just mentioning a deadline guarantees missing it. We'll see. Done when they're done, but shooting for early April print date.

For those of you who submitted adventure pitches and other things, everything's still in my inbox, but when I'm on a roll I really need to stay on that roll. You'll hear from me hopefully soonish.

Don't worry Refs, soon enough you'll get to see the look of wild terror in your players' faces when you tell them "I just got the new Raggi adventures!" It's been awhile.