Free OSR - The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children (LotFP)

The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children was the Free RPG Day offering from LotFP in 2014, written by James Raggi. To call the adventure "quirky" would be an understatement - and a disservice. 

It claims to be for "any level" of characters, but I'd guess from browsing the adventure that levels 2-3 would work fine. It is pure Raggi, but it is solvable. Oh, and disturbing. Very disturbing.

Lamentations' stuff is not for everyone, but if you enjoy the various LotFP releases and this isn't in your collection, the pricing should be very tempting ;)

LotFP’s 2013 Free RPG Day adventure, Better Than Any Man, was banned by many game stores around the world. The adventure was even accused by one participating store as being about “killing children.”

It wasn’t; but people see what they want to see, and because LotFP wants to work with retailers and be a publisher that produces what retailers want to see, we have decided that per that store's wishes, this year's Free RPG Day adventure should be about the killing of children.

Not to worry though—they are freaky crystal-headed children. Inhuman RPG cannon-fodder. ‘Monsters.’ So it’s okay. They deserve it. So you can have fun carving them up. Right?

A LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing adventure for characters of any level. As the title indicates, it is a dungeon crawl.

youtube.com/@TenkarsTavern?sub_confirmation=1

Support The Tavern: tenkarstavern.com/p/support

Free OSR - LotFP Rules & Magic Free Version

Continuing our meandering through our Free OSR resources, we come across LotFP Rules & Magic Free Version. LotFP is one of the better hacks of B/X, and hack it is because little remains of the original, yet it stays true to its heritage. It's free because it is art-free. Grab it if this still needs to be added to your digital bookshelf!

Beyond the veil of reality, beyond the influence of manipulating politicians, greedy merchants, iron-handed clergy, and the broken masses that toil for their benefit, echoes of other realms call to those bold enough, and desperate enough, to escape the oppression of mundane life. Treasure and glory await those courageous enough to wrest it from the darkness. But the danger is great, for lurking in the forgotten shadows are forces far stranger and more perilous than even civilization. The price of freedom might be paid in souls.

LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing presents a sinister and horrific twist on traditional fantasy gaming. Simple enough for a beginner yet meaty enough for the veteran, this game will make all your worst nightmares come true.

This book is a revision of the Rules & Magic book originally found in the LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing boxed set. It contains all the rules needed to play the game.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumble or YouTube - Tenkar

Kickstarter - Creature Feature Quarterly Vol. 13 -for use with- OSE+LotFP

16 monsters for use with Old School Essentials. Lots of lore+Adventure seeds. Paper minis. VTT tokens. #LotFP #OSE #OSR #B/XDnD

I'm a fan of zines in general and have always enjoyed JH Illos various works and illustrations. At some point, I failed to realize that Creature Feature Quarterly had reached Volume 13.

You can grab the Creature Feature Quarterly Volume 13 Kickstarter in PDF for 5 bucks, which is likely a steal, especially if you play or GM via one of the various VTTs. 30 bucks gives you all 13 volumes in PDF. I'll need to see which ones I'm missing, and if its cheaper to grab all 13 or grab single issues on DTRPG.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

LotFP Sale! ALL PDFs $1.25 Each!

James "LotFP" Raggi is running a sale on ALL Lamentations of the Flame Princess releases in PDF over at DTRPG. Looking at the Hottest Titles, I'm reminded that I have a few holes in my Lamentations collection.

The entire LotFP Catalogue is priced at $1.25 each in PDF.

Time to spend some of those "Affiliate Monies" and maybe do some reviews...

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. 

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is Looking for Artists

I was talking with James Raggi last night, and he mentioned that he looking for artists and wondered if I knew any. I figured I'd take it a step further and I asked James to put together a short pitch that I could share here at The Tavern. Below is that pitch. As an aside, every artist I know personally who has worked with James has only mentioned the interactions with professionalism and respect - Tenkar

"It's time to update the Lamentations of the Flame Princess artist files. We publish dark fantasy, horror (cosmic, splatter, all sorts of weirdness), and historical fantasy tabletop RPG books.

If you're an artist, send an email to lotfp@lotfp.com with a link to your portfolio.

We are ready to commission a number of pieces immediately.

If I'm interested in hiring you for the current projects, we will be in touch. If not, your info will be kept on file for possible future projects."

                            James Raggi - LotFP

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. 

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

Guest Poster - James Raggi IV - On Potential Inclusivity/Morality Clauses in RPG Licenses (OGL, ORC, etc)

I woke this morning to a Facebook PM from James, and after I responded he asked if I had the time to read the following text, the script, if you will, of his video planned for today (linked here and below). I read it out loud, so I could get Rach's reaction, and we both agree it was damn near perfect. I told James such, but I insisted that he also share a text version of it, to get it to the widest audience possible. I am honored that James chose The Tavern for this purpose. Tenkar

Hello. My name is James Edward Raggi IV, I am the creator and publisher of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, a tabletop role-playing game.

I'm here to talk to you about declared or possible inclusivity clauses (also referred to as morality clauses, or political exclusion clauses) as part of upcoming game licenses. Specifically, I'm here to tell you why they are a bad idea for creators of the licenses, publishers who will use the licenses, and for the fans and customers of the games using the licenses, even if you agree with all of the positions the clauses would promote.

I know that proponents of inclusivity clauses mean well. They want to create an environment where good people, and good things, can thrive, without the pressures and stresses of having to deal with the bad things, and the bad people.

But things aren't so simple.

If you're not familiar, I recommend you research the Hays code governing motion pictures from 1934 to 1968, and the comics code which governed the comics industry from 1954 to 2011, and the TSR writing guidelines of the 1980s and 1990s in roleplaying. All of those codes were, like inclusivity clauses today, designed to promote what were at the time thought of as good values in creative work, and prevent bad things from being disseminated through the creative work governed by their codes. (for shits and giggles, let's also consider the Book of Erotic Fantasy controversy of 2003 I think it was)

How are any of those codes looked at in hindsight? Do you think they helped progress the art forms they administered? Or did they retard them? Do you think they helped marginalized people find and express their voices? Or did they help to silence them?

Do you really think such a code or clause made today will in the future be judged any differently? Do you? Sure, you might think you're smarter than the people of the past, but what about the people in the future? Is your inclusivity clause going to ultimately be seen as a good thing, when all of these previous efforts to accomplish the same great and good things have failed?

Because there is one complication that will make future perceptions very important. The current controversies and conversations about gaming licenses involve whether licenses are perpetual, whether they are revokable. How are you going to convince people to adopt a new license to invest all their creativity and their business investment and livelihood in, without addressing whether the license is revokable?

And if you do what is largely right now considered the good thing and make your new license irrevokable, then whatever you specify in any inclusivity or morality clause, that's forever. Are you really up to the task of defining that, not even for all time, but even for the next five, ten, twenty years, to be more realistic about it?

You don't know which way the winds are going to blow, not in the halls of power and influence in our culture, and not on the ground amongst the people. The New Deal era gave way to McCarthyism, which gave way to the free love 60s, which gave way to the recessionary and inflationary 70s, which gave way to the Reagan/Thatcher 80s, which gave way to the Clinton years, which gave way to the Bush years, which gave way to the Obama years, which gave way to Trump. Now we're two years into the Biden years. What's next? 

What do you do if Ron DeSantis, with his "stop woke" policies and his "ok groomer" supporters, wins the next US election? What happens to your license and its administration if not only political power, but the cultural zeitgeist becomes more conservative? How would you feel if your inclusivity clauses in your irrevocable licenses are used to protect the sensibilities of the most white, Christian, regressive class, and the majority of your customers support this? Do you really think such a thing is impossible over just a few years time, given the history of the last century? 

And while Wizards of the Coast will have to wholly own their Open Gaming License, this new ORC thing is being put together by a consortium of publishers, and last I heard the plan was that the license would be owned and administered by a third party. So whatever controversies and conflicts arise surrounding that license, it will still forever be associated with the companies and people that created it, but who will not control it. 

You might think that's fine, you're in good with the people who will administer the license... but things change. It doesn't even take a cultural shift. Just imagine some rich person who wants to rid their precious gaming hobby of "wokeness." You don't think there's an Elon Musk type out there willing to burn a fortune to "fix" gaming the way Musk wanted to with Twitter? What happens to your relationships, those connections, when someone is buying companies, buying influence, with millions or even billions of dollars? Do you really think such a thing is impossible, given the history of just this past year?

Do you think the presence of an inclusivity or morality clause in a license is more or less likely to trigger such a situation?

But even without cultural shifts, or billionaires enforcing their will, I believe these clauses will be publicity and administrative nightmares for anyone implementing them.

If you implement these inclusivity/morality clauses, you are setting yourself up to be the arbiter of what exactly is racist. What is sexist. What is transphobic. You get to tell activists "no we don't think that is really racist," or you get to tell publishers to destroy their work because they've done a bad thing. And you get to do that over, and over, and over, and over, forever.

Because these arguments are out there. If you're putting this license together, you've seen the arguments. And obviously if you're wanting to implement such a license, you want to prevent your work from being used to facilitate racism, sexism, transphobia, whatever -isms and -phobias are out there now or will become a thing in the future.

But you know, you absolutely know, that there are people out there who have definitions of these things that are far more expansive than that of the general public. Or more expansive than your personal definition. What are you going to do when these people come to you demanding the cancellation of someone's license? What exactly do you think is going to happen when you say no? You are going to have to say no to these complaints at some point or another, aren't you?

Is this a mess you really want to deal with?

Or what about the other side, the people who will get their licenses cancelled, or will have to go through the hardships of destroying work they believe in and have invested in? You don't think they're going to make noise? You don't think there will be a loud and active community to take their side? What do you do if the good and progressive thing to enforce is contrary to what the larger community thinks is OK?

Are classic conceptions of elves and dwarves and evil orcs and such evidence of white supremacy and bio-essentialism, or are they classic fantasy tropes that all should be able to employ?

You want to own the final say on that controversy?

I don't know what any potential morality clause in ORC would look like as far as administration and appeals processes, but the OGL 1.1 that leaked from Wizards of the Coast states that they have unilateral power to decide such things, but that they are open to being convinced they made a wrong choice based on "community pushback and bad PR." They're inviting twitter mobs to influence them.

Why would anyone think this is a good idea?

And it only gets more complicated the more you look at it.

A lack of diversity in a work is sometimes cited as racist, sexist, etc. all on its own. But writing outside your demographic can be considered insensitive or appropriation. You know this is a thing. And you know by implementing an inclusivity/morality clause, you are inviting people to use you to enforce their thinking on the matter. How much of this do you really think is your job to decide on, for everyone else?

How will your inclusivity clause work for statements or actions outside of the actual products? If someone says something against popular opinion on Twitter, if despicable statements five, ten, twenty years ago are unearthed, if someone takes a picture with a person deeply unpopular with much of the community... what are you going to do when people come to you with this proof of transgression against inclusivity and demand you do something with their license? How do you judge this? And again, is all the blowback from every individual judgment directed at you something that is productive for you to deal with?

What do you do if there's another competing license out there with an inclusivity clause, and they decide to enforce something that you've passed on. Do you want the publicity of not fighting racism etc. as well as your competitor? How do you navigate that without your hand being forced?

What about retroactivity? I'm going to give a ridiculous example but I'm sure you'll get my gist. Let's say some lauded RPG writer goes all Kanye West tomorrow. And they make part of their new Hitler-loving brand their little pet pug dog. Let's say that pugs become the new dogwhistle (if you will) for the bad people class because of it. Sure, you may want to police new instances of pug-related gaming material for your license... but what happens when people start complaining about prior pug material released under your license? Or released not under your license by someone now using your license? How are you going to enforce that, or not enforce that, with a minimum of uproar and headache?

We're starting to get ridiculous now, but the point is there are an infinite number of edge cases for people to get very invested in, and very invested in you, as license manager, being on their side. There is no way for you to maneuver through these controversies in a way that doesn't get their shit all over you. This is what inclusivity clauses will get you.

Again, even if you somehow perfectly craft and word it for today's cultural environment, the only constant about the cultural environment is that it changes.

Nevermind who exactly the person will be that is in charge of making these decisions. I would think nobody in their right mind would want that responsibility once all the edge cases show up in their inbox. And I wouldn't trust anyone who really wants the job.

Would you?

And then there's one final argument, the one that I think will be least sympathetic to the people putting these licenses together, but I think it is a useful practical argument.

Varg Vikernes is the perfect bogeyman for both gaming and heavy metal. He's not an edge case, there is no question that his views and his actions are reprehensible. Yet here he is, in the shadows of two scenes I care very much about. I'm afraid of taking up knitting for fear of finding out he's into it, ya know? But he's published a role-playing game. Can any of you say, off the top of your head, without looking it up, whether or not he used any sort of license in publishing his game? OGL, Creative Commons, Nazi Free-Use License, any damn thing. Do you know?

If you don't know if the actual worst verifiable example has used a license, what in the world is any of this about?

If he has used a license... how has that fact affected anyone? Anyone at all? Is anyone associating him right now with anyone that created or uses that license? Is anyone currently using the OGL somehow bound or associated with anyone else also using the OGL? I don't get the purpose of this at all.

If he hasn't used a license... well, how has that stopped him from doing exactly what he wants to do? Has any victory over racism or racists been won because he is using a different way of rolling the dice in his game than you use in yours? What exactly is trying to be accomplished through an inclusivity license?

So then, to wrap up, I will again state that I expect any inclusivity or moralities clauses will have no practical benefits for anyone implementing or using them, but they will create conflict and controversies.

Are these controversies being connected to your companies, having created these clauses, going to improve the performance of your businesses? Are they going to facilitate a welcoming atmosphere for potential new players or customers, or in convincing new publishers to use the license? Are they going to improve the quality of conversations online? 

Are these controversies going to do anything to protect the people these clauses are in place to protect in the first place?

I think the answer to all of these questions is no.

I think we should leave political and moral questions about creative content to the individual creators to navigate with the public, and not create choke points for some to enforce their views upon others.

Thank you for listening.

And now for a more personal note concerning all of this. This is pure speculation, more imagination, but imagination is what we are supposed to be doing around here, instead of... this license stuff. It isn't out of the realm of possibility that an OGL or potential ORC inclusivity or morals clause becomes widely adopted. What if it became the wide industry standard? Sort of the way ratings dominate the movie and video game industries.

In that way I'm sort of putting myself in the place of EC Comics right before the Comics Code took over. It's not good.

And... let me talk about this book (Blood in the Chocolate). It was released in December 2016, and in the summer of 2017 it won a gold Ennie award. A little ol' Lamentations of the Flame Princess publication won in a public vote over offerings from Chaosium, Pelgrane, and Green Ronin. Holy shit, right?

Three years later, another publisher refuses to enter the ennies because of this win, claiming it's all sorts of bad things. The author of the book even denounced his own award-winning creation. Just last week in January 2023 somebody described it as a Nazi entry point into the hobby. I still think of it the same way I did when it won the award.

You think you're doing the right thing. You think you're going to continue to do so, and you're going to have the good and popular responses to whatever comes.

Well good luck to you. Because I know how fast things can turn.

Be very careful what you set into legal stone.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. 

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

LotFP Has a Selection of Free and PWYW Titles on DTRPG - Reading Material for Our Interview with James Raggi ;)

Earlier tonight the Random Party Generator we had James Raggi IV of Lamentations of the Flame Princess as our special guest. The interview lasted a hair over three hours and felt like less than an hour as we recorded it. James is a great guest.

Snag the LotFP Rules and Ref Book for free, as well as a nice handful of adventures and material at PWYW pricing.

You can watch the interview with James below:

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. 

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

So, Where is that LotFP Referee Book? (Funded October 2013)

This past summer, James Raggi made a personal appeal to the OSR community to bail him out of debt to the Finnish government. Loans were coming due and if James didn't pay them, LotFP would likely cease publication.

Well, the community certainly saved James's bacon (60k euros that were coming due in loans, plus another 30k not as immediate), and James made enough in sales to pay off his debt. But the Referee Book, which hasn't seen an update since February on the Indiegogo page, and will be two years late in January, and funded in October of 2013, is still not scheduled for release:

Just want to thank everyone for a big year here at LotFP. We came really close to total disaster, but you all made sure we live on to fight another day.

But now it's time to advance again. Looks like the next releases won't be to the printer until March or so (five months later than I'd hoped... sigh) and then the release cycle after that... seriously... the Ref book. So I need to conserve resources for all that, but there is much to do between now and then.

I know James feels that backers of the Referee Book are due an update unless he has something concrete, but with the current situation, I think an update would be a kindness that the backers deserve.

Yep, "the media" is requesting an official update ;)

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are the affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, 

or wherever you listen to your podcast collection.

   Don't forget to subscribe to The Tavern's weekly Newsletter! We currently have 162 subscribers.              

 

News - Lamentations of the Flame Princess over 100k in Debt

James Raggi updated the LotFP blog for the first time in three years earlier today. Here is the relevant news:

THE CURRENT SITUATION 

This one is for all the marbles. As you're probably aware, LotFP has gone through a rough patch the past year and a half. 

The tldr is we're about 90,000€ in debt, 60,000€ of which is due in about a month or we're done. And we have so much more to do. 

So if you want LotFP to continue, you need to buy something, preferably a lot of somethings, and very soon, when the new books go on sale. If you don't want LotFP to continue, you don't have to do anything. You're good. 

A more thorough explanation for those who will surely ask:
After a record 2018, webstore sales hit a wall in January 2019 (I assume because of increased Finnish postal costs; November and December 2018 were strong and then *bam*), but we were supposed to have a new US-based webstore opening in the early summer. So I was confident that I was in for a fifth straight year of growth and prosperity, and made plans to take care of that. 

The exact same week the Zak allegations hit in February 2019, I received the last of series of business loans totaling just about 70,000€. These would cover a number of reprints (which sell slowly and thus take more time to recoup their costs, making them very difficult to finance from normal cashflow), and convention expenses for the year. I secured these loans based on the fact that I'd grossed over 250,000€ the previous year, had two new Zak books set to come out in 2019 (not to mention Red & Pleasant Land as one of the reprints), with a few other new books on the schedule as well. 

The fallout from the Zak situation was that his upcoming work, and the Red and Pleasant Land reprint, were canceled. Everything else went into disarray and only one full-fledged (not limited edition) release happened all year, and that was a low-price short adventure. The US fulfillment center fell through and didn't get going until over half a year later than scheduled. 

Even so, convention sales in 2019 were greater than 2018 (and we did one less convention in 2019!), retail distribution sales was about even year-to-year, PDF sales were down a bit... but direct webstore sales were down 80% for the year. And direct sales are where we traditionally make most of our money. Webstore sales plummeting has almost killed the business: Gross sales were in total 40% down, and the profits (AKA my personal income) went from (rough numbers) 45,000€ in 2018 to 3,500€ in 2019. That's not a typo. 

By last fall, I started falling behind in loan payments. By spring this year, just as the world at large was beginning to fall apart due to the pandemic, I started falling behind on royalty payments to the talent. There's only so long I can shuffle money and beg for patience...
And now with the pandemic, conventions for the entire year are gone (conventions accounted for 25% of last year's gross income). Distribution/retail sales (by far the biggest income source last year) were wiped out completely for a time due to shutdowns and at best will be weak for some time to come due to the pandemic. 

And so here we are. Pretty much all of these new items were financed on credit, sparing no expense to make these the best books we could, and it's time for what just might be the last stand. It is my hope that not only can we clear this debt, but we can get a bit of a cash stockpile so we can make sure the next batch of books (and the next, and the next...) are up to LotFP standards of quality and deliver significant royalty payments to their authors. 

It's up to you now. 

Posted by JimLotFP at 12:28 AM 

Then there was this regarding the LotFP Referee Book:

February 2020 Update! 

The big news: So we've got what I'd consider a complete draft in hand. 296,000 words.  

As far as I'm concerned, this is it. Not throwing out large chunks wholesale, deciding entire sections need rewriting from scratch, or any of the other nonsense that has turned this into a hellscape forever project. 

But it will need editing. I'd estimate it's going to lose 10-20% of the word count through this process, because right now it's not tight. There are a few other things that are going to press imminently so those have to be shepherded first, but as of April 1 doing this will be my sole priority. 

After that we'll know what sections need to be shored up, plus the promised supplemental stuff that needs a tight draft prepared first in order to do, and then we start putting together the final layouts.
And the part that will cause trouble saying it out loud rather to the group than replying individually... there have been refund requests. I can't do it. The money simply isn't laying around. Over 7000€ has been spent on the project just the past 14 months, the whole thing is already way over budget, and I'd estimate there's five figures additional expense on the way getting this thing finalized and ready for print... and then there's the print cost which is going to be another five figures.
This has turned into the Homer and I can't see how it'll retail for less than 75€. Maybe significantly more than that (Veins of the Earth is about 100,000 words and that's 368 pages) and now that I see that written down, maybe broken down into multiple books (which you'd all get as backers at no additional cost but shipping). 

So that's not bad for those getting in for 30€ or 38€ books, and we've now got a US fulfillment center so it won't be necessary for those of you around that area to pay shipping from Finland. 

And that's just the main Ref book. Doesn't count the screen, slipcase, or the monster book due. 

It should be quite the exciting end part of the year. 

(I just jinxed it, didn't I...?)

Tavern Chat Podcast episode covering the current situation

YouTube of the same podcast episode (all episodes are available via YouTube)

Classic LotFP Referee Book (Old Grindhouse Edition) is Free to Download

Since it looks like James and Gareth will be dueling to see who can release their overdue, unwritten crowdfunding project first, I thought I'd remind folks that the classic LotFP Referee Book (Old Grindhouse Edition) is free to download.

Might as well remind myself as to why I backed the Indigogo project, as the LotFP Referee Book (Old Grindhouse Edition) is one of the best GM resources available for any edition of The Game. (added to the DTRPG catalog back on April 20th, 2015)

The new printing of the LotFP Referee book is taking way longer than expected (surprise), so with no in-print Referee book the geniuses over at LotFP thought that maybe some sort of Ref information should be available. So here, free of charge, is the Referee book that was included in the Grindhouse set. 

Keep in mind that LotFP is a living game and this PDF here is four eight years old. The next printing of the Ref book will be a complete rewrite and expansion (will be at least three times this size), new layout and graphic design, all new artwork, etc. 

This PDF does include the beginning adventure A Stranger Storm, which will not be reprinted.

Yep, that is an affiliate link above. Yes, this is a free product, but maybe you'll buy something else when you snag this. Bartender needs beer... BADLY! ;)

James Raggi offers an Update on the LotFP Ref Book - Its Not What One Expects

I'm offering this without comment here on the blog. My commentary is offered on the accompanying Tavern Chat podcast episode  

The Grand Plan to Finish This Damn Thing 

OK everyone! ACTUAL NEWS! It took a little longer than planned to get going after Gen Con, but I have a major update. 

I have reached an agreement with a freelancer, Göran Stahl, to be a consultant/taskmaster to get this damn thing done. He is a lifelong RPG fan with knowledge that reaches from the 1974 OD&D boxed set to the latest indie obscurities, he's into horror movies and heavy metal, and he is quite familiar with LotFP. 

We had a long session this week discussing RPG writing and LotFP's approach to it, my personal style and how it is that I work, and how that relates into the hows and whys of this project being so damn delayed. I think we've found a way forward. 

The issue identified, and this is a good chunk of the problem, is that I'm using existing GM guides in the industry as a format guide, and then what I've been attempting to do for years is sit down and attempt to express my ideas in a format that I don't really believe in. That I actively hate when reading it from other games. "If I just come up with the right turns of phrase then it'll all be great!" But there aren't enough genius turns of phrase to make that format any good, and I've known it for a long long time, and that's why I've been writing and trashing so much over these years, never happy with anything. Even when I was making what I thought was major progress over the winter, revisiting that now is sterile as all fuck. 

But when I talk about any of the subjects that the Ref book will contain, I'm a motormouth. I can go on rants about how things should be done, and the failures that occur in games when things aren't done right. There is energy and flow that just dies instantly when I sit down on try to communicate that in written form. 

So I had the idea that I'll just talk about everything that needs to be in the book and record it all. Stahl is onboard, and will act as producer-interviewer-facilitator (his official title will be "Consultant") to the process, and had great ideas about how to go about the whole thing. Our meeting made me have dreams that the final product will be to regular RPG GM books as METAL's Reborn Through Hate issue, or ISTEN's Mädchen issue are to the usual music magazine format... 

I know that referencing metal fanzines from 1997 and 2001 means exactly zero of you know what I'm talking about, but that's kind of the point. The presentation of this book can not be the same old presentation that's always been used, or it will never get done. With the added bonus that if it's done right, it'll be on its own an engaging read and be a valuable addition to the RPG canon. 

So I'm basically going to ghostwrite my own book. He'll prepare his questions and bullet points, and I'll have my own notes and bullet points from all the work I've already done. When we have the recordings, I will hire someone to transcribe them. Then I will work with an editor (maybe this will be Stahl, maybe it won't) to determine how much verbal cruft needs to be taken out to make everything readable, and whether the conversational format serves the book. If not, we edit it down to something that does, and how that's done may change section to section. Whatever best communicates what needs to be communicated at the moment. 

The key at this point is that everything going forward is collaborative and not just people waiting for me to get something done alone in front of my computer. 

I will be traveling to Stahl's location for the first two sessions next week. After we see how those go, we'll figure out the schedule moving forward. When he's available, I'm available, until we're done. 

I'll update at the end of next week on how things went.

Raggi is Such a Shock Jock! I'm so Shocked!

Wait, that's right - all the radio shock jocks are either off the air or no longer shocking. This is simply bad taste, but that IS Raggi's schtick:

Jeans, striped shirts, ballcaps, modern bikes - he doesn't even try to make the effort to have it fit his default setting. Because why make the effort when you can be "shocking".

I long for the days when Raggi was putting out usable stuff, like The Grinding Gear.

Ah well, I'm guessing this was one of his many inspirations:

Tip of the hat to Taverner Thad :)

Oh My! Crowdfunding Update from LotFP / James Raggi (Ref Book)

James Raggi offers an update on the LotFP Weird Fantasy Ref Book. Presenting without comment. I'll leave commentary on the Tavern Chat Podcast side ;)

Update and Plan Going Forward

'allo all...

Update on this dumpster fire is that after good progress over the winter, everything came to a dead-ass halt as of February 11, which started an avalanche of crud which I'm still getting myself out from. I've had new releases that were delivered to me in April that haven't even been put up on the webstore as of yet, to give an idea.

Catching up on all the stuff that has been left hanging all spring is going to run into Ropecon and Gen Con coming up on consecutive weekends starting the end of this month. (this is "pay the rent" sort of stuff, not "I want to procrastinate on the project I should be working on to do this other project instead.") But then we're into frickin August 2019 and that's completely horrible for the matter at hand here.

So here is the plan forward to get this shit done:

Starting the week after Gen Con, not the week of the 4th because nothing is going to get done that week doing the intercontinental traveling after 2 straight weeks of cons, but the week of the 11th, I am going to do weekly updates all about the Ref book and where I am and tracking progress until my part of this shit is DONE. These probably will be in video form as rambling on verbally will take less time than rambling on in type.

Once that is done, then I will deal with the issue of the "commentary" bits that were to have been written by people now in the naughty corner. These consultations will be done only with the people that actually paid for them. This is going to be the high-stress stuff I think and I'm not dealing with it until after I've shuffled my portion off to the editor.

After that I'll be finishing up the coordination of some third-party writing I contracted out (a starting adventure setting) and after that it's just waiting for layout to get done. I have a full-time layout person on salary so there won't be undue delay there. (I do have over 60 pages of art ready to go for the book, but I'm sure there will need to be some extra fill-in stuff to plug layout holes.)

So see you next month...

-
Jim

James Raggi / LotFP Cancels All of Zak Smith's Upcoming Work

You can read the original post on Facebook (sharing without comment)

LotFP: RPG
5 hrs ·
'allo all... 

Jim here. Let's get this over with.

Do note that I have been advised by legal counsel to not comment about the content of statements released by various parties involved in the current situation. 

Similarly, I have been advised by legal counsel that LotFP is responsible for the comments left on our pages, so we will have to be heavy-handed moderating comments about this matter. There's a whole internet out there for you to express your unfiltered opinions, please respect our situation concerning this matter in our spaces. 

(thank fucking christ for lawyers, eh?) 

And something I would have thought could go without saying, but I have been advised to go ahead and state: Lamentations of the Flame Princess publications are purely fiction. There are many things our books portray imaginatively that are absolutely unacceptable in reality, including all forms of violence, which also includes sexual harassment and assault. Keep the bad things in make-believe, and the good in reality. 

And now on to the business at hand: 

1. All of Zak Smith's upcoming work with LotFP is canceled. We are not destroying stock or erasing things that have already been published (there isn't anything on this Earth that would make me a book burner), but should current stocks sell out, they will not be reprinted. 

Breaking this out, and clarifying the grey areas: 

2. Zak's financial interest is in Vornheim, Red & Pleasant Land, and Frostbitten & Mutilated, and that's it. He is not and has never been LotFP management and doesn't make decisions concerning books that he's not specifically credited on, and he doesn't have further financial involvement in the company beyond royalties from sales of just these three books. 

3. Zak had some time ago received considerable advances for two new books. One was in quite late stages of development and was planned to be released in April, and we had been preparing another printing of Red & Pleasant Land. These of course are not moving forward. Zak's Ref book contributions will also not be happening. I think that's all that was on his docket for us, but if I've missed mentioning anything here, they're still canceled. 

4. A new printing of Death Frost Doom, that has a considerable amount of Zak's work, is already at the printer and there's not much to be done about that. At this point I'm getting charged a near five-figure printing bill whether they deliver the books or send them straight in the landfill, and I'm not sending them to the landfill. His work on this one was done and paid for in early 2014 and he does not receive any royalties from sales of this book. 

5. Zak is credited as editor of Veins of the Earth but the writing there is all Patrick. Zak's involvement in that project ended in 2015 and he was paid his fee at that time, and he does not receive any royalties from sales of this book. 

6. We've got two full-time (including myself) employees and one part-time employee (who doesn't have another job), and investments in literally dozens of other Zak-free projects in various stages of completion. Many people are making royalties off of books that have nothing to do with Zak. Some people already have bailed from their upcoming projects. Some might still. But I plan on fulfilling all my current obligations and continuing to release for a long time to come a lot of things that uphold the LotFP standards of quality, intensity, and pure "What the hell were they thinking?" 

And now a personal note... 

I've talked to a lot of people this past week, people with different perspectives, from the deeply affected to my printer representative who doesn't know anybody involved. People who had all sorts of opinions on the matter, some favoring one side, some favoring the other. People I agreed with, and people I disagreed with. 

You know what they all had in common? They were bummed out. They recognized this was a tragedy from top to bottom. Even the people who agreed with my course of action here, hell, even someone that thought I wasn't going far enough, recognized what we were losing, even while they said we needed to lose it. 

But there are other people out there. People who don't think this is a tragic situation. There are people out there thrilled about how things have turned out. They're going to tell you they were right all along about things. And they'll be most helpful suggesting all the things that still need to be done.
You all need to keep your eyes out for these snakes slithering among us, feigning compassion when they once spat only cruelty, loving what this has done to us, ready to take advantage of the situation for themselves and further erode what we've all collectively built as a creative community. 

Don't let them. 

And one last thing. I'd like to thank Zak for all the work and support over the years. I am absolutely crushed that we cannot continue to collaborate.

Indiegogo - With a 5 Year, 3 Month Window to Complete on Time, the LOTFP Weird Fantasy Referee Book is Late

Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it? The LotFP Weird Fantasy Referee Book funded on October 17, 2013 and James Raggi gave himself a due date of January 2019. Five years and three months time. And still, he has failed to deliver on time.

Why January 2019? Here's James in his own words:

Being honest... a great many crowdfunding campaigns greatly underestimate the time it takes to get the projects together and to the backers and end up being late. LotFP still has some stuff outstanding that's past deadline. Guessing a "real" date seems like a losing proposition. 

Because there is no real deadline for the book. 

But the Ref book is essential to LotFP as a game and as a business, and the company is basically in neutral gear until it's done. So it's in everyone's interest to get it done in as timely manner as possible. And we will do our best not to drag our butts. But we won't cut corners. 

Layout for the Rules & Magic book took longer than expected, but the same template will be used for this book so who knows how that will affect things. We might hit some of the stretch goals that affect the book's content (more art, color layout, developmental editing), and those will add unknown amounts of time to the project. Someone pointed out in the run-up to this campaign that "You mean if 50 people add on commentary by Zak, he's going to write 5000 words?" and if that happens to one (or more...! One can dream...) of the commentators, that might add more time in. 

While all of these things add time to the project, they also make the book better. And I hope they happen and will push for them to happen, but at the end of the day the people doing most of this stuff are freelancers who will need to fit this book into their schedules at the time it's ready for them. 

So the actual delivery date is "When it's done." That isn't an option to enter into IndieGoGo for a delivery date though, and any reasonable guess is still pretty much blindly throwing darts. So why not January 2019 and poke fun at myself and others who have failed to correctly divine past completion dates? 

So... You either want the book, or you don't. You either trust that it'll get done, or you don't. 

If you don't want the book or don't trust that it'll get done, then backing this project is a bad idea no matter what date we stamp on it. 

If you do want the book and do trust that it'll get done, we've put together some incentives to get you to back now instead of waiting until it's properly released.
It's up to you to decide whether those incentives are effective.

Five plus years is a long time to develop any project. Earlier tonight, Ken Hite stated: "I will, however, not work with Zak on any future projects, knowingly share a credits page with him on any future projects, or increase his social media reach." That's going to be an interesting conflict.

Last update on the project's page was in July of 2018.

I see on the comments section that the requests for refunds have begun.

Maybe, just maybe, an update would be in order...

LotFP Book "She Bleeds" Allegedly Destroyed by Warehouse over Subject Matter

Destroying books is never a good thing. Destroying books over subject matter? Even less.

She Bleeds was a Gen Con exclusive if I recall correctly. It seems to be even more exclusive now.

Now, my questions are - who owned the books when they were destroyed? Was it Raggi? Was it a distributor? Were they destroyed because they were unsold exclusives?

I suspect there is more to this story then meets the eye.

edit: latest from Elizabeth:

First off, thanks everyone so much for the support. The support and kind words makes me very proud to be part of the rpg community. Lots of people have been asking about the name of the warehouse - at this moment I don't know the name and am speaking to my publisher about this. If I do get a name (and can share it) I will with the people who asked. However, I'm tempering this decision with the fact that I don't want the person who reported this to get in trouble and also want to make sure I know all the facts before acting. Thanks for your understanding

edit: podcast follow up:

https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E201---Zero-or-More-Copies-of-She-Bleeds-are-Allegedly-Destroyed---But-No-Details-as-to-By-Who-e2me5f

edit to the edit: Raggi Follow Up:

Indigogo - LotFP Hardcover Referee Book - Last Update was 13 Months Ago, and it Wasn't a Feel Good One

I knew that the LotFP Hardcover Referee Book Indigogo project was going to be long in the tooth, but no update in 13 months (and the last update basically saying "I never should have crowdfunded this") is not a positive sign.

In any case, for those that missed +James Raggi 's last update on this project, here it is:

Yeah, 4 years now.

Edit: Hate to say it, but I really no longer have a use for this, having moved on.

Bundle of Holding - Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Say what you want about the Lamentations of the Flame Princess releases (and much has been said) but the quality of the art of the strength of the writing is top of the line. Usability? That's a whole other question and depends on the title.

Carcosa and Isle & Dungeon of the Unknown are very strong, if off kilter, sandboxes. Death Frost Doom 2e has always reminded me of a survivable (strange to say that about LotFP) Tomb of Horrors. Blood in the Chocolate is disturbing as all hell. The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time is a useless party fuck IMHO and Lamentations of the Flame Princess - The core ruleset. You get the above for $14.95

As for the Appalling Bonus Collection, this is a much stronger collection. I have nothing but good stuff to say about the choices and if nothing else your reading will be enjoyable. How much will be usable in your campaign will depend on you but lots of ideas to borrow and steal. My two favorites picks from this batch are worth the price of admission on their own - Broodmother Skyfortress and Towers Two.  These are simply amazing examples of great adventures to inspire the DM. Currently priced just short of $27 for the bonus collection.

Mini Review - Broodmother SkyFortress (LotFP)

Look, I have this habit. Its a bad one. I generally pick up all of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess releases even if I know I'd never run them. Fun to read. Total party killers by nature, at least for the past couple of years. Maybe that's too broad a statement, as the party killing aspect is certainly a +James Raggi feature, but its not always as strong when he hires other authors.

Still, unusable or not, LotFP releases are always top notch in presentation, art and readability. Broodmother SkyFortress is no exception to that, except it is an exception. Not only is it playable but its a great resource beyond the adventure presented within. How did that happen? Simple. +Jeff Rients .

Jeff gives us an adventure that might not be world shaking, but is certainly a major campaign event that your players should want to stop. And yes, you need a campaign world, because terror, death and destruction falling upon towns and cities your players have connections to just makes the adventure stronger.

I really like Jeff's approach to Broodmother SkyFortress - tight enough that the storyline is easy to follow, loose enough that you can flex it to the needs of your players / campaign world. That is always a trick, as most adventures are written for a certain campaign world and setting, even if that is never actually said in the adventure.

In a way, its an Adventure Toolkit with a set theme. There is no "this is how this plays out." Jeff asks questions. You provide the answers. No two groups will see this play out the same way.

Can the location withstand attack by giantish bludgeons and hurled boulders? 

Will it be completely smashed or mostly damaged or relatively unscathed?

Charts are the core of this adventure. Heck, there is so much here that you could easily use the charts provided to seed other adventures down the line.

I can see the build up to this adventure take months of real life, weekly gaming, before the players know what's going on and how they can try to stop it. Its like fishing, and with enough play in the fishing line your party should get hooked and hooked well.

As an aside, although written for LotFP WF, Bloodmother SkyFortress is easily run with any of the OSR rulesets in circulation. Play what you want, how you want to. Its what the OSR is all about.

Beyond the adventure, which is the first 90 or so pages, we have 80 or so pages of tables and articles from Jeff's blog, going back years. It really is a "Best of Jeff" selection and is well worth the price of admission on its own and I don't say that lightly. Sure, you could read through Jeff's blog and read through years of excellent posts or just grab Broodmother SkyFortress and have the cream skimmed for you, ready for you to consume, or read.

I'm a backer of this crowdfunded project. Money in, amazing content given in return. I am happy.

On that note, I will leave you with this:

Remember, all purchases using The Tavern's OBS affiliate links puts 5% of your purchase price into The Tavern's coffers. Don't leave that money on the table for the greedy corps! Tip your barman!  ;)