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Incline OSR Games - Official thread

Blaza

Educated
Joined
Jul 16, 2019
Messages
58
Another update on Basic Fantasy RPG with Pathfinder players: We ran a one shot in person this game day due to missing one of our group, and they really enjoyed it. Everyone wound up playing elves, one a magic-user and the more mechanics focused players played fighter/magic-users since "It's a one shot, we're starting at level 3 so there's no reason to not play a fighter/magic-user". They found the dungeon crawl aspect fine, they wanted more social stuff. But I was running an adventure path (my first time running one) and wanted to get through it for the other one shot scheduled.

What sealed the deal was them realizing "Save or Suck" applies to the monsters too. They ended up fighting 7 Stirges in a cage and one of the fighter/magic-users used Web to trap the stirges and themselves in the cage, realizing they had the Str to move through the web.

They've also expressed interest in kingdom management, so I am going to buy Adventurer, Conqueror, King and staple the kingdom management onto Basic Fantasy and probably do some more homebrewing to give some complexity to the advanced players while attempting to keep it simple for our newer ones.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,335
How's Troika as a system?

Seems good for a one off or back up game to run if not enough can show up for a game night.
 

Melan

Arcane
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Messages
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Location
Civitas Quinque Ecclesiae, Hungary
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. I helped put crap in Monomyth
It is very nicely illustrated, and has some neat imagination to the character types, but the system is empty. It is so bare-bones that it has no mechanical depth to it, and there is little to do there other than basic combat and ability checks. In this ultralight category, it works as well as any other similar system (except Into the ODD, which actually stands out well), but don't expect it to do much lifting for you. As for the stuff around the system, it is an artsy mishmash of bizarro character types that's almost like Oz (here is a talking lion! and a scarecrow! and a tin man! and a little girl from Kansas with a cute puppy!) in its incoherence. It is made from throwing together random ideas without building interesting connecting material to link them. It is incoherent.

I will also add, just on the side, that the Troika! community by and large consists of utterly awful Twitter SJWs. The creator is OK, as far as I know, but hoo boy are the fans assholes.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
16,831
Location
Frostfell
Guys, I really wanna get into Lamentations of the Flame princess or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Where is the best way to find a group to play it?
 

SoupNazi

Guest
Guys, I really wanna get into Lamentations of the Flame princess or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Where is the best way to find a group to play it?
I recommend checking the Codex' own Playground
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,151
Guys, I really wanna get into Lamentations of the Flame princess or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Where is the best way to find a group to play it?
The unofficial discord server for lotfp is a good start. Or the Official facebook group.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
16,831
Location
Frostfell
Guys, I really wanna get into Lamentations of the Flame princess or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Where is the best way to find a group to play it?
I would never play with strangers, especially in this day and age.

Why not?

Anyway, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea seems amazing. Cryomancer in that game seems amazing. The martial combat seems to have way more depth than "i attack". For example, flails can ignore the shield AC bonus. Resurrection reduces your CON by one permanently. Rules for fightning large sea creatures. So much great things.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,335
On that topic how is AS & SH / Hyperborea's world setting?

Good for milling ideas from or good enough to play a full campaign set in it?
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
4,090
On that topic how is AS & SH / Hyperborea's world setting?

Good for milling ideas from or good enough to play a full campaign set in it?
I think the setting is by far the best thing about the system/game. It's sketched in to the level that I like; which is high enough level that it gives me lots of ideas and inspiration (similar to the Old Greyhawk Gazetteer and boxed set), but isn't so in the weeds that I feel like I'm going to get quoted chapter and verse by some obnoxious player who has a boner for learning a setting's "lore" (ala Forgotten Realms in the past 20 yeears).
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,335
I fully admit there was not much point in getting it since I already had the first edition books but OSRIC's print copy is pretty stellar.

Yes it is much more useful as a pdf for a quick ctrl-f if your looking something up during a game since that's quicker but I figured I should throw those guys some dollars for their work.

It has been nice when typing up a adventure and filling it out to have the book on the side instead of yet another pdf on my ever shrinking screen space. My only wish is that it had ribbon book marks but $26 bucks for a hardback over 300 pages and great print quality was a easy purchase.

However don't know how you can order a copy currently of the Black Blade version which is the one I bought. When I ordered it their website was super jankey and broken so they had instructions to email a person with a order request and paypal him the money first. Like he was a nice guy and I got the book so all good. Currently however their website is down so maybe they're fixing that?
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Messages
1,006
Since the mods here are too lazy to move a few posts around it is up to us to start the official OSR threat.

Here's how it all began:

So let me summarize it all...

AD&D is for smug elitists
3/3.5 is for munchkin scum
4 is for retards and 5 is for homos

And I suppose 1st edition is for grandpas (almost literally at this point).

Am I even allowed to play D&D? What are currently the alternatives? I gotta admit I do like the art of 5. Even though its still behind 3.5 in that regard.


Max Heap

Call of Cthulhu.

But if you want D&D-like stuff try some of the OSR clones. They are usually cheap and easy to pick up and play. I recommend:

Swords and Wizardry - for a smooth like butter OD&D experience. It has race and class separated, and it has most of the classes that you might be familiar with from the IE games. The combat is phase based. It has rules for both ascending and descending armor class. Only one saving throw. Monsters are super easy to create. Nice and smooth like I said. The PDF is free. About 130 of rules. It has good support.

Basic Fantasy RPG - Another OD&D clone. Separate race and class, but the book only contains the four basic classes, but there are free supplements if you want more. 3 saving throws. It's pretty much like S&W at the end of the day. All the PDF's for it are free, but if you want to own a physical copy it will only cost you $5 !!!!! and the rest of its supplements are even cheaper. Instead of wasting $90 or what the fuck all 3 5e books cost, spend ~$20-30 on BFRPG books and you are set for life. About 150 pages of rules. Lots of support for it.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess - Yep, another OD&D clone, but slightly more thematic. Actually the rules are setting-neutral but the writing style and the artwork reminds one of weird fantasy, something like Lovecraft meets D&D. It has race as class, so elf, dwarf and halfling are classes onto themselves. Ascending armor class. It also comes with an interesting slot based encumbrance system that should be considered being added to any D&D type game IMO. The support is great, with some really, really interesting supplements. For example there's a supplement called Veins of the Earth which deals with underdark-type environments, its denizens, layout and stuff like that. Anyone running underground adventures should look into it and steal from it as much as possible. The PDF is free (without artwork). Again a short book at just about 150 pages. There's also a spoof spin-off title named Machinations of the Space Princess for your Buck Rogers/Roger Wilco campaigns. I have that downloaded but I haven't read it yet, just the first few pages. From what I've read it seems wacky as hell.

And last but not least Dungeon Crawl Classics - Technically this is not a retro clone. Mechanically speaking it is a very modified d20 game, but it has some of the trappings of older editions, for example it has race as class. The armor class is ascending, it has 3 saving throws, bla bla bla. The game emphasizes gonzo and wackiness. For example when you generate you character you start out as a level 0 schmuck with 1d4 hp which can be anything from a radish farmer, beggar, money lender or scrub. Each player generates multiple characters and then the whole party goes through what is called a funnel, a level 0 adventure from which only the strongest will survive. Those that do graduate to level 1. Congratulations. Magic is vancian but with a unique twist: you always roll to cast a spell. The better you roll the stronger the effect of the spell and you don't lose it. If you roll poorly you lose it for the day and if you roll a 1 bad things happen. Your fireball can explode into your face, the strength spell weakens instead and so on. It can also corrupt you, draining your attributes, giving you disabilities, cursing you etc. Cleric spells work similarly. If you roll a 1 your god is pissed with you and asks for atonement. The game is a bit more complex than the other systems that I've mentioned , but this is mostly due to its heavy reliance on charts (for spells, for critical hits and failure, etc.). It's NOT a number crunching game however. Just as with all the system that I've mentioned you really can't powergame since everything is rolled randomly at character creation. The tome is massive at 450 pages but most of it is tables for spells and other stuff. There's a post apocalyptic knock off called Mutant Crawl Classics that I am dying to try out. The rest of the support for it is also awesome. There are some really good modules such as Purple Planet which evokes a Might and Magic feel with it's mix of fantasy and sci-fi. Oh, it also uses some "funky" dice like the d7, d24 or d30 but they are easily simulated with "regular" dice.

What I like about these is that they are easy to read (being short, except for DCC), contain PHB, DMG and MM all in one neat little package, are easy to learn and to teach to others, and quick to run and play. If you want complexity then these are probably not for you but if you like old school then give OSR a try. There's tons and tons of OD&D and AD&D clones out there, so there's something for everyone.

Here's a cool vid on the subject:



Talk about your favorite OSR systems.

So I recently fell in love with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It wanks off my specific love of DnD as a grimdark fantasy. I bought the rules and the book is gorgeous. But dear lord someone please tell me what the fuck happened to this game? I checked the supplements and it all looks like the wokest of garbage. Embarrassing books about (of all things) vaginal magic, things that make FATAL look coherent. Seriously, what the fuuuuuck happened? Please tell me.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 20, 2018
Messages
1,006
vaginal magic?
iu


I hate this. They replaced all the gorgeously macabre art with photos of ugly bulldykes. I don't want IRL in my RPGs. I want epic fantasy, stylised images, people fighting dragons or goblins or just being heroic and not an ugly whore looking smug whilst pointing at her vagina as if that is important to RPGs.
 

Grauken

Codex made me Woke
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
13,004
vaginal magic?
iu


I hate this. They replaced all the gorgeously macabre art with photos of ugly bulldykes. I don't want IRL in my RPGs. I want epic fantasy, stylised images, people fighting dragons or goblins or just being heroic and not an ugly whore looking smug whilst pointing at her vagina as if that is important to RPGs.

would be interesting to compare sales from before and after the change
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,151
vaginal magic?
iu


I hate this. They replaced all the gorgeously macabre art with photos of ugly bulldykes. I don't want IRL in my RPGs. I want epic fantasy, stylised images, people fighting dragons or goblins or just being heroic and not an ugly whore looking smug whilst pointing at her vagina as if that is important to RPGs.
I like vaginas in my whores. Mainly in the ugly ones.
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
4,090
VaM was a"RPG Day" give-away, so if you went to a brick and mortar game store you could get one gratis. I imagine it was a helluva lot cheaper to take a pic of his girlfriend in her RenFaire getup than it was to commission a Yannick Bouchard cover? (though some of the interior plates are quite good and could have easily been repurposed for the cover). FWIW, that's really the only cover in the entire catalog that uses a photo (unless something new has come out that I don't know about).

As for sales, LotFP has definitely taken some hits in the last couple of years, particularly when Raggi cut ties with Zak S. who was the author of most of the best selling supplements in the game line. I know I got an e-mail about a year and half ago basically saying "buy something from the webstore, or we're gonna have to close it all down." Sadly, I think the game has kind of hit and passed its peak. The GM's guide has never been finished after almost 7 years after its IndieGogo campaign, most of Raggi's brightest collaborators have moved on, or are no longer producing things for the game, and the 2nd ed. of LotFP seems to be going nowhere. Them's the breaks; nothing lasts forever.
 

Melan

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
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Civitas Quinque Ecclesiae, Hungary
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. I helped put crap in Monomyth
This was years ago, and there is a cautionary tale there that, I think, is worth telling.

Here is how it goes:
  1. In the early 2010s, James Raggi established himself as not just an author, but publisher of OSR materials. One of these books, written by a guy called Zak Sexman, became a runaway hit. James would henceforth divide his attentions between his own writings (the grimdark LotFP RPG, LotFP modules, and some never-ever projects) and acting as a publisher for innovative, edgy, weird supplements. He had crazy ideas like running an 14 parallel crowdfunding campaigns for 14 modules, trying to publish an AD&D adventure by GWAR's David Brockie (who died before finishing), doing the balls-to-the-walls crazy Veins of the Earth, and so on.
  2. James, a very generous guy and an outspoken, very principled liberal / free speech advocate, helped numerous fringe/arty people by publishing and promoting their projects. He had very generous terms by game industry standards, including ownership and rates. He had a large, enthusiastic fanbase that would help these creators win industry awards - LotFP fans could easily steamroll ENnies voting by coordinating their votes on their nominee. The LotFP style was very punk, very avant-garde, and received a lot of positive coverage beyond hobby venues (general "geek" sites like Kotaku and the like).
  3. Around that time, the "OSR", which was mainly active on Google+ at the time, picked up a bunch of new fans, coming specifically for the artsy stuff. Now this was a new, "diverse" set of people including dangerhairs, lotsa people with - how to put it - weird sexualities, and of course very lefty politics. In a classic case of gentrification, they liked what they saw, and decided to claim the place as their own. The rainbow flag was planted on the shores of a new, exciting, buzzing creative neighbourhood.
  4. Following "voices" pushing to make game writing more diverse, James made an honest-to-God effort to put his money where his mouth is, and hire people from Muh Marginalised Communities for a bunch of game projects. This would eventually get him fucked in the ass. (Around the same time, Frog God Games also experimented with an all-female edition of Swords & Wizardry, spearheaded by Stacy Dellorfano, whom they hired as a staffer. SPOILERS: They also got fucked in the ass.)
  5. James published a bunch of these creators who were LGBTQ, queer, PoC, or just weird activist people. This is where Vaginas Are Magic and its ilk come from. He hired various dangerhairs to do his layout, run his operations, do the sales at con booths, and so on. No person that I know of has been as generous to this disgusting rabble as him.
  6. ENTIRELY SURPRISINGLY, the motherfuckers ended up stabbing James in the back. I think the initial spark was in a late 2018 Google Plus thread (G+ is no longer available, and while I screenshotted some of it, I am on vacation on a laptop, so no evidence), where James voiced the unacceptable opinion that perhaps you should not punch nazis, and everyone has the right to free speech. In that thread, he was viciously ganged up on by the people he had championed, paid generously, wined and dined, and helped to industry awards. Cowards like Kiel Chenier (ENnies winner for a disgusting sexual fetish adventure he would later disavow in a tearful apology), Zak Sexman (multiple ENnies winner, later #metooed by his GF) joined in on the attack for social media points. Communist scum like John Bell (Retired Adventurer / Pseudoephedrine) would come out of the woodwork, advocating to destroy James's business for being "a landlord" and "an oppressor". In a single thread, the progressive wing of the OSR tore their greatest ally into shreds and spat in his face.
  7. Yes, in true scorpion style, this destroyed one of the friendly publishers these diversity motherfuckers had at their disposal. Of course, they didn't give a damn.
  8. James never really recovered, I think - and his business was badly hit by Zak's cancellation (since his books were some of the bestsellers in the LotFP catalogue, and they were now banned from DriveThruRPG, which is of course a woke bastion like everything else in the industry). He wallowed in depression for two years (really bad stuff), got divorced, and almost went bankrupt. I think he is slowly recovering, but he is just a shadow of his former self. This is chronicled in Prince of Nothing's great saga, The Doom of King James, and its followup, Legends of the OSRmen. Or A Chronicle of the Fall of LotFP #01 and #02.
This is how I understand what happened. The reason I am telling the story is that, while our interests and preferences are mostly incompatible (I have no interest in his edgelord fantasy, and I don't listen to metal), I genuinely like the guy. He is a principled man and a good person, and what happened to him is one of the great untold injustices of our hobby. The Roscoe Arbuckle story of old-school gaming, if you will.

(Parenthetically, I watched all this in dumbfound horror from the sidelines, and when I started my own zine, I made damn sure I would never be financially dependent on the woke fuckers. And this would be my advice to anyone trying to get into gaming. Don't do business with rabid SJWs, because THEY WILL FUCK YOU IN THE ASS for retweets and Facebook likes.)
 

Melan

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
6,950
Location
Civitas Quinque Ecclesiae, Hungary
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. I helped put crap in Monomyth
Correction: I misremembered the G+ story (this is why you ought to screenshot / archive everything). James was not cancelled over muh nazis /free speech, although he could have been. That's what Greg Gorgonmilk got cancelled over. He got cancelled over this gag photo:

tumblr_inline_pi1t68v8wi1rsqony_1280.png

(source: Venger Satanis, who writes about the event in more detail in the linked post)

So imagine that. James got cancelled over... hanging out with Jordan B. Peterson, and posing for a goofy photo. They unpersoned him over this. Let that sink in.
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,151
This was years ago, and there is a cautionary tale there that, I think, is worth telling.

Here is how it goes:
  1. In the early 2010s, James Raggi established himself as not just an author, but publisher of OSR materials. One of these books, written by a guy called Zak Sexman, became a runaway hit. James would henceforth divide his attentions between his own writings (the grimdark LotFP RPG, LotFP modules, and some never-ever projects) and acting as a publisher for innovative, edgy, weird supplements. He had crazy ideas like running an 14 parallel crowdfunding campaigns for 14 modules, trying to publish an AD&D adventure by GWAR's David Brockie (who died before finishing), doing the balls-to-the-walls crazy Veins of the Earth, and so on.
  2. James, a very generous guy and an outspoken, very principled liberal / free speech advocate, helped numerous fringe/arty people by publishing and promoting their projects. He had very generous terms by game industry standards, including ownership and rates. He had a large, enthusiastic fanbase that would help these creators win industry awards - LotFP fans could easily steamroll ENnies voting by coordinating their votes on their nominee. The LotFP style was very punk, very avant-garde, and received a lot of positive coverage beyond hobby venues (general "geek" sites like Kotaku and the like).
  3. Around that time, the "OSR", which was mainly active on Google+ at the time, picked up a bunch of new fans, coming specifically for the artsy stuff. Now this was a new, "diverse" set of people including dangerhairs, lotsa people with - how to put it - weird sexualities, and of course very lefty politics. In a classic case of gentrification, they liked what they saw, and decided to claim the place as their own. The rainbow flag was planted on the shores of a new, exciting, buzzing creative neighbourhood.
  4. Following "voices" pushing to make game writing more diverse, James made an honest-to-God effort to put his money where his mouth is, and hire people from Muh Marginalised Communities for a bunch of game projects. This would eventually get him fucked in the ass. (Around the same time, Frog God Games also experimented with an all-female edition of Swords & Wizardry, spearheaded by Stacy Dellorfano, whom they hired as a staffer. SPOILERS: They also got fucked in the ass.)
  5. James published a bunch of these creators who were LGBTQ, queer, PoC, or just weird activist people. This is where Vaginas Are Magic and its ilk come from. He hired various dangerhairs to do his layout, run his operations, do the sales at con booths, and so on. No person that I know of has been as generous to this disgusting rabble as him.
  6. ENTIRELY SURPRISINGLY, the motherfuckers ended up stabbing James in the back. I think the initial spark was in a late 2018 Google Plus thread (G+ is no longer available, and while I screenshotted some of it, I am on vacation on a laptop, so no evidence), where James voiced the unacceptable opinion that perhaps you should not punch nazis, and everyone has the right to free speech. In that thread, he was viciously ganged up on by the people he had championed, paid generously, wined and dined, and helped to industry awards. Cowards like Kiel Chenier (ENnies winner for a disgusting sexual fetish adventure he would later disavow in a tearful apology), Zak Sexman (multiple ENnies winner, later #metooed by his GF) joined in on the attack for social media points. Communist scum like John Bell (Retired Adventurer / Pseudoephedrine) would come out of the woodwork, advocating to destroy James's business for being "a landlord" and "an oppressor". In a single thread, the progressive wing of the OSR tore their greatest ally into shreds and spat in his face.
  7. Yes, in true scorpion style, this destroyed one of the friendly publishers these diversity motherfuckers had at their disposal. Of course, they didn't give a damn.
  8. James never really recovered, I think - and his business was badly hit by Zak's cancellation (since his books were some of the bestsellers in the LotFP catalogue, and they were now banned from DriveThruRPG, which is of course a woke bastion like everything else in the industry). He wallowed in depression for two years (really bad stuff), got divorced, and almost went bankrupt. I think he is slowly recovering, but he is just a shadow of his former self. This is chronicled in Prince of Nothing's great saga, The Doom of King James, and its followup, Legends of the OSRmen. Or A Chronicle of the Fall of LotFP #01 and #02.
This is how I understand what happened. The reason I am telling the story is that, while our interests and preferences are mostly incompatible (I have no interest in his edgelord fantasy, and I don't listen to metal), I genuinely like the guy. He is a principled man and a good person, and what happened to him is one of the great untold injustices of our hobby. The Roscoe Arbuckle story of old-school gaming, if you will.

(Parenthetically, I watched all this in dumbfound horror from the sidelines, and when I started my own zine, I made damn sure I would never be financially dependent on the woke fuckers. And this would be my advice to anyone trying to get into gaming. Don't do business with rabid SJWs, because THEY WILL FUCK YOU IN THE ASS for retweets and Facebook likes.)

Great summary, there are stuff in here that I wasn't aware of. Thanks!
 

mastroego

Arcane
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
10,389
Location
Italy
This was years ago, and there is a cautionary tale there that, I think, is worth telling.

Here is how it goes:
  1. In the early 2010s, James Raggi established himself as not just an author, but publisher of OSR materials. One of these books, written by a guy called Zak Sexman, became a runaway hit. James would henceforth divide his attentions between his own writings (the grimdark LotFP RPG, LotFP modules, and some never-ever projects) and acting as a publisher for innovative, edgy, weird supplements. He had crazy ideas like running an 14 parallel crowdfunding campaigns for 14 modules, trying to publish an AD&D adventure by GWAR's David Brockie (who died before finishing), doing the balls-to-the-walls crazy Veins of the Earth, and so on.
  2. James, a very generous guy and an outspoken, very principled liberal / free speech advocate, helped numerous fringe/arty people by publishing and promoting their projects. He had very generous terms by game industry standards, including ownership and rates. He had a large, enthusiastic fanbase that would help these creators win industry awards - LotFP fans could easily steamroll ENnies voting by coordinating their votes on their nominee. The LotFP style was very punk, very avant-garde, and received a lot of positive coverage beyond hobby venues (general "geek" sites like Kotaku and the like).
  3. Around that time, the "OSR", which was mainly active on Google+ at the time, picked up a bunch of new fans, coming specifically for the artsy stuff. Now this was a new, "diverse" set of people including dangerhairs, lotsa people with - how to put it - weird sexualities, and of course very lefty politics. In a classic case of gentrification, they liked what they saw, and decided to claim the place as their own. The rainbow flag was planted on the shores of a new, exciting, buzzing creative neighbourhood.
  4. Following "voices" pushing to make game writing more diverse, James made an honest-to-God effort to put his money where his mouth is, and hire people from Muh Marginalised Communities for a bunch of game projects. This would eventually get him fucked in the ass. (Around the same time, Frog God Games also experimented with an all-female edition of Swords & Wizardry, spearheaded by Stacy Dellorfano, whom they hired as a staffer. SPOILERS: They also got fucked in the ass.)
  5. James published a bunch of these creators who were LGBTQ, queer, PoC, or just weird activist people. This is where Vaginas Are Magic and its ilk come from. He hired various dangerhairs to do his layout, run his operations, do the sales at con booths, and so on. No person that I know of has been as generous to this disgusting rabble as him.
  6. ENTIRELY SURPRISINGLY, the motherfuckers ended up stabbing James in the back. I think the initial spark was in a late 2018 Google Plus thread (G+ is no longer available, and while I screenshotted some of it, I am on vacation on a laptop, so no evidence), where James voiced the unacceptable opinion that perhaps you should not punch nazis, and everyone has the right to free speech. In that thread, he was viciously ganged up on by the people he had championed, paid generously, wined and dined, and helped to industry awards. Cowards like Kiel Chenier (ENnies winner for a disgusting sexual fetish adventure he would later disavow in a tearful apology), Zak Sexman (multiple ENnies winner, later #metooed by his GF) joined in on the attack for social media points. Communist scum like John Bell (Retired Adventurer / Pseudoephedrine) would come out of the woodwork, advocating to destroy James's business for being "a landlord" and "an oppressor". In a single thread, the progressive wing of the OSR tore their greatest ally into shreds and spat in his face.
  7. Yes, in true scorpion style, this destroyed one of the friendly publishers these diversity motherfuckers had at their disposal. Of course, they didn't give a damn.
  8. James never really recovered, I think - and his business was badly hit by Zak's cancellation (since his books were some of the bestsellers in the LotFP catalogue, and they were now banned from DriveThruRPG, which is of course a woke bastion like everything else in the industry). He wallowed in depression for two years (really bad stuff), got divorced, and almost went bankrupt. I think he is slowly recovering, but he is just a shadow of his former self. This is chronicled in Prince of Nothing's great saga, The Doom of King James, and its followup, Legends of the OSRmen. Or A Chronicle of the Fall of LotFP #01 and #02.
This is how I understand what happened. The reason I am telling the story is that, while our interests and preferences are mostly incompatible (I have no interest in his edgelord fantasy, and I don't listen to metal), I genuinely like the guy. He is a principled man and a good person, and what happened to him is one of the great untold injustices of our hobby. The Roscoe Arbuckle story of old-school gaming, if you will.

(Parenthetically, I watched all this in dumbfound horror from the sidelines, and when I started my own zine, I made damn sure I would never be financially dependent on the woke fuckers. And this would be my advice to anyone trying to get into gaming. Don't do business with rabid SJWs, because THEY WILL FUCK YOU IN THE ASS for retweets and Facebook likes.)

I know your heart is in the right place, and yes the story is depressing, but
At the end of the day, he only has himself to blame. He did cater to those people. He actually contributed to their gaining power.

People really need to wake the fuck up where SJWs are concerned.
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,151
I checked the supplements and it all looks like the wokest of garbage. Embarrassing books about (of all things) vaginal magic, things that make FATAL look coherent.
There are still pretty good stuff in the veins of the core book being published By lotfp, like some of what Prince reviews. Just check it out:

https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpr...ned-lotfp-ambitious-historical-weird-fantasy/

https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpr... is a marvelously,rest of the Lotfp catalogue.
 

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