Review of LotFP, die erste Teil.

I have decided that, rather than reviewing the Lamentations of the Flame Princess RPG all in one blog entry, I shall review it in a series of posts. I just read through the referee booklet today. Rather than merely listing tables and lists and pages of rules, it is more of a collection of advice about how to Game Master the LotFP game within its own unique paradigm. I like this a lot. Sure, I am an old school gamer and I like my charts and lists. BUT, I have always appreciated a more free and creative approach to Game Mastering as well.
My favorite feature of the Referee booklet is its approach to magic items in the Weird New World. There are no extensive charts or tables listing all kinds of magical goodies that players can drool over and makes want lists for future acquisition. There are no price lists for magic items that could ever be used to constitute any kind of "magic shop" (and idea I have always found to be rather dubious anyway.) Instead of this is the primary admonition that magic items are special and individual in nature. They are also rare. They should never confir any kind of simple game mechanic advantage and should always have drawbacks and limitations that make sense within the logic of their own make up. In the majority of the reviews that I have read of this game system, this is seen as a drawback. However, I think that I understand Mr. Raggi's reasoning here and I whole heartedly agree. In the system of the Weird New World of LotFP, a magic sword should have a name and a history, and a story of how it came to be sitting in some subterranean room in some forgotten cache. This makes sense to someone, like me, who is a devotee of ancient mythology where the logic of magical items is very similar. I suspect the Mr. Raggi has the same reading list as I. For instance, a magic sword in ancient Norse Myth had a name, it had renown and a story. It was important to know who forged it and where and why. A magic sword to the ancients had powers that were relevant to a specific instance. The sword was forged for a particular purpose. It had taboos attached that must be obeyed or dire things would occur. For example a sword, lets call him "Doomchanter" might have been forged to slay a particular foe, say...a certain dragon. In increase the swords potency, the smith laid on the blade particular taboos...for instance it could never be drawn in the presence of a woman.
Germanic myth is full of items like this. Sigfried's sword was reforged from his fathers broken blade for the purpose of slaying the dragon Fafnir. The banner "Landwaster" promised victory to whichever army bore it into battle, but also promised certain death to the hero who carried it.
So, there it is. Yeah, I am really gonna have to run this game. I am really gonna have to run it.