I stayed away from LotFP for a long time. I was annoyed by the whole Ref Book things and there were a few things that I just didn’t like. But I kept going to back the system and adventures and saying to myself, “Damn, that’s neat.” So I guess this was inevitable.

The old school scene has changed greatly since the fall of G+. Folks scattered to various platforms. All sorts of little communities popped up and IMHO there’s been a lot of gatekeeping and a whole bunch of name calling. Old School Essentials is the go to game for lots of folks. Personally, I like it but mainly as a reference book. It’s really well organized and I still have hard copies from in the days when it was known as BX Essentials. But LotFP has stayed there and bounced around inside my head as great game to bring to the table.

I’ll be honest. I do favor the earlier adventures. I’m not all into the nega-dungeons or the wild and crazy stuff that was made later. My personal take on LotFP is to put it as a weird mix of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith with a heavy dose of Hammer Horror.

I know this take isn’t how most folks currently embrace LotFP. But here’s why I’m heading back to it. My guess is that the current bevy of fans won’t care. Most the LotFP chatter that I’ve been watching has been in the Facebook Group and I don’t see all the “You’re playing it wrong!” dribble that you see in so many places. I feel it’s the kind of place where I can mess around with the game and the vast majority of fans won’t dive a damn.

On the flip side, I know there are a lot of people out there that just hate LotFP and any body who has anything to do with it or even likes it. So in a simple way it can act as a bit of a litmus test. If somebody loses their shit over which game I like then well too bad and it can serve as a bit of a red flag based on how somebody reacts at even the idea of daring like one of those “wrong” games or people.

So if you’re still reading then you might have already guessed something else. This my end of year navel gazing post. I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do and/or rant about next year. And this is my first stop. So yep. You’re going to see more LotFP posts probably and I might actually just get something published again.

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