My non-interview of James Raggi

Over memorial day weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Role Play Convention in Cologne, Germany.  I was there as part of the SCA, who was conducting demonstrations of various arts and crafts as well as combat. 


The day before the convention we were infilling our section equipment and we got off on the wrong floor.  And what do I see before me but Mr. James Raggi, in the flesh, checking his cell phone about 10 feet away from me.  After quickly confirming that no one in my party had any idea where they were and needed to call our group coordinator to find out where we were supposed to go, I zipped on over to Mr. Raggi to say "hi". 


I don't regularly (or irregularly) rub elbows with the rich and famous, but I've seen famous folks before at conventions and kept my cool -they're just people after all right? However, I was in a bit of a shock seeing Mr. Raggi there and as a result felt embarrassingly giddy at the experience and just had to gush and tell him how much I liked Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and how excited I was to see that he was at this convention.  He cooly accepted my appreciation for his efforts and pointed off to where his booth was. I told him I'd swing by and check it out. By then the rest of the group had figured out we were supposed to be on a different floor and it was time to start hauling our gear to where it needed to go.


The next day.


I had been rotating in and out fighting for about two hours, happy but exhausted, and finished for the morning.  I stripped off about half of my gear (since I was just going to be fighting again in a few hours) but was still a stinking sweaty mess even if I did have a new shirt on. 

My wife decided to take me upstairs and check out the vendors, but I had to hold the baby.  We looked at various stuff, but I was on a mission-  I was going to see the Lamentations of the Flame Princess booth.


A couple of years ago I had gone into roleplaying hibernation.  Work, family and so forth were just taking so much time that I couldn't get a group together and couldn't really participate in any regular game, and so my dice were gathering dust.  Coming across Lamentations of the Flame Princess re-ignited the sense of wonder and fun that I had for years with roleplaying.  As a result I bought pretty much everything I could from the line.  Recently a new book was released "Veins of the Earth" and it was massive, which unfortunately meant that the shipping from Finland was going to be about 20 Euro just for one book.  I had put it on hold until some other books were released, but hey here was an opportunity to pick it up.

So we stop by the unassuming LotFP booth that is manned by James and only James (see totally on a first name basis now).  It doesn't have a lot of the flash of other booths, but had a cool banner and a couple of tables that were crammed full of books and shirts.  He had some other customers that he was helping there, but quickly and efficiently handed me a price list that was printed out just for the convention (Seriously, if you can get to a convention with LotFP there you get some great prices!)

He asked if I wanted to check out any of the other books at the table But I had everything he was selling except for the one book.  So my lovely wife passed over the money and got the book and a price list because it looked cool.  In total, the interaction was short and swift.

I wanted to say a lot more, and ask a bunch of questions and just talk about the hobby in general.  However, he was there to do business, there were other customers looking at stuff and I knew I had only so long before I had to be back downstairs for the next combat demonstration.

I would like to point out that I looked like crap after fighting, could still feel the sweat pouring off of me, had a bruise forming on my chin from where a good whack had gotten me, and had a floppy baby hanging off of me.  I probably smelled worse than I looked as well.

I went on my way, and just gushed to my wife instead who had raised her eyebrow at me shelling out 60 Euro for a book I hadn't even cracked the cover of, but I reminded her that she loved me and technically SHE had handed over the money and bought me the book as a gift.  Then I stopped and told her to hold on.

The other customer was gone and so I went back to at least get a photo.

James smiled and said yes, I finally got out a bit about how I loved the LotFP line, and to keep up the good work.  He came around to the front of the booth and asked my wife for a count down for the picture. 


5


4


3


2


1


He screamed and head banged like his favorite metal band had just come on stage.  My wife nearly dropped the camera she was so surprised (meanwhile the baby had fallen asleep and just continued to be passed out).


So you know what James did?   He took another photo with me.  And he screamed again. 


I still wanted to talk, but I had already gotten so much, and what was I going to ask, probably the same stuff that gets asked in real interviews, and really the last thing I wanted to do was stop him from doing what he was there to do. Spread the gospel of weird horror roleplaying.


So I went on my way and did more fighting and just enjoyed the busy chaos that is working at a convention. 


Sunday when we were cleaning up and I was bone tired and exhausted I stopped and thought about how much fun and work conventions are, and I thought of James working the booth spreading the word of LotFP and how tired he must be after two LONG days of work by himself (mind you he is selling books in English at a German convention, and while every German I have had the pleasure of meeting speaks really good English, he is competing against products all around him- in German).


I also thought: Crap.  I never introduced myself. 


So James, if you ever read this.  Hi, I'm Tim and I'm a big fan. 

Product Review: Blood in the Chocolate

For: Lamentations of the Flame Princess

By: Kiel Chenier

Cost: 19.25 Euro  print+pdf

http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=237

$7.99 pdf

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/199571/Blood-in-the-Chocolate?term=blood+in+&test_epoch=0

Sometimes the stars align just right.  In this case it was that my daughters discovered Willy Wanka and the Chocolate Factory and in that wonderful way kids do have been wanting to watch it again and again, just about this time LotFP released Blood in the Chocolate.  As I’m a glutton for punishment the local market has been having a sale on Milka bars- so my life has been awash in chocolate as of late.

First and foremost Blood in the Chocolate is “inspired by” the work of Roald Dahl (or perhaps more accurately the film my kids have been watching).  The quotes are because it IS NOT a D&D adventure that apes the story you know.   It is far far darker. 

The Chocolate factory deals very little with the production of chocolate.  We see the river where it is mixed, and plenty of experimental rooms of whimsy, and find that despite being a chocolate factory Wonka is in fact very diverse in the realm of candy and confection production. 

Blood in the chocolate on the other hand pays a slightly more realistic approach to chocolate production.  Other confections are ignored, however much of the factory is just that- a factory.  Although a pre-industrial age setting, it brings all the fun of “The Jungle” to the table top.   Grinding gears and molten chocolate are a subtle danger at nearly every turn (well, subtle until your scarf is pulling you closer to the gears, or 3^rd degree burns on your hand and face from trying to drink the stuff like the kid in the movie did…)

The best part of the whole thing is that as weird and twisted as the adventure can be, it is all done with subtlety.  There isn’t any obvious encounter- no monster to fight when you kick down the door.  You do have a villain and a mob of fanatical followers though, so things can go south very quickly.  Of course they can also go south if you are nice too.  If for some reason the players completely ignore the adventure it can still have it subtly affect the game as others are affected by the rare side effect of the chocolate.

Unlike Wonka where punishments were doled out to children who needed to learn a lesson, here you almost root for Slugworth to win.  The punishments are doled out indiscriminately (i.e. the players, but hey, the probably broke and entered, and are at least contemplating theft if not murder). And the factory owner of this place, is not spritely or clever, she is mean, vain, and evil.  So then again, perhaps everyone gets what is coming to them after all. 

They layout of the book makes it easy to read, the art is fantastic; complete with a walkthrough of a possible outcome in the .pdf version. 

And yet… it feels like there is a little something missing. 

With the sheer number of mini-minions in the factory, it would have been nice to have some non-combat encounters included with the little guys.  As is they occupy the entire factory and they just seem a bit dry, sure goblins don’t get exposition in adventures either, but these guys are at least pretty benign and possibly helpful as long as the factory owner isn’t directing her wrath at you (then be warned, you could easily end up the victim of blueberry gang bang rape). 

This can easily be solved by a bit of planning on the storytellers part (and really how often do goblins get exposition?)

This adventure is a definite module to pick up though, the familiarity that probably every player has with Willy Wanka makes the changes off putting enough to instill a good sense of creepiness (even without the ferryboat ride) for your players and still be entertaining. 

Like Most LotFP adventures the setting is pretty harsh, and even a party that gets through with no casualties will more than likely come away with several scars (mental and physical).  

1/26/17 update

I came across this and it pretty much captures everything I imagine this module to be:

Rules heavy or rules light?

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons back in 2nd Edition, but it isn't my favorite rule system (I mean really, does anyone love Thac0?).  3rd Edition (3.5 or Pathfinder if you prefer) was the high point for me, in the dungeons and dragons franchise, even though it has its own problems.  4th edition just didn't interest me at all and although I've heard good things about 5th ed I just haven't gotten around to playing it at all.


While I like a lot of different systems for a lot of different reasons, my two preferred systems for fantasy games are Hackmaster 5th Edition, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP).


Hackmaster 5th Edition.  Still in its relative infancy, the core books are all out, it was born from the previous edition that spoofed a lot of the classic TSR rules and modules (and is actually a pretty good set all on its own), and their original western game Aces and Eights.  What you get is a rule set that captures a lot of the feel of the original dungeons and dragons, but with lots of detail.  The game repeatedly makes the point that it is a game of tough choices.  You do have to choose between armor to protect yourself or the freedom of movement to not get hit.  While it is fairly rules and dice heavy, there are a lot of tools to keep things moving and everyone engaged during combat.  It provides a fine level of granularity to the game.  The gamemaster book has great advice on how to set up adventures and make them engaging and award players not just for combat but for clever thinking and story advancement.  The only downside of the game I would say is that I am too old.  I don't just feel like whipping up a new monster or converting stuff over to the rules from other systems. 


On the other end of the spectrum is LotFP.  It is an OSR clone that takes a very rules light approach to the game.  When I first introduced it to players some balked at it because the fighter class was the only class that advanced in combat abilities.  I saw this as a feature though, as in many other systems the magic user classes soon eclipse the non-magic classes in versatility and power.  In this way the fighter remains the king of combat.  The balance come in little things like there are no monsters with armor better than plate mail, so even a non-combat class has a chance to affect physical combat at any level.  Pretty much any adjustment I need to make on the fly during the game can be made with a +/- 1 or 2 to a roll and move on.  The adventures published by LotFP is where the game really shines.  Most of the adventures are system neutral and so can be easily ported to any game (I might even take the effort to port them to Hackmaster!) because they aren't filled with combat for combat's sake.  If a monster is present, there is generally only one and it is an important part of the story rather than just an encounter.  Like Call of Cthulhu though, the adventures are harsh and unforgiving. 
The downside is that I have had players quit because of these adventures.

There are plenty of other systems that I like for specific games too.  Usually because the rules provide incentive to, or not to do certain types of behavior in the game, or help establish the feel the game is going for.

I like Deadlands classic for this reason, it uses a poker decks and chips to assist in the game mechanics, which provide a unique system that helps with the whole wild west theme.  It is far more complex then the streamlined savage worlds rules, but I think it also provides a lot more depth.  One of my favorite bits is the use of "wind" and "wounds" which is much like non lethal vs. lethal damage, but also handles the wider range of terror, needing to catch your breath etc. compared to a broken leg or a shot up gut.