So after some delay Everywhen and a couple settings are available. I picked it up with BOL Mythic Edition.

Curious about any actual play experiences?

Thoughts on the system?

Quote from: trechriron;1092795So after some delay Everywhen and a couple settings are available. I picked it up with BOL Mythic Edition.

Curious about any actual play experiences?

Thoughts on the system?

Don't have the settings, but I do have the corebooks.

The system is very good at mimicking Pulp Sword & Sorcery, you have to build your adventurer by picking backgrounds (and putting a number from 0-4 marking your expertise in that background) that give you "abilities" and bonus to try certain actions, so character creation is really fast once you know the rules for doing so (it should take you about 10 minutes to know the rules for character creation).

2d6+background
you have 4 attributes plus 4 combat attributes
Don't really like the magic system so I always change it for my own where magic has a cost (in fatigue points) to perform and all spells are available to you if you can "pay" that cost.
Very easy to change settings
Of course if the setting uses the same backgrounds you don't really have much else to do to change it, and if the backgrounds are different is just a matter of cut the originals and drop the replacements in.

I concur with  most of what GeekyBugle said. The magic system in BoL works well for villains, but is probably a bit sketchy or vague for PCs. Which fits the source material. Heroes like Thongor or Conan don't use spells and rarely have any magic at all. My play experience is from running a long campaign with the Honor & Intrigue version of BoL which works wonderfully well for swashbuckling, cape & sword style campaigns whether historical or fantastical.

Quote from: Bren;1092823My play experience is from running a long campaign with the Honor & Intrigue version of BoL which works wonderfully well for swashbuckling, cape & sword style campaigns whether historical or fantastical.

What's H&I like for swordfight tactics?  I got spoiled by Riddle of Steel for combat, and while I like everything else about BoL the combat looked a little dull.

Quote from: trechriron;1092795So after some delay Everywhen and a couple settings are available. I picked it up with BOL Mythic Edition.

Curious about any actual play experiences?

Thoughts on the system?

Just lighter rule mechanics, compared to Mongoose Traveller.

RPGPundit wrote a BoL review and we have GMs on the site who talked about it in the thread

https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?38512-RPGPundit-Reviews-Barbarians-of-Lemuria&highlight=barbarians+review

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1092833What's H&I like for swordfight tactics?  I got spoiled by Riddle of Steel for combat, and while I like everything else about BoL the combat looked a little dull.

Sword fights, especially duels, is where H+I excels. Combat can be simple - a character could just choose to do a simple bladework maneuver to attack and a riposte reaction if they are about to be hit. But it can be tactically very interesting and even complex. Heroes get 1 major and 1 minor action each round. There are 18 major actions, 14 minor actions + and additional 6 reactions (a type of minor action that you don't need to announce ahead of time). There is no one optimal choice of action. Which action is optimal in a given situation varies based on several things

• that character's attributes, i.e. stats and any wounds they have taken
• which maneuvers the character has mastered (if any)
• the dueling style(s) (if any) that the character knows
• which dueling styles the character has mastered (if any)
• which maneuver the opponent chooses as well as
• which maneuvers the opponent has mastered (if any)
• the dueling style(s) (if any) that the opponent knows
• which dueling styles the opponent has mastered (if any)

The net effect is that two characters who are seemingly very similar - say they are both Musketeers - may have very different optimal maneuvers and hence what they do in a fight will look and be different and even the same character may have different optimal moves depending on the particular opponent.

Also there is a thing called Advantage. A character who is about to be hit can yield advantage rather than taking the hit. Heroes start with an Advantage = 3. The master of a dueling style gains +1 Advantage. Different outcomes in combat may temporarily add to advantage. This has the effect of making a duel go back and forth much like the kinds of duels one sees in something like the movies Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Cyrano with Jose Ferrer, or the duel on the cliffs of insanity in A Princess Bride.

When I was running H+I, I blogged about the system, my campaign, and stuff related to swashbuckling, cape & sword stuff. Here is one post where I yakked about whether to use 2d6 or 2d10.

I've been a huge BoL fan since the Legendary edition, the career system is what sold me on the game.  I haven't run Everywhen yet, but did use some of the rules from the community preview version for my "BoL-ish" Fading Suns hack last year.  

As GeekyBugle mentioned, BoL does pulp sword & sorcery great right out of the box.  The rules are modular and incredibly flexible and easily customized for your preferred style of play.  Don't like boons & flaws? No problem.  Want something grittier?  Remove Hero Points or change their effects.  Want custom backgrounds/careers/traits/magic for your campaign setting?  All these things can be tweaked without breaking the game.  

Testament to the system's flexibility are some great variants produced over the past few years -- Dicey Tales (30s pulp), Honor + Intrigue, and Barbarians of the Void (Traveller-ish sci-fi) are most notable IMHO, but there are hacks for everything ranging from Star Wars to Dark Sun to vanilla-D&D-style fantasy.

Quote from: nightlamp;1092923I've been a huge BoL fan since the Legendary edition, the career system is what sold me on the game.  I haven't run Everywhen yet, but did use some of the rules from the community preview version for my "BoL-ish" Fading Suns hack last year.  

As GeekyBugle mentioned, BoL does pulp sword & sorcery great right out of the box.  The rules are modular and incredibly flexible and easily customized for your preferred style of play.  Don't like boons & flaws? No problem.  Want something grittier?  Remove Hero Points or change their effects.  Want custom backgrounds/careers/traits/magic for your campaign setting?  All these things can be tweaked without breaking the game.  

Testament to the system's flexibility are some great variants produced over the past few years -- Dicey Tales (30s pulp), Honor + Intrigue, and Barbarians of the Void (Traveller-ish sci-fi) are most notable IMHO, but there are hacks for everything ranging from Star Wars to Dark Sun to vanilla-D&D-style fantasy.

And hopefully soon my own hack Barbarians of the Sprawl, guess what genre it is?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1092925And hopefully soon my own hack Barbarians of the Sprawl, guess what genre it is?

Obviously supernatural teen romance. Like twilight if  you replaced the vampires with prehistoric barbarians livimg among us.

Quote from: Slambo;1092928Obviously supernatural teen romance. Like twilight if  you replaced the vampires with prehistoric barbarians livimg among us.

Bingo! But it's sparkly vampires.

You're both fired.

Quote from: trechriron;1092957You're both fired.

You can't fire me because I quit!