Quote from: AkrasiaPity some people seem to take the existence of additional options for gaming as a personal insult.

I certainly don't mind the arguments and questioning as long as they are able to see both sides of the coin with an open mind.

Quote from: grubmanWell, does that cute little insult make you feel superior?

BD&D is a different game from those, plain and simple.  I really don't understand the passion of your arguments.

I'm not passionate about it. I just find the whole trend of publishing old school rulesets after old school rulesets weird.

The disco comment shouldn't be taken to heart. Unless you really hate disco.
I don't feel superior at all. Hope you'll have a lot of fun with LL, BTW.

Quote from: HaffrungSo these are vanity-press D&D variants.

No, a vanity press publication is something quite different. My dad publishing his memoirs, that's vanity press. It's his personal project. LL OTOH has an audience, just oen that measures in the hundreds not the hundreds of thousands.

QuoteHow is anyone but the most hardcore Dragonsfoot/RPGsite enthusiast going to become aware of these obscure niche products, let alone fork out money to buy them?

Nobody's under the delusion LL & co. will break into the mass market. They are publications by fans for fans. By the same token, no market is being sliced up here. Those who get OSRIC also get LL.

Why this hate for creativity, however timid?

Quote from: Consonant DudeI'm not passionate about it. I just find the whole trend of publishing old school rulesets after old school rulesets weird.

This has been explained to you upthread.

LL and OSRIC are legalistic placeholder games, intended to enable publication of modules using their rules--something that you can *not* do for B/X, Mentzer, 1E and the rest. They're not intended to be played by themselves, though that's obviously possible.

My own gripe with LL is that if you play a B/X game you can't tell a player to DL it instead of getting a copy of B/X on ebay--they had to put all those little rules variants into LL to cover their legal butts.

Quote from: grubmanNeed I go on?  I could probably come up with a few more, but in the end, I don't much care for BFRPG, while I do like LL. Just a matter of personal prefference and experience.

No, I can see your point. I don't agree with all of those criticisms, and I think that what BFRPG does it basically does well. I'm coming round to the opinion that LL does it a just a shade better though.

Quote from: HaffrungI mean, how small can you cut the old-school D&D pie between Castles and Crusades, Goodman Games, Necromancer Games, Hackmaster, Basic Fantasy Roleplaying, OSRIC, and Labyrinth Lords and still have professionally-produced, commercially-viable supplements?

Of those, lets see... Two of them (BFRPG and LL) are arguably close to classic D&D, the others are more akin to AD&D. I agree that fractioning the fan base/market down too far is an issue here, but really the competition for Basic fans is now a two horse race.

Quote from: AkrasiaYes, but the Moldvay Basic Rules and Cook Expert Rules are not available by pdf.  Aside from e-bay, there is no way to get this version of Classic D&D these days, and LL is based on Moldvay/Cook.

Mechanically the two editions of basic and expert are so very similar, though, that it doesn't make much of a difference. The layout is different, the art is different, spell and thief progression is slightly different, and thats it. Hence my comment; I do know that LL is based more on Moldvay/Cook.

QuotePersonally, I prefer the Moldvay/Cook version of Classic D&D over the BECMI version by Mentzer, since I really dislike the 1-36 level campaign arc presupposed by the latter rules.

Of course, you know that Moldvay/Cook was never completed don't you? The whole reason it only goes to 14 is because that companion set never got published? So you're not comparing like with like, you're comparing the edited hilights of a version you like with a nearly identical one that simply got to where it was going without getting canned first.

QuoteA level 1-14 level range is far closer to my notion of fantasy.  And thief abilities don't suck so badly in the Moldvay/Cook version.

Fair enough, thats up to you.

Quote from: grubmanAs far as cutting the niche, what you are implying is that someone who wants this system or supplements shouldn't simply because you say so?  They are suposed to be content with C&C or FtA or OSRIC because you say that should be enough to keep them happy?

People can want what they want, use what they use. But I'll bet most of the people who have downloaded LL also have BFRPG. And OSRIC. And hardcopy books of the original Moldvay and Mentzer books to boot. And I doubt any more than a handful of people have actually switched to these games. Seriously, how many people have run games using BFRPG? I bet you could count them on one hand, and they all post to the author's forum.

I mean, is this really about tapping into a significant market for commerical adventures using old-school D&D systems? Or is it about a few nostalgic enthusiasts posting their own vanity press variants of D&D to the same forty guys on Dragonsfoot?

Frankly, I haven't seen any evidence that the commercial adventures published using these OGL-compliant systems are any better than the dreck that you can find for free anywhere on the net. And if OSRIC and LL don't facilitate the publication of adventures that are more professionally written and designed than the free stuff you can find on DF, then what's the point?

Quote from: HaffrungI mean, is this really about tapping into a significant market for commerical adventures using old-school D&D systems?

For LL, I think so. For BFRPG, probably not.

Well I like the idea. More power to people who try this stuff to see.

At least they are adding to the hobby. I'm a bit annoyed by the way people react to someones creative efforts--after all they did this, most likely knowing how little money they would make, and in fact making it so OTHER people could even do some small things (and maybe make a fiver now and then.)

This is a GOOD thing, an encouraging thing. They aren't whining incessantly about not being a gamer, not being in the hobby, and so on.

I'd be using Labyrinth Lord now-- If I didn't have so much playtesting to do (of my own Fantasy RPG, and Western/Horror RPG, among other things.)

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWhy this hate for creativity, however timid?

First off, there's no creativity involved. By your own admission, these aren't new systems. I just question whether the tiny size of the potential market justifies the labour that went into OSRIC, BFRPG, and LL. And if the authors realize the market is tiny, why make a tool for commercial adventures in the first place? Personally, the fact that 37 people have paid $8 for a PDF in no way satisfies me that I'm likely to get a professional-quality product out of the deal. So I fail to see the difference between tiny-niche-market PDFs and free shit.

Once you have tiny markets, along with a culture of support-group solidarity in the subculture (as we see in old-school D&D online community), creative enterprises lose the whole market winner/loser dynamic that many of us rely on to aid us in our purchasing decisions.

And in case anyone thinks I'm just trying to shit on amateur game design, I should point out that I think Mazes and Minotaurs is frickin' fantastic. The system, the design, the layout, the writing, the whole tone - pure awesome. So I'm onside with labours of love.

However, M&M has shown me just how peculiar the audience is for this sort of micro-niche nostalgia game. I mean, the game has received loads of acclaim, thousands of people have downloaded it, there's an active community that contributed to the game supplements... but so far as I can tell, only a handful of people (as in maybe a half-dozen groups) have ever played the fuckin' thing. So we have enthusiastic contributions to monster books, a compedium of options, and spell system variants, but no goddamn adventures. It's just bizarre.

Thanks for the review, grubman, you were fair and I thank you for your kind words.

Someone back a page or so said that Labyrinth Lord is ugly, and it will turn people off. Well, I've had no complaints about the interior, but there have been enough complaints now about the cover that I think I can confidently say that I missed my mark of "old-school" crusty and managed to reach an entirely different level of crust.

Look, the bottom line is that I'm not selling enough of these to be able to afford a new cover right now. I haven't broken even yet from what I spent as it is. However, there are many very talented people here and on other boards, and if someone would be willing to design a new LL cover I'd be willing to make an alternate cover version available. I could work out some form of compensation, but I just can't pay what a job like this should pay at the moment. Email me if you're interested, anyone, and we can talk.

I always see many of the same comments and questions about Labyrinth Lord (and retro-clones in general) so let me try to address a few here. I know there are a few high emotions sometimes with this, but I'll give it a shot.

FAQ

1. I already own the classic books. Why should I buy Labyrinth Lord?

Answer: You shouldn't, necessarily. I made the electronic book version absolutely free so that people who currently play classic will have a frame of reference, if they want, when 3rd party compatible LL modules are published. Labyrinth Lord is not meant to replace your fine classic books. It is meant to help provide an outlet for support of your classic game, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

2. If I wanted to play classic I'd go buy the books from ebay. Why should I play Labyrinth Lord?

Answer: I've found that many people who say this are not really interested in playing classic anyway, but let's assume you are. I recommend going to eBay and buying the classic books. Later, if you hear of material published for LL that interests you, consider buying it for your classic game.

3. I want to play classic, but my group won't play a "dead" game. What can Labyrinth Lord do for me?

Answer: I'm glad you asked. I hear this a lot. The #1 goal of Labyrinth Lord is to provide an avenue of product support for people playing classic. The next important goal for LL is relevant to this question. I want LL to help expand the audience for classic, for people who may have never played, people who used to play, or people who still play but are trying to recruite new blood. Labyrinth Lord is in print, and due to the ever greater ease and quality of print on demand, Labyrinth Lord will be in print forever. Yes, that's right, forever. Or until WWIII and we nuke ourselves into some post-apocalyptic jelly. It doesn't matter to me if it makes money, because that is not why I went to this effort, so it's availability does not hinge on whether it is profitable. You can take LL to your group and say, "Look, here is a 'living game' we can play." Now, if you can later talk your group into playing the "real thing," great!

4. I want to play an old-school, classic game but I have no money and neither does my gaming group. What can Labyrinth Lord do for me?

Answer: The electronic book is absolutely free. I know of several people who are playing from the PDF, or are printing them out because they live in parts of the world where it would be difficult to get the real classic game, or too expensive to order LL. The PDF is available to all players, so no one in the group needs to invest a single cent.

5. I have the classic books, but I'm thinking of just playing with Labyrinth Lord, should I?

Answer:That's entirely up to you. Labyrinth Lord was not written to replace the classic books, only to help provide 3rd party support. Having said that, if it is simply easier for you to do that, or you want to keep your "real" books in better shape so you can spill soda on and otherwise abuse the Labyrinth Lord book (no sweat, it's a sadomasochist ) then by all means do so. The main goal here is to keep gaming with rules we love, and have fun.

6. Labyrinth Lord is not creative. This effort sucks and I wish you would die!

Answer: Wait a sec, that wasn't a question!  Uh, ok, well, let me explain. You are absolutely right, Labyrinth Lord is not really creative in the sense that it is not new, not innovative, not etc. That's ok, because Labyrinth Lord is not meant to be new. It is meant to fulfill the goals I've addressed above. If you are happy with your classic books, that's good, because it is you who I mainly wrote this for. I hope someone writes some gaming material that is really really awesome, and will be compatible with LL, thus compatible with your classic game, and make your game even more fun. that's what LL is here for. Now, let's just hope some publishers do write some awesome stuff for your game, and from what I have been hearing behind the scenes, I think it will happen.

Now for some other questions that have come up here. Will Labyrinth Lord split the market? Well, I can only respond to that with a question of my own...what market? If you mean will Labyrinth Lord take money away from other publishers, or take support away from other games, I don't think so. People who like C&C will go on playing C&C. Publishers will not waste time with products that don't make money, and it is yet to be seen whether OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord can tap into an actual paying audience. This is an issue cureently surfacing in regard to OSRIC. Sure, there is a decent community that plays 1e...but of those people, how many are actually interested in buying anything? So far, it doesn't look good. Time will tell.

This whole effort though, it must be remembered, is not about money. It's about trying to keep some systems around for 3rd party support and as "in print" options. If a market can be established and IF some publishers can provide quality support, then I'm of the mind that this is only a good thing.

Will talk of Labyrinth Lord disappear in a few months? I truly hope not. I hope it only grows, but only time will tell.

Anyway, if you've read this far thanks again for looking at Labyrinth Lord, I appreciate it, no matter what your feeling about it are.

best,
Dan

Quote from: HaffrungFirst off, there's no creativity involved. By your own admission, these aren't new systems.

This has been explained several times. LL & co. are not creative products. They exist to enable creativity, namely the production of modules and supplements published for them.

QuoteOnce you have tiny markets, along with a culture of support-group solidarity in the subculture (as we see in old-school D&D online community), creative enterprises lose the whole market winner/loser dynamic that many of us rely on to aid us in our purchasing decisions.

A "market" doesn't shrink your brain proportionately to its size. You continue to have your evaluation tools available: infraweb talk, website info, previews, and plain ole judgement through which to filter them. It doesn't take much to figure out that Monsters of Myth for OSRIC is a great book.

Quote from: HaffrungAnd if OSRIC and LL don't facilitate the publication of adventures that are more professionally written and designed than the free stuff you can find on DF, then what's the point?

You don't know till you try. They both could flop and nothing good may come of Labyrinth Lord, but I can say I tried. If may effort doesn't realize any good 3rd party products, I'll be disappointed, but I won't ask for the months of my life back that I wrote LL with.

I'll wait to gauge it's success after a 2 years.