Flame Princess review; or How to fend off the Baleful God of Blogger OCD

I started writing this post in 1973, but decided that the subject matter was a bit out of date already, so I never posted it. Now, with less than 32 hours left in the year 2023 and finding myself only two posts away from hitting a multiple of six posts for the annum, I need to squeeze out some content in a hurry. So here, read this if you want. Or don't, what do I care? I'm only posting it as filler.

On the advice of the dudes over at 3TRPG, I finally got around to buying Lamentations of the Inflamed Princess--holy hell that's a long-winded title. Even the abbreviation "LotFP" is too many syllables. If you're like me you can't even type LotFP without saying "Ell-o-tea-eff-pee" in your head. I could go with "LFP" but where's the sophomoric humor in that? Well, how about "LotFaP"? By adding one vowel I've shortened the name to a two syllable, completely innocuous, incorruptible word. Well done. Let's get to it.

Lotfap (snicker) is undeniably a good looking book. And a good size for a book. I was excited to see it on the shelf of my local gaming store, so I snatched it and ran home to start reading it. Don't worry, I paid for it first. 

Between the art, the reputation for dark subject matter, and the loquacious title of the game, I had expectations of a game that pushes boundaries. But once you start reading the book, you quickly notice that this is just an improved form of Basic D&D. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good distillation of D&D and an upgrade on Mentzer et. al., but, aside from the art, it's no more provocative than Labyrinth Lord.

Which isn't to say that LotFap has nothing to contribute; it certainly does. Following are the 11 coolest things Raggi's version of Basic D&D has brought to the world:

1. Specialist: Raggi succeeds where D&D so desperately failed. While renaming thieves as "rogues" may have decreased the likelihood of idiotic players trying to pick the pockets of their adventuring colleagues mid-adventure, it is a catastrophically terrible name for a character class, and still implies that members of the class are inclined to not be team players. The specialist is vague enough that you have no problem running this dude as a straight and narrow type who would never mix with the Artful Dodger. Also, they get a wider variety of abilities to choose from--such as "bushcraft"--so they can be kind of like rangers too.
   
2. Only fighters get better at fighting. That's right, every other class has reached their peak combat acumen on the first day they fill out their character sheet.
3. No standardized monsters: no orcs or bullywugs or Type IV demons or even dragons unless you make them up for yourself. Every adventure gets its own custom set of critters to deal with. This does raise the question: if there are no orcs to slaughter, why are dwarves, elves, and halflings available as player races? Did Raggi give in to pressure from the demi-human lobby?
4. Cool Art. No Peter Bradley.
   
5. Much vaunted Encumbrance rules: carry 5 things and you're fine. Pick up more things and you're gonna slow down. Still not sure people will track this in play but it could be done pretty easily.
6. Much vaunted naval combat and property ownership guidelines. Yes, they're a thing. Are they great? I'll try them out. 
7. -11. Ha. I just made that up, there are only 6 things.