Anyone who remembers the Satanic Panic of the 1980s knows how religious conservatives convinced a generation of parents that D&D would make kids worship the devil and commit atrocities. D&D responded by becoming family-friendly. Lamentations of the Flame Princess had a different response to that sort of censorship. Think of this game as the smirking extension of a middle finger, in literary and pictorial form. Read the full review here: https://stygian-muse.com/book-of-the-week-lamentations-of-the-flame-princess-player-core-book/

After many years, still one of the best rulesets for fantasy role-playing games. The spells are less about pure destruction and more targeted on interesting, and sometimes horrifying, possibilities. The character classes are well-rounded and balanced, including the races-as-classes variants.

I liked it enough to buy the full version. Its an easy system to learn and use, the setting is interesting and later than the usual fantasy settings. The line is well supported, it runs a gritty game well. It's worth a session at least and if you like it I think it will really ike it.

For a free item its great and if you want a slightly higher tech dark fantasy it might be what you want give it a shot, its got great support. For myself I found it just didnt fit my group at the time.

LotFP is one of the slickest OSR games out there, and the fact that this ruleset is available for free is awesome. I own the physical copy as well, and I would encourage anyone who enjoys the rules to do so - the art is phenomenal and the quality of the book is astounding (that binding is hardcore!).

Same old D&D clone. Nothing much special here. Pretty much the only interesting concept is that Rogues are called "Specialists" who excel at normal skills available to most (including hiding and the like). Uses the old basic D&D concept of race as class which I hate. It's a functional RPG system that's been seen time and time again. Aside from that, the price is why one would use this PDF as it's free.

The production quality of the whole system is high and this is a great game, if you want Basic D&D, but don't want to handle all the outdated stuff. However, half of this book's charm is lost without the art, I hearthily recommend the paid version. The rules itself are quite mundane, I really recommend you pick up the Referee book and Better than any man with this one. (Both are free!) With these three books you should be set.

So good, I ended up buying the full print edition and the PDF with art as I really love how it sets the tone.

This is a fairly basic RPG, but don't let the simple rules deceive you. Read it. Understand that the rules, themselves, are written to build a horror mindset. Fighters are not noble, but bitter survivors of many battles. Wizards are meddling with things that can unravel reality. Dwarves are a bitter, dying race. Everything is written to create a dark, depressing mindset before you even start playing. Then your game master will send you forth into a terrible situation where things can only go downhill.

This book sets up the mindset of "not quite right, but pretty much guaranteed to go downhill."

This free version retains all the rules and layout but blanks out all of the art in the book. It is a player's guide, and all of the mechanics that a player would run into are explained. Lamentations is a re-imagined version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons (very similar to the Mentzer Red Box rules) designed to evoke the feel of gritty pulp fantasy... Clark Ashton Smith, HP Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard's stories all fit in well here. Combat uses a d20 with ascending AC, with very similar math to D&D 3e and 5e. Skills are resolved using a d6. The spell lists have been mostly re-worked to dump a lot of "magic artillery" spells in favor of illusion and reality manipulation.

Much like Mentzer D&D this is a really polished system for fantasy gaming. The classes are all much more plain than basic D&D, but the stripped-down nature of it makes everything move smooth, fast, and logically. Despite having an 18+ warning on the front, without the art there is nothing too shocking about this game. The shocking stuff is in the art, and other products. There is no implied setting, but most of the published adventures in this line will take place in 1600-1650 Europe, so rules for arms and armor from that period are included (including blackpowder weapons.) For seasoned D&D gamers, this game will be very familiar to you and easy to play and run. Compared to other D&D games on the market, this may not have a flashy intro box, but the rules are solid, easier to work with, and the price is right... both for this free version and other products in the line.

This is my go-to B/X system and here's why: 1) the Specialist class is brilliant. You can have 3 in a party and they will all bring very different things to the game 2) The encumbrance system -- best there is. Very simple, and effective. 3) Ascending AC - not a huge deal but really helps play-ability. 4) Each class is very different from each other, for example, the fighter class is the only class that gets bonuses to hit after 1st level

Unfortunately, the DMs part of the rules that is suppose to put the "flavor" of the world in place is out of print. I have tried to research as much of it as I can.

I ran a D&D Ravenloft campaign and used the Mighty Fortress sourcebook. Scary seemed a lot scarier when you had a black powder pistol loaded with silver to kill that werewolf, except for the damn mist that may have fouled the powder.

I would love to see the "flavor" part of the game. The download is just the basic mechanics and someone could easily use them to create their own world. From what I have read, LotFP is a truly interesting idea and hopefully the rest will be available again.

As it stands, this version is a good take on OD&D with more fleshed out information on how that style of world would work as part of its basic mechanics. It is well written and has a particular attention to detail.

Let me start by saying it's free! Download it for curiosity, if for nothing else. Check out the 1st level MU spell Summon. If you are feeling generous, download the full version for $5. I won't go into a review of the mechanics of LotFP, as others have done that well enough, both here and elsewhere. As others have pointed out, it's basically a D&D B/X retro-clone. LotFP is well written and has nice production but is otherwise pretty standard. There isn't even anything particularly "weird" about it. The areas that separate it from other RPGs are it's style and tone. The authors seem to have a greater than average preoccupation with sex and violence. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both sex and violence in my RPGs, just not together or in such prevalence. LotFP feels more S&M/B&D than weird fantasy and if that's your thing, go for it. For me, it's a little much and seems to be bloody just for the sake of being bloody, not for any particular purpose. It does fit a particular, if small, niche for hyper-violent games. It's sort of a genre in and of itself. It occupies the same position in the world of RPGs as Norwegian Viking Black Death Metal does in music: Some people really love it, most do not.