I find it very difficult to enjoy any of the numerous BX clones that seem to come out weekly. LotFP really did an amazing job and has spoiled me. The Rules are a masterpiece, the early adventures great. But beyond the controversy of the later adventures the rules themselves and the core book is beautiful. It also took layout into consideration nearly a decade before anybody else was talking bout it. Add to that encumbrance and a thief that is actually fun to play. Presto!
LotFP does a lot of little stuff really well. Fighters actually have a niche, thief is well-designed, the re-priced armor creates economic decisions, progression is smoothed out, and the encumbrance system is fleshed out (so you can actually create resource management).
I think it’s a good game with evocative writing and a great chassis. In a lot of ways, I wish the game that “won” market share was a vanilla fantasy distillation of LotFP instead of BX (with a full bestiary and magic item repository).
Really amazing write up, and I appreciate all the links to related blog posts, that'll make for some good reading. It's so interesting to see a system examined at this level of detail
I haven't read this extremely closely, so apologies if I'm missing something obvious. That being said, it seems like a lot of your suggested changes are not dissimilar to saying "Use ACKS instead of OSE" or "Use AD&D instead of OSE". Is there a reason you'd recommend using OSE over ACKS or AD&D?
This is incredible work. Would love to see the same for Shadowdark.
Thanks Kevin!
Excellent detail! Very enjoyable read
Thanks! Glad you liked it :D
I find it very difficult to enjoy any of the numerous BX clones that seem to come out weekly. LotFP really did an amazing job and has spoiled me. The Rules are a masterpiece, the early adventures great. But beyond the controversy of the later adventures the rules themselves and the core book is beautiful. It also took layout into consideration nearly a decade before anybody else was talking bout it. Add to that encumbrance and a thief that is actually fun to play. Presto!
LotFP does a lot of little stuff really well. Fighters actually have a niche, thief is well-designed, the re-priced armor creates economic decisions, progression is smoothed out, and the encumbrance system is fleshed out (so you can actually create resource management).
I think it’s a good game with evocative writing and a great chassis. In a lot of ways, I wish the game that “won” market share was a vanilla fantasy distillation of LotFP instead of BX (with a full bestiary and magic item repository).
Really amazing write up, and I appreciate all the links to related blog posts, that'll make for some good reading. It's so interesting to see a system examined at this level of detail
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it <3
I haven't read this extremely closely, so apologies if I'm missing something obvious. That being said, it seems like a lot of your suggested changes are not dissimilar to saying "Use ACKS instead of OSE" or "Use AD&D instead of OSE". Is there a reason you'd recommend using OSE over ACKS or AD&D?
A whole lot of content is built to run OSE specifically, and it has a whole lot less cruft and crunch than 1e or ACKs.
I think OSE is an easier game to run and GM, it’s just missing a few important bits.
That said, if you’re trying to do domain stuff, yeah - play something else.