Here’s a game of sorts. It’s handwritten, it’s irritating, and it’s about goofball prisoners sort of murdering each other on a garbage planet. Also it’s handwritten. It’s Human Occupied Landfill, and we hope you enjoy almost as much as we did (because we hate you).
System Mastery 
.. There’s MORE THAN ONE supplement?? Really??
Probably not. Just ButtHOL. We don’t do research around here. It’s boring.
I feel as though this game tormented you worse than I did with Furry Pirates and Synnibarr.
It was just an irritating pain to even read. Synnibarr was a delight, so that’s definitely true. And Furry Pirates, well I guess I could always stand to bone up on Sulawesi in the 1600s history.
Huh, people heap heavy criticism on Lamentations of the Flame Princess?
To my eye the core rule book is pretty much a standard old-school D&D homebrew, maybe jazzed up a bit and given a light veneer of “weird”.
The only “complaints” I’ve heard relate to the adventures, which do tend to pour on the bizarreness, gore, and hopeless situations. But I put “complaints” in quotes, since the folks who buy such supplementary materials generally seem to view these elements as features.
I think it’s more roadside gawking than criticism. The book is weird and super gory, which certainly isn’t indicative of terrible design.
Aren’t you guys reading this game like it’s straight? It’s satire, isn’t it?
What was Maid? Was that satire?
Satire is funny.
Personally, I’d say that Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All (City of Violence) by Bruce Galloway is WAY worse than Lamentations of the Flame Princess. From what I’ve seen, LotFP is mostly just a retroclone heartbreaker with really gory art and awful modules. FW is a retroclone heartbreaker with systems within systems concerning but never actually explaining what happens when you have a tin bat charm. And that’s not even getting in to how the dice literally determine if you even get too play the game.
I mentioned this game back in the comments of your Fantasy Imperium and you promised to review it and therefore I feel entitled to free entertainment! In all seriousness, I really do wanna see this stinker savaged by you guys. How do I send you guys a copy? Is that explained on your Patreon?
No need, we have a copy of Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All. We’ll get it it very soon. Probably episode 51 or so.
Sweet! I look forward to your abject rage!
Yanno, I think Imma support your Patreon anyway. I wanna see you try out the idiocy that is Character Creation for Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All (City of Violence). And no, I will not stop making that joke.
We won’t either! And thanks for your patronage!
City of Violence.
I liked this book a lot more than you guys, but that might be because I first read it when I was just out of high school. I have a higher tolerance for the handwritten text and the art style, but I’ll totally agree with you that it overstays its welcome. It’s certainly not a *good* game, though at least it’s *technically* playable.
I do still appreciate the fact that the combat example between two characters turns into a combat example between their players.
I would say it was more a satire of 40k. That massive amount of background of the COW that doesn’t matter at all reminded me alot of the massive amount of dumb background 40k has that has nothing to do with space marine chainsaw fights.
I love 40k and its dumb setting (and even the dumb deep lore), but remember that its only relatively recently that 40k has an RPG where you could actually use any of it, as opposed to a wargame.
We also discussed how it’s got a lot of 40k parallels, and not just having a Galactic Emperor. I guess it didn’t make it onto the show.
I’m glad to see other people coming to the defense of Lamentations of the Flame Princess as well. It’s basically just old Basic D&D (essentially the same version you reviewed in episode 25), but with a lot of modern tweaks and sensibilities. It’s a wholly playable and actually quite good system, with a lot of “weird fantasy” trappings on top.
Super late to the party, but to address people’s confusion over Lamentations of the Flame Princess being called out as one of the go-to trainwreck RPGs, I think that has less to do with the game from a mechanical standpoint (Since it’s basically just BX D&D with a few tweaks) and more to do with the general antics of its creator, James Edward Raggi IV who is a weird shit-head. If you ever pick up a supplement for LotFP that was actually written by Raggi, you’ll quickly realize that 25% of it is going to be terribly designed “Fuck You”s to the players ala Tomb of Horrors, and 75% Raggi having indignant arguments with hypothetical detractors who don’t agree with his approach to game design and why they’re stupid and wrong and how it was the playtest group’s fault that this adventure ended in a TPK.
I know I’m WAAAY late… but do you hear that whizzing sound? It’s the point going by. HoL is NOT a carefully crafted masterwork RPG. It is a half drunk upraised middle finger to those. It’s not there to have cool mechanics, It’s not THERE to be balanced. it’s there to have a madcap romp through a ridiculous parody of a world, and to LAUGH AT EVERYTHING. Relax, embrace the silly, and go have some fun!