Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

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Gringnr
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Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Gringnr »

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/18 ... rinth-lord

Combines the Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Edition Companion books into a single hardcover. Some of the art will be the same, some will be new. No new content as far as I can tell. But, you can pick up a hardcover with your choice of cover for less than the cost of both books in paperback from Lulu. Looks like a GM screen and solo adventure will be included as stretch goals. More stuff available if anyone is interested.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Buttmonkey »

I would have been all over this 10 years ago. It's basically (pun intended) the way we (well, everyone I knew) actually played AD&D back in the early 80s. I've moved on to other games now and don't see myself spending the money on this anymore. I'm not sure if that's an exciting or a sad thing. LL+AEC is a great accomplishment for the OSR.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Treebore »

IF I played or ran this regularly I'd be all over this KS. As it is I am happy enough with the separate copies I do own.
Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Persimmon »

I backed it for a couple reasons. First, I don't own any of the books already so I'm getting all new stuff. Second, some of those I sometimes play with still don't really care for the Siege Engine or want to play C&C. They prefer straight D&D or some very near derivative. In some ways I agree in the sense that C&C still isn't as intuitive for me as 1st edition or B/X D&D, even though I like it well enough.

And after playing Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea[ recently, I appreciate the convenience of having everything in one book. So if it's good and well organized, others in my circle may want to use it (I think we get a pdf with our pledge) and hopefully I'll talk them into doing one of the mega-dungeons.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Treebore »

I don't think anything can be called "intuitive". 1st Edition D&D was never anything I would call intuitive. It required a lot of memorization. Once everything was in my head, I may have described it as intuitive. I don't recall. C&C certainly wasn't intuitive for me until I had my "AH HA!" moment, which was when the characters had reached 8th level in my very first C&C game. Thats when the simplicity and versatility of it finally became clear for me. I blame it on having a lot of the 3E mentality needing to be shed. ALL is "intuitive" in that it is so familiar, that its easy to understand because its so familiar.

IF I had a reason to believe I would ever run this extensively, or even play it extensively, I would definitely pick up a compiled rule book. Its written clearly, well organized, and very familiar. As it is, its simply more practical for me to stick with what I already own. I also have plenty of copies of 1E AD&D, so if I were to run such a game face to face, I'd use the original books anyways. The 1E DMG is still my favorite go to book of inspiration anyways.
Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

Grand Knight Commander of the Society.

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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by alcyone »

Persimmon wrote: And after playing Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea[ recently, I appreciate the convenience of having everything in one book. So if it's good and well organized, others in my circle may want to use it (I think we get a pdf with our pledge) and hopefully I'll talk them into doing one of the mega-dungeons.


Did you do the two-phase initiative by the book?
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Omote »

I'm a fan of Labyrinth Lord, and I backed the hell out of this KS. For the most part, I believe the base Labyrinth Lord + Advanced Edition Companion combined book will be virtually identical to the previous edition, just all contained in a single tome. Dan Proctor isn't going to change anything, that much is all but certain other than the cover, arrangement, and interior art.

It's funny that when I run D&D-style fantasy RPGs now, that Castles & Crusades is considered the new-school game while Labyrinth Lord is old school. Craziness.

I like both games for different reasons, but both get the classic D&D feel right. I play C&C for a modern set of rules that just plain work for me and the group. I play LL+AEC to feel like playing old-school D&D from the past. Both games play well, and just feel good to play.

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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by alcyone »

I always liked LL for being a good Moldvay/Cook type reference, so adding the Advanced part always looked clunky as a separate book. But I never tried the Advanced book.

For AD&D reimaginings I really like Adventures Dark and Deep. It plays like AD&D, with the crunch of those rules but laid out in a predictable and usable way. I am not sure it was even intended to be _played_: it's a what-if-Gary-wrote-2E, but it was fun to play. I ran HHQ1 "Fighters Challenge" with it.

C&C is much faster to play though.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Treebore »

When I play something other than C&C its usually been Swords and Wizardry, but we haven't even done that for at least 2 years now. Only C&C I even play or run right now is Rigon's game. Everything else is CoC, Traveller, Eclipse Phase, Victorious or something else.
Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

Grand Knight Commander of the Society.

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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Persimmon »

Aergraith wrote:
Persimmon wrote: And after playing Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea[ recently, I appreciate the convenience of having everything in one book. So if it's good and well organized, others in my circle may want to use it (I think we get a pdf with our pledge) and hopefully I'll talk them into doing one of the mega-dungeons.


Did you do the two-phase initiative by the book?


No; we played it pretty much like 1st edition AD&D except we roll d10 instead of d6. And initiative is always for the whole party, not individuals unless there are special circumstances like a guy out on his own. Oh, and by "it" here I meant Labyrinth Lord, not AS&SH, though we play that as well.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Persimmon »

[quote="Treebore"]I don't think anything can be called "intuitive". 1st Edition D&D was never anything I would call intuitive. It required a lot of memorization. Once everything was in my head, I may have described it as intuitive. I don't recall. C&C certainly wasn't intuitive for me until I had my "AH HA!" moment, which was when the characters had reached 8th level in my very first C&C game. Thats when the simplicity and versatility of it finally became clear for me. I blame it on having a lot of the 3E mentality needing to be shed. ALL is "intuitive" in that it is so familiar, that its easy to understand because its so familiar.

For us, pretty much all the regular players have been doing D&D since the early 80s. Only a couple moved beyond second edition. So this long experience means that everybody just knows the rules, spell effects, etc. So I guess familiarity makes it intuitive or second nature for us.

In C&C, people are still thinking of things like "is that a prime?" "do I add my level?" "how many undead can I turn?", etc. People just want to save vs. wands or whatever. And several people really don't like the way saves stay the same vs. same level foes, though I appreciate that from my MERP days in the 90s.

And even though I appreciate the sense of ascending armor class, it still feels weird to me. Platemail and a shield should be AC 2, not 18. So I'm in on the LL kickstarter and we'll see what our group decides to do.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by alcyone »

Persimmon wrote:So I guess familiarity makes it intuitive or second nature for us.
If you find this intuitive, you are a super-genius.
My C&C stuff: www.rpggrognard.com

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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Persimmon »

Aergraith wrote:
Persimmon wrote:So I guess familiarity makes it intuitive or second nature for us.
If you find this intuitive, you are a super-genius.
Hence, our interest in Labyrinth Lord. We never used all those rules anyhow. If there are ties for initiative, we either re-roll or go with whichever side has thefaster movement rate. And in these cases if certain classes have initiative bonuses, they can go first. But stuff like this, weapon speed factors vs. AC, etc., we always ignored. So a B/X & 1st edition mash-up is pretty much what we've always played, though now we're doing C&C for the time being.

My old group (where I used to live) used to rotate editions by whomever was DMing but they're full bore Pathfinder now, which has just too many options in my opinion.
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Re: Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter

Post by Treebore »

1E AD&D is why I so readily House Rule to this day.
Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

Grand Knight Commander of the Society.

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