Constructive Criticism







jet pack says This

I say:


The Yellow Book of Brechewold
The Temple of the Wurm
Green Devil Face #7
Galileo 2: Judgement Day
Winnie-The-Shit
A Gift for all of Norway
Do Not Accept This Quest
Faecal Lands
Meanderings of the Mine Mind
Black Chamber (the book I wrote)
All Dogs go to Hell

All of these were laid out by Glynn Seal - all of them.
He laid out a whole release cycle of ten books.
then - 
another entire release cycle:

The Lair of the Brain Eaters
Heart of the Saint
Don't Fuck the Priest
A True Relation of the Great Virginia Disastrum
Eat the Rich
The Phatasmacist
Black of Night
The Floating Tower of Atlantis
The Insidious Experiments of Dr Bubbles



As for Yannick Bouchard, his art is LotFP .
Death Frost Doom
Thulian Echoes
The Squid, the Cabal, and the Old Man
World of the Lost
Sounds of the Mushroom Kingdom
Going Through Forbidden Otherworlds
No Rest for the Wicked
Deck of Weird Things 
Just a Stupid Dungeon
The Obsidian Anti-Pharos
All Dogs go to Hell
The Printer's Devils
Earth Incubation Crisis
Terror in the Streets
The Butchery of Agnes Gooder
Curse of the Daughterbrides
Orgasm
Octo-Planetary Blade of Somnambulistic Benificence
All 3 Adventure Anthologies 
The Phantasmacist
The Insidious Experiments of Dr Bubbles
Eldritch Cock


As for what I thought of the recent releases:


Don't Fuck the Priest: need to read it over a couple times, a lot of words in that book - great ideas, the deck is geomorphs, the dice are used for stuff that comes up a lot, and the whole concept is interesting. I like dungeons made out of something other than stone.
Box feels sturdy, cards shuffle fine, the dice are unusual and don't roll super smoothly, book cover is awesome - the art is great, even if there's not much.

Heart of the Saint: I bought two copies, one for me and one for my dad. Series of mini weird events or encounters - some larger than others. Culminates in potential weird disaster, and the overarching idea/s are fun (mini quests towards a larger goal, and having some sort of annoying lawful dude cramp the party's style) It is by Alucard Finch, who hasn't disappointed me yet - Big Puppet is one of my favorites and The Temple of the Wurm is truly mindbending and merciless.
The red feels like luxurious paper, the silver foiling is beautiful and detailed, the silver ink in the interior is stunning - the quality is exceptional.

The Lair of the Brain Eaters: Sword and sorcery is something I enjoy - and this module is a wonderful sword and sorcery lair of a necromancer - lots of unusual things alongside the familiar notes sure to ring out for anyone who is a fan of the genre. Also has eating brains, which is always a plus. 

The crushers are made of a sturdy paper - they aren't flimsy freebie junk - I think they all could be great to have with other books in case you need something at a convention or some other impromptu game - or if you don't have as many players as usual and have to run a one shot.

The Floating Tower of Atlantis: excellent and precise and useful - it's always good to have these kinds of modules around in a pinch. Reading it has convinced me that I need to buy Lair of the Brain Eaters - Ritzlin didn't let me down.

The Insidious Experiments of Doctor Bubbles: I saw this and knew I had to make sure I got all the crushers, I couldn't risk not owning this one. I love Jeff's writing and ideas - and this small little area holds a lot of crazy dangerous fun stuff.

The Phantasmacist: crazy pink and purple. Chaotic and dangerous and sure to worry the party whose Magic-User has any of these spells. It is especially exciting because I have played with Raggi enough to see what he likes to do - and these spells are a reflection of that and that should terrify your allies in games when these spells are in people's spellbooks.

Eat the Rich: great, short, eminently usable - subverts expectations. I always love things that subvert expectations, especially if that can be used on players and player characters simultaneously - which this small adventure does perfectly.

Black of Night: completely nuts and definitely playable. Not interested in recreating the movies that are a clear inspiration.

- - -

Hyperlinks not being for all 3 books sounds like an error - maybe you should have inquired about that instead of bashing it - there aren't a ton of people working on all this - and as a result they are working very hard.

Every release is a potential commercial suicide because everywhere is becoming hostile - approval required, behind mature windows, work rejected, no ennies, no retail support, active misinformation and attack campaigns all across RPG social media by conspiracy theorists and pearl clutching fucks, all this leaning on a couple people - really truly leaning on James first and foremost.
This is James pulling together the best of the best he can - all the weird people and weird art and weird ideas swirling and James working hard alongside people to pull books out of this maelstrom, dripping with cosmic discharge.

James makes high quality books - and that is expensive - and as people are more and more voting with their wallet and not their voice, he is relying increasingly on a smaller and smaller group of freaks to be on board fiscally - as the general public's eye is wrested away from him, like tourists being shuffled and shunted away from a homeless encampment.

Meanwhile so many of these wonderful freaks who buy things won't go out and talk about it because of overwhelming resistance from puritanical bastards who want nothing more than to sexualize breasts and make gore unacceptable and only strive to make god-awful garbage books that aren't tested or played or in possession of any mechanics or boundary pushing content.

Meanwhile LotFP quietly has had a diverse group of artists and writers since the start - is largely bourne from the visions and hard work of one person - and uncompromisingly presents books that regularly push what can be done - both in material, presentation, and execution.

Being mad at a lack of art or a perceived dip in quality because you don't enjoy how the tables or layout looks is a problem for you - and I promise you that if you do anything good, and lay it out and do the art - then you will be happy - this is other people's hard work - and calling it outdated and ugly simply because you think that is how it is is not constructive criticism. 
Why is it ugly or outdated?
What is better?

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is built to be alien and push the Referee to play things they would never make - to put the players into the strange and weird and uncanny - and it does that by having details and decisions most books would ignore - art is a big factor, yes - but sometimes the text is the most important part. 

You have a blisteringly ignorant outlook if you don't even mention who did any of the layout or cartography - and summarily disparage the publisher and most prolific cover artist.

Making all this stuff is hard - this is not a huge team of people - it is the visionaries who toil and the visionaries who suffer when people take things for granted or dismiss things without reading them or really digesting them.


Comments

  1. Agreed.
    And yes, Glynn Seal did great work on All Dogs, and so did Yannick Bouchard.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment