I've only experienced BoL as a player, and my GM is pretty awesome, but this game strikes me as brilliant. At first it looked too broad-stroaked and simple, but I find that the game mechanics design allows for stuff rather than being limited because it doesn't cover certain situations. (Did that make sense?) My group is sort of waiting for the sweet honey-moon days with this game to come to an end, to find that the staying power of the simple mechanics is running out, but so far there has been no sign of that.

I'm seriously contemplating starting a Star Wars game with the BoL rules.

For the record, I have no idea about the magic system (we haven't used it), and we rarely do character advancement in my GMs games.

Quote from: Angelman;604525(...)I'm seriously contemplating starting a Star Wars game with the BoL rules.

(...)

Rules-wise it would probably work very nicely, but have you come up with a list of careers that makes some sense/feels appropriate?

By the way, Dicey Tales #3 will contain a Hammer Horror inspired setting using the BoL rules. Working title "Karpathia".

I consider BoL one of the better games out there.  Of course I am partial to rule-light games anyway, so that colours my opinions. But the system is a miracle of economy in the sense that it packs a lot of flavour in a very tight package. As a result, with just a few details BoL characters come out as well defined and rounded as characters in much crunchier systems. The game is also very good at capturing the flavour of the Sword & Sorcery genre and their are a lot of rules that enforce genre emulation.

The magic system is very cool, but it can take getting used to as it very different from the casual D&D or Harry Potter type of spellcasting. Even just casting a minor spell will probably involve a complicated ritual. Casting a serious spell might it itself become the focus of a session. But again, that is genre emulation for you.

It not a game for players that light deep tactics in combat or like to lust over equipment or hoard treasure, in fact the only way to level up is to explain how you squandered the treasure gained in the previous saga - another example of genre emulation.

There are a couple of things, having run the game for a good few sessions that I am not sure about. I find that perhaps there just aren't enough boons and flaws, especially as these are tied to the country of origin of the character. So if you should have two or more characters from the same town there is a very high chance there will be a lot of overlap. Also a good number of the flaws are very circumstantial and depending on the scenario will either never affect the character or constantly affect the character.  

Also, as I am used to systems where the degree of success matters, I find the Mighty Success rule on a natural roll of 12 a little underwhelming.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;604510What's wrong with the spelling of the word "misspellings", by the way, or does the word simply not exist?

'Misspellings' is fine. I'd just highlighted it to emphasise what the issue with 'steap' was.

In any case, your English is far better than my command of your native language (regardless of which one it is! ).

Quote from: Al Livingstone;604533'Misspellings' is fine. I'd just highlighted it to emphasise what the issue with 'steap' was.

In any case, your English is far better than my command of your native language (regardless of which one it is! ).

When you're a nitpicker concerning homophone misspellings and misplaced apostrophes like me, you're bound to get your ass handed back to you sooner or later. And that's not even considering my terrible mastery of proper punctuation in both English and Dutch...

Quote from: Soylent Green;604532(...)I find that perhaps there just aren't  enough boons and flaws, especially as these are tied to the country of  origin of the character. So if you should have two or more characters  from the same town there is a very high chance there will be a lot of  overlap. Also a good number of the flaws are very circumstantial and  depending on the scenario will either never affect the character or  constantly affect the character.  

(...)

Legends of Steel (BoL Edition), a somewhat more mundane  sword & sorcery setting using mostly the same rules set doesn't have  Boons and Flaws tied to your origin, allowing perhaps for a bit more  variety among fellow citizens of a certain city-state.
Your point about the circumstantial nature of some of the Flaws is valid, but it doesn't bother me much personally.

Quote from: Soylent Green;604532(...)I find that perhaps there just aren't enough boons and flaws, especially as these are tied to the country of origin of the character. So if you should have two or more characters from the same town there is a very high chance there will be a lot of overlap. Also a good number of the flaws are very circumstantial and depending on the scenario will either never affect the character or constantly affect the character.  

(...)

Legends of Steel (BoL Edition), a somewhat more mundane sword & sorcery setting using mostly the same rules set doesn't have Boons and Flaws tied to your origin, allowing perhaps for a bit more variety among fellow citizens of a certain city-state.
Your point about the circumstantial nature of some of the Flaws is valid, but it doesn't bother me much personally.

Think I was the first to run a play by post game on the BoL forum (or if not the first, the first to have a clearly defined finish to the game, though that was as much down to the player drop out you get in play by post games as anything else). I thought the system leant itself well to play by post - the rules never get in the way and there's not a lot to keep track of. I'm not a fan of licensed settings in RPGs but Lemuria seems to be 'setting-lite' which suited me - I like to fill in the blanks rather than have everything mapped and defined to the nth degree.

If I recall (when the game wrapped I moved onto other systems - in fact it may have rekindled my interest in Tunnels and Trolls for a more high fantasy/heavy on the magic style fantasy game) the player characters start out as being fairly heroic and competent, as opposed to your usual freshly minted pink and steaming 1st level dead man/woman/elf/dwarf walking. I also got the feeling that long term play might highlight flaws (in that mooks and lower strength enemies would prove no challenge, much in the way Stormtroopers become in the Star Wars D6 game) but never got the chance to test it out as the game wrapped up with a definite finish.

I would have liked to have seen the system adapted to a Superhero setting but Simon turned Supers! out instead. A high fantasy/magic setting and system for dungeon crawling might be worth considering using the same system.

I'd recommend the PDF version first, see what you think, run a one shot and I'm sure you'll take the plunge for the printed version. Get it here

What about Legends of Steel? Good pickup for BoL? I've heard it's a must-have, and I've heard it's ok, but not a must-have.

Love the simplicity and the character creation phase.  Especially with the background/skill packages.  But have no idea what story/scenerio to run that keeps me engaged.

Quote from: Marleycat;604617Love the simplicity and the character creation phase.  Especially with the background/skill packages.  But have no idea what story/scenerio to run that keeps me engaged.

Well in its purest form sword & sorcery, and by extension BoL, lends itself best towards episodic play. In roleplaying terms that is both a curse and a blessing. It's a blessing if you have an irregular gaming schedule with fluctuating player turn out. It's a curse in that episodic gaming lack the sort of self-perpetuating momentum of an ongoing campaign.

But that doesn't mean BoL has to be run in an episodic fashion. You can sandbox it as well, though you might need to reconsider the advancement rules in that case. What I don't think BoL would do well is dungeon/hex crawling in that it doesn't really cater for the tactical/logistics challenges of attritional play.

Quote from: Soylent Green;604625Well in its purest form sword & sorcery, and by extension BoL, lends itself best towards episodic play. In roleplaying terms that is both a curse and a blessing. It's a blessing if you have an irregular gaming schedule with fluctuating player turn out. It's a curse in that episodic gaming lack the sort of self-perpetuating momentum of an ongoing campaign.

But that doesn't mean BoL has to be run in an episodic fashion. You can sandbox it as well, though you might need to reconsider the advancement rules in that case. What I don't think BoL would do well is dungeon/hex crawling in that it doesn't really cater for the tactical/logistics challenges of attritional play.

So a good choice for pickup game similar to how Paranoia and Tales of the Vagabond does but Conan vibe?

Quote from: Marleycat;604628So a good choice for pickup game similar to how Paranoia and Tales of the Vagabond does but Conan vibe?

I think BoL is certainly is ideally suited for pick up games. Easy to learn rules, quick character generation and the very loose and accessible setting all work towards that.

That said I'm a little wary of using the label "pick up" game is a little unfortunate because in the mind of a lot of roleplayers it often translates to a somewhat "lesser" or "beer and pretzel" sort of game that lacks any real long term appeal and require no commitment from the players when in fact classics like Call of Cthulhu are also ideal for on shots too.

There are a few free BoL adventures with a Lovecraftian vibe here http://www.strangestones.com/downloads/  if you are interested.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;604527Rules-wise [BOL] would probably work very nicely [for Star Wars], but have you come up with a list of careers that makes some sense/feels appropriate?

No, I haven't given it much though yet - I'm still contemplating whether or not to do it, although everything is better then WEG's D6 (which I had a 10 years love-affair with before I just couldn't stand it any longer).

From the top of my head, I would use the standard SW RPGs character templates as BoL careers: Luke Skywalker in SW4 would probably be, Brash Pilot 2, Farmhand 1, (Droid) Mechanic 1, Jedi 0, or something similar. Han Solo in SW4 might be, Smuggler 2, Rogue 1, Gunslinger 1, (Ship) Mechanic 0.

I have no idea how to handle alien species and the Force though. (Or indeed, SciFi equipment, but that shouldn't be too hard to figure out).

The Lords of Lemuria Website has discussed Star Wars adaptations a couple of times - here is one thread:

http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=515&mforum=d6fantasy

This website is a great place to find ideas on alternative advancement, hacks to other genres, D7D hacks and houserules, etc. It's worth checking out:

http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/index.php?mforum=d6fantasy

Thank you, Gruntfuttock
This should be very helpful!