Is this meant to be a joke? There are several references in the rules to a spell called Lost Dweomer. Its even listed as a ninth level spell in the magic-user's spell list. However, nowhere is it actually given a description.
So "lost dweomer" is actually lost.
RPGPundit
I think he responded to a set of questions on another forum, and when it was brought up, did not claim it was a mistake. Seems to have been an intentional joke.
If so that's a stupid joke. A joke that damages your game is not that funny. Its one thing if he'd just had it on the Magic-user spell list and nowhere else; but when he put it in the summoning table, it can fuck up a game in mid-play.
RPGPundit
Huh, would you look at that. Never noticed it before!
Quote from: RPGPundit;495036If so that's a stupid joke. A joke that damages your game is not that funny. Its one thing if he'd just had it on the Magic-user spell list and nowhere else; but when he put it in the summoning table, it can fuck up a game in mid-play.
RPGPundit
Wow, so much butthurt. Not sure if lack of imagination (I can think of 2 or 3 "lost dweomers" offhand) or plain old lack of humor.
I'm going with lack of humor because if you can't think up a Lost Dweomer of your own, just skip to the next result, or flip the d10s (ie. 37 instead of 73) or whatevs. It's certainly not "game-breaking".
Either way I'm quite certain that this was as much a joke, as a commentary; consider for a moment that this is the guy who didn't give you a bestiary because monsters should be unique,
and you should make up your own.
Quote from: The Butcher;495040Wow, so much butthurt. Not sure if lack of imagination (I can think of 2 or 3 "lost dweomers" offhand) or plain old lack of humor.
I'm going with lack of humor because if you can't think up a Lost Dweomer of your own, just skip to the next result, or flip the d10s (ie. 37 instead of 73) or whatevs. It's certainly not "game-breaking".
Either way I'm quite certain that this was as much a joke, as a commentary; consider for a moment that this is the guy who didn't give you a bestiary because monsters should be unique, and you should make up your own.
Great, now I'm imagining Daniel Day Lewis frantically searching his LotFP book for the Lost Dweomer spell and then tearing it in half when he realizes the joke is on him.
You fiend.
Quote from: misterguignol;495042Great, now I'm imagining Daniel Day Lewis frantically searching his LotFP book for the Lost Dweomer spell and then tearing it in half when he realizes the joke is on him.
You fiend.
:D
But please,
please, no tearing LotFP books in half. I'll be glad to give these unwanted babies a happy home.
Quote from: RPGPundit;495036but when he put it in the summoning table, it can fuck up a game in mid-play.
... fucking up a game in mid-play is the entire point of the Summoning spell.
LOL @ Pundit for buying into this shit.
Please don't let it be true that 'pundit has lost his sense of humour, as on any other day, a missing spell is very funny injoke.
Mean, but funny.
Look, the fact is, if this actually was a spell and for whatever reason the writer failed to include it in the book, that'd be too bad, though fixable.
If this was never meant to be spell and was always some kind of practical joke, that's just pathetic; you don't incorporate it into other stuff in your book and do that, its idiotic. The second the spell shows up anywhere other than on the spell list, it goes from being cute to being something that affects playability.
But I suspect there's something more pathetic going on here: Raggi had a spell in mind, he forgot to put it in, and now (thanks to a coincidence of the name) is trying to claim that it was all his hip joke on the reader. Which is by far the most idiotic of all three possibilities; because that goes beyond innocent mistake or stupid jokester to just being a sad cunt who'd rather try to cop an attitude about his own fuck-up than just admit he made an error.
RPGPundit
I think it's just a Hackmaster-quality joke.
Quote from: RPGPundit;495124Raggi had a spell in mind, he forgot to put it in
Wrong.
I wanted the spell lists to all match up to a die type to make random spell determination easy.
I had the five 9th level spells I wanted from OGC sources.
There needed to be a sixth to keep the pattern.
But... fuck, 9th level spells, I'm really not interested (note the top two levels of spells have no original content in them), so there's the Lost Dweomer to fill out the list and won't it be funny if people can't figure out why they can't find the Lost Dweomer.
The more huffy Pundie gets about this, the funnier it is.
Quote from: two_fishes;495128The more huffy Pundie gets about this, the funnier it is.
In this case I'm forced to agree with him. Having a laugh at the expense of people who paid you money in good faith is a dick move.
Quote from: Aos;495131In this case I'm forced to agree with him. Having a laugh at the expense of people who paid you money in good faith is a dick move.
Why? There are a few references a spell that isn't actually detailed? And the name of the spell is called "Lost Dweomer". Small joke. Obvious. No big deal. It's worth a smile if you like it, or a frown if you don't. Oh, it shows up on a table mid-play? Big deal. Choose or roll something else, or make something up. Making a huff about it on teh interwebs? Laughable.
Quote from: two_fishes;495133Why? There are a few references a spell that isn't actually detailed? And the name of the spell is called "Lost Dweomer". Small joke. Obvious. No big deal. It's worth a smile if you like it, or a frown if you don't. Oh, it shows up on a table mid-play? Big deal. Choose or roll something else, or make something up. Making a huff about it on teh interwebs? Laughable.
I don't know, maybe, but if it comes up as a result of a random roll and then you spend 15 minutes looking through the rule book for it, and then have to go on line to actually find out it's a joke, that to me seems like a problem. It's certainly no more ridiculous than any of 100 other things that people make a huff about around here- and unlike, say, an endless masturbatory argument on the definition of RPGs or the use of 'plot' in games, it actually can have impact on one's game- which actually makes it 100% less goofy than most of what gets discussed here.
Fair point.
Quote from: Aos;495138It's certainly no more ridiculous than any of 100 other things that people make a huff about around here- and unlike, say and endless masturbatory argument on the definition of RPGs or the use of 'plot' in games, it actually can have impact on one's game-
Fair point.
LOL!!! I have no idea what the hell any of you are talking about. :D
Quote from: Blazing Donkey;495146LOL!!! I have no idea what the hell any of you are talking about. :D
LotFP: Lamentations of the Flame Princess (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=lotfp), a game.
Is this some kind of postmodern swine thing?
Regards,
David R
I'm torn. I get the criticism about having a joke on your customers. In a product that's otherwise all together, it's a nuissance.
At the same time (I know I'm in the minority with this) I enjoy the building-from-error aspect of the hobby. It's like the "% liar" monster entries in Arduin. I think we all benefit from some of that now and then. I have done some very nice rewrites and expansions of poorly-designed and written products. I'm happy with those. Also-I might be tempted to include easter egg-type jokes or features if I ever produce a coherent product.
But in a field where there is some desire to distinguish between hobby-level and professional-level production, where people are charging money and trying to impress, and where the customer's expectation is no longer being required to fill in blanks in the rules, I guess building-from-error is as old-fashioned as mimeographed fanzines.
Quote from: stu2000;495189I'm torn. I get the criticism about having a joke on your customers. In a product that's otherwise all together, it's a nuissance.
At the same time (I know I'm in the minority with this) I enjoy the building-from-error aspect of the hobby. It's like the "% liar" monster entries in Arduin. I think we all benefit from some of that now and then. I have done some very nice rewrites and expansions of poorly-designed and written products. I'm happy with those. Also-I might be tempted to include easter egg-type jokes or features if I ever produce a coherent product.
But in a field where there is some desire to distinguish between hobby-level and professional-level production, where people are charging money and trying to impress, and where the customer's expectation is no longer being required to fill in blanks in the rules, I guess building-from-error is as old-fashioned as mimeographed fanzines.
I'm cool with building from error as well. It can be fun. Having a laugh at your paying customers is something else entirely.
Quote from: stu2000;495189At the same time (I know I'm in the minority with this) I enjoy the building-from-error aspect of the hobby. It's like the "% liar" monster entries in Arduin. I think we all benefit from some of that now and then. I have done some very nice rewrites and expansions of poorly-designed and written products. I'm happy with those. Also-I might be tempted to include easter egg-type jokes or features if I ever produce a coherent product.
But in a field where there is some desire to distinguish between hobby-level and professional-level production, where people are charging money and trying to impress, and where the customer's expectation is no longer being required to fill in blanks in the rules, I guess building-from-error is as old-fashioned as mimeographed fanzines.
I find building-from-error a loathsome idea and yet another sign that consumers in this market are happy to put up with inferior products for some bizarre reason. If I'm paying money, I don't want poorly written crap. I could do that myself.
But at least that's just a side effect of amateur quality. Intentionally creating a rulebook that contains references to rules that don't exist in an otherwise serious rulebook with nothing suggesting it is a joke? That's just hubris.
What makes it worse in this case is that the joke isn't remotely funny.
I think it's funny... and it feels like something I might see in the old Arduin books... it's a puzzle-laugh the first time you encounter it, then you're in on the joke and wait for newbies to stumble on it, 'Hey, lookit Tim! He's gone and lost his Lost Dweamor!'
Otherwise it's an invite to make something up... and a jibe at those expecting a 'rule for everything'.
Whether Lost Dweomer, taken isolatedly, is funny or not, Pundy is making a big deal of something which strikes me as fairly inconsequential (since it's obvious, to me anyway, that whatever "damage" this "joke" can cause to your game session is ridiculously easy to prevent or fix, for any minimally competent GM). This, of course, is amusing in and of itself. So, teleologically speaking, Lost Dweomer is funny, insofar as it has generated yet another laughable instance of Señor Pundejo getting all riled up apropos of nothing.
(http://i.qkme.me/3588eo.jpg)
Raggi, again, I'd have had no problem with the joke had it been in the spell list. The second it starts appearing on other tables, that makes those tables less useful, and seems a very stupid thing to do, and adds nothing to the humour.
Judging by how it does seem like you have a certain disdain for high-level spells (and play) in general, I think its likely that you're actually telling the truth about the whole thing having been intentional from the start. The inclusion of the joke in the mechanics themselves means you're a bit of dick, but not nearly as much of a dick as you would be if you were now trying to cover up for a mistake by claiming it to have been a joke.
Of course, its also yet another symptom of your weakest quality as an RPG designer, the way you let your own personal prejudices harm the value of your game; as sure as how some RPG writers let their personal politics, religion or ideologies fuck up their settings by turning them into propagandism, your personal ideas about what you don't like about D&D play (as opposed to how you can make D&D better, which is a totally different way to handle things and actually productive) is something that at several points hamstrings LotFP. Which, don't get me wrong, is still an incredible iteration of D&D, but it would have been more incredible and not less if you hadn't pulled shit like "You know what? I don't like orcs so I won't actually have any kind of meaningful monster list or monster generation system whatsoever" or "fuck high level spells, I'll just gimp high level play entirely".
That shit is counterproductive.
RPGPundit
Quote from: The Butcher;495256Pundy is making a big deal of something which strikes me as fairly inconsequential
Though this has his MO since the beginning, his next post contains some valid criticisms. I think that he's a better reviewer than many people would credit him for, despite he getting hanged up in some petty shit from time to time.
Quote from: RPGPundit;495302That shit is counterproductive.
The strength of the Open Game License is that if the issue is important enough other commercial publishers can step in an fix it by releasing another project. However I don't think the Lost Dweomer issue causing that. As for the monster issue I can see somebody releasing a monster manual for the game even if Raggi doesn't.
A similar strong reaction to yours caused the creation of OSRIC when Castles and Crusades didn't turn out to be the return of AD&D 1st.
Quote from: Imperator;495324Though this has his MO since the beginning, his next post contains some valid criticisms. I think that he's a better reviewer than many people would credit him for, despite he getting hanged up in some petty shit from time to time.
I'd say I get quite a bit of "credit" for my reviews, given the huge amounts of games I get sent to me for review.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Imperator;495324I think that he's a better reviewer than many people would credit him for,
Never called his well-established reviewer cred into question.
Quote from: Imperator;495324despite he getting hanged up in some petty shit from time to time.
I do think that this is one of these times, though.
Quote from: RPGPundit;495468I'd say I get quite a bit of "credit" for my reviews, given the huge amounts of games I get sent to me for review.
RPGPundit
Certainly, but I've seen really stupid criticisms of your reviews around the web, so you could get more.
Quote from: Imperator;495550Certainly, but I've seen really stupid criticisms of your reviews around the web, so you could get more.
Really? I'd be curious to see those. You can bet they'll be from people who hate the reviewer rather than the review; it has nothing to do with the quality of my reviews and everything to do with people who already despise me for other reasons.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;495612Really? I'd be curious to see those. You can bet they'll be from people who hate the reviewer rather than the review; it has nothing to do with the quality of my reviews and everything to do with people who already despise me for other reasons.
RPGPundit
Probably, but I don't pay much attention. I think that you can learn a lot both from positive and negative reviews, and yours are thorough and detailed. Even when your personal biases show (and I have nothing against that in a review) there's still a huge lot of useful information.
But I have seen that many people cannot take a negative review. It sucks for them.
Personally I don't see the 'in joke' as a big deal but reading around the net, what does stand out for me is how many people didn't want to like LoTFP because of some of the attitudes of the author but ended up liking it anyway.
Those determined to find something to criticise invariably kick up a fuss over things like it having no monsters. I'd be a lot more sympathetic to that argument if this wasn't 2012 where products like Labyrinth Lord and a dozen others are available for free (and legal) download. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of people making this criticism are doing so while within 30 metres of a set of 1E/2E/Basic/Rules Cyclopaedia, the afore mentioned Labyrith Lord, etc.
In other words the argument is idealogical rather than based on practical play.
Me, I'm running an LoTFP as a sandbox with a few subtle sci-fi elements thrown in. I've pretty much chucked out the weird fantasy angle and use the rules cyclopaedia for my monsters stats (when I don't just make up new and interesting monsters myself). It is literally no effort running the game that way.
Fiasco, you have a certain point, in that pretty well no one playing this thing won't have preconceived knowledge of, if not direct access to, D&D versions other than this, with monsters. That's pretty well what I've done, making use of monsters from other printed venues. However, what matters here really is the "Principle of the thing", the question of the stupid stupid motivations for Raggi's not including monsters or pulling the "lost dweomer" prank.
What's more, the EXECUTION. That's the worst part of all, because if he really felt so strongly about these things, he should have bothered to make an effort to provide a really good set of rules, guidelines and tables for people to make their own monsters; but he didn't. He just wrote a bunch of filler and what amounts to "make it up yourself". He pretty much proved there that he's really just not very good at putting his money where his mouth is, and not nearly as creative as he and some others may think; or else he could certainly have pulled off a better "make your own monster" section than he did, and could have thought of something far more clever as to how to discourage high-level play than a stupid prank that confuses the rules-set.
As for my reviews, I make no effort to hide my biases in them, and always try to make the effort to find and mention anything that can be "rescued" about a game, any good points at all, even if there's something about the overall game that I find unlikable.
RPGPundit
Quote from: JimLotFP;495126Wrong.
I wanted the spell lists to all match up to a die type to make random spell determination easy.
I had the five 9th level spells I wanted from OGC sources.
There needed to be a sixth to keep the pattern.
But... fuck, 9th level spells, I'm really not interested (note the top two levels of spells have no original content in them), so there's the Lost Dweomer to fill out the list and won't it be funny if people can't figure out why they can't find the Lost Dweomer.
This story is bullshit, by the way. You have "Gate" in the spell descriptions but not in the spell list. There's no reason why you would have needed "lost dweomer" to complete a die type. In fact, you specifically removed Gate from the spell list to include your little joke, fucking up things still further.
So yeah, there was no necessity that caused you to put in the dweomer. You just put it in, fucking up your game in several little ways, because you wanted to, because you have some kind of issue with high-level spells, and think that expressing your resentments is more important than maintaining the quality of the game you're writing.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;496100This story is bullshit, by the way. You have "Gate" in the spell descriptions but not in the spell list. There's no reason why you would have needed "lost dweomer" to complete a die type. In fact, you specifically removed Gate from the spell list to include your little joke, fucking up things still further.
I think you might be mistaken in thinking this was malicious. The fact is, the whole spell section is a bit of a mess. Check out the description of Hold Person, for example; out of know nowhere the description starts talking about "tendrils"--what tendrils? The spell description doesn't mention that it summons tendrils to hold the person in place and then suddenly that seems to be the case.
There's also so silliness in there that just comes off as dumb. Check out Invisibility and how light itself gets mad at you if you attack someone whilst invisible (???).
If there is ever a third edition of LotFP, the spell section needs a thorough overall instead of the slap-dash cut-and-paste it got going from the deluxe edition to the grindhouse edition.
Quote from: RPGPundit;496100This story is bullshit, by the way. You have "Gate" in the spell descriptions but not in the spell list. There's no reason why you would have needed "lost dweomer" to complete a die type. In fact, you specifically removed Gate from the spell list to include your little joke, fucking up things still further.
RPGPundit
The Gate spell being in there at all is the error. Summoning was supposed to replace all such spells, Invisible Stalker, Aerial Servant, Conjure Elemental, Gate, all cut in favor of Summon. Not to cut to make room for a joke.
I think it's somewhat funny, but then again I'm a sick bastard.
Would have been funnier if was actually in the spell list and the description was "What, we told you it was lost. No stats for you."
Or if, in the spell lists, the description was in there in some sort of code or cypher.
Quote from: misterguignol;496107I think you might be mistaken in thinking this was malicious. The fact is, the whole spell section is a bit of a mess. Check out the description of Hold Person, for example; out of know nowhere the description starts talking about "tendrils"--what tendrils? The spell description doesn't mention that it summons tendrils to hold the person in place and then suddenly that seems to be the case.
There's also so silliness in there that just comes off as dumb. Check out Invisibility and how light itself gets mad at you if you attack someone whilst invisible (???).
If there is ever a third edition of LotFP, the spell section needs a thorough overall instead of the slap-dash cut-and-paste it got going from the deluxe edition to the grindhouse edition.
Well, at this point I'm going by Raggi's own claim that it was done on purpose, rather than as a fuck-up.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Werekoala;496131I think it's somewhat funny, but then again I'm a sick bastard.
Would have been funnier if was actually in the spell list and the description was "What, we told you it was lost. No stats for you."
That would be better, because at least it would have spared the GM time trying to search for it.
RPGPundit