Goblinoid Games are running a Kickstarter to publish a POD hardcover that contains both Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion. I figure it might be fun to add an OSR retroclone game to my collection and I am considering backing this.

Link: Advanced Labyrinth Lord by Goblinoid Games -- Kickstarter

I have played D&D once (a one-shot of 5E which I enjoyed) but don't own any edition myself. I own a couple of OSR-ish games that aren't actual D&D: Crypts & Things Remastered and Silent Legions.  I own a couple of games that are kind of "OSR-flavoured" but aren't D&D-based: Dragon Warriors Revised, Barebones Fantasy and Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits!. I also own Shadows of the Demon Lord, which is D&D/d20-related.

So, what can you guys tell me about Labyrinth Lord? Personal likes or dislikes about it? Would it add anything to what I already got?

The Kickstarter also allows you to add a limited hardcover of Realms of Crawling Chaos. Is anyone familiar with this? What exactly is it? Would it be worth adding it?

The Kickstarter says:

-This is not a new game.
-This is simply a combined book.
-You will still be able to separate "basic" from "advanced" game options.
-Much interior art will carry over from the original books, but new interior art will be featured in addition.
-This combined book does not replace the current separate books. Those books will remain in print.

You can download the free versions with no art here.

LL is a retro-clone of Moldvay-Cook 1981 Basic D&D, a very simple and easy-to-mod version of D&D that was aimed at Reagan-era middle school-age kids. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick a favorite RPG of all time, I would probably pick Moldvay-Cook.

Advanced LL adds some classes and races and stuff from 1st ed AD&D to Labyrinth Lord, creating a game very similar to AD&D but considerably more "Cleaned up". I see no reason why old AD&D materials could not be used with Advanced LL or vise-versa. It's all very modular and easy to mix-and-match.

Realms of Crawling Chaos was a Lovecraftian supplement with rules for Lovecraft's monsters (Including Deep Ones as a PC race) and various weirdo pulp stuff like different sub-races of ape-men (also playable. Oook! Oook!). The highpoint is a very fun & bizarre random magic item table.

Yeah, basically it's just regular Labyrinth Lord with AD&D classes and multiclassing, as well as additional spells and monsters.   If you want to play AD&D modules and such, it's pretty much the easiest way, though characters might be somewhat underpowered compared to actual AD&D characters.

Realms of Crawling Chaos pretty much covered all the monsters HP Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith wrote about and statted them. If you aren't familiar with them in the first place, the included write-ups might not really elucidate you, but it does list where each source of the monster or magic item.

I wasn't impressed with Adv LL, but I'm not the target audience. I far more enjoy the bare bones of LL and Swords & Wizardry: White Box instead of the various OSR attempts to expand their systems into AD&D 2e page counts.

As Krimson pointed out, you can download the free versions and that's the best way to determine if the KS is worth your dime.

Quote from: Krimson;1044357The Kickstarter says:

-This is not a new game.
-This is simply a combined book.
-You will still be able to separate "basic" from "advanced" game options.
-Much interior art will carry over from the original books, but new interior art will be featured in addition.
-This combined book does not replace the current separate books. Those books will remain in print.

You can download the free versions with no art here.

The key word up there is combined, because I have the (printed) LL and AEC and there's a lot of flipping between the two. One of the reasons why "Basic" LL is popular even compared to the original B/X now out again in PDF is that it combines the rules rather than having everything split across two separate books you have to refer to. ALL also says it cuts out a lot of redundant text, so on the whole this is going to be a much more user-friendly book if you normally run or play LL+AEC.

Quote from: Krimson;1044357The Kickstarter says:

-This is not a new game.
-This is simply a combined book.
-You will still be able to separate "basic" from "advanced" game options.
-Much interior art will carry over from the original books, but new interior art will be featured in addition.
-This combined book does not replace the current separate books. Those books will remain in print.

You can download the free versions with no art here.

I am aware of this and have sort of flipped through the free version of LL. I also checked out Ghoul Keep and the Ghoul Lands for LL, which looks pretty cool. Also, LL appears to be among the most appreciated among OSR games. This is why the Kickstarter caught my attention in the first place.

How easily could the Kickstarter stuff be mixed and matched with Crypts & Things and Silent Legions?

Quote from: 3rik;1044388How easily could the Kickstarter stuff be mixed and matched with Crypts & Things and Silent Legions?

There's probably not enough of a functional difference to even matter. Silent Legions (like almost all Sine Nomine stuff) is essentially Labyrinth Lord rewritten for a different genre; all his older stuff was specifically written for LL, if I remember correctly. Crypts and Things has a different hit die and...that's about it, right? Some ascending AC info, but it's B/X-based, which means LL would take two seconds to adapt.

I have both LL and C&T. Mixing the two would be very simple. Mixing with Silent Legions would depend on which parts you wanted to mix, all of the eldritch cults and weirdness stuff in Silent Legions is pretty system agnostic, so you could build your elder gods with that and use them for LL no problem. Swapping classes and settings, well you might need to spend a couple of minutes.

I have a lot of respect for Labyrinth Lord, as it opened the door for a lot of great supplements for B/X. That said, it really isn't that great a core book for the system. It's a lot wordier than B/X, the layout is denser and less friendly than the original to use when running the game. XP tables have all the numbers changed in arbitrary ways. There are even a number of rules changes that I don't care for.

I can't think of any reason to get it over B/X, which is available in PDF again. If you don't want a PDF, I picked additional backup copies from Amazon of both the Basic and Expert books for $40 earlier this year. The prices for used copies only get stupid if you want an intact box.

As an alternative, the B/X Essentials line from Necrotic Gnome has much better layout and clarity than Labyrinth Lord, and there are no rules changes at all from B/X.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1045980I can't think of any reason to get it over B/X

I can think of a lot. After playing lot of B/X for a while (recently), I find myself adding more AD&D stuff, but not wanting the full AD&D rules-set. Advanced LL is the sweet spot for that style of gaming. If you want B/X, then play B/X; if you want a unified set of rules in one book that is "close enough", LL is just fine.

"Play the originals" works to some degree, but getting a printed copy of B/X is NOT cheap, regardless of what you say...

Quote from: Brad;1046037"Play the originals" works to some degree, but getting a printed copy of B/X is NOT cheap, regardless of what you say...

I just checked again to see if prices went up in the last couple of months since I picked up an extra copy. It still averages around $20 for each of the books on Amazon. As I said, it's only pricey if you try and get copies that include the box.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1046040I just checked again to see if prices went up in the last couple of months since I picked up an extra copy. It still averages around $20 for each of the books on Amazon. As I said, it's only pricey if you try and get copies that include the box.

$20 is pricey for a 64 page saddlestiched book that has probably seen better days...let's be realistic: if you want a print copy of an old title, unless it's POD you're not going to find anything halfway decent on the cheap. Why drivethru doesn't have B/X and BECMI POD is beyond me, but until they do, LL is "good enough".

I say all that but have multiple copies of everything, and get the POD stuff when available, so I might just be hypocritical about the pricing.

Quote from: Brad;1046047$20 is pricey for a 64 page saddlestiched book that has probably seen better days...let's be realistic: if you want a print copy of an old title, unless it's POD you're not going to find anything halfway decent on the cheap. Why drivethru doesn't have B/X and BECMI POD is beyond me, but until they do, LL is "good enough".

I say all that but have multiple copies of everything, and get the POD stuff when available, so I might just be hypocritical about the pricing.

You say saddle-stitched like it's a bad thing. Those old TSR book lay flat easily when you are referencing them. And even though they are softcover, they are durable, with good quality paper. I'll take an old 64-page saddle-stitched TSR book over a shiny, new POD hardcover that won't lay flat and will probably be shedding pages before 10 years is up.

In any case, Labyrinth Lord isn't my favorite flavor of D&D, but it is still pretty good. soI'm only prepared to argue so much about what version to to buy.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1046048You say saddle-stitched like it's a bad thing. Those old TSR book lay flat easily when you are referencing them. And even though they are softcover, they are durable, with good quality paper. I'll take an old 64-page saddle-stitched TSR book over a shiny, new POD hardcover that won't lay flat and will probably be shedding pages before 10 years is up.

In any case, Labyrinth Lord isn't my favorite flavor of D&D, but it is still pretty good. soI'm only prepared to argue so much about what version to to buy.

Labyrinth Lord is on my list of games that are "Good Enough". Good enough that I have bought every thing by Goblinoid that I see at the Sentry Box.