Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Powered by Labyrinth Lord

Return to the Underworld
First published in 2007, early on in the Old School movement, Labyrinth Lord by Goblinoid Games is a faithful clone of the popular B/X system combing material that was split into two books in the originals (levels 1-3 as covered in Basic with levels 4-14 as covered in Expert). B/X was TSR's second take on the Basic Rules and was the work of editor Tom Moldvay. It was published in 1981, three years after the J. Eric Holmes version of Basic, and was soon followed by the Expert Rules edited by David Cook with Steve Marsh. B/X continued the design philosophy of the Original Edition and is considered by many to hit the sweet spot in terms of usability. B/X was well supported with some very good Basic and Expert modules and remains a fan favorite version of the game. Using the SRD and OGL Labyrinth Lord provides a means of publishing new materials without copyright infringement and there are a number of good supplements and modules written by LL author Daniel Proctor and others.
In 2008 Mr. Proctor dialed back the clock to 1974 and gave us Original Edition Characters for use with Labyrinth Lord. Original Edition Characters presents options that reproduce a style of game that resembles the Original Edition in terms of ability score bonuses and prime requisites, and limiting players to the original three classes, Clerics, Magic Users and Fighting Men, but also takes some departures from White Box. Labyrinth Lord treats dwarves, elves and halflings as their own class and this remains so in Original Edition Characters. Elves are treated as choosing to act as a Magic User or Fighting Man in any particular adventure in amanner similar to one interpretation of White Box elves. The spell lists also differ from that found in the three Little Brown Books. For example Magic Missile, a spell added in Supplement I Greyhawk, is included in Original Edition Characters. Original Edition Characters uses variable hit dice, d8 for Fighting Men, d6 for Clerics and Magic Users, which differs from the White Box which uses d6 rolls for determining hit points and from Supplement I which introduces variable hit dice, but uses a d4 for the Magic User class. Combat is unchanged from Labyrinth Lord.
Daniel Proctor took Labyrinth Lord a step further in 2010 with his Advanced Edition Companion which adds some of the classes, races, monsters and treasures found in the first edition Advanced Game to the Labyrinth Lord line. Armed with Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion gamers and developers have an in print open license system to use. Labyrinth Lord seems well received and there are a number of products written with it in mind. In 2018 Mr. Proctor combined the Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Edition Companion under a single cover titled Advanced Labyrinth Lord.
Barrowmaze Complete is a Labyrinth Lord compatible megadungeon by Greg Gillespie. By extension, products designed using Labyrinth Lord mechanics can easily be used with most old school renaissance systems as they generally share many common themes. One will notice both the Labyrinth Lord and OSR labels can be found on the cover of Barrowmaze Complete and other products which indicate they are written to be used with those games.
The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia is a second megadungeon also compatible with Labyrinth Lord and also written by Greg Gillespie. The megadungeon format dates back to the original campaigns of the authors of the Original Role-Playing Game, the White Box. Consisting of multiple levels, each becoming more challenging as they go deeper and often organized around a theme, the megadungeon forms the basis for an entire campaign of extended play, often seeing the rise to power of the players' characters as they adventure in the depth of the underground, defeating monsters, foiling sinister plots and liberating lost treasures. B/X, and by extension Labyrinth Lord, is considered well suited to the dungeon based adventure.
A game as popular as Labyrinth Lord is able to spin off many associated products including its own Referee Screen. The practice of using a referee screen dates back to the earliest days of the hobby, although the original game didn't come with one (a pamphlet of charts and tables was included instead) and it was several years before TSR issued an "official" version of the referee screen. The barrier is to screen the referee's maps and notes from the players' view so as to not prematurely reveal surprises the referee may have planned. Many referees roll dice behind the screen, but as I have stated previously, I see no good reason to do this. (Just turn the map over or close the book when not consulting it.) As a matter of preference, I seldom set a screen up to shield anything from view, although I do find the information contained on many screens to be of use as a quick reference to consult during the game.
Labyrinth Lord, together with OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry ushered in the Old School Renaissance by providing the hobby with a way to produce and market new material written for use with older out-of-print editions of the Worlds Most Popular Role-Playing Game. I could say it/they powered a revolution in the game industry. Certainly the hobby has been impacted as new product became available and there has been renewed interest among older grognards and new gamers who are discovering the older editions for the first time through the OSR. Wizbros has re-released a large number of the older editions and play aids in digital and print formats and almost certainly has incorporated OSR elements into the 5th Edition released in 2014. Today, interest remains strong in the games released during the early days of the hobby and there is perhaps more people today interested in the games than ever before as evidenced by the online presence and availability of product offerings.

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