The people who post public service warnings about this game are about as mature as the people who make lists on the other side. Everyone knows about this infamous game released in 2013. It is 10 years old and a niche product. And all but one or two spell descriptions are 'problematic' - and if you read Stephen King or Clive Barker horror books, they are not even close to that level of depravity.
Otherwise, this game is a 99.9% simplified B/X clone. Approach this game like reading an adult magazine, and you see 18+ on the cover? It means something. My problem with it is it needs to go farther. Dungeon Crawl Classics did a better job making all spells chaotic and unpredictable; this does it with only one or two and sticks too close to B/X with 99% of the others.
The Lamentations game does not go far enough.
Honestly, today? Shadow of the Demon Lord is the game people should be upset about and it does a far better job in the broader action-horror genre. Things can seriously mess your character up in this game, and they all have mechanical effects. The Lamentations game relies on GM fiat almost exclusively; in that sense, it is more old school.
I get the feeling people attack GM fiat games because they feel threatened by "god GMs." You give them one problematic thing, like a spell, and they latch onto that like someone made a personal attack on them. Even though they will never play the game and go right back to 5E after they post online attacks on the game and its community. They won't be happy until the thing they latched onto is memory-holed and disavowed by the Pope, and then they will return to their games and never play this.
The implied setting of Lamentations is fantastic. The "real Renaissance." The colonialist one.
I would rather have an original magic system based on 1800s witchcraft and religious miracles, to be honest, especially for the Renaissance and 'New World' era of this game. I would like all magic to have a chance to go sideways. I want it to be mysterious and strange rituals. A few table results from one or two spells must go farther for true horror.
The art needs to be brave and striking and challenge our assumptions.
B/X is sometimes a curse on games like this. Familiarity isn't everything. Doing your own things and creating your vibe gives you much more. ACKS 2 is doing its own thing, making new spells and changing things around, and they have a compelling and unique game and setting now.
I would love to see Lamentations go in its own direction, one based on mysticism, secret evil worship, and New World folklore, especially for this "New World" Renaissance era.
When it comes down to it, this era was one where the powerful nations of the world exploited every primitive culture around the world for wealth and riches, colonized the hell out of the world, destroyed indigenous people, enslaved populations, began the global environmental downfall, and formed today's corrupt institutions of power of the state, banking, trade, institutional education, and church.
Can you tell me another era of time in the world so ripe for a horror genre? Renaissance colonial exploiters deserve it in the worst way possible. Like how Jason Vorhees had this strange puritanical revenge streak, the horrors here are inherently anti-colonialist. In this game, explorers and settlers go to the New World and experience insane cosmic, psychological, and body horror that sends them fleeing home to the king and queen. If they survive.
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| Lower left and middle bottom - recommended. |
D&D whitewashes the Renaissance as a 'happy adventure-time land,' which is a travesty and an insult. Read some history and discover where this 'colonialist menace' came from and how this era set up the Industrial Revolution. Yes, this is fantasy and escapism, and the world has magic - but not wearing a blindfold and ignoring the seeds of the things we deal with today is essential, too.
The socially progressive types should be all over a game and genre like this, but it remains a pariah because of one or two paragraphs. The genre and concept of this game far outweigh the problematic sentences in this game and, in fact, are par for the course, given the horror writers mentioned above.
Then again, the newer games in the genre remove any consequences and danger. This is, essentially, the 5E model - let people pretend they are heroes with nothing that can damage fragile egos. More and more games are like this, and they write death mechanics out of the rules to avoid upsetting people.
D&D was bought by a toy company and became a toy game.
This is the one huge problem with many horror games these days. You look at any classic horror movie, and characters have flaws that make them deserve divine retribution for their sins. They are flawed people, and many who "get it" often "deserve it" as punishment for their sins. You get the greedy banker, the violent criminal, the jealous boyfriend, and the envious pop star - all these are classic horror tropes for characters.
Nobody wants to play a flawed and morally bankrupt character who deserves a tragic fate.
Yet, this is horror. Punishment for our sins is the central theme.
The fun of Lamentations is playing the complete jerks of the era and trying to survive. You accept that you are playing one, which gives you the internal disconnect of not investing in your character so profoundly that losing him or her would give you a mental scar. Yes, you are the bad guys. Everyone in this era and profession was a bad guy.
Again, we were told "you are not your character" repeatedly in the 1980s and 1990s, and today's 'identity brand' marketers want us to forget that and self-insert in a game you can't die in. No matter the mental health consequences, we were told about 30 years ago.
You get these perfect characters in there, streamer personalities made for fandom, and the genre makes no sense, and it becomes like a kids' show. Oh! There is Frankenstein! Hear him moan! So scary! Oh no, the Werewolf! He howls! Everyone run! That isn't horror, that is Scooby Doo without the 1960s soundtrack.
Player protection and horror do not mix very well. Certain horror games get it right. Others miss the mark so hard it is laughable.
The Lamentations game does this through its unhinged adventures. Besides, the game is a license to be like Stephen King or Clive Barker. You don't need the spell charts of Dungeon Crawl Classics; all you need is a twisted imagination. The rules are just there to be the bare minimum. Some horror games don't do certain things due to the subject's absence in the core rulebooks. DCC does not use any adult themes. The Lamentations game does.
The door is open. You can "go there" like the other authors do. That is freedom, and freedom is good.
Some don't handle that well; I get it; there are other games for you. Ironically, this sort of game is what safety tools were designed for. Would this game be objectionable if it had safety tools written into the rules and told you to use them?
I have seen worse and more horrific things mentioned in the lines and veils they use in safety tools.
Those tools enable them all.
In the same game.
To a degree greater than one random chart result.
And potentially between players.
GM fiat? I am more worried about what players will do to each other.
And safety tools are one horrible viral news story away from being banned by Wall Street in mainstream games. I support them, even though I know where this is all going. You have a right to use them before they get taken away. And even after that point.
I still like the Lamentations game for everything it isn't. Some B/X implementations are overdone, with more being more. This is the bare minimum needed to play the modules. There isn't a bestiary. There aren't thousands of generic magic items. There aren't dozens of classes and ancestries.
Part of me feels that "the door is open to anything," which is why people don't like this game. It could hurt you. But that is the point. Even if I used safety tools with this game, I would just fade to black and have the same thing happen. If the situation could not be resolved, the character would vanish, fate unknown. But people are afraid of GM fiat. D&D has been moving away from that full speed for the last 20 years to embrace D&D as a toy.
Part of me feels some of the adventures for Lamentations have dipped into too much of the silly and stupid. Some of them feel like DCC adventures. Perhaps this genre is better done by games like Zweihänder, and Lamentations has left it behind for the ultra-strange, proto-sexual, and goofy.
But without GM fiat, there is no horror genre.
There has to be that fear.
This is the genre we all agreed upon.
Opening this book is the same as pressing play on a horror movie.
Or at least, it should be.
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