Thread by @frasersimons

Had a great time with Forbidden Lands, some of it down to the players and our fantastic GM, @edige23. We snuck around in a tower, evading these Skelton creatures and finding some loot, as one does in #osr type games. We also found an alchemist lab, which was very cool because...

I found this golden fluid in a beaker and immediately drank it, of course! It slapped some of my strength at first... but then gave me an epic die to use! We also disturbed this area and a strange glob thing eating up chemicals formed so I decided to throw a lantern oil refill...

on fire at it. Turns out that was bad, actually. Who knew! We escaped the room and took on these Skelton creatures which I absolutely desalinated, in part due to my epic die. At one point I got 7 successes y’all. Cause I did a sneak attack first. Boom! Rocked it. Then we...

took on skeletons and discovered only black roots leading up to the fourth floor, up a spiral staircase. This was risky because uhhh the place was burning down. But we did it anyway.

Up there was a dark tree that was once an ent, only a sorcerer had long ago...

Possessed the ent and killed it for their own survival. We attacked it but got absolutely rocked. When we realized its strength we decided to flee. In the processes of, our sorcerer’s agility broke and collapsed and I was struck down, my arm shattered. Our hunter had to...

carry us both out as I flew more fire into the room in the form of my lantern and gave it the finger. We watched the tower burn, killing the sorcerer by way of the accidental fire I had started. Then we epilogued out.

Very enjoyable. Some of the system stuff being moved from...

zero engine to #osr was really weird. Magic casting was risky but in a weird way. When you push your luck and take damage you get willpower, which you spend to do magic. So like in the fiction you get hit or whatever and then you can cast stuff, which often backfires, plus...

the system is just super swingy for me. I either succeed often or fail always. I was broken almost every time, and in trad fashion it took a lot of time to travel and we did an abbreviated version of it, even! The lore as stated in the player handbook makes no sense and...

The flavour text attempts to subvert the Tolkien tropes whereas the mechanics reinforce it, especially the notion of Kin Talents and Key Attributes. It positions the Kin against each other and says you’re adventurers in a group without explaining your isolation. So historically..

we all have cause to dislike other Kin and were isolated for 300 years. But that seems like it’s just so that you know as much as your player as you try to discover lore. But it’s probably even worse than D&D for setting up defaultism that will probably be toxic from the setup.