Review: ROLF!

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alhoon
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Review: ROLF!

Post by alhoon »

"ROLF!" is a simple, fun and fast roll-playing game. You bash people for the immeasureable pleasure of bashing people, proving you're the "toughest of them all!"
After a long session of riddle-solving, long moral discussions, lingering horror, excitement, fear over the well-being of the character you play for the last year it is in my opinion a very good way to end a game session. It lightens the mood, rises the spirit and gives you and your friends a laugh before you call it a night.

Good points:
- It is fast and easy to learn (10 pages long, with Elmore art).
- It can be played without a DM. Grab a friend and a beer and start rolling.
- It is easy to play and takes just a few minutes to end a brutal bloody duel.
- The characters are very fast and easy to make.
- It is relaxing and fun. Very good to play after a couple of beers and in a light mood.
- If you make some tweakings to make the game more serious, it is a very good introduction to Role playing games for the uninitiated. Don't intimidate your girl-friend showing her a 350 pages book, telling her that these are the basic rules she needs to study!
- It is extremely cheap! Download it from DrivethruRPG for 2$ and print it out.
- You can have a combat maneuver that lets you bleed to death on your oponent's clothes, ruining them before you die, in a final (antiheroic) act of vengeance and defiance.

Bad Points:
- The game isn't properly balanced. Some of the maneuvers are far more powerful than others. You should probably fix that by either ruling some things out or twinking them. Or you could pick maneuvers randomly.
- After a few games, you learn it so well that it is easy to min-max the character without thought. This can be fixed by thinking and adding a few maneuvers every once in while (or as previously, to randomly pick maneuvers).

Bottom line: It is very good game for being so cheap. With a few tweaks (taking less than 10 mins) you can have a good, semi-balanced game you can easily learn and enjoy. Don't over-kill it though! The point of ROLF! is not to be balanced!

4 out of 5 bloody swords.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia
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Post by Steve Miller »

You offered up a good idea, and I'm stealing it!

I'll write up a "Random Manuevers Table." Watch this space.

(Thanks for the good review! And, yes! Everyone go get your copy of ROLF! It'll motivate me to finally finish "ROLF AT SEA!" :) )
Steve Miller, Writer of Stuff
Once and Future Ravenloft Contributor
Help keep my cats fed and my car gassed up: [url=http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=3765]NUELOW Games at RPGNow.[/url]
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Post by alhoon »

Steve Miller wrote:You offered up a good idea, and I'm stealing it!

I'll write up a "Random Manuevers Table." Watch this space.
Thanks! Still I thought I have included that on the review I sent you...
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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by Steve Miller »

Kinda sleazy of me to come back after 2-3 years to just plug something but....

ROLF! is back and its been revised. It's bigger and cheaper than it was before--just $1.50 and presently on sale for just $1--and with several supplements and expansions already: Little combat scenarios that offer pre-generated characters more maneuvers and other tweaks. Including one that might amuse you Ravenloft fans...

And we did kinda-sorta steal Alhoon's suggested change in teh revised game. Although it's as unbalanced as ever, because that's not a bug... that's a feature.

(My favorite part of the ROLF! series so far has been writing the line "and then a yeti attacks." :) )

Oh... and "Rolf at Sea!" is finally happening. We're putting it out in time for "Speak Like A Pirate Day."

The main ROLF! listing is here, but I'm thinking this is the package that might be more fitting for some of you folks here.

(Next month, we're releasing a little collection of stories by R.E. Howard, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle... a few of which actually served as inspiration from ideas that made it into Ravenloft products.)

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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by alhoon »

It's 4 years and I was thinking about that to be sincere. Glad to know ROLF! is growing.

PS. The old skool ROLF! is free! Good to know it started from newsgroups. I barely remember them.
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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by Steve Miller »

alhoon wrote:It's 4 years and I was thinking about that to be sincere. Glad to know ROLF! is growing.
Mostly it's growing because I have nothing better to do with my time. :)


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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by alhoon »

Steve Miller wrote:
alhoon wrote:It's 4 years and I was thinking about that to be sincere. Glad to know ROLF! is growing.
Mostly it's growing because I have nothing better to do with my time. :)


--Steve Miller

Hmmm? Really? From a game developer that's kinda strange. Make an adventure for 3.5 Edition or 4th edition. :) One that can be downloaded from the internet.
PS If I may ask what do you use to make your maps?
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Re: Review: ROLF!

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alhoon wrote: From a game developer that's kinda strange. Make an adventure for 3.5 Edition or 4th edition. :) One that can be downloaded from the internet.
PS If I may ask what do you use to make your maps?
Well, I will finally get around to finishing the little "White Zombie" sourcebook as well. Maybe I'll do a little adventure or something after that. (The only thing that isn't done on the WZ project is the maps... so it's funny you should ask about that.)

As for how I make maps... grid paper and a pencil. :)


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Re: Review: ROLF!

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Steve Miller wrote:As for how I make maps... grid paper and a pencil. :)
:shock:
There are people that still do that? Really?

Any hints on the adventure? At least what system it would use?
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"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia
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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by Steve Miller »

alhoon wrote:
Steve Miller wrote:As for how I make maps... grid paper and a pencil. :)
:shock:
There are people that still do that? Really?
I try to avoid mapping at all costs. The maps are one of the things that killed the WZ project Back In The Day, because i wanted a map of Murder Legendre's mill and his castle, the manor house where the ill-fated wedding takes place, and the little cottage of the priest.

But I dislike doing maps so much that I shelved the whole thing when it looked like ID Adventures was fading anyway.

So, I've never bothered giving software all but the briefest of glances, hence it's still pencil and paper for me.
Any hints on the adventure? At least what system it would use?
d20 OGL/Modern. Although I am sorely tempted to convert the whole thing to Open D6 since I like that system so much better. Maybe I'll do a second one with stats for that game. Time will tell.

And the project is mostly a little sourcebook inspired by the "White Zombie" movie. It's basically like a bigger, more elaborate version of the "Modern Advances" booklets, only in black-and-white and with movie stills instead of pictures of models. :)

(BTW, there's one more day left on the big "Christmas In July Sale" at NUELOW Games, so everybody click here... :) :lucas: :) )

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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by alhoon »

I like making maps. So do others in this forum. I'm not a pro or something, but in case you want, I could make a map or two for you.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia
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Re: Review: ROLF!

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alhoon wrote:I like making maps. So do others in this forum. I'm not a pro or something, but in case you want, I could make a map or two for you.
I'd welcome your contribution (or anyone who wants to get involved). There's not much in the way of pay here--close to Zero, actually, which is evident if you look at what I'm charging for these PDF releases--but if you've seen White Zombie and feel up for providing maps of any of the four locations mentioned above, I have a home for them.

Drop me an email at stevemillermail (at) gmail.com. :)
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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by alhoon »

Nah, I don't want payment! The hassle of the legal things involved is enough to keep me away from it. Also... I'm no pro. I'll see what I can do.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia
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Re: Review: ROLF!

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alhoon wrote:Nah, I don't want payment! The hassle of the legal things involved is enough to keep me away from it. Also... I'm no pro. I'll see what I can do.
Cool! Thanks. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. (And you'll still get comp copies if nothing else. :) )

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Re: Review: ROLF!

Post by alhoon »

It will take a while! I'm on vacation.
PS. I also posted in the map thread in the general forum that you're interested in maps. There is already a splendid map village made by lostboy in that thread. It was inspired by a zombie movie. One of the best maps I've seen recently and I check maps all the time.

He said whoever wants any of his maps to just inform him. He's just kind like that. Now, I'm pretty sure if everyone can get his maps with a request, that a developer of the game that he likes so much would get it with a yaaaaahooo.
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia
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