Game: Lost Worlds

Thread: Re: Zocchi made me do it

wargamer55 — 2008-08-13T22:12:42+00:00

The photo books are $8.95, which is probably comparable to the $4.95 of 20 years ago.

Thread: Re: Zocchi made me do it

Rubric — 2008-08-13T14:11:55+00:00

The original books all had black and white drawings for the art work. Some of the books, at best, were what you might call "slightly below average" in terms of the art quality. Some were so horrendous that you might actually feel a little embarassed for the artist.

So, it looks like somebody sat down and said, "Hmm, I wonder how we could make the images for this game even goofier...." Mission accomplished!

Still, with that said, I agree with you. The Zocchi book looks like a must-have. I have all the old ones, about a third of the "middle" ones, and none of the new photographic ones.

Out of curiosity, what do they charge for a book these days? I think they used to be $4.95 when I bought most of mine. Maybe less even.

Thread: Re: Zocchi made me do it

minordemon — 2008-08-13T06:01:14+00:00

wargamer55 wrote:
...Babe With Broadsword (actually a two-handed sword, but I prefer alliteration over accuracy in this case)...

Babe With Bastardsword? It doesnt look like a two-handed sword. You can hold a dagger with two hands but that doesn't make it a two-handed dagger.

Thread: Zocchi made me do it

wargamer55 — 2008-08-12T19:51:22+00:00

I've toyed with picking up a couple of Lost Worlds books for years, literally.

I was a big fan of Aces of Aces and eventually got the whole set of those, including all the World War I books, the Wingleader World War II set and the Jet Eagles modern set.

I once had the Bounty Hunter book, but somewhere along the line that got misplaced.

Anyway, I've long thought about picking up a couple of Lost Worlds books but never did, until this weekend at the World Boardgame Championships when I stopped by the Flying Buffalo Inc. book. FBI and I go back a long way as well, I was an early player of Rick Loomis' computer moderated Play By Mail games of Nuclear Destruction and Battle Plan and have picked up all the Nuclear War series of games, too,

(Later, while waiting for the Nuclear War tournament to start, Loomis told us at the table about how he had tracked down Nuclear War design Doug Malewicki in 1975 using a Los Angeles phone book in order to buy the rights. To this day Malewicki gets royalty checks from Loomis.)
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So when I spotted the Azlana Darque book I was very tempted. There's nothing like a hot babe with a broadsword to catch the eye!

Apparently Ms. Darque is a model with her own Web Site and, judging from a quick look at the site, somewhat of a free-spirited sort, unsurprisingly. Here's her site: http://azlanadarque.com/

Still, you have to have two books in order to play the game and most of the stuff I'd already seen before and had passed up buying many times in the past.

But there was another new (2007) book in the pile and that sealed the deal.

There was Zocchi the Magician!
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Now Lou Zocchi was one of the very first "names" I learned in the hobby, back around 1969 or 1970. One of my first non-Avalon Hill "war games" was a Star Trek-based miniatures-style starship combat game he published. It was a good game for the time and the miniatures were very good as well.

Zocchi was also famous for his multi-sided dice, and patented a design for a 100-sided die, too. So it's no surprise that his weapon of choice is a dice bag filled with magic dice.

Well, "The Ancient One" was even harder to pass by than the Babe With Broadsword (actually a two-handed sword, but I prefer alliteration over accuracy in this case), so I finally bought a coy of Lost Worlds more than two decades after I first became aware of it.

For more game comment see my game blog at http://pawnderings.blogspot.com

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wargamer55 — 2008-08-12T18:46:09+00:00

Zocchi cover

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wargamer55 — 2008-08-12T18:36:59+00:00

Azlana looking fierce

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wargamer55 — 2008-08-12T18:35:00+00:00

Cover for the Azlana Darque book

Thread: Re: Missing Samurai card: Can anyone help?

Yokiboy — 2008-06-09T11:51:37+00:00

Sure Bill, PM me your e-mail and I'll send it to you.

Thread: Missing Samurai card: Can anyone help?

Xelvonar — 2008-06-09T01:56:06+00:00

Hi y'all,

I just picked up several books on ebay. Unfortunately, the Samurai book is missing its card, rendering it unplayable. Does anyone have a copy that they could scan the front and back of and email me a copy?

Thanks in advance,

Bill

Thread: Re: Please don't laugh!!!!

castiglione — 2008-02-22T06:41:24+00:00

Thanks - I got messed up by how the pages are numbered.

Thread: Re: Please don't laugh!!!!

delgard — 2008-02-21T15:48:18+00:00

Swap books w/ your opponent. Select your maneuver from the character sheet. Go to corresponding page for that maneuver (charts at the bottom of book). Your opponent makes their selection you both tell each others page. Look up your opponent's page in the chart at the bottom. This should site what pag e in the book you should flip to to see and read the results. Hope that helps...

Thread: Please don't laugh!!!!

castiglione — 2008-02-21T15:30:37+00:00

The rules in the Lost Worlds booklets are a model of succinctness.

In fact - they're so succinct that there are no play examples...and I'm CONFUSED.

Could someone run through an example turn? I know the game is supposedly dead simple but I'm stuck here.

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nycavri — 2007-11-19T01:13:20+00:00

Knuckles and Rav.

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Tanuki — 2007-08-21T01:13:09+00:00

Lost Worlds - Hobby Japan - Nanaeru

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Tanuki — 2007-08-21T01:12:13+00:00

Lost Worlds - Hobby Japan - Airi

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weasel — 2007-07-14T05:37:19+00:00

11 Lost Worlds books in a fan

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weasel — 2007-07-14T05:36:35+00:00

The backs of an assortment of Lost Worlds books

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sikeospi — 2007-04-06T01:29:41+00:00

The Japanese versions -- sorry about the glare.

Thread: Re: Cold Drake

J.L.Robert — 2007-03-18T04:39:27+00:00

Darth Vader, from WEG's Lightsaber Duelling Pack, may be able to take down a Cold Drake singlehandedly. It would be tough, but I think it's a definite possibility.

Thread: Re: Newer books unbalanced?

chiswi — 2006-12-31T17:21:37+00:00

The newest books from 1% Inspiration Games Inc. are far more balanced. They went back to the original design method. The hardest thing to understand when building a book like this is the finding of minor numerical errors. Look at the skeleton. Page numbers were inverted, things like that pop up. The Gunslinger is on the outside a weak character. He is actually equal with the woman with sword and shield. The biggest change to the four new books, is the critical hits. A list of updated critical hits has been published by Flying Buffalo I think. Without the critical hits, the older books are more powerful opponents. They don't lose a whole catagory of color when badly damaged. This is an easy fix, however, just don't use the critical hits when using a new character vs an old one.
On the other side of that coin, use the critical hits with the big nasties like the Driataur vs the old characters. He is bigger and stronger than the Hill Troll. This will even out of their abilities. The Mutant Hill Giant can kill the Cold Drake single handedly, he can also be killed by the woman with quaterstaff. He is very balanced.

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bobby_5150 — 2006-08-28T21:48:07+00:00

KODT

Thread: Re: Lost Worlds Computer Game

srschacher — 2006-07-29T18:14:49+00:00

I'm assuming that, according to the guidelines, I'm not allowed to upload the file because I don't have permission. I don't know if there is anyone who can give permission, but I know that I don't "own" the file, so I'm playing it safe for now.

Steve

Thread: Re: Lost Worlds Computer Game

ralphreinert — 2006-07-29T04:43:24+00:00

Back in college, I wrote a Lost Worlds computer program. I only got as far as writing the routine for Man in Chainmail with Sword and Shield, but it was good enough to beat me. Unfortunately I got bogged down while writing the Skeleton module and eventually abandoned the whole project. I am afraid my programming knowledge of modern graphics routines is almost non-existant, but it was fun to work at it as an undergrad in the mid '80s.

Ralph Reinert

Thread: Re: Lost Worlds Computer Game

greenpawn — 2006-07-28T17:49:16+00:00

I remember, but I didn't get a copy of it.

Thread: Lost Worlds Computer Game

srschacher — 2006-07-28T17:36:10+00:00

Does anyone remember the Lost Worlds beta computer game that briefly appeared on the Flying Buffalo website? I grabbed a copy of it before it was pulled. I don't know why they took it down.

The game supported network play and included the following characters:
o Man in chainmail with sword and shield
o Skeleton with scimitar and shield
o Dwarf in chainmail with two-handed axe
o Giant goblin with mace and shield
o Man in plate with sword and shield

Steve

Thread: Re: Custom Books

Geosphere — 2006-06-12T16:09:37+00:00

This ranks fairly high on the Absurd-O-Meter.

Thread: Custom Books

anarchy — 2006-06-12T15:47:41+00:00

I saw this on Gamingreport:

http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/origins.htm

They will make you a custom book starring yourself in costume. They take the pictures at Origins and print a copy there, then send you nine more copies after the show. Price is $195.

The books are playable with all the other LW books.

Fascinating. I wonder how many people will take advantage of this.

Thread: Re: Cold Drake

soren_nyrond — 2006-06-05T14:05:24+00:00

Rulemonger wrote:

The Drake is only ever used in Drake-against-party-of-adventurers mode, though.

Although, arguably, the more recent books also offer some 1-on-1 possibilities -- the Wyrm, with poison breath; or the new Mutant Giant, where much of the Flying advantage gets negated.

Thread: Re: Newer books unbalanced?

Rubric — 2006-04-23T20:22:20+00:00

Geosphere wrote:
Newer books are humongously unplaytested.

The originals, discounting Hill Troll and Drake, up through the horribly drawn Gremlin are reasonable.

I agree. Of those, the Samurai is probably most powerful, and the Halfling w/ daggers is probably the weakest. But they are all in the ball park, and fun to play.

You're not kidding about the artwork on the Gremlin. Everytime I see it, I feel embarassed for the artist. The Manticore is equally bad.

Anything published by Buffalo or Greysea or newer gets flaky.

Yep. To some extent, you can rebalance them by changing the damage values on the Score pages so that they have the same numbers as the original characters. I never understood why they changed that. In the original books, a body wound on an unarmored target did a specific amount of damage. In the newer books, the damage amounts bear no relation to armor, and seem arbitrary and random.

I talked to designer Alfred Leonardi about the newer books one time at Origins in Columbus. He said they weren't intended to be balanced, and that the newer books represented Heroes, while the earlier books represented standard soldiers/barbarians, etc.

Thread: Re: Newer books unbalanced?

Geosphere — 2006-04-23T16:52:29+00:00

Newer books are humongously unplaytested.

The originals, discounting Hill Troll and Drake, up through the horribly drawn Gremlin are reasonable. Anything published by Buffalo or Greysea or newer gets flaky.

Thread: Re: Cold Drake

Rulemonger — 2006-03-10T15:19:11+00:00

Sheltem wrote:
I see, that was very helpful!
If I get it right, using the frost breath successfully wins you the game. Is this right?

Well, it removes that one opponent from the game (unless he has cold immunity -- like if you're facing another Drake). You'd win if there aren't any other opponents left.

The Drake is only ever used in Drake-against-party-of-adventurers mode, though.

Thread: Re: Cold Drake

Geosphere — 2006-03-10T13:57:19+00:00

Anything the drake does wins the game.

He was designed for multiplayer only.

Thread: Re: Cold Drake

Sheltem — 2006-03-10T13:37:47+00:00

I see, that was very helpful!
If I get it right, using the frost breath successfully wins you the game. Is this right?

Thanks

Thread: Re: Cold Drake

Rulemonger — 2006-03-10T11:37:23+00:00

No special rules for breath -- it's handled in the book (p. 45)

The special rules are for flying (When flying, you must continue flying until knocked down or landed. At Extended Range, when told to do only Brown you also may do any Extended Flying maneuver, but score no damage).

Thread: Cold Drake

Sheltem — 2006-03-10T09:31:29+00:00

Hi,

my Cold Drake character sheet is missing the information on the back.
So could one kind soul please tell me the special rules of the Drakes cold breath? Thanks in advance!

Thread: Postponed Worlds

Red Wine Pie — 2005-11-15T09:17:25+00:00

It was a natural evolution of the fabulous Ace of Aces system, but Lost Worlds never quite reached its potential. I bought the basic skeleton and chainmail human books, and later the magician. My friend Peter owned Ace of Aces and the Gunfighter books, and I would recommend them both over Lost Worlds.

The idea of man to man (or man to creature) combat, showing what each creature would see in first person sounds familiar in these post - Doom times, but it was still a novel and thrilling idea. Unfortunately, where the Ace of Aces series had high quality pictures, fake leather covers and back ground information and atmosphere to spare, Lost Worlds just looked rather cheap and hurried. The basic mechanics worked alright, but the line drawings were poorer quality than the minatures they were based on. The fantasy background was sketchy and uninvolving, and attempts to add complexity with spells, magic swords and the like didn't work any better.

I can't remember ever playing more than three games in a session, and they were usually pretty quick too. You do start to remember the numbers of the books, so that you get some experience of the moves a particular character can make. Lost Worlds could still have a life as a break in the action of an RPG or wargame session (a different game world to make your character fight for his life outside his comfort zone).

There's still a great idea in these books, but computer games have really taken these methods of play and made them their own.

Thread: Re: The 00 pages

fnord23 — 2005-08-30T21:48:12+00:00

00 means that that is not a legtimate combination of moves; the character you are looking at does not have those moves available at all.

Thread: The 00 pages

Cujo8-1 — 2005-08-29T02:37:38+00:00

I need help in finding the 00 pages as referenced in the movement parchments in the books. For example, some movement parchments have 4-00 or 6-00 meaning go to page 00 for the larger picture/action parchment. There are no 00 pages in the books and no references to it in the rules.

Does anybody have any errata?

Thread: Re: Some questions:

soren_nyrond — 2005-07-21T13:02:39+00:00

Both of these are dealt with in the notes on the inner covers of the books.
In brief 2-v-1 (or more-v-1) is handled by each "team" combatant making moves, while the "solo" comopbatant makes 1 move that applies to 1 (or, rarely 2) of them. It will kostly happen when 2 people are fighting 1 large monster (like a dragon)

Escaping is handled by getting to Extended Range, and making a move at Extended Range without being scored upon, at which point one annopunces one is escaping and yields the contest (and any victory points).

Soren the Lurker
(who only arrived today)

Thread: Session Report

1nf1n1ty — 2005-02-04T16:44:36+00:00

So, I just reaquired this game off of the site hear last week. I bought nearly the whole set of the old Nova books. This of course, was in an attempt to regain some of my old lost treasures of my youth.

I have been playing with my stepson who is 12. Over the past week we have been playing various matchups sort of randomly. Last night we played the women of lost worlds against each other.

Woman with quarterstaff.
Woman in scale with sword and shield.

We played two matches with both of us switching. Both times the woman with quarterstaff won.

I haven't completely figured this game out yet. Sometimes the results seem a bit random but the game really is fun. I believe last nights results were due to the fact that the quarterstaffer is just faster and got the drop on the armored opponent.

I do find that I really have to watch my son, as he doesn't always follow the restrictions he is supposed to and often does not go to the right page. I could see that this wouldn't be such a problem with some opponents but it is a small source of frustration in our games.

Overall though it continues to be a nice short prebedtime game for us...

Thread: Re:Newer books unbalanced?

StormKnight — 2005-01-31T21:24:53+00:00

castiglione (#75610),
I don't know that there is really any noticeable imbalance in the newer/older Lost World books...assuming you use the various tournament rules that have printed that give the older characters some tactics or luck points to let them use some cards like the new books get.
Some characters have particularly strong or weak points, and some are stronger or weaker against other characters. Some characters can take a little more skill to play successfully, as you must be careful about when to use certain moves.
If you want a group vs. one character game, however, the Cold Drake (and I think the newer Wyrm Dragon) are specially made for that. I've heard that the dinosaur series are also comparable to the dragons in power, but are compatible with the regular books. The Hill Troll can do pretty well to - he has quite a lot of body points.

Thread: Some questions:

castiglione — 2005-01-08T00:41:58+00:00

How does the system handle fights which involve more combatants than a 1 vs. 1 fight? Also, does the system handle "non-combat" choices like running away?

Thread: Newer books unbalanced?

castiglione — 2005-01-07T06:04:05+00:00

At which book does the series become unbalanced?

Which one of the new characters is the MOST unbalanced of them all?

I'm asking because I have a kind of "Metagame" in mind...something like OGRE but with Lost World books to resolve combat...one BIG (or at least a total bad-ass) "unit" versus a LOT of little weaker "units".

Thread: User Review

Geosphere — 2004-10-01T17:53:13+00:00

Nova started this game, and it should have ended there as well.

I will not refer to any of the 'related' releases, or ones by other publishers here, because they break the beauty and elegance of this game with rules that are not only unusable, but impossible to decipher.

(My one example - If I have a positive 2 modifier and you have a negative 3 base score, but the page says multiply damage by two, is it (-3)+(+2)=(-1)*2 for a total of -2, or (-3)+(+2*2) for a total of 1? Is the damage to total or the modifier? What if other modifiers applied - do they get modified - thanks for leaving that out of the rules and not answering my emails)

So, this review goes under the assumption that the game consists only of Nova Lost Worlds titles. Not Runesword. Not Chessex or Flying Buffalo Lost Worlds. Nova Lost Worlds.

The game is a brilliance of design for simulating man to man (creature?) combat.

I have the book, say Skeleton with Scimitar And Shield. You have Goblin with MAce and Shield. I have a control card showing me all of my moves, color coded and broken down by type. I hand YOU my book. You hand me yours. Now I see your goblin, you see my skeleton.

We are at Extended range. We look into our move charts, find Extended range. I'm just a fairly week skeleton, your a burly goblin. I decide to thrust low, hopefully stopping you from charging me. I go to the page number next to thrust low. You turn to the page of your move. I tell you my page number, you tell me yours. We cross reference and go each to new pages, showing that I did a thrust low (you see the skeleton thrusting, and I see you dodging (You were afraid I would try that). Your dodge gives you an advantage to certain attacks next turn. A combo setup.

BUT

If I had the barbarian with 2-handed sword, and you had the halfling, things might very well be different, even with the same moves.

See, a character card defines his maneuvers - some characters are agile and can do A LOT of different moves each turn. Some are very restricted. Your card tells your hit points - had I scored on you, we would add the score on that specific SCORE page, and modify it by my move modifier and subtract damage. It also has the Damage modifier. Strong guys with big weapons do more damage.

The booklet, on the other hand, handles armor. If you hit an armored man in the leg, the base score might be 2. Unarmored might be 5. It also has retrictions. If you swing a mace down, the next move cannot be a high thrust. But if it were a fast weapon like a dagger, no such restriction. It also has the intangible... The move matrix. Sometimes a Smash against a character doing a High Thrust hits. Sometimes it doesn;t. Depends on the character interaction.

The skeleton has 7 hit points. Goblin 13. But that skeleton is FAST. AND, if he successfully ducks without being scored upon - he regenerates a point (picking up a bone).

So, hit points and number of moves are obvious. Strength is obvious. Armor can be seen by flipping through the book, and restrictions can be deduced. But what would normally be called the "to hit" roll in a game like this is... kind of hidden until play.

Even eliminating all of the future "expansions" of incredibly badly balanced characters which introduce indecipherable rules, theres hundreds of combinations in the base 18 or so booklets. And certain combos beg to be replayed a few dozen times.

Other things like height and multiplayer combat as well as a very cool, if slightly unbalanced, campaign system are also introduced. (Flaw in campaign system - its based on body points defeated. If a skele kills 2 goblins, he can get 3 bonuses. If a gob kills 2 skeles, he can get 1 bonus, yet these characters were balanced to begin with)

The art varies WILDLY, especially later in the series. The characters vary in difficulty of play. At times, weak characters really shine in a glorified rock-scissors-paper type quirk. And the Troll and Drake of the original series are NOT balanced for single player play.

Once you understand the page matrix mechanism, you basically have a first person fighting videogame, without the electricity.

And the result is an intoxicatingly cool tactical guessing game. Kind of like really sparring.