Labyrinth Lord is a fantasy role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

 written and edited by Daniel Proctor and published by Goblinoid Games. It emulates the rules and feel of classic era Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

(D&D) using the Open Game License (OGL) from Wizards of the Coast. LL borrows its inspiration from the 1981 "red box" D&D rule set edited by Tom Moldvay

Tom Moldvay

Tom Moldvay was a game designer and author most notable for his work on early materials for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons .-Career:...

.

Compatibility with classic Dungeons & Dragons

Any adventure written to be played with classic D&D can be run using LL with little or no adjustment. However, there are a few differences between the two games. Rather than being released in separate Basic and Expert boxed sets like the version of D&D that it emulates, all of LL's rules are contained in a single volume. Another deviation from the source material is that characters can advance to 20th level (the 1981 Expert set only included levels up to 14). In addition, the cleric class in LL can cast spells at first level, unlike in the Basic and Expert rules. LL includes most of the same monsters, spells, and magic items as classic D&D, except for those designated as "product identity" by Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

. In some cases, these have been replaced with similar alternatives.

Distribution

Goblinoid Games was the first retro-clone publisher to both make most content open under the Open Gaming License

Open Gaming License

The Open Game License may be used by game developers to grant permission to modify, copy, and redistribute some of the content designed for their games, notably game mechanics.-Language of the licence:The OGL describes two forms of content:...

 (OGL) and create a free

Free content

Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work...

 trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 license

License

The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...

 with few restrictions. The material contained in the LL rules is available to others with few restrictions, allowing fans and other publishers alike to create their own derivative material for use with the system. This is known in gaming circles as the Open Gaming Movement

Open gaming

Open gaming is the movement within the role-playing game industry that is somewhat similar to the open source movement. The key aspect is that authors give recipients of works covered by copyright a license to certain rights, such as the right to make copies or the right to create derivative...

. The term retro-clone was coined by Goblinoid Games to describe its reproductions of classic D&D and other games and has caught on among RPG fans, who now use it to describe the recreation of any out of print and non-supported RPG rules created under the OGL. Besides Labyrinth Lord, other retro-clone RPGs from Goblinoid Games include GORE (which emulates Chaosium

Chaosium

Chaosium is one of the longer lived publishers of role-playing games still in existence. Founded by Greg Stafford, its first game was actually a wargame, White Bear and Red Moon, which later mutated into Dragon Pass and its sequel, Nomad Gods...

's Call of Cthulhu

Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)

Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos.The game, often abbreviated as CoC, is published by Chaosium.-Setting:...

and RuneQuest

RuneQuest

RuneQuest is a fantasy role-playing game first published in 1978 by Chaosium, created by Steve Perrin and set in Greg Stafford's mythical world of Glorantha. RuneQuest was notable for its original gaming system and for its verisimilitude in adhering to an original fantasy world...

) and Mutant Future

Mutant Future

Mutant Future is a post-apocalyptic, science fantasy role-playing game created by Daniel Proctor and Ryan Denison and published by Goblinoid Games. The game is compatible with Labyrinth Lord, which emulates the rules of classic era Dungeons & Dragons using the Open Game License from Wizards of...

(which emulates TSR

TSR

The Three-letter abbreviation TSR has a variety of meanings, depending on context:-Science and technology:* Terminate and Stay Resident, utility programs used in MS-DOS* Thermo Sulfate Reduction, relevant to the Kraft process...

's Gamma World

Gamma World

Gamma World is a science fantasy role-playing game, originally designed by James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet, and first published by TSR in 1978. It borrowed heavily from James M. Ward's earlier product, Metamorphosis Alpha.-Setting:...

).

Labyrinth Lord is available as a free PDF download at the Goblinoid Games web site, and hardcopy versions of the rules can be purchased from the Lulu print on demand

Print on demand

Print on demand , sometimes called, in error, publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...

 service and are available in hobby stores through traditional distribution networks. Additionally, Goblinoid Games has announced a partnership with Otherworld Miniatures, who will begin selling a line of official Labyrinth Lord miniatures starting in August 2010.

Reception

Labyrinth Lord was a runner up in the Indie RPG Awards Best Free Game category in 2007, and it received an Honorable Mention in the Best Game category of the 2010 ENnies

ENnies

The Annual Gen Con EN World RPG Awards are annual, fan-based awards for role-playing game products and publishers hosted at Gen Con in Indianapolis, Indiana...

.

The Escapist

The Escapist (magazine)

The Escapist is an online magazine covering video games, gamers, the gaming industry, and gaming culture. Published by the Themis Group, it was edited by Julianne Greer up to June 30, 2009, then by Russ Pitts through September 2011, and is currently edited by Steve Butts. The Escapist was first...

recommended Labyrinth Lord in their 2009 Holiday Buyer's Guide. Comparing its tone to 4th Edition D&D's "zany, over-powered sensibility", they wrote, "Labyrinth Lord feels like a Vietnam War movie, where the dungeons are dark, wet, and terrifying, goblins murder all your friends with spiked-pit traps and crossbow bolts from the shadows, and you start to develop a thousand yard infravision stare from the spell shock."

Labyrinth Lord has been translated in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, with the subtitle Herr der Labyrinthe under the original English title. Bastian Ludwig made a positive review in Ringbote - das online Spielemagazin published by Pegasus spiele, and also reviewed Labyrinth Lord material released in German, Die Larm-Chroniken (Morritz Melhem, Mantikore-Verlag 2010). An Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 translation, subtitled Il Signore dei Labirinti has been published in 2009 under the Goblinoid Games logo.