Softcore? What do you mean, Softcore?
Let me explain.

Well known is the OSR-rules set “Lamentations of the Flame Princess“, which builds on the durable chassis of the Dungeon & Dragons Basic rules set, but with some very important differences. I have spoken of many these details in the past.

What makes LotFP really stand on its own two feet is the atmosphere it goes for: the emphasis on the weird, the unique, the creative, the special, the surprising, unusual, and to a stronger than average degree the abnormal, the disgusting, the ugly – the actual horror in the gaming situation.

Regular D&D has a horror-vibe if you think about it. A few crazy people climb down into a dirty cave full of unknown deadly enemies. That should be terrifying! But people don’t think about it, at least not most of the time. Maybe when they light their last torch.

This special emphasis that LotFP tries to evoke is particularly underscored by the various adventure modules. Because real horror needs specifics; it needs a normal situation twisted into the insane; emotions don’t travel through something abstract like rules, they travel through concrete situations.

Shock tolerance

So LotFP adventure modules have a reputation for being disturbing or even shocking in one way or another – or shocking several ways at once. They tend to twist expectations and break taboos. This special LotFP vibe also has antagonized people at times, created backlash, even protest and hate. But it has also drawn a unique and creative fanbase. While some love outlandish weirdness, sexual or moral taboos, or deeply tragic desolation, others struggle with it.

A brush with the disturbing

Sometimes the mood is right for horror — and sometimes more for some good, solid adventuring and a win a against the forces of evil. For these moments, this module is a good fit. Horror-, and backlash-inducing, or triggering its own author so he pulls it off the market retroactively? That’s not going to happen here.

The Lair of the Brain Eaters dabbles into the disturbing, mainly by having some people eat brains, and even by offering the theoretical opportunity to player characters.

Overall though, nobody strictly HAS to eat one, and the eating of brains is not core to this module.
The Lair of the Brain Eaters is a not a taboo-breaker. It is only optionally abnormal, only breaking taboos if the GM chooses to make it so and puts personal effort into it. It is not particularly ugly and not horror.
And some of the stuff that is there could even be extremely helpful to the game world where another LotFP adventure, Earth Incubation Crisis, is happening!

Brain Eaters is a classic dungeon crawl into a warren connected to a cemetary. Dead bodies are stolen, and the perpetrators shall be stopped. A person has been captured and is held underground as cheap labour. While these things are not pretty, they are standard adventure material.

Classic premise

The Lair of the Brain Eaters is a standard adventure that can very easily be used, as the back cover promises, …

… for every traditional roleplaying game. It is flexible and fits into B/X or AD&D just as well as into 5e, The Dark Eye, Midgard, or any other RPG with decent combat rules. If you are a GM and you run any campaign, you will find it easy to fit this adventure into your game world.

Unique detail

From a Lamentations-standpoint, it does have a unique and creative idea that may tempt darkness — in the form of the above-mentioned brains. The brains as such can be in the spotlight, or not, or changed, scaled in weirdness level, depending on the GM’s whim or along the interests of the party at hand.

But the adventure introduces especially interesting spells. These special spells harbor the potential, in the wrong hands (like in the hands of many players!), for a lot of damage and destructive mischief. At the same time they can form the basis to do some not so hard spell research and tame them.

The weird, disturbing and shocking here is completely optional.

Conclusio: Dipping a toe into the horror-ish

Insofar, The Lair of the Brain Eaters is particularly useful as an introductory adventure. Something to slowly ease a hummer… I mean a party… that is not used to horror gaming into the warm water first, checking how they feel about it, and then slowly, gradually, raise the temperature with further horror elements in future sessions of the campaign.

The author could have easily changed the title and offered this adventure to any other RPG publisher, and it would have been a fit. So that means broader accessibility than some of the better-known LotFP-modules.

It could be an introductory adventure or a “breather” in an otherwise more disturbing campaign — but a breather that still allows the Referee to sneak in these spell ideas which might inform some troubling developments down the road.
Optionally.

Disclaimer: I have received this book by LotFP to review it.

More Lamentations of the Flame Princess