50 Posts, 5 months, 900 views, 12 pages, 2 issues, one Campaign and 2 great special offers!

Karharka Lives and Breathes

Well it's been a wild ride from it's small start last October.

Starting with this little blog and a dream Kartharka was dragged kicking and screaming into the world.

The Lair site has finally reached 50 posts of updates, background, rules and fun.

I've kept up the dream for 5 months, the sites gathered 900 views.

Over 12 pages of content have been added on top of the regular posts.

2 issues of the magazine are out, including the Combat issue, allowing people to finally play the game.

And at least one Campaign has begun, hopefully the first of many that I will hear about.

I would like to thank all of those who come by, repost content, +1 content, comment, and even buy actual issues of the game.

Without you I couldn't have done it.

There are a few of you out there who are really going above and beyond to help out and when more details arrive I will be posting that as well.

I'd also like to thank the great folks over at Heroes Beacon here in Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada) for stocking the game.  The first of many I hope.

I want to get as many people out there playing as possible so I call out to you now.

I have some copies I would love to send to people, so if you have a site of your own and review games, contact me at spookyroomproductions@gmail.com with your details and I will get some copies into your hands. The supply of review copies is limited to the first 10 I hear from so send in your details now.

I would also love to get more copies into retailers stores so if you are a retailer or know one well enough to convince them to carry it, then send me your details and I will send you off an introductory retailer pack containing 5 copies of issue 1 and 5 copies of issue 2. You may keep one of each for yourself and supply the rest to the retailer. 

The only caveat is that you must post a review of the game online at someplace like rpggeek.com and that you supply us with the contact details of the retailer and a picture of the game on the shelves.

I would say that's a pretty great deal so this one is limited to the first 5 people who send in their details to spookyroomproductions@gmail.com.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery Campaign begins, Part 2

This is a continuation of the Play report of the first Lair of Sword and Sorcery Campaign.

Read part one here Part 1

The heroes enter the city of Stroh-Branoch!

One of the characters has decided that their hero will follow the path of Sorcery!

Not knowing where to start (none in the land of Kartharka does) they head straight for the sages hall.

They present themselves (and their +2 ccamaraderie and a pile of gold) to the sages at the hall.

It is agreed that they may begin their training on a trial basis for 1 month. They are allowed to stay at the Sages Hall, begin their tutoring in the history and sciences of Kartharka, and are given access to the library of the sages from which they begin copying as much of their lore as they can (getting a head start on a library for their demense, see the forthcoming veteran issue for more details on that)

After the month is passed and the "bodyguard" has healed their serious injuries the sages present a problem to the would be scholar.
His money has run out. To continue his studies for another month he will have to pay more (which he hasn't got) or run some errands for them.
He accepts the challenge and is tasked with picking up some papers and items from the small sages hall located in the hamlet of Throm at the top of the valley of Fangs.
The bodyguard spends a large part of his ready cash on an almost full suit of Kartharkan plate.
Knowing that this is likely not to be as simple a task as it seems (remember the bandits on the road from earlier) the novice sage decides to enlist the help of some muscle from the local bar.
Spending the rest of their money they recruit 5 dangerous looking thugs to escort them to Throm.
And it's good that they did. While camping int he forest that lies before the great Wulf's Way road they spot a babd of men with torches approaching from the distance.
They quickly break camp and make for the woods to hide.
Luckily they find an abandoned cabin there to make their stand in and another epic battle ensues.
These men are the remainder of the bandit troop, and picked up their trail soon after they left Stroh-branoch.
The heroes again use tactics to their advantage, fortifying the cabin with traps and defending the doorways to great advantage.
The bandits do break in briefly and are able to kill one of the dangerous thugs but the heroes are unscathed.
They continue on to Throm with no further problems.
There they find the local Sages Hall abandoned, though the innkeeper has been entrusted with the key which he gladly gives to the novice sage since he bears the amulet of the Winterlands Sages (temporarily).
Entering He finds the Hall indeed empty, and the library locked, needing another key.
Luckily on the lectern is left a note, to any sages who may enter the hall.
I did not have time to prep the exact wording of the scroll but it begs any sages who enter to read the scrolls left behind and follow the sages into the cursed woods (pronounced Curse-edd of course).
The exact message of the note and the details of the scrolls will have to wait until the following game in two weeks as I had absolutely nothing prepped other than literally 10 lines jotted down for the first string of scenarios.
Something like "Road, attack, Stroh Branoch, travel, cabin in woods...' and then a couple more lines for the next scenario but that's a secret.
All in all a huge ssuccess campaign started and characters made on the fly and well into the first string of scenarios
What will they encounter next? Well they have seen a lot of Sword so far...
I believe they may finally get to the other half of Lair next time!

Next up will be a series of posts on the nuts and bolts of what specifically happened, and why, including a few rules tweaks, additions and other meddling bits of minutiae.

Ps- The continuing saga of our poor heroes will be detailed here in the posts as well as being archived in a permanent section here on the site soon

First Game Successful Part 1

The first official campaign for Lair of Sword and Sorcery has begun.
In put to the test the first tenets of the Lair philosophy, quick, easy, no prep.
My real life workplace had a lot of excitement this week and I also ended up working late on game night, whoops.
So when playtime came I had nothing prepped at all.
No problem!
People showed up late.
No problem!
Even with me flipping back and forth through the combat issue,
(page numbers, and tables of contents are now a feature from issue three up, you're welcome)
we still had characters ready in 10 minutes.
I simply started them on the Road to Stroh Branoch and had them encounter the miners from the example scenario.
No problem.
Instead of trying to get sacks of gold out they threw their miners at the bandits to kill them all before they could make off with the sacks, whoops, I did not expect that. I expected them to be a bit more careful with their miners and their heroes.
 They also set up a defensive wall of miners around the sacks to keep the bandits from getting to them. Whoops again. My bandits are having a real hard time getting at the sacks. I should start to rethink my strategy of avoiding the miners to drag sacks and just start attacking.
One player then set up a tangle of ropes at one of the entrances to the sack room using their rope and some spikes (and a sota roll of 7)
Huzzah, they're setting traps. Dammit they're setting traps.
Some my bandits are now having to fight through this thing to get at the sacks.
by the end of the scenario all the bandits were dead having looted only two sacks, leaving 28 sacks for the heroes to give to the miners for their reward.
The heroes have not suffered a single wound from the bandits though one has lost a few endurance from fighting.
Then they decided to turn on the last remaining miner to kill him and take all the loot for themselves. "Because there's no alignment in this game".
They manage to kill him but one of the heroes actually has to make a death roll in the fight, and fails!
Luckily once the scenario is over the recover roll leaves him only "severely injured".
In their now weakened state they decide to return to the miners camp near the road and return their ore for the reward, 28 gold pieces, a fortune in the winterlands!
I groan inwardly but have to admit they earned it with some clever strategy on the board.
During this first scenario we found alot of things about Lair which I will post some articles on during the week with some of the material going into the books.
But the night was not over!
This mighty encounter took only about and hour so they continued on to Stroh-Branoch
Read more about this one crazy night in part 2.

Some Thoughts on Lairs

Was doing a bit of reading yesterday (Where do we find the time?) on the state of D&D in 5e.
I will preface this article with something you may not know from the tone of the site.

I love D&D.
I'll just put that out there along with the fact that I think 5e has the potential to be the best system since the Cyclopedia.
Do the math, look yourself square in the eye, face some hard truths and you'll agree, the Cyclopedia was the best flavor of D&D every produced. If it had been supported in the same way as the boxed sets in the 80's it would never have gone away (instead of being viewed as a gateway drug to "Real D&D")

Today I want to talk about Lairs.
For the last year or so I've been hearing alot of talk about the 5 Room Dungeon, and with 5th edition alot of talk about Lairs, encounters, and experience point Math.

I know these longer rambling posts tend to get skipped over a lot so I'll just put the main point up front here.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery is built from the ground up for "Lair" Encounters.

Those of you who know what that means will be interested enough to read on. For those of you who don't, in a nutshell "Lairs" represent the way people have been playing D&D all along if the DM is doing their job right and everyone is having fun.

History time, skip to the heading about "Lairs in Lair" if you already agree.

Go to your first edition handbooks, look in the Dms guide for how to make up your own Dungeon. Remember back to how we thought of "Dungeons" way back in the day. Not any particular published dungeon but that one that we all have striven for, the one we read about in the comic book ads for Dungeons and Dragons, the ones we imagined when we read the rules for Torch Duration, and when buying Iron Rations.

The massive sprawling, multilevel monster dungeon, where players went in level one, fought enough 1 hd monsters to level up, then went to level 2, fought enough 2hd monsters to get up to level 2 and so on.

Each level increasing in size to have enough encounters to level up again, with parts being added on periodically to keep things "fresh", wandering monster tables, "to keep you from wasting time", 

Huge randomly generated monstrosities with encounters in "30%" of the rooms, oh and don't forget to map everything, even in that massive 70% of barren nothingness or your party will become "lost".

We all dreamed of playing or running one of these behemoths, but the fact is, if we ever sat down to actually play it, it always came off a little pretty poor, unless the Dm really did his job.

And what was that?

In the huge warren of a dungeon you find a door, opening it you find a pile of bedding, a monster is about! Now that the players are on their toes they enter one of the two doors leading from this room, It's a cave with 3 orcs sitting over a cook-pot, interesting,

They kill the orcs, find that the pot doesn't contain anything and so go back and go through the other door, Here they find a fourth orc, about to butcher some poor adventurer for the stew pot. The kill the orc and question the adventurer. 

This brave knight had been on a quest to discover the great lost sword of whosiwhatsit, held by a brave knight venturing here to kill an evil cleric who's run off with the churches jewels. 

Careful searching of the rooms reveals a few coins and a letter from said cleric saying to meet him at the usual place by the well. Wait a minute there was a well just outside this door says one of the players. So they wait, kill the cleric but he does not have the treasure. They follow his trail around the corner to another grouop of rooms.

These rooms are clearly an evil temple, Finding a secret passage near the altar they brave their way to the inner sanctum, narrowly avoiding a fiendish pit trap in the dark.

In the inner sanctum they accidentally release a fiendish devil fromt he pits whom the evil cleric worshiped. 

Luckily they discover the magic circle in the floor which protects them while their cleric using a chalice found in the stolen churches treasure, banishes the demon.

The NPC gathers up his churches belongings, there is of course plenty left over for the players.

They killed some orcs, a mid level evil cleric, and even defeated a minor demon, depending on the system they will get xp for the gold or avoiding the pit trap as well. Not a bad haul.

They got to figure out some clues and the whole string of encounters was wrapped up in a single night, an accomplishment.

What they just defeated was a 5 room dungeon, or what could be considered the Lair of an eveil cleric and his minions. Just because it happened int he middle of a sprawling megadungeon does not change it one bit.

Now say you start that story off with an hour of wandering monster rolls, mapping endless empty corridors, tracking torches and rations on your character sheet, and then do the same thing on the way out.

Would that make it more or less fun? A good Dm would have handwaved all the bit at the beginning and the end saying "You are now at the place you left off last time", and at the end he would handwave again saying "you make it back to town safely".

All well made Mega dungeons are really just a series of  "Lairs" or 5 room dungeons strung together along a theme. The "dungeon" was originally just an easy way to get right to the adventure without having to write alot of backstory why the characters would be encountering this band of orcs and a cleric, "They're in the Dungeon" is all they needed. If this happened in the wild on a road the Dm would have to do alot of story crafting, once it's in a dungeon it's all readily accepted by the players.

Look at all the original modules, you would get a wilderness map which players would tromp through to make the trip to the dungeon more interesting (each dungeon does need a bit of history and backstory) but when you got there it would be a tower with 3 levels with 10 rooms each, half of which were empty, or to look at it another way, three 5 room dungeons each one harder than the next.

Lairs in Lair

In Lair of Sword and Sorcery the players all gather together and play a "Scenario". Every scenario takes place in a "Lair". The lair is laid out on the Demonboard, either all at once (for a "Skirmish" type scenario, ie a pitched battle between two groups) or one room at a time for a "Blind" Lair.

The Demonboard is a fixed size, no single Lair may be larger than the Demonboard.(22x28 squares).

At the end of one Lair they may find the entrance to another but all the action for this lair will occur on this one Demonboard.

The main difference between Lair of Sword & Sorcery and other Roleplaying games is that each Lair has an accompannying scenario which states some basic rules for this Lair (the same Lair may have different a different scenario if the players return to it however)

Each Lair must have the following things:

Scenario Objective:

This is what the players need to do to "Beat" the Lair. They may know the objective when they begin or it may be a secret which they have to discover within the lair.

Reward:

The lair must have a reward for beating it. If the Objective is killing the evil cleric the reward could be something simple like recieving his treasure. Or it may be something less tangible like recieving a blessing from the noble knight they saved, or they may be allowed to stay at his temple and recieve training, or the temple may owe them a favour to be cashed in later.

Sometimes the Reward could be something as simple as not recieving the punishment for failing, which is a reward in itself.

Punishment:

If the characters are not able to defeat the Lair then there will be a Punishment. This is a huge difference between Lair and other Roleplaying games. In your typical dungeon if you don't feel like going in the dank tunnel under the altar to see what's inside you can just leave. Or you can decide to go back to town, get a couple of strong lads and healing potions and come back to defeat the demon.

There is little sense of urgency to pressing forward in the dungeon.

In Lair things are different.

The Players are always in a Lair for a reason. The backstory will usually provide this but the punishment rule reinforces the urgency of the dungeon. The evil cleric may have kidnapped the children of the town and will sacrifice them if the players are not able to stop him first.

The punishment also need not be that dire.

In the evil cleric example above if the players decide to leave the lair without pushing on into the passage beneath the altar the next time they return they will find the passage has been entered by someone else, likely other orcs, and stripped of it's treasure, meaning the Knights temple will never recover their sacred relics. In this case the punishment was the lack of any reward, which is acceptable, though the temple may be a little standoffish to them in the future.

Special Feature:

Every Lair is Sword and Sorcery needs a special feature.

It will usually be tied into the Scenario Objective and possible the reward and punishment as well.

It is the mighty set piece of the Lair and will not have appeared in any Lair before (thought it may be reused later but not as a special feature). Every special feature requires rules for the players to interact with it.

In the Evil Cleric example the Special feature may be the "summoning room" that they enter. The rules would be that when any player first touches the circle the demon is summoned (demons are not special features, the room itself is). Another rule would be that the demon cannot enter the circle so the players are "safe" while there.

The players would not be told this when entering the room, finding out the special features rules is the biggest fun of the game.

Special features may be an incredibly devious trap or lock with many levers to pull, may be a special raised platform the final enemy hides upon dumping boiling oil on the players, a special item, a special creature, anything which the players have not encountered before. 

Ideally the rest of the Lair will be built around and lead up to the special feature.

By specifically stating that each Lair must have a special feature and that each special feature must have rules made up pertaining to it it actually takes a lot of work off of the Demonlord (DM in Lair parlance). Because frankly each dungeon should have something special, something unique, It doesn't have to be fantastically original, the oil dropping example above shows that a simple difference, with some rules attached to it will bring an ordinary encounter up to an epic battle with the players have to come up with whole new strategies to accomplish what would ordinarily be a straight up fight.

Using these in other games

These basic rules, Objective, reward, punishment, and special feature, can be used in any encounter, dungeon or lair in any game system you like. Simply applying these strategies when building your own D&D encounters make the sometimes tedious and boring task of crafting encounters fun again, and the reward punishment system may breathe new life into a campaign grown stale.

Please leave any Comments you may have positive or Negative I'd love to hear what you all think.

~Ripley

Lair of Sword and Sorcery is back online!

The Lair Hub is updating again!

Thanks everyone for your patience while the site went dark for another week.

I have returned from my travels to strange and foreign lands and will be updating again soon.

After planes, buses, subways, and even a car accident, the savage world of Kartharka seems a friendly and comfortable place to return to.

A harrowing but fruitful trip I also return with news.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery is going to be available online as well as Brick and Mortar establishments.

I have to admit that the hopes for selling only through retail were more of a feeling of Nostalgia for how I joined the gaming world but I bow to the pressures of today's market.

There will still be a lot of perks for the retailers as well as a lower cover price (not to mention shipping costs) but I feel it is time to open up to the global online gaming world.

Some of you may have noticed the Combat issue arrived to small fanfare as the issue was off the presses mere days before my leaving. Unfortunately my work schedule as well as access to technology and the internet was severely in the way of making a big fuss about this issue.

But fear not!

For those of you who still have not had the pleasure of holding an issue in your hands, some of the content will be trickling onto the site over the next couple of weeks.

You should see:

• A basic "overview of the game" item on the menu
• Additions to the background setting of Kartharka
• A new "how to contribute" menu item on the new contribution and "what you can do" guidelines. (I am loosening up on the restriction, call it mellowing in my old age)
• The updated Hero Record sheet (slight changes after publishing Combat issue, play testing works!)

And what's happening behind the scenes?

I was hoping to get the main chunk of the Veteran rules written up this week but workload was much more intense than anticipated.

I was hoping to have at least a page of guidelines to "get you by" until the Veteran issue but it looks like it will be a bit of time before that is all collated into something people can make sense of so you should see a temporary Menu item pop up sometime in the next week on What the Veteran system is and how the Heroes can earn veteran points (you will have to get the issue to find out how to spend them)

Hopefully this will allow you to jump right into your games before the Veteran issue is out.

If the Veteran issue is held up for a good deal of time then a selection of ways to spend them will be added to that menu item.

I will also be adding one more menu item on the "publishing spirit" of Lair of Sword and Sorcery.

It will have a little bit of the actual practice of putting together an issue, what the issues hope to accomplish and how they wish to accomplish it.

To keep updated on all of these things please subscribe to the blog, or like us on Facebook, and of course add us to your circles in Google+.

Combat Issue released!

The combat issue is officially on the shelves at Heroes Beacon. See the "Where to Buy" link on the right hand side for details on address etc.

Thanks Everyone for coming by to see what's up and hope you like what you see!

Next issue is definitely going to be the Veteran issue but since Sorcery is also part of the Veteran system you'll be seeing a little bit of that in that issue as well.

The Sorceror material will then be expanded fully in the Sorcery Issue.

~Ripley

Photography Begins on Combat Issue!

Issue 2, "The Combat Issue", has just finished final editing and design. Now we head into photography, hopefully topping the quality of the photos in issue 1. Sorry about that one guys I'm still learning over here.
This is the big one, this issue where you actually get some Rules!
You've all been reading about the tone of the game, the design principles behind it and how it's different. With this issue Lair is going to back up all those claims.
My own "Campaign" is ramping up and will running shortly after the Combat issue comes out.
You'll be hearing all about how it goes as it'll be the testing grounds for the first group of Published Scenarios.
Thanks for Listening and everyone prepare for Combat!
~Ripley

Issue 2 is Written!

So let it be written, so let it be done!
All of the copy text is written for Issue 2 "The Combat Issue!"

For all fans of Sword and Sorcery The complete Lair of Sword and Sorcery Rules will be appearing in this issue.

Features include:

• Character Creation
• Equipment
• Roleplaying and Combat mode
• Combat rules
• The SOTA rules (Something Other Than Attacking)
• Background for The "capital" of the Winterlands Stroh-Branoch, with map and key features.
• Character Sheet
• Amassing your figure collection.
• The Lair Skirmish game
• An introductory scenario with tips for beginning Demonlords

The art for this issue is half done so if you would like to see your art in this issue you had better send it in to spookyroomproductions@gmail.com.

Issue 3 will be the Veteran issue, containing rules for:

Pushing your characters to the next Rank,

Balancing the enemy forces for the Demonlord, 

A list of some animals of the Winterlands both helpful and harmful

Issue 4 will tentatively be the long awaited "Sorcery" issue. And will likely be the first "forked" issue, With one version being for the players and the other for the Demonlord.

The "forked" issues are published at the same time, with the players info in a players copy of the issue and the Demonlords info in the Demonlord copy. They will both have the same issue number but with a P for players or D for Demonlord next to the number on the cover.

Concurrent with the regular run of Sword and Sorcery will be a special "Lairs" supplement, containing 10 Lairs to be used for either the Lair Skirmish game or as full blown adventures for your heroes.

Also in the new year my own group of players will be starting their own journey to fame and glory, Their exploits (as well as their advenutures) will be published on a semi regular basis as well in the special campaign issues of the Demonlord fork of Lair of Sword and sorcery. 

Let the adventure begin!

Sword and Sorcery Versus Fantasy Part 4: Magical Healing

See the previous 3 parts of Sword vs Sorcery in the previous posts..

Now we tackle the last Trope of Classic Fantasy Role playing.

Magical Healing

In Most Fantasy role playing games, whether on computer or pen and paper, one of the most fantastic elements (ie hardest to believe) is magical healing. Whether through potions, magic items, spells, or innate magical abilities, "magical" healing is everywhere in most fantasy games. The concept of the

Healing "potions" that players can buy at the local market is now considered normal in any game.
The reason this has gone on for so long is because, hit points, or damage points, or life points, are all fairly abstract systems which take into account fighting ability, endurance, luck, as well as a characters physical size and strength.

Even though characters have more "hit points" as they go up in levels, game masters found out that if characters are not fighting enemies of equal toughness the players would feel no excitement, due to there being no risk of death.

So the enemies get more hit points as well, or the characters fight more powerful monsters.

The problem with this system is that after the first fight the characters would have to go back to town and rest up for weeks to get their hit points back. And so Magical healing was born. Now characters could plow through a whole nights worth of encounters one after the other, by the end of the night their healing spells and potions were used up and they would head back to town with their treasure and tally up their experience points.

As you can see this type of fight-treasure-town cycling is what leads to alot of the mechanics and "game balancing" rules of the d&d system.  That is because the main conceit of D&D is that there are large underground dungeons, close to town, where you can move through 10 to 20 of the rooms in a night, Each of those rooms will have an encounter or a fight, but when the characters decide to leave they are free to go.
More than that all of the other creatures in all of the other rooms will happily sit in their own space waiting for the characters to arrive in their room instead of all of them converging on the characters at once.

Now lets look at a sword and sorcery version of an adventure.
We'll use the classic Conan short story "The Tower of the Elephant" (I'm not going to look up any specifics, so if my details aren't quite spot on at least you'll get the gist of it).

First Conan hears about the tower at a tavern, that there is a huge amount of treasure inside as well as a huge sorcerers gem which is the source of power for the Towers Owner, some wizard guy.

He decided immediately to break in.

So immediately he has an objective, get the gem, and any other loot he can carry. He is warned that there are terrible guards keeping others from doing so (explaining why this place is in the middle of the city and unlooted).

He also has a time frame, he cannot enter, look around, leave, and come back again. He has to complete this "adventure" in one night of game time.

He enters the garden surrounding the tower. There he meets another thief who joins him, there are now two people in the "party".

They meet some lions as their first "encounter". Now ordinarily these lions would rip them to pieces and this would be the end of the adventure but the other thief has a mysterious powder that puts them to sleep.
Note here, this advanced thief does not have a lot of hit points and is therefore able to fight the lions, he has the right connections to get this powder to defeat the lions, something a thief would not have when he begins his trade.

The first encounter over they now climb to the top of the tower to avoid the guard who wait by the front door. They do this with a super strong super light rope the thief has acquired or made, again through his connections and knowledge.

Now they are at the top of the tower.  The other thief enters the door first but is killed instantly falling back outside the door.(he was bit once by a venomous spider, doesn't matter how many hit points he had he's dead)

Conan decides to brave the room anyway and enters.

Inside is a "Giant" spider. We're not talking something the size on elephant, or even a man, but the size of a dog.  But Conan has been warned by his friends death that the spider is poisonous so a single bite will kill him.

So Conan is forced to dodge and run about the room avoiding the spider until he picks up a chest and throws it at the spider squashing it dead.

So Conan loses no "hit points" and the spider is instant killed not by an attack per se but by being squashed by a bit of room furnishing,

Conan then continues on and meets a big elephant headed guy, they talk for a bit the elephant guys asks Conan to put him out of his misery and take the gem down to the evil wizards guy.

Conan kills him takes the gem, gives it to the wizard, the wizard is sucked into the gem, The tower collapses and Conan escapes, probably with a few gems he grabbed from the spider room.

And that's it. Conan did not deal a single hit point of damage nor did he take one.

That is because a sword and sorcery story is short, there isn't time for a large labyrinth of varying bizarre rooms and endless scenes of the heroes fighting yet another group of bad guys in yet another room.

Sword and Sorcery lends itself well to short episodic adventure and without needing to rely on a lot of fantastic additional add ons to make it all work.

Making it perfect for a night of roleplaying fun.

But expand what you think of sword and sorcery because yes there are swords but there is also definitely sorcery.

All of the fantastic creatures, spells, monsters, wizards, sorcerers, rooms full of treasure, lost cities, dragons, underwater tombs, and races of terrible lizard men, all of these are sword and sorcery too. It's just how they are used that is different than fantasy. In Sword and Sorcery the fantastic is, well, fantastic. It is not everyday, everyplace, regular stuff.  And doesn't that make it more fun?

~Ripley

Sword and Sorcery versus Fanatasy part 3

In part 3 we are going to talk about the second Trope of generic Fantasy Role playing.

Adventuring leads to an increase in power
Classic role playing game rules usually dole out some form of experience for either completing a quest successfully, beating your enemies, and sometimes even for gathering up treasure and and other valuables.
This is usually because the role playing aspects of increasing power are usually abstracted, there is some sort of abstract reward for success which eventually translates into some abstract bonus for the character in time.

In Sword and Sorcery however we are usually presented a fully formed hero, who quickly goes about their quest and the story ends with their victory or defeat.

If they do return in further stories usually something will have happened in between the stories, say spending a few years with a band of mercenaries. In Sword and Sorcery usually "power" does not equate to how many people you can kill.  It is usually measured in actual knowledge and skills.  Travelling the world allows you to know more about the people and places in it.

A successful thief does not necessarily have a great skill in climbing, or shooting, or walking silently, but are more likely to have powerful friends contacts and allies.
Simply knowing when a valuable item will be moving from one stronghold to another is far more valuable than being able to pick someones pocket. Having a well placed friend in a stronghold who will leave the right door unlocked at just the right time is far more likely to be successful than simply a magical like ability to climb up walls.

In Sword and Sorcery you do not gain fighting ability simply by clashing swords with alot of enemies, you will be far better served in using your fame to secure you another great swordsman as a teacher (gold works just as well as fame in these situations).
Indeed in fine Heroic tradition the weapons master teaching an unskilled student is the first step on many quests.

Fine Armour and weapons are good but knowing how to use them is far more important. Many games will merely hand wave experience gain as this type of training, suggesting possibilities for including them in Role play but people rarely take advantage of them.

In Sword and Sorcery a famous hero is often sought out by those who need something done.  They do not hang around bars waiting for a job. Fame, and the favor of your lord are just as valuable as a +1 to your to hit roll all with the benefit of not being mysterious and magical.

Too often players will think of their characters as merely a collection of bonuses to attack which are useful only in ensuring that they gain more levels for more bonus to gain more levels.

The problem with generic fantasy is that once you introduce magic as being fairly available and relatively safe to use, the character will soon come to the conclusion that if everything goes truly wrong then the other high level characters working for the King will be able to step in and take care of things.

In Sword and Sorcery the Heroes are the people that are stepping in to do something, But without magic they must rely on good old muscle power to get things done, if there is an opposing army marching on them they have no magical abilities weapons or spells to wipe them all off the map.  The only thing that will stop them is another army, or killing the person who has sent them.

Since that person also has no infinite sources of magical power or fighting ability it means that the heroes will have to depend on their connections, favors, information and natural human abilities to take care of the threat.

The funny thing is that these favors and plans are far more dependable than magic.  If an upstart sorcerer has chosen the heroes to vent his anger on, and the local lord owes them a favor they can quickly pick up a battalion of men to march on the sorcerers tower. Human talent and resources are just as interesting as magic.

If you wish a kingdom of your own you must earn it, it will not be given to your hero just because he has risen to a high enough level, it will be won when he has amassed enough influence in the world to thwart those who would take it from him.

Sword and Sorcery versus Fantasy part 2

In the previous post we say the three main tenets of Fantasy Roleplaying

a: The dungeon
b: adventuring leads to an increase in power
c: You can be magically healed if injured or killed

So what happens if you try to directly import these 3 things into a sword and sorcery setting?

The Dungeon
There are many types of dungeons but lets look at the generic three.
2 of them have a "leader at the end" the other does not.

Dungoen 1: Stronghold
Whether it be a cavern complex full of orcs, an ancient dungeon overrun with kobolds, or an underground fortrees of men, these are all large areas full of beings who occasionally come out to lay waste to the countryside around them.

These fit best inot the Sword and Sorcery setting.
However an entire underground complex of creatures like orcs or kobolds does not work well. In Sword and Sorcery the hero may wander into a city in the desert full of snakemen, or wash up on a mysterious island full of savage tiger men, but these things are never a threat to the outside world. These things of the Other Side, the magical, are always hidden, spoken of in legend but not a threat to actual civiliszation.
An isolated village may mysteriously disappear overnight leading the heroes to investigate but once they have entered the "dungeon" they may not leave until the enemy has been dealt with, or if they escape, on a return to the place they will find it to be completely abandonded.
This means that the classic "dungeon crawl" with it's many repeated trips back to town to drop off loot, pick up henchmen and heal up is not really possible with these types of dungeons.

A stronghold of men works very well but again not a good candidate for "dungeon crawls". If the hereos goal is to infiltrate the stronghold and kill the leader, or rescue a prisoner, then they certainly won't be able to make multiple trips, killing off more and more guards every time till the leader is left alone.
IF they leave the stronghold, whatever way they used to get in will be fortified, guards will be doubled or tripled. If the heroes were working for a local lord the stronghold may also decide to outright attack the lord laying seige to his own stronghold, leading the villagers the heroes know and love being killed.

Dungeon 2: A wizard did it
Oh sure it may be a witch, or a necromancer, or a sorceror, or a liche, or a wizard.  But they will usually be evil.
They may be terrorizing the local populance, or raising an army, or be researching evil magics.
The end result though is that they have a castle/tower/underground cave that the heroes must enter to either kill the wizard or steal something from him.
If done well this is an excellent "dungeon" for sword and sorcery.
But like the stronghold the heroes will not get to come and go as they please. Especially if the wizard is extremely powerful.  After attempting to rob him they may find themselves the target of terrible magics soon after, and indeed this is the reason most lords ever allow them to lay in their strongholds for so long without molestation.
It is best to let a wizard who is not actively attacking you to his own devices rather than face his wrath.  Of course hiring some heroes to do the job is certainly a way to deal with them. These heroes annoyances may even amuse the wizard as they see them as useful test subjects fo their evil magics.

Dungeon 3: Abandoned tombs/underground cities/mines.
This is the bread and butter of the sword and sorcery "dungeon".
Not truly "Occupied", the heroes may encounter one group of inhabitants without neccessarily inciting the wrath of everyone in the complex.  Organization between groups of inhabitants may or may not exist .A sword and sorcery world is chock full of lost cities and tombs, abandoned shrines and temples.

Usually these places will be "lost" and the heroes will stumble across them when trying to get somewhere else. Or they may actively be chasing legends.  Either way the general population will not know the location or may be kept away from it by terrible legends or powerful natural defenses, like a difficult road, or fierce jungle animals.


If they are able to keep it a secret they may be able to leave and return several times but usually when they return they will find that either others have found it, or that what inhabitants there were have left with anything of value or interest. Also possible is that the entrance will be covered by a landslide or earthquake.

Essentially it's best to think of Sword and Sorcery as a short story instead of a Novel.
The heroes enter a lair for some reason, check it out, try to accomplish their mission and get out again never to return.

In part 3 we'll take a look at increasing the heroes power.

Demon Board Upgrade! (continued)

I promised an update on the clay blocks...

The dollar store clay worked out great.
It's called "Natural Modeling Clay"
Features are "dries naturally".

I honestly thought there would be some difference between these and the salt dough blocks but other than having to let the clay dry out a bit before working it the experience was the same.

If the clay is too wet it will deform when you pull it out of the mold, but just leave it out to dry for a bit, reworking it occasionally, and it's just fine.

You seem to get about 15 blocks out of a package so about 2 packages would be equivalent to a batch of salt dough. At $1.25 per package they are a great deal.

So if you're just getting started and don't know if you will bother playing the game for long, use the salt dough blocks or just card walls.

If you've stuck with your salt dough blocks for over a year and find that they are getting too soggy or misshapen from storage than go ahead and upgrade.

I decided to hold off painting until after the holidays (just too much going on, running a business, wife and kinds plus 4 birthdays all in one months is a little much) But I should find a bit of time to have everything up and ready for the new game, and if not I'll just use the card walls, I've got plenty.

Also busy finishing off issue 2.
The combat rules are all written up in a real format as opposed to my usual bullet points in my notebook.

Now moving on to the included skirmish game to help teach the combat system.

I am also possibly going to include the first Scenario in the issue (or Lair as I call them) It all depends on how much room I have left after my usual rambling.

~Ripley

Sword and Sorcery versus "Fantasy" Part 1

Most Role playing games, whether pen and paper, or video games, are based on the great grandfather of them all, Dungeons and Dragons.

The tone, genre and setting of the original D&D materials was a "quasi medieval" setting. So you have kings and kingdoms, knights, villages, cities, maps, trade, languages and ships. 

As for the trappings of the fantastic you have dragons, monsters, and other creatures hiding in secluded places.

For magic you have magic weapons, inspired by things like Excalibur, and wizards, inspired by legends of Merlin and others.

It's a wide open setting, based only slightly on a historical template from our own earth.

It's original rules and mechanics were based on rules created for tabletop war-gaming, where large masses of men fight against each other.  This means you had a lot of men and didn't feel too much loss when any of them died.

Dungeons and Dragons the role playing game is based on the idea if each player controlling only one man. And following their exploits as they grew in power to become a "Super Hero".

Now you have a handful of men versus a large number of enemies and a "general".

IF you were to set both groups on a war-game table and let them attack each other then you would have a very short lived game.  The enemies would quickly overwhelm them, killing them in a short period of time.

What the "heroes" needed was a way to encounter the same number of enemies  but in small groups, starting with the weakest ones first and increasing their fighting abilities before fighting the next group.

This is what led to the 3 main ideas which drove the D&D game and indeed all role playing games afterward.

The first idea was the dungeon.

Think of the dungeon like a battlefield. 

You start at one end and work your way through the enemies cannon fodder, the weakest and easiest to start with. The closer you get to the other "end" the more powerful the enemies become, through the shock troops and the generals body guards till you get to the general himself.

The twisting corridors and small rooms of the dungeon are conducive tot he Heroes Guerrilla style warfare tactics of hitting small targets and getting away quickly.

Indeed the first "dungeon" was the basement tunnels of a fortress.

During a war game scenario a small group of skirmishers were trying to overthrow the by sneaking in through a back door.and through the basements, but the players enjoyed that part of the scenario so much it was decided to expand on it.

The next big thing was to figure out was how was a group of mediocre soldiers ever supposed to defeat an enemy so powerful that they threaten the world? Well if the enemy was somehow able to amass so much poer there must be a way for the heroes to do so as well. And so an "experience point" system was born, so that they could incrementally improve until they too were "superheroes" capable of defeating the enemy general.

But there was still one more problem. The heroes were still too weak. If you consider the pacing of an adventure game it becomes clear that heroes have to kill alot of enemies to succeed in their quest.

IF they walk into a dungeon, kill a couple of guys each and then run off to heal, waiting a couple of weeks for natural healing to do it's work then the enemy would clearly move more guards to that room again before they returned.  

The heroes had to find a way to press further into the dungeon in a single outing.

And so magical healing was born, healing potions, healing spells and even Resurrection spells were created. No one wanted to spend years creating a character just to see them killed by some lackey with a lucky strike. For Heroes to act like heroes they needed to be able to run in heal quickly while still in the dungeon if things got really bad and move on a little farther.

The idea that

a: massive underground labyrinths exist everywhere in the world

b: that by simply entering them and killing enough enemies and gaining enough treasure will make you more powerful

c: that if you make a mistake you will be magically healed and able to continue on

are the hallmarks of all fantasy role playing games today.

See part 2 for the Sword and Sorcery version of these 3 things.

Distribution, retailers, reprints, and the internet

What a month!
Hail all followers of the Lair of Sword and Sorcery Roleplaying game!
Lets get down to the Nitty Gritty, and have one of our uncomfortable conversations.
You may have read in previous posts or in the magazine my feelings about "the whole online thing".
I want everyone to buy their copies in a store, to help out their local economy, and to join their local community of gamers.
But I've found something out in the last month, people want to buy stuff online!
They have a community online and they are quite happy with that.
Well in my spirit of embracing all our brothers of Sword and Sorcery I'm going to start selling online, but in a way that I feel comfortable with.

So, for now, until I get everything set up you can continue to follow the link on the menu of "Where to buy" to find your local retailer to buy your copy.

In the future we will be adding a few more links, one for retailers to send them to the new retailer site (under construction waiting on approvals from the online economic powers that be).

Soon after will be a link for "buy online"

Printing schedule:

Here is how the printing schedule will happen.

Retailers will be able to order an issue as soon as it's released, 1 month later that issue will appear online.

As soon as a new issue is released all previous issues will be considered "reprints" and will still be available to retailers with a black and white cover.

All issues online will only sport the black and white cover and will be considered "reprints"

Pricing:
All retailers in my local area will sport a cover price of $4 (they get a bit of a deal as they don't have to pay for shipping)

Other retailers will have a cover price of $5 (shipping costs, blame society)

The online issues will sport a cover price of $6 (plus shipping and handling)

So if you want the snazzy colour covers and the lower cover price then please buy at your local brick and mortar store.
If you don't mind the black and white cover and like the convenience of buying online then we got you covered too.

Why?
I love local stores, without local stores I would never have met all of the great people I have over the years, would never have found out about all the great games and comics I have squandered my youth with, and probably would never have even gotten into this whole "gaming" thing.
If anyone is wondering why the gaming and comic book industry is shrinking every year then wonder no more, It's because people are not supporting their local stores, those people who wave the banner of our hobby, help all of those who are just finding out about this great hobby, are passing all their knowledge down to the next generation of sword swinging little ones.
I'm an old geezer now, with a wife, kid and house, so you won't see me hanging around at my local store too much (I'm either fixing something, running errands, or just spending time with the family) but when I do see something that I want, or need to stock up on a couple of pots of paint or a few more skeletons for my undead army, I stop by my local store.
And you should too.

~Ripley

Game designer Notes

Quiet Slayers, the Designer Speaks!

As I write up the rules into a final form I am noticing something

I spend more more time and space explaining why a rule is a certain way, or why the game of Lair is created in such and such a way.

Since I have only so many pages per issue you may wonder why I spend so long on these issues when I could just lay out the few pages of rules and be done with it.

It's because it's necessarily. There are so many roleplaying games out there, and so many ways to play them, so many types of players etc, that if I don't point out specifically why something is the way it is then people may gloss over the intent of the rule in favour of the  way the rule is written.

Lair is a very different kind of Roleplaying game and it fits it's role very well. It's for new games and old because it is not built to fit a certain mechanic or to suit a certain genre. It's built to be fast, fun, easy to learn, and just as importantly, to be easy to run.

It is the friday night game that you whip out and play for a few hours and then head out to the bar. It's the game you pull out when the drummer is going to be a few hours late to practice because he has to work second shift. It's something to do for fun.

It's a game that you can sit down and say "We are going to plough through this entire dungeon today and finally give that Sorceror guy a kick in the nuts."

Roleplaying is a game and a hobby, it's a lifestyle but shouldn't replace actual life. Lair is something you can play with a few friends after work and still make it home in time to take out the trash and put the kids to bed.

Instead of waiting until everyone has a lifestyle where all your players can gaurantee to be able to play once a week, on friday, from 6 till midnight, to actually start up a game (which will peter out in a couple of months) just whip out Lair right now, play a game, throw the characters back in the box and next time you have a few hours pull it out again. 

Instead of the endless planning of a game master, he can just whip out a Lair scenario, read the first page and you;re off and running, or play a quick skirmish. Gm can't play tonight, no problem someone else whip out the scenario and play the bad guys, it's just moving little guys around a board, being a gamemaster was never meant to become an epic level lifestyle of endless planning, building and writing.

Just Have fun instead!

Demonboard upgrade!

I am currently upgrading my Demonboard. My Salt dough blocks have served me well for a couple of years now but I'm now getting around to making a new set out of modelling clay. I found a good source for natural clay at my local dollar store  and was able to get enough to complete a set for 5 dollars. I'll post more pics after the weekend of the upgraded blocks as well as some tips for working with natural clay.
This is all to prepare for my group of heroes starting their new game.
I'm excited to start the group off in the new time period of Kartharka, The previous game took place 40 years before the current time period in the tumultuous time of troubles. A band of heroes struck off to make their fortunes but ended up changing the face of the Winterlands forever.It was a heady year for the Winterlands with rumors of strange beasts being dragged back from the wilds, the gods returning to the mountains and sorcery flowing through the town of Stroh-branock like water.
But after their brief time in the sun they ventured forth on their greatest challenge of all...never to return.
Look to future issues of Lair to follow their mighty exploits!
Before I upgrade my board here's a few more pics of what it looks like now.
All of the details how to make a demon board in a single day (or weekend if you like it fancy!) are in issue 1 of lair "The Demonboard Issue"