Sneaks and thieves, roguish activities in LoSS

And the work on the next issue of LoSS continues,
Below is another sneak peak of the next issue.
This time it's rules for activities usually relehgated to a thief or rogue class in traditional RPG's.
The rules aren't set in stone yet so feel free to chime in with your two cents in the comments section.

(Also please forgive any grammar or spelling mistakes, this one is again fresh text that hasn't gone through the editor yet)

~Ripley

Sneaks and thieves, roguish activities in LoSS

Sneaking, slipping past guards, staying hidden in shadows, these things can all occur in a game where the heroes are thinking of more than just attacking everything head on.

But allowing Sota roles for all of these things leaves too much up to chance. The heroes could sneak into a fortress with one roll, sneak past the guards with another, sneak up on the main target with another roll and slit their throat. End of Scenario.

But this sort of thing should definitely be allowed in the game. The heroes must be given the option of using these kinds of strategies. Unfortunately in the realm of the Demonboard these kind of actions are extremely limited.

When enemies appear on the board they already know the heroes are there and this highly limits the ability of the heroes to use any sort of strategy that involves sneaking.

The following are guidelines to add this level of play to you games of Loss.

They will be extremely useful to the heroes and Demonlord, especially in the story included with this issue, The Sorceress of Zhaan.

The modifier to the Quickness stat is applied to all Stealth rolls.

Stealth Mode

Initiating Stealth

In the game of LoSS, for the heroes to accomplish anything involving “Stealth” they must first choose to “Initiate Stealth” while no enemies can see them.

This may be while they are in “adventure mode” in a Lair, or before setting off to begin a Lair.

Most Lairs will have a period of roleplaying before entering to allow the heroes to prepare for the Lair.

They can choose to enter any Lair in “Stealth mode”

When initiating “stealth” the Demonlord rolls a Difficult Sota for every hero in the group, modifying the dice roll by any modifiers for quickness.

This roll is made in secret, where the players cannot see.

If all the rolls are successful, than the heroes are considered to be in “Stealth Mode”.

If any of the rolls fail then the heroes are not in “Stealth Mode”, though the heroes will not know whether they were successful or not until they encounter a group of enemies.

Stealth mode

When in stealth mode, any room that the heroes enter will still have their enemies placed in them, but they will not know the heroes are there. Perhaps they are speaking to each other, perhaps they are lost in their own thoughts or perhaps they are doing something which is taking up their attention. When placing these enemies on the board they are placed facing away from the heroes to show that the heroes are still in Stealth mode.

When in stealth mode heroes may attempt to:  move unseen through shadows, assassinate, steal or pick a pocket.

A hero may attempt a missile attack at any time while in stealth mode, at a +6 to their attack roll. This will cause them to immediately leave stealth mode.

While in stealth mode the Demonlord may not move any of the enemies on the Demonboard unless they are marked as “patrolling” an area in the scenario description.

Usually a patrol, is listed as the enemy moving between two points of the Demonbaord back and forth. The Demonlord must move the enemy on this pat the full movement rate of the enemy until the heroes leave stealth mode.

Ending stealth mode

Whenever a hero must open a door to enter a new area they must make a new “stealth” check. A difficult Sota roll. This one is not made in secret as the heroes will know immediately if they have failed or they will be attacked immediately if they were never in stealth in the first place due to a failed roll when initiating stealth.

Only the hero opening the door need make a stealth roll.

If the group of heroes is moving from one area to another without having to open a door they are considered to still be in stealth mode.

If a hero attempts an Assassination, or stealing they must make another stealth check to see if they leave stealth mode even if they are successful. If they fail at any of these activities they automatically leave stealth mode.

Moving Unseen

The hero does not need to make a roll to maintain stealth mode when moving through a room or area with no enemies in it.

If they attempt to move past an enemy then they must make a “move unseen” roll to not be noticed.

There are some limitations to moving unseen.

The hero may no enter the “detection” zone of any enemy. This is the area of squares bordering the enemy.

If the lighting in an area is considered to be “Dimly lit” then the heroes get a +2 to the roll. If the area is not lit at all and the enemy can’t see in the dark then the roll is a +4.

Indoors

If the lighting in an area is considered to be “Dimly lit” then the heroes get a +2 to the roll. If the area is not lit at all and the enemy can’t see in the dark then the roll is a +4.

Outdoors

During the day the area is considered “well lit” and no modifier applies.

During the night the area can be considered “Dimly” lit.

Asassination

Assasination can be considered the killing of an enemy with a single attack.

In terms of Rules it will lower the enemy to 0 endurance and casue them to make an immediate death roll.

If the enemy dies then the assassination would considered to be successful and the hero remains in Stealth mode.

If the enemy does not die they still have 0 endurance due to the assassination attack but the hero has left “stealth mode”.

To attempt an assassination the hero must enter the “detection zone” of the enemy. A missile attack would be too clumsy to guarantee a kill.

The hero must make a stealth roll to enter the detection zone of an enemy, and they may only do so from the rear squares of the detection zone.

If they fail the stealth roll then they leave Stealth mode and play continues as normal.

If the target is sleeping then the hero may make the assassination attempt from any square instead of from the rear squares.

Stealing

If a hero is in a room with no enemies in it, and they wish to pick something up and take it then, while it is technically stealing, it is not considered under game rules, to be considered stealing. There is no roll required to pick the object up and put it in their bag.

Stealing is considered to be taking an object while the owner is present, awake, and aware, without the owner knowing about it.

Stealing on the Demonboard

If a hero is in stealth mode, and there are enemies in the room, and the hero wishes to take something, they must be on a square bordering the object, which does not  lie in an enemies detection zone.

They may then make a stealth roll to pick up the object with no one noticing.

Stealing in a public place or while in adventure mode

When in a public place, such as a church, open air market, or a store, the hero may steal as well.

They must first enter “stealth mode” by making a the usual difficult sota roll with the Quickness modifier.

They must then be bordering the object while not in the objects owners detection zone.

They may then make a Stealth roll to steal the object with no one noticing.

Giant Ants!

It's still Halloweeny time and still finding all sorts of great things at the dollar store. This package above is one of them.

100 ants! It's hard to tell from the pic but they are regular size ants to you and me. and look pretty good.

But to our intrepid heroes they are...

Undead in LoSS

Skeletons, Zombies, Undead and Necromancy

Hail my mighty heroes and Demonlords!

A few of you have gotten your hands on the Sorcery issue (if not get you butts over to the store and get your copies now. 

There are pay what you want pdfs available there as well if you still aren't convinced that Lair is for you. I certainly don't mind people downloading the pdf's for free so go ahead and get something cool for free.

Now back to the topic for the day: Undead!

Game on! The Witch

Got to play Lair with a completely different group of people that the previous campaign.

This time through some king of alignment of fate and luck most of our old group who hadn't played together in about 15 years all got together and played the witch scenario on Saturday.

They began in Stroh Branoch with a simple mission to Gax but thought they would pick up some coin on the way with a quick mission.

They played through the mission very well avoiding the main groups of enemy forces and very matter of factly put the witch down freeing the townsfolk with minimal collateral damage.

Rewards and huzzahs all round.

Not too much to report rules-wise. The ranking system seems to be working well thought the dice were definitely not with the cadre of heroes on this one. The first half rank combat did not go over well with a swarm of angry villagers almost taking the heroes out.

I found that with the new ranking system a half rank of  enemies (a standard encounter)  involved 18 villagers and only 4 heroes. The battle had occurred in an open field that did not allow for alot of tactical movement however with no choke-points so the heroes were forced to run. luckily they were very close to the edge of the board and were able to make a "tactical" retreat.

The heroes also had no access to henchmen for the encounter as the village had been cleaned out already and they, being starting heroes, had no monies to hire them in Stroh Branoch.

The party was also a full group of people playing Lair for the first time and was probably a little used to encountering 1d4 goblins or such as an encounter so were not prepared for the fierceness of Lair combat.

Also got to secure some more players for the online game using Roll20.so we should soon have that up and rolling.

Again the word will go out when that is up and ready to go.

Rock on crazy blood reavers!

~Ripley

Ugly Metal, and some stuff on mounts

This horrible monstrosity is my first attempt at welding. I've never been so proud of something so ugly.
It aint pretty but holds fine as a tack weld. With a bit of practice the second injection molder should be under way soon. Pics of that as things move along as well.

"Campaigns" in Lair of Sword & Sorcery

I'm working on the second string of Adventures for my home campaign.
Hurrah to all in my home group, after the grueling Veteran issue the game is back!

But this is leading me to alot of questions about what the Lair adventure game should be, as well as one big problem: Lair is not an RPG in the classic sense.

Lair of Sword & Sorcery is it's own game

As those who have bought the issues have seen Lair is it's own thing.It's not made for people who have been playing pen and paper RPG's for years, although they should like it as well.

It's for all fans of Fantasy, Adventure, Monsters, and Sorcery. The issues are written from a point of view that the people reading them may have never played an RPG before. It's made for all the people out there who have read fantasy novels, played video games, watched movies, or just thought an album cover with a dragon on it was cool.

It's for those people who have been playing a video game and thought "this is really cool, but what would be cooler would be if I could (insert random action here)".

It's for the people who have played a fantasy boardgame and thought, "that was fun, but what happens to all these people and places next?".

That's what Lair of Sword and Sorcery is.

It has a Demonboard (the playing surface) because regular folks want to see what's happening, because arguing about where a goblin was before they cast a fireball is lame, Because the Demonlord (game master) wants to play a game, not just run a game.

It has specific rules for what a scenario must have, the reward/punishment rules mean that it is clearly defined what the heroes will get and what will be lost if they choose not to enter the Lair. Because a real person gets to choose what they do.

The problem with a being something completely different...

How does this affect my home "campaign". I imagine the average group would be downloading, or buying scenarios, deciding which one they want to do and jumping straight in. That's the great thing about Lair, very little prep for a published scenario, just lay it out and go.

The problem I am reaching for my own campaign though is that I want a system for quick preparation of your own scenario.

I've rewritten the current group of scenarios 4 or 5 times already trying to come up with a system that works. But I was stuck with one big problem that still raises it's head with "traditional" rpg systems.

Railroading

For those of you who aren't rpg people this means an adventure where the heroes aren't given a choice about what happens next. (essentially, I'm trying to keep this short).
The problem with Lair is that it is very, let's say boardgamey. It's built that way on purpose.
The problem is that after 5 or 6 scenarios, the heroes may feel a little constrained. There's a whole world out there, why wait till it's served up by the demonlord on a platter, they want to go to place x now. Or do x now.

Thats cool, I'm good with that, that's the way I like it too. That's what adventure is. Now how to do that in Lair...

The Story system of Lair...

Now I'm going to step into some territory that hasn't been published yet for Lair, it's in the next issue The Lair of the Blind Burrower.

Essentially what I am in the process of doing is Codifying (making rules up) the creation of Adventures and campaigns.What I've found is this:

At the bottom rung is the specific "Lair" the Heroes are in right now, the specific demonboard layout on the board.

The "Scenario" is the group of rules, enemies, objectives, rewards and punishments for that lair.

The "Story" is the plot that links "scenarios" together. The story also has the same things a scenario does, rules, objectives, rewards, and punisments, but they apply tot he whole string of scenarios. It also states the order in which the scenarios happen as well as other event triggered scenarios (if heores do A scenario B happens)

The "Campaign"

This is the meaty goodness I've been working with recently.

Since I have players going from My First "Story" into the next this is the part I've been wrestling with. If this were a standard RPG that thing would be fired up and in the chute in a couple of days but blazing a trail takes a little longer. But I think I've found what I'm looking for in Lair.

Essentially I've written up rules for the Campaign to ensure that railroading can't happen.
It's a quick list of rules in the form of questions for the Demonlord.

It allows any place to become a setting for the heroes to range free in while still allowing adventure and excitement without the restrictions of a "scenario".

Nothing is in stone yet but it breaks down to.

Setting: where the heroes are now, Basic areas mapped out so that the Heros know where they can go. The Stroh-Branoch info in the Combat issue would be considered a "Setting"

Active adventure: this is the main story of the setting brewing at the time. It is codified like any other "Story"

Background: this is the background story of the setting. If the heroes dive straight into the active scenario then they may only encounter rumours or the odd "Encounter" with the background.
If they back away from the active adventure they will encouter more of the background.

Background will have certain encounters that engage when heroes do specific things or they may be time based, say on the second day the characters are in town.

Miscellaneous encounters: these are ones that have nothing to do with either the background story or the active adventure, they are just "things that happen". They may be triggered by going to a specific place (most often), seeking out a specific individual, or time based.

The setting map: each setting should have a map, even if only barely roughing in what area is where and a few interesting places. Some of these places may not have enough detail for a full encounter but if the Heroes go there the Demonlord can make up interactions between the people there and the Heroes.

These may lead to different stories and adventures down the road...

What this means

So we now have a main adventure going on, it's whats prepped and the biggest thing happening in the area, but if the heroes aren't interested in that at all, that's fine, they can see what's happening in the rest of town, see what else is brewing, get involved int he alternate story line that  is running alongside the first. 

Not interested in that either? Well there's a few sights to be seen in town and you can check that out, a few things are going to happen to you, they always seem to happen to heroes, and while that's going on you might have some plans of your own cooking.

A note for regular rpg folks

I also still dabble in "regular" rpgs, I am really digging what the newest edition of D&D is rolling out, still loving the OSR movement and all the great things it's throwing up, don't let all my talk of Lair fool you, I'm still down with RPG's.

The thing is everything I do in Lair in this airy "upper level design" kind of stuff really seems to strengthen the way I think about standard role playing now.My last OSR campaign was built using this kind of method that I'm using in Lair and frankly it worked great. 

So even if you aren't thinking about trying Lair yet, maybe try to drag a bit of the thinking into your own adventure design. 

Oh and build a Demonboard, I used that thing in D&D and it truly rocked there too.

~Ripley

Throwing weapons and bows

Bows and throwing weapons.

In Kartharka bows and throwing weapons are no mere "backup" weapon, doing minimal damage, being used only by people in the back of the party.

Throwing weapons aren't just the holdout weapon when all else has failed.

In Kartharka bows are just as powerful as any hand to hand weapon, not the fall back for the low level character whose hit points are still too low to mix it up in "real" combat.

In the world of Kartharka the bow, spear, and throwing axe are powerful weapons.

Doing the same damage as their hand to hand counterparts along with many other benefits.

In Lair of Sword & Sorcery you may "shoot through" a square with a friendly in it.

A group of 4 hereos facing a group of 10 men with bows is going to be cut down before they even make it to hand to hand combat.

An arrow to the neck will indeed kill you.

In Lair of Sword and Sorcery there are no "hit points".

Instead a hero has "Endurance". During combat a hero loses endurance as they fight. This represents the hero getting tired, their enemy learning their fighting style, small nicks, cuts, and bruises.

Even if a hero "wins" a combat in Lair, they still lose endurance. No hero can fight forever without getting tired.

However there is no loss of endurance when firing a bow or throwing a dagger.

A hero can fire arrows all day without tiring.

This means that most heroes will also carry a missile weapon of some sort to get a few attacks in before the press of hand to hand combat begins, to take out as many of their enemies as possible so that they are not overwhelmed in a press of enemies.

There are also no "Weapon Proficiencies" in Lair of Sword & Sorcery. Any hero can use any weapon. They may use the Veteran rules to increase their abilities with weapons but there are no "classes" to limit which person can use which weapon.

So yes, Bows good, everyone grab a bow and use it..

~Ripley

Campaign continues...

It's almost friday!

The official Lair of sword and Sorcery Campaign continues tomorrow.

The hapless heroes will be tackling the first Story written for Sword and Sorcery, "Temple of the Blind Burrower".

It will be available for free, either here at the site or elsewhere once we've played it through and I've had time to polish it.

Another true test of the games rules as the party has tripled in size since last week.

Luckily the Lair of Sword and Sorcery Veteran system has a built in ranking system to calculate party strength which is used for balancing encounters. 

So can my written scenario take on triple the amount of heroes? Yep, I can calculate the number appearing in the encounter on the fly, including the bosses etc.

Love it.

I'm more worried about how many chairs I have...

Play reports should be up on the weekend (even though I owe you a few from last time still).

Writing continues, the Veteran issue, Sorcery issue, and the Temple issue are all being written concurrently (Sorcery slides across all 3 so there you go)

I off to conquer!

~Ripley

Veteran Points (To get you by)

The following is straight out of the issue 3, The Veteran Issue.

Since the issue won't be out for a little while yet (it's coming, it's coming), I thought I would put up at this guideline for earning Veteran points.

That way your players can start earning now.

They won't be able to "spend" them till the issue comes out but at least they won't be "wastingtime".

Enjoy everyone.

The Lair Veteran System

or

What are Veteran Points and How do I get my filthy Paws on them?

The Lair of Sword and Sorcery  Veteran system is what the players use to increase their heroes  abilities.

Whether it become better fighters, more powerful sorcerers, or more influential politicians.

The players receive Veteran points for accomplishing difficult tasks or at least surviving dangerous ones.

You can receive points for surviving battles, defeating enemies, succeeding at a scenario, or accomplishing other difficult tasks.

They should also receive Veteran points for doing amazing things that make the game more fun, whether it be their hero attempting and amazing maneuver in the middle of a combat, coming up with an amazing plan, or even dressing up like their heroes.

The Specific Rules

A player gains 1 VP immediately after any of the following things occur

Survive an encounter with a group of Enemies of Equal or Greater Rank (calculating the Rank of a group is covered later)

Survive making a death roll (this is on top of “survive and encounter with a group…)

Beat a scenario (complete the scenario objectives)

Succeed at an impossible task (an impossible SOTA roll) which would have caused harm to the hero if it failed

The player has an impressive Roleplaying moment which impresses the rest of the group

Dressing up as your Hero earns you 1 VP. (Leave the sharp things at home kids)]

And that’s it. The DemonLord is free to also award VP for anything which they deem worthy or it.

What you don’t get VP for is for looking for trouble. If you decide to take on the city guard who obviously outpower you, and they arrest you but don’t kill you then you don’t get a VP for “Surviving and encounter with a group of enemies of greater rank”

If you knew for a fact that the guards would kill you and you still chose to attack that may be a different story but a good rule of thumb is if you have nothing to gain by attacking then you don’t get a VP. It is up to the DemonLord to make the call when the heroes go looking for trouble.

The example Scenario, traps, and Sota Changes

Traps in Lair of Sword and Sorcery!

The official Lair of Sword and Sorcery campaign began fairly well.

We began with the example scenario from the Combat issue with the heroes helping a band of Miners defeat some roadside bandits.

They entered and began combat with me going incredibly easy on them. I attempted to focus on getting the sacks of gold out of the room while sparing the heroes and miners. 

The players quickly surrounded the sacks with miners and heroes and began throwing the miners at the bandits with reckless abandon (morale rules are coming with the veteran issue).

They were able to effectively surround the sacks and kill all of the bandits.

They were partially able to accomplish this by quickly running ropes tied to spikes across one of the entrances entrances to the room.

This was deemed a difficult SOTA roll to set up which they were successful at.
I then ruled the at the bandits would need to make a successful difficult SOTA roll to cross it, otherwise they would become tangled and fall, taking damage.

Technically this shouldn't be allowed because the Demonlord's minions may do SOTA.
But we saw almost immediately that this would mean that the heroes would be able to set up all sorts of traps like this effectively stopping all their enemies.

New SOTA rule: Demonlord minions may make a Sota roll to undo the effects of a Heroes SOTA roll.

So my poor minions still can't come up with crafty plans to outwit the players but they may undo the work of the heroes. 

In the next scenario they set up their ropes again but this time my Minions decided to "undo" the SOTA by cutting the ropes. I will point out they still had to make a SOTA roll to do so and it unfortunately took 4 of them 2 turns to do so.

These rules will be added to the Veteran issue as well but I thought that those of you already playing with the Combat issue should be aware of the change.

I'm sure we'll come up with a few more changes as we go along, until then, destroy your enememies with the wrath of the hurricane!

~Ripley

Buying and Selling in Kartharka

Well our band of heroes had an amazing windfall in their first game scoring 28 gold pieces.

A fantastic sum of money in the Winterlands.

In Lair of sword and sorcery once you "buy some arrows" you are assumed to "have enough arrows" for your missions.

Not bothering to track all of these resources means that heroes don't really need to spend a lot of money, which is good because everything is expensive.

Earning a whole gold coin would take a miner weeks of hard labor, and the expense of travelling, living, tools and boarding eat up a portion of that as well.

This means that a gold coin is worth alot.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery does not generally have lists and lists of equipment, detailing prices, availability, weights, and other things.

If a Hero wants to buy something he will generally have to have it made to order. Merchants do not tend to have 30 chairs lying around in stock on the showroom floor.

Merchants tend to trade in raw goods, like metal, cloth, tools, the things you use to make things. 

To get something the hero goes to a craftsmen who will make something for them.

Buying regular Gear

Usually the price for anything will be One gold.

 Want to buy a bronze sword?

(the winterlands are for all intents and purposes a bronze age society)

The price is one gold.

Want to buy a dagger?

The price is one gold.

Want to buy a piece of cloth Armour

The price is one gold.

Then the hero waits for a few days and the item is available.

If the hero is in a rush, or is rude, the price doubles.

If the hero has a good camaraderie score they may get a discount. A +1 is good for a 25% discount, a +2 is good for half price (always round up). It doesn't get any better than half off and the merchants will rarely be willing to trade for "half a gold piece" so it may be a good idea to order a couple of things when getting the discount.

A negative camaraderie will cause problems as well. A -1 will double prices, a -2 will quadruple it. It doesn't get much worse than that but the craftsmen may make them wait up to a week for their items if their camaraderie is worse than -2.

These prices will get them a serviceable sturdy and plain version of the item.

A sword will indeed have a blade and a handle. It will not be pretty but it will work.

The cloth armor will indeed stop a blow But don't ask for it any color but brown and it's going to be one size almost fits all.

When a group of heroes is shopping they may try to elect the one with the highest camaraderie to do the shopping and this will work up to a point.

But if someone is buying Armour or weapons the craftsmen will want to see the person the item is meant for. They need to make measurements, consider the weight and distribution and discuss balance.

This means that the surly and mean fighter is going to have to meet the craftsmen

In this case the hero with the high camaraderie will act as a go between and their combined camaraderie will be used to consider he price.  A +2 and a -2 will cancel out meaning they will pay the normal price.

If the hero with the high camaraderie is known to be part of a group then the craftsmen will automatically consider them to be buying for these less than nice people and will again consider the camaraderie of the group when stating their price rather than just the buyers camaraderie.

Buying special gear

If the heroes have any special requests for their item it will add at least an extra gold to the standard price.

Specifying colors, cuts, special insignia are all considered special requests.

If the hero is asking for something to be completely custom made then the price will skyrocket.

For example if the want a standard sword, 1 gold

Standard molds can be used and their is no customization.

A standard sword with a bronze pommel in the shape of a wolf, 5 gold

A standard mold can be used and the craftsman can make he pommel by hand

A standard sword with an imperial style crosspiece, 10 gold

The craftsman can use a standard mold for the blade but must make a new mould for the pommel

A Hunzar jungle style scimitar with  a Hunzar style pommel and crosspiece, 20 gold

The bronzer will have to make all new molds and will need to consider the balance and mix of metals for this bizarre weapon.

Hiring Help

Hiring some men to travel with you and protect your back is a costly venture.

To hire a standard man whose stats are all zero (except the usual 6 endurance) will cost 1 gold per week.

They will have their own food and camping supplies.

If they are expected to fight more than once per week they may ask for an additional gold piece per fight per week.

The will have one weapon each and 3 pieces of armour.

The hero may buy them additional weapons and armour which they will use during their employment which will be returned when their contract is completed.

Usually these people will be hired in groups. This means that if one of them dies the heroes may not "loot their corpse" the other men in the group will either distribute their belongings or take them to sell and give the proceeds to the dead mans family.

At least they will usually tell the heroes that that is their plan.

To hire anyone with better stats than the average man is a costly process and will often involve hiring from one of the mercenary companies found in Stroh Branoch.

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