On Reader Mail, The Mystery of % in lair

Brian writes:

"I'm having trouble (maybe) wrapping my mind around AD&D (1e) Wandering Monsters and the percentage chance of finding a monster in it's 'Lair'. Are the Wandering Monsters only supposed to be monsters that have lairs within the dungeon? Is the '% in Lair' the chance that when a monster is encountered it is encountered in its lair, or is it the chance that after finding a monster's lair that the monster will be present (as opposed to wandering the dungeon or doing whatever else monsters do)?

It seems like there should be some correlation between the two, but I have so far been unable to find this correlation either explicitly stated or refuted."

Yeah, it's confusing.

Original procedures of play are what dictated the usefulness of this statistic. When you have a random encounter in the wilderness, is the creature wandering or did you discover the creature at its lair? It doesn't take any valuables with it out and about; at home you'll find greater riches with a consummate increase in danger!

It is never a chance that a lair is found empty. It is possible to find an empty lair, it is never found using % in lair. First you roll to discover that you have an encounter, and since you always encounter a monster, you won't encounter an empty lair, randomly, per the procedure.

That's the short version. The work is shown below:

The text of the 1st edition Monster Manual states:

"% IN LAIR indicates the chance of encountering the monster in question where it domiciles and stores its treasure (if any). If a monster encountered is not in its lair it will not have any treasure unless it carries 'individual' treasure or some form of magic. Whether or not an encounter is occurring in the monster's lair might be totally unknown to the person or persons involved until after the outcome of the encounter is resolved."

This indicates that the encounter happens before the lair determination. This leaves us with a lot of questions. Does this affect the number of monsters? Is this related to just wilderness travel or also dungeon exploration?

Arneson goes into more detail in the Judge's Guild product, the First Fantasy Campaign.

The text indicates to me he might have been a little compulsive. He determined the contents of all the hexes ahead of time. Each hex had an average of two encounters, achieved by rolling a d6 and ignoring results of six. This indicates the number of encounters in the hex. Then the types of encounters those are were indicated by random rolls on the wilderness tables.  If a monster came up more than once, it was a larger group. This indicated the type of encounters in the hex.

The % in lair was used as above. When an encounter is indicated, you roll to determine if you encounter the monsters wandering or in their lair. However, only part of the total group of monsters would be inside the lair at any given time, indicated by rolling 1d6x10%, and subtracting from 100. There's another system in place to determine where those other monsters are in relation to the lair.

The interesting thing about this is that the % in lair roll determines the players location within the hex, which seems somewhat strange. This resolves itself nicely when the whole thing is taken as a procedure to describe an activity abstractly for the purposes of a game.

The relevant text from the FFC is quoted below:

"Outdoors in Blackmoor Travel from one perilous adventure to another in a neighboring Castle can result in a great deal of frustration of the players, or al least confusion, as the road is always populated by evil creatures. After all it is supposed to be some sort of civilization and it must have some form of communications, if for no other reason than to move all the treasure around from Castle to Castle. With a little work, the Outdoor adventures can be enjoyable, and the format of an overall campaign, can lead to the pacification of area over time.
To reflect the above. the Judge should grid off the map into Sectors, also called Hexes or Squares. Each of these hexes will contain some adventures which may range from a Monster holed up in a small cave to an abandoned Castle full of Orcs. A chart is provided for laying out the basics of the area and can be modified to suit the individual taste of the Judge and his eagerness to lay out all the needed work. Each square should contain in average of say, two encounters (assuming 10 miles by 10 miles), determined by rolling 1 six-sided dice (upon a roll of six would mean that there are no adventures in the square). This will determine how many encounters live in the area.
For each encounter, consult the Encounter Matrix for the type of creature that lives at each spot. Whenever there is an encounter in the area, in the future, il will be restricted to one of those already present (see advanced method for other results). If there are four encounters you roll a four-sided die to determine which of the four has been found, all other details having already been worked out. The normal chances of the creature being in it's lair are worked out as they normally are. So if Encounter six has a 30% chance of being found in it's lair, then that percentage is used and the number of Creatures encountered will then be any number up to the total number present in the hex. Again to avoid confusion, you may wish to take the maximum number of creatures that is(sic) listed on the Monster Matrix to representative of the population in the hex for each encounter, given a plus or minus 10% to keep the players on their toes.
For each time that the creatures are found in their lairs, there will be a chance that a portion of them are out in the countryside. To determine this number, assume that 40% of the population is always in the camp and that up to 60% (10 - 60%) are always outside of the camp. Roll a die again and see how many miles (1 - 6 miles) they are away from the camp. On a roll of six. the creatures outside of camp are in two equal sized groups and you would roll again to determine how many miles away they are.
Note: Whenever sixes appear again, divide that proportion of the creatures in half again and roll for their positions. In this way, In original group of creatures starting at, say, 50 strong could first divide into two groups of 25, then 12, then 6, etc.. . ." -First Fantasy Campaign

Note that this means a lot of important things. First, if you encounter a monster not in the lair, the ability of a character to track allows you to locate the lair, which in many other cases would be unfindable. This is particularly true of single powerful creatures like medusa and other large predators that are small in number discovered entirely outside of their lair. After all, 10% of 3 manticores is 0 manticores.  The method above allows one over time to clear out the dangers in a hex. Unsurprisingly he immediately begins describing a process to simulate population growth and monster migration to the hex after the above section.

But wait, there's more!

"TREASURE TYPE refers to the table which shows the parameters for various types of valuables which the monster in question might possess. If individual treasure is indicated, each individual monster of that type will carry, or possibly carry, the treasure shown. Otherwise, treasures are only found in the lairs of monsters, as explained above." - Monster Manual 1st edition

So in addition to only possibly finding the monster in the lair, there's only a possibility of treasure actually being in the lair. This is of course in conflict with Moldvay who redefines the procedure, removing the % in lair entirely and suggesting that treasure be given out proportionally to the monsters encountered, though this might be expected based on the basic rules focus on dungeon crawling.

Expert Dungeons & Dragons also has wilderness encounters, though no mention is made of how to randomly find lairs. There are several references to lairs and suggestions that the Dungeon Master should design several generic lairs ahead of time if one is encountered, but no random generation of lair encounters. It does note that as many as five times of the normal number of monsters show up in lairs, along with the advice that the Dungeon Master should tailor the encounter to their players. Of course this is in theme with the advice given to Dungeon Masters:

"'But I rolled it!' A common mistake most DMs make is to rely too much on random die rolls. An entire evening can be spoiled if an unplanned wilderness encounter on the way to the dungeon goes badly for the party. The DM must use good judgment in addition to random tables. Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party and should be in harmony with the theme of the adventure." - Expert Rulebook, Page X59

The advice given in B/X (Basic/Expert) concisely communicates the volume of material written in the OSR about how to play, making it a larger part about why it's such a superior version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Random monsters are just that, random encounters with monsters, whereas wandering monsters are encounters with monsters that live nearby.

The relevant text is located here:

"Encounters: A 'monster' can be a kindly wizard or a crazed dwarf, a friendly brass dragon or a malicious manticore. Such are the possibilities of encounters in dungeon, wilderness, or town. Chance meetings are known as encounters with wandering monsters. Finding a creature where it has been placed by the referee is usually referred to as a set encounter.
 Wandering monsters can be totally random or pre-planned. A party wandering in the woods outdoors or on a deserted maze in the dungeon might run into nearly any sort of monster. If the woods were the home of a tribe of centaurs, or the dungeon level one constructed by a band of orcs, certain prescribed encounters would randomly occur, however. At prescribed intervals, your DM will generate a random number to find if any meeting with a wandering monster occurs. . . .
 Set encounters are meetings with monsters placed by your DM. All such encounters will be in, or near, the monster's (or monsters') lair; so, unlike encounters with wandering monsters, these incidents promise a fair chance for gain if the monster or monsters are successfully dealt with. A successful expedition usually is aimed at o particular monster or group of lairs discovered during previous excursions Note: a lair is wherever the monster dwells - even such places as a castle, guard house, temple or other construction." - Player's Handbook, 1st Edition, page 103

In conclusion, come up with a system that works for you, that puts the needs of the game and gameplay first, using the available resources as tools. In my personal experience, limiting the different types of encounters in an area to a bell curve from 2-6 to 2-8 will do the most to provide a strong character to an area.  

Thanks for writing in. Questions can be sent to campbell at oook dot cz.

This article was originally published on 7/13/15. Support me on Patreon and help 2021 be a better year for having each other in our lives!
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On Classic Classes: Abjurer

The race as class presented in Basic/Expert (Old School Essentials) is not a limitation, but rather a guide on how to model and create classes for players. 

Abjurer
The abjurer is a special focus of wizards who specialize in defensive magic and wards. Abjurers may add spells from the abjurer spell list through spell research. (p. X51) 

The prime requisite for Abjurers is Constitution. An abjurer with a Constitution score of 13 or higher gains a bonus to experience. 

Abjurers fight as magic users and save as a dwarves/halflings. They can wear non-metallic armor and shields.  They can use staves, daggers, and cudgels. They have an inability to use ranged weapons, and receive a -2 to hit with any ranged or thrown weapon.

Abjurers may create any magic items at 10th level or above, though they are able to create bracers, rings, and other magic items of protection and warding at 6th level. The prime requisite for Abjurers is Constitution. An abjurer with a Constitution score of 13 or higher gains a 


Level Title Exp. Points Hit Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Guard 01d4 1 — — — — —
2 Recanter 2,500 2d4 21 — — — —
3 Bulwark 5,0003d4 22 — — — —
4 Restricter 10,0004d4 32 — — — —
5 Shieldweaver20,0005d4 32 1— — —
6 Interdictor 40,0006d4 432 — — —
7 Obstructer 80,000 7d4 4 3 2 1 — —
8 Obviator 120,000 8d4 4 3 2 2 ——
9 Shieldwall 200,000 9d45 3 2 2 1 —
10 Abjurer 280,000 10d4 5 4 3 3 1 —
11 11th Abjurer 360,000 10d4+2 6 4 3 3 1 1
12 12th Abjurer 440,00010d4+47 4 3 3 2 1
13 13th Abjurer 600,000 10d4+6 8 5 4 3 2 2
14 14th Abjurer 800,000 10d4+8 8 5 5 4 3 3


Abjurer Spell lists
First Level Abjurer Spells
1. Detect Magic
2. Floating Disc
3. Hold Portal
4. Light
5. Protection from Evil
6. Shield
7. Read Languages
8. Read Magic
9. Alarm
10. Verminward
11. Aegisward
12. Armor

Second Level Abjurer Spells
1. Protection from Poison
2. Protection from Plants
3. Protections from Birds
4. Everwatching Skull
5. Magic Missile Reflection
6. Protection from non-magical gas
7. Stunning Shield
8. Cloak of Warding
9. Invisiblity
10. Mirror Image
11. Wizard Lock
12. Sanctuary

Third Level Abjurer Spells
1. Protection from Evil 10' Radius
2. Nondetection
3. Protection from Normal Missiles
4. Gust of Wind
5. Protection from Undead
6. Protection from Fire/Cold
7. Dispel Magic
8. Glyph of Warding
9. Counterspell
10. Magic Circle
11. Resistance to Elements
12. Wall of Ice

Fourth Level Abjurer Spells
1. Minor Globe of Invulnerability
2. Remove Curse
3. Banishment
4. Private Sanctum
5. Death Ward
6. Stoneskin
7. Freedom of Movement
8. Minor Spell Turning
9. Protection from Elements
10. Wall of Fire
11. Wall of Force
12. Poison Ward, 10' Radius

Fifth Level Abjurer Spells
1. Avoidance
2. Dismissal
3. Invulnerability to non-magical weapons
4. Lower Resistance
5. Protection from Elements 15' Radius
6. Planar Binding / Dimensional Anchor
7. True Form
8. Spell Invulnerability
9. Spell Shield
10. Sphere of Environmental Protection
11. Spell Absorption (as Counterspell, but absorb the spell)
12. Blade Barrier

Sixth Level Abjurer Spells
1. Antimagic Shell
2. Globe of Invulnerability 
3. Repulsion
4. Spell Turning
5. Wizard Seal
6. Blade Barrier
7. Mind Blank
8. Spiritwrack
9.  Forbiddance
10. Guards & Wards
11. Break Enchantment
12. Undead Bulwark

Aegis-ward (Abjuration)
Level 1
Components: V, S, M (10gp of silver dust)
Range: Touch
Casting Time: 1 Turn
Duration: Till dismissed or broken.
Area of Effect: One Creature

This allows the abjurer to create a magical ward that protects a creature. It takes 10 gold pieces of silver dust in order to create a ward. While under the effect of this ward, the target gets a +1 to saves for every 4 levels of the spellcaster (minimum +1) and protects the wearer for 2 hit points of damage per level of the caster. (An eighth-level casters Aegisward would provide a +2 bonus to saves and absorb 16 hit points of damage) A creature can only be under the effect of one Aegisward at a time. It lasts until dismissed, dispelled, or it absorbs the full amount of damage. 

Stunning Shield (Abjuration)
Level 2
Components: V, S, M 
Range: 0
Casting Time: 3 
Duration: 1 turn/level or broken.
Area of Effect: Self

The target is covered in a shield that provides a +1 bonus to armor class and saves. If attacked, the target must make a saving throw versus paralyzation or become stunned for 2d4 rounds. After this attack, the shield is discharged.

Cloak of Warding (Abjuration)
Level 3
Components: V, S,
Range: 0
Casting Time: 3 
Duration: 1 rnd/level or broken.
Area of Effect: Self

Upon casting this spell, the caster is wreathed in force that absorbs 3d4 points of damage + 1d4 points per caster level. It deflects attacks until depleted or the duration expires.

Sphere of Environmental Protection (Abjuration)
Level 5
Components: V, S, M
Range: 0
Casting Time: 5 
Duration: 24 hours
Area of Effect: Self

An invisible sphere with a 20' radius surrounds the caster. Inside this sphere, the temperature is between 65 and 78 degrees as the caster desires, and no precipitation, dust, or environmental hazards can enter. It provides breathable oxygen as Airy Sphere. This protects the caster from weather between 140 degrees and -40 degrees. It makes the everyone inside immune to harmful gasses and vapors. It does not affect other solid material surfaces, such as magma.

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On A New Year

May you have happiness and love in your life. 

Comments are turned off here, but if you'd like to comment, feel free to either join us on the discord or on Patreon! Discord is free. This is not a lucrative field, and my patrons have gone a long way to insuring my stability (housing and food insecurity) so I can grow. There are no words to express how amazing it is to have someone believe in you enough to help you change the world. 

I'm going to be more open about my Schitzophrenia this year. My father always said "Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean people aren't watching." I find it strange as an adult that I suffer from both clinical paranoia (as a side effect from the schitzotypal PD) and actually have groups of people engaged in organized harassment (Like telling publishers I'm some sort of alt-right men's rights activist, or setting up some rube to engage in sock-puppeted arguments on reddit). I'm going to try and be both more accepting of this as well as more public about the threats and harassment I receive. It is, after all, my own fault for being a public figure. There isn't anyone who's name you know that doesn't have people who decry them and I'm going to try to come to terms with that this year. (If you're curious about the truth, that's why I've posted a biography.)

A total of 3 million of my countrymen died this year. That's more than ever in the history of the United States. It's 1 out of every 1,000 people. Six times the number of Americans that died from our four year civil war, the most deadly war to Americans in our history. My heart is heavy with this loss. It has been a hard year for many people. That's 3 9/11's every day this year. Suicide, hunger, Covid, it's almost more than a heart can stand.

Finally, there's a lot of good stuff. I'm going to kickstart the third of my triad after Artifices, Deceptions and Dilemmas releases. It's going to be the ecology book, based off the posts made here, from the G+ days. Then I'll have OD&D, a guide for players and downtime, AD&D a guide for Dungeon Masters, and the un-named ecology book as a de-facto monster manual. How cool is that? (I'm taking suggestions for the names in my discord!) I'm still working on the details, so there may be some more surprises regarding that. 

The Artifices & Deceptions index is back! Expect it to be filled with more high quality art, ideas, and information.

I've extended the sale on amazon for On Downtime and Demesnes till after the New Year! Don't miss your chance to grab it in print for 19$ or in kindle format for 9$! After this it goes back to it's regular price of 34.99$. 

In a Deadly Fashion, my Lamentations book will be coming out next year I hope. My work on it has been done for a long time, and it looks like most of the illustrations are finished. 

This year my Alchemy book was Kickstarted quite successfully by Frog God Games. This is my first time ever being published by an industry publisher. It's strange, and I'm very interested to see what the final product looks like!

You may have noticed more regular posting has resumed. I spent a lot of this year fearful of people—many have very negative and hateful things to say. It started this year when I expressed dismay at 345 Covid deaths on March 21st. I was told that I was making a big deal over nothing, and causing panic. I was told I'm going to ruin myself, and that I needed to shut up. Now there are nearly 350,000 corpses from it a short nine months later. Not a single person who lashed out at me or threatened me has changed their mind.  I still have friends in the health industry, who've watched so many people die this year, choking to death while intubated on pure oxygen, who even as they are dying, deny they are dying of Covid. Can you imagine? 

I wonder why they think a crazy guy who draws dungeon maps for a living is going to have mainstream ideas. Just because I read widely and listen to a lot of people and have strange thoughts—do we want it another way? Yes, I have worked with people who don't pass a purity test and who hold views some people don't like and many people don't understand. I'm so guilty of that. I will be again. I personally have been wrestling with the hatred and bigotry of so many of my brothers and sisters on this planet earth. It makes you want to force people to be better. It doesn't work that way. I've spent too many years working with all kinds of people in mental health, and the fact is we are all struggling. We need compassion. As part of that, I've decided I'm going to keep sharing my thoughts and ideas. Even if it upsets people. People are allowed to be upset. It's not like they have to consume my art.

And it is art you know. Here are some of the pieces in Artifices, Deceptions & Dilemmas.  I think I'm finally starting to hit my stride, you be the judge.






Hope to see you in 2021!

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On Artifices & Deceptions: Triggers, Pit Lids

These “mechanical” triggers are very simple—any object that covers a pit that doesn’t look like the a pit is a lid. This also refers to false coverings that open into a trap. Prodding and tapping are very effective at detecting these kinds of traps. Pits, like pressure plates, usually have a percentage chance to not be triggered. Since lids are literal covers for holes, water usually tends to be very effective in detecting these traps.

There are different types of pits lids: open, breakaway, latch, teeter-totter, and illusion.  

Breakaway pits are camouflaged, but any testing or prodding will indicate that the floor is not solid, or that the covering has some give to it. Consider the terrain and the material used to cover the breakaway pit. Leaves and sticks outside, a carpet indoors.

Latch pits have moving parts. There is some support for the latch, and usually some way for the latch to reset. This means a wheel or gear hidden nearby. Also, it is more difficult to hide the seam of a latched pit.

Teeter-totter pits are easy enough to detect by prodding, but as a side effect from heavy use, may not center correctly. One side may be raised up an inch or more, while the other is low. Or if it is poorly made, the wrong side of the lid could be visible.

Illusionary pits create a very realistic looking floor, making detection by vision almost impossible. The illusion isn’t solid and doesn’t interact with the environment. Detect magic makes it obvious, but fog rolling along the ground will drop right through. It doesn’t block sound or airflow, all of which can provide clues to the illusion. 



Traditional use

B2: Keep on the Borderlands by Gary Gygax

A. KOBOLD LAIR: There is a 2 in 6 chance that as the group enters the cave-like tunnel, 8 kobolds will come out from hiding in the trees above and attack. . .Each carries d8 silver pieces.

Note: 30´ inside the entrance is a pit (B). There is a 3 in 6 chance that each person in the front rank will fall in unless they are probing ahead. There is a 1 in 6 chance that individuals in the second rank will also fall in, but only if they are close to the first rank and the character ahead has fallen in. The pit is 10´ deep, and those falling in will take 1-6 points of damage. The pit lid will close, and persons within cannot escape without aid from the outside. The noise will attract creatures from areas 1. and 2. Planks for crossing the pit are stored at #1., beyond.

Pit lid design

Early pits should be open, and be an exercise in players finding a way to cross. Open pits should be placed in areas where other action will be taking place. These early open pits can be crossed simply by dropping in, walking across, and climbing out the other end, to heights up to 15´. For any medium-sized adventurer climbing out of such a pit is a trivial matter. Once pit depths reach 20´it begins to get more difficult. They may attempt to jump across, use planks or poles, or try to lasso something on the other side. 

Breakaway lids should be considered in room or hallway descriptions and accounted for when first describing a room or area. It is very important to be clear when identifying breakaway lids in description. In most cases, anyone who asks about the floor or what’s on it should be told, “It looks like it’s covering a pit.” If the pit is particularly well hidden, i.e. if the floor itself is buried in leaves, and there’s no way to tell that they are covering a pit, an appropriate response to someone investigating the floor would be “There is entirely too much debris and scattered leaves to even tell there is a floor underneath them.”

Latch and teeter-totter pits will frequently not be described or visible, and are the most classic X in 6 style of triggering pit. However, anyone who specifically examining the floor specifically should be able to spot them. As these evolve and you move away from kobold and goblin pits, to latch pits designed by dwarves and thieves, the players should have access to more powerful tools (e.g. eyes of the eagle, detect traps, true seeing) in addition to high level thieves, monks, and rogues. The presence of well hidden latch pits should be telegraphed by the environment being one where a master trap-maker would work. 

Illusion pits are rare and for good reason. They are silent and can be quite lethal. “Early” illusionary pits could be old magic that’s failing, looking like static occasionally or flickering in and out of visibility. Or they could have obviously wrong things, like water flowing from a fountain onto the floor where it just disappears into the ground, or a hallway covered in debris, everywhere but the illusion. For higher level characters, it is both the quickness and the silence of such a pit that’s dangerous. It’s possible to have an illusion pit cover a deadly substance like acid or a paralytic gelatinous ooze up to 15 feet down, which a character would fall in under one second. That isn’t enough time to even shout out. To the other characters it would appear that the person just vanished. Even someone looking directly at the person falling in would be hard pressed to tell what happened, seeing them quiet literally fall though the floor. The other triggers all take more time to trigger and will alert everyone to their presence. Breakaway lids will fall in, teeter-totter lids will swing, latches will fall open, often with a loud bang, alerting nearby monsters like a dinner bell, but illusion pits rarely will make an audible sound at all. Fortunately they are visible to detect magic, and detect as traps, making them easy prey for players prepared for danger. 

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On Reader Mail, Cities and Encounter Design

Hey Courtney,

Only just started GMing (well, probably 9 months ago now) and really enjoyed your articles on Adventure and Set Design. They've really broadened my perspective on player agency and allowed me to plan–and most importantly, play–more efficiently and effectively.

Planning linear encounters seems simple, especially the way you do it. I also find planning the power and time structures fairly simple, because these are things that humans already plan with flowcharts and timetables.

What I'm finding most clumsy is planning sandboxy space structures. With dungeons and hexcrawls, this is pretty simple; use a map, code the rooms with numbers. But how do you plan towns, or huge cities? Specifically, how do you label/annotate such structures?

Is there something I'm missing? Please help!

Cheers,
Kalle

Hi Kalle. This is surely a sticky wicket. I have been thinking very hard about this problem.

Unlike dungeons which, as you note, have received a high degree of development, cities have few representations at all, much less highly iterated or developed ones.

There have been some notable examples though. Early examples include the encounter tables for City-state of the invincible overlord and city encounters in the Judges Guild ready reference pages. (Neither is available for purchase, Rob Conley explains why here.)  Having used these encounter tables, you're equally likely to run into a petty god or a king as opposed to your average peasant. On the other end of the spectrum is nearly 700 page Ptolus campaign setting which, in true 3.5 style leaves little to the imagination. There's were books from judges guild on villages, each containing a page map along with certain basic information about the city. One of the best of the old supplements is Cities by Midkemia press. And TSR made numerous entries into city supplements during second edition, notably Lankhmar (and little else). The adventures involving Lankhmar are of the standard 2nd edition type and can be easily ignored.

Then there's the dry tournament early Gygax style of T1 and B2, where the settlement is described in exhaustive detail, and actual relevant information is hidden within pages listing the value of bedspreads, curtains, and hidden treasure in niches. Let's not forget the literal hundreds of supplements describing inns, city sections, specific cities, districts and more.

The Key
It's about purpose. What's a dungeon there for? Looting! Danger! Adventure! Cities are less simple.

Cities are literally a word for where citizens gather and build things. Along comes the whole of human nature: drama, politics, power struggles, oppression, opportunity, families, children, light and darkness–The whole of the human condition. Combine that with the character motivations in the game and how in the hell do you notate that?!

There are different purposes that cities serve. The purpose of a city changing over time is what makes city notation so difficult.

The first is a base, a place where adventure does not occur. This is not well suited for adventure campaign play. It sets up walls the players don't expect to be there, it breaks verisimilitude and removes a lot of options from play. It is well suited for megadungeon play. The base is represented excellently by a menu style, allowing the players to quickly access whatever they need to get on with the play of the game.

Another purpose cities serve is discovery. These are cities and villages stumbled upon while traveling or hex-crawling. They provide a safe place to rest with some risk or unknowns involved. Generally  characterized by a single major feature or two, and have one or two issues or quests the players can get involved in.

A city can be an adventure site. These are the Gygax styled Homlettes, forts on borderlands, and Phandelvers. They are visited multiple times, with resources and adventure sites contained within. They work best in traditional sandboxes. In a larger, more complicated city, point crawls are useful to avoid spending all that time mapping out non-interesting areas. The travel in a larger city is more risky, lending support to that point crawl random encounter style.

And like all campaigns, each of these can change over time. So you might start with an area being one type of site and it might grow and change into another, necessitating a change or expansion in the way in which you've keyed it.

Other Factors

There are other things to keep in mind. There are no cell phones, no maps, no cars, no useful information sources on what's around the next corner. That means for anything beyond a small village or hamlet, travel within the city can be difficult. A city the size of Phandelver doesn't have this problem. You can stand in the center and in a few minutes know what each building or place is. But when you get much larger, travel time, dangers, and information can be unknown.

Imagine being dropped into Chicago on foot in a random place with no maps, narrower streets and no cars. There's no public police force and no easy way of contacting the guard. How many buildings are locked? Where can you rest? How threatening are your environs? You come off as an outsider, and unless you are in the appropriate section of the city will likely be treated badly by the locals.

Large cities, really large cities of the Baldur's Gate, Invincible Overlord, or Waterdeep type are not places you can just hop out your door and head to your destination. I've found that the Judge's Guild type encounter tables along with urban skill rolls to determine travel time rather useful in this regard. I wouldn't bother with mapping such large cities, except in the broadest and most general way.

Small and medium sized cities can be handled much like mini-hexcrawls with broad background maintained, but exploration and contents determined randomly as they explore local and distant neighborhoods. The shared discovery and mapping of uncharted territory can be a fun exercise, as long as players have pre-existing goals. 

Conclusion

There is still a lot of work to be done in this area. I suggest checking out a few of the works linked above for rough ideas about how to generate and key cities as adventure sites. (I am not affiliated with any of the products, nor receive any revenue from their purchase). I recently completed a work covering many of these topics, which you can get here: On Downtime and Demesnes. 

Figure out what the purpose of your city is and then figure out what information you need to minimally generate in order to make the situation fun for your players. 

This reader mail was originally published on 8/8/16. If you like these posts, consider supporting me on Patreon.  
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On the Physical Space

Module designers, can we talk?

It's not me, it's you.

This is 2018 (ed. 2020 now), not 2000. Why am I still seeing modules with flat spaces, square rooms, and two dimensional thinking. Captain Kirk taught  us long ago that future people think in three dimensions when they fly their space cars. Not in two dimensions like those clones from the 1990's!

Let's have a discussion about vertical spaces and how they can be useful in play. 

Not just any three dimensional space is good for gaming! Some add nothing, useless complexity for no purpose. Let's not do that! What do we want? Not that!


Three Dimensional Spaces in Play


 The Cliff:

The cliff is fun because I have a neat critical hit table for crushing blows, and I calculate damage the way hardasses do, 1d6 cumulative per 10' feet. 20' would be 3d6, 30' 6d6. At 40' I just pick up all the d6's and grin.

Also, the angle of the cliff; that's what the thief's climb skill is for, to move across that terrain at full speed.

It's fun if the characters are above, they can survey a situation (sometimes called an encounter!) with a "Monster". That's what we call the things that live in the places our characters invade to rob. So they are usually doing monster things like boiling peasants, paying taxes, and bitching about that snippy biddy down the hall with the fire breathing dogs. I also usually like to have a very small loud annoying thing in the room.

If they are below, did you know trying to dodge thrown boulders is a fun game? We played it on a hill with my friends as children, and the hospital bills weren't even that bad! It's exciting. Especially if you are the one throwing boulders! If you're reading this, you probably are, and let's be honest. That's awesome. So do it.

 The Vertical Corridor:

You remember that scene from Don Bluth and Rick Dyer's game, written by Rick Dyer and Drawn by Don Bluth, the Dragon's Lair (TM) Laserdisc video system? Where the platform fell and there were all the corridors—wait this one? Too late! SPIKES!

I like to roll lots of 'to hits' with my spikes. I make sure as I roll all the dice that I let the player know I feel really bad that—oh! six of them hit. That's just, that's not good Todd. That's not good at all.

I don't usually have a falling platform, although hanging discs, rope, and other accoutrements really help the space. Also monsters aren't dumb. Well, not all of them anyway. We're not speciest here. They know this is a really good place to fire arrows at adventurers!

So it's super enjoyable as they begin to try to deal with Todd's unfortunate situation, that I'm forced to let them know that from the darkness—*Clatter* "FOUR of the arrows hit, guys, four. That's so many. I'm sorry. Where are my d8's?"

Some of the levels overhang each other, because seriously, damnit why would anything in life be easy? Additionally, monsters are just made for this. Harpies, ropers and cave fishers, piercers, and fungus beds galore. It's like a ball pit for saves versus death!

The Action Playset:

We can talk about bad dimensional spaces here. Like, the "vertical wall" challenge. This was popular in mid-wave third edition Dungeons and Dragons 'dungeon punk' where the challenges and encounters were becoming more mechanical and build focused. "This fight takes place on a vertical wall/ship in battle/earthquake!"

That sounds awesome, right? All you have to do is have a normal combat, except anytime anyone has to do anything, they have a 50% chance of failing their balance check and losing their turn.

So it's like normal boring combat, except half the time you lose your turn. I mean, maybe that sounds fun to you because it's brutal or realistic or something. But if it does, fuck you, you know? I'm here to play D&D man. My father told me one of my early board games designs (from the 4th grade era) that losing 8 turns just because you landed on a space was bullshit and no good game would make someone lose 8 turns.

I showed him though. I built a Magic: the Gathering deck that gave me infinite turns. Richard Garfield is a millionaire. That, among other reasons, is why my father wasn't a game designer.

Which is why the concept of an action playset is important. There can't just be an area that has a negative property, unless it's in context to other alternate spaces. This plays out in a couple of different ways depending on the game mode you happen to be engaged in: exploration, role-playing, or combat.

One thing that's intimidating about Dungeons and Dragons for newcomers is that its structure has always been very fluid by design, to fit the personality of the person running the game. But because that varies from person to person, it's difficult to not only clearly identify the je ne sais quoi of the structure, but to clearly encapsulate that to provide understanding.

Dungeons & Dragons is played by sharing a conceptual space filled with unknown and highly dangerous or rewarding outcomes. It's important for emergent play, play that arises beyond the simulation of the mechanical, that multiple outcomes are provided simultaneously. When exploring you enter a room, there are items of interest weird object A, basic-looking object B, suspicious detritus object C. When in combat, there's advantage area A, cover-filled area B, and independent mechanical feature area C. When interacting a non-player character has personality trait A+B, and interacts with the party and its retinue.

This combination is the perfect balance of 7-9 interesting interactions that people can track. You have an advantage because 4 of those are the players. And you wrote things down. Unless you didn't and you're trying to impromptu everything off the top of your head. Why this is a really just shite idea was, no bullshit hashed the f&*k out. At length. Have fun down that rabbit hole. I lived it.

So the action playset is just that. A tower with two platforms, stairs, and a gem powering a ritual at the top. A floating disk filled with wizards. Areas with alternating magma flows (or lava flows if you're engaged in outdoor exploration). A group of victims perilously under threat of death. Get the things together, put them in the bowl, and stir the shit out of that pot.

"Are you surrreeee you don't want to dig through the filthy trash?"

Well, I was, damnit.

This post was originally published on 8/8/18. It is not available in print. Did you like this? Did you also know that I have a vested interest in continuing to afford shelter? There are a group of awesome people making the world the way they want it to be by supporting me on Patreon to make more Dungeons AND Dragons.

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On the Magic Bell (Curve)

Chainmail style roll to cast is an excellent way to allow spellcasters more opportunities to spell-cast. It was originally mentioned in a post here by Jeff, and followed up with these posts by Brendan.

The 2d6 curve is a real thing of beauty, but the implementation above is more complex than it needs to be.

Add your wizard level and your intelligence bonus (+1 for 13+, +2 for 16+ and +3 for 18) together and subtract the bonus from any armor worn. (leather provides AC 8, so a wizard in leather has a -2 to this roll)

This is easy to calculate, giving a 'magic bonus' which works very much like a 'to hit bonus'.

The next step is to subtract both the level of the spell and the number of times you have cast it already. This creates two problems, the overhead of tracking the spells cast per day, and this awkward double mathematical operation

Here is my new idea.

You get an arcane pool of 2d6. You get an additional d6 to your pool for every caster level you have and the intelligence bonus adds a 1d6 for every point of bonus (+1d6 for 13+, +2d6 for 16+ and +3d6 for 18). 



You may roll as many dice as you wish to cast a spell. Compare the total of the roll to the table below. Any die that comes up with a number equal to or less than the level of the spell you are casting is lost and cannot be regained till you rest and memorize new spells. Armor reduces the number of dice you have available. For every point of protection a piece of armor gives you, lose a 1d6 from your spell pool. 

2 Spell fails. Lose the spell
3-5 Spell goes off at end of the round. Lose the spell
6-8 Spell goes off during the magic spell phase, Lose the spell
9-11 Spell goes off during the magic spell phase, you can cast the spell again
12 Spell goes off at the start of the round, you can cast the spell again
Doubles are wild surges, and snake eyes are spell mishaps.

You memorize spells as normal. You announce spellcasting at the start of the round (as indicated on page B28) If you get hit, the spell for that round is canceled, it is only lost on a roll of 5 or less.

This has three important effects. Your spell power and utility increases with level. Using more power (rolling more dice) makes it more likely that the spell will go off before combat, that you will be able to cast the spell again, versus the cost of draining your magical power more quickly and causing surges and mishaps to become much more frequent. 

That is: Accessing large amounts of raw magical power is useful, but dangerous. This allows casters to have access to more magic while giving them options as to how they use it. Their power drains over time, and drains much faster when they cast more powerful magic. Powerful spells (level 6+) always drain the caster of power. 

Conversions

The above is for B/X or OSE style games that have a phased initiative system: Morale first, then movement, then missile attacks, then magic spells, and finally melee. But it is trivially transposed to simple over/under systems by having results of 6+ casting the spell when the player acts. In 5th edition, your spell slots become your magic pool, a second level slot providing 2d6 dice. 

This dovetails nicely with equipment like wands, which can increase/decrease/modify spell dice for certain spells or schools (e.g. a wand of illusion that gives you a free 1d6 die when you cast an illusion spell, or a wand of transmutation that reduces the power drain: instead of losing dice that come up 1,2, or 3 when you cast a third level spell, you would only lose dice that come up as a 1 or 2 because the wand makes the spell easier to cast)

It makes magic less reliable, more of an interesting choice, and allows more spellcasting then slots. 

This post was originally published on 07/09/2013, and is available in the DMP5: Chainmail Style Casting for Fantasy RPG's from DrivethruRPG for free, along with an Ad-free version for patreons!

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