Reflections on Labyrinth Lord

I've now used the retro-clone for three sessions, and I'm beginning to question it's usefulness in my games. When I decided to try it out I defended it against repeated assaults from critics and naysayers, not because I had become a born again OSR fanatic, or because I was labouring under some naïve belief in the superiority of all things old. No, Sir, I went to bat for LL because I wished to go at it with an open mind, and because it forced me to approach my GM'ing in a different manner.

What I really like about LL is it's simplicity. However, this is also it's main weakness. I've said earlier that in some ways it plays similar to the Storytelling game system. I still hold to that statement, but with some qualifications. Just as ST, LL does not bind the players to what's on their sheets. Unlike ST however, LL does not provide much in the way of support for any type of play except combat. And herein lies the rub.

I want to run a game where the characters interact with the world they're in in more ways than by applying sword and spell. Skills, I've found, is key here, and LL has none. This is the reason why the system feels unfinished to me. Yes, I am aware of the arguments for role playing challenges instead of relying on rules to solve them, but if the players have to describe every single action they take outside of combat, it'll become quite tedious right fast. Conversely, I know that the lack of skills can be overcome by rolling modified ability-checks, but to me that only feels like masking a problem with a sub-par solution.

So, while I haven't pulled the plug on this experiment yet, the results are starting to come in, and when it is brought before the committee I would not be surprised if the old school is abandoned in favour of 3.X. Hell, I've already started thinking about which iteration of 3.X we should use.

Random encounter table 2.1

This is a random encounter table I put together as I was playing with ideas.


Dave and Matt, I leave it up to you as to weather or not you wish to read further on this post. These encounters may or may not come into play, but reading them now may affect your experience of the game if it becomes relevant.

LL s.2: The Ettin of the Arrandmoors

Our party:
Jiminy Trinkets, lvl. 1 Gnome Illusioninst
Kael, lvl. 1 Human Fighter
Josiah, lvl 1 Half-elf Ranger
Kong, Pookie, and Apollo, 2 HD war dogs
Rufus, 1HD guard dog

When Kael and Jiminy returned to Barrelhead, the villagers gave them a hero's welcome. During the feast thrown in their honour, they met Josiah, a half-elven ranger who'd heard about the goblins, but arrived too late to be join the raid. That evening the the three decided to join forces, and that they would follow up on a story they heard from a travelling merchant.

Legion's Rest

The largest city in the Dominion of Langrim is Legion's Rest. It is also the oldest, and some of it's structures date back to the century before the Isolation. In those days it had a population of about 2,500, but these days more than 4,000 people live within the crumbling walls. The crowded streets are lined with rickety buildings and ruins from the days of the Empire. Farmers, beggars, tradesmen and merchants all mill through the narrow alleys and muddy streets.

I had hoped to have a more detailed post up by the game on Friday, but as I've now just gotten a puppy, I find myself a little preoccupied.

Dungeoneering 101: Torches

Torches and lanterns are standard equipment in any adventurer's pack, and most delvers'll light 'em up as soon as they enter a dungeon. Picture this: Paul the Paladin and his pals enter the Caves of Chaos. It is a dark and dangerous environment, and so they do the natural thing. They light their torches. Now able to see where they put their feet, they head into the tunnels, careful not to set off any traps or miss any treasure. Further down the same tunnel, Stinky the Goblin sits on guard. He is placed so that he has the longest line of sight practicable, and all off a sudden he sees torches coming towards him. Stinky does as he's been told, and runs off to tell his boss. Ambush is now in progress.


The thing to remember about a light-source is that it can be seen infinitely longer than it'll let you see, and you don't need infravision to spot a flame in the dark.


Carrying torches into the tunnels is a two edged sword on the best of days.

[Picture source: Allen Douglas]

Langrim Island - Encounter Tables

While travelling through, or exploring an area, each hex has a 30% chance per day of generating an encounter.

Table 2.2: Southern Lowlands

d20
1-7	Small game (30%)
8-9	Wild dogs (2d4)
10-11	Boar (d6 = 1-4: one, 5-6: 1d3+1)
12-13	Goblins (2d4)
14-15	Merchant w/ 1d4 guards
16-17	Legion patrol (d6 = 1-2: ten infantry, 3-4: twenty infantry: 5-6: six cavalry)
18	Bulette (1)
19	Shadow (1)
20	Wyvern (1)

Hex: The Ruins of Dwergard

Christian was nice enough to send me some hexmap templates, and last night I had to take this one out for a spin. This is hex 14-t of the Langrim map, and it shows the area surrounding the Ruins of Dwergard. The map is 25 miles across, with each hex measuring 2.5 miles. The biggest problem I ran into was how to list my coordinates, and the way I ended up doing it doesn't strike me as ideal, but it'll work for now.

The following is the background information on the Ruins of Dwergard:

The dwarves of the Järnafíorin clan came to Langrim from their distant homeland, some time before the Isolation. They had charters from the Emperor giving them exclusive rights to mine the mountains on the main island. A cold winter, some one hundred years after the last ship, a goblin surge washed over the land, leaving farms and villages in ruins. The people fled behind the walls of the larger towns, and after a hard winter with many battles fought, the remaining goblins withdrew from the surface. 


No one ever saw the dwarves of Järnafíorin again after the Goblinwinter of 107. Their last stand has become a fixture in the island's folklore, and the ruins of their stronghold the target of many an adventure. Some of those who seek it out return with pieces of the fabled Hoard of the Dwarves, but many others never come back. The hills and mountains around Dwergard is infested with goblins and monsters, and the dwarven keep and mines are said to be littered with traps and ancient war machines, and haunted by the ghosts of the dwarves who fell there.

The GM's map, as well as some dungeons and encounter tables, are in the works. These will be posted at a later date, dependant on campaign progression.

LL s. 1: Cleaning out Ogre Hill

Wherein two young adventurers return home from their first paying job to find that their hamlet has been raided repeatedly over the last days. 

Returning readers will remember the Chapter-posts from the Pius Chronicles, and I would just like to mention that I will be playing with the format a bit in the LL-reports.

Screening process

Its been years and years since I've had a screen at the table, but now that I'm running LL, it only seems proper to erect a barrier between me and "them." Also, there are some practical considerations to take into account *cough/tables/cough*. Since my old, and highly customised, AD&D 2E screen is in Norway still, I had to start a new one from scratch.

A few myths busted...

Matt from . . lapsus calumni . . posted a link to a quite brilliant piece on RetroRoleplaying: The Blog setting the myths of old-school gaming straight. Reading this article, I finally figured out what it was that I wanted from the OSR: a level-based storytelling system. 


Having now run one session with Labyrinth Lord/AEC, I've realised that in returning to the roots of the hobby I may have found just that. It has intuitive and simple character mechanics, not unlike the WW games, but it uses a level based advancement model. The result is a game that supports both cut-throat dungeon crawls, seat-of-pants style challenge resolution, and free-form roleplaying.


I still don't know if the consensus will support continued LL play, but I think at least one of my players may have gone old school already. The alternative is to convert the Langrim game to 3.5 and just be done with it.

[Picture source: Tony DiTerlizzi]

The Dominion of Langrim

Storyteller's note: This is the basic information available about the sandbox as of now. If the game flows, more material will follow.

The six islands that form the Dominion of Langrim lies somewhere North-West of the world, surrounded by seemingly endless watery wastes. The climate is cold and humid, with snowy winters and wet summers. The human and demi-human population, all but a few living on Langrim, the largest of the islands, are sustained by farming the rich soil, and by fishing in the bountiful waters off the coast.

Selling the Old School to the New Guard

"I need feats!"

~Dave

Last night one of my players came over for dinner, and we started talking about my plans for Saturday. As it turns out, neither my wife or the other guy are completely convinced about this old school thingy. You may say a minor battle in the Edition Wars was fought at that table. I was outnumbered two to one, and the opposing side even had The Punk cheering from the sidelines. 


Perhaps this shouldn't have come as a surprise, given that both of them have done most of their killing and looting in 3.X territories, and both of them view skills and feats as being vital elements in their character building.


As we talked, it became clear that my plans for a semester of hexcrawling may have been hastily laid. As the wife said, "this system seems to have all the things I don't like about 3.5, and none of the things I do like." I tried my best to explain why I think this is a good idea, and while they certainly didn't walk away as glassy eyed OSR converts, they did agree to give it a whirl.


Who knows, my OSR days may already have come to their middle.

[Picture source: Nick Harris]

Building a sandbox

As a part of my renaissance, I realised that I needed more than just a new system. After all, the crunch is only a small part of the game. For years, my style has been that of an emulated linear narrative game structure (not to be confused with railroading), so I decided I'd follow the OSR trail all the way. 

Renaissance - (n) a rebirth or revival

Around the tubes I've seen OSR explained as both Old Shool Renaissance and -Revival. I've always liked the former better, but I never had any need to actually develop a relationship with the term. 


Not so any more. Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while will know that I've counted myself as firmly lodged in the New School, and that I've been a member of the White Wolf pack for years. You will also know that last summer I ended one hell of a campaign. Since then I've left my old group in favour of a new continent, and bought a house with my, as of a few weeks ago, wife. You may say that my life as a gamer has changed somewhat since I started this blog in '09.

OSR research notes

The crowdsourcing gave me a good starting point for my quest for a quick and dirty fantasy system. After having followed some of the leads I was given, I have dismissed a few, and marked a couple for further research.


The first system I checked out was Microlite20. The pros here were that it was free, and that it offered compatibility with the slew of 3.X material in the house. The con, and what made me dismiss it after about ten minutes with the PDF, is that the writing is a bit heavy, and the editing is poor. The PDF clocked in at well above 600 pages, and while it contained a bakers dozen of individual supplements, it just made the process of getting under the skin of the system too inconvenient. While this may be construed as judging the book by it's formatting, it was enough for me.

I need me some OSR

Last weekend I ran a one shot dungeon crawl, and I realised that my tool-box is insufficiently stacked. So, on the off chance that I still have some readers, I'll try my hand at a little crowdsourcing.

I went with Pathfinder, and while it worked, the system is far too labour intensive for something like that. To save time at the table, my wife, a friend of mine and myself did (most of) the char-gen before the dinner, but since two of the four players had never played any D&D derivation there was too much crap on their sheets for a one-nighter. The other two weren't too familiar with 3.5/Pathfinder either, and while we all had fun, it left me thinking there has to be an easier way.

While I've been lurking on the fringes of the OSR for a few years, I do not know the difference between Labyrinth Lord and OD&D. Hell, I've never even played 1st Ed. What I would like is to get a system that allow my players to create their characters in no more than 20-30 minutes, and that will support more than just hack'n slash. I have no interest in minis, but I do have a love for skills and roleplaying. So my question to you is: Which system should I go for?

Wizards to give 1st Ed some love

In case you haven't heard yet, on April 17 this year, WotC is planning to release a reprint of the 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons DMG, PHB and MM. This Premium Edition will, according to the WotC website, be "lovingly reprinted with the original art and content, but feature an attractive new cover design commemorating this re-release." Furthermore, parts of the proceeds will go to the Gary Gygax Memorial Fund. It also looks like these books will only be released through selected game stores across North America.

Now, if I was a cynic, or engaging in the Edition Wars, I'd say this is part of a plot to win back some of the respect they lost during the days of the ignominious 4E. I'm neither, so I wont. I do think it is an attempt to get in on the OSR action, though.

The original Wizards article.