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Post by dicebro on Jul 26, 2020 13:42:17 GMT -6
OD&D was published as an unfinished product. I think Gary Gygax tried to emphasize this fact in the introduction. “ New details can be added and old “laws” altered so as to provide continually new and different situations.” So really there are no best practices. A referee can alter the rules extemporaneously. Thank you Gary and Dave!
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Post by linebeck on Jul 26, 2020 14:52:34 GMT -6
From player’s perspective, doesn’t every monster have a lair? If I encounter a monster, I should be able to ask it where it’s lair is. Usually I would assume that it is somewhere in the same hex. If the lair is a hex or more away, the monster should have some reason for why it is “wandering” so far from home - I.e. it is going somewhere specific. Well, prominent in my mind is that numerous monsters in Vol-2 are listed with "Nil" % In Lair. I haven't done a complete analysis, but eyeballing the wilderness wandering monster tables, I'm guessing something on the order of one-third of the lists in both Vol-2 and Vol-3 are in that "Nil" lair category. This includes all of the normal and giant animals, which technically say "Variable" but without any specifier for lair/treasure I'm assuming are effectively none; indeed, spot-checking the AD&D MM, it looks like all or most of them got filled in with "Nil" there. Monsters with “nil” % in lair per M&T p. 3-4: A. Mindless undeadSkeletons Zombies B. Extra-planar creatures (have lairs, just not in this dimension) Elementals Invisible Stalkers Djinn C. Herd animalsUnicorns Pegasi Hippogriffs D. Clean-up crewOchre jelly Black pudding Green slime Gray ooze Yellow mold E. Domesticated animalsLight Medium Heavy Draft Horses F. Giant & Normal animals (may not have lairs but certainly live somewhere) Giant wasps (have nests) Giant bears (have dens) Giant ants (have giant ant hills) Etc. G. Only encountered in forests and woodlands
Treants
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 26, 2020 20:19:23 GMT -6
In my opinion you have these flip-flopped. The difference could be associated with what U&WA calls "off hand adventures" using a pre-existing map like the Outdoor Survival board and "exploratory journies". p15 Could you explain what could be flip-flopped derv? I'm not understanding what you're specifically referring to.
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Post by howandwhy99 on Jul 26, 2020 23:04:56 GMT -6
Percent in Lair
I see this as a check in the wilderness exploration game for when a wandering monster roll determines the players encounter a monster while exploring.
For me, the wandering monster table is the main population key for an area. Many of the lairs and locations in a region, commonly overland, are already pre-set, like cities and dungeons, but many are not.
Put simply, "% in lair" means the chance of encountering a monster in its lair when it doesn't already have a lair on the map. The monster then has the defense of their lair during the encounter, but treasure isn't limited to what they carry either.
The inverse of the stat signifies a creature's Activity Cycle, so the percentage can be used to determine how often a monster type is away from its lair. This affects some monster's encounter percentage chance when working out the wandering monster tables. Usually I begin those odds based on population amounts. Odds can break down further into diurnal and nocturnal encounter rolls, or whatever the table requires to fit monster behavior in the area.
To answer the OP's questions:
1. Simple lairs for less complex monsters should be kept on hand. They are often as simple as a burrow, treestand, or nothing at all.
2. Normal encounter rules apply for a lair as much as sighting creatures. How the characters choose to travel is a big part of that game.
3. Lairs have stats like other objects. Short-lived ones don't generally need to be tracked. It is the single most primary duty of a GM to track the game.
4. For me, any encounter changes the random encounter chart, as it is the monster key, the population log. Odds could be changed, removed entirely, and new monsters can be added.
5. All "Known" locations are tracked, and can be re-encountered, until they no longer exist. Like "Known NPC's", magic items, monsters, etc.
6. I guess there are practical location limits. But think of a jam-packed city. They are all lairs. Locations have life spans, and monster populations are what sustain them. But these populations need to be sustained too. I like having 2e livable/preferred habitats and diet stats.
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Post by aldarron on Jul 27, 2020 6:37:48 GMT -6
Just looking at this: it seems to me that the introductory statement to FFC's Outdoors in Blackmoor section (p. 25) -- "Travel from one perilous adventure to another in a neighboring Castle can result in a great deal of frustration for the players, or at least confusion, as the road is always populated by evil creatures." -- is a comment/critique/reference back to the rules in Vol-3 (both in terms of the special Castle rules and high ratio of wandering monsters), and thus was probably written after the LBB rules were written and playtested. aldarron increment any thoughts on this? Wote asked if I could offer some thoughts so... I don't know when Arneson first used the method or something like it, but the section is very clearly written with the intention of fleshing out the wilderness material in U&WA. It references the monster matrix ( M&T 3&4) talks about the % lair chance being "worked out as they normally are." and repeatedly references funny dice. Theoretically the piece on page 25 could have been written in late 1973 but I think we can safely dismiss such notions because of the tone. You don't say things like "worked out as they normally are" in the rules of a game nobody has ever played before. That leaves two main possibilities, either this section was, like the special interest section and probably the investments section, material Tim Kask cut from the mss. Arneson wrote in the summer of 1975 and submitted for supplement II, or it was written in the 1976-early 1977 timeframe while Arneson was at TSR or shortly thereafter, possibly specifically for the FFC. Personally I'm leaning toward the later date, again partially because of the tone which seems to take for granted a significant audience for a well established game, but also because of the "official TSR" character list on page 26. I think the page 25 and page 26 material were written either as one piece or with the intention that they go together. On page 26 Arneson distinguishes between Thieves and Assassins - something he does not do in the Special interests section (dateabale to summer '75) - and he includes Druids, a character class that first appears in Supplement III in 1976.
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Post by tetramorph on Jul 27, 2020 12:27:21 GMT -6
Frankly, I've been wrestling with how to use the "% In Lair" for years, and whatever I come up with always has spiraling logistical problems. So I'm wondering how most other people use it, and what the best practices are. For example, restricting to the wilderness adventure mode: (3) Once found, do you permanently log the location of the lair in your campaign notes? Can players return to it at a later date? Etc. Even after all this very detailed discussion, I would like to circle back, delta, to your original post. It seems like you started this thread for one reason, or perhaps two related reasons, or one reason with pronged ramifications. You get the point. 1. "spiraling logistical problems," and 2. "do you permanently log?" In other words, it seems to me the inspiration for your OP is your own concerns about campaign tracking and management. Do I read you right, here? If so, barring reference to Arneson -- who IMHO is over-determining in an almost Gygaxian way -- it seems like things could just be played in a pretty uncomplicated way. If one becomes worried about spiraling logistical problems, then I would like to suggest that the problem is not in the rules, or even their interpretation, but in the expectations we may be placing upon ourselves. It is hard -- I know from my own experience -- but sometimes I just need to make the kind of decision that frees me from those kind of, often unrealistic sets of self-expectations. Speaking only for myself, I almost always only wind up with spiraling logistical problems when I am holding myself up to some kind of standard that is not being imposed upon me by anyone other than myself, my own weird perfectionism -- and not even official policy or rules. When I cut myself some slack, I can let go in such a way that those fears are allayed. So if maintaining a permanent log of random encounters per hex seems daunting, like it would lead to spiraling logistical problems -- perhaps it is best just simply not to log the stuff, just to shrug it off, or "hand wave" it, as they say. My hunch is that this may go against some kind of perfectionism or completism or accuracy of tracking commitment some of us may have. That whole Gygaxian, "it is impossible to run a campaign without accurate time records," kind of thing. I happen to agree with that one, actually! But I think the principle can be extended to such degrees that running a campaign becomes paralyzing, rather than fun. The referee has to have fun too. So, for myself, I am just a little relaxed here with this regard. I've just got to let go of that level of detail. It has not caused significant loss of "immersion," or whatever, for my players, at this point. One could make up any number of in-game reasons. For example: Perhaps the wilderness itself is not unlike the underworld. The underworld is a mythic, archetypal, nightmare place that does not always follow the logic of lawful human civilization. There are no ecologies. Maybe the wilderness is also mythic and archetypal. Maybe when a lair is cleared, it simply fades away over a number of days, weeks, months -- it just shrivels up from the underworld vine out of which it once blossomed. Gone. Never to be delved again. And thus, never to be recorded by the referee. That is just one idea. Anyway, I don't know if any of that is helpful. But I hope so. Respect. And Fight on!
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 27, 2020 17:39:03 GMT -6
Thanks aldarron; nice assessment of the FFC p25-26 text. I guess this tangent came from the observation that Gygax's descriptions of number appearing and % in lair (in MM and MM2) align pretty closely with the usage presented in FFC. So, depending on who did (and wrote) what when it might be plausible to derive the root of D&D's % in lair mechanism. I had presumed it was a Blackmoor/Arneson thing, but perhaps it's a Gygax concept after all?
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Post by delta on Jul 28, 2020 1:15:28 GMT -6
It seems like you started this thread for one reason, or perhaps two related reasons, or one reason with pronged ramifications. You get the point. 1. "spiraling logistical problems,"... 2. "do you permanently log?" In other words, it seems to me the inspiration for your OP is your own concerns about campaign tracking and management. Do I read you right, here? Yeah, pretty much, especially point #1, that's very close to the mark. And very wise and helpful comments, I might say. I mean, ultimately I want an objective system that's reliable and dependable for me to run. As DM if I want a flight of fancy and jog off those rules some night, of course, we all agree that's fine. But I do want some reliable underlying system that if I apply it literally doesn't turn out to be inherently broken and unusable without constant bilge pumps running by the DM, so to speak. That's paired with an assumption that there really was some "normal" way (at minimum, by the creator) of using rules and statistics that someone bothered to write down, and I'd honestly like to know what that was (both out of curiosity and as a possible best-practice way of running it myself). Extra points if they were appreciably playtested and evaluated. In some cases that may be an erroneous assumption, in that some rules got written in an "aspirational" or brain-storm sense that weren't actually used at the table. I'm more than willing to say that the % In Lair or FFC rules (of course FFC wasn't the initial thrust of this thread) might be something more complicated than I want to use, and tweak or draft something I prefer. But I'd like to properly understand what the "normal" use case is before I say that I'm house-ruling something. In particular, that % In Lair stat seems really intimately knit into the system (it's one of only 6 monster stats in existence in the LBBs), it gets carefully copied forward into AD&D, and yet there's zero text about it's expected usage, so that seems like something I'd really like to clarify. Indeed, every time I try to use it in practice, sure enough, I get spiraling logistical problems. If in theory Gygax's usage was, "oh, we just didn't bother tracking it half or more of the time", then sure, I'd love to know that was the practical application, and wished it had been written down for clarity. Well of course that's so wonderful and evocative, who could not want that now? Maybe I'm all hopped up tonight.
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Post by dicebro on Jul 28, 2020 6:10:25 GMT -6
“Perhaps the wilderness itself is not unlike the underworld. The underworld is a mythic, archetypal, nightmare place that does not always follow the logic of lawful human civilization. There are no ecologies. Maybe the wilderness is also mythic and archetypal. Maybe when a lair is cleared, it simply fades away over a number of days, weeks, months -- it just shrivels up from the underworld vine out of which it once blossomed. Gone. Never to be delved again. And thus, never to be recorded by the referee. That is just one idea.“ Tetramorph. Supra.
It’s almost as if the masters of the fantastical realm didn’t even read the rule books! Here’s a metaphor for original D&D: The child’s world of wild, dream-like make-believe crashes into the adult world of rules and structures. Some of those rules and structures we adults have been conditioned to rely upon got blown away. Two hobbies are born. One of playing in the magical wreckage. The other involves creating new rules and structures. We can go back and forth.
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Post by tetramorph on Jul 28, 2020 10:04:18 GMT -6
I mean, ultimately I want an objective system that's reliable and dependable for me to run. ... That's paired with an assumption that there really was some "normal" way (at minimum, by the creator) of using rules and statistics that someone bothered to write down, and I'd honestly like to know what that was . . . Extra points if they were appreciably playtested and evaluated. I'd like to properly understand what the "normal" use case is before I say that I'm house-ruling something. . . . There's zero text about it's [% in lair] expected usage, so that seems like something I'd really like to clarify. Indeed, every time I try to use it in practice, sure enough, I get spiraling logistical problems. Thanks. I'm so glad you read my comments in the spirit in which I tried to give them. Okay, rolling up my sleeves again . . . I think that "objective system that's reliable and dependable," is what I am getting at as potentially setting ourselves unrealistic expectations of ourselves. I, as a wargames-campaigning style hobbyist myself, TOTALLY get this impulse and commitment. I think the question is, how do we balance abstraction with detail so that we get "realism," or "immersion," without it being at the cost of our time or sanity as referees? My hunch is that, when we have to have three page threads about a single monster statistic, we have run into something that felt cool and right -- that really answered something that they knew they needed to address -- but that was never fully play tested. It may well have been his attempt to use this in actual play that led Arneson to develop the system he later detailed in the FFC. But I am simply no Arneson. I am not a gaming genius with years of war-gaming experiencing going back to the very formation of my brain as a child! I'm just a silly middle-aged Gen-Xer who loves this game. So I've got to get realistic with myself about this stuff. I almost always have to fault on the side of abstraction as much as possible to keep my campaign up weekly with the least tears and hair-pulling. If they were never really fully play-tested, then I think it is safe to say, sadly, that there is, perhaps, no "normal" use case. Now, don't get me wrong. I get what you are getting at here. And I want exactly what you want, too. But I think if it had existed the rules would have been clearer -- as they are more clear for other aspects of the rules -- my hunch is that those clearer aspects are the ones that had already been used quite a bit before publication. So it seems to me that there is a conglomeration of issues that make this single statistic so confusing for application (in no particular order): the generation of the setting itself, in advance of play; judging wilderness movement and the inherent possibility of encounters; the nature of lairs; the relationship of the inhabitants of lairs to their lair; the process by which characters find lairs (automatic because of encounter roll, or necessary to perform role-play?); etc. I think what we may have to do, rather, is divine (in so far as it is possible) the heart of what Gygax and Arneson were trying to address with this stat. And I think it has to do with a lot of those previously listed things. So maybe we need to separate out those things and find separate mechanics for them, with corresponding or perhaps correlative stats -- and all at a level of abstraction that keeps us sane while maintaining immersion/realism for our players. For our own campaigns, we then work out the rules for ourselves that get to that same heart, and also prevent madness and tears. Maybe we could spend some of our conversation here trying to divine together what this core issue or set of game-needs is or was at heart. I think musing on what it means to set up, run and maintain a medieval fantasy wargames campaign may take us in a good direction. That's all I've got for now. Fight on!
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Post by aldarron on Jul 28, 2020 10:05:53 GMT -6
Thanks aldarron; nice assessment of the FFC p25-26 text. I guess this tangent came from the observation that Gygax's descriptions of number appearing and % in lair (in MM and MM2) align pretty closely with the usage presented in FFC. So, depending on who did (and wrote) what when it might be plausible to derive the root of D&D's % in lair mechanism. I had presumed it was a Blackmoor/Arneson thing, but perhaps it's a Gygax concept after all? Check out FFC 80:61 This is a short section on Dragons at the start of Arneson's mini monster manual - not to be confused with Richard Sniders long section on Dragons. If you read through, you will notice the lack of D&D isms - there's no Hit Dice or Armor Class or Treasure Type mentioned and purple worms are listed as dragons as they are in CHAINMAIL. You will also no doubt notice information that contradicts D&D, like 4-24 "hits", very different % lair numbers and very different treasures, and you will probably notice the quirky Arnesonian terms like double values. All of which makes it abundantly clear that this material predates the moment Arenson recieved the D&D draft from Gygax, and more to the point, this section or a version of it, necessarily had to have been communicated to Gygax very early in the draft creation process. Why? Because both the treasure type tables and the % lair stat post date this section and so must in some way be an outgrowth of Arneson's dragon information. For fun I will just recap here info I put on my 'blog years ago regarding the treasure types: The Treasure Type Tables in BTPbD draft of D&D (Prize Matrix) have the following categories of treasure in the following order: Magic; Copper; Silver; Gold; Gems/Jewelry. (First print D&D - M&T p22 - is the same except the magic column has been moved to the end chart) The First Fantasy Campaign™ has the following categories of treasure for dragon hoards as found on p61: Miscellaneous Goods; Silver; Gold; Jewels. Note that only “copper” is missing from the FFC list, though the FFC also makes no distinction between gems and jewelry. The FFC also lists a percentage of each treasure category present in the hoard, 50% gold, for example, and varies the kind of treasure present for different dragons. This idea is reflected in the D&D treasure table as a percentage chance of different kinds of treasure. So Gygax took two things from Arneson's dragons write up I think - the concept of percent in lair, and the treasure types tables. Gygax saw the value of these concepts Arneson had written up for dragons, expanded and formalized them and applied them to all monsters. D&D truly is a collaboration between those two guys. Realizing that makes it seem unfortunate that so often people seem to either neglect or simply be uninterested in giving much weight to, or even including Arneson's thoughts on the game. That's the whole reason I talk about Arneson so much - not to somehow champion the guy or something, but just to remind folks that Gygax isn't the sole voice on D&D or the only "uber-source" for ideas to bring in to their games.
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Post by tetramorph on Jul 28, 2020 10:07:28 GMT -6
Here’s a metaphor for original D&D: The child’s world of wild, dream-like make-believe crashes into the adult world of rules and structures. Some of those rules and structures we adults have been conditioned to rely upon got blown away. Two hobbies are born. One of playing in the magical wreckage. The other involves creating new rules and structures. We can go back and forth. I like where you are going with this. I wouldn't word it that two hobbies were born. I would say, rather, the twin polls of our hobby arose: Agency in, and co-creation through, play : Arneson -- Gygax : Rules that are consistent, generative, and fair
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Post by dicebro on Jul 28, 2020 10:41:37 GMT -6
Two great tastes that taste great together. Or just 2 sides of one coin.
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Post by derv on Jul 28, 2020 16:59:33 GMT -6
So Gygax took two things from Arneson's dragons write up I think - the concept of percent in lair, and the treasure types tables. Gygax saw the value of these concepts Arneson had written up for dragons, expanded and formalized them and applied them to all monsters. D&D truly is a collaboration between those two guys. Realizing that makes it seem unfortunate that so often people seem to either neglect or simply be uninterested in giving much weight to, or even including Arneson's thoughts on the game. That's the whole reason I talk about Arneson so much - not to somehow champion the guy or something, but just to remind folks that Gygax isn't the sole voice on D&D or the only "uber-source" for ideas to bring in to their games. Two very thoughtful posts Dan. I think it's important to point out that the chance of being "in lair" is represented in almost all the monster descriptions in this later section of the FFC. Often it is expressed as a chance in six (Giants 1/5). Though Wights are expressed as a percentage. In the same regard, there are those that have "nil" chance of being in a lair, such as bandits and "raider" types. I think it's safe to say this was a method Arneson had already been using for more then just dragons. waysoftheearth, as to flip-flop, my opinion is that the % lair would be determined up front in order to populate a hex. The procedures described on p25 are not practical or useful otherwise. Perhaps I should include a disclaimer that I'm not telling anyone how they must do it
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Post by linebeck on Jul 29, 2020 20:35:35 GMT -6
Let me start by saying I don’t believe that there’s any wrong approach to using the % lair. Using the tables to develop an entire monster ecology is an interesting idea, as is the idea that there is a set number of lairs per hex and the existence of a lair should be recorded for the purposes of game continuity.
If you’re just doing a textual analysis of the table in M&T, however, it seems pretty clear that “% in lair” refers to the chance of encountering a “wandering” monster where it domiciles when travelling outdoors.
Further if you take a reductive approach lair is synonymous with “place where the monsters have their treasure.” Note that Nil % in lair is also always Nil treasure as well.
Thus, animals don’t have a % in lair despite the fact they most likely have a lair in the sense that the term is used in the real world (a den, hive, whatever). (Compare MM1 entry for Gorilla vs. Carnivorous Ape, the later has treasure, and thus a % in lair, while the former does not. Carnivorous apes are intelligent and thus have a “lair” while Gorillas are not and thus don’t.)
Some examples in support of this interpretation relying on just M&T:
1. Nixies are 100% “in lair.” At the same time “nixies” are wandering monsters per U&WA page 19 (swimmer types). The only way to interpret that is that every time you encounter nixies you’ve also found their lair. M&T p. 4. So here we have a case that refutes the proposition that “a wandering monster is always wandering, not in lair.”
2. All the entries stating nil % in lair. When you list these entries out you can see that these are all creatures that either don’t lair at all (e.g. herd animals like unicorns), don’t lair in this plane of existence (elementals), or don’t ever have treasure (normal animals).
For example, Efreet lair in their “fabled home” which is the City of Brass per the entry in M&T. They also have a nil % in lair. M&T p. 4. This tells me that you will not encounter these monsters in their lair because you’re not just going to accidentally stumble across the City of Brass. If my character goes to the City of Brass to reenact the cover of the DMG, he will be disappointed if there are no Efreet there. However, if you interpret % In Lair to determine whether the monster is home, then that is exactly what will happen. The absurd result refutes the proposition that % in lair determines the chance that the monster is home when you find its lair.
3. The table itself explicitly states that the numbers appearing can be adjusted depending on party strength. That would seem to refute the idea that the table should be used primarily for stocking hexes (or “primarily only”).
4. Finally, although a weaker example, the many entries for creatures where you encounter additional monsters of a different type "in lair." For example, the Orc description thoroughly describes Orc lairs as 50% of the time being above ground (not in a dungeon) and states an additional percentage chance of a dragon, trolls, etc. when these monsters are encountered “in lair.” The fact that these additional monsters are encountered in lair, leads me to conclude that % in lair means that these additional monsters are only encountered if you are at or near the lair. Cf. the description for bandits. Similarly, the description of Rocs state that the Roc’s lair “is their nest” (again above ground) and explains that if you encounter Rocs in their liar there is a 50% chance you encounter additional young rocs. Again the description essentially tells me that I will only encounter additional monsters if I’m in the lair.
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Post by talysman on Jul 30, 2020 14:00:16 GMT -6
If you’re just doing a textual analysis of the table in M&T, however, it seems pretty clear that “% in lair” refers to the chance of encountering a “wandering” monster where it domiciles when travelling outdoors. Counterpoints to this: Or, it means "If you enter a nixie lair, there is a 100% chance that nixies are present. Except that skeletons and zombies also have no % in lair or treasure type. Does this mean you can never find a tomb or graveyard while traveling? To me, the strongest indicator that % In Lair is not meant to be used during wandering monster rolls is that wilderness encounters are rolled at the end of the day, regardless of whether the party has moved that day. If the party camps for a day to rest (which must be done at least once per week of travel,) then a wandering monster roll on the second day could suddenly be "in lair". Why is the party's camp suddenly a lair? Why didn't they notice it? If it's a monster that is 100% In Lair, why wasn't it there at the end of the first day, when they set up camp? This gets worse in AD&D, since there are extra wandering monster rolls in the middle of the night as well. Water travel and airborne travel have an extra wandering monster roll at midday, while the party is still waterborne or airborne. It's possible to imagine rowing a galley over a nixie lair, but airborne encounters obviously can't be "In Lair". This all means that GMs planning to use % In Lair on the fly have to be more careful with their interpretations, but in my mind, it's much easier to skip all the extra rolls and just assume wandering monsters are wandering, lairs are designed beforehand either during hex stocking or as a supply of "instant lairs" to plop down during exploration in unprepped areas. Using % In Lair only when in an actual monster lair to check if it's home seems to be an easier procedure. so I do it that way.
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Post by linebeck on Jul 30, 2020 14:18:16 GMT -6
To me, the strongest indicator that % In Lair is not meant to be used during wandering monster rolls is that wilderness encounters are rolled at the end of the day, regardless of whether the party has moved that day. If the party camps for a day to rest (which must be done at least once per week of travel,) then a wandering monster roll on the second day could suddenly be "in lair". Why is the party's camp suddenly a lair? Why didn't they notice it? If it's a monster that is 100% In Lair, why wasn't it there at the end of the first day, when they set up camp? That is a good point that I hadn't considered. I guess in that circumstance on day one the monsters weren't in their lair and then the monsters came back on day two. The characters then realize to their horror that they were camped out in the lair the entire time and didn't know. I'm reminded of the end of the movie "The Grey." Do not watch if you plan on seeing the movie. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaehj7_wiAQ
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Post by aldarron on Jul 30, 2020 17:24:22 GMT -6
Let me start by saying I don’t believe that... I’m in the lair. Great research and terrific post!
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Post by aldarron on Jul 30, 2020 17:37:23 GMT -6
To me, the strongest indicator that % In Lair is not meant to be used during wandering monster rolls is that wilderness encounters are rolled at the end of the day, regardless of whether the party has moved that day. If the party camps for a day to rest (which must be done at least once per week of travel,) then a wandering monster roll on the second day could suddenly be "in lair". Why is the party's camp suddenly a lair? Why didn't they notice it? If it's a monster that is 100% In Lair, why wasn't it there at the end of the first day, when they set up camp? This gets worse in AD&D, since there are extra wandering monster rolls in the middle of the night as well. There is really no problem in this case John. I think the quintessential %lair roll is Bilbo's encounter with the trolls, right? That occurred at night after they were camped and they noticed a campfire off in the woods that turned out to be a troll lair. Or for that matter, the cave they sheltered in during the storm that turned out to be an entrance to the goblin lair. I don't think there is any problem with rolling up a percent lair when the party hasn't moved for the day or two. It just means that somewhere very near what they thought was a safe spot, is a lair, quite possibly hidden from prior notice.
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Post by howandwhy99 on Jul 31, 2020 23:49:18 GMT -6
D&D uses statistical scores to represent abstractions of more complicated underlying designs. But those specific designs can be determined, like rolling 3d6 for a particular human's abilities, without invalidating the use of an abstract score like 10.5 for a group.
When determining the statistics of an area I believe D&D's creators were following good war game design principles. Meaning they did not need to predetermine every last monster or treasure, but as in the game Dungeon!, they only needed to know the rating (or pertinent statistics) of the area. This would be an average of total monsters, treasure, or challenges in general.
Sure, other qualities help define an area: habitat, terrain type, size, structural design, and so on, but any redundancy which can be abstracted and rolled later should be simplified for easier tracking. Such scores can be used for resolving many generalized specific outcomes while maintaining accuracy within a simple system at a higher scale.
I hold Known elements (those so far encountered) to be different from pre-rolled ones, Known always being tracked, so I do pre-roll some "% in Lair" rolls for each area. But I do it as part of game prep with predetermined future chronologies created through Encounter Rolls for each area. I find these help for game prep and in playtesting. I only prep what is rolled, but I can create and track more details. I can use the current PC stats to playtest each encounter and system proof rules and DM procedures before they ever reach the players. And the players can still game strategically to avoid them (or seek them out) if desired.
I think it is going against basic D&D design principles and and simply difficult and time consuming to pre-roll and place everything on the map. Ultimately I think it limits the potential for highly detailed and therefore deeply gameable designs. But I think that work is the DM's choice anyways.
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Post by dicebro on Aug 1, 2020 7:56:33 GMT -6
“D&D uses statistical scores to represent abstractions of more complicated underlying designs. But those specific designs can be determined, like rolling 3d6 for a particular human's abilities, without invalidating the use of an abstract score like 10.5 for a group.“ “When determining the statistics of an area I believe D&D's creators were following good war game design principles. Meaning they did not need to predetermine every last monster or treasure, but as in the game Dungeon!, they only needed to know the rating (or pertinent statistics) of the area. This would be an average of total monsters, treasure, or challenges in general.” When you refer to “statistical scores” and “statistics of an area”, I’m not really sure what you mean. Do you mean “percentages” in the first paragraph and “monster populations” in the second? Please forgive my misunderstanding your use of the word as my background in statistics is academic.
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Post by howandwhy99 on Aug 1, 2020 15:42:01 GMT -6
When you refer to “statistical scores” and “statistics of an area”, I’m not really sure what you mean. Do you mean “percentages” in the first paragraph and “monster populations” in the second? Please forgive my misunderstanding your use of the word as my background in statistics is academic. It wasn't a clear post. Stats and scores are common lingo in the hobby. "What are the stats / scores for your character?" I wouldn't stand by the terms academic legitimacy. D&D takes strategy games and turns them inside out, upside down. I hold Ability Scores to be aggregates of subscores which are meant to refer to actual design measurements. However, these designs are generated by the scores, so creation actually is applied in reverse order as opposed to measuring pre-existing designs and aggregating scores later. Anything which qualifies within more easily tracked and probability weighted rolled scores [more design limiting] is an acceptable design to use by the DM. Admittedly, ability scores are not an example for creating areas, but they do demonstrate the generating of specifics out of abstractions within the D&D rules. Statistic may be the wrong term for these scores given their inversion, but they are what I was first referencing. Yeah, the second reference is to monster populations, but I believe that specific amount should be rolled during area creation, not during encounter rolls. Encounter rolls I hold to usually be meeting a smaller group within the area's whole population.
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Post by Porphyre on Aug 2, 2020 15:42:59 GMT -6
(1) If the monster is found "in lair", do you actually spawn a dungeon-type complex on the fly? Or is it kept more abstract? (2) Do players have the choice of entering or avoiding said lair? Or are they automatically thrown into the encounter using normal rules? (3) Once found, do you permanently log the location of the lair in your campaign notes? Can players return to it at a later date? (4) If logged in the campaign notes, does the lair then change the distribution of wandering monsters in the neighboring region? (Perhaps similar to the castle rule 0-2 hex distance effect, in Vol-3, p. 15?) How so? Does the % In Lair modify this nearby wandering chance? (E.g., Nixies never found wandering because of 100% in-lair chance; while Griffons almost always outside with 10% in-lair chance.) (5) If logged, and a different party travels through the hex, do they automatically spot the same lair? Sometimes? Never? (6) If logged, is there any limit on number of lairs in a particular zone/hex? Or can they multiply without any bound? 1- I keep a handful of printed sheets of lairs (mostly from Dyson Logos) 2- Yes, unless they are surprised by the monsters 3- Yes and yes. 4- Not so much. See n° 6 5- Since I have only one party of players (mi kids) the question never popped up. 6- One encounter by Hex , ergo no more than one lair
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Post by kaiqueo on Aug 6, 2020 11:34:52 GMT -6
(1) Sometimes I actually spawn a lair complex of 1d6 rooms on the fly. But I also keep a sheet of 6 random encounters already rolled for every terrain type, including lair ones. Rolling them before the session help me to have cool ideas about what the monsters want, what they are doing, how they will interact with the characters...).
(2) Depends on the distance. Usually yes, they can avoid the lair. "Players will see monsters at from 40–240 yards" (in this case, the lair). But if the lair is close, and the monsters have the habit to patrol, than they'll probably face the characters before they have the chance to avoid the lair.
(3) Yes. I log with a key, like "L3", and mark it on my map. The players can return, and things may have changed since the last time.
(4) No, the lair don't change the distribution. I assume the lair was already there, the players just found it. Their actions in the lair may afect how random encounters with monsters of the same type will play out though. If they kill everyone in the Goblin Den, and later find a wandering goblin, it can be a survivor of the massacre.
(5) Sometimes. If there's a player of the previous party with them, he knows where the lair is and can avoid it. If not, there's 50% chance of finding it.
(6) For a 5-mile hex, one lair per hex.
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Post by dicebro on Aug 6, 2020 17:01:54 GMT -6
Often I don’t follow any rules and just make stuff up on the fly. For kicks, I am prone to rolling encounters and lair on the wrong tables. I also must confess to making up new monsters on the fly and purposefully not following the treasure type rules.
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Post by delta on Dec 18, 2021 14:08:10 GMT -6
Looking at this thread again; thanks for the many thoughtful replies.
Ultimately, some time after I posed the question, here's how I settled on interpreting the "% In Lair" stat: It's set in the context of the Vol-3 Wilderness adventuring idiom (e.g., appropriating the Outdoor Survival map on an ad-hoc basis), it's designed to procedurally generate wilderness encounters without any other preparation, and it's simply synonymous with whether treasure is present or not. (Note that in the LBBs, creatures have a positive % In-Lair stat if-and-only-if they also have a treasure type in the next column. Further, the AD&D MM text says specifically, "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.")
So my current take is that the stat becomes vestigial as the game evolves after the LBBs, expecting the DM to do more advance prep with customized encounter areas and the like. Now I'd recommend only using the stat for blank-slate new adventuring areas (like if the PCs go off-map in a session for some reason), and just disregarding it if the DM is intentionally pre-planning lairs and encounter areas on the wilderness map. Maybe use it to fill in remaining blank spaces, similar to how the random dungeon stocking is presented.
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Post by dicebro on Dec 31, 2021 17:47:57 GMT -6
Since August I have been writing a multi-level dungeon using only the initial 3 volumes of OD&D. I started using the “% in lair” list with Underworld rooms containing monsters and it seems to work very well. Here’s How I use it: the % number only gives the chance that the monster room is a lair and does not reveal how many monsters are encountered. If a monster room turns out to be a lair, then I roll for the associated treasure. Once again, this method works splendidly with the dungeon stocking rules as written in volume 3.
Of course, I have tried to avoid guidance from AD&D, or any other rule sets.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Dec 31, 2021 23:53:37 GMT -6
Here’s How I use it: the % number only gives the chance that the monster room is a lair and does not reveal how many monsters are encountered. If a monster room turns out to be a lair, then I roll for the associated treasure. Once again, this method works splendidly with the dungeon stocking rules as written in volume 3. How do you reconcile the above with U&WA p7 which describes how to allocate monsters and treasures to dungeon rooms?
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Post by dicebro on Jan 1, 2022 5:23:04 GMT -6
Here’s How I use it: the % number only gives the chance that the monster room is a lair and does not reveal how many monsters are encountered. If a monster room turns out to be a lair, then I roll for the associated treasure. Once again, this method works splendidly with the dungeon stocking rules as written in volume 3. How do you reconcile the above with U&WA p7 which describes how to allocate monsters and treasures to dungeon rooms? I interpret the treasures listed on p7 as treasure that may be found in a room regardless of whether or not the room is a lair. Thus, 20% of all rooms with ghouls will be lairs with treasure type B representing the Ghouls’ stash. Some of those Rooms, which have been in the underworld for immemorial time, will also have the additional treasure associated with p7.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jan 1, 2022 7:21:08 GMT -6
Mmm. An interesting approach. My intuition is that it will produce a very rich treasures for the shallow dungeon levels compared to the method described by UWA p7 for random dungeon stocking (you can do whatever you like when thoughtfully placing treasures). Take Dwarfs, for example. M&TA includes examples of rooms with 2-5 dwarfs on dungeon level 1. M&TA also has a list of 100 random treasures for DL 1 rooms which mostly comprise a few hundred CP, SP or GP. The single most valuable treasure in 100 treasures for DL 1 (at a quick scan) is a piece of jewelry worth 1,400 g.p. However, if I understand the above method, 50% of DL 1 rooms with 2-5 dwarfs in them would also be lairs with treasure type G in them, worth an average of around 24,000 g.p. Something's obviously not right with that
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