How do you play LL?

[Gnarri]

Hello!

We just tried LL the other night and had a fun but very challenging evening. The dungeon was the example cave full of morlocks from the LL book, and we had not read the AEC at the time yet.

Questions:
-Do you use the Wilderness random encounter table for your lvl 1 characters? On their way to the dungeon hey encountered 20 brigands who robbed them and almost killed one of them the first that happended. Adter that they saw a Giant Rock who didnt notice them (surprise on 1-2) and they hid. On the way home from the dungeon they encountered 2 sable tooth tigers but got good on a reaction roll so they could sneak away, but was only hours from the village attacked by 12 griffons who killed most of them (a few snuck off when the griffons ate the horses). Four rolls for encounters per day in mountan terrain! All of them too much for a lvl 1! Really hard to survive that.

-Do you use the random encounter table when in the dungeons for lvl 1:s? On got eaten by the green slime, but otherwise they survived most of the stationary enemies in the dungeon - when they met a random encounter of 9 orcs (I changed to more morlocks) on their way out, two got killed, one captured and two hid in the secret room and snuck out after. Also a bit hard with 2d6 enemies. Or?

-When you do reaction rolls, do you let everybodys charisma modifiers count together, or do you just use the best or something? They were quite charismatic so they got +7 together which was a bit much.

-do you give xp if they successfully sneak off from these high-level encounters? No fighting, just hiding or stuff like that?

We did like it with really hard encounters though, so next time I think I'll let them start with lvl 3 characters, and have a few less rolls for encounters per day.

[merias]

Welcome! Wilderness exploration is quite dangerous, as you found. The encounter tables are not setup to be balanced in any way. This is true of any old-school D&D clone, and has its roots in the original 1974 game. The idea is that how you play is more important than your character's abilities. That means tactics, knowing when to run, judicious use of spell casters, use of ranged weapons, scouts, etc.. That said, for a fresh party of inexperienced players, I would either setup my own encounters, or tone down any random rolls in a wilderness setting. Feel free to re-roll anything that is just too hard, it's really up to you.

In the dungeon, I tend to make my own wandering monster tables, I don't use those in the book, but the dungeon tables that match your dungeon level should still be fine to use.

Reaction rolls - use the best bonus in the group, don't combine them.

You can certainly give XP for clever avoidance of monsters, in fact this encourages tactical play, rather than "we run in and attack" kind of play. But this is up to you and what your group considers fun.

Hope this helps!

[greyarea]

Howdy, Gnarri. Welcome.

-Do you use the Wilderness random encounter table for your lvl 1 characters?

I have and, as you note, they can be quite deadly. Often times they will need to parley or sneak past opponents they can't beat. Or the LL can opt not to run that encounter.

-Do you use the random encounter table when in the dungeons for lvl 1:s? On got eaten by the green slime, but otherwise they survived most of the stationary enemies in the dungeon - when they met a random encounter of 9 orcs (I changed to more morlocks) on their way out, two got killed, one captured and two hid in the secret room and snuck out after. Also a bit hard with 2d6 enemies. Or?

Again, I have and it can be quite deadly. As Merias suggested, you can change the list to suit, which you kind of did by going with morlocks instead of orcs. Many premade adventures will have custom random encounter tables for use. I've also played with LLs who prefer no random encounters at all, so we didn't get a chance to encounter any.

-do you give xp if they successfully sneak off from these high-level encounters? No fighting, just hiding or stuff like that?

I often do, especially if they are playing smart and not just cowardly. (I once played with a fellow who's character was a thief who would never check for traps, open chests, or anything like that. The player was so afraid of a trap that would kill his character that he tried to make others take all of the risk. It wasn't any fun and the LL docked him seriously, especially when we faced a group of monsters and his character ran off and hid while battle went on. Not cool.) Players should be rewarded for sneaking off, successfully talking their way out of a situation, or otherwise avoiding combat, I think, although it might make sense if they get reduced XP. However, they don't get the treasure that such encounters can provide if they are avoiding melee every time.

[Gnarri]

I often do, especially if they are playing smart and not just cowardly. (I once played with a fellow who's character was a thief who would never check for traps, open chests, or anything like that. The player was so afraid of a trap that would kill his character that he tried to make others take all of the risk. It wasn't any fun and the LL docked him seriously, especially when we faced a group of monsters and his character ran off and hid while battle went on. Not cool.) Players should be rewarded for sneaking off, successfully talking their way out of a situation, or otherwise avoiding combat, I think, although it might make sense if they get reduced XP. However, they don't get the treasure that such encounters can provide if they are avoiding melee every time.

Cowardly, sort of... When the 12 griffons swooped in the reaction roll was bad and they were surprised, but on horseback. I let the griffons have a 50% chance of just attacking the horse and ignoring the rider, and only 1D6 griffons per round. It was still a mayhem, out of 6 characters and henchmen only 3 survived, by hiding under rocks or crawling away when the griffons started to eat. Would you give xp for 12 griffons for that? Just interested in how most people play the game, we houseruled a lot about the xp.

We decided to give xp more for defeating monsters than for treasure at the time, so I did give them xp, but at the normal rate. When they defeated something in real combat they got x10 the amount stated in the book (so that a HD1 monster gives 100 xp), we did want a faster level progression and changed the rules as we went. On the other hand, they only got xp for gold if they "burned" the gold on luxuries, feasts, gifts for temples and other adventurer-style kind of stuff.

And one more question:
-When the players was looking for traps, we sort of only used the "player skill" most of the time - so that it usually was the magic-user who found the traps since he was the smartest. Like the poison-needle trap. He asked me if there were any suspicious holes in the lock, and I said yes (a bit more words from the booth of us) but I sort of judged that he asked the right questions. Then they had the PC with the lousiest ability-scores (a dwarf) first cover them up with copper pieces and leather straps and then opening it with the plate armour gloves on from the fighters kit. I judged that the needle came from a different place on the lock but did not penetrate the armour. Would you let them get away with being clever, roll for something, or would you judge that they would fail since no-one alive was a thief?

[greyarea]

And one more question:
-When the players was looking for traps, we sort of only used the "player skill" most of the time - so that it usually was the magic-user who found the traps since he was the smartest. Like the poison-needle trap. He asked me if there were any suspicious holes in the lock, and I said yes (a bit more words from the booth of us) but I sort of judged that he asked the right questions. Then they had the PC with the lousiest ability-scores (a dwarf) first cover them up with copper pieces and leather straps and then opening it with the plate armour gloves on from the fighters kit. I judged that the needle came from a different place on the lock but did not penetrate the armour. Would you let them get away with being clever, roll for something, or would you judge that they would fail since no-one alive was a thief?

I like how you handled the XP. As to the trap, it would depend. I'd always roll but might base the roll on how clever they are ("the copper pieces and gauntlets help but a needle might still make it through... roll a 5 or better on a d12" or something of that sort) but I like giving players a chance. Of course, my players might disagree, I can be a wicked LL at times...

The fact that you have house rules to make it more fun for the group that's playing is proof positive that you're playing it right IMHO.

[merias]

I like the idea having PCs spend gold to get XP. It solves the problem of what to do with piles of coins.

Player skill is a great way to handle traps, even for thieves, you can use player skill and only fall back to thief skills for very complex or subtle traps. In any case, if the party does not have a thief, then this is forced on you, so it is good to get the players thinking that way. Matt Finch's 'Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming' has a great example of this. If you haven't seen it, you can get it free here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finch/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/ebook/product-3159558.html

[Gnarri]

Thanks for all the good answers!

Yeah, a roll might be the best even if they have a clever plan, always a chance that something goes wrong. Will do next time.

Another question: Do you let them roll abilities for their henchmen, or are they supposed to just be a class and a level? We read somewhere that retainers for lvl 1 characters usually was lvl 0 humans, but they wanted some anyway. One of the retainers got extremely good ability scores, STR 18, INT 17, CHA 16 and nothing lower than 12. So the player wanted to level up the guy to a fighter. Is there a typical way of leveling up a lvl 0 to a fighter or something? They decided to give him lots of gold for xp and we decided that 500 xp would make him lvl 1. How would you handle that? (he got eaten by the griffons anyway thought)

[Vile]

Great post, Gnarri, this is exactly how we played B2 using the Moldvay basic rules back in 1982! Our characters were also robbed by bandits and attacked by sabre-toothed tigers - only they died ...

Thanks for the memories!

[Gnarri]

Haha, thanks Vile, then we were not too far off from the real OSR feeling then We have usually only played games with virtually no PC deaths, but everybody was informed beforehand that this would be different, and it was.

[Vile]

Yes, my memories of my first year of gaming are of a succession of 1st level characters for everyone in the group. One of my characters, a thief (I mostly played thieves) was the first to make it to 2nd level but he promptly got knocked down to 1st again by a wight. Nevertheless, it never occurred to us that there was anything wrong, we just kept trying harder and harder to "beat" those difficult encounters and eventually we learned how. The referee never "cheated", he was as new to the game as we were and we all played by-the-book as we understood it. I'm pretty sure we understood it correctly as B/X is still the benchmark for clarity in my book.