Labyrinth Lord at Q-Con

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Labyrinth Lord at Q-Con

Postby AndrewNI » Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:27 am

On Saturday afternoon (23rd June), I ran a game of Labyrinth Lord at Q-Con in Belfast. This post is my report of how the session went. Unfortunately, I do not have any photo documentation of the proceedings, but there is a small chance that a photo might emerge somewhere online. I will keep an eye out, and provide a link to any images I find of the game taking place.

What follows is the web address of the convention RPG timetable and game descriptions:

http://q-con.org.uk/node/21

I decided to run the scenario provided in the Labyrinth Lord core rule book, “Den of the Morlock Shaman”, which I am sure you are all familiar with. Five people signed-up for the game, and I provided them with the selection of pre-gens and equipment packs found in Tom Moldvay’s “The Lost City” module for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. I did this to speed-up the process, as I wanted to be sure that the players could finish the scenario by the end of the three hour time-slot, playing at a comfortable pace. Of course, the players were free to create the personalities and backgrounds of their characters, come up with a name, and choose their character’s alignment. The variety of pre-gens provided allowed everyone to play the class they wanted to, and it actually turned out to be a well-balanced party comprised of:

Marcus the Mapper, a Fighter of Lawful alignment,
Mufty, a Cleric of Lawful alignment,
Grolk, a Dwarf of Neutral alignment,
Gerrol, a Thief of Neutral alignment, and
MacDuff, a Magic-User of Neutral alignment.

I allowed them to play their characters at 2nd Level, but in hindsight this may have been a poor decision as they got through the scenario with little hassle. However, I think the main reason they didn’t have much difficulty was because I did not give the monsters enough hit points. This is something I will have to be careful about in the future, but thankfully it did not seem to jeopardise the players’ enjoyment on this occasion, and it was a valuable learning experience for me. As an inexperienced GM, one of the things I have had difficulty with is determining an appropriate level of toughness for the monsters; I seem to either make them too easy to defeat or too difficult. Hopefully this is something I will become better at with experience.

I created a pretty generic, small village in the Known Lands for the party to begin in. It had a mill, a smithy, a general store, a temple, and stables. The temple was devoted to the worship of Ashan, a deity which I found in the document entitled “The Sparnian Gods of Law and Chaos and the Unaligned Elemental Forces”, based in part on an article by Lawrence Schick. The settlement, which I named Lanstead, was heavily agricultural, and had a population of ninety-two inhabitants, most of whom were human.

I told the players that their characters had been on the road for a week, travelling from the city of Dolmvay in the service of Duke Valnwall. Their motives for serving the Duke were entirely their own, of course. The more honourable members of the party may have wanted to prove themselves competent servants of the Duchy, and aid the tormented people of Lanstead in their time of need. The more mercenary members of the group may have been motivated by the promise of three-hundred gold pieces, should they succeed in their endeavour. Either way, the party had been travelling to Lanstead, and understood that the unfortified settlement was having great difficulty defending itself against morlock attacks.

I had the party arrive in Lanstead at night, and told the players that their characters felt weary from the week of travel. They rested in the local inn for the night, and the game began properly the following morning. I informed them that they had been summoned to the local temple by the village Elder, who was a Cleric of Ashan. The players decided that they would go to the temple immediately, where they learned more about the recent happenings in the village. This is when they learned of the kidnapping of the two teenagers, following the murder of their parents by the morlocks. The village Elder pleaded with the party to rescue them, and the party agreed. I also added a small side-quest upon noticing that there were two gold necklaces in the scenario, one more expensive than the other. I had the village Elder ask the party to retrieve a family heirloom for him, which was, of course, a gold necklace. The party, however, would have no way of knowing which of the two necklaces was the one he was looking for. Gerrol asked for a reward in return for completing this extra task, so the Elder offered them three-hundred gold pieces in return for their aid. The players, not knowing the true value of the necklaces, agreed to this. Of course, they would have the choice later as to whether or not they would give the necklace to the Elder.

So, the party was sent off with Ashan’s blessings, and they headed straight to the mill to speak with the miller, Hardwin, who they were told was the brother of one of the murdered farmers. Essentially, Hardwin was a 0-Level NPC who would agree to follow the party into the mine in order to rescue his niece and nephew. The party bought him leather armour and a backpack, loaded him up with some gear, and gave him a lantern to carry. They bought themselves more equipment while they were at it, before heading off to investigate the mine.

When they arrived at the mine, they were greeted by an NPC named Doyle. They were able to discern that he was a Thief (1st Level), but did not know that his alignment was Chaotic. Doyle informed them that he had been held prisoner in the morlocks’ lair but had managed to escape, and offered to accompany them into the mine in return for a half-share of the treasure found. The party agreed, and so they promptly descended into the morlocks’ lair. What the party did not know was that Doyle had previously made an attempt to steal the family heirloom that the Elder had sent them to retrieve, and that he would do so again given the opportunity.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

The party was not surprised by the Green Slime and disposed of it quickly. As the slime moved towards them at its one-foot-per-round encounter movement, they simply stood back, covered it in oil, and threw a lit torch to set it alight. They proceeded further into the caverns and came to the area with the crevasse. They decided to investigate further, and so the Thief moved in closer. He managed to pass his DEX check and avoided falling into the pit, but due to the danger the party thought it would be best to tie a rope around his waist and lower him down gently. After nothing was found, they brought him back up and continued to investigate the rest of the mine.

One character went ahead and discovered the small steel box buried in the south end of Area 3, containing gold and silver pieces. I rolled to see if the ceiling trap was trigged but it was not. Reading over the entry again, I get the impression it was supposed to trigger automatically, but I wasn’t sure. The party moved on to the next chamber and failed to surprise the morlocks who could see them coming from a distance. The party were surprised by the morlocks, however, who decided to attack. Due to my mistake of giving them only four hit-points each, the morlocks were quickly dispatched. The less expensive of the two gold necklaces was looted from the body of one of the morlocks, and the party moved on to the door in the west. They barged in carelessly and were surprised by the Albino Ape. Unfortunately, it didn’t have long to pose much of a threat, as the Magic-User promptly dumped a sleep spell on it. The party killed the ape while it slept, and then asked Doyle which was the best way to go. Doyle informed them where the cells were, and so the party headed north.

They came across the morlock bunkroom and quickly dispatched the creatures therein. They then moved on to the cells where they found the two kidnapped teenagers. After both Thieves failed their lock-picking attempts, the party opted not to break down the doors in fear of attracting wandering monsters. Instead, they decided they would search for a key. Before leaving this corridor, however, they noticed the dead end and decided to search it for secret doors. They found the secret door leading to Eoppa’s secret treasure room, which contained the more expensive of the two gold necklaces. I decided that this necklace would be the heirloom that the village Elder was looking for. Doyle tried to discourage them from taking it (as he wanted to steal it for himself), but this only made the party suspicious of him. As a result, they made Doyle stay in the middle of the party, and threatened him when he tried to escape.

Next up was the morlock temple room where the party found Eoppa and his guard. Eoppa managed to cast his spell and do some damage, but ultimately they were no match for the party. Once dispatched, the party lifted the cell key from Eoppa’s corpse and returned to free the two teenagers. Just before they were going to escort the teenagers back to the village, Gerrol decided that he wanted to murder Doyle, and managed to do so in the absence of the Lawful characters. The party returned to the village and gave the village Elder the necklace he wanted. In return, he gave them three-hundred gold pieces, as promised. The necklace was actually worth 1,600 gp, but the party did not manage to appraise it. I had previously decided that the Thief could successfully appraise non-magical items if he succeeded in an Intelligence check. Do you think that is fair?

In conclusion, I think the game went well and the players all seemed to enjoy themselves. As previously noted, I will have to be more careful about monster hit points, and I think discerning an appropriate level of difficulty is something that I need to work on.

I apologise for this post being so long, and for the lack of photographs. Feel free to leave me some constructive criticism, and I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions that anyone has to offer. As an inexperienced GM, I am under no illusion that I don’t make mistakes.

Thanks for reading,
Andrew
AndrewNI
 
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Location: Northern Ireland

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