Surprise Kills Obmi

Obmi is dead. That supervillainous boss of the third level of the Castle of the Mad Archmage, uncatchable nemesis of Gary Gygax's players, was rushed in his lair and taken apart by the terrible force of the Muleteers. And they weren't even at full spells and hits. Here's how (spoilers for CotMA obviously).

"Just go right at 'em" - Captain Aubrey

1. Strategic surprise. Good intentions paid off. Over the last few sessions, the adventurers had been probing and chipping away at the force of hobgoblins, bugbears and goblins in the northeast of the level. A rival party, the Lightning's Hand, had meanwhile fallen foul of Obmi; in cleaning out the last of the orcs in the southeast, they ran across the hobgoblins, with whom they thought they had a deal. But Obmi had been doing dungeon diplomacy to unite the humanoid groups, and the hobgoblins turned on the Hand, killing their main fighter with the aid of a hold person spell from their cleric. Fleeing, they ran into the conveniently placed Obmi and his minions, and (seeing as I rolled snake eyes for the success of this encounter, when playing through the actions of the NPC party) had to surrender after some brutal treatment.

The party was originally planning to go after the hobgoblins, at which point the tribe would have sent a runner to warn Obmi, who would have hooked around with his gnoll squad and a couple of other friends to block their retreat. Even with the aid of the Knights of Antonius, a group of holy warriors who were helping them out, this would have been serious Surtrouble for the Muleteers. But then the voice of morality spoke up in the form of Freya, the hermit, who reminded them of their duty to rescue the Hand.

In their reconnaissance the Knights had found a couple of passages forking off with the intersection marked with the dwarven rune for "O." It was there that dungeon doctrine was again ignored, and the Knights and Muleteers split up, each having one passage to search. Luck, too, came into it as the Muleteers picked the one that would lead them straight to Obmi's lab and lair.

2. Tactical surprise. Ordinarily on their way to Obmi's lair the Mules would have run across a small group of orcs, all that remained of the once mighty Grinning Skull tribe, who had be set by Obmi to patrol the maze. However, at the very same time, the goblin runner from the hobgoblins had been banging on one of the one-way doors into the maze, and the orcs were escorting him back to the door of the lair, which a gnoll guard opened.

Just then Titus the gnome and self-styled muleborne knight decided to try to sneak down the corridor behind them, wearing metal armor,and thus failing. "Hey!" The orcs swiveled around and everyone rushed forward, led by Titus, who started incanting the syllables of his Choke spell... only to fail and cast a different random spell of the same level instead at the targets (he must have mispronounced Choke as Shock) ... the most fortuitous Lightning Bolt. Bouncing around in the confined space, the bolt fried all the humanoids and miraculously stopped just short of hitting the caster.

The path to the huge lair room was now clear and everyone rushed in as fast as they could. Five gnolls were at various places in the room, Obmi was over by the wall tormenting one of the Hand party captives, who were all strapped and locked into various devices and tables. A huge swiveling brass machine with a pointy end was installed in the middle of the room. Bort the fighter, running to engage Obmi, placed himself in a position to fight the six remaining gnolls as they tried to come out of their adjacent barracks room. This was a crucial if unwitting decision that gave the party tactical control of the room.

With a few good decisions and strokes of luck the party had given themselves a huge positional advantage, which was to widen when Obmi, acting out a tragic flaw, chose to use his invisibility ring and boots of speed not to get away, but to make it to his pride and joy, the repulsor ray machine in the middle of the room. (This flaw was activated by some unusually high morale rolls I threw for Obmi.) The beam pushed back a column of party reinforcements as they tried to enter the room, but the energy wizard Orbit managed to get off a Shatter spell that blew a hose on the contraption. With most of the gnolls in the lair now dead, and the rest hemmed into their barracks, the party swarmed around the dwarf, cutting off his escape and eventually finishing him.

I could have further ruled that the invisibility and boots of speed would allow Obmi to slip past engaging enemies, but the result felt like a just reward for audacious action, phenomenal luck, and the folly of the usually slippery villain. Things would have been very different if Obmi had been shielded by a swarm of gnolls and able to pound the front line with his returnng hammer. What I observed years ago was borne out that day: the advantage of surprise is not always to the home team.

52 Baroque Encounter Starts

Go on then, have another.

This one is not quite so teeming as the previous, more practical, but such is the nature of the rules page it was spawned from. It's divided up into a number of smaller dice tables that still add up to 52 options. I think these eight categories pretty much cover anything you might throw at your players.

Click to enlarge.

Postal Surprise Challenge

Quick thought on something neat for game-masters to do:

1. Go on Ebay.
2. Look for people selling lots of cheap pre-painted plastic fantasy miniatures ("dungeons dragons miniatures" and "pathfinder miniatures" seem to work)
3. Bid on a bunch of them from a single seller.
4. See which of your bids win.
5. Ask for combined postage.

Ones that got away.

6. When the package gets there, don't open it right away.
7. Tell your players, "Some strange creatures have been sighted in an abandoned (something) outside of town. Do you want to investigate?)" Hold up the sealed package.
8. Make up some inspired reason why those creatures should be working together.
9. See if they take the bait!

AAAAAA

I've got the package in hand and am going to try it this weekend. Even if you don't usually use miniatures, who could resist opening up the "sealed deck" adventure?

Clever Rules Fade Away

After a languid summer I'm ready to enter the home stretch and put the final touches on my 52 Pages house rules. Scrap Princess' review reminded me that there is always a gap between the clever system you think up at home and what actually goes down at the table. Indeed, I had some stuff in there that bore little resemblance to the way I actually play, like the "encounter start" matrix that was my substitute for surprise rolls.  So I managed to boil it down to be more like guidelines than rules, and more like what I'll actually do in play - figure out the surprise status by common sense, with maybe a roll for alertness if I'm unsure of the disposition of the defenders.

Likewise for my magical treasure table, which caused some puzzlement when it first came out. I decided to make it more straightforward and more geared toward low levels - appropriately for the "Basic" style levels 1-3 focus in the 52 Pages. I might make the main treasure table more straightforward too.

Finally, I had an insight about combat where I could get it down to fewer phases if I realized that combat should go with the most urgent stuff first - not in the order that you might think things happen. So, melee first and disengaging, then shoot, magic and move, and miscellaneous stuff at the end of the round. To handle the weird gamesmanship and panzerbush situations that might arise I allowed "overwatch" to happen so you can shoot the charging guy at close range while he is charging you. In a surprise situation, by the way, you can move first then melee.

Oh and yeah, I got rid of the grid. I still play that way but I'm pretty happy with a system that looks more spacious on the page and asks people to think about the dimensions of the fight rather than necessarily making them plot it all out.

And I've made a start on the example campaign, dungeon, and play session that round out the last four pages. So some of that soon, I'm hoping.

Surprise Revised

Frankly, I've never been that satisfied with this presentation of my 52 Pages surprise system. 

Just as a recap, this replaces the traditional "surprise roll" with a random determination of both parties' state of alertness, and then proceeds to play out the consequences logically. It assumes that monsters who surprise the party will have set up an ambush or approached them by stealth, giving the chance to detect such an approach; while if the party surprises the monsters, this means they have caught them out at a distracted moment, and the monsters have likewise failed to detect their approach.

The improvements below:

1. The party is now assumed to be alert or aware at all times when it matters during an adventure, eliminating one of the dice rolls and giving them a little more assumed agency over their actions. Keep in mind this is a rule set made for levels 1-3 and primarily dungeon adventures. The wilderness (Expert 52) rules will have more possibilities for the party to be distracted during a journey. Elsewhere in the rules I'll detail penalties for party members who don't rest. Of course, sleep is a need, too. Can we assume that a DM will figure out that a party member who is searching or otherwise engaged is "distracted"? Maybe not...

2. The graphic presentation is a little more clear, lining up the different levels of awareness and disturbance more closely together.
3. Going from an 8 sider to a 6 sider scale, the system is simpler with little loss of precision, and as a bonus you can roll up alertness more easily for large groups given the typical dice collection.

One Page Surprise

I never have been happy with the d6 surprise roll. I found its interaction with various incarnations of spotting, hearing and stealth skills unclear. So when last I posted on this topic, I stood by my preference to work out these situation in an analog rather than digital way - that is, to take the facts of the situation and determine who becomes aware of whom and when, rather than roll a die for a numeric result.

Well, for the rules I'm currently playing by that has worked fine, but I suspected there would be a fairly easy digital way to treat alertness and disturbance as playing against each other, while at the same time bringing party  and enemy alertness under the same system. The key is to realize that in spite of all their disadvantages in an adventuring environment - light, noise, unfamiliarity - intruders have one definite advantage, which is that they are very aware as they advance into new surroundings.

Picture an ogre's lair in the dungeon. I mean, what does he do all night when he's not hunting? He's used to the setting, he's intimidated or made peace with the surrounding monsters. He's not going to be sitting on a stool staring into the corridor for hours on end.

If the reaction tables and possibility of parley are one rule that serves to soften the blow of easy mortality in old-school settings, having an alertness table adds a further potential advantage for the party. What would you do if you came upon a sleeping giant? Would the surprise round be enough? Would you be smart enough to think up some Lilliputian tricks to press your advantage, as Odysseus did?

Then, the smart adventure designer will think about the giant. Perhaps he's aware of his vulnerability when he sleeps, and has a goblin or a watchdog as protection. The Homeric lesson about the Cyclops is that as solitary sociopaths, they are vulnerable to the efforts of men working together. Perhaps your setting's monsters have a similar flaw?

Anyway, here's the procedure. We can assume that normal monsters have a 1 in 6 chance to hear noise, move stealthily and  notice hidden people, going up for certain types such as bugbears.

Surprise

When two groups meet by chance in classic D&D games, there is a chance for each to surprise the other. Breaking it down, what factors might be going into this?

• Lack of awareness: One side might have lost attention - sleeping, eating, reading, sexing. One side might be blind and deaf in its environment, like a lightless swimmer under dark waters.
• Lack of concealment: One side is giving itself away - taking light into the dark, noise into the silence, laughing, gambling, brawling.
• Exceptional awareness:  One side might be waiting by the door to ambush oncomers all day and all night. One side might have ESP, or heat vision, or elven ears.
• Exceptional concealment: One side might be hiding behind a rock, on the ceiling; invisible.

The typical situation of a party going into the dungeon is gross lack of concealment, with naked lamps and clanking armor; but high vigilance; forging on into unknown territory.

The typical situation of bored watchmen is of greater concealment, but lower vigilance. Undead watchmen are more vigilant. Gambling, shouting watchmen are less concealed.

Nope. No dice roll needed.

Most surprise situations can be resolved by detailed enough setting notes about what the guards are up to, whether the vampire is stalking prey or playing the pipe organ, whether the spider is hiding in the webs or scuttling along the floor. For situations where the DM wants more spontaneity, a monster vigilance roll might be needed to see whether the monsters are in a position to ambush, or are giving away their own position. The chance to spot the ambush can be handled as a passive perception check (spotting, plus listening if the ambushers are moving). If the ambushing party has a hide skill and successfully uses it, the perception check gets more difficult.

To determine the enemy's disposition randomly, roll 1d6 for each individual, up to 5; the remaining individuals have similar profiles to the 5 rolls already made, in the order rolled.

Undisciplined groups and individuals:
1: vigilant; 2-3: distracted; 4: distracted and making noise; 5-6: asleep.

Disciplined groups and individuals: 

1: ambushing already; 2-3: vigilant; 4: distracted; 5-6: asleep (at least one member of a disciplined group of 2 or more will be vigilant)

Predators:
1-2: ambushing already; 3-4: vigilant; 5-6 asleep.

Inhuman: 

1-2: ambushing already; 3-6 vigilant.

Non-intelligent:
Vigilant to the range of their senses, unless in a situation to ambush (such as an ooze dropping from above.)

Example: Our group approaches a right turn in the passage, torches blazing. 100 feet down the corridor is an open guardroom where three undisciplined kobolds are lounging. Will the kobolds hear the clank of armor and see the reflection of light on the wall? The roll for the trio is 1, 6, 6, and the signs of the party approaching are pretty blatant, so the one vigilant kobold notices without having to roll, and scuttles over to shake and wake the other sleeping two.

This makes a much quieter noise (but can't be seen)  so I give the two party members in front a secret roll on their d6-based listen skills, one has a listen skill of 1 and the other has 2. The one with 2 rolls a 2 and hears some scuttling, faint groaning and whispering ahead and to the right. Round 1 is over.

Round 2, the party stops, hides the torch behind a shield and sends their infravision-having, non-clanking dwarf to look down the passage. The vision only goes 30' so he sees nothing but passage. His listen skill is also a bare 1, but he rolls it, so he hears some more noises of blades being drawn, buckles being buckled, and footsteps. The kobolds are arming themselves. At this point, if a party member with a fast move and a torch were to run screaming ahead, he would probably catch the two dressing kobolds, if not the vigilant one, by surprise. But no, they go cautiously. And the kobolds get one more move, unheard, to set up their ambush in the corner of the guardroom just right of where the passage comes in.

After a couple of rounds creeping down the passage in full defense mode, the party reaches the entrance of the guardroom, then state that they will swing out quickly and attack to the sides. Because they are wresting surprise back from the kobolds (at some risk to themselves!) I deny the kobolds the surprise attack they would have gotten, and normal initiative is rolled.

If the players had not shown guts like that, though, I would have judged the kobolds to be perfectly hidden behind the corner, so the front right member must make two successful rolls to "notice detail" (my proxy skill for reacting quickly to a visual stimulus) in order to deny the surprise attack prior to initiative.

The moral? Time is not always on the party's side; and the cautious approach won't always give the best results. This insight is the best cure for over-cautious party creep I know.

Vigilance

Alexis recently asked an excellent question: how realistic are the "standing orders" players give DMs about the attention and discipline of their characters in the game? The example he gave was when players claim that their characters keep to a perfect fighting formation during an eight-hour hike. But this could easily be extended to other common claims:

"By default, we are always checking carefully for traps ahead of us."
"Here is our standard procedure to deal with opening a door ..."
"Just to let you know, every time we stay in an inn we post watches, sleep in our armor, and spike the door."

But in reality, how good is human attention? Not that great. Psychologists have found that vigilance and self-control are limited resources, easily depleted. The tough part, though, is making this limited resource an interesting factor in an adventure game.

Some DMs just work with the standing order. Like DMs who overlook encumbrance, they eliminate player decisions about attention as a resource, in order to simplify play. This kind of game assumes a certain amount of vigilance at all times that's a baseline for trap detection rolls, surprise checks, and other such tests of passive perception. It also requires the DM to hold the line and not let players achieve any greater vigilance even if they swear up and down they are being extra-careful. That chance to be surprised, to miss a trap or a secret door, represents the weakness of the characters' attention, just as the chance to surprise represents the weakness of their foes' attention.

Some DMs use "player skill" to simulate character vigilance. "If you do it, you have to say it." This means that player boredom substitutes for character boredom. If the ritual of verbally checking every square foot of space becomes too tedious for the player, that simulates the character slipping up. Although consistent with the Old School dogma of substituting player skill for rules, I'm not convinced that this one meets the ultimate criterion of gaming - fun - in the same way that using player skill for problem solving and social interaction would. Taken to the extreme, this method puts optimal play for survival at odds with enjoyment and spontaneity. It is really only feasible, as I see it, under a regime where the DM avoids placing meaningless "zap traps" and hidden compartments everywhere. Player skill becomes more meaningful when there are clues to when players should be alert, and demonstrated safe or boring spaces where they don't have to be alert.

Player skill also becomes more meaningful when there are in-game choices to be made. Just requiring a "say it to do it" approach to attention doesn't really work because it trades an out-of-game resource (time and interest) for an in-game resource (safety). In computer games this kind of tradeoff is known as "grinding." What in-game resources, though, can be traded for vigilance?

The classic answer is "game time." Searching high and low as you proceed eats up time in the game, and there are many ways to make time count. Ticking scenario clocks, wandering monster checks, and rival parties are just a few of the most popular. Time pressure, in fact, is one of the most effective force multipliers for the bad guys, forcing risks that a smart party would not ordinarily take.

A more intriguing possibility, but one I've never seen implemented in any gaming system, is to treat attention as the limited resource it is. Optimal play of an adventure game typically places no value on the characters being able to relax in a space they consider safe, let alone any other creature comforts. As a result, power gamers run their characters as ascetic paranoiacs, always ready for battle, always "looking carefully for traps" even in the privy of the local tavern. In reality, someone with this attitude would be at risk for some kind of stress disorder.

A rough model for a mental resource game system might involve the following:

• Each character has 2 hours of sustained vigilance in them for any 4-hour waking period, plus or minus a half hour for each point of Wisdom bonus or penalty they have. 
• Vigilance is consumed by attending carefully in any given direction. If advancing while scanning for both near and far dangers (i.e. traps and potential foes ahead), it is consumed at double time. Players should keep records of whether their characters are vigilant or not, and the time consumed this way.
• Staying vigilant beyond the basic time is possible, but incurs a "debt" of negative hours - stress, if you will - which can only be recouped in an area seen as completely safe. So, if you are staying in an inn and posting watch overnight, that doesn't count because the party is not treating the area as safe. 
• Consequences of vigilance debt can include temporary loss of Intelligence, Dexteriy and Charisma - one point per point in debt - and perhaps even random insanity-like symptoms when the negative debt reaches an amount equal to the original number of hours.

I'll leave it to the comments and maybe another post to discuss the merits and flaws of such a system, and how exactly vigilance - however ruled or defined - might interact with randomly determined surprise.