Example Input - Investigations & Gimping

[bryce0lynch]

I hate T, F, Sa, Su. I'm supposed to write all day. I hate 'supposed to.'

On the plus side, I lost five pounds this week. I credit drinking a six pack every two days. Also carrot shiribishi for lunch (the local grocery had no dashi stock, mirin, or kurao-wahever! Can you image! I had to use sake!), 6 chicken wings for dinner, and a two hour bike ride each day.

OK, I should go write something else now.


Investigations 1

Gygax himself started this mess, with The Keep on the Borderlands having skeletons wearing amulets that make them harder to turn. Both gimping the players AND suffering from the sin of explaining WHY something is the way it is.

Let us move to a more typical example. “An adventure for levels 10-15” states the cover. A dungeon, with a dragon at the end of it! A dungeon, in which all of the walls are lined with lead that prevent all forms of scrying , from psionics to magic spells to magic items. The adventure also states, of course, the lead lined walls block transformation spells like rock to mud, stone shape, and passwall. The designer REALLY wants the party to walk down the hallway so his traps can be sprung on them. Oh, yes, the dungeon walls also have the blood of magical creatures mixed in to them to prevent ethereal movement through the wall. And, there’s a super duper spell that prevents and/or gives off false readings to all detect spells … no detecting evil, magic or traps in this dungeon. Also, the thieves ability to find raps with they eyeballs is lowered by half, because of the same spell.

It’s clear what the designer had in mind. You will walk down the hallway and experience every trap and encounter. You will not skip encounters. You will not use your skill as a player, or the powers your character has earned, to skip things or better of the creatures. You will make savings throws and you will fight the creatures one on one.

It’s clear that this adventure should have been written for a lower level group is the designer was so concerned about the party experiencing the dungeon one room at a time, just as they had written it. Either lower the level or let the party do what they will … every passwall spell used is one lightning bolt that the wizard can’t toss. This is the balance inherent in almost every RPG: you can use cheat mode on the current situation … but at the expense of having less resources deeper in to the adventure.

Investigation 2
And Fifth Edition Adventure for four Seventh level PC’s, says the cover. Imagine a cliff, a thousand feet high. Clinging to the front of it is a set of stairs, alternating back and forth via landgings until the top is reached. The party must get to the top of the cliff. As the party climbs the stairs they will have various encounters from the creatures that live on and around the stairs. The adventure is the stairs. Therefore, the designer has decreed that there will be no wall-climbing, flying, levitation, or grav boots allowed! For there are traps all up and down the cliff that detect if someone is passing them by and go off. The traps, of course, don’t go off if you use the stairs. You will experience the adventure the way the designer intended you to … with none of those pesky abilities the party earned getting in the way!

It should be obvious by now how this relates to adversarial design and railroading. Generally the DM wants the party to be engaged and thinking creatively. “The answer is not on the character sheet”, as they say. Except, of course, when the designer of the adventure has decreed the answer to be on the character sheet. This adventure was designed for too high a level. Or, the designer could have integrated an environment in which, while the party could fly/climb/levitate/grav-boot, there were other more natural reasons while they would choose not to.

Investigation 3
Congratulation, you completed your last mission! As a reward, your patron is taking you out on his boat, along with some of his friends, to celebrate. During a three hour tour on a pleasure boat with a ton of guests, one of the guests on the ship is … MURDERED! Duh DUh DUh! Adventure calls! Quick! To the Poirot-mobile! An adventure for level 4 of 5th edition.

The designer in this adventure specifically calls out, in a sidebar, the issue with magic in D&D and how it clases with murder mysteries. He notes, specifically, that Speaking with the Dead shouldn’t be an issue since it’s too high a level, and even if they could, the first two victims didn’t see who did it. Not bad! Of course, the villain also has a ring of mind shielding and then also has a special ability that lets him automatically make his saves against anyone casting a detect lie spell.

At this point we have to ask … why? At some point the designer breaks the social contract with the players. They understand that the game world has certain rules. By giving the villain sixteen different ways to avoid detection of his foul intent the designer is breaking that contract, no matter the level of the adventure and no matter how powerful the villain. The suspension of disbelief is gone, the buy in is gone, the players roll their eyes, sigh, and say “Whatever” and endure the adventure till its end.

 

[Palindromedary]

I might clarify that there's a difference between the campaign and the adventure in this regard: that it's perfectly okay to say that Speak with Dead or Flight or whatever doesn't exist as part of your campaign world, and perhaps that's where your adventure came out of. However, an adventure is being plopped onto the plate of dozens or hundreds of different campaigns, and they almost certainly won't have those same rules. There's nothing wrong with making changes facilitating a more mystery-oriented campaign, so that you can have fantasy Poirot and Miss Marples running around stabbing ne'er-do-wells in the face instead of hauling them off to the constabulary, but you can't assume that anyone else has done the same, and no amount of design notes sidebarring or the like explaining that this is what it's like at your home table is going to prevent the feeling that players suddenly being dropped into this new set of ground rules will have of being cheated.

The exception is if the transition to a new set of ground rules is clearly telegraphed. Ravenloft works (for those that it works for) because in comes *the mists* and very quickly players realize that they're not in Kansas anymore: the rules of the game have changed, and everybody knows it. If your adventure can telegraph that same fact in some way, then certain options can be easily disallowed via the new reality. At the same time, there's a thin line between "this is bullshit" and "this is bullshit but I did warn you a bit ahead of time": just because you can come up with an internally-consistent backstory for why all scrying magic is disabled and broadcast that to the players doesn't mean that you haven't just wound up with the same effect as just blanket ruling it illegal. It's better if this is done in a subtler fashion, such as a temple to the powers of the paraelemental plane of ice negating all fire magic within. Such an approach negates one element of the players' tool chest and forces them to employ alternates, but the point is that there are alternates. This contrasts with a scenario where both the main path and all alternates are closed off.

 

[Beoric]

In a world where spells like Speak with Dead are known to exist, would-be murderers would contrive mundane methods to defeat them. Attacking from hiding and/or disguising oneself should be pretty much a given.

I also note that, depending on edition, a lot of these spells have limitations that DMs and players tend to forget, and you can also mitigate their use by having more apparent opportunities to use them than the PCs have spell slots. Detect Lie and similar spells are often of short duration, and can be defeated by stalling once the character thinks the spell has been cast. Also, in a typical murder mystery, all of the suspects have secrets, so all of them will be lying about something.

I also agree with @Palindromedary that the rules are allowed to be changed in the Mythic Underworld, provided that in most instances the changes should affect both the PCs and team monster.

 

[The1True]

I get what's being said about using magic as a lazy design crutch to railroad through a predetermined gauntlet but, like I've said at least twice in previous threads; if my high level PC, particularly a wizard, were to build a stronghold I will have seen it all by that point and being quite paranoid would build suitable defences to counter high-level attacks. If my PC can do it, why the hell wouldn't the lich lord shield at least his inner sanctum against scrying, teleportation and other easily anticipated weasel-dickery?

Also, feeling a little defencive here; but my 1000' tree with platforms and ladders does make flying unpleasant in hopes of encouraging climbing the trunk but explicitly does not make it impossible and offers up a 'canopy crawl' for PC's who take a shortcut into the upper foliage. I don't feel bad about giving the PC's a nudge in a particular direction as long as there are options if they instead choose to use all the tools at their disposal to take a different route... Players often feel paralyzed due to option saturation. It's helpful to show them where the main road is as long as there's at least some procedural material or semi-detailed ancillary options available if they decide to forge their own path.

 

[Beoric]

I get what's being said about using magic as a lazy design crutch to railroad through a predetermined gauntlet but, like I've said at least twice in previous threads; if my high level PC, particularly a wizard, were to build a stronghold I will have seen it all by that point and being quite paranoid would build suitable defences to counter high-level attacks. If my PC can do it, why the hell wouldn't the lich lord shield at least his inner sanctum against scrying, teleportation and other easily anticipated weasel-dickery?

I think in part it depends on the implied cost, especially with an early edition implied setting where making permanent magic items is hard and expensive. The example Bryce always uses is the (IIRC dozens of) anti-turning amulets in B2. Also, fairness, if the villains have access to these resources but high level PCs are not able to secure their own strongholds.

Also, not wanting to negate your players' achievements in making it to high level, or (in later editions) their choices of options. Although I don't have a big problem with specific limitations that don't make a spell/option entirely pointless; not being able to teleport into an area isn't so bad if you can still teleport near the area (avoiding days/week or travel/random encounters), or teleport out of the area (if the party gets into trouble). I always felt the best answer to scry-and-die was to make the scrying sensor near-sighted and a bit distorted, preventing getting a good enough view of the whole area to do teleports.

Also, feeling a little defencive here; but my 1000' tree with platforms and ladders does make flying unpleasant in hopes of encouraging climbing the trunk but explicitly does not make it impossible and offers up a 'canopy crawl' for PC's who take a shortcut into the upper foliage. I don't feel bad about giving the PC's a nudge in a particular direction as long as there are options if they instead choose to use all the tools at their disposal to take a different route... Players often feel paralyzed due to option saturation. It's helpful to show them where the main road is as long as there's at least some procedural material or semi-detailed ancillary options available if they decide to forge their own path.

I consider strong wind to be a reasonable nerf to flying, especially since it does not have to be a complete prohibition. On the other hand, the anti-flying/anti-climbing traps on the cliff face Bryce uses in his example do seem heavy handed and arbitrary (seriously, you make traps for fliers and climbers but not against people using the stairs?), not to mention costly in resources (every one requires a permanent magical proximity sensor).

However I take issue with your suggestion that magic nerfs are constraints that help the players. In your example in particular, the existence of ladders provides pretty good direction on its own.

 

[The1True]

However I take issue with your suggestion that magic nerfs are constraints that help the players. In your example in particular, the existence of ladders provides pretty good direction on its own.

Yeah, sorry, lack of context. There's no magic nerfs. Flying PC's get shot at by ballista crews and mobbed by birds. They can still take their chances that they won't get hit and will be able to evade or duke it out with the birds, or just fly up into the canopy out of range of the tree trunk. The nudge comes when players see a flying NPC dodge the ballista but then get mobbed by birds at which point they should understand the paradigm of the adventure is to climb the trunk somehow and now have the choice to work within or without that framework. The adventure isn't ruined if the PC's don't want to follow the path, but the path is clearly marked if the players just want to go for a ride.

 

[Palindromedary]

I think an easy way to measure whether you've moved from reasonable anticipation to frustrating gimpery is in the probable reaction of the players. A inhabited lich's lair is an occupied defensive structure, and the expectation of defenses will be higher as a result. There's something inside, and it doesn't want to be got, and it's only logical that it would prepare for the obvious fantasy approaches. In such a case I'd expect players to say, "makes sense". In fact, they might even critique you if you didn't take those precautions.

The1True's forest hideout example is I think a good design approach to this because again, it's built along certain logical lines, but at the same time it doesn't outright forbid alternate approaches, which is the design trap Bryce's examples were illustrating and I was talking about. A more difficult path for logical purposes is always better than "you just can't do it, period", and is in it's own way classic: "we'll attack there: they'll never expect it because they think it can't be done". Call it the Ardennes Gambit.

I'd also argue that you can only play the "well, it's logical, you see" card so many times. It's fundamentally an argument rooted in perceptions of realism rather than gameplay, and emphasizing the first at the expense of the second often leads to a GM feeling good about their heightened verisimilitude levels while their players are annoyed at the resulting bullshit gameplay effect. After a while the logical conclusion to constantly shutting down abilities, no matter how grounded in the milieu, is "these abilities are useless", and the player reaction goes from "that's a fair cop" to "how convenient". If you insist on a realism counterargument to "of course they would prepare for logical approaches", rather than a gameplay-based one, logical steps aren't always taken, because of cost, because of time, because of outside factors. And sometimes defenses break down over time after brick crumbles and wood rots (or the magic fades).

I think a designer should ask themselves, "am I trying to make an accurate depiction of this fantasy location, or am I just trying to make things hard for the players?" And then they should follow up with, "how many times have I played this realism card now, and has it always been at the players' expense?"

 

[The1True]

After a while the logical conclusion to constantly shutting down abilities, no matter how grounded in the milieu, is "these abilities are useless"

I'm currently playing in (I think?) the endgame scenario for the Ptolus campaign. It's an 18th lvl dungeon I'm assuming of Monte Cook's creation. He's got the usual 'the keep on the upper spire is in a demi-plane so you can't teleport in or out' bullshit, but to our surprise we found a fissure in the floor of a room about half way up which if you dig down, you can now use to port in and out of the dungeon. There's also a dark lord's mask artifact that seems to allow similar freedom of movement, but we're pretty sure wearing it puts you under the dark lord's power. We yoinked it off one of his key lieutenants.

To temper high level divination, there's a 'blight' effect where the more you use divination (and the higher the level of the spell) the more of this shadowy blight you accumulate around yourself. It's only visible to True Seeing and Detect Evil. It's pretty alarming when you first discover it. It's not completely nerfing divination, but it puts a price on it. We're not sure what happens if you accumulate too much of it, but we suspect enslavement by the dark lord or at least increased vulnerability to his powers. Not bad.

The usual 'the dungeon is suffused with evil so your Detect Evil vision is all blown out' ass is in effect. Honestly that's happened so much to us (it was worse in Rappan Athuk) that we don't even get mad about it anymore... Ditto for dungeons with Unhallow effects that crank up the Undead's defences against turning. I seriously don't recall enjoying an unmodified Turn roll in any recent dungeon.

 

[Beoric]

I'm currently playing in (I think?) the endgame scenario for the Ptolus campaign. It's an 18th lvl dungeon I'm assuming of Monte Cook's creation. He's got the usual 'the keep on the upper spire is in a demi-plane so you can't teleport in or out' bullshit, but to our surprise we found a fissure in the floor of a room about half way up which if you dig down, you can now use to port in and out of the dungeon. There's also a dark lord's mask artifact that seems to allow similar freedom of movement, but we're pretty sure wearing it puts you under the dark lord's power. We yoinked it off one of his key lieutenants.

To temper high level divination, there's a 'blight' effect where the more you use divination (and the higher the level of the spell) the more of this shadowy blight you accumulate around yourself. It's only visible to True Seeing and Detect Evil. It's pretty alarming when you first discover it. It's not completely nerfing divination, but it puts a price on it. We're not sure what happens if you accumulate too much of it, but we suspect enslavement by the dark lord or at least increased vulnerability to his powers. Not bad.

The usual 'the dungeon is suffused with evil so your Detect Evil vision is all blown out' ass is in effect. Honestly that's happened so much to us (it was worse in Rappan Athuk) that we don't even get mad about it anymore... Ditto for dungeons with Unhallow effects that crank up the Undead's defences against turning. I seriously don't recall enjoying an unmodified Turn roll in any recent dungeon.

Even the "light" examples here feel contrived.

 

[EOTB]

This is where NPC design often fails bedrock/functional roleplaying (even while a DM who’s not very good at NPC design extols performative roleplaying).

You have a place; the place offers natural advantages and disadvantages. Then you have an NPC; they’ve unique and limited:

• skill set
• resources
• personality
• goal(s)

All of these should interplay with the Place to create a distinctive challenge. One that knowing the DM well, and acting on that, is only a handicap. (Instead of enforcing “don’t read me” recast as “metagaming is bad”)

No, a scenario built on functional roleplaying really shouldn’t make sense very often. Unless people observed by you, and their actions/decisions, nearly always make sense. (And if so, I would suggest playing D&D as a time investment doesn’t make sense if having that talent.)

Most DMs can’t separate themselves from their creation to allow it to not make sense, like it should if it were sensibly nonsensical.

 

[The1True]

Even the "light" examples here feel contrived.

???

 

[The1True]

All of these should interplay with the Place to create a distinctive challenge. One that knowing the DM well, and acting on that, is only a handicap. (Instead of enforcing “don’t read me” recast as “metagaming is bad”)

No, a scenario built on functional roleplaying really shouldn’t make sense very often. Unless people observed by you, and their actions/decisions, nearly always make sense. (And if so, I would suggest playing D&D as a time investment doesn’t make sense if having that talent.)

Most DMs can’t separate themselves from their creation to allow it to not make sense, like it should if it were sensibly nonsensical.

Sorry man, can you unpack this a little more? Is this two different statements?
In particular I don't understand what you're saying with: (Instead of enforcing “don’t read me” recast as “metagaming is bad”)

and I just want to be sure that what you're saying with the second statement is that the actions of NPC's or their powers should sometimes just not make sense and that's okay? Which I'm totally down for; except it's a bitch when players want to figure it out for themselves. Like "cool, so the Mutated Cultlord had a third arm which could cast one extra MU spell/rnd on top of his Clr abilities? How do I make that happen for my own character?" Usually the answer "Because I say so" or "Because that's just how it is" is enough, but sometimes PC's, particularly high level ones, want to counter or even reproduce these effects and "1000 years of casting Wish/Miracle every day" isn't always a satisfactory answer.

 

[EOTB]

In my opinion and experience, most DMs build scenarios according to "what makes sense". They are their own frame of reference for "what makes sense". Stuff not making sense to them in other works was a flaw to be avoided in their own work.

But it treads near to solipsism to think that what makes sense to yourself, makes sense absolutely. And yet most people do exactly this in their daily lives - apply a first filter of "what makes sense to me" - and transfer that to their approach to the game as well.

So any gamer who's also a good poker player can quickly mitigate their in-game risk by using the filter of what that DM would think makes sense. You don't need to think about the NPC, because all NPCs agree with the DM about what makes sense. DMs fixated about what makes sense have the most tells. DMs who worry about what makes sense also strongly correlate to those who are Very Concerned about metagaming; discouraging metagaming conceptually also nearly removes "playing the DM" from the table experience.

However, metagaming becomes its own challenge as DM variance increases. People surprise each other all the time because we don't think alike. A good DM will separate to a great degree their own tendencies from everything they create. The easiest way to do that is the "place; augmented by a 'person'; using their skillset; according to their personality; filtered through furthering their goals" approach - note this is nearly independent of any DM knowledge of the players, or the players' likely approach to solving a given problem; paradoxically, it is the DM attempting to reserve metagaming to themselves that makes it so easy to accomplish as a player (if having particular talents or skills).

If the DM allows the place-person-skills-personality-goals plinko chip to fall all the way to the bottom by itself, the path it takes will nearly always include some aspects a given DM would think nonsensical, inefficient, unlikely to succeed (or perhaps unfairly likely to succeed), etc. However, if these are left in place, metagaming takes its proper role where the player is metagaming the NPC (which requires them to figure out the NPC) instead of the DM. DMs shouldn't discourage metagaming the NPC because this requires players interacting deeply with the game world to gain enough relevant information to successfully accomplish.

Like "cool, so the Mutated Cultlord had a third arm which could cast one extra MU spell/rnd on top of his Clr abilities? How do I make that happen for my own character?" Usually the answer "Because I say so" or "Because that's just how it is" is enough, but sometimes PC's, particularly high level ones, want to counter or even reproduce these effects and "1000 years of casting Wish/Miracle every day" isn't always a satisfactory answer.

This is just random mutation, instead of being nonsensical. In your daily life, are you surprised by the actions and choices of others? I know I am, often. And yet they don't have third arms.

 

[Beoric]

???

I mean the examples you give from Ptolus seem a bit contrived to me; the environment seems not to exist as its own thing, but rather as a way of enforcing the game experience intended by the adventure writer. Like he started with the game experience he was going for, and bolted on adjustments to the environment to make it fit. For example, the fissure seems like a way of bolting a low level secret passage game element onto a high level dungeon - although I acknowledge it may seem more organic in context.

 

[The Heretic]

Sorry man, can you unpack this a little more?

Oh good, I'm not the only one having trouble following what EOTB is trying to say in that post.

 

[The Heretic]

If the DM allows the place-person-skills-personality-goals plinko chip to fall all the way to the bottom by itself, the path it takes will nearly always include some aspects a given DM would think nonsensical, inefficient, unlikely to succeed (or perhaps unfairly likely to succeed), etc. However, if these are left in place, metagaming takes its proper role where the player is metagaming the NPC (which requires them to figure out the NPC) instead of the DM. DMs shouldn't discourage metagaming the NPC because this requires players interacting deeply with the game world to gain enough relevant information to successfully accomplish.

Can you provide some examples of this? I think I get what you're trying to say but having an example or two would be illuminating.

 

[The1True]

"place; augmented by a 'person'; using their skillset; according to their personality; filtered through furthering their goals"

Very cool. This sounds like something that should be included with all major NPC's in the description.

This is just random mutation, instead of being nonsensical. In your daily life, are you surprised by the actions and choices of others? I know I am, often. And yet they don't have third arms.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't sure what you were talking about. It's like reading old viking sagas or Greek myths where the heroes often take actions or make alliances that seem insane or even evil to the modern reader. It takes some DM chops to step into that mindset.

 

[The1True]

I mean the examples you give from Ptolus seem a bit contrived to me; the environment seems not to exist as its own thing, but rather as a way of enforcing the game experience intended by the adventure writer. Like he started with the game experience he was going for, and bolted on adjustments to the environment to make it fit. For example, the fissure seems like a way of bolting a low level secret passage game element onto a high level dungeon - although I acknowledge it may seem more organic in context.

It's an 18th lvl dungeon. We ported in by locating an ancient artifact. We always knew we'd be playing by the lich lord's rules when the time came. The limitations were well broadcast and not total. We can cast divination for a price and we can teleport in and out if we're willing to pay a price or look for solutions. Obviously we can't scry the guy, that's just common darklord best-practices.

As for contrivance; if you're suggesting these limitations aren't backed up with working mechanics, this is 3e; I'm sure there's a page and a half of text somewhere explaining how all this got woven into the fortress that the DM mercifully spared us having to listen to. But I guess if my Arcane Mechanic wanted to go to town with his eye-wateringly high Knowledge Architecture and Arcana skills and figure out how this place is put together in order to chip away at or find a way around it's defences, the information is available. I'm choosing to play the adventure rather than hack it though.

I think I equate sci-fi shows like Star Trek to high level play. The crew of the Enterprise have all these godlike technologies at their disposal, but the real challenges come when they get robbed of communication with their massive information resources or cut off from their ability to instantly transport themselves into or out of danger and instead have to rely on their abilities and comprehensive training. Of course these limitations were introduced as a crutch for that episode, but that doesn't make them contrived.

 

[EOTB]

Can you provide some examples of this? I think I get what you're trying to say but having an example or two would be illuminating.

OK, so I'll use the lizard man lair I put into the saving throw magazine since that's "published". It's not a platonic ideal example, but I think it's still illustrative.

You have a triad of 3 main power brokers plus an outsider ally: Petsuchos the undead croc-man priest, Rhazar the new chief of the tribe, Zilakh his first-consort, and then Pitir the assassin.

Petsuchos is powerful, but on the bottom-rung of his hierarchy (increasing rank is his personal goal); he's tasked with subverting and organizing lizard man tribes (near-term goal). This tribe is his starting point because he identified a means in Rhazar to overthrow the existing primitive leadership. That accomplished, Petsuchos is focused on desecrating tribal sacred areas to complete the spiritual migration of the tribe to his devil patron (immediate goal).

Rhazar is strong but vain; his limited utility to Petsuchos' near-term goal already apparent. Rhazar's goals are more petty - to mate, strut, and slay; inspiring fear but not loyalty. He presumes he will be the leader of all these lizard men tribes once united. Rhazar has upgraded the tribe's mundane martial tech but such gains were at the expense of an altruistic spiritual/magical power anchored in the natural god of the lizard men.

Zilakh is also vain, and spiteful. Rhazar's post-accession taking of a harem degraded her own "new" position. Even though she's the daughter of the now-slain shaman, she's generally OK with all this change for one reason: Petsuchos introduced the concept of dynastic rule, which she desires for her children (her overriding, overwhelming goal). However, Rhazar then re-introduced potential complications to a dynastic succession with his appetites...

Pitir is on the outs with his former guild, and so moves constantly as a "merchant captain" of sorts. He's hooked in to the tribe through Rhazar, trading weapons and materials in exchange for gold/gems and slaves. Petsuchos recognized his evil and usefulness, and mobility, so he's also scouting locations of other tribes for Petsuchos in exchange for some magical trade Pitir hopes will weaken those with a price on his head.

So we have a swamp-lair. Given all the above, I modified the place to be very strongly defended by mundane means: it has a moat with submerged man-traps; the introduction of fire in defense; a tactical order of battle to the lizard men tailored to their species abilities and the training to pull it off with discipline. Those are Rhazar's modifications according to his skillset and personality. I also completely removed the spiritual/magical element a strong lizard man shaman would normally bring to lair defense.

This combination would be a surprise to any veteran players in my campaigns.

Petsuchos has added to the defenses somewhat with his undead crocodiles, but this is almost incidental - their primary purpose is to introduce an element of fear and intimidation to rank-and-file lizard men who might not be on board with getting rid of their native deity (of which there are several such lizard men). But he cares for the tribe as one would a tool, rather than an in-group, and he isn't focused on defense but instead supporting Razar's shaping them for offense while Petsuchos destroys the last connections they have with the god of lizard men. So there isn't any "combined arms" plan for defense; It's strongly over-balanced to only a fighter's methods.

If players are evil/selfish, there's some ways to strike up mutually beneficial relationships. The lizard men are pretty remote; the tribe is on an island which is the location shown on a treasure map. So it's not likely that strengthening them will hurt anywhere the players have interests in - in the medium term. And there's money to be made.

If the players are good, and discover the lair while following the treasure map, they may feel inclined to try and rescue the slaves held by the lizard men. If so, they have their hands full. A frontal assault will be very difficult. If the players routinely invest in non-combat magics, and can communicate, they can uncover the dissident element. But if they don't I will leave them to cracking the hard nut with the tools they choose.

The wild card is Zilakh, who'll be encountered only if the players choose to scout the area and find the whelp-pond. She knows rough common from her privileged upbringing as the shaman's daughter, and could help them rally dissidents against Petsuchos/Rhazar - but her first demand to the players will be slaughtering a small number of select lizard man whelps (her offspring's competition). This demand may seem nonsensical to the players, and as I was letting the plinko chip fall down I immediately thought of discarding it because I normally remove the entire "what do we do with the young'uns" debate from ever occurring. But in this case I let it stay because it's what that NPC needs to achieve her goals. But there's not a lot of time for questioning her about this. If they hesitate overlong a patrol will likely make any stealth advantage to be gained, moot. That offer will be gone and they're stuck with the frontal assault again.

Which is not weighted towards PC success. I've not run this myself (it was a quickly dashed-off submission to a charity effort), but I suspect if I did that any frontal assault would fail - which is fine. If the PCs are captured, survivors likely get sold to Pitir and have to somehow regain their freedom. If PCs manage to retreat, players likely brush it off and mentally move on to other seeds.

After the passage of some time a very large lizard man threat will emerge on the frontier. If the PCs get involved in that, they'll have a "reunion moment".

 

[Beoric]

OK, so I'll use the lizard man lair I put into the saving throw magazine since that's "published". It's not a platonic ideal example, but I think it's still illustrative.

You have a triad of 3 main power brokers plus an outsider ally: Petsuchos the undead croc-man priest, Rhazar the new chief of the tribe, Zilakh his first-consort, and then Pitir the assassin.

Petsuchos is powerful, but on the bottom-rung of his hierarchy (increasing rank is his personal goal); he's tasked with subverting and organizing lizard man tribes (near-term goal). This tribe is his starting point because he identified a means in Rhazar to overthrow the existing primitive leadership. That accomplished, Petsuchos is focused on desecrating tribal sacred areas to complete the spiritual migration of the tribe to his devil patron (immediate goal).

Rhazar is strong but vain; his limited utility to Petsuchos' near-term goal already apparent. Rhazar's goals are more petty - to mate, strut, and slay; inspiring fear but not loyalty. He presumes he will be the leader of all these lizard men tribes once united. Rhazar has upgraded the tribe's mundane martial tech but such gains were at the expense of an altruistic spiritual/magical power anchored in the natural god of the lizard men.

Zilakh is also vain, and spiteful. Rhazar's post-accession taking of a harem degraded her own "new" position. Even though she's the daughter of the now-slain shaman, she's generally OK with all this change for one reason: Petsuchos introduced the concept of dynastic rule, which she desires for her children (her overriding, overwhelming goal). However, Rhazar then re-introduced potential complications to a dynastic succession with his appetites...

Pitir is on the outs with his former guild, and so moves constantly as a "merchant captain" of sorts. He's hooked in to the tribe through Rhazar, trading weapons and materials in exchange for gold/gems and slaves. Petsuchos recognized his evil and usefulness, and mobility, so he's also scouting locations of other tribes for Petsuchos in exchange for some magical trade Pitir hopes will weaken those with a price on his head.

So we have a swamp-lair. Given all the above, I modified the place to be very strongly defended by mundane means: it has a moat with submerged man-traps; the introduction of fire in defense; a tactical order of battle to the lizard men tailored to their species abilities and the training to pull it off with discipline. Those are Rhazar's modifications according to his skillset and personality. I also completely removed the spiritual/magical element a strong lizard man shaman would normally bring to lair defense.

This combination would be a surprise to any veteran players in my campaigns.

Petsuchos has added to the defenses somewhat with his undead crocodiles, but this is almost incidental - their primary purpose is to introduce an element of fear and intimidation to rank-and-file lizard men who might not be on board with getting rid of their native deity (of which there are several such lizard men). But he cares for the tribe as one would a tool, rather than an in-group, and he isn't focused on defense but instead supporting Razar's shaping them for offense while Petsuchos destroys the last connections they have with the god of lizard men. So there isn't any "combined arms" plan for defense; It's strongly over-balanced to only a fighter's methods.

If players are evil/selfish, there's some ways to strike up mutually beneficial relationships. The lizard men are pretty remote; the tribe is on an island which is the location shown on a treasure map. So it's not likely that strengthening them will hurt anywhere the players have interests in - in the medium term. And there's money to be made.

If the players are good, and discover the lair while following the treasure map, they may feel inclined to try and rescue the slaves held by the lizard men. If so, they have their hands full. A frontal assault will be very difficult. If the players routinely invest in non-combat magics, and can communicate, they can uncover the dissident element. But if they don't I will leave them to cracking the hard nut with the tools they choose.

The wild card is Zilakh, who'll be encountered only if the players choose to scout the area and find the whelp-pond. She knows rough common from her privileged upbringing as the shaman's daughter, and could help them rally dissidents against Petsuchos/Rhazar - but her first demand to the players will be slaughtering a small number of select lizard man whelps (her offspring's competition). This demand may seem nonsensical to the players, and as I was letting the plinko chip fall down I immediately thought of discarding it because I normally remove the entire "what do we do with the young'uns" debate from ever occurring. But in this case I let it stay because it's what that NPC needs to achieve her goals. But there's not a lot of time for questioning her about this. If they hesitate overlong a patrol will likely make any stealth advantage to be gained, moot. That offer will be gone and they're stuck with the frontal assault again.

Which is not weighted towards PC success. I've not run this myself (it was a quickly dashed-off submission to a charity effort), but I suspect if I did that any frontal assault would fail - which is fine. If the PCs are captured, survivors likely get sold to Pitir and have to somehow regain their freedom. If PCs manage to retreat, players likely brush it off and mentally move on to other seeds.

After the passage of some time a very large lizard man threat will emerge on the frontier. If the PCs get involved in that, they'll have a "reunion moment".

If I understand, you are saying that the NPC's defensive decisions should be made in character using the NPC's available resources? Which approach I would fully endorse, BTW.