From: educ@unixg.ubc.ca (Vicki Domansky)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Fortifying a hideout/lair
Date: 22 Jan 1993 18:22:04 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca

I'm starting to work on an idea for a tournament adventure that is a
bit unusual, and I would appreciate any comments or ideas.  Basically the
players will be given characters and a location of their "hideout" or
"lair".  A detailed map and description of the location and
surrounding area will be provided.  Then the players will have
(probably) a half hour real time to spend fortifying & supplying their
hideout, which will be something like a bandit's hideout in a cave
somewhere.  It will be assumed that any potential trouble will know
the general vicinity of the hideout and who is there, but not know
what to expect when they get there.  Imagination, ingenuity and
planning will be crucial to the players' survival.  And the characters and
their situation (which I won't elaborate on here) are going to be
rather unusual and will greatly affect how they go about their defense.

Fortifying the hideout might include camouflage of the entrance,
traps of a mechanical nature (I'm not currently intending to give the
players access to magic, though I might change my mind), where they
will store their various weapons, supplies, etc.  This is one of my
more major problems.  Traps and other modifications to the cave will
require stone work of some sort and I need to come up with a method of
limiting, or at least standardizing, the maximum amount of
modifications that each party will be able to do.  My thought was to
come up with a rough amount of time it would take to work one square
foot of stone (i.e. 1/2 day) then give each party a week/month/etc.
game time in which to finish their construction, thus giving them a
maximum amount of stone work they could reasonably do.  But of course
I am not a stone mason and have no idea the time that would be
involved in something like this.  Any ideas? It doesn't have to be
accurate, just reasonable. 

Then it will come to supplying themselves.  They will have unlimited
access to the area's natural resources, which will include a water
source (probably a small stream), tons of stone :-) and a nearby
forest.  It will be assumed that they all the tools required to work
with these resources.  Water will be unlimited assuming they have not
diverted their water source.  They will have food stores sufficient to
last probably 2 weeks, maybe more.  After that, if they are unable to
leave to hunt for food they will be in trouble.  Armor and basic
weapons will be appropriate for their characters and will likely be
non-magical (basically magic is unlikely at all :-)  Then I had
thought to give them basically unlimited access to whatever other
supplies they wanted, including additional weaponry if necessary,
excepting magic, technology or firearms.  And probably with a maximum
cost for any given item.  But even that will probably lead to all sort of
abuses *sigh* so comments on potential problems would be appreciated.

Basically I am hoping to keep the planning stage to a minimum,
preferably about a half hour, though I'm not sure it will work out
that way. Then (of course!) the expected attack(s) will occur and the
players will have to defend themselves with the resources and
fortifications at hand.

Any comments?  Does it sound playable in a 4 hour session?  I know
some people who could spend 4 hours plus just in designing the
fortifications, so the time limit will need to be strictly enforced,
and team work will be a must.  Any team that argues will get nothing done
and be totally unprepared for the attack when it comes.  And there will be
"roleplaying" in it as well.  The characters I have in mind are as I
mentioned before rather unusual and should add a rather humorous slant
to the scenario.

I would prefer any comments be sent to me directly as some of you
might actually be at the convention where I will be running it :-) 

Thanks in advance,

Vicki
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd