Lair Raid

Coin. Renown. Love. Vengeance.
These are just four.

What is Lair Raid?

This is a ruleset for your adventure games. It includes:

• dead simple rules that fit on a single printed page
• quick progression great for one-shot adventures
• mechanisms that reflect an old school play style

The entire ruleset is free and shown here -------------- A PDF & high-res image can be downloaded below for two bucks, along with a character sheet bookmark & .txt file.

Print these rules on US Letter-sized paper. Even just printing the images here onto opposite sides of one page should give you ample margins for your own notes.

Further Play & Resources

• DNGNGEN - Your lair awaits. You should use this one, though. This one's also good but try this one, too.
• World Engine - Surround your lair with a world worth exploring. Need a setting tonight? Look no further.
• Witch Bolt - Let music guide your steps.

Rules for magic - are in development, as is a bestiary and procedures for traps & treasure. For the sake of the jam, these rules will suffice.

Acknowledgements

• Nate Treme - For being the first whiff I got of how simple and cool all this could be, with Tunnel Goons.
• The Merry Mushmen - For publishing KNOCK! magazine so I can catch up on years of shit I missed. I hope some wisdom comes through in this game.
• Chris McDowall - For showing how it's done, frankly- in every regard (and the innovation of ye olde three-point list). Also Yochai Gal for making Cairn, after which no game I've run has been the same. The core of this game is built on the work of these artists.

FAQ (Forestalling All Queries)

No distinction is made between the Summoner and their players. How do? This happened on accident but remained that way on purpose. Solo? GMless? Play how you want.

How do you expect me to play this? There's no d20! I can't hear you, I'm too busy enjoying a game with coin flip resolution by Alfred Valley.

Are you even listening to me?! *I am asleep and still playing a game by Alfred Valley. Man, that guy's good.*

Colophon 

No generative AI was used in the creation of this work, so help me god. Typeface is Space Mono / Hexadecimal color is #ff0062 / Design & layout in Procreate & Affinity Publisher / Dice pictured by Horrid Realm. There will be no SRD. This is the SRD.

Artwork by Francisco Lemos. Lair Raid is licensed under a nifty CC BY 4.0 license. It was designed by Calen Heydt in Chicago, IL / A.D. MMXXIV / © Delvers Guild 2024

Guidance on creating your own one-page game can be found at Exeunt Press.

Lair Raid was not created for the One-Page RPG Jam but thank goodness it came along or the game may never have seen the light of day. It started life as 'The Stat Hack', something of a retro-clone that only used the B/X saving throws