Playing the Game

Playing Laurels & Loot requires you to have three things. First, you must have at least one friend or acquantance also wishing to play. Preferably, you will have more than that. A "table" of five to seven people is ideal; two or three is fine; more than eight or nine tends to become unwieldy.


Plan your next move... adjust those plans as players ahead of you describe their actions... be encouraging and show excitement when the player next to you scores that critical attack which slays the monster. Don't be "that player" surfing social media while others take their combat turns, having to ask "what are we doing now?" every time your turn comes around.

Session Zero

Before a group of players begins meeting regularly to play the game, they should schedule what is commonly called a "Session Zero". This may be a session where everybody creates their player characters, or collaboratively finished up doing so to ensure the party is well equipped and any backstory relationships between characters are refined.

But these are not the most important aspects of Session Zero. The most important accomplishment of this session is the establishment of the ground rules for the table. This not only includes explanation of homebrew rule adjustments that the Gamemaster may wish to impose, it also includes discussions of player expectations. The entire table - Gamemaster and players - should come to an understanding of what to expect in upcoming adventures. Sensitivity triggers should be discussed, and some sort of "safe word" system devised to ensure that nobody at the table will be forced to endure emotional discomfort during play.

Expectations regarding scheduling of future sessions should be discussed. (Because Laurels & Loot encourages a "leave home/adventure/go back home" session structure, it is particularly conducive to allowing sessions with missing players to occur easily; missing players simply mean fewer characters on that adventure! (The Gamemaster should be given warning if possible, though, to allow adjustment to encounters.) This also means that one-off "guest characters" are also easily supported!

Finally, any "house rules" that the Gamemaster intends to employ should be discussed - especially if these modify or contradict the rules as written. (There is nothing wrong with house rules that do this, by the way, as long as the table group agrees they will not impact on the "fun".) Limitations on what sorts of characters should be created are especially important here -- before players spend time creating a player character that might not fit the campaign.

Creating Player Characters

The last thing a player needs in order to start the adventures is a Player Character, or PC. Creating a Laurels & Loot PC is fast and easy; the detailed steps are found in a later chapter. Creating PCs could be done during Session 0, or offline between Session 0 and the first adventure. It could be a group exercise, or done offline individually. However it's done, though, the Gamemaster needs an opportunity to see the completed characters to get a feel for what they'll be dealing with - and to work with the player to correct any errors or inconsistencies with the game setting and/or house rules.

Playing the Game

With all the preliminaries out of the way, it's finally time to start adventuring! Actual gameplay is broken into three aspects: Exploration, Encounters, and Downtime. Each aspect has its own pace and flavor, and its own subset of rules to govern the action. These are all described in the next few sections.

Home Base

Most Laurels & Loot adventuring will involve the Player Characters starting out and ending up in some sort of home base. This is a place where the PCs can obtain necessary supplies, recover from injuries and other conditions, and find out about new adventuring opportunities. It could be a village, town, or city, but it doesn't need to be. It could be a lonely crossroads inn, or even the camp of a nomadic group or merchant caravan.

In game terms, it is assumed that adventurers have access to all their possessions when in this home base, and that items they choose not to carry in their inventories for a given adventure will be relatively safe while they are out seeking fame and fortune. PCs arenot required to remain at the same Home Base forever, but if they plan on moving their base of operations, they need to make provisions for transporting any goods beyond what they can carry in their inventory.

Activities that take place in the Home Base will be discussed more extensively in the Downtime section of these rules.