Garnfellow
Explorer
One thing about the old school, branching adventures: their non-linear structure probably reads a heck of a lot better to budding DMs than they actually play at the table.
I cut my teeth on the old modules, and the stuff I loved -- freaking loved! -- about those modules were all the weird, secret things that were devilishly hidden behind lost portals or under long-forgotten trap doors. You know what I’m talking about: strange magical effects that would only be produced if one were to correctly place the right number of mystical items in just the right combination at precisely the right moment. Put three rubies in that magical censor and you would be instantly disintegrated, no save. But put two EMERALDS in the censor, and you would open up a gate to the Elemental Plane of Water, where a powerful demigod would give you a permanent +2 to your Wisdom score!
When I would run those modules, I would wait in fevered anticipation for the players to approach one of these special, secret areas. Would this be the time they summoned the Elder Elemental God? Would this be the time they free the angry spectre trapped in the mirror? Oh my, oh my, the possibilities!
But instead, they usually just missed that secret door.
Or maybe worse, sometimes they went over every square inch of the dungeon with a whisk and a magnifying glass, cataloging and mapping every feature with a thoroughness that would make the team from CSI: Greyhawk green with envy. When the PCs did find the super secret special areas, they would systematically dismantle it with grim efficiency, almost never stopping to experiment. They never found out what would happen if two emeralds were placed in the mystical censor, because dammit, those things had real gp value and besides, that dungeon trick stuff was just as likely to screw you as help.
Sometimes I would be so eager to see one of these special secret areas that I would drop hints (often clumsily). The players often missed these hints, or were (rightfully) distrustful. And even if they did follow up, I was usually let down by the result because it felt like I was cheating.
After a while, I began to question the point of some of the more esoteric secret areas. My time making and running dungeons is precious and fleeting. If these super secret area are so hard to find or use that almost no one ever does so, why even put them on the map? A cleverly hidden treasure vault makes perfect sense in a wizard’s tower, and the players will be naturally scouring the tower area for it. But a secret temple lost millennia ago and that absolutely no one knows about and is buried under 12 tons of rubble? Why bother to fully key out something like that when a cryptic suggestion in the text would serve just as well?
I cut my teeth on the old modules, and the stuff I loved -- freaking loved! -- about those modules were all the weird, secret things that were devilishly hidden behind lost portals or under long-forgotten trap doors. You know what I’m talking about: strange magical effects that would only be produced if one were to correctly place the right number of mystical items in just the right combination at precisely the right moment. Put three rubies in that magical censor and you would be instantly disintegrated, no save. But put two EMERALDS in the censor, and you would open up a gate to the Elemental Plane of Water, where a powerful demigod would give you a permanent +2 to your Wisdom score!
When I would run those modules, I would wait in fevered anticipation for the players to approach one of these special, secret areas. Would this be the time they summoned the Elder Elemental God? Would this be the time they free the angry spectre trapped in the mirror? Oh my, oh my, the possibilities!
But instead, they usually just missed that secret door.
Or maybe worse, sometimes they went over every square inch of the dungeon with a whisk and a magnifying glass, cataloging and mapping every feature with a thoroughness that would make the team from CSI: Greyhawk green with envy. When the PCs did find the super secret special areas, they would systematically dismantle it with grim efficiency, almost never stopping to experiment. They never found out what would happen if two emeralds were placed in the mystical censor, because dammit, those things had real gp value and besides, that dungeon trick stuff was just as likely to screw you as help.
Sometimes I would be so eager to see one of these special secret areas that I would drop hints (often clumsily). The players often missed these hints, or were (rightfully) distrustful. And even if they did follow up, I was usually let down by the result because it felt like I was cheating.
After a while, I began to question the point of some of the more esoteric secret areas. My time making and running dungeons is precious and fleeting. If these super secret area are so hard to find or use that almost no one ever does so, why even put them on the map? A cleverly hidden treasure vault makes perfect sense in a wizard’s tower, and the players will be naturally scouring the tower area for it. But a secret temple lost millennia ago and that absolutely no one knows about and is buried under 12 tons of rubble? Why bother to fully key out something like that when a cryptic suggestion in the text would serve just as well?
Last edited: