How to make a maze work?

[KrazyHades]

How can one make a maze work in a game of DnD? Drawing the whole maze on the battlemap (or even drawing it as the PCs discover it) is painstaking, and it gets rid of the feeling of "I don't know how to get back to the entrance."

In particular, I'm planning a combat in a 150 foot diameter circular room. The room is one gigantic maze with 20 foot stone walls. Flying above the walls is an Ice Rook Swarm (Elemental Lore), which is essentially a swarm of flying water/ice elementals that shoot magical ice javelins. The whole point is that the PCs must get through the maze to get to the next floor of the dungeon, and will have to deal with the Ice Rook Swarm.

Any ways to make this work, or should I abandon the idea?

 

[Clueless]

If you haven't yet - pick up a pad of lab paper from a bookstore - the kind that does carbon copies. 'Draw' your maze with the blunt end of a pen - and that way you get a maze pre-done on your end, and they get one that grows as they explore.

Out of curiosity - why shouldn't they have an idea where to go to get back? Do the walls move or something once they pass?

If you want to make it 'harder' to get back - then pick places in the maze for combats or encounters. And only draw Just those spots unless your players tell you they're mapping in character.

Alternatively - play with visual range. Cut a piece of paper of a radius equal to their longest range of vision - and center it on them where ever they are. Players rapidly get nervous when they realize they can't easily see past that range and that things might be moving around back where they were.

 

[Brazeku]

My general experience with mazes has taught me not to use them at all. Generally, you need interesting features to make a dungeon appealing, and a crawl through a bunch of corridors loses the harrowing claustrophobia and bewilderment it would have in real life and becomes merely tedious.

YMMV, of course.

 

[Rabelais]

Most players probably know the "I only turn right" trick to follow the wall to the exit. Sure it takes longer, but they know they will find the end.

 

[Celebrim]

I concur. Generally, don't use them at all.

When I first started DMing, I was fascinated by mazes. This is somewhat understandable. Mazes are staples of fantasy fiction since someone thought to put a minotaur in a labrinth. The first dungeon I was exposed to (B2) had a maze in it. But, I quickly learned that in play, mazes are really boring puzzles to solve. They aren't particularly fun in computer adventure games with only one player. They are even more tedious when you have several players.

I think you can make a dungeon with some maze-like qualities, but having a dungeon with a maze in it is probably a bad idea. My theory is that in a site based adventure, the map is the outline of the plot (or more accurately, an outline of the potential plots). A maze is like a chapter in the story which is a pure meandering digression.

One thing you will notice in narratives that feature a maze (whether books or movies) is that however much time is spent in the maze, very little time is spent actually solving it. Things might happen in the maze, but the time between the things that happen in the maze is basically hand-waved. For game purposes, a meandering corridor is basically the same as a straight one. What matters is only where it can take you. If nothing is in the maze but the exit, ditch the maze.

 

[KrazyHades]

If nothing is in the maze but the exit, ditch the maze.

That's beautifully succinct. I think I might change my "maze" to a room coated in extra-slippery (a la spell grease) ice. Fun.

 

[megamania]

The whole dungeon is a maze in my games. I just don't tell my players. There should be tons of traps, land markers and wandering events. This gives them a chance to get out if lost while keeping it fun. If you know 2e Undermountain- that is an awesome example of what I mean.

 

[Maikl]

I used to play a game, where DM kept as in a maze for about 2,5 hours, just to make us tired and irritated. He just wanted to check, if he can evoke such emotions in the game...
Anyway I am sure maze cannot fun for players at all.

 

[Rechan]

This question was posed two, three months ago on the General forum. Try looking for it - it managed about 20 responses or so.

The biggest bit of suggestion from that thread was this: don't focus on 'You turn right - and see a ten foot hallway that turns left'. Doing that for several hours gets boring.

Instead, focus on the cinematic.

A battle that's a hit and run, using enemies that can move around the maze in ways the PCs can't (Thorny hedges + Creatures with Woodland Stride, Walls of water and amphibious opponents, Creatures with Teleportation, Spiderclimb, flight over the walls, etc). Minotaurs (unable to be confused and lost in a maze), working in conjunction with say, gelatinous cubes, can be great enemies.

The goal is not to get through the maze, but to reach the center, where the big fight is going to commence!

Maybe the walls shift around, blocking exits and creating new paths. This might split the party up, forcing them into solo battles, or two members are now in a fight and the other members of the party have to find them quickly.

 

[Stoat]

The next time my players enter a maze, I plan on using skill checks (probably Survival) to resolve it. The better the players roll on the check, the faster they navigate the maze and the fewer monsters they encounter. The worse they roll, the longer it takes and the more wandering maze-dwellers they have to fight.