The Closed Door
BoldItalic
First Post
DM: You come to a doorway but there is no actual door. The passage continues 30ft ahead.
Brother Candle: "Let us give thanks to the keeper of doors and pray for its speedy return."
Paranoid Albert: "But why is there no door here? It could be a trick! Perhaps it's an invisible door?"
Fingers McThumb: "I steal the ... um ... I examine the ... um ... doorway. Yes, that's it, I examine the doorway."
DM: The doorway is worked stone, quite old, and built into the wall. There is a faded inscription carved above it, which reads, in common, THIS IS NOT A DOOR.
Paranoid Albert: "I told you it was a trick! No-one would write that if it wasn't a trick! I push Fingers through the doorway in front of me."
Fingers McThumb: "Hey, no pushing! I'm wearing my Dwarven Boots of the Firm-Footed. I resist the push."
DM: Albert, I'll treat that as a Shove attack with disadvantage because of the Boots.
Brother Candle: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, let us not fall to petty squabbling. I will cast Detect Missing Doors.
DM: You do not detect a missing door.
Paranoid Albert: "Oh no! It's an invisible door that resists detection! I put down my torch, close my visor and grip my halberd firmly in both hands. I have the Alert feat and cannot be surprised."
Fingers McThumb: "I Hide in Albert's shadow."
DM: Albert, as you douse your torch and your eyes become accustomed to the gloom, you see that the corridor is dimly-lit by phosphorescent moss. Fingers, make a Stealth roll, please, but with Disadvantage because there are no actual shadows.
Brother Candle: "The gods have warned me not to touch the moss. It is living moss formed from the bones of the long-dead door by evil necromacy. Ahead lies the lair of a half-elf necromancer."
DM: How did you know that? Have you been reading the module? Bah! Now I'll have to change it. Okay. 30ft ahead there is a door ...
"I told you it was a trick."
Radaceus
Adventurer
You enter a dungeon, proceed down a long dusty corridor which ends in a T junction. The corridor to your right opens into an enormous room filled with everything you can imagine. The opposite corridor is short and ends at a doorway. The door is flush to the archway, tightly fitted, smooth surfaced, has no knob, no lock, no hinges. A close inspection reveals a faint inscription at eye level which reads "All that is Left."
BoldItalic
First Post
We go right and stand in the midst of everything imaginable, imagining that the door to the left is open and leads to a chamber full of unimaginable delights, which are missing from the right room because they are unimaginable.
You're going to tell me that the unimaginable delights are guarded by unimaginable horrors, aren't you?
I hate this game.
rgoodbb
Adventurer
I hate this game.
Me too. It's rubbish init?
I mean I waste dozens of hours a week over what? A dice and cockney accent. What the heck?
I spend money on books I don't need (and sometimes hardly read)
I buy mini's that I will never use just because I think they look cool and then put them in a box and forget about them.
I buy dice by the barrel load when I need 6. Not 60 or 600. 6.
I wake up each morning and boot up my laptop and spend too long reading someone arguing .5 of a hit point of damage with someone else and then notice that the arguments fragment because somebody 1 has blocked somebody 2. This seems to pique my interest so I read some more. Why? Who knows.
It's just a game init? where you dress up and run around in fields init? It's so rubbish that I am taking the time to write about it. It's so rubbish that I'm getting all overcome with giddiness over a blinkin' door!
My hate for this game is stronger than yours........by 0.5
Block Me!
BoldItalic
First Post
The Door
Edgwin sighed. His meagre funds would get him poor lodgings in this town, flooded as it was with adventurers of every stripe boasting bags of coin to spare. The landlord of the Four Ferrets had scornfully shown him the worst room imaginable, a windowless cell under the eaves with barely space for the filthy straw palliasse that was to be his bed for the night. By the flickering light of a stub of candle he watched a small colony of bats shuffling under the thatch, beginning to stir now that the sun had set. The first to wake had already left through a small hole, high up in the end wall, that was the only ventilation in this miserable room.
The candle guttered and went out. Edgwin's eyes played tricks on him and for a moment, before the darkness was complete, he fancied he saw the outline of a door in the blank wall below the vent. It had the semblance of no ordinary door, however. This was a door. With trepidation, he felt his way to the wall. His fingers found a doorknob where no knob could be. It was cold; not just the cold of iron or brass but the cold of quicksilver, frozen in time. A frisson of fear overtook him and he drew his hand back sharply. But he could not resist the impulse to reach for it again, to prove to himself that it was not really there.
Edgwin turned the doorknob ...
Edgwin sighed. His meagre funds would get him poor lodgings in this town, flooded as it was with adventurers of every stripe boasting bags of coin to spare. The landlord of the Four Ferrets had scornfully shown him the worst room imaginable, a windowless cell under the eaves with barely space for the filthy straw palliasse that was to be his bed for the night. By the flickering light of a stub of candle he watched a small colony of bats shuffling under the thatch, beginning to stir now that the sun had set. The first to wake had already left through a small hole, high up in the end wall, that was the only ventilation in this miserable room.
The candle guttered and went out. Edgwin's eyes played tricks on him and for a moment, before the darkness was complete, he fancied he saw the outline of a door in the blank wall below the vent. It had the semblance of no ordinary door, however. This was a door. With trepidation, he felt his way to the wall. His fingers found a doorknob where no knob could be. It was cold; not just the cold of iron or brass but the cold of quicksilver, frozen in time. A frisson of fear overtook him and he drew his hand back sharply. But he could not resist the impulse to reach for it again, to prove to himself that it was not really there.
Edgwin turned the doorknob ...
rgoodbb
Adventurer
Edgwin turned the doorknob ...
It didn’t move, but the sound of a deep resonating boom echoed from far beyond the secret threshold the instant he touched it. Edgwin jumped back with a start as the family of bats exploded in confused chaos and desperately swept out of their night portal.
He lay askew on the unwashed floor pent up and panting and drenched with sweat. Raising himself upon his elbows, his eyes wide like the panic of a desperate steed ready to bolt at the next sign of trouble.
There was no more noise. The vacuum itself loud in his heart-pumping ears. All of the bats had rapidly departed. All, that was, bar one. He could hear it in the black, fluttering and flittering, as if unsure where to go. He heard it above and to the right, and then it stopped. Without warning, the stub of the dead candle reignited flaring up and cast horrendous gothic shadows upon the chamber walls…
It didn’t move, but the sound of a deep resonating boom echoed from far beyond the secret threshold the instant he touched it. Edgwin jumped back with a start as the family of bats exploded in confused chaos and desperately swept out of their night portal.
He lay askew on the unwashed floor pent up and panting and drenched with sweat. Raising himself upon his elbows, his eyes wide like the panic of a desperate steed ready to bolt at the next sign of trouble.
There was no more noise. The vacuum itself loud in his heart-pumping ears. All of the bats had rapidly departed. All, that was, bar one. He could hear it in the black, fluttering and flittering, as if unsure where to go. He heard it above and to the right, and then it stopped. Without warning, the stub of the dead candle reignited flaring up and cast horrendous gothic shadows upon the chamber walls…
The Grassy Gnoll
Explorer
My first encounter with D&D was reading The Name of the Game in White Dwarf 52. This image has stuck with me as quintessentially what D&D is about - what’s behind the door...?
BoldItalic
First Post
Without warning, the stub of the dead candle reignited flaring up and cast horrendous gothic shadows upon the chamber walls…
… shadows that seemed to spell out a terrible doom befalling the miserable wretch who beheld them - an implacable, inescapable curse laid upon a soul riven in twain by demonic forces beyond mortal comprehension. Edgwin cried out in terror, one hand involuntarily raised in a vain bid to ward off the inevitable but the shriek died in his throat as the doorknob began to turn, seemingly of its own volition. He looked on in horror as the doorknob slowly, inexorably, turned the wrong way and the door began to open ...
… shadows that seemed to spell out a terrible doom befalling the miserable wretch who beheld them - an implacable, inescapable curse laid upon a soul riven in twain by demonic forces beyond mortal comprehension. Edgwin cried out in terror, one hand involuntarily raised in a vain bid to ward off the inevitable but the shriek died in his throat as the doorknob began to turn, seemingly of its own volition. He looked on in horror as the doorknob slowly, inexorably, turned the wrong way and the door began to open ...
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rgoodbb
Adventurer
and the door began to open ...
..He had to flee from here. The other door! Of course! He had to leave this gods forsaken bed chamber. Edgwin’s body seemed to move in slow motion, like he was stuck in some sort of ancient tree sap. As his body began the mammoth task of turning, the new portal opened a little more. The darkness in the chamber began to illuminate with a red glow. He started to forge towards the exit, one sluggish boot before the other. Freedom was near, just two steps away. His eyebrows were a sponge of saltwater and sweat was carving a new canyon between his shoulder blades. One step now, just one more.
The exit door smoothed over like melting wax in front of his very eyes. It moulded and melded until a plain wall replaced it. Edgwin could hold it in no longer, his body started shaking and he sobbed. Helplessness and hopelessness replaced all thoughts of action now.
The door behind him slammed open, waking him instantly to the horrors that were surely to come…
..He had to flee from here. The other door! Of course! He had to leave this gods forsaken bed chamber. Edgwin’s body seemed to move in slow motion, like he was stuck in some sort of ancient tree sap. As his body began the mammoth task of turning, the new portal opened a little more. The darkness in the chamber began to illuminate with a red glow. He started to forge towards the exit, one sluggish boot before the other. Freedom was near, just two steps away. His eyebrows were a sponge of saltwater and sweat was carving a new canyon between his shoulder blades. One step now, just one more.
The exit door smoothed over like melting wax in front of his very eyes. It moulded and melded until a plain wall replaced it. Edgwin could hold it in no longer, his body started shaking and he sobbed. Helplessness and hopelessness replaced all thoughts of action now.
The door behind him slammed open, waking him instantly to the horrors that were surely to come…
