We go left!

[Bluenose]

Only if it's a two-dimensional maze.

I suppose then that I should specify that turning in the same direction every time will eventually solve any maze which can be reduced to a two-dimensional map on a sheet of paper. That, I think, is correct.

 

[Jhaelen]

I suppose then that I should specify that turning in the same direction every time will eventually solve any maze which can be reduced to a two-dimensional map on a sheet of paper. That, I think, is correct.

The problem is the entry point. If you enter the labyrinth from a trapdoor in the floor or ceiling, the method is no longer failsafe. Similarly, it will not always work, if you are teleported into a maze, or simply wake up in one.

The reason is that the entry area may include a 'loop' of corridors that you will follow for all eternity if you always turn in the same direction. It only works if you enter the (2d) labyrinth from one of its borders.

 

[jonesy]

The reason is that the entry area may include a 'loop' of corridors that you will follow for all eternity if you always turn in the same direction.

Wasn't there a nightmare maze in Max Payne which relied on that? If you went right it went forever, but if you always went left you got out. They should have reversed that. =)

 

[Dausuul]

Yup, barring a convincing reason to do otherwise, we always go left. Although I am not as trusting a DM as Sarah; I always plan for the eventuality that this time the PCs may decide to go right, even though they hardly ever do.

 

[luckless]

I suppose then that I should specify that turning in the same direction every time will eventually solve any maze which can be reduced to a two-dimensional map on a sheet of paper. That, I think, is correct.

This also assumes you are in a fixed, regular, 3D space, with not twists or intersections.

Imagine you are in a 'maze', but this maze only has 5 identical rooms with no way to tell the difference from each of them, or direction.

Now each room as 4 walls, and on each wall is a door that opens into a hallway which leads to the door of another room. Only one door may be opened at one time.

However, what you do not know is that these hallways are in fact not actually hallways, but rather magical portals you pass through.

So you enter the 'maze', and take the door straight ahead, but you actually come out the door that was to your left when you entered the maze. You continue straight ahead across the room you just walked through, and go to another door that leads to another room. And so on and so forth. The rooms do not line up, or have any actual relation to each other, (Or themselves) in 3D space. You travel in a straight line without turning, but you keep crossing over your own path.

Now, if that doesn't mess with your head enough, think of this. You enter the maze and walk across the first room and take the door right in front of you. You come out the door that had been to your left when you first entered. However instead of turning around you realize you forgot something so you turn right around to go back out.

Only the portals depend on which direction you enter them from. Instead of taking what was the 'left' door back and coming out the door that was 'in front' of you, you have walked out the door that was to the 'right' when you first entered.


Imagine a maze that guards the greatest treasure in the realm that has the solution of "Turn around and go back out the door you just came in".

(If you use such a maze as a GM, DON'T use more than a handful of rooms! That, or write a computer program to keep track of everything for you.)


Personally, with the group I'm in now, which includes party members with light sabers, as well as a demolition explosive expert, and all party members carry jet packs,... When ever the GM gives us the choice of "Left or Right", we often choose to say

Neither!

 

[billd91]

My Thursday players will either follow the "Lefthand Law" or the "Righthand Rule" when they go into places to help make sure they don't miss any branchings as they explore (and can relatively easily retreat out if needed). I don't plan for one pattern or the other and they occasionally switch which one they use.

 

[Corathon]

I never saw a group that always went left (or right, for that matter).

I once was played a paladin of Varda (one of Tolkien's Valar) that preferred to go west rather than east (because the Valar resided in the uttermost west). "East is beast and west is best" was his slogan.

 

[ButcherMagnus]

Left: The Direction of CHAMPIONS

A very long time ago my group formed the rule that we go left. We termed it the Direction of Champions. It became a running joke, in that we would refuse to go right, and if any player suggested going right, we would scorn him (jokingly) as "not a Champion" and basically bully the group into going left, even in situations when it seemed most efficient or safe to go right first. Over the years, the DMs have sometimes tested our resolve and preyed on our dedication to the left-most passage, but we have persevered. We find it a fun tradition that's always good for a few laughs.

 

[Joshua Randall]

The always go left rule in enshrined in poetic form the in the old Sorcery! gamebook The Shamutanti Hills. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact wording, but...

The PC has to go into a (small) maze/lair of a manticore, but before he does, he receives the following advice:

(mumble mumble mumble)
Greet travelers who of luck bereft
Choose passageways not to the left.

The first line is something about the bad stuff that's going to happen to you if you don't go left.

 

[WizarDru]

In absence of any information of one direction being better than the other, my party usually (but not always) chooses Right. Why?

"...Because Evil is LEFT-HANDED."

True story.