D&D General No Fixed Location -- dynamically rearranging items, monsters, and other game elements in the interests of storytelling

[Oofta]

Not as much as you might think. To the original dungeon occupants they'd have just been ordinary doors - they're only a problem for silly adventurers who can't find them later.

That, and they play right into the exploration side of things.

Not saying you specifically do this, but it's interesting that people don't like secret doors, don't like mapping, don't like frustration in general - and then complain the exploration pillar has nothing in it.

Exploration means different things to different people.

You seem to have a very old school dungeon crawl style. That's great if it's what you and your players want. A lot of people just have a different style which is more ... well I'm not sure how to describe it. Realistic isn't exactly right. Plot based is only part of it and not necessarily accurate.

People want locations to be part of a bigger story? Maybe?

In my campaigns, location and dungeons are never the focus, they're the set dressing. So yes, there's exploration but it's more exploration of mysteries.

Which I'm doing a crap job of explaining because all I can think is "not old school D&D".

 

[Lanefan]

Exploration means different things to different people.

You seem to have a very old school dungeon crawl style. That's great if it's what you and your players want. A lot of people just have a different style which is more ... well I'm not sure how to describe it. Realistic isn't exactly right. Plot based is only part of it and not necessarily accurate.

People want locations to be part of a bigger story? Maybe?

In my campaigns, location and dungeons are never the focus, they're the set dressing. So yes, there's exploration but it's more exploration of mysteries.

OK - though a mystery is, at its core, a puzzle of some sort; and people often claim not to like puzzles either.

More broadly - if the players are getting a bit frustrated now and then, that's good.

 

[Monayuris]

Like Iserith, secret doors in my games usually lead to sub-levels, short cuts, or unguarded treasure. They are never necessary to be able to progress through the adventure.

But I run large megadungeons where there are many possible choices and directions to go. A secret door may never be found, but all it would do is prevent passage in one possible direction out of many others.

As an example, I have a room near the entrance with a secret door that leads to a teleportation glyph that leads to a treasure vault. For months, the party passed it by never bothering to search.

There is quite a bit of treasure and magic items that my players have never found. It is not my concern that they find these areas. I never give hints or nudge them. That would deprive them of the sense of discovery and accomplishment.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Maybe it's not fudging. Maybe it has a better name that I'm not aware of.

I like to call it Schrodinger's Dungeon.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The players, however, have no way of knowing whether any given encounter is going to be easy, hard, or anything else before it's been played through; and appearances can be deceiving. Sure I-as-DM might know, but that's information I have to keep to myself.

No it's not. It's information you choose to keep to yourself. You can share it if you felt there was a compelling reason to do so.

I'll never just 'narrate" something like that, for two reasons: one, narration precludes anythng dramatic occurring due to dice rolling; and two, narration assumes the players/PCs' approach which IME can unexpectedly change on a dime.

For example, they get two rooms onto a six-room dungeon and realize the place seems to be entirely populated by Goblins, which at the PCs' level are a pushover. Now sure, they might just plow through and kill everything in the place...or they might decide to take prisoners and-or release the Goblins into the wild...or (and this has happened IME) they might decide on a whim to take the place over and hire the remaining Goblins as staff!

No way of knowing unless you play it through; and sometimes it's nice to throw a too-easy curveball at them to mirror the too-hard ones I throw 'em at other times - in either case whether intentionally or not.

It's only as boring as you and the players make it. (of course, if the system you're playing is one that tends to make any combat drag out then that's different - can't help you there )

Sure, there can be reasons to play it out. But my point is that is not always the case. Sometimes, there can be reasons not to bother playing something out.

If I think that something's not likely to engage my players in a way that something else might, I'm not gonna bother with the non-engaging stuff. Not just because of the small chance that something unexpected happens to make things interesting.

Not as much as you might think. To the original dungeon occupants they'd have just been ordinary doors - they're only a problem for silly adventurers who can't find them later.

That, and they play right into the exploration side of things.

Not saying you specifically do this, but it's interesting that people don't like secret doors, don't like mapping, don't like frustration in general - and then complain the exploration pillar has nothing in it.

Yeah, that's not my cup of tea, exactly, but I don't tend to complain about the lack of exploration. For me, that's more about learning about the world and its inhabitants and so on more so than physical environment. Although the physical environment is a part of it, for sure. But it's more about discovery of another sort.

With secret doors, I've just seen them roadblock things more then I've ever seen them used to interesting effect. I realize that can be used in such a way, and that it's my particular style that makes it harder to do so.

Exploration means different things to different people.

You seem to have a very old school dungeon crawl style. That's great if it's what you and your players want. A lot of people just have a different style which is more ... well I'm not sure how to describe it. Realistic isn't exactly right. Plot based is only part of it and not necessarily accurate.

People want locations to be part of a bigger story? Maybe?

In my campaigns, location and dungeons are never the focus, they're the set dressing. So yes, there's exploration but it's more exploration of mysteries.

Which I'm doing a crap job of explaining because all I can think is "not old school D&D".

I don't have a specific name for the style that my group and I play. It has some elements of plot, but I think it's more goal oriented? The PCs are members of a group that has certain goals that they work toward, but then they each also have more personal goals. So the adventures they go on develop from there. I work in ideas of my own, or things from published adventures as needed.

So it's not just one thing....it's constantly changing, and shifting gears, and very player driven. That's probably a large part of why I am all for the ideas presented in this thread.

 

[Don Durito]

Speaking of secret doors......I almost never use them. I just find them annoying. This is one area where I may add a secret room if my players have latched onto some detail in a room description and are adamant about searching. It's like, wow you really think there's something here....hey, guess what, there is! This seems very much in line with what was mentioned in the OP.

Aside from that, I rarely use them. I think they add very little to the game, but can potentially take a lot away.

If there's a non-secret way to get to the other side, then that's one thing, but areas of dungeons that are only accessible through a secret door? Blech.

Secret doors make most sense in a particular context.

That context is when you make a "home" dungeon - possibly a megadungeon and you run multiple groups through it, or the same players multiple times. In this context there is less chance of secret stuff being wasted. Presumably somone will discover it eventually. And they may get a special kick out of beating the dungeon for it. This is also a situation is which you really don't want to move anything around or change locations as there is an element of competition here - there's a kind of across time competition against other groups that may enter the same dungeon. There is then a sense in which if you do well, you can be the players who finally beat Bob's dungeon.

But most of us don't play that way (and don't want to). Secret doors are problematic for dungeons that won't be reused. Especially, if you the GM, are putting real effort into designing what's behind them. Why make the effort if it's likely it's not going to be used? If you make it too easy it's kind of pointless being secret. If you make it hard enough to be rewarding to find than it has to be hard enough it likely won't be found. In this context it makes more sense to say something like, there are are four places where there are potentially hints of a secret door. The secret door is potentially behind one of those four, the players only have to find one and when they do the other hints will disappear.

There is then a sense in which this is, in microcosm, the potential issue with location based adventures. People who write modules can come up with all kinds of encounters and locations that will never see use in a particular game, because they will come up in someone's game (and they're being paid). But if you're prepping for a home game that's a lot of work that may not see use. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands, or you just use published material, you really need to find ways to be more efficient.

 

[Don Durito]

Why make the effort if it's likely it's not going to be used?

Ironically, this is the sort of thing that sometimes leads to railroading, especially among inexperienced DMs.

I've made this sandbox for you to wander around in freely. But I've put the tower of Viguli the Cruel in it - and I'm really proud of it and want you to see it because it's awesome - but damnit you're just putzing around over there and not going anywhere near it - how can I now make sure you see this cool thing that I built?

 

[Derren]

Rewarding Exploration
The party is investigating an old house with a lot of fireplaces in it. Only one fireplace has any treasure inside (behind a loose brick). It would suck if the players investigated one fireplace, found nothing, and were discouraged from investigating any others. So instead of putting treasure inside only one of the fireplaces, the treasure now has no fixed location. It's inside whichever fireplace the party happens to investigate first.

When you give the party the treasure anyway, why hide it in the first place. Either hide the treasure and accept that the PC can miss it (as long as it is hidden in a location that makes sense) or don't hide it at all.
By placing treasure wherever the PCs are searching your are not actually rewarding exploration. Rather the opposite.

Advancing the Plot
The party doesn't know it, but there's an important document inside the dungeon that will turn their world upside down and send them on their next adventure. Since finding the document is imperative to the plot, giving it a fixed location wouldn't necessarily be the best idea -- the party might never find it. So instead, the document is wherever the players happen to look. Do they search an old desk? Papers. Do they find a treasure chest? Papers. Do they search someone's body? Papers. It might seem ham-fisted, but it's better than having to nudge the party in the right direction later.

A plot requiring the players to find a random mc guffin is a bad plot and a railroad, plain and simple. Simply accept that the players might not find it or not care about it and don't base your adventures around such things.

Imparting Information
The party is struggling through a dungeon that ends with a fireball-casting wizard. You want the players to know what they're up against so they can prepare accordingly (by preparing absorb elements, boosting their Dex saves, acquiring fire resistance, etc.). There's a clue in part of the dungeon -- maybe a large scorch mark that any Arcana-proficient character can recognize as the aftermath of a fireball spell. But if you want the party to have this information, then why leave it up to chance? Drop it into any room that the party happens to visit.

And what do you do when the PCs don't recognize it? As in the previous examples either accept that the players might miss it, in which case there is no need to move it, or tell them directly.

 

[Todd Roybark]

OMG yeah. Secret doors everywhere. Mind you, that all started when an Elf could just walk past a secret door and notice it 33% of the time.

Yes but in 5e with Passive Perception that elf is in the hallowed words of Anchorman:
“60% of the time, that elf is spotting it every time “.

 

[Curmudjinn]

Let me start by saying that fudging numbers is against my DM code. I would never do it. However, I find myself engaging in a different kind of fudging more and more: changing item locations (and other elements) mid-adventure.

Maybe it's not fudging. Maybe it has a better name that I'm not aware of. All I know is that it's a great and dynamic way to handle pacing and storytelling within a game. It can be used to reward exploration, advance the plot, or impart information. Let me give a few examples:

In my opinion, this is the correct way to DM a game. I've played for decades, through many types of game masters and 99.9% of players I've DMed with or played alongside prefer this. The brutal, this is the law DMs are by far the worst I've ever had the (not)privilege to play with. Not only that, but those that follow the this is the law are some of the biggest jerks I've shared a table with. They tend to be very passive-aggressive, argumentative, game-stalling, and make others feel like their way is wrong or cheating. Luckily, those are the extreme minority, even if vocal.

Play the game how you like. If everyone is having fun with you spilling out the campaign as they progress in their own chosen direction, keep doing it. I've only had one such negative grognard at my table, being a complaintative rules-lawyer that was souring the fun of others. They were kicked from our table and the fun immediately returned.
Bye Felicia.

So, all you new to D&D players. From decades of my own experience, hosting dozens and dozens of tables from home, local gaming stores, heck even GenCon, I have to say this is the most effective way to keep everyone happy and playing, including you(or whomever DMs), but again, Play Whichever Way Is The Most Fun!