Well...
Back in the original Dungeon Masters Foundation thread in General (before we got are own forum) we had a number of entertaining discussion. One involved PCs getting the better of us GMs.
The following is a long story (I know... I know... I ramble alot
) but this story is a personal favorite. Despite some humorous drama in my description, it is basically how things went down.
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Let me pull up a chair, place the trusty staff known as “Big Stick 9000” by the fireplace, pull out my pipe and hobbit weed and contemplate some follies of yore. *Puff* *Puff*
Ah… The tale of Rogue Roulette… *Puff*
Back in the “good o’ days” of 2E I ran a multi-level dungeon known as the Academy. Abandoned wizard school with attitude and starting to disturb the locals. Different levels were designed to allow each player or character to shine and show off his [player] skills or class abilities. One level was designed as a maze with lots of tricks and traps for the Thief. The maze was 3D with ramps up and down to convolute mapping, puzzles and weird traps like reverse gravity pits that would take you through higher levels and smack you into the ceiling of the top level.
Great was my pride. This would keep the player of the Thief busy as a character and as a player! No more would I here how traps are the same-old same-old.
My crowning achievement: The room I called the Rogue Roulette.
No ordinary room. This one you entered by a normal door. But the room inside was circular and 40 foot across. There were eleven other doors evenly spaced. As the characters entered, the door shuts behind them and then the walls spin counter clockwise while the floor moves clockwise. The door the characters entered is now lost among the other door, each with there own fiendish trap. Each door had progressively nastier traps to punish cocky thieves with high % in detect traps, and only one safe door out.
But the last door was truly a thing of Rat Bastard beauty: It was a trick. When you opened it, all the doors would close, and the room would spin again! Rinse and repeat until the poor fools blundered into the one door out, if the survivors made it out. My wife could hear my laughter from across the house.
Several sessions later the characters enter the room:
PC1: Thank God! A room.
PC2: Great, more choices. Just what a maze needs.
Thief: Easy XP, lets do it. Just get some potions of healing, these traps are killing me *glares at the DM*
NCDM (Nightcloak the DM): The door shuts behind you. The walls spin counter clockwise and the floor moves too. Your stomach lurches sideways and you now have now idea which way is which.
PC1: Oh, just great. I hate this place.
PC2: *Takes a piece of paper out of his note book labeled “@#$% I Hate”, and scribbles the words “traps” next to “undead”* [Yes, that actually happened]
Thief: *Glares at Nightcloak* Alrighty then, lets do this by the book…
** The characters start going systematically door by door. Crunch! Boom! Sizzle! Impale! Then they come to the fifth door **
NCDM: The door snaps shut, as well as all of the other doors snap shut. The room again spins counter clockwise and the floor moves as well. Once again, you are in a room full of closed doors and you don’t know which is which. * I’m grinning with great evil at this point *
PC1:
PC2: * Puts down notebook. Wonders out to the fridge for a beer. Then hunts down Nightcloak’s wife and proceeds to complain that her husband “Has to much time on his hands” * [Yes, that actually happened also]
Thief: * Oddly quiet *
** Eventually, I fish the player back from the living room and let PC1 and PC2 vent. Then we settle in back to the game, were the Thief has sat the whole time quiet and didn’t get up at all during the break**
PC1: Were screwed.
PC2: At least we can rest here if it gets bad and recover spells.
PC1: Until the rations run out!
Thief: I pull out some chalk, walk up to the door in the 12 o’clock position and put a “1” on it. Then I do the checks and open the door.
NCDM:
* Sizzle*
Thief: OK. That was the lightning trap. That means the two doors to the left are trapped * proceeds to mark them * and the door to the right is the spear trap * marks that door * and the door beyond that one is the reset button * marks that door with a skull * Nobody open that door.
NCDM: * Twitch *
Thief: I go to the next-door, check it, and then open it. Repeat until I find the correct door out.
NCDM: * Twitch – Twitch *
* Two doors latter the players are back in the hallway *
Thief: *Gives DM the same evil grin and walks to kitchen to finally get a beer *
PC1 and 2: Woot!
PC1: Well that was easier than I ever thought.
PC2: Yea. I’m taking traps off my list, they aren’t so bad.
PC1: Hey. I’m taking the chalk and marking the inside of the exit door with a big “EXIT”. This is great! Now we can come back to this room and rest whenever we want. All the monsters surely avoid it; after all, it’s trapped. They must know that since there were no bodies inside the room.
NCDM: * Bangs head on table *
PC2: Cool! What a great safe room to heal and recover spells. This is the best room in the dungeon. You think of everything Nightcloak. We can call this room the Hilton!
NCDM:
Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
PC1: I cast a continual light on the outside of the exit door.
Thief: * returning with a beer and the grin * What the hell is that for?
PC1: Now it’s a Motel 6!
NCDM: * Gets up, walks to corner, and assumes fetal position *
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