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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SiderisAnon" data-source="post: 3828896" data-attributes="member: 44949">Mazes Are About The StoryYou can have a lot of fun with a maze, but only if you play it right.I agree with Thunderfoot that what is fun about a maze is the story. If the point of a maze is that the bad guy can get through it because he knows the path and you have to track him, then it probably should be reduced to a few rolls and some encounters along the way -- but only mechanically. The story, the storytelling, the description, the mood you set as the DM, that is what makes the maze really fun. However, mazes can also be all about what is going on inside of them.Let me paint you a simple picture: Large hedge maze which cannot be overcome magically. The party has to spread out through the maze, playing hide and seek both with their quarry and their enemy. Their quarry is one or more members of the royal family who they are here to rescue. Their enemy is a group of assassins, also spread out through the maze, who are trying to take out the royals and if need by the meddling PCs. This is not about drawing a map on the table. Heck, you don't even need a map. This is all about hit and run encounters, glimpses of various people at the intersections of rows up ahead, and running around corners only to loose the person you were chasing or the one who was chasing you. Done right, this could be a very dramatic encounter. If you want to go totally movie, have the cumulation be a fight at the center of the maze at a large fountain or a gazebo or statue garden or some other interesting location.I have, in fact, run a maze that was not only a blast but which the one player I still have from 10 years ago still talks about the adventure to the newer players. I couldn't tell you why they were in the maze or what they were after, but I remember how horribly wrong it all went for them. This maze I really did draw out, but only because there was a pattern to the traps so you could learn to avoid them. (Which unfortunately, the party never noticed, but that was part of the fun, honestly.) There were dozens of encounters in there. There were hallways where gravity worked differently. There were traps that did horrible things to you. And I generated it all on the fly, working from a piece of scratch paper with three lines on it. (But I kept consulting a folder, so they THOUGHT there was a map.)By the end, the rogue was crawling point. The cleric was walking slowly behind him and healing him regularly. The others were in a paranoid haze waiting for something else to attack.I really don't remember what the adventure was about or why they didn't just leave. I know there was a story there. However, I do know that the maze was an absolute blast for both the DM and the players and it's still talked about a decade later.So, yeah, mazes can be fun, but only if you do them right and only if you sculpt them to what your players will enjoy.</blockquote>

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