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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7528224" data-attributes="member: 20323">To use a concrete example that's pretty typical of how I've seen secret doors presented in published material, here's an abbreviated Area 11 from Fane of the Night Serpent in Tomb of Annihilation:[SECTION]11. Throne RoomFour pillars support the vaulted ceiling, and steps ascend to an iron throne carved in the likeness of a hydra. Painted on the wall behind it is a large blue triangle. To the south, an engraved stone disk is set into the floor of an alcove. A ten-foot-wide opening in the east wall leads to a flooded cave.Secret Door. A secret door in the western corner of the north wall leads to Ras Nsi's lair (area 12). To locate the secret door, a character must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom (Perception) check while searching the walls. If the characters have been told about the secret door, they gain advantage on the skill check.[/SECTION]I searched the text and there's no description of how the secret door opens, what exactly locating it means narratively, how it might subtly be demarcated, or anything else. EDIT: Notably, it's the only secret door in the dungeon.Presumably the passive Perception rule (if a DM uses that) would apply, so a PC with a 16 passive Perception score notices the secret door (or 11 if they've been told about the secret door).So the DM might ad lib an evocative description about dinosuar-hide tower shields flanking either side of the iron throne, and the PC noticing that one of the tower shields seems crooked (from the secret door being regularly opened/closed). But that's a pretty minute detail. Why should a player think that's relevant, short of meta-gaming "it's important if the DM describes it"? A crooked tower shield? The player says they'll investigate, DM describes a thin outline of a secret door in the stone, player says they'll open it, and DM narrates the resplendent villain's lair beyond.Discovering the resplendent villain's lair is cool. Exploring the rest of the throne room and dealing with the challenges (which I omitted for brevity's sake) is cool. But the secret door itself? It's 45 seconds of nothing. There's no challenge. No sense of figuring something out. No sense of the villain who installed it. It's a little speed bump that isn't adding anything from what I can see.This sort of secret door presentation is what I'd consider typical.How you do you present your secret doors? Or do you have a positive example of what you mean?</blockquote>

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