Just Figured Out How to Make Sure the Party imc Explores Every Room in the Dungeon

[eryndel]

It also requires that every interior wall can eventually be traced to an exterior wall. Interrupt the walls and you can design mazes where the only thing going left (or right) gets you is just returning to where you started.

Or make things three dimensional (or four dimensional if you want to use Psion's tesseracts).

Just saying, there's ways to foil the "left hand rule"

Werner

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Heh. Early in one campaign we were exploring a set of sea caves, looking for pirates. Seeing the maze of caverns and tunnels, I jokingly said we should go 'left left left left right'. Which, having no better idea, we did. We end up in the main chamber of the Big Bad Guy, long before we should have faced him. I was never consulted on directions again.

My DM and I were both Zelda freaks, though he forgot I was. We were in one of those mazes where you always got moved to the beggining if you didnt take exactly the right path.

So, just at random i decided to follow an old zelda path

I think it was Up Up Left Up Right Down Left Left Up Right or something like that. (its been forever, so sue me).

BOOF. We faced non other then a pig faced sorcerer. I was on my ass with laughter.

 

[thullgrim]

my last two groups have been USAF guys completely. The first group had the 'Left to Live' philosophy. It was funny because sometimes it was so much easier to go right.

The second was all EOD guys and they had their own way doing things. 'We can remote move anything'. These guys would do everything in their power to actually not touch anything that might be trapped. Instead they would use ropes. hooks, anything under the sun, to try and move/open an object. Institutional mindset I guess.

Thullgrim

 

[mhensley]

What is wrong with you people? The correct saying for choosing which way to go is:

Better to be right with right than left with left.

 

[Zappo]

Nah, we try not to bring politics to the table.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

My group is a bunch of left-turners as well, but only when they end up in a series of caverns or what is obviously some kind of maze. In a routine dungeon, they just pick whichever direction will make my life the most difficult. No we won't go into the rooms that have the key information as to what is happening, we'll somehow bypass those altogether, then be upset that the place seems to have no purpose or reason.

 

[Dingleberry]

In every campaign I've ever been a part of, the "Right Hand Rule" was the standard.

 

[Zoatebix]

One time I ran a dungeon with a magically lit narrow maze of mirrors with some illusory reflective surfaces. Not only did I have some interior walls unconnected to exterior walls, but the Maze's owner applied a contact poison regularly along the walls in the hopes that any would-be interlopers would need to guide themselve along the wall with their hands in order to follow a left-hand or right-hand rule - or at least they'd bump their nose into some poison if they thought a certain real reflection was an illusion. I only managed to significantly poison two of a group of seven or eight characters, though - they tied each other together with rope and followed one guide, in anticipation of there being walls that moved.
-z

 

[Scotley]

Anyone else have a group with similar quirks that makes it easy to 'direct' them?

Our group doesn't seems to have a left/right bias. They are much more concerned with not leaving unopened doors or unexplored coridors behind them. Maybe I've cut off their retreat one too many times and made them paranoid. The end result is that they tend to enter every room.

Scotley

 

[mroberon1972]

I had a weird run with a player once.

Home-made map, never used, never seen by the players.

They were under a time limit, and needed to find a 'death knight' (custome built, not a standard monster) asap...

The party paladin looked at the others, looked at the entrance to the twisted looking temple, and said follow me.

She lead them from room to hall, never missstepped once, and b-lined right throught stairs and chambers to the high hall the death knight was in.

It was freaky.

It was a 5 level, pyriamid shaped structure, but what got me is that she never went down a side path, ever.

They also cut through the knight with a deadly level of luck and teamwork.

I would have thought they were cheating if not for the following:

1. They NEVER cheat, you have to take my word for it.
2. I saw the die rolls.
3. The map had never been left where the players could see it.

I just call it 'Paladin's Luck'.