Running mazes in adventures

[Simplicity]

I just wanted to ask how various people tend to run mazes when they have such in an adventure. Every now and then I run across an adventure with a maze in it, and I'm so terrified of how boring it would be to actually run it, that I basically throw that adventure away.

The only way I can see of running a maze would be something like the following:

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DM: The passage heads out 10 feet in front of you and then splits off to the left and to the right.

Player: Take the left.

DM: 20 feet forward, there's a passage to the right. 40 feet forward, there's a passage to the left. The passage comes to a dead-end after that.

Player: Go left.

DM: The passage turns right after 10 feet. Then turns left after another 10, then turns right again. Finally, it comes to a junction...

Player: GO LEFT. Stick to the left wall.

DM: You realize you're trying to get to the center of the maze right?

Player: Could work.

DM: Well, it doesn't. You're back at the entrance.

---

Is it just me? This sounds as much fun as getting dental work done. An hour of this and I don't think any of my players would come back.

If I REALLY wanted to run such an adventure, I think I would just replace the maze with an Intelligence check or something rather than subjecting my players to this.

Anybody out there who actually likes running these things who has some advice?

 

[Crothian]

The thing theat bothers me is that "left" seems to be in the adventurers handbook or something since they all do it. So, I make them suffer for picking left. At the start of the maze usually a left only strategy will take them someplace they don't want to go.

But as to the general maze thing, it is hard. I try to have writings on the wal or different details in different sections of the maze to keep things interesting. On time they had graffiti from other people who tried to solve the maze, and it was comical.

 

[DrNilesCrane]

I'm running a maze style adventure right now (the maze is really a massive holy symbol of sorts). For game play, I printed out a large copy of the maze (about four pieces of letter sized paper taped together) with a 1" equal 100 yards scale (although anything would work). I got a large sheet of poster board, used a whole punch for one small opening in the middle, and use that to cover the actual map during game play. We set this up on the floor in the living room for the adventure: the players can only see the immediate area on the map and from there decide where to go. I then move the cover and they can see where they are going. If they hit an area with an encounter, we switch to battlemat/tactical maps at the dining room table.

So far it's worked really well - the players have enjoyed exploring. They are very high level and have used Find the Path to circumvent parts of it, but were a little over confident and did not bother mapping where they were going and are now somewhat lost. In terms of actually using the large scale map, it's worked well - easier and better than I expected. I created the large map in Photoshop, so I also created some smaller partial versions of it for other folks (enemies) who are in the same place and had enough sense to map parts of the place.

 

[lior_shapira]

I agree with you that it sounds tedious and I like the idea of intelligence checks. Some role-playing on the player's side can give them bonuses to the check (using string and other maze methods). Plan some encounters within the maze, and every couple of checks to see if the pc's get hopelessly lost or make headway, use an encounter.

Did you see the movie labyrinth (with david bowie, by jim henson)? the girl there needs to go through a maze populated with bizarre creatures and encounters, and not just a jumble of empty featureless stone corridors.

lior

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I'm running a maze style adventure right now (the maze is really a massive holy symbol of sorts). For game play, I printed out a large copy of the maze (about four pieces of letter sized paper taped together) with a 1" equal 100 yards scale (although anything would work). I got a large sheet of poster board, used a whole punch for one small opening in the middle, and use that to cover the actual map during game play. We set this up on the floor in the living room for the adventure: the players can only see the immediate area on the map and from there decide where to go. I then move the cover and they can see where they are going. If they hit an area with an encounter, we switch to battlemat/tactical maps at the dining room table.

So far it's worked really well - the players have enjoyed exploring. They are very high level and have used Find the Path to circumvent parts of it, but were a little over confident and did not bother mapping where they were going and are now somewhat lost. In terms of actually using the large scale map, it's worked well - easier and better than I expected. I created the large map in Photoshop, so I also created some smaller partial versions of it for other folks (enemies) who are in the same place and had enough sense to map parts of the place.

Another way is to have predrawn geomrphs for the maze sections, laying them out as encountered. If you are a cruel and unusual DM remove the older sections as the pass out of sight behind them, which also allows them to be reused whenever that type of section recurrs.

Oh, and Stephen King was Quoting Robert Bloch in your Sig! (He said it at an Hugo awards ceremony.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Hand of Evil]

Another way is to have predrawn geomrphs for the maze sections, laying them out as encountered. If you are a cruel and unusual DM remove the older sections as the pass out of sight behind them, which also allows them to be reused whenever that type of section recurrs.

Oh, and Stephen King was Quoting Robert Bloch in your Sig! (He said it at an Hugo awards ceremony.)

The Auld Grump

Second this, just use some poster board and cut out hallway, T-sections, right - left angles, and just put them in front of the players, picking them up when passed.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

You know, thinking about that - Tact Tiles would be great at the job...

The Auld Grump, oy! Too late to fix the spelling, it's been quoted!

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Make the maze busy. don't just have the characters navigating it.

Throw in some monsters. Or other adventurers. Trying to get to the middle of the maze before someone else does is a heck of a lot more compeling then doing it alone and the "left handed path" might not do the reick for them.

A maze also doesn't have to be obvious, a whole dungeon is really a maze if one designs it as such. Pop in a few doors and the occasional pit and it breaks things up enough that some folks might not notice.

 

[Grue]

Well I don't like running these things but for some reason they keep cropping up in my game. So I have two methods of dealing with mazes.

The first is to print out a couple copies of the maze and then hand out a copy (and a pen) when they hit the maze. Assuming there are encounter areas or wandering monsters in the maze (and also assuming the party is mapping along the way) I'll stop whoever is solving the maze when they hit an encounter area (or trap) or after 15 to 30 seconds, whichever comes first (depending if the thief is searching for traps along the way... if he's rolling I have the searcher make 30 search rolls and then use every third roll to determine if he hit the DC if needed). If they hit my time limit I'll throw a wandering monster encounter at them. After dealing with the encounter or trap, I'll take their marked maze away, give them a clean sheet with their previous position marked (rinse and repeat).

If the party isn't mapping, I'll cut the maze into quarters (unless it's a really big maze it gets too confusing to divvy it up further) and use the same method as above except passing out the missing piece when they hit an edge (allowing them to work on only one quarter at a time). For time, if the party isn't mapping or checking for traps I assume 6 seconds of real time equal 1 minute of game time (and usually give them 30 seconds before a wandering encounter shows up... while they have more real time to deal with the maze they have less game time between wandering monsters because they are covering more ground). If the party is mapping and searching along the way I typically give them 15 seconds with 1 second equaling 1 minute for spell duration purposes. I haven't had a party insist on taking 20 on their search rolls through a maze yet, but I probably make the time limit 5 seconds with one second equaling 12 minutes between wandering monster encounters.

If the maze is just a mental exercise (no timed hazard), I'll just print out an enlarged version of the maze and cut out and number 'geomorphs'. The party can map the geomorph if they want (in which case I usually let them keep the piece of the maze once they leave that section), and I'll hand out each maze section as they reach it.

Teleporters, slides, rotating rooms, and weave mazes complicate things slightly. A weave maze's over and under passages can cause some confusion if the mapper makes a illegal move. I usually minimize this by keeping an eye on whoever is solving the maze. I usually use slides as 'one way' passages within the maze, with the rotating rooms I just have to remember where they are and (with rotating rooms) what position they are in. With Teleporters I simply give the party a clean sheet and their new position. I've had a teleporter deposit players in a different but similar looking maze entirely (and it took them three clean sheets and another teleporter before they figured they weren't in kansas anymore).

If you really want to give your players nightmares and make your head explode, put your maze in a tesseract. Never again.

 

[fusangite]

I have never encountered a maze in an RPG that managed to be fun, whether I ran it or someone else did. Basically, I found mazes fell into two categories: (a) boring and (b) exhausting. Boring mazes didn't have enough stuff in them and so it was all about navigation and trying to produce a copy of the GM's map. Exhausting mazes had enough stuff in them to keep the players interested and would therefore take months of playing time to navigate.