Secret Doors are too secret. Thoughts?

[Zinovia]

Among other things, I think secret doors are best when they're just passageways that connect point A to point C...

Like connecting the Kitchen to the Study, or the Conservatory to the Lounge.

 

[wainwrig]

But what if you don't want to encourage searching? I love the idea behind secret doors, but I hated the 98% of the time the party is searching when their isn't a secret door present.

Same with traps on doors. From a fun standpoint I've never figured out how to balance making the rogue feel useful by searching for traps, with the dullness of having to force the rogue, and only the rogue, to go to the door to search before opening. Locks are fine, they are a barrier that the rogue can overcome via an action. Disabling traps are also fine, that's also an action taken only when there is something useful to do. Finally treasure chests are rare, and special enough, that they can be trapped without it taking a lot of time.

So in my games I announce that there are no secret doors, and no trapped doors. At least, none that require Search/Perception to spot. The players have to figure out that there is a secret door or trap based on listening to the descriptions, noticing weird layouts in the room, monster behavior. I.e. from DM to player clues. I'll probably give the high-perception player extra hints so that they can take the lead on the discussion, but there won't be any rolling.

 

[delericho]

But what if you don't want to encourage searching? I love the idea behind secret doors, but I hated the 98% of the time the party is searching when their isn't a secret door present.

Then don't feature secret doors that can't be spotted passively, and don't use traps that can't be spotted passively. In my opinion, your game will be slightly the poorer for it, but it should cut out the need for searching - especially if you tell the players up-front that this will be how things are.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I like the ideas of secret doors, but I am not really happy with how they've been implemented traditionally in RPGs.

In 1E, finding the secret door was usually contingent on the group telling the DM that they looked in the right place. 'I twist the torch sconch. I look under the bed. I look behind the photo. Etc'.

This was fun the first few times you played, but quickly devolved into tedium.

I skipped 2E, in favor of RuneQuest. In RuneQuest, you had a search skill that you had to roll, but it wasn't used passively so the same problems existed.

In 3E, there is a search skill, but 3E introduced a convenient shorthand for searching. 'We take 10 searching the room' (when in a hurry) or 'We take 20 searching the room' (when not in a hurry).

This eliminates a lot of the boring nature of searching, while also eliminating all the randomness of outcome -- since there is no die roll, the DM determines when crafting the adventure whether his PCs will find it. As a DM, I find this boring. I think the PCs should find the secret doors exactly SOME of the time.

What I would prefer, would be a passive search skill with some degree of randomness. That is, the players don't have to present a laundry list of everywhere they are searching, yet there is still a die roll involved, secretly, on the part of the DM. This die roll should be influenced by the skills of the PCs searching, but there should still be an element of randomness.

Ken

 

[Voadam]

I make sure finding secret doors is not necessary to the plot. Nothing hidden in them the party needs to find.

I've found 1 secret door in over 20 years of playing D&D. It was with a 2e human mage.

There was a party argument about using an evil magic key on an unknown gate where drow had been raiding from. I had my good character storm out of the room saying lets not use the key, lets keep exploring down here. The evil PC with the key used it and doors slammed down around the room separating me and my familiar from the rest of the party, and they got teleported to a drow dimensional city on another world. I searched until I found the release catch for the secret door, but alas they had teleported with the key and we ended up with a split party for many games.

That's the only time I can recall finding one and it was because it made sense for me to think there was one there. I don't think I've ever stumbled on any while playing an elf.

As a DM I try to give clues about secret doors if there reasonably would be some, and sometimes just because I think it makes the game more interesting. I always prefer discoveries based on picking up on description and interaction rather than noticing odd mapping exclusions or SOP search everything dungeon crawling.

 

[Voadam]

What I would prefer, would be a passive search skill with some degree of randomness. That is, the players don't have to present a laundry list of everywhere they are searching, yet there is still a die roll involved, secretly, on the part of the DM. This die roll should be influenced by the skills of the PCs searching, but there should still be an element of randomness.

Ken

Passive elven searches rolled by the DM when the elven PC walks close by secret doors.

You could house rule everyone gets a search check passively but the DM rolls (no take 10). This could work for traps as well. Essentially treating search the way you do spot and listen.

 

[Family]

There are 3 secret doors in the room your computer is in. Careful, ninjas are guarding them.

 

[Ydars]

If you need the PCs to find a secret door, the two classics I use are the "disappearing monster" and the "object triggered door".

In the first; a monster appears ahead of the party, runs as soon as it sees them. Enters a room and then vanishes. They will soon work it out.

Or you can have monsters get behind them when it should be impossible.

The second way is to give the monsters a simple object that makes secret doors in that particular dungeon open whenever the object is brought near. That way, they will probably find the doors on the way out just by passively walking past.

 

[Celebrim]

So what do you all do when your party just isn't finding the secret doors?

Nothing.

So far my group has walked past 4. FOUR.

Which prompts the question, why did you design your dungeon with secret doors? What purpose are they serving?

Do you try to steer them at all?

No.

Do you allow them to linger just a bit longer in a room hoping they might check that area intently so you can give them another roll?

No.

Do you make the DC a 10 just so they make sure to find it?

No.

How secret are your secret doors?

Pretty darn secret.

I use secret doors for the following reasons:

a) Versimilitude: Often times a location that the PC's are to explore is fairly well known to locals. Generally the location is often centuries old and presumably could have been visited by many many passing adventurers who may well have had greater skill than the players. And yet, I also want that location to contain secrets and in particular valuable treasures. How can I accomplish this in a way that doesn't just feel like I'm handing out treasure? Secret doors are one answer, and if the secret door is easy to find then it doesn't serve its purpose. I want the player to be able to think, "It's no wonder that no one ever found this place before."

b) Puzzles: Finding a well hidden secret door often involves more than just taking a search check in every 5' section of wall. Often there are clues to its location and various tasks that must be performed in order to find the door. A really good example of both this and 'a' above in a published module is the 'The Whispering Cairn'.

c) Challenges: Sometimes I want NPCs to be able to move about the dungeon in ways that the PCs find baffling. Sometimes I want players to pay for taking straight forward and obvious approaches. This increases the tension in a dungeon, and allows me to use lower CR monsters to challenge players than I might have been able to otherwise.

d) Plot devices: Sometimes I just want enemies to be able to escape to fight another day.

In many ways, secret doors are like traps. The majority of them need to be placed in places where players will expect to look for them and find them. Always think to yourself, "Why did the builder of this <whatever> consider hiding this door so valuable that he paid extensive sums to do it?" However, its alot easier to get away with a few random secret doors than it is random traps, if you remember that any secret door in a non-obvious place should not be absolutely critical to success.

Above all, finding a secret door should be fun. It should lead to something interesting or an interesting discovery. Secret doors help do the whole 'sense of wonder' thing.

 

[gizmo33]

This issue comes up all of the time on this board - at least in general. What happens when the dice rolling interferes with what the DM has in mind as a plot?

In the old days everything was about a sort of versimilitude. You mapped out the dungeon, and players walked around and tried to find treasure and kill things. The "secret door problem" wasn't a problem in that case. There was no plot. The game session may very well consist of PCs wandering around in the dungeon lost and never finding anything interesting. That, at least, was the basic ideal model - but from about the very day that it was conceived, various bits of advice trickled in (through side notes in the DMG and Dragon Mag, etc.) about various approaches to what amounted to railroading.

Then, after years of describing DnD as some sort of "shared story" game, the DMs consciouness about some sort of "plot" greatly increased. This plot design thing ranges from a subtle zen-like approach with gentle guiding (eg. either don't put important plot elements behind secret doors, or be prepared for the contingency of the PCs not finding it) to a heavy railroady type control (the DM fudges the search check or has some deus-ex-machina event occur like a monster walks through the secret door just at the right time).

IMO new DMs should come to terms right away with the role that random number generation and plots are going to play in the game. It would have been nice if this were discussed in the DMG because I often find the core rule philosophy to be somewhat schizophrenic in this area. IMO the core rules gives out mixed messages - probably as a result of trying to ecapsulate all DMing styles in one ruleset.

The one thing that the "olden times" approach had going for it was that was honest. IME DMs often can fool themselves into thinking that they can get away with doing more fudging than they really can. The sense of risk and challenge just doesn't exist in a game where you don't allow random chance and player's choices to determine the outcome.

Actually finding a secret door, when the chances are not certain, gives the player the sense that something special has happened. IMO there's just no way around this - fudging doesn't work as much as people think it does. If you want players to take pleasure in chance discoveries like this (and you don't have to, there are other possible ways to enjoy the game) then I think you need to "let the dice fall where they may".