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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8245260" data-attributes="member: 20323">What adventure are you running?When I see secret doors are a thing in a module, my first investigation is "how are these secret doors being used by the module?"Example: In Tomb of Annihilation, the final dungeon has a couple secret doors. They're not presented as puzzles. The dungeon doesn't have a great time-keeping mechanics (besides not wanting to take a long rest because night hags). One is connected to a trap, but mostly they seem to be of the monotonous "you must be this Perception or taller to ride" variety. However, a closer look at the overall dungeon revealed that there are these skeletons with keys built into their heads wandering around... sometimes found in areas only accessible via secret door or even areas there's no explanation for how the skeleton got there! There were also wight dwarfs sneaking around all over the place and resetting traps. So the answer to figuring out how that module used secret doors was all about circulation. PCs following monster to an abrupt dead end, or even spying on them using the secret door. Footprints in the dust stopping at a dead end. Monsters flanking the PCs, coming from a seeming dead end. That's how I ended up using secret doors in the Tomb of the Nine Gods.The key is figuring out the relationship of the secret doors to the specific dungeon & overall scenario holistically.EDIT: Oh! I remembered one more way to use secret doors – besides puzzle, trap, timed exploration element, or hinting at dungeon circulation – and that's the OSR method where the players are expected to make inferences about the dungeon's layout (and potential secret rooms) based on their emerging map.</blockquote>

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