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Secret Doors
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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8247734" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>These secret doors obviously aren't serving a purpose. At least not directly. These are the sorts of secret doors I'd come back to later after looking at the others and see if there's a way to present some lore or foreshadowing here. For example, what if all these secret doors are open when the PCs arrive? That hints that someone recently went through an opened them, or perhaps that they're all connected to a common mechanism elsewhere in the dungeon, wherein to open other secret doors, these ones at the eastern entry level must be shut.</p><p></p><p>EDIT: Now coming back to these doors after having read through your account of the others, I'd say foreshadowing is your best bet here. Have some crystals/prisms enchanted with <em>continual flame </em>behind some of these opened secret doors, so that if a player closes one and looks at it, they'll realize the light is juuust visible through the seam. You can have some broken apparatus or lingering magic energy which hints that the crystals/prisms were moved about at one time. This is establishing the pattern language for meaningful secret doors elsewhere in the dungeon.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are 3 secret doors here, each doing something different:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Trap/red herring.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Minor shortcut.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Level transition (2nd level).</li> </ul><p>I see potential for a choice here: 2 doors lead to good things, but 1 door leads to a bad thing. For the choice to be meaningful (and the doors to remain "Secret Doors"), there needs to be a way to recognize/reveal all these secret doors (e.g. a light puzzle where the solution backlights all 3 of these secret doors, revealing their presence with a glowing seam), and some kind of pattern that the players can deduce which will alert them to the dangerous door (e.g. an elven vampire dungeon might use Elvish word for "sun" above the dangerous secret door). Not sure what that is yet, as I'm unfamiliar with <em>Palace of the Silver Princess, </em>but I'd be looking at the dungeon's overall themes and main opposition/occupants.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Aha! Again there are 3 secret doors here, each doing something different:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ambush (which should also be a minor shortcut or level transition – if the players figure it out EDIT: or there should even be a way for clever players to weaponize this secret door, e.g. triggering radiant damage trap that incinerates the vampire lurking within)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Secret Gate Door (this one is likely the most problematic as presented)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Treasure Room</li> </ul><p>Not sure about specific layout, but as you've described, it could definitely be another choice situation: 1 door is an ambush, and 1 door is the treasure. Decide! Again, establishing a pattern language consistent with the dungeon's themes is what I'd aim for so that the players who pay attention and practice a little deduction can figure out which is which.</p><p></p><p>With the Secret Gate Door, since this leads to the Throne Room, I'm assuming it's a case of "gated" design where if you didn't find the secret door, then you didn't progress into the climax scene of the dungeon. My instinct would be to rewrite the heck out of that – make the "gate" obvious and require gathering keys or manipulating devices in the dungeon in order to open it. So not really a secret door at all. And that would inform my redesign of all the other secret doors, but that's probably changing too much for you.</p><p></p><p>Or maybe the Throne Room is an entirely optional area, in which case you just make this the 3rd choice the PCs can take.</p><p></p><p>EDIT: Having gone through everything, I wonder if your pattern language for this dungeon's secret doors could be types/qualities/colors/patterns of light?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 8247734, member: 20323"] These secret doors obviously aren't serving a purpose. At least not directly. These are the sorts of secret doors I'd come back to later after looking at the others and see if there's a way to present some lore or foreshadowing here. For example, what if all these secret doors are open when the PCs arrive? That hints that someone recently went through an opened them, or perhaps that they're all connected to a common mechanism elsewhere in the dungeon, wherein to open other secret doors, these ones at the eastern entry level must be shut. EDIT: Now coming back to these doors after having read through your account of the others, I'd say foreshadowing is your best bet here. Have some crystals/prisms enchanted with [I]continual flame [/I]behind some of these opened secret doors, so that if a player closes one and looks at it, they'll realize the light is juuust visible through the seam. You can have some broken apparatus or lingering magic energy which hints that the crystals/prisms were moved about at one time. This is establishing the pattern language for meaningful secret doors elsewhere in the dungeon. There are 3 secret doors here, each doing something different: [LIST] [*]Trap/red herring. [*]Minor shortcut. [*]Level transition (2nd level). [/LIST] I see potential for a choice here: 2 doors lead to good things, but 1 door leads to a bad thing. For the choice to be meaningful (and the doors to remain "Secret Doors"), there needs to be a way to recognize/reveal all these secret doors (e.g. a light puzzle where the solution backlights all 3 of these secret doors, revealing their presence with a glowing seam), and some kind of pattern that the players can deduce which will alert them to the dangerous door (e.g. an elven vampire dungeon might use Elvish word for "sun" above the dangerous secret door). Not sure what that is yet, as I'm unfamiliar with [I]Palace of the Silver Princess, [/I]but I'd be looking at the dungeon's overall themes and main opposition/occupants. Aha! Again there are 3 secret doors here, each doing something different: [LIST] [*]Ambush (which should also be a minor shortcut or level transition – if the players figure it out EDIT: or there should even be a way for clever players to weaponize this secret door, e.g. triggering radiant damage trap that incinerates the vampire lurking within) [*]Secret Gate Door (this one is likely the most problematic as presented) [*]Treasure Room [/LIST] Not sure about specific layout, but as you've described, it could definitely be another choice situation: 1 door is an ambush, and 1 door is the treasure. Decide! Again, establishing a pattern language consistent with the dungeon's themes is what I'd aim for so that the players who pay attention and practice a little deduction can figure out which is which. With the Secret Gate Door, since this leads to the Throne Room, I'm assuming it's a case of "gated" design where if you didn't find the secret door, then you didn't progress into the climax scene of the dungeon. My instinct would be to rewrite the heck out of that – make the "gate" obvious and require gathering keys or manipulating devices in the dungeon in order to open it. So not really a secret door at all. And that would inform my redesign of all the other secret doors, but that's probably changing too much for you. Or maybe the Throne Room is an entirely optional area, in which case you just make this the 3rd choice the PCs can take. EDIT: Having gone through everything, I wonder if your pattern language for this dungeon's secret doors could be types/qualities/colors/patterns of light? [/QUOTE]
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