D&D General The big bad evil... Red Herring

[Tonguez]

Red Herring bosses are fine if they act as a set up for a further ‘campaign’ and actually provide stuff that will help in future adventures vs the real boss (eg the outcome of the red herring adventure provides the PCs with a lot more information about the BBEG or gets the PCs to the magic sword of BBEG slaying).

dont make the red herring irrelevant to the story and dont use it as a ‘gotcha’ moment - instead set it up as a stepping stone to development not a dead end.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

The immediate question I have is this - If you were a cabal of mages or priests who wanted to keep a Very Bad Thing imprisoned, why in the seven hells would you ever "disguise" it as a tomb something else likely to attract interlopers? Better to disguise it as something innocuous and then...when people get further in as something filled with dire warnings. Maybe store a few weapons, tools, or books on warding suitable for subduing the Very Bad Thing, just in case. As well as whatever infrastructure is needed to keep it sealed up.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

(1) How do players (or How would you) react to finishing an adventure only to find they've been deceived?

It depends on your players, and how it is presented. My players found out they had spent the best part of 2 years (real time) being tricked by a hidden villain into resurrecting and ancient evil. And I'm not dead. My players pretty much expect a twist of me these days. But you know your players better than anyone here. You have to use your best judgement as to the kind of story they will enjoy.

(2) Is a big red herring like this "okay," as long as players been provided sufficient clues? (Any suggestions to ensure crystal clear clues; or pointers to published adventures using major red herring would be helpful, too.)

The point of putting in clues is so you can point them out to players after the event and gloat.
Seriously, if you put in clues you run the risk that the players will suss you out. In which case it behoves you to play fair and allow the players to avoid your twist.

(3) What are some ideas for handling the fallout from this: abandoning the quest, returning to the site (if PCs decide to follow up), etc?

My players set out to put things right, swearing vengeance (literally: the paladin switched to Oath of Vengeance). In the end, it made their final victory over the villain all the sweeter.

But if you aren't sure your players will enjoy it: don't do it!

 

[Shiroiken]

(1) How do players (or How would you) react to finishing an adventure only to find they've been deceived?

How would they even know? They killed the BBEG they knew about and grabbed the loot, so unless you tell them as the DM, it's unlikely the PCs would ever find out. This exact same thing happens in the original Tomb of Horrors, and it specifically says to let it be.

(2) Is a big red herring like this "okay," as long as players been provided sufficient clues? (Any suggestions to ensure crystal clear clues; or pointers to published adventures using major red herring would be helpful, too.)

Red herrings are perfectly fine, so long as they don't stall an adventure. In this particular case, it's not stalling the adventure, but sending it in a different direction. They'll still complete it, just not in the way they thought.

(3) What are some ideas for handling the fallout from this: abandoning the quest, returning to the site (if PCs decide to follow up), etc?

Again, unless the PCs actually know they failed, it should be no different than a successful adventure. If you decide for the PCs to be able to figure out they'd been tricked, then it depends on what hook sent them in. They may be satisfied with the treasure they've already gotten, or they may return to the tomb to search over it with a fine tooth comb. In the latter case, I'd only adjust the tomb if there's something intelligent present to make changes, allowing them to simply pick up where they left off.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm asking for genuine advice here; and I'm asking because I really am unsure how to handle it. I haven't considered running (or participated in) a scenario like this before. I'm seeing that there might be a good reason for that!

I think the race against time idea I proposed is pretty viable, if you've already worked on the material, allow you to repurpose rather than just dumping it. If you haven't worked on it in depth yet a lot of the other solutions people have proposed are pretty good. Sorry for any snide-ness, I had to deal with one too many DMs who were "trying to be clever" in the '90s and I think it gave me bad design PTSD.

 

[Tonguez]

The immediate question I have is this - If you were a cabal of mages or priests who wanted to keep a Very Bad Thing imprisoned, why in the seven hells would you ever "disguise" it as a tomb something else likely to attract interlopers? Better to disguise it as something innocuous and then...when people get further in as something filled with dire warnings. Maybe store a few weapons, tools, or books on warding suitable for subduing the Very Bad Thing, just in case. As well as whatever infrastructure is needed to keep it sealed up.

Because tombs arent actually designed to be explored by interlopers and are generally put their to appeal to superstitious respect of honoured dead.

In one setting I once GMd there was a mega dungeon which was made up of multiple layers, each configured as a seperate dungeon

Dungeon 1: Tomb raider v Bandits
1 The top layer was an old Monastary complex now overrun with bandits, the complex included the ‘Tomb of the Saint’
2 The Tomb of the Saint was the site of a holy relic it was also attached to the old catacombs,

Dungeon 2: Catacombs (Undead)
3 The Catacombs were burials caves of monks and had once been the ruins of an older temple of a now extinct religion.
4 The deeper catacombs still featured frescos and trappings of the ruined temple which had once guarded The ancient evil below.

Dungeon 3 Tunnels and Caves
5 Beneath the ruins of the temple was access to a network of tunnels which eventually connected to a natural cave system which had long ago been collapsed, however land movement over the centuries had opened up new cracks and paths through the rumble, not to mention the umberhulk tunnels (this allowed for randomized mapping), One set of tunnels reached the sea and were used by smugglers

Dungeon 4 Underdark
6 The deepest cave was unremarkable except that it eventually reached a sealed door marked with warding glyphs.
7 The sealed cavern was where an ancient evil had be buried.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

 

[hopeless]

And then there's the Order of the Stick's version of this was to have their actual target hidden beneath the fake version which was pretty much a giant sized version of the screen shot above.
It worked simply because its creator was a seriously chaotic draconic sorceror with a liking for taking the piss.
It only failed because the party had a Rogue and a Fighter who was a trained architect and noticed something odd about the fresco!

 

[J.Quondam]

Response to this thread has all been very helpful for me, I appreciate everyone's input!

Now that i've looked it all over and thought about it, I think much of my completed work on this dungeon is useable with a little tweaking. I'll also be incorporating some suggestions here for creating new motivating hooks for he PCs.

The main cautions I'm reading are:

- Get player buy-in.​

- Make clues blindingly obvious.​

- Offer multiple reasons & modes for delving.​

- Not let the adventure be pointless for the PCs!​

Most of that, I think, is manageable by diversifying the reasons the PCs would be exploring; and by really highlighting clues.

I think my main goal as GM, in this case, is probably to just make a serious effort to avoid the whole "tricked by the Red Herring" problem, without unabashed player buy-in and a very good story reason. For the most part, if PCs encounter it, and if that deception would foil their purpose, then I'll "strongly hint" they're not done yet. OTOH, if their particular hook doesn't even concern the historical BBEG or MacGuffin, they don't know it's a red herring, and the issue goes away. And whatever hook they are pusuing, I'll be especially attentive to reinforcing that hook's themes and marking relevant critical (eg, "bottleneck") clues with flashing neon signs.

(FWIW, this particular dungeon is intended more as a (transient) hex feature than a critical campaign plot point. It's around 8th level, so not particularly earth-shattering, but offers decent treasure, a little renown, and an opportunity or two to gain a patron or nemesis. The real BBEG is completely sequestered, incommunicado, unable to orchestrate much within the dungeon much less outside it; therefore, he's in a bargaining mood... which is always helpful for future campaign development.)

Anyway, I'll be coming up with a handful of extra hooks (some directly relevant to the tomb's lore, and others simply incidental) that should cover most of my reservations regarding player buy-in and pacing. A good mix might even suggest reasons for PCs to revisit the site without a hamfisted "gotcha!" Between that and marking/adding relevant clues, and maybe intertwining some hooks for added depth, I think this will be a decent dungeon to throw at players.

Again: Thank you, all!

 

[hopeless]

You know you could just run them through that adventure but leave out that after they leave a section they thought was a wall starts cracking because they broke one of the seals and the information they recovered will eventually lead to the other seals until its close to breaking altogether and the researchers sent in after they left start sending them messages asking about that tomb.
However they don't start putting it together until after each subsequent adventure they get another call from that researcher getting steadily more scared but because they were stiffed on a fee as it was thought already looted they might not think to go check for themselves until they've broken another two or three seals and there's major havoc going on where they started...