The door is there, but why should it be opened?

[Zorkion]

The door is there, but why should it be opened?

OK, goes like this, I have come upon a slight problem in a DnD campaign I am working on. Heres the scenario details: 5 8th level characters meet up after being summoned for a quest by a mage who is currently the leader of a mage tower. On the first day in the city, they explore the different parts of the city and rest at the mage tower. The second day, they talk about the quest with the mage, get supplies from the city, and rest again in the mage tower. That night, however, they all experience the same dream in which they rise from their beds to find hat they are the only people left in the city, and after looking through the city for a while, they come across a lone bard(vampire bard lvl 9) who begins a song just as they come upon him. (the song i will use for this will be the first 2 minutes and 45 seconds of End Music (for a film), by radiohead. *lyrics for this part will be attached at end of post). When the song finishes, they awaken. What the song is trying to tell them to do is to open a certain door in the mage tower and thusly release what lies inside. My problem is that i dont know how to make the characters want to open the door...

Heres a basic pic+description of mage tower


First four floors of mage tower are libraries.

Fifth floor looks like this
''''''''''_____t____
'''''''/.................\
''''d....................d
'/.......................\
|.........................|
d............s............r
|.........................|
|.........................|
''\......................./
''''d....................d
''''''\_____d_____/

s= stairway leading from level below
d= doorways to other rooms(portals to other floors)
r= normal looking door where vamp bard is sealed

other info—

The sealed bard vamp and the mage have a bistory behind them (not quite sure what though), and for some reason, the mage decided to only seal the vamp bard instead of kill him.

Lyrics to song part—

Wake from your sleep,
the drying of your tears,
Today we escape, we escape.

Pack and get dressed
before your father hears us,
before all hell breaks loose.

Breathe, keep breathing,
don't lose your nerve.
Breathe, keep breathing,
I can't do this alone.

Sing us a song,
a song to keep us warm,
there's such a chill, such a chill.

–

Soo yea...any help here would be very appreciated..

 

[Maldur]

Do you want them to open the door? or do you want them to resist opening?

What has the mage to say about it? What is the nature of the history between the bard and the mage? If they open the door, Do you want the bard to escape, or do you want a fight? What happens if they kill the vamp? (considering the mageshistory with said vamp). What is the nature of the quest they are summoned for? Does it have to do with this door/bard/vamp thing?

Do you have more pressure in opening the door? Like people are dying, so the chars are slowly becomming the only people in town?

more questions when I think of them

 

[FireLance]

Well, the obvious solution is for the PCs to hear the song coming out from behind the door the vampire bard wants them to open. Or possibly, if he has some means of targeting them with a Message spell, they could hear snatches of the song when they are in the tower (except when they are blocked by one foot of stone, one inch of metal, a thin sheet of lead or three feet of wood - see Message spell for details), until they investigate the fifth floor.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I also find a sign that says "DO NOT OPEN" always gets players to open something.

I would go with the noise idea.

 

[DragonLancer]

Why should they open the door?

They shouldn't. Not until they want to. My advice is don't rush them. Let them do the quest for the mage of the tower, but experience the dream and hear strains of the tune when they are in that part of the tower while awake.

Have it as a piece of plot that they can investigate when they feel they want to.

 

[Janx]

This sounds like the old "door that shouldn't be opened" story.

Bad thing is behind door.
Players find door.
Players open door.
Bad thing gets loose (and usually runs away so they PCs can't kill it)
Bad things gets strong and sets up shop
Players must spend time fixing the mess.

Ironically enough, your song idea is so good its going to ruin it. Once players know there is something special in that door, they may be very inclined to leave it alone. That song is so creepy (the chill, the chilll) that I wouldn't touch that door until I knew what was inside and was prepared to deal with it.

You're better off letting the players explore the tower in dungeon crawl mode (search everything, grab all the good stuff) and they will find the door and open it as procedure. If you put anything special around it, you may scare them away (if they're smart).

The bard and wizard thing is easy. They're brothers, or something. Wizard can't kill his own brother, so he locks him up. Or wizard is using him for interogation (ageless bard has to know secrets). That's why he is still alive.

You can't make them open the door, so don't bother. Just set it up as something that is going on at the tower. If the PCs bite, great, you've got an adventure hook. If they don't, you've got background for an NPC. It really doesn't sound like strong enough of an adventure hook anyway. It's more of a side-trek that can unleash something to become a big adventure later. Heck, when the open the door, the gaseous form of the vampire sweeps past them (so all they see is a cold mist, the chill, the chill) and it runs away to form a new vampire colony.

I've been in this scenario before. Big door, bolted on the outside. We let the vamp out but don't see it. It runs amok and builds up a huge hive of servants and things (2e rules, with dwarven and elven vampire thralls....). We opened the door because we thought we had to get inside to continue exploring. It even occurred to us that maybe it was holding something in. But we figured we'd be able to take it. And when we found nothing...

Good luck,

Janx

 

[Umbran]

My problem is that i dont know how to make the characters want to open the door...

You don't. You cannot make them want anything. Free will, and all that. A DM can never count on exactly what actions the PCs will take. Ergo, it is generally better advenure design to not rely on PC specific actions on the part of the PCs.

So, you can drop the hint and hope. If the PCs don't rise to the bait, you need to have some NPC do it. There's going to be servants and other visitors about. Perhaps one of them is dumb enough to open the door.

I say "dumb enough", because while it's a nice piece, and it makes a good dramatic image, the song pretty much tells you that there's something imprisoned. And when something is imprisoned, people are going to ask if there's a good reason for it. We are quite used to the idea that many of the things that are locked away should remain that way.

You've painted yourself into a bit of a corner, logically speaking - if the vampire had any ruses or tricks really good enough to get himiself free, he would already be free.

So, enough of criticism. Let's build a solution. I think the solution hinges on that history you havent built yet.

Consider - instead of keeping it secret, the wizard is at least partly up-front about it. The wizard can lie a bit, and say that the amount of magic in the place leads to strange dreams, which they should ignore. Or, he can tell the truth - "I got a beast of much magical power locked up, and it sends dreams to anyone who stays in the tower. Please ignore the dreams. If you open that door, the beast may well kill you, me, and/or cause much havoc in the city."

Why lock him up, rather than kill him? Perhaps the bard is the wizard's brother, and the wizard canot bear to slay him? Perhaps the vampire has some secret of arcane lore the wizard needs to learn?

Anyway, depending how you play it, you can feed the players information that makes them more or less likely to open the door (lies from the wizard make it more likely the door gets opened, I expect. But the wizard knows that). But you still need a backup, just in case the PCs choose to leave the door closed.

The vampire had a servant. Said servant has been searching for his master for years (perhaps becoming rather potent in his own right in the process). He happens to have finally followed the clues to the wizard's tower. After the party has the dream, he servant breaks into the tower and opens the door. The wizard now thinks the party is to blame for the vampire's escape...

 

[Matafuego]

Recently I had a Campaign in which one player had a revelation from a Lost God to find his Lost City. The other PC's followed him and decided to help him... In every city they visited they learned more about the so called "Lost City" until they leraned that there was a monster inside since the dawn of time and finding the city would release the monster... I had hours of Player to Player interaction fun on Why would they want to find that city then...

So the point is... The best reason someone might have to open a door is to believe something entirely different to what is really behind the door. And then mix the stories, so he can make a decision ¿old good legend or bad new legend? The Bard posing as someone else might work, or even since the song is pretty much free to interpretation convincing ONE character the door HAS to be opened for some greater good. And then hours of fun while the charcaters (and players) debate...

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

In every city they visited they learned more about the so called "Lost City" until they leraned that there was a monster inside since the dawn of time and finding the city would release the monster... I had hours of Player to Player interaction fun on Why would they want to find that city then...

Heh. Our GM is running us through a modified version of the Banewarrens (he moved it into the Scarred Lands setting, changed the factions and backstory to fit, and tied it into a few other continuing plots), and apparently we've run into nearly the same situation.

Not to get too spoiler-y, but we've found a lot of doors that could be opened, but so far there hasn't been a single character in the entire party who has wanted to open them. So we don't, and we won't. It's not a problem, according to our GM, even though there's an absurd amount of crap described in the module for the less pragmatic parties who insist upon throwing open every door they find despite the various obvious warnings it's possible to find about doing that.


So going back to the original question, I'm with Umbran and Janx; you can drop hints to the players, but be prepared when the more clever ones among them stop and say, "Hang on, opening that door sounds like a horribly stupid idea, and we don't have a single good reason for doing it." And if the more clever players are listened to, the only thing that'll be left to you is to have some moron NPC open the door instead.

This is all assuming that something bad actually exists on the other side of the door, of course; a fair assumption, given that it's a vampire. If there is something bad back there and you're not being blatantly unfair to the PCs (i.e., you're giving them a fair chance to investigate what might be behind the door and you're not lying to them to make it sound like it's all sunshine and unicorns or ale and whores back there), you just have to accept that the party might not be brain-damaged enough to open the door anyway.

--
i seriously don't recommend lying to them, it makes you forfeit your gloating rights
ryan

 

[tarchon]

Maybe if each one of them dreams that he opens the door and behind it finds a room with himself in it, crowned, sitting on a thone, surrounded by riches. Or whatever that particular character finds appealing. Or they could have a dream that reveals that the mage is really a demon, and the thing behind the door is an angel or something. Basically, you have to have the dream construct a convincing lie that motivates them to open it.