D&D General The senseless achitecture in most official products

[Paul Farquhar]

Examples: the three caves at the start of Tomb of Horrors

You do realise that that, by design, was intended to unfairly punish players?

 

[Laurefindel]

You do realise that that, by design, was intended to unfairly punish players?

It was meant to frustrate the characters and test their savvy. Whether players would feel unfairly cheated or needlessly exacerbated up to debate, but I doubt the original intention was to inflict a punishment on people playing a game.

 

[David Howery]

if by 'punish the players', you mean 'kill them without a saving throw', then yeah, ToH does that just fine...

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not a fan of this approach at all. I don't want the success of the party to depend on a lucky guess. I prefer an approach where the players have things to consider about the entrance. I use this approach for intersections in the dungeon too. Sure, there are always unknowns. The players don't know the layout of the dungeon after all. But I prefer that they make an informed choice. For example:

-One point of entry may involve a heavy stone door. It may cause a lot of noise when opened, or it may require a strength check to get it to open, but it also offers a direct way in.

-Another point of entry may require the players to swim underwater, which is kinda scary, but ultimately may give them the element of surprise.

-Another point of entry may require the players to sneak past a powerful foe. Or through a tunnel covered in cobwebs.

-Maybe one of the doors has a scary demon face on it?

-Maybe one of the doors has a complicated lock?

To me this is far more interesting than three identical looking entrances.

Fair enough.

My question, to follow on from your example above, then becomes: how much of this info do the PCs have before making their decision? Do they know the heavy door will make noise, or is that just speculation on their part? Do they know there's a powerful foe waiting in the other entrance, without taking steps to find out? Etc.

Because if not, then it still comes down to trial by guess; only much more dressed-up. Do we enter via:

Heavy stone door
Underwater passage (if it even goes where we want it to go!)
Passage that looks clear
Passage that looks cobwebby
Scary demon-face door
Imposing-lock door

This is a situation where in my view it's absolutely vital the DM not give out any info the PCs either can't know about or haven't earned by observation/scouting. (think about if this were real, how much would people be able to discern on approaching and-or observing such a structure, and give out information based on that)

If they start using skills such as tracking, or spells of divinaton magic e.g. Detect xxxx, those can give them more info if there's any to give. For example scary-demon-face door might radiate magic because the demon face is a permanent illusion; tracks could be found going in-out of the clear passage indicating that it's occupied, and so forth. The underlying idea here is to make them earn this information rather than giving it out for free, with full acceptance that doing it this way will slow things down.

On a more macro level, I've always seen luck as being a big - if not the biggest - overall factor in the game as a whole. If it wasn't, we wouldn't use dice.

 

[Lanefan]

Re: Tomb of Horrors

You do realise that that, by design, was intended to unfairly punish players?

The overall adventure was, sure, but I don't think the three-cave entrance options were.

I used the example mostly because it and the one from A3 were the first two that leaped to mind as I was typing.

 

[Lanefan]

if by 'punish the players', you mean 'kill them without a saving throw', then yeah, ToH does that just fine...

Please tell me you mean characters here rather than players...

 

[David Howery]

Please tell me you mean characters here rather than players...

You can't prove anything!

yeah, I should have said PCs, not players...

 

[Imaculata]

Fair enough.

My question, to follow on from your example above, then becomes: how much of this info do the PCs have before making their decision? Do they know the heavy door will make noise, or is that just speculation on their part? Do they know there's a powerful foe waiting in the other entrance, without taking steps to find out? Etc.

I try to give my players some clues to consider, but there are always unknowns. The players may however be able to optain a little bit of extra information through careful observation and investigation.

For example, knowing that a heavy door will probably be noisy is something I think the pc's would logically be able to deduce. So that is information I give up front. If a powerful foe lurks behind another entrance, I will always provide clues: Tracks of the beasty or remains of its victims on the ground.

But I try to always find a balance where it is never perfectly clear which of all their choices is the most optimal, in order to maintain some suspense.

This is a situation where in my view it's absolutely vital the DM not give out any info the PCs either can't know about or haven't earned by observation/scouting. (think about if this were real, how much would people be able to discern on approaching and-or observing such a structure, and give out information based on that)

If they start using skills such as tracking, or spells of divination magic e.g. Detect xxxx, those can give them more info if there's any to give.

I agree completely. It shouldn't be easy for the players to make their choice and they should make some effort to get more clues. And even if they do lots of tracking and use divination, there should always be some unknowns and some doubt. But I think there is more suspense by giving them something to base their decision on. Even if that decision ends up being as simple as: "No way I'm swimming through that creepy tunnel!"

On a more macro level, I've always seen luck as being a big - if not the biggest - overall factor in the game as a whole. If it wasn't, we wouldn't use dice.

Fair enough. And besides, the players (probably) don't have a map of the dungeon. So even if they pick a seemingly safe entrance, it may lead them down a more dangerous path further down the line. Though I tend to reward the more cumbersome entrances with an easier route through the dungeon, simply because I think thats fair.

 

[Lanefan]

@Imaculata - thinking this over some more, I realized that dungeon architecture doesn't in fact play all that big of a role in how much of the dungeon they explore; as a far bigger role is played by the party's reason for being there in the first place.

To wit: if the party's goal is in fact to explore the place top to bottom (more commonly seen when it's the players' idea to go there) then chances are high they're going to make sure they explore as much of it as they can, take care to backtrack and fill in gaps, check unopened doors or unexplored passages, thoroughly search for hidden doors/passages, and so forth. Here the odds are high that whatever you design is going to enter play.

But if they're there on a find-the-McGuffin mission, or a rescue mission, or an assassination mission - the sort of usually-DM-driven trip where the goal is simply to get in, get something done, and get out - then any unnecessary exploration is in fact counterproductive to that goal. Here you're designing the adventure site in full knowledge they might only see 25% of it*; with the rest being designed just in case they end up going there (and because you largely don't know exactly which 25% they'll hit), or later decide to return and fully explore after completing the primary mission.

* - I think this is also why a lot of (boring!) adventures follow a straight-line single-track design, where the goal is placed at the end and the only way to get there is to hit every encounter en route. (classic example: White Plume Mountain: three goals, each at the end of a single-track set of encounters)