What would you think about a dungeon with a big-bad, where the key to defeating said menace was found in a single room with a secret door?

Is that kosher to you? or is it too problematic that a simple missed roll could theoretically make the Major Evil of the adventure unbeatable?

RPGPundit

Pixelbitching is stupid and shit design, always has been. Secret areas should exist to be 'interesting', not 'required'.

depends if you want emulation or a good game.

Do you want to create somethign that would represent the real way that a big bad would hide themselves or do you want to create a game that eh players can win?

Unbeatable is too binary and thus uninteresting for my taste. I wouldn't mind a hidden solution that made things a hell of a lot easier though.

 If it were very important to the adventure I would make sure there are clues elsewhere hinting that there may be something the party is missing.

Quote from: Ladybird;674835Pixelbitching is stupid and shit design, always has been. Secret areas should exist to be 'interesting', not 'required'.

Something like that, yes.

I would wonder why there was only one way to beat the big boss.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674829What would you think about a dungeon with a big-bad, where the key to defeating said menace was found in a single room with a secret door?

Do the players have to defeat the big-bad for the adventure/campaign to continue? If they do, then this is a bad idea. In a sandbox campaign where defeating this big-bad is not required but simply something the players have decided their characters want to try to do, it's generally going to be much less of a bad idea.

It's probably a very good idea from the POV of an very intelligent or good at planning big-bad, however. Of course, just because the big-bad believes having access to this "key" is the only way to beat him does not mean that it really is the only way. The players may think of other ways.

The idea of an Ancient Evil with a single vulnerability (a ring for example) was cool and interesting the first time Tolkien did it.

It's pretty much sucked in every incarnation after that.

Given at least three different clues, and with an open mind towards solutions you didn't think of, it's fine.

Additional caveat should you have an iron willed player who you KNOW will spearhead a TPK out of it.  Long way to say it doesn't work at every table.

Generally I would call that 'bad'

However, if the 'victory' of the big bad is interesting, as opposed to 'the planet dies' it can work.


Evil wizard takes over the world, and the campaign emphasis might shift to plotting against him.

It could even be more interesting than the origional state of the world.

A nice shiny utopia now dealing with tyranny perhaps.

Quote from: Bill;674878Generally I would call that 'bad'

However, if the 'victory' of the big bad is interesting, as opposed to 'the planet dies' it can work.


Evil wizard takes over the world, and the campaign emphasis might shift to plotting against him.

It could even be more interesting than the origional state of the world.

A nice shiny utopia now dealing with tyranny perhaps.

A good point.  Failures can provide as much entertainment as victories provided they are interesting.

To be honest, I very rarely specify the way that an opponent can be killed.

I know for a fact that if I do then the players will fall over themselves to not find the obvious way.

In any case, the players normally find far more inventive ways of killing the opponent than I ever could.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674829What would you think about a dungeon with a big-bad, where the key to defeating said menace was found in a single room with a secret door?

Is that kosher to you? or is it too problematic that a simple missed roll could theoretically make the Major Evil of the adventure unbeatable?

RPGPundit

Yes, it's bad design, AFAIC.

For a side mystery, something that can potentially be completely missed without affecting the rest of the exploration, it's fine - if you multiply the occurence of such side elements, the probability to find at least one increases, and that rewards a clever exploration MO on the players' part.

For a main menace in the dungeon, however, that's bad.

What matters here is player agency.

Don't put bottlenecks in your main adventure design.
Don't make victory rely on a single die roll.

I talk about all this in the advice to build the megadungeon. Lin in sig.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674829What would you think about a dungeon with a big-bad, where the key to defeating said menace was found in a single room with a secret door?

Like if the essence of the big bad is locked in a magic ring, and the only way to destroy that ring is to melt it in the volcano where it was forged, but the ring is lost from the memory of men deep in a cavern under a mountain range?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;674937Like if the essence of the big bad is locked in a magic ring, and the only way to destroy that ring is to melt it in the volcano where it was forged, but the ring is lost from the memory of men deep in a cavern under a mountain range?

That premise could work fine as an RPG adventure with multiple ways to find out about the ring, where it is, multiple paths of exploration of said caverns, ways to defeat the big bad at least temporarily before his life essence regroups and raises it from the dead, the group could then choose whatever it wants to do with the ring after retrieving it (and not necessarily destroy it)... that's not how the Pundit's scenario sounded to me. IMO.