I did this a few years ago now. We were playing ad&d and the party had to enter the lair of the titular Minotaur and defeat it.
I had the maze mapped out and decided beforehand that to simulate the disorientation of the maze and the quasi-magical nature of it, i was going to give the player mapping contradictory information for his map.
I simulated the party getting lost in the maze by giving them 'wrong' information about the map - they didn't get any rolls to divine the correct route or anything. In hindsight, that might have been a dick move.
Was i right or wrong to do it?
Quote from: One Horse Town;307609In hindsight, that might have been a dick move.
Probably.
Quote from: One Horse Town;307609Was i right or wrong to do it?
the answer matches that of the question "Did the players have fun?"
Next time, tell them to make a Saving Roll of some sort each time they come to an intersection. If they succeed, they know which way is which.
They'll figure it out sooner or later.
I GM'd several mazes in my old AD&D camapign, and I never considered them fun.
Some of them were of the ridiculous "teleporter" variety (there's a particularly nasty one in one of the upper levels of the High Clerist Tower in DL8 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance_modules_(DL_series)#DL8_Dragons_of_War)), one was of the "mindfuck" variety (Silvanesti in DL10 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance_modules_(DL_series)#DL10_Dragons_of_Dreams)), and some were of the "accidental" variety - not delibetately placed mazes but mapping errors by the players.
The last ones lead me to the conclusion that the best way to simulate mazes is to abstain from the usual squared paper and 10' measurements and only use "roughly 5 paces to the left"-like descriptions. The players will get lost all by themselves.
There was one dungeon/maze in an old Basic D&D module (B5 (http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/dd/dd-b5.htm)?) that I never ran but which could work as well. There the maze was on two levels with sloping, intertwined passages. The map was on one page, so some rooms and passages took the same space.
But even if the mapper is confused about his map - if the players use the ("wrong") map as a guideline and simply backtrack their steps they will arrive where they entered the maze, so they are never really lost.
Quote from: One Horse TownI simulated the party getting lost in the maze by giving them 'wrong' information about the map - they didn't get any rolls to divine the correct route or anything. In hindsight, that might have been a dick move.
Was i right or wrong to do it?
"Getting lost" in overland travel works the same way. (In AD&D) the DM rolls a die whether the party leaves the hex in the direction they want - or not.
That's a part of the hexcrawl fun, I guess. (Isle of Dread (http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/dd/dd-x1.htm), DL3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance_modules_(DL_series)#DL3_Dragons_of_Hope), DL7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance_modules_(DL_series)#DL7_Dragons_of_Light), Sunken Land (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000M5Y28O))
A lot of old adventures involved fucking up mapping procedures to get the PCs lost. I think its fair game.
RPGPundit
Map making/cartography is a skill. we use a skill based system. I roll once per hour for the mapper, failure = a mistake.
Some spells or circumstances decrease the success%, like all skills.
I have had lost PC's a few times. They know that it's a skill, so no one considers it a dick move.