Just to get my current interest in this out of the way. I have completed a map of a prison-palace-city-island-home of a 'Great Being'. The overall architectural design is intended to be alien and complex and a typical closed portal will present difficulties for a human party of a kind that renders an ordinary door a 'secret' puzzle to a dog.
What is a 'secret' door? Well we know it is distinguished from a 'concealed' door which sounds like a category of portals which are covered over with rugs, mirrors, paintings and so on which are bound to reveal themselves to perspiration and time. A 'secret' door is likely to be architecturally integrated in wall, floor or ceiling and reveal themselves to inspiration only. Portals plastered and painted over might be one or the other.
The activation of a secret door is only loosely presented by Gygax in the DMG. Either abstract with a d6 roll or get the players to specify their experiments.
Here is one of my favourite secret areas from a module - Gygax's WG4 Tharizdun. I love that the space beneath the stairs might be deduced to exist, I love the revolving door mechanism, and the secret place itself may be the most extraordinary in adventure literature.
(http://i881.photobucket.com/albums/ac15/TravisDF/qq.jpg)
SECRET D0OR:This rotating wall section is so cleverly made so as to defy detection by visual inspection. A tapping of the exact spot of the secret door will sound slightly different than the rest of the wall (1 in 4 chance of noting this slight difference). The door operates by pressing inwards and downwards with the palms held at shoulder height. A 2' wide section of the wall will then turn clockwise forcing the individual into the secret room.
====
I am interested in two things here:
[1] Do you design secret doors with mechanisms which require specific verbal instructions from your players to discover and unlock? If so let us hear the details of any you devised that you were pleased with.
[2] What is you favourite example of a secret door from a published adventure?
Cool thread, dude. I must admit that i don't think i've ever come up with a door with a mechanism off my own noggin.
My favourite secret door is actually from a computer game, which i ported over into my game.
I like all kinds of door mechanisms - irising doors, swinging panels, doors that slide up and down, etc.
Quote from: _kent_;585830I am interested in two things here:
[1] Do you design secret doors with mechanisms which require specific verbal instructions from your players to discover and unlock? If so let us hear the details of any you devised that you were pleased with.
[2] What is you favourite example of a secret door from a published adventure?
[1] No, because that leads to pixelbitching.
[2] The secret door that was a permanent
Passwall in the floor.
Quote from: jeff37923;585896[1] No, because that leads to pixelbitching.
I disagree. If you leave clues as to where the verbal instructions can be discovered or deciphered, it adds a lot of interest to proceedings. And a big sense of achievement when the players get through.
The dungeon in the game I run at the moment has some doors with passwords in an ancient dwarfish language that none of the players understand, but there are clues around the dungeon if they can decipher them - though to do that they will need to find an expert in that language. It's another layer of adventuring that they need to do, and where is the harm in that?
Quote from: jeff37923;585896[1] No, because that leads to pixelbitching.
I keep hearing that term thrown around quite a bit. Without description of the environment how do players interact with the setting ?
Quote from: noisms;585910The dungeon in the game I run at the moment has some doors with passwords in an ancient dwarfish language that none of the players understand, but there are clues around the dungeon if they can decipher them - though to do that they will need to find an expert in that language. It's another layer of adventuring that they need to do.
That's good. I can imagine an unscrupulous expert who misleads the party and tries to take advantage of the information himself.
Quote from: _kent_;585922That's good. I can imagine an unscrupulous expert who misleads the party and tries to take advantage of the information himself.
Exactly. Some experts will tell the truth for money or other favours. Others will tell lies. Some might be fraudulent. Some will use the players as bodyguards to get into areas of the dungeon that would be unsafe to enter by themselves. Stuff like that is what makes role playing games interesting to me.
So long as the secret door isn't essential to 'solving' the adventure, then I don't see the 'pixelbitching'. Not every room gets explored. In fact I'd be happy to take a dollar for every secret door that went undiscovered.
Cool idea for a thread.
I have a set of three doors in my dungeon that open by actioning levers on the left and right, which set gears in and around the doors into motion, which in turn make the halves of a face depicted on the outer doors join on the middle door. The outer doors each open once their half slided to the middle door. You can then enter the rooms left and right, get the eyes of the central mask reconstituted in the central door there, and then put them back on the mask, which then opens the central door.
Also in my dungeon, there is a secret door that is opened by connecting with a brain using a specific mask with tentacles and basically putting yourself in a mind flayer's place.
An old favorite of mine in a published adventure was for the Dark Eye RPG where you had a tapestry with a guy with crossed eyes in a huge serious, grim battle scene, and by pressing the eyes you could open the secret door in the painting. The cool part is that the entire painting was reproduced as a hand out the players could actually look at in real time and tell you what they did with it, how they poked and where, etc. That was neat.
Quote from: _kent_;585830[1] Do you design secret doors with mechanisms which require specific verbal instructions from your players to discover and unlock?
Yes, absolutely!
One example is a wall that pivots open when you pull a lever in the gushing mouth of a nearby wall fountain. (The lever isn't obvious while the water is flowing, unless you feel around inside mouth of the fountain.)
Quote[2] What is you favourite example of a secret door from a published adventure?
At risk of being a little vain: The complex secret "door" in Fane of Poisoned Prophecies that leads ... up ... to another world. In some ways, the existence of the "door" is quite plain, but the trick is figuring out how & when it "opens". For that there are various clues throughout the site, but some trial and error may also be necessary.
Quote from: mcbobbo;585984So long as the secret door isn't essential to 'solving' the adventure, then I don't see the 'pixelbitching'. Not every room gets explored. In fact I'd be happy to take a dollar for every secret door that went undiscovered.
I don't know what 'solving the adventure' means.
I think it is perfectly legitimate for the discovery of a secret door
alone to allow access to the more intriguing or wonderful regions of a castle/dungeon/city/palace. In that case I think it is a duty for the DM to elicit descriptions from the players of their search methods rather than rely merely on dice.
Quote from: Benoist;586008I have a set of three doors in my dungeon that open by actioning levers on the left and right, which set gears in and around the doors into motion, which in turn make the halves of a face depicted on the outer doors join on the middle door. The outer doors each open once their half slided to the middle door. You can then enter the rooms left and right, get the eyes of the central mask reconstituted in the central door there, and then put them back on the mask, which then opens the central door.
That is visually interesting but here is a question for you. In some movies and computer games secret doors are really puzzle doors presenting an unmistakable if difficult challenge. But shouldn't secret doors be anonymous, mundane and invisible no matter how grand the vistas beyond? At least if I was an architect that is how I would design them.
Quote from: Benoist;586008An old favorite of mine in a published adventure was for the Dark Eye RPG where you had a tapestry with a guy with crossed eyes in a huge serious, grim battle scene, and by pressing the eyes you could open the secret door in the painting. The cool part is that the entire painting was reproduced as a hand out the players could actually look at in real time and tell you what they did with it, how they poked and where, etc. That was neat.
That reminds me of the illustrations in C1 and S1. It is very satisfying to give players good handouts, Warhammer 1e was particularly good for that, but I hadn't thought of it for secret doors and it sounds almost perfect as a device. There may be difficulty though in giving them a picture without informing them there is a secret to be discovered if the idea is used more than once or you don't have many pictures of the environment.
QuotePixelbitching
A style of GMing--specifically, a form of railroading--in which the players need to find one specific clue in order to advance on the one plot line determined by the GM, cannot proceed without it, and do not get any help from the GM in finding it. If said clue is particularly hard to find (or if the GM requires a very specific action to locate it), the GM may be said to be "pixelbitching".
Origin: Computer games, specifically point-and-click games in which you need to click a specific place--sometimes only a few pixels on the screen (hence the name)--in order to get some magic clue you need to advance in the programmed-in plot line. Coined by SteveD on RPG.net.
http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RPG_Lexica:PQR
That's a stupid word, and even more stupid when used in relation to pen and paper. I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist.
I very rarely use purely mechanical secret doors in dungeon settings because they're just too difficult to disguise if they are regularly used (scrapes on the floor, worn edges, etc.). But my favourite one was in a CoC game which was hidden in panelling in the side of an actual doorway - that is, the thick stone walls of the mansion actually made the doorways deep enough to contain a narrow passage within the walls. Players tend to look at walls but the bit between the rooms gets ignored.
Quote from: Guy Fullerton;586122Yes, absolutely!
One example is a wall that pivots open when you pull a lever in the gushing mouth of a nearby wall fountain. (The lever isn't obvious while the water is flowing, unless you feel around inside mouth of the fountain.)
At risk of being a little vain: The complex secret "door" in Fane of Poisoned Prophecies that leads ... up ... to another world. In some ways, the existence of the "door" is quite plain, but the trick is figuring out how & when it "opens". For that there are various clues throughout the site, but some trial and error may also be necessary.
Something about secret doors I like is the idea that people who take risks (with their characters hands) and who are curious (interested in exploring your dungeon in detail) are the ones who are rewarded.
Can you describe your secret door from 'Fane of Poisoned Prophecies' in more (not necessarily full) detail?
Quote from: Vile;586130my favourite one was in a CoC game which was hidden in panelling in the side of an actual doorway - that is, the thick stone walls of the mansion actually made the doorways deep enough to contain a narrow passage within the walls. Players tend to look at walls but the bit between the rooms gets ignored.
That's good because if the players are studying maps closely which they absolutely should be then it is conceivable they might wonder about the walls. Im sure there is a re Howard Conan story which has tunnels within the walls of a castle/palace for spying on guests and moving about.
Quote from: _kent_;586132Can you describe your secret door from 'Fane of Poisoned Prophecies' in more (not necessarily full) detail?
Sure. Based on what I said already, some of the detail might be obvious from the back cover illustration, shown here:
http://www.chaotichenchmen.com/2009/01/fane-of-poisoned-prophecies.html
(Note: that goes to one of the promotional pages for the module, so don't go there if you don't like that stuff. It's the only place I have handy that shows the back cover illustration.)
To begin with (assuming you want to go through the "door"), you need to make the realization that it's a "door" of sorts. And then you need to figure out how to go through the "door", when it's appropriate to do so, etc.
More details:
Spoiler
The spire (that thrusts upward from the top of the circular ziggurat on the back cover) is a magical staircase to the moon. This is pretty strongly alluded to in various places within the complex (e.g., if you get near the spire itself, it's quite clearly a staircase), and there are occupants of the complex who know of it, and who could reveal some details if they're not ... ahem ... put to the sword, etc.. It only works at specific times, which are potentially determinable via trial and error. And it doesn't always function correctly, although there are clues about this, and puzzle-like means for correcting the disfunction in a couple places in the module.
The "door" itself is a relatively small part of the module. The module is fully playable even the group never even investigates the door.
Quote from: Vile;586130That's a stupid word, and even more stupid when used in relation to pen and paper. I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist.
man I wish I could .sig that.
Especially in relation to that word. And especially given the origins of that word.
Great thread Kent!
I always liked the example in the AD&D DMG Page 99:
[Players have a clue that there should be a way out of a room they've arrived at from a smudged map they found]
DM: The place seems to be about where the blotched area is, but there are no passageways out of it.
LC: Let's tap along that south wall, especially in the center 30' to see if it sounds hollow. The cleric, gnome, and halfling will do the tapping, while the magic-user and I watch back the way we came.
DM: (Rolling a few dice behind the screen several times, knowing that tapping won't show anything here, as the secret door is 10' above the floor: ) "The entire wall sounds VERY solid. You spend a full 10 minutes throughly checking, even to the far east and west, and all three are convinced that it is not hollow beyond. However, the gnome, who you placed in the middle, noted some strange holes in the wall. These were square places cut into the natural stone, each about half a foot per side, and and a bit deeper. There were two at the 20' and two at the 30' line, 1 above the other, the lower at about 3', and the higher at about 6'. He found some small splinters of wood in one.
OC: "Does the smudged area [on the map] give us any clue as to what the holes could be for? Let's feel around inside them to see if there are levers or catches or something..."
LC: "Yes. Look at the map, and carefully check those holes with daggers first - we don't want to lose fingers or hands!" (When all that comes to naught: ) "Can anyone thing of why there would be wood splinters in the holes? That must be some sort of a clue!"
OC: "The only thing I can think of is that the holes are sockets for some sort of wooden construction -"
LC: "Sure! How about a ramp or stairs? How high is the ceiling in this place?"
DM: Oh, it must be at least 25' or more."
LC: Let's for a human pyramid and see if there's a secret door higher up on the wall - right here in the center where the passage seems to go on southwards. I'll form the base, and the rest of you help the gnome and the halfling up, and hold them there (use the pole!), while they tap. What do they discover?
DM: "The halfling at the top of the stack has a 1 in 6 chance of slipping and bringing you all down." (A roll of 4 follows, so: ) "But it doesn't happen, and both the gnome and the halfling manage a few taps, and even that feeble work seems to indicate some sort of space beyond."
LC: "Let's change the plan a bit. The cleric and I will hoist the gnome up and hold his legs firmly while he checks around for some way to open the secret door. Meanwhile, the halfling and the magic-user will guard the entrance so that we won't be attacked by surprise by some monster while thus engaged."
DM: "You accomplish the shuffle, and let's see if anything comes - " (A d6 roll for wandering monsters again gives a negative result. ) "The guards see nothing, and what is the gnome doing now?"
OC: (The gnome): "I'll scan the stone first to see if there are marks or some operating device evident."
DM: "Some stone projections seem rather sooth, as if worn by use. That's all you are able to note."
OC: "Then I'll see if I can move any of the stone knobs and see if they operate a secret door! I'll push, pull, twist, turn, slide, or otherwise attempt to trigger the thing if possible."
DM: "The fist-sized projections move inwards and there is a grinding sound, and a 10' X 10' section of the wall, 10' above the floor in the center part, swings inward to the right."
OC: "(The gnome: ) 'I'll pull myself up into the passage revealed, and then I'll see if I can drive a spike and secure my rope to it, so I can throw the free end down to the others."
DM: "You get up all right, and there is a crack where you can pound in a spike. As you're doing it you might be in for a nasty surprise, so I'll let you roll a six-sider for me to see your status - make the roll! (Groans as a 1 comes up indicating surprise. The DM then rolls 3 attacks for the ghoul that grabbed at the busy gnome, and one claw attack does 2 damage and paralyzes the hapless character, whereupon the DM judges that the other 3 would rend him to bits. However, the DM does NOT tell the players what has happened, despite impassioned please and urgent demands. He simply relates: ) "You see a sickly gray arm strike the gnome as he's working on the spike, the gnome utters a muffled cry, and then a shadowy form drags hum out of sight. What are you others going to do?"
LC: "Ready weapons and missiles, the magic-user her magic-missile spell, and watch the opening."
DM: "You hear some nasty rending noises and gobbling sounds, but they end quickly. Now you see a group of gray-colored human-like creatures with long, dirt-and blood-encrusted nails, and teeth bloodied and bared, coming to the opening. As they come to the edge you detect a charnel smell coming from them - 4 of them, in fact."
Quote from: thedungeondelver;586142man I wish I could .sig that. Especially in relation to that word. And especially given the origins of that word.
Heh, go right ahead, DD.
Quote from: Vile;586130That's a stupid word, and even more stupid when used in relation to pen and paper. I'm just going to pretend it doesn't exist.
You can shove your fingers in your ears and say "Lalalalalalala! I can't hear you!" all you want, but you cannot deny the existance of the concept in RPGs!
Yes, it would take a dick DM. However, it is a sign of a dick DM to allow a secret door that only opens / is found when the PCs do a certain action. Usually without any clues as to what that action is!
I'm not disputing the concept. It's the completely irrelevant word I take issue with.
Quote from: Vile;586186I'm not disputing the concept. It's the completely irrelevant word I take issue with.
How can the word be irrelevant when it perfectly encapsulates the concept?
I've never come across a pixel on a tabletop.
Quote from: _kent_;586127That is visually interesting but here is a question for you. In some movies and computer games secret doors are really puzzle doors presenting an unmistakable if difficult challenge. But shouldn't secret doors be anonymous, mundane and invisible no matter how grand the vistas beyond? At least if I was an architect that is how I would design them.
.
This is a great point often over looked. You have a load of clues that lead to some complex dodad and a encrypted key and a riddle etc etc .... If you were building a scret door the real questions are
i) how often is it accessed - if its often then the mechanism needs to be simply accessible and the signs of use need to be hidden. So Jeff's passwall perhaps with a tigger word? is an ideal solution if you have the magic. If its the door to a great tomb that is concealed to bind the great demon or whatever then build a fucking big wall over it like they did with the pyramids.
ii) what technology, including magic did the architech have to work with - if magic is common then a magical secret door may well be cheaper and easier to construct than a complex system of sliding stones counterweighted to fractions of a gram
iii) how is it reset - if the door relies on 2 tons of sand pouring through a grating to shift it then once opened it will stay open. If it does not reset then its either open or its never been open in which case why not hide it behind a real stone wall.
One of my favourite secret doors I build was a hole. a little channel 1/2" wide 10 feet long through stone. The person that built it had a ring of geseous form and so no other form of exit or egress were necessary. The PCs took 4 days to tunnel through it
Quote from: jeff37923;586183You can shove your fingers in your ears and say "Lalalalalalala! I can't hear you!" all you want, but you cannot deny the existance of the concept in RPGs!
Yes, it would take a dick DM. However, it is a sign of a dick DM to allow a secret door that only opens / is found when the PCs do a certain action. Usually without any clues as to what that action is!
That depends though right becuase that might be exactly how you would build a secret door if you were actually building one.
Let's assume that the dwarf king has a secret library where he keeps his engravings of elven maidens cavorting in the forest. If he wants to keep it actually secret he may well disguise the entry mechanism. If the party turn up 100 years later then they won't find clues about how he gets in I mean why woudl he leave clues ? was he gettign senile ? did he secretly want the queen to walk in on him one day when he was enjoying the spendors of Galadriel nekkid ?
Why is the door there? who uses it ? how often? for what purpose?
Quote from: _kent_;586125I don't know what 'solving the adventure' means.
I think it is perfectly legitimate for the discovery of a secret door alone to allow access to the more intriguing or wonderful regions of a castle/dungeon/city/palace. In that case I think it is a duty for the DM to elicit descriptions from the players of their search methods rather than rely merely on dice.
I believe that each gaming session has a purpose and that the players and GM should agree on that purpose. Secret doors can then be good or bad depending on what that purpose is...
Scenario A - Players expect to be given a task, go out and resolve the conflict, return and spend the treasure.
In this situation, placing the only method of resolution behind a secret door is a dangerous idea, just as any other method of puzzle use would be.
Justin Alexander already explained this better than I could, so maybe go check this out (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule)...
Scenario B - Players expect to explore a space sandbox style, and if they cannot make progress in an area, they will simply move on.
This makes secret door use much more acceptable. In fact, in a megadungeon, for example, they will probably be back to the area later, and may find the door then.
Scenario C - The GM likes to make the players dance, and enjoys seeing them quiver under the sheer intellect of his designs.
I played under a guy like this once. It was a lot of fun, but again we all knew the expectations going in.
Quote from: jeff37923;586187How can the word be irrelevant when it perfectly encapsulates the concept?
Actually, both parts of the word are bad.
Pixels imply 1990's era gaming. On my new screen (1920 x 1080) I can't really see the pixels any more. My kids arent' really going to know what they are, because they're not used to 8-bit graphics. My first video game was an Atari, where PacMan's lips were each one pixel wide, so the concept makes sense to me. Going forward, it wouldn't work. Likewise, try going back to 1974 and explaining to Gygax what a pixel is. So in the past it didn't really work either. 'Pixel' in an RPG context had a brief chance to be relevant, but we're on the downhill slide of that chance, for sure.
Bitching is also completely invalid. To me, when you have a right to be upset, you're
complaining. Bitching is reserved for illegitimate complaints, as a synonym for whining and moaning. But if you need the princess, and she is bound behind a single secret door that you cannot find, that's a problem with the adventure design. So suggesting that there be more than one 'pixel' worth of information to find her and save her life is a complaint, not bitching at all.
Make sense?
Quote from: mcbobbo;586238Make sense?
Nope.
Quote from: Vile;586192I've never come across a pixel on a tabletop.
Nice to see that literal-mindedness has not yet died out.
Quote from: jeff37923;586254Nope.
I'll have to assume you're being facetious since you didn't offer even one rebuttal...
Quote from: _kent_;586127That is visually interesting but here is a question for you. In some movies and computer games secret doors are really puzzle doors presenting an unmistakable if difficult challenge. But shouldn't secret doors be anonymous, mundane and invisible no matter how grand the vistas beyond? At least if I was an architect that is how I would design them.
Yes you're right. I had forgotten to mention that the set of three doors is in fact behind a secret door, but that is a more conventional one with a push mechanism. It's the red area here:
(http://enrill.net/images/play-by-posts/maps/volcano/Bandit-level-C05-65.jpg)
OK. How about this one? The area with the arrows just north west of the red area? The long corridor that makes a U shape. OK. This corridor is only accessible by the door in the middle above the U (where you see the teleporter). Then when you step onto the first floor trigger indicated by box A you arm the trick of this place. An illusion appears behind A like the corridor is going on behind you and the door behind you disappeared.
You go down the corridor, and reach plate B. There's an illusion there behind plate B that makes the corridor look empty before you. When you step on plate B, you are teleported to A and the position you're facing is switched 180 degrees. For a brief moment, the illusion in front of B breaks and you see a glimpse of a door in front of you. Then you are teleported to A facing south.
You're going like this in loops in an infinite corridor, getting an idea that there are plates at regular intervals, and seeing the door flash before your eyes once in a while. To reach the eastern door that opens in the room and get outside of the loop, you need to step backwards onto plate A to be teleported to plate B switched 180 degrees, now facing north, the illusion behind B dissipated, and potentially find the secret door there, or go back to the teleporter room.
I know it's not about opening the secret door itself... but it's more about accessing it in the first place.
(speaking of which, looking at this again allowed me to realize I had forgotten the one-way arrows on the doors leading to the U corridor, which I've added here for the sake of clarity - thanks Kent)
Quote from: _kent_;586127That reminds me of the illustrations in C1 and S1. It is very satisfying to give players good handouts, Warhammer 1e was particularly good for that, but I hadn't thought of it for secret doors and it sounds almost perfect as a device. There may be difficulty though in giving them a picture without informing them there is a secret to be discovered if the idea is used more than once or you don't have many pictures of the environment.
Yes. I imagine that for that to work, you'd have to have a bunch of insteresting sketches and other handouts, as in the case of C1, so as to not give away that you've got to do this or that with it. If it's one amongst other handouts, it might be taken for a clue for another area later, some historical context for the place, etc. Not necessarily a secret door.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586274I'll have to assume you're being facetious since you didn't offer even one rebuttal...
What is there to rebutt? You and Vile
really don't like a figure of speech currently in use, to the point where you both don't seem to engage in the concept that it is shorthand for. Big fuckin' deal. Get over it. Pixelbitching exists.
Quote from: jeff37923;586183Yes, it would take a dick DM. However, it is a sign of a dick DM to allow a secret door that only opens / is found when the PCs do a certain action.
Jeff I am curious what your thoughts are on that example I posted from the 1e DMG. See above (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=586143&postcount=18).
Quote from: Mistwell;586381Jeff I am curious what your thoughts are on that example I posted from the 1e DMG. See above (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=586143&postcount=18).
Not a dick move by the DM. The smudged map provides a clue.
The pixelbitching I'm talking about are things like there is a secret door, but only if you place your two fingers in the eye sockets of the most frightening looking skull on an altar will allow the altar to be moved and expose the hidden stairwell. That may work if your Players have seen
The Name of the Rose and remember the scene, but otherwise the Players will be lost if they do not have a clue to indicate that there is a secret door in the room and/or how to operate it.
Quote from: Guy Fullerton;586139Based on what I said already, some of the detail might be obvious from the back cover illustration, shown here:
http://www.chaotichenchmen.com/2009/01/fane-of-poisoned-prophecies.html
I like it. In fact I have been using stairs with the property of dislocation myself recently.
Quote from: _kent_;586407I like it. In fact I have been using stairs with the property of dislocation myself recently.
Bendy doors could be cool too:
(http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/429340_472517829454946_97303143_n.jpg)
(http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/229911_472517806121615_736278936_n.jpg)
(http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/383406_472517752788287_2033804249_n.jpg)
Quote from: Benoist;586276Then when you step onto the first floor trigger indicated by box A you arm the trick of this place. An illusion appears behind A like the corridor is going on behind you and the door behind you disappeared.
You go down the corridor, and reach plate B. There's an illusion there behind plate B that makes the corridor look empty before you. When you step on plate B, you are teleported to A and the position you're facing is switched 180 degrees. For a brief moment, the illusion in front of B breaks and you see a glimpse of a door in front of you. Then you are teleported to A facing south.
You're going like this in loops in an infinite corridor, getting an idea that there are plates at regular intervals, and seeing the door flash before your eyes once in a while.
There is a very similar teleport trick in Starstone. I suppose they are all similar in principle but could certainly be graded beginner, intermediate and advanced depending on the prominence of hints that teleportation is occurring.
I assume if you walk clockwise you experience a symmetrical effect of looping clockwise. As soon as the door flashed up and I had gone through one iteration I would have gone back to the u-bend and put a spear on the ground parallel to the south wall and walked again to B, now I see the spear ahead not behind and know that I am repeating half cycles and not that there are two separate flashing doors 'B' in NE and SW. I would know that 'A' exists and do a clockwise loop too but primarily I would try to skirt 'A' going north and try to approach 'A' from the north. I am not sure I would think of walking backwards onto 'A'.
Quote from: jeff37923;586372What is there to rebutt? You and Vile really don't like a figure of speech currently in use, to the point where you both don't seem to engage in the concept that it is shorthand for. Big fuckin' deal. Get over it. Pixelbitching exists.
So you don't disagree that the word could be improved? It's just that you're not interested in improving it. Right?
Quote from: jeff37923;586390Not a dick move by the DM. The smudged map provides a clue.
The pixelbitching I'm talking about are things like there is a secret door, but only if you place your two fingers in the eye sockets of the most frightening looking skull on an altar will allow the altar to be moved and expose the hidden stairwell. That may work if your Players have seen The Name of the Rose and remember the scene, but otherwise the Players will be lost if they do not have a clue to indicate that there is a secret door in the room and/or how to operate it.
" The most frightening looking skull" is subjective. So long as the actual object is identified as the trigger (3rd skull from the right for ex.) everything is ok. Presumably the secret door exists no matter if a skull is approached or not. Quite often, a secret door can be detected while the means to open it may take a bit more effort.
So, being able to detect the secret door if it is searched for combined with a detailed description of the room's contents is just fine.
With the old school rules in play there are actually a couple ways to find a secret door. You can make the die roll, find the door, then explore the area for the trigger
OR possibly fail the roll to find the door, and trigger it anyway by messing with the room's contents while just exploring. :)
Quote from: Mistwell;586143I always liked the example in the AD&D DMG Page 99: [Players have a clue that there should be a way out of a room they've arrived at from a smudged map they found]
The DMG is in a class by itself and in many ways remains
advanced. I can't imagine DMing for a player who would not prefer even to fail at such exploration and discovery than succeed by rolling a 1 on a d6.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586425So you don't disagree that the word could be improved? It's just that you're not interested in improving it. Right?
No, I think you are just trolling.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586235I believe that each gaming session has a purpose and that the players and GM should agree on that purpose. Secret doors can then be good or bad depending on what that purpose is...
Scenario A - Players expect to be given a task, go out and resolve the conflict, return and spend the treasure.
In this situation, placing the only method of resolution behind a secret door is a dangerous idea, just as any other method of puzzle use would be.
Justin Alexander already explained this better than I could, so maybe go check this out (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule)...
Scenario B - Players expect to explore a space sandbox style, and if they cannot make progress in an area, they will simply move on.
This makes secret door use much more acceptable. In fact, in a megadungeon, for example, they will probably be back to the area later, and may find the door then.
Scenario C - The GM likes to make the players dance, and enjoys seeing them quiver under the sheer intellect of his designs.
I played under a guy like this once. It was a lot of fun, but again we all knew the expectations going in.
I only recognise Scenario B above as you have defined them though I don't like the word 'sandbox' because it has become a loaded definition but I know what you mean.
Scenario A - Players expect to be given a task, go out and resolve the conflict, return and spend the treasure.This is closer to how I play with a critical change to the definition because there are always real events developing and characters the players want to interact with but there is
no sense that tasks are measured to fit and there is
no expectation of success. So I would redefine A.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;586426" The most frightening looking skull" is subjective. So long as the actual object is identified as the trigger (3rd skull from the right for ex.) everything is ok. Presumably the secret door exists no matter if a skull is approached or not. Quite often, a secret door can be detected while the means to open it may take a bit more effort.
So, being able to detect the secret door if it is searched for combined with a detailed description of the room's contents is just fine.
With the old school rules in play there are actually a couple ways to find a secret door. You can make the die roll, find the door, then explore the area for the trigger
OR possibly fail the roll to find the door, and trigger it anyway by messing with the room's contents while just exploring. :)
I get what you are saying here, however when I speak of pixelbitching it relates back to the OP.
Quote from: _kent_;585830[1] Do you design secret doors with mechanisms which require specific verbal instructions from your players to discover and unlock?
I prefer to have multiple method of discovery and opening a secret door in my games, including just destroying the secret door and the wall it is in. However, there are some very subjective definitions of what is considered to be good "specific verbal instructions" and bad "specific verbal instructions" which are dependant on the DM. How specific those instructions are should be dependant upon how many clues and how informative those clues are - greater complexity means better and more informative clues. Which can get downright stupid at times in Actual Play.
Quote from: _kent_;586420There is a very similar teleport trick in Starstone. I suppose they are all similar in principle but could certainly be graded beginner, intermediate and advanced depending on the prominence of hints that teleportation is occurring.
Yes. I'd say so.
Quote from: _kent_;586420I assume if you walk clockwise you experience a symmetrical effect of looping clockwise.
Correct.
Quote from: _kent_;586420As soon as the door flashed up and I had gone through one iteration I would have gone back to the u-bend and put a spear on the ground parallel to the south wall and walked again to B, now I see the spear ahead not behind and know that I am repeating half cycles and not that there are two separate flashing doors 'B' in NE and SW. I would know that 'A' exists and do a clockwise loop too but primarily I would try to skirt 'A' going north and try to approach 'A' from the north. I am not sure I would think of walking backwards onto 'A'.
Yes. Jumping over the plates is a possibility. I'm reluctant to add force walls north of A and B though. Maybe the plates could be replaced by metal casings around the corridor at these spots instead, and act as teleportation fields. Stepping through A the first time would trigger the loop.
Cool thread.
Just an aside taking up a throwaway comment upthread: who actually has characters discovering not only the door but the means to open it with a die roll? The example in the DMG involves a find secret door roll (admittedly by inference; he rolls dice earlier when the party is unaware that the door is 10' above their heads...I always assumed the detect door roll was made after making sure the [demi]human pyramid didn't collapse).
I've always used the roll to let players determine that a secret door exists. The opening relies on player description. I've never played with anyone else who does it any other way, but that's admittedly meaningless.
I've never really had an ultra-clever secret door in my dungeons, really. I figured they were meant to be used, so elaborate means of opening them would be stupid.
Quote from: KenHR;586459I've never really had an ultra-clever secret door in my dungeons, really. I figured they were meant to be used, so elaborate means of opening them would be stupid.
I think secret doors should be simple and swift to open
if you know how. The elaborate descriptions that players have to go through are experiments to discover these straight-forward means. Consider even Gandalf's frustration at the Moria gate. Simple if you know how.
Quote from: jeff37923;586431No, I think you are just trolling.
No, no, not at all. I like the concept, and think it needs a word. I also think that whoever chose the word being used should be slapped. Sort of like the guy who names Linux projects deserves a whack upside the head, figuratively speaking.
Quote from: _kent_;586433This is closer to how I play with a critical change to the definition because there are always real events developing and characters the players want to interact with but there is no sense that tasks are measured to fit and there is no expectation of success. So I would redefine A.
What's your take on the three clue rule?
And are you being clear when you say 'no expectation', as in when they do succeed, it's a fluke? Maybe you meant 'no guarantee'. But this is rather what I mean. If the adventure dies in its tracks if they don't find the door, don't make it a secret door, per se.
Quote from: _kent_;586476I think secret doors should be simple and swift to open if you know how. The elaborate descriptions that players have to go through are experiments to discover these straight-forward means. Consider even Gandalf's frustration at the Moria gate. Simple if you know how.
True, indeed, and I agree with you. I just don't like secret doors that are just video game puzzles in disguise...I actually think I'm repeating something you said upthread with that.
Quote from: jeff37923;586390Not a dick move by the DM. The smudged map provides a clue.
The pixelbitching I'm talking about are things like there is a secret door, but only if you place your two fingers in the eye sockets of the most frightening looking skull on an altar will allow the altar to be moved and expose the hidden stairwell. That may work if your Players have seen The Name of the Rose and remember the scene, but otherwise the Players will be lost if they do not have a clue to indicate that there is a secret door in the room and/or how to operate it.
OK, seems reasonable to me.
So you seem to be saying (extrapolating here) that secret doors should have some reasonable clue that can tip off the players that it exists. And, that when secret doors become too "secret" from the players, they're apt to just start wasting time in every room and corridor touching and prodding everything looking for them in response to the belief that they won't get sufficient clues to spot them otherwise. Is that a fair summary of what you're saying?
Quote from: mcbobbo;586503What's your take on the three clue rule?
I don't believe in set rules or quotas like that. I find what I have seen of J. Alexander's analysis of gaming needlessly formulaic. He looks for systems where I like to keep things fluid and complex. I like to keep gaming principles in the back of my mind and consider them subordinate to 'exciting times at the gametable'.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586503And are you being clear when you say 'no expectation', as in when they do succeed, it's a fluke? Maybe you meant 'no guarantee'.
No. What I said is exactly what I meant but you seem to be thinking of only one sense of the phrase 'no expectation', as in 'zero expectation'. I used it in the sense that they have 'no preconceived idea of what will happen'.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586503If the adventure dies in its tracks if they don't find the door, don't make it a secret door, per se.
I don't accept the notion of '
the adventure' [I don't use modules]. They should have a dozen things they want to do both inside and outside the dungeon where lies the secret door. It is perfectly fine to have the best material in a campaign beyond a secret door.
Quote from: jibbajibba;586209One of my favourite secret doors I build was a hole. a little channel 1/2" wide 10 feet long through stone. The person that built it had a ring of geseous form and so no other form of exit or egress were necessary. The PCs took 4 days to tunnel through it
That's good too.
Quote from: _kent_;586522I don't believe in set rules or quotas like that.
How's about the concept, then? Is one clue enough?
Quote from: _kent_;586522I used it in the sense that they have 'no preconceived idea of what will happen'.
But they do, though, right? I mean players typically do expect a 'fair challenge' or at least fair warning. See that other thread on 'Suggested Encounters Per Day'. E.g.
Quote from: jhkim;579485As I see it, if every danger in the world has appropriate warning signs - that is just as unrealistic as there being only level-appropriate opponents to fight. Both of these come from the same principle - that if the players die, they should have had a fair chance. The difference is adding in threat-assessment challenges.
Not that it is a guarentee, but there is
some expectation that they'll get to level 2 in just about every game but Paranoia. Right?
I think this follows, loosely, down to all levels of the game. Carried too far you get entitlement issues, but in moderation I just feel it makes sense.
Put it this way, how many players die per session, on average?
Quote from: _kent_;586522I don't accept the notion of 'the adventure' [I don't use modules].
I'm just going to gently tease you a little that you started of this very thread using a module as an example. Please forgive me.
:)
Quote from: _kent_;586522They should have a dozen things they want to do both inside and outside the dungeon where lies the secret door. It is perfectly fine to have the best material in a campaign beyond a secret door.
Okay, cool. But is it also perfectly fine if they never find that best material?
I don't know if I could handle it. I think I'd have to move it elsewhere and get them to run across it, just so it doesn't go to waste.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586555How's about the concept, then? Is one clue enough?
But they do, though, right? I mean players typically do expect a 'fair challenge' or at least fair warning. See that other thread on 'Suggested Encounters Per Day'.
Let me put it this way, I don't give a rat's ass what the players expect. I am however a soft DM and try to make sure they enjoy a fairly intense game.
I said already that I don't care for micro or meta game design rules. Im beginning to think we don't play the same kind of game.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586555I'm just going to gently tease you a little that you started of this very thread using a module as an example.
Sure but I have never
used a module in whole or part. I like to read the very best but I come up with my own stuff.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586555Okay, cool. But is it also perfectly fine if they never find that best material? I don't know if I could handle it. I think I'd have to move it elsewhere and get them to run across it, just so it doesn't go to waste.
Keep in mind that for those DMs who create their own material there is no need to prepare everything in advance to the same degree so there is nothing like the wastage that occurs if for example secret door is undiscovered in WG4.
Quote from: _kent_;586573Im beginning to think we don't play the same kind of game.
Few people do. But that's good because if we all played it the exact same way, what would we discuss?
Quote from: mcbobbo;586576Few people do. But that's good because if we all played it the exact same way, what would we discuss?
Sure.
Here's a question. Was it a mistake to give Elves a 2 in 6 chance of secret door detection, an improvement over the ordinary human 1 in 6 chance? Has this rule lessened the prevalence of experimentation and the verbal description of the search at the gametable?
My thinking is that there is no reason to expect the player of that Elf to be any more ingenious in his explicit verbal searching methods than any other player and somehow it feels like a disincentive for parties with an elf not to promote the d6 mechanic for searching.
Quote from: mcbobbo;586238Pixels imply 1990's era gaming.
The games being evoked are primarily found in the late '80s and early '90s. So that's wholly appropriate.
QuoteBitching is also completely invalid. To me, when you have a right to be upset, you're complaining. Bitching is reserved for illegitimate complaints, as a synonym for whining and moaning.
You're thinking of a different sense of the word "bitch". In this case, it's referring to "something unpleasant or difficult" (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bitching). When you say, for example, "that final exam was a bitch".
In related news: Last night somebody said that they had down "gangbuster" business on Friday. But that makes no sense: There were no gangs involved and, as far as I could tell, there were no female bosoms in sight.
I think we need to jettison this whole "gangbusters" concept and find a more appropriate word.
Quote from: _kent_;586522I don't believe in set rules or quotas like that. I find what I have seen of J. Alexander's analysis of gaming needlessly formulaic.
Pardon me while I roll my eyes in the general direction of your inability to grasp nuance or abstraction.
Re: Pixelbitching in general. The problem is that it simply isn't fun to play out a constant of regimen of wall-tapping, sconce-twisting, brick-poking, and ornament-rubbing in Every. Single. Room. The ratio of mindnumbing boredom to exciting reward is simply not there.
This is why, as I described in the Art of Rulings (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4238/roleplaying-games/the-art-of-rulings), I prefer to follow two principles:
(1) Player expertise activates character expertise
(2) Player expertise can trump character expertise
You get the best of both worlds and the players get to freely choose when they consider something interesting or important enough that they want to devote more attention and detail to it.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;586644Re: Pixelbitching in general. The problem is that it simply isn't fun to play out a constant of regimen of wall-tapping, sconce-twisting, brick-poking, and ornament-rubbing in Every. Single. Room. The ratio of mindnumbing boredom to exciting reward is simply not there.
In practice, a good way to handle it is having the regimen largely assumed as part of a general room-searching standard operating procedure, if the players so desire. The primary "cost" trade-off is turns spent searching.
When the potential for misfortune is present (e.g., twisting the unicorn statue's horn clockwise causes the secret door to open, but counter-clockwise causes the statue's nostrils to spew caustic fumes), but a player provided no relevant specifics, a random roll can easily determine whether the misfortune was triggered. Also, it's sometimes appropriate for the results of the regimen to reveal that the particular object feels manipulatable, without assuming the character manipulated the object.
My players usually begin with a descriptive approach. It allows them to exercise some caution, and spend as much, or as little, time as they wish on the task. Once they're finished with that approach, they sometimes follow it with a standard operating procedure-based attempt.
Changing Gears:
In a non-descriptive (die rolling-based) paradigm for finding the opening mechanism for secret doors, how would you suggest handling a case where the door-opening affordance is not in the same room as the door itself?
Likewise, how would you suggest handling a case where the secret door simply isn't openable? (For example, perhaps it's latched on the other side, and the usual way of opening it is knocking thrice, then twice, so that the guard on the other side opens it to allow passage.)
Changing Gears Again:
Incidentally, you can run the d6 to notice secret doors _not_ as a given character's chance to notice a particular secret door, but rather as a tool to establish how many turns of searching it takes to notice evidence of the secret door's presence. (With a multiplier applied for the size of the room, amount of other stuff there, and so on, as implied the AD&D DMG.) You can preroll it, and it ends up being a deterministic value that you can note on the map, as well as an indicator of how small & subtle the clue is (for descriptive/flavor purposes).
Quote from: mcbobbo;586502No, no, not at all. I like the concept, and think it needs a word. I also think that whoever chose the word being used should be slapped. Sort of like the guy who names Linux projects deserves a whack upside the head, figuratively speaking.
OK, then I misunderstood your position. My apologies.
Quote from: Mistwell;586509OK, seems reasonable to me.
So you seem to be saying (extrapolating here) that secret doors should have some reasonable clue that can tip off the players that it exists. And, that when secret doors become too "secret" from the players, they're apt to just start wasting time in every room and corridor touching and prodding everything looking for them in response to the belief that they won't get sufficient clues to spot them otherwise. Is that a fair summary of what you're saying?
Yes, the trap is being too clever with the secret door design, because then it is likely that it will neither get found nor opened.
Quote from: _kent_;586639Here's a question. Was it a mistake to give Elves a 2 in 6 chance of secret door detection, an improvement over the ordinary human 1 in 6 chance? Has this rule lessened the prevalence of experimentation and the verbal description of the search at the gametable?
My thinking is that there is no reason to expect the player of that Elf to be any more ingenious in his explicit verbal searching methods than any other player and somehow it feels like a disincentive for parties with an elf not to promote the d6 mechanic for searching.
I use the secret door detection roll to determine whether the players see whatever it is that might indicate a secret door is there. They have to work out for themselves what it signifies. (It might be as simple as a crack on the floor, a hook in the ceiling, etc.)
I solve the elf problem by not using elves in my campaign setting. If I did have elves they would have a 1 in 6 chance like humans - I don't understand the rationale for making them better at it, seeing as how they're supposed to be forest dwellers who don't build elaborate stone works.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;586644Pardon me while I roll my eyes in the general direction of your inability to grasp nuance or abstraction.
I only use one bin for rubbish.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;586644The problem is that it simply isn't fun to play out a constant of regimen of wall-tapping, sconce-twisting, brick-poking, and ornament-rubbing in Every. Single. Room. The ratio of mindnumbing boredom to exciting reward is simply not there.
As far as I have seen players will only check for secret doors in desperation, in suspicion or after deduction. 'Every.Single.Room.' would be cretinous and boring.
Ah yes, "old school play". We have dismissed this claim.
I poke the walls, the floor, the ceiling with my 11ft pole.
I disbelive the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the table, the air, theRPGsite.
It really is like one of those old adventure games where you rub everything agains eveything else in the hopes hopping on the GMs moon logic train and triggering the next plot even. Of course since this is old school you also die form equally bizarre moon logic. So you get busy metagaming or you get busy rolling new characters.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586720Ah yes, "old school play". We have dismissed this claim.
I poke the walls, the floor, the ceiling with my 11ft pole.
I disbelive the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the table, the air, theRPGsite.
It really is like one of those old adventure games where you rub everything agains eveything else in the hopes hopping on the GMs moon logic train and triggering the next plot even. Of course since this is old school you also die form equally bizarre moon logic. So you get busy metagaming or you get busy rolling new characters.
Assuming this isn't just a randm rant against old school, but a response to the conversation so far:
There are always trade offs with these sorts of mechanics but both approaches are entirely viable LM. I continue to use both depending on the game I am playing and the group. There is something to be said for not having mechanics that replace the player interacting with the environment. GM has to give more thoriugh descriptions and the players interact more directly with the setting much of the time. On the other hand it can be useful to have a consistent measure of a character's ability to detect things. Really it depends on the kind of adventure you are trying to run. Sometimes with a murder mystery for example, it can be more enjoyable to take out the detect and social skill rules so the players can genuinely pkay the detective. That isnt the only way to do it. You can have fun with detect and social skill rolls as well.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586720Ah yes, "old school play". We have dismissed this claim.
I poke the walls, the floor, the ceiling with my 11ft pole.
I disbelive the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the table, the air, theRPGsite.
It really is like one of those old adventure games where you rub everything agains eveything else in the hopes hopping on the GMs moon logic train and triggering the next plot even. Of course since this is old school you also die form equally bizarre moon logic. So you get busy metagaming or you get busy rolling new characters.
Oh yeah a die roll is SO much more engaging. I get all excited just waiting for a chance to scream " I GOT A 35!" instead of interacting with the setting. :rolleyes:
Quote from: noisms;586670I use the secret door detection roll to determine whether the players see whatever it is that might indicate a secret door is there. They have to work out for themselves what it signifies. (It might be as simple as a crack on the floor, a hook in the ceiling, etc.)
This. I've never played with anyone who used the find secret doors roll to indicate that not only was a secret door's presence detected, but the manner of opening was discovered, too. I'm pretty sure that's borne out in just about any play example published by TSR.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;586741Oh yeah a die roll is SO much more engaging. I get all excited just waiting for a chance to scream " I GOT A 35!" instead of interacting with the setting. :rolleyes:
:rotfl:
I kind of use both. As you explore the dungeon, I roll behind the screen the chances in 6 to find secret doors. If the die indicates a find, I describe to the party something to the effect of "you notice a difference in the texture of the wall at this spot" or "you feel a breathe coming through the wall's masonry" that type of thing. The PCs know there's something there. Then they tell me what they do, poke at thw walls, push bricks, etc. Usually the activation mechanisms are easy and I'm lenient about the investigation.
If the die doesn't show you noticed something, but you tell me at some point "I investigate this wall" then you will find the discoloration, the draft of air, etc automatically. Then you can tell me you search for a trigger or moving brick or whatnot and you'll generally find the mechanism without a die roll.
A few times however, some doors will not be so easily opened or reached. There, you player will have to be clever and find out how to solve the problem for yourself.
That's it.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;586741Oh yeah a die roll is SO much more engaging. I get all excited just waiting for a chance to scream " I GOT A 35!" instead of interacting with the setting. :rolleyes:
(http://photos.imageevent.com/cas6969/misc/missed_the_point.jpg)
I doesn't matter if your bullshit secret doors and death no save traps are detectable with search checks or the handy 11ft pole. There result is the same the party will spam the same actions against every object because as long as everything can randomly kill you or give you free swag you have to assume that they will unless proven otherwise.
Actual play looks something like this
DM ok you enter the room there is an altar to Nerull in the nearest corner and the floor in front of it is covered by a fine rug several nearly burred out torches cast their feeble light over that part of the room but the rest of the room is in shadow.
LM welp here we go again I've still got 200 pages of the Gathering Storm left. let me know if anything that needs my spells happens
Other PC I throw one of my stones with continual flame into the center the room.
DM: the room is fully illuminated the ceiling and floor are made of stone as are the walls on the other side of the room is a wooden door.
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the floor
DM for fucks sake it's not an illusion
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the ceiling, the walls, the rug, the torches, the altar, the door
DM those are all real to, can we stop with this
Other PC I sweep the room with my still active Detect Magic
DM you detect no magic
Other PC ok then I push on the floor with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
Other PC I push on the ceiling with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
… Much 11ft pole nonsense later
Other PC LM summon something
LM bweh. Geez just when it was getting good to, fine I cast SM 1 summoning a Celestial Monkey
Other PC order it to pick up the jewel encrusted idol of Nerull it's got to be worth something
LM sigh I order the Monkey to pick up the idol does anything happen to it
DM no
LM fine the I order the Monkey to bring it here and put it in Other PC's bag of holding
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the door
DM you already did that and it's just a fucking door
Other PC LM order your monkey to open the door
LM I order the monkey to open the door.
And so on, well actually play is usually even more pendantic.
Quote from: Benoist;586762I kind of use both. As you explore the dungeon, I roll behind the screen the chances in 6 to find secret doors.
...
If the die doesn't show you noticed something, but you tell me at some point "I investigate this wall" then you will find the discoloration ...
Aren't you supposed to roll for discovery only if a player says "I investigate this wall"? In other words in your example above any roll would be redundant.
Im not a btb guy so Im just making the point clear.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586763[IMG]Actual play looks something like this
DM ok you enter the room there is an altar to Nerull in the nearest corner and the floor in front of it is covered by a fine rug several nearly burred out torches cast their feeble light over that part of the room but the rest of the room is in shadow.
LM welp here we go again I've still got 200 pages of the Gathering Storm left. let me know if anything that needs my spells happens
Other PC I throw one of my stones with continual flame into the center the room.
DM: the room is fully illuminated the ceiling and floor are made of stone as are the walls on the other side of the room is a wooden door.
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the floor
DM for fucks sake it's not an illusion
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the ceiling, the walls, the rug, the torches, the altar, the door
DM those are all real to, can we stop with this
Other PC I sweep the room with my still active Detect Magic
DM you detect no magic
Other PC ok then I push on the floor with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
Other PC I push on the ceiling with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
... Much 11ft pole nonsense later
Other PC LM summon something
LM bweh. Geez just when it was getting good to, fine I cast SM 1 summoning a Celestial Monkey
Other PC order it to pick up the jewel encrusted idol of Nerull it's got to be worth something
LM sigh I order the Monkey to pick up the idol does anything happen to it
DM no
LM fine the I order the Monkey to bring it here and put it in Other PC's bag of holding
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the door
DM you already did that and it's just a fucking door
Other PC LM order your monkey to open the door
LM I order the monkey to open the door.
And so on, well actually play is usually even more pendantic.
If you really enjoy that then go for it but don't try convincing anyone that it came from anywhere but your ass.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586763the party will spam the same actions against every object because as long as everything can randomly kill you or give you free swag you have to assume that they will unless proven otherwise.
If this is your point then the essence of what you are saying is that you have autistic players.
Quote from: _kent_;586768Aren't you supposed to roll for discovery only if a player says "I investigate this wall"? In other words in your example above any roll would be redundant.
Im not a btb guy so Im just making the point clear.
In BTB OD&D, men find secret doors on an active search 2 in 6. Elves 4 in 6. However, elves can sense something is there by just walking by 2 in 6, and men 1 in 6, at the DM's discretion.
At my table, I assume the base chances in 6 are generally for mere detection that something's not quite right instead, and that active search makes you aware automatically. The challenge is in determining when to spend the time to search, with the potential risk of wandering monsters, interruptions, hazards, etc.
Note also that opening secret doors BTB is subject to a roll (Strength). 2 in 6 is the base chance of success. Same page 9 of U&WA.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586763I doesn't matter if your bullshit secret doors and death no save traps are detectable with search checks or the handy 11ft pole. There result is the same the party will spam the same actions against every object because as long as everything can randomly kill you or give you free swag you have to assume that they will unless proven otherwise.
Actual play looks something like this
DM ok you enter the room there is an altar to Nerull in the nearest corner and the floor in front of it is covered by a fine rug several nearly burred out torches cast their feeble light over that part of the room but the rest of the room is in shadow.
LM welp here we go again I've still got 200 pages of the Gathering Storm left. let me know if anything that needs my spells happens
Other PC I throw one of my stones with continual flame into the center the room.
DM: the room is fully illuminated the ceiling and floor are made of stone as are the walls on the other side of the room is a wooden door.
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the floor
DM for fucks sake it's not an illusion
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the ceiling, the walls, the rug, the torches, the altar, the door
DM those are all real to, can we stop with this
Other PC I sweep the room with my still active Detect Magic
DM you detect no magic
Other PC ok then I push on the floor with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
Other PC I push on the ceiling with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
... Much 11ft pole nonsense later
Other PC LM summon something
LM bweh. Geez just when it was getting good to, fine I cast SM 1 summoning a Celestial Monkey
Other PC order it to pick up the jewel encrusted idol of Nerull it's got to be worth something
LM sigh I order the Monkey to pick up the idol does anything happen to it
DM no
LM fine the I order the Monkey to bring it here and put it in Other PC's bag of holding
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the door
DM you already did that and it's just a fucking door
Other PC LM order your monkey to open the door
LM I order the monkey to open the door.
And so on, well actually play is usually even more pendantic.
You must game with a bag of assholes.
Quote from: _kent_;586770If this is your point then the essence of what you are saying is that you have autistic players.
I think his point is that the games promote, if not outright demand autistic play. But I'm staying out of this one because I don't give a fuck. Secret Doors are something you solve by either breaking out the Detect wand or not at all.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586774I think his point is that the games promote, if not outright demand autistic play. But I'm staying out of this one because I don't give a fuck. Secret Doors are something you solve by either breaking out the Detect wand or not at all.
No. No detect wands or autistic repetition of actions.
You study your map and ... think. You pay close attention to your environment and ... think. That's all you can be expected to do as a player and if the secret door remains undetected by foreign parties then it has served its function by design.
Quote from: Benoist;586771In BTB OD&D, men find secret doors on an active search 2 in 6. Elves 4 in 6. However, elves can sense something is there by just walking by 2 in 6, and men 1 in 6, at the DM's discretion.
OK, in OD&D, that's fine. It's not the case in AD&D that you can accidentally find secret doors.
Quote from: KenHR;586772You must game with a bag of assholes.
I don't know if I'm cursed but it seems like my fate is to catalog every potential form of asshole ever to ruin a rpg session.
Quote from: _kent_;586780No. No detect wands or autistic repetition of actions.
You study your map and ... think. You pay close attention to your environment and ... think. That's all you can be expected to do as a player and if the secret door remains undetected by foreign parties then it has served its function by design.
Let me spell it out players are not psycic. Unless they're reading the DM's notes behind his back or have gamed with him long enough to be familar with his particular brand of moon logic then they aren't going to follow the DMs bizarre and unintuitive train of thought and come up with whatever solution he coded into the scenario. They are going to spam the same exact set of actions at every object because the one thing you miss is the one that fucking kills you.
When you set up the game in a way that rewards people for being pendantic assholes you better damn well belive they are going to be pendantic assholes.
Quote from: _kent_;586780No. No detect wands or autistic repetition of actions.
You study your map and ... think. You pay close attention to your environment and ... think. That's all you can be expected to do as a player and if the secret door remains undetected by foreign parties then it has served its function by design.
Oh, someone gave you a map of the dungeon now? How very nice of them... or did you mean the one you drew yourself? Nope sorry, not a Wizardry game where there's something in every square, but have fun poking around randomly while the dungeon gets ready to eat you.
Because see, the purpose of the Detect wand is so you find it quickly, before everything can get ready for you. Bypassing the pedantic bullshit is an added bonus.
LM you keep saying that this leads t players combing the landscape for secret doors everywhere. I have tried all approaches in different campaigns using different systems (secret door rolls, no rolls but simple description of player character action, detect or spot rolls, involved investigation subskill rolls---finger printing, residue analysis, etc....and in all cases I tend to get the same results in terms of how much time the players waste looking for traps. Wasting time in a dungeon puts at risk for ore wandering encounters, wasting time in a modern investigation raises the chances of the bad guy getting away or killing again. I just am not encountering the issue you suggest this raises.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586763(http://photos.imageevent.com/cas6969/misc/missed_the_point.jpg)
I doesn't matter if your bullshit secret doors and death no save traps are detectable with search checks or the handy 11ft pole. There result is the same the party will spam the same actions against every object because as long as everything can randomly kill you or give you free swag you have to assume that they will unless proven otherwise.
Actual play looks something like this
DM ok you enter the room there is an altar to Nerull in the nearest corner and the floor in front of it is covered by a fine rug several nearly burred out torches cast their feeble light over that part of the room but the rest of the room is in shadow.
LM welp here we go again I've still got 200 pages of the Gathering Storm left. let me know if anything that needs my spells happens
Other PC I throw one of my stones with continual flame into the center the room.
DM: the room is fully illuminated the ceiling and floor are made of stone as are the walls on the other side of the room is a wooden door.
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the floor
DM for fucks sake it's not an illusion
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the ceiling, the walls, the rug, the torches, the altar, the door
DM those are all real to, can we stop with this
Other PC I sweep the room with my still active Detect Magic
DM you detect no magic
Other PC ok then I push on the floor with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
Other PC I push on the ceiling with my 11ft pole
DM Nothing happens
... Much 11ft pole nonsense later
Other PC LM summon something
LM bweh. Geez just when it was getting good to, fine I cast SM 1 summoning a Celestial Monkey
Other PC order it to pick up the jewel encrusted idol of Nerull it's got to be worth something
LM sigh I order the Monkey to pick up the idol does anything happen to it
DM no
LM fine the I order the Monkey to bring it here and put it in Other PC's bag of holding
Other PC I roll to disbelieve the door
DM you already did that and it's just a fucking door
Other PC LM order your monkey to open the door
LM I order the monkey to open the door.
And so on, well actually play is usually even more pendantic.
That is how actual play would go.. if your players were all retards and the GM was an incompetent fuckwit, yes.
RPGPundit
Quote from: _kent_;586782OK, in OD&D, that's fine. It's not the case in AD&D that you can accidentally find secret doors.
Not entirely true. An elf in AD&D can possibly detect a secret door within 10' merely by passing by on a 1 in 6 chance.
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586785I don't know if I'm cursed but it seems like my fate is to catalog every potential form of asshole ever to ruin a rpg session.
tbh your posts read like the worst-case theorizing rather than something that happens in actual play.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586789Oh, someone gave you a map of the dungeon now? How very nice of them... or did you mean the one you drew yourself?
Yet another proof you've actually never played O/AD&D. You obviously have no idea what a mapper is.
Quote from: KenHR;586799tbh your posts read like the worst-case theorizing rather than something that happens in actual play.
Worst case would be after all that bullshit there was a trap, and it was because of some pedantic bullshit you didn't try. So not only did you waste your time you triggered it anyways. Second worst is all that stupidity found a trap, and was about the only thing that could.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586774herp derp
Quote from: Lord Mistborn;586785herp derp
Now you idiots listen to me very carefully.
One Horse Town warned you Lord Mistborn twice that the disruption shit was not going to fly here. Mr. GC has been warned of it once, with the thread about "winning D&D" that's just been closed.
You better start getting a clue here. If your intent is to shit on every single thread you post in and go about your private little war against the "grognards" disrupting whatever topic you don't like, you are not going to last long on this board. Am I being crystal fucking clear here? Smarten up. Fast.
Quote from: Benoist;586801Yet another proof you've actually never played O/AD&D. You obviously have no idea what a mapper is.
Yes yes, the classic RPGsiter strategy of responding to shit that's already been addressed. Here, let me spell it out for you very specifically.
"Oh, someone gave you a map of the dungeon now? How very nice of them... or did you mean the one you drew yourself?
Nope sorry, not a Wizardry game where there's something in every square, but have fun poking around randomly while the dungeon gets ready to eat you."
Yeah, see that? It's called everything else I said. See that part where you're poking around randomly while the dungeon eats you? That's what happens when you insist on moving that slowly. And that's why a detect secret doors wand, which is faster is also better. You know, more stuff that was in the category of "other stuff I said". That stuff you chose to ignore because you'd rather be irrelevant again.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586802Worst case would be after all that bullshit there was a trap, and it was because of some pedantic bullshit you didn't try. So not only did you waste your time you triggered it anyways. Second worst is all that stupidity found a trap, and was about the only thing that could.
More theorizing, no evidence of play. I get where you two are coming from, now.
Quote from: Benoist;586803Now you idiots listen to me very carefully.
One Horse Town warned you Lord Mistborn twice that the disruption shit was not going to fly here. Mr. GC has been warned of it once, with the thread about "winning D&D" that's just been closed.
You better start getting a clue here. If your intent is to shit on every single thread you post in and go about your private little war against the "grognards" disrupting whatever topic you don't like, you are not going to last long on this board. Am I being crystal fucking clear here? Smarten up. Fast.
Ah yes, because "disruption" means "disagreeing with the group think". Duly noted, but you're not doing a good job of making any points by pointing it out. In actuality, to be warned against doing something I'd first have to do it.
In actuality, I said I didn't actually care about this topic and was staying out of it... and then was dragged back into it because you guys love me so much.
Quote from: KenHR;586808More theorizing, no evidence of play. I get where you two are coming from, now.
Ken: This is the worst case.
Mr. GC: No it isn't.
Ken: OMG JUST THEORIES!
...What?
Quote from: Mr. GC;586809Ah yes, because "disruption" means "disagreeing with the group think". Duly noted, but you're not doing a good job of making any points by pointing it out. In actuality, to be warned against doing something I'd first have to do it.
In actuality, I said I didn't actually care about this topic and was staying out of it... and then was dragged back into it because you guys love me so much.
Mr. GC, disagreeing with the predominant point of view on theRPGsite or with a mod is never grounds for a warning here. If that were the case you would have been banned long ago. Lord Mistborn has been doing that for months now without the mods cracking down on him. We only care about stuff like thread capping, stalking and site disruption. If you stay on topic, you can give whatever opinion you want. The issue is a productive thread about secret doors is getting pulled into the grognard versus LM/CG debate.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586806Yes yes, the classic RPGsiter strategy of responding to shit that's already been addressed. Here, let me spell it out for you very specifically.
"Oh, someone gave you a map of the dungeon now? How very nice of them... or did you mean the one you drew yourself? Nope sorry, not a Wizardry game where there's something in every square, but have fun poking around randomly while the dungeon gets ready to eat you."
Or, perhaps something crazy like being able to find your way out of the dungeon?
I get that you kids these days just want to get to the button mashing of exchanging math with other piles of numbers and just handwave away exploration with search checks and " we will go back the way we came" shortcuts, but some players actually play to explore the environment through the medium of their character and are not content to rush through it while jerking off to the bonuses displayed on the chararacter sheet.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586806Yeah, see that? It's called everything else I said. See that part where you're poking around randomly while the dungeon eats you? That's what happens when you insist on moving that slowly. And that's why a detect secret doors wand, which is faster is also better. You know, more stuff that was in the category of "other stuff I said". That stuff you chose to ignore because you'd rather be irrelevant again.
Kindly fuck off. Your rainbow munchkin shit is irrelevant to how many people play, and I doubt your usefulness on any adventure which requires thought on the part of the player. Everything you harp about is fucking rulespeak formula. The adults are adventuring here, go home.
Quote from: Mr. GC;586811Ken: This is the worst case.
Mr. GC: No it isn't.
Ken: OMG JUST THEORIES!
...What?
I never said, nor did I imply, the first thing you attributed to me. You also don't read English very well.
I said Lady Mistborn's posts "read like worst-case theorizing." That doesn't mean what you took it to mean.
I seriously doubt that any real play is behind your theorizing. <--That means exactly what it says.
I think it might be productive for people to use this thread as it was originally intended, to talk about clever or interesting uses of secret doors, to quote the op:
QuoteI am interested in two things here:
[1] Do you design secret doors with mechanisms which require specific verbal instructions from your players to discover and unlock? If so let us hear the details of any you devised that you were pleased with.
[2] What is you favourite example of a secret door from a published adventure?
That's what this thread is for.
If you want to make a new thread where you argue about the question of whether "pixelbitching" is an inevitable consequence of old-school play, you are absolutely free to make that new thread. I for one would find it interesting to see someone else post an "example of play" that explained how its REALLY supposed to go in old-school, rather than mistborn's ridiculous example. But do this IN ANOTHER THREAD.
Shit, I'll make all this easy, and start one for you guys (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=586841).
Now go, and post about that over there. Continue to post about it over here, and you'll piss me off. And trust me that you don't want to do that, because right now among the moderators I'm busy being the one guy who's not out for blood.
RPGPundit
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;586817Mr. GC, disagreeing with the predominant point of view on theRPGsite or with a mod is never grounds for a warning here. If that were the case you would have been banned long ago. Lord Mistborn has been doing that for months now without the mods cracking down on him. We only care about stuff like thread capping, stalking and site disruption. If you stay on topic, you can give whatever opinion you want. The issue is a productive thread about secret doors is getting pulled into the grognard versus LM/CG debate.
I wouldn't know that from speaking to any moderator other than you.
That said I don't care about what LM is doing here. I threw my bit in - even if you ignore all the pedantry, searching manually takes too much time and will get the party killed so search automatically or not at all and that was it. I explicitly stated I wasn't interested in taking it further and kept, and continue to keep getting dragged back in anyways.
Quote from: KenHR;586826I never said, nor did I imply, the first thing you attributed to me. You also don't read English very well.
I said Lady Mistborn's posts "read like worst-case theorizing." That doesn't mean what you took it to mean.
I seriously doubt that any real play is behind your theorizing. <--That means exactly what it says.
It's called a paraphrased summary. Do you understand what that means? It means when you suggest/directly state/whatever pedantic bullshit you want to use to describe it that it is a worst case scenario, and it isn't, and I tell you it isn't and explain what that actually is you don't get to turn around and say oh no, that's not real play.
Let me spell it out for everyone.
Don't respond to me. If you don't address me here, I will not address you. Don't drag me back in this thread - a thread no one, especially me wants me in and I'll stop saying words in this thread.
What Mistborn does is his own business. I'm not his keeper.
(http://i881.photobucket.com/albums/ac15/TravisDF/bbb.jpg)
If I were to use a published village setting to begin a campaign with I would choose Troubles At Embertrees from White Dwarf 34 but from T1 there are two examples of the secret access worth looking at.
[1] Eight brigands have holed up in the wrecked quarters of a sacked castle's former lord (7). They have gone to the trouble of repairing the heavy door into the room and have a thorough tactical knowledge of the structure of the ruins. They have an escape route through tumbled stones in the corner of their squat.
This escape route is right beside a secret door that they have failed to notice throughout their occupancy.
I think it reveals Gygax's thoughts on accidental discovery of secret doors. I would classify this as a difficult discovery. Then again if you were to search one room in the castle, the former lord's quarters would be a good choice. Even a few 1st level characters would feel a sense of superiority to the idiot blow-in brigands if they did discover it.
[2] Stairs behind the secret door lead to a dungeon. The dungeon has a tunnel emerging 4-500 ft away from the castle amid rocks and brambles. Ah, so as expected the lord had a means of escaping a seige. I think it was Elfdart who said on another thread here that as a player his party discovered this exit and entered the dungeon/castle that way.
That would a tricky but interesting thing to adjudicate, a party's intentional search for a secret exit within an annulus several hundred feet from the fort.
erased
Quote from: Mr. GC;586863I wouldn't know that from speaking to any moderator other than you.
That said I don't care about what LM is doing here. I threw my bit in - even if you ignore all the pedantry, searching manually takes too much time and will get the party killed so search automatically or not at all and that was it. I explicitly stated I wasn't interested in taking it further and kept, and continue to keep getting dragged back in anyways.
It's called a paraphrased summary. Do you understand what that means? It means when you suggest/directly state/whatever pedantic bullshit you want to use to describe it that it is a worst case scenario, and it isn't, and I tell you it isn't and explain what that actually is you don't get to turn around and say oh no, that's not real play.
Let me spell it out for everyone. Don't respond to me. If you don't address me here, I will not address you. Don't drag me back in this thread - a thread no one, especially me wants me in and I'll stop saying words in this thread.
What Mistborn does is his own business. I'm not his keeper.
Pundit has made clear this needs to stay on topic, and has opened another thread for the side topic. You are responsible for your own posts. No one can make you post anything you do not want to post. You choose to get dragged into something or not. If you feel you are getting dragged into posting off-topic or a disruptive manner, just don't post a response or take it to the new thread. This goes for everyone.
If you have an issue with mods or mod policy, post in the help desk or contact us directly about your concern.
I love secret doors, they are part of what make adventures exciting. You can't use them everywhere, or indeed in most places, otherwise they lose their mystery and get the group bogged down in searching for secret doors in every room they enter.
One of my favourites, in connection with a series of child abductions, was a modern horror game where if you played a certain spooky childhood song in a bedroom the bottom of the wardrobe would open downwards. Where that led, well, that would be telling. ;)
Other things that come to mind, "a builder once mentioned while talking about the king's new inescapable prison over a few jugs of wine that only a fool builds a dungeon he can't escape from, so the the king had him locked up in it. Beware the gratitude of kings, indeed."
Secret doors should be thematically fitting as well, if its a big old haunted house they are practically required. A corporate skyscraper, depends on the type of corporation I suppose.
When I design secret doors I try to always remain conscious of the designer going through the effort to make the secret door in the first place. Which immediately puts two aspects of the door front and center:
1) It's gotta be a secret -- and stay a secret.
1) It's gotta be a rapidly usable form of egress to a) be fast enough to use to stay a secret, and b) be utilitarian enough for their 'basic door' needs.
So there's a bit of a countermeasure from each priority preventing one making things overly elaborate.
Seems straightforward, you'd think. But I can't tell you how many times I've seen in video games (this is an example reaching beyond the tabletop, so no one spazz out now) where lairs and castles -- and especially their secret doors -- are designed in needlessly byzantine ways. I always joked with my friends: "imagine if you were the Igor servant who had to fetch the delivered pizza from the front entrance? All those levers, chutes, jumping platforms, etc. in the way... Seem so terribly inconvenient."
The practicality of two competing demands should be enough complexity for most secret doors. The gee-whiz! factor should come from the mindset and needs of the (often alien) users.
Quote from: Opaopajr;587078When I design secret doors I try to always remain conscious of the designer going through the effort to make the secret door in the first place. Which immediately puts two aspects of the door front and center:
1) It's gotta be a secret -- and stay a secret.
1) It's gotta be a rapidly usable form of egress to a) be fast enough to use to stay a secret, and b) be utilitarian enough for their 'basic door' needs.
So there's a bit of a countermeasure from each priority preventing one making things overly elaborate.
Seems straightforward, you'd think. But I can't tell you how many times I've seen in video games (this is an example reaching beyond the tabletop, so no one spazz out now) where lairs and castles -- and especially their secret doors -- are designed in needlessly byzantine ways. I always joked with my friends: "imagine if you were the Igor servant who had to fetch the delivered pizza from the front entrance? All those levers, chutes, jumping platforms, etc. in the way... Seem so terribly inconvenient."
The practicality of two competing demands should be enough complexity for most secret doors. The gee-whiz! factor should come from the mindset and needs of the (often alien) users.
I had a security clearance to maintain during my Navy years. My father routinely worked on projects for Boeing which required security clearances. You know what a secret requires? People not talking about it.
The corollary to this is that a secret door should not be used so often that it gets noticed. Or that it should ever be used at all, except for an emergency.
EDIT: Then again, there is internal consistancy. Should a secret door exist in a locale because it is cool for one to be there (which tends to make the locale feel very artificial and gamey) or does it serve an actual purpose (making the locale feel organic and more realistic to the setting).
What you and I are talking about leaves my secret doors not being all that elaborate, on average. Discretion and utility is like a design touchstone for me about this. If I can't justify it from an internal (as you say, organic) perspective then how will my players?
Though aliens are a great chance to throw human expectations out the window. I like the hole for the ring of gaseous form idea. I dig Moria mines spoken password pun (regardless of puns being cheesy). Aliens using harmonics or odors and other such strangeness sounds fun to me, if the aliens would plausibly defer to that for their ease.
Quote from: _kent_;586674As far as I have seen players will only check for secret doors in desperation, in suspicion or after deduction. 'Every.Single.Room.' would be cretinous and boring.
Quote from: _kent_;586770If this is your point then the essence of what you are saying is that you have autistic players.
To sum up Kent's position:
(1) He likes to use game dynamics that reward and encourage people to do things that aren't fun.
(2) If people actually do the things he is rewarding and encouraging, he insults them.
Despite this, he has the gall to claim that
other people are socially maladjusted.
Quote from: Benoist;586771In BTB OD&D, men find secret doors on an active search 2 in 6. Elves 4 in 6. However, elves can sense something is there by just walking by 2 in 6, and men 1 in 6, at the DM's discretion.
You're right about the active searches and elves having a 2-in-6 chance just for passing by a secret door ("at the referee's option"), but there's no rule about men having a 1-in-6 chance for that.
Quote from: _kent_;586782OK, in OD&D, that's fine. It's not the case in AD&D that you can accidentally find secret doors.
This is actually an example of Gygax being unable to write a coherent rulebook.
In the AD&D PHB, he draws a distinction between secret doors and concealed doors that didn't exist in OD&D and states that elves have a 1 in 6 chance of detecting concealed doors by merely passing by them and a 2 in 6 chance of finding a secret door by "actively searching" for it.
But in the AD&D DMG, he states that an elf "can't detect secret doors 16 2/3% [1 in 6] of the time by merely passing them unless he or she is actively concentrating on the act."
There are two possibilities:
(1) "Actively searching" and "actively concentrating" are synonyms and Gygax wrote two contradictory rules for the elf's chances to find secret doors.
(2) "Actively searching" and "actively concentrating" aren't synonyms and the passage in the DMG is giving the elf back their OD&D ability to detect secret doors by simply passing by them (as long as they state that they're thinking about secret doors when they do so).
Which is true? No way to know.
Re: Secret doors. One of my favorite tricks is to put them in pit traps.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;587139You're right about the active searches and elves having a 2-in-6 chance just for passing by a secret door ("at the referee's option"), but there's no rule about men having a 1-in-6 chance for that.
I double-checked. You're right. I must have mixed up with the 1-in-6 chance for smaller/lighter characters to open doors.
Quote from: KenHR;586745This. I've never played with anyone who used the find secret doors roll to indicate that not only was a secret door's presence detected, but the manner of opening was discovered, too. I'm pretty sure that's borne out in just about any play example published by TSR.
It depends on the door. if the mechanism is near the door in question I would only use one roll. But if the opening mechanism is out of sight you would only get the information there was a door there.
Likewise if the way to open the door was not mechanical in nature (i.e. required a magic word or some such) you would not get the word or indeed that a word was required just because you noticed the door was there.
Quote from: Benoist;587267I double-checked. You're right. I must have mixed up with the 1-in-6 chance for smaller/lighter characters to open doors.
I had to double-check it myself because, when you said it, I thought, "That makes perfect sense." ;)
Quote from: Justin Alexander;587139To sum up Kent's position:
(1) He likes to use game dynamics that reward and encourage people to do things that aren't fun.
(2) If people actually do the things he is rewarding and encouraging, he insults them.
Despite this, he has the gall to claim that other people are socially maladjusted.
Before presenting your inept summary you quoted me saying the following:
"
As far as I have seen players will only check for secret doors in desperation, in suspicion or after deduction. 'Every.Single.Room.' would be cretinous and boring." In case you could not imagine what i meant by 'in desperation' I was referring to a party trapped or cornered in an area of a dungeon looking desperately for some escape route.
(1) "game dynamics", "reward" and "encourage" are irrelevant to anything I have said. What I did say say is "As far as I have seen players will ... ". That is, players are the driving force in how they deal with the potential presence of secret doors. I have also repeatedly said that whether players find secret places or not, at all times they a surfeit of opportunities for exploration. If their ambitions are thwarted in one direction they go some place else. They are not children and do not get their way all the time.
(2) I am primarily insulting DMs who promote or allow autistic, mindlessly repetitive mundane activity from their players. I would never insult my players because I have only ever gamed with friends.
The point of the thread was to see how others at the gametable manage the search for something that was
designed not to be found. I think searching for secrets, and managing illusions and wishes are three prominent examples of aspects of DMing which lay bare a DM's style and competence.
You are obviously not a stupid person so I have to assume from your comments you are dishonest and vindictive.
Quote from: _kent_;587402You are obviously not a stupid person so I have to assume from your comments you are dishonest and vindictive.
You, OTOH, appear to be all three. And are not worth my time.
("When I said that the players are cretinous and boring, I was, of course, primarily referring to the DM." You crack me up, incompetent dude.)
Quote from: Justin Alexander;587360I had to double-check it myself because, when you said it, I thought, "That makes perfect sense." ;)
Agreed. Hehe. ;)
Quote from: Justin Alexander;587482And are not worth my time.
Not worth your time? Your blog and your typical forum posts are so laborious and long winded that, if anything, you have far too much time for holding forth about rpgs because you can't get work as an actor, or you've given up on the pompous idea of 'translating' plays from languages you admit you have no understanding of, you fraudulent quack.
You are also the cliche of the arts student with no technical background who is seduced by the glamour of scientific thinking into a juvenile and misplaced mimicry of analysis on inappropriate subjects.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;587482("When I said that the players are cretinous and boring, I was, of course, primarily referring to the DM." You crack me up, incompetent dude.)
I said the process of mindlessly searching every room was cretinous and the DM is responsible for the manner (d6 or verbal) in which secret doors are searched for - which is exactly point of this thread, you fucking moron.
I threw you a bone earlier when I said you weren't stupid because I sensed you were vain and I thought you would slink off. I won't make that mistake again.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;587139Re: Secret doors. One of my favorite tricks is to put them in pit traps.
Oh I like that, though it calls into question who was using that door for regular travel. Unless you're saying it's a secret door put there to check on victims of the trap, which makes some sense.
Quote from: Mistwell;588190Oh I like that, though it calls into question who was using that door for regular travel. Unless you're saying it's a secret door put there to check on victims of the trap, which makes some sense.
Or if the pit is some step on the way to a very well-hidden treasury or something.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;588529Or if the pit is some step on the way to a very well-hidden treasury or something.
RPGPundit
I usually find that kind of thing a bit artificial, unless there's a good reason for the pit to connect to a treasury.
Here's my take:
The pit was originally a trap door, meant to be used as a secret (or not) entrance to the treasury. Centuries later, the latch and hinges have rusted through, and the wood is eaten through by beetles, termites, and fungus. Good luck to anyone as steps on it in the dark.
A secret door I've used:
Here is a long-abandoned throne room. At one end is a jewelled throne upon a dais. In front of the dais, where a petitioner would stand to request a boon, the floor is decorated with a mosaic of semiprecious stones. Close inspection will reveal seams in the floor between certain mosaic tiles, tracing out a 10'x10' square split into four triangles.
Several jewels upon the throne are clearly buttons to be pressed. The emerald on the left armrest would make the throne rise into the air dramatically, were the hydraulics still intact. The ruby on the right armrest opens the pit trap underneath the mosaic. The other gems have other functions, or did.
The pit contains the skeletal remains of three carnivorous apes and of their last victim. A few tatters of clothing, and scattered jewelry remain. A barred door to the East leads to the quarters of the Apes' keeper, several jail cells, and a stairway up to the royal guards' quarters. One of those cells could contain a ghost with useful information.
I dunno, just imagine that there's a room that is supposed to be a treasure room; it has a pit trap and a few scattered coins; giving all the impression that the place has already been looted.
Now, some would be tomb-robbers might suspect that this could be a false treasury, and that there's some secret one hidden nearby; but the trick is that you have to climb down into the pit, and then find a secret door there to access the real treasury; its the one place people would be least likely to look.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;589108I dunno, just imagine that there's a room that is supposed to be a treasure room; it has a pit trap and a few scattered coins; giving all the impression that the place has already been looted.
Now, some would be tomb-robbers might suspect that this could be a false treasury, and that there's some secret one hidden nearby; but the trick is that you have to climb down into the pit, and then find a secret door there to access the real treasury; its the one place people would be least likely to look.
RPGPundit
I think that's a solid idea, and I can see it in an Indiana Jones sort of way :)
Quote from: Mistwell;588190Oh I like that, though it calls into question who was using that door for regular travel. Unless you're saying it's a secret door put there to check on victims of the trap, which makes some sense.
Checking the trap is a good example. If you're in some sort of tomb, this could also be a good way to disguise the worker's tunnel. (Although, in that case, it's more likely to be a concealed door that got bricked up or plastered over when the tomb was sealed.)
It could also be deliberately designed that way as an escape route. (Much like the floor panels of the Millennium Falcon could be pried up, albeit to slightly different purpose.) In that case, you might expect a secondary triggering mechanism for the pit and a ladder built into the pit's side (which might tip people off that there's more to this pit than there appears).
The
Tomb of Horrors thread reminded me how utterly devious the "secret door behind what appears to be a false door" is, too. (Although, based on my experience, you need to anticipate that the players will never, ever find that door unless you allow them to approach it from the other side.)
Quote from: Mistwell;588190Oh I like that, though it calls into question who was using that door for regular travel. Unless you're saying it's a secret door put there to check on victims of the trap, which makes some sense.
I do this sometimes when I want to make something extra secret.
My last online session involved the 2 thiefs of the group (one PC and one NPC) finding a set of hinges in a stairwell. they looked around to try to figure out what it did, but could not, and kept going (they missed a mechanical understanding roll while describing various and sundry workings with it), and the next 10' section of stairs swung out from under them...they both made their reflex rolls (suffering minor bumps and scratches from diving down the stairs), but after seeing a few still skeletal figures, the group looked around and found the pges going down, and the hidden passage, leading to a staircase up and around to a carved out ledge in an underground river...
and then one of the pcs got clever and searched that ledge, and found another panel that moved...and continued moving through secret corridors, beneath the noses of the gnolls above...