Why are Mazes so hard to make???

[FlyingWhale]

I just whipped together a level 18 game for the sake of still playing while we await a player to finish her campaign and boy, mazes sure are hard to make!

I have a lot of set up ideas that I know with my players will work well, but I ran out of steam after only 13 rooms.

To be honest, it's a not so much a maze as it is a series of about 50 traps. A Copper Dragon (Great Wyrm with much spellcasting ability) has trapped them and offered a way of escape. Go through his Maze, survive, and he lets them go. Simple. For example, the first room is a hallway leading to two corridors, one on the left one on the right. As soon as they enter that room however the wall directly in front of them has three distinct symbols on them that stretch the height of the wall. Three extra strength Symbols of Death.

There is a special catch to this Maze... The whole party is in fact, asleep, or merely trapped on the astral plane and they are just projecting. Either way, they don't know yet. Each time they all "die" they appear back in front of the original entrance to the maze. Enter "Groundhog Day" scenario.

Well, after making 13 separate and distinct level18 proof rooms, Im running out of steam... Well, I am out! Magic has been nullified in this maze, we have a favoured soul but she uses her spells as a buffer not for hard playing, that aside there are some magic items but nothing the party relies on, ever. I don't WANT to diminish their creativity, just their ability to fly, teleport, blink, etc to the end.

Any ideas for a good room or two folks?

For example, I have another room where 10x10 sections of floor move about constantly through a VAST chamber of empty space. They have to navigate across them in order to get to the other side, there are 3 possible ways, and 3 that will just lead to death.

[fil kearney]

is it actually making a maze that is challenging you, or coming up with 18th level traps and tricks that is the issue?

I've got some good strategies for making actual mazes/tunnel complexes that are pretty frustrating for players.. but making "reative trickery" is entirely different (and much more complex)

since you are dealing with multiple trap rooms, i would recommend making some of them be trigger-oriented, like prince of persia or other games where a lever needs to be pulled to access the exit. On top of that, I'd recommend some of the levers lock other rooms further ahead... so the team has to work on a combination of disabling and enabling "defeated" traps to access other trap opportunities ahead.... for example, a room could be filled with jets of fire or streams of electricity. Disabling the trap will allow passing through without harm, but if you disable the trap, the room 3 or 4 ahead is sealed and thus a dead end... someone on the team would have to go back, reactivate the trap and endure the damage to access the later room... and a string of say 7 such rooms need to be active or inactive in the proper order to access the "destination" room (which may just be another component of an even larger combination) so the party has to go through the process of enduring various combinations of hurt to find which combination of on and off will oepn the diwtination room... only to find tha tbeyond this is another 7 rooms with various hurts that have to be endured in various combination to trigger another room... 7 trigger rooms to activate 1 key room... 7 key rooms needing to be triggered in proper sequence to open the exit... a total of 56 rooms, say half of them require damage be dealt to open them all.
game play would be "solving" each room for the challenge itself, but them once 7 rooms are "solved" they are barred proceeding, so have to go back, reset, and try again in various combinations... each room has a set amount of damage, so it's a matter of deciding which rooms will be endured, thus it can be quickly flatlined as a basic, " I'll take damage from room 1,2,3, and 7... did that work? " no?? ugh. who wants to try the next combination? *heal heal heal*

[flabort]

to answer the subject question, it's because they require deep thinking to make, and more so if your adding things like traps or other things besides walls.


to answer if we know of some good rooms, I seem to recall several threads several pages long each in which huge collections of traps and puzzles were located. can't seem to find them though. evidently, they did not have "trap" or "traps" in their thread title.

[FlyingWhale]

@ fil kearney, I've made a few mazes in the past with little traps for level 3-5 players and they were actually labyrinths really. I have unfortunately never played Persia series, and the thought of some other games, such as Zelda stuck out to me but talking in a lot of Zelda ideas, they can be so easily achieved with even a small mediocre party. I do like the idea of multiple triggers that have to line up for the end, like a circuit board! I will look up Persia series and see if I can't jerry-rig something!

I think a big issue is I am trying to design a dungeon-labyrinth-hell maze - esque thing that is supposedly a lifeswork by a copper dragon great wyrm hehe:smallbiggrin:

flabort :smalltongue:Yeah, it's almost as if I have stumbled across one sometime ago, and also searched, if ever so briefly, for them. No avail as well. I'll try some synonyms or something :smallconfused:

Thanks :smallsmile:

[Esser-Z]

I blame the Minotaurs. Accursed racial immunity...

[imp_fireball]

Jsut use a custom maze generating site and then find a way to expand certain portions for rooms and such.


since you are dealing with multiple trap rooms, i would recommend making some of them be trigger-oriented, like prince of persia or other games where a lever needs to be pulled to access the exit.

Note that in PoP (at least SoT and later games) you can actually see the traps sometimes coming at you (ie. circular saw blade going back and forth and making detectable noise), so no need for a rogue - just make a swordsage that can run on walls and tumble through danger.


Each time they all "die" they appear back in front of the original entrance to the maze. Enter "Groundhog Day" scenario.


Or lame excuse for video game spawning and save points.



they can be so easily achieved with even a small mediocre party

Hey, that's why you don't necessarily need to be high level to save the world.

Link himself probably only has about 40 Hp max at adulthood and max hearts albeit with lots of combat maneuvers and presently off-rules stuff like dashing and more than one 5ft. step per round.

[bondpirate]

Since you have 13 rooms so far you can go for a pyramid setup if you make one more room.

It looks something like this:
First Tier
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Second Tier
[][]
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Third Tier
[]

or

[]
[][]
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[][][][]
[][][][][]

and make them hallways of traps with a rune at the end which will teleport you to the next hallway. Note: you can make it so that not all characters have to make it to the end to finish it; or that one character must be at each rune and activated at the same time to solve the maze/puzzle dungeon. If you make each one an individual challenge, then make each one tie into each other to solve one Tier and move to the next Tier.

Don't forget you can make combat puzzles as well. One of my favorites is to have a golem who's job is to hurl someone who looks like a caster onto a vaulted platform attached to the ceiling (note: this shouldn't hurt them, but the fall from the platform might). There is a rune which must be activated, but you need someone with a high search or spot skill to notice it. After the caster is hurled up a few times, the PCs might begin to figure out: the golem goes only after the caster and doesn't hurt the caster (the golem will have a counter attack ability to make it seem hostel and dangerous), there is something that must be found up on the ledge, and that someone else needs to wear caster type clothes to also be thrown as well to figure it out. After being so frustrated with the traps, getting to fight is something most will glomp on.

Don't be afraid to reuse a trap, but give it a different dressing. Such as a crushing ceiling in a cold wet dungeon room, then they have to go through a well dressed room fit for a princess (no, literally, have it be all pink and frilly with a giant four post bed and pony in the corner). Then have the roof attempt to crush them while they try to escape. They will never see it coming or consider it poor design.

You can reuse rooms. Players will become paranoid and slow themselves even more by inspecting a room they may expect is the same room, if your rooms are as dangerous as you make them seem, then doing this is practically suicide. After they get past these rooms you can throw a repeating room (this is when the room itself resets and the players have to solve it another way or finish it a certain number of times) just to mess with them.

Next, you can always mess with your players through conditioning. The two ways to mess with them is like Pavlov's Dog (ring bell, dog salivates). Have them hear a sound, then they die horribly. They will fear the sound. Then have them go in a room where the sound triggers, but nothing happens. Paranoia ensues. The other way aims to goose them. Back at my reusing rooms thought, you can reuse a room with a lever or orb and call it a "duck" room. Go duck, duck, duck, GOOSE! and have the trigger do something completely different (aka lethal), where the correct response is don't do that and just go to the next room.

Also, since the players are expected to die... a lot. Make a relatively empty room that requires all characters to kill themselves in to unlock the room and proceed the next time they return to it.

Last one, I swear (Nun raps my hand with a ruler, "OUCH!"). To solve a room a PC must touch an orb in the middle of the room. After this, the PC is turned into a white rabbit and is then teleported to the next room. The remaining PCs go to find a room filled to the brim with rabbits. There are two altars at the far end. One is for sacrificing rabbits and the other is for purifying rabbits. The answer is......sacrifice all rabbits with a black foot, tail or spot on their face and any one white rabbit on the purifying altar. Only this way will return the PC to normal, and the party can proceed. If any of the black touched rabbits is put in a purifying altar, then the PC's body is returned inside out. If this isn't performed correctly otherwise then the PC is returned to normal, but in the next room the DM assumes control of the character and kills the rest of the party.

Hope these ideas help.

[FlyingWhale]

@imp_fireball Oh, goodie! I looked some up and I do like that, I think it would add a touch of class. I even thought about retracting sawblades, when the door to the room opens, the traps resest themselves, so as they open it they see them all and by then its too late the door is open and they're stuck. Repeat the room later but make it to where the traps are not in that room but rather in a hallway adjacent to it

Link was always awesome, but his dungeons were meant for one person to complete, and expanding on those ideas to make it good for a party of 4 level 18 characters is tough. I LOVE saving the world before level 10, but this is a scrap together piece while waiting for the next DM to finish up. It's like a HIGHLIGHTS magazine at a doctors office lol

@bondpirate Um. Wow. heh, That gives me quite a bit to look through! will repost once i read all and get back from work! thanks again... wow lol:smallbiggrin:

[flabort]

I'm always a fan of conveyor hallways. depending on the speed of the conveyor, and they other wonderful traps you put in it, you can have a lot of fun.

like, for example, spikes at one end, covered by a wall of force. players will try so hard (oh, so hard) to keep a way from the spikes, but be drawn to them. when they touch the wall of force, the conveyor stops... and a large Indiana-esque ball falls infront of the far door, rolling towards them. there's a gap in the wall where they can hide... out of the fastest player's reach. if they, however, sacrifice one member and hide in the gap while he touches the wall, they survive.

[The Glyphstone]

How much time do you give your players to decide which of them (possibly involuntarily) gets sacrificed?

[flabort]

:smallamused: That depends entirely on the length and speed of the conveyor. If they have NPCs with them, usually the choice is obvious. :smallmad: But, that's just one example of what you can do with a conveyor.

If you're feeling sadistic, put a pit of lava at either end, and a door just beyond the far pit. (jump check to reach it). There are several monsters with perfect maneuverability, AKA cheater's flight, floating around the conveyor. they can't full attack or they'll be dumped into the lava. they can't use magic or spell like abilities or they'll be dumped into the lava. they can't charge in a certain direction or they'll overshoot into the lava. And when they reach the end, they've got a massive penalty to their jump check because of really unsteady terrain. :smallamused::smallbiggrin::smallamused:

[bondpirate]

Couple more ideas:
1) When the party enters a certain room they are teleported to a CR1 basic dungeon (The usual 4-5 room, one secret door, minor boss creature setup for learning the mechanics as a group type dungeon). Give the caster access to their lvl0-1 spells so they can have a reprieve from everything non caster. The point of this little diversion room is not to be a challenge, but to slow the party down (every d&d player knows that combat is the single longest aspect of the game). After they leave and lose in the next room, they have to do the dungeon again. Hilarity ensues as the third, fourth time they do the dungeon and they just run past all the CR1/4 or lower monsters to the end. Good times, good times.

and 2) You can create a room which only allows for a certain spell of a caster to solve. Have the player know they can cast the spell. It will be the key to solving the puzzle.

Also, how many sessions does this dungeon need to last?

edit: PS. A riddle or logic puzzle can be a great time sink; they also don't slow the party down on repeated returns to the room. There are plenty on the interwebs, but for the love of Olidammara don't use the man riddle (what walks on four legs in the morn, two at noon and three in the evening?). That one is so over used it is actually insulting to me when a professional product uses this as a riddle. I've been gaming most of my life and I can remember at least a dozen times its been used. At first I felt smart, but now I feel... ugh!

Anyway, peace out!

[erictheredd]

Fun idea for a room: gravity maze filled with water. they can't fly through the water, and they can't Teleport or blink to the end because they haven't the slightest idea where the the end is. This wouldn't be a killer room, just a fun one to put in an important place and fight in.

[Shyftir]

in response to eric:

The solution is simple... the Gate is Down.

As for a trap:

Another idea is a trap that involves a "dead end room" that actually has X number of separate secret doors (where X is the number of your players)

All of the doors lead to portals to various Inner Planes. The trick is if the right type of character goes into the right one they get ported into the next room instead. Give them clues which suggest connections between character types and certain planes, and then require that they go into the opposite door then said connections would indicate.

Also in one room force them to do underwater basket-weaving, just for the irony/hilarity.

[archon_huskie]

Have one hallway be nothing more than a hallway no traps what so ever. Have this hallway follow a hallway that many freaky traps. Such as blindness, deafening noise, fowl stentch. At the end of the non trapped hallway, have posioned corpse sitting next to a fountain of water. Just a body of someone who died of posion. Nothing special about it whatsoever. Have drink me written above the fountain. The fountain of course is not posioned at all.


Trust me. This will freak them out.


Bonus points if drinking the water opens the exit. No one will want to.

[Jogi]

It's all about the game style you want. If want a deep and hard to solve maze, then it's gonna be some pain to create it. On the other hand, if you want a maze that was once inhabbited by creatures, or built with some other mundane purpose, then you already have a list of possible rooms and possibly where the traps/challenges will be placed.

Oh, one funny thing I remembered: put a teleport trap on some doors, triggers when you go throught the doorway. This is gonna mess up their maps :D. You don't have to draw a maze in the classical way to have one. :smallcool:

[FlyingWhale]

I had no idea there would be so many responses! Thanks for once again smashing my idea that there are no good people out there:smallredface:

@Everyone who replied, thank you for all the helps! The only thing I left out I suppose is this is a maze made by a Copper Dragon (enjoy jokes etc) who has a twisted mind. Almost like Saw, if it was a good movie! He wants to see people die in hilarious yet gruesome ways... Also just to be amused at watching them solve his Maze. In the campaign we were playing, Dragons were basically extinct, the good ones used mortals as slaves and demanded payment for protection from the evil ones, and the evil ones, well they were evil, also they turned their backs on the deals they made with powerful evil mortals and therefor had a lot of enemies. A few dozen years of this and that was the end of the dragons.

@erictheredd The gravity water reminded me of Enders Game where in the first few mock battles where he froze their legs so they had a "shield", well I like the idea of flying through the room of Zero-G.:smallamused:

@archon_huskie lol I like that a lot, I know one of my characters will do something ridiculous like, write a "kick me" paper and stick it to the corpse and then kick it, then another will say, "he only wanted a drink, jerk." then drink from it. Not actually sure if that is funny or just odd. meh.

@Shyftir Yarp! I could see that being a great break from the magically bereft maze, also give the characters a chance to shine in their own right. I always wanted a party to interplanery travel:smallcool:

@bondpirate I was thinking just 1 or mmaaayybbe 2 sessions. Our sessions however last from about 6-8hours, so that seems fine to me. It just depends on how long it lasts, if it finishes for some ungodly reason just after 3 hours... then i already have some stuff ready for that. I just want this maze to be forever remembered by them, ya know? As for word puzzles, I was thinking of maybe having one or two at the most, and making the answers exceptionally stupid. and having the dragon curse them for solving it. you gots ideas son!:smallwink:

@flabort hmm. me likes. instead of lava, im thinking something more sinister... below them, like, 60 feet, is the starting room:smalleek: fall off of that!!!

[jiriku]

Don't use rooms. Use very small demiplanes connected by standing gates. Now you can put any blessed thing you want in your "rooms" and it won't raise any eyebrows.

[bondpirate]

@bondpirate I was thinking just 1 or mmaaayybbe 2 sessions. Our sessions however last from about 6-8hours, so that seems fine to me. It just depends on how long it lasts, if it finishes for some ungodly reason just after 3 hours... then i already have some stuff ready for that. I just want this maze to be forever remembered by them, ya know? As for word puzzles, I was thinking of maybe having one or two at the most, and making the answers exceptionally stupid. and having the dragon curse them for solving it. you gots ideas son!:smallwink:



Hmm...6-16 hours of dangerous traps and 'I'll get you Gadget! Next time!' moments. With what you have, it might be enough for two if you play like my group does. As for setup, if you've ever seen any of the 'Cube' movies then that might be a good setup as well to help prolong the sessions.

Also, if you want them to remember this guaranteed, then all you have to do is have the copper dragon live in its mother's "dungeon" even though it's 'old enough to leave the nest' and have her call down with magic from "upstairs." The nerd in the basement and all tropes which apply will give them a chuckle and make it memorable. Unless, of course, it's too close to home for one of the players, but we all know that's just an urban legend... right?

P.S. If there's a female party member, then have 'Moooom' act as if she's his girlfriend. Priceless.

P.P.S. Or tutus. Tutus make everything better.:smalltongue:

[137beth]

What I usually do to design a maze is to start by just designing the MAZE. THEN add traps. Remember not every hallway has to have a trap. By building the dungeon before the traps or monsters, you can spread them out throughout the dungeon.