3.5 - Rotating room as puzzle - source or ideas wanted

[Harlot]

Hello y'all

Æons ago I read/played one of those 'roll the dice adventure books' which featured a rotating room as a puzzle.
As I vaguely remember it the idea was something like the room would turn every minute without you noticing it. You'd be trapped in the room unless you figured out when to open the right door (of a total of four?) at the right time.

... and that's pretty much all I remember.
I've always wanted such a room and now it fits my campaign!

Do any of you recognise the description/know the source?
Or alternatively, how would you construct such a room?
I don't need any traps or such, just a nice puzzle in an otherwise pretty straightforward game.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
/Harlot

[dysprosium]

I do not remember the book you are referring to.

How would you like a whole spinning dungeon? Check out Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics 50: Vault of the Iron Overlord.

The premise is the treasure is inside some convoluted dungeon that rotates and spins. And it's written by Monte Cook!

Never had a chance to play it but it looked really neat.

[Darrin]

Do any of you recognise the description/know the source?
Or alternatively, how would you construct such a room?


Well, I can't recall any specific book (I was fond of J.H. Brennan's GrailQuest books myself), but we know that Gygax liked to play this trick on players because AD&D specifically calls this out as something dwarves are good at detecting (1 in 4 on a d6). I'm pretty sure he used this in Castle Greyhawk at some point just to f*** with the players who were mapping out the castle, but I can't recall if any of those rooms actually were in any of the various versions of Castle Greyhawk that made it into print. ("Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk" doesn't appear to have any.)

There is an example of a revolving passage in B4 "The Lost City".

There's a "spinning room" puzzle-type thing in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but it was used as more of an excuse to separate the main characters from each other and the antagonists.

[Chronos]

You might be remembering the Carousel Room from one of the Zork games: Either the original Zork (not Zork 1; from before it had numbers), or from Zork 2. In either case, where you ended up when you left the room was random, but you could never end up in Room 8 until after you had deactivated the Carousel Room.

[Malimar]

Not from a book, so probably not the original one you're thinking of, but there's also this: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/067/3/c/Rotating_Madness_by_Djekspek.jpg

[Harlot]

Thanks! I'll probably use Malimars crypt without the outer circle. Thank you all so much for your quick help.