Dungeon of Minor Details

[nolongerchaos]

or the Dungeon of Potentially Easy Experience

As DM, I talked to some of my players and determined it would be fun to have my party run through a dungeon comprised almost entirely of logic puzzles/traps. However I decided I wanted to put a little twist on the puzzles: when describing them, I want to omit a seemingly minor detail, however the detail I omit from my description will actually be a shortcut or way of avoiding the puzzle.

For instance, they enter a room with two door, one behind them, and one on the far side. Through the door on the far side they can see the way onward, but the door is visibly locked by a device in the corner. In the corner they have to solve a Rubik's Cube or whatever, some small puzzle to unlock the door. However upon completing the puzzle, instead of the door unlocking, a hammer swings down from the ceiling, shattering what at this point I reveal was merely a door made of glass.

Anyone have any similar puzzles or traps they've used? The campaign is E6, so while I'd prefer things that can be used in such a setting, they don't necessarily need to be E6 compatible.

[Zaq]

That seems like a good way to piss off your players, honestly. If that happened to me, I wouldn't think "oh, the GM is so clever!" I'd think "and why the hell wasn't I told that my character sees this plainly obvious glass door?"

Remember, you are the source of 100% of the information that your players have about the world. They weren't there when you were making this dungeon. They can't visualize it accurately beyond what you tell them. If you don't tell them what shape the room is, they don't know what shape the room is. If you don't tell them there's something on a table, as far as they know, there is nothing on the table. They can't just look around with their eyes and notice things. They have to ask you what they notice, and they have to accept what you give them as being their only source of information. Deliberately withholding information that would be obvious to the characters isn't going to make your players happy. It's going to make them frustrated.

[Lightlawbliss]

A quickly revolving door. If they disable it the door is stuck blocking the path onward. To proceed they "need" to be able to move fast enough to keep up with the door.

[StoneCipher]

That seems like a good way to piss off your players, honestly. If that happened to me, I wouldn't think "oh, the GM is so clever!" I'd think "and why the hell wasn't I told that my character sees this plainly obvious glass door?"

Remember, you are the source of 100% of the information that your players have about the world. They weren't there when you were making this dungeon. They can't visualize it accurately beyond what you tell them. If you don't tell them what shape the room is, they don't know what shape the room is. If you don't tell them there's something on a table, as far as they know, there is nothing on the table. They can't just look around with their eyes and notice things. They have to ask you what they notice, and they have to accept what you give them as being their only source of information. Deliberately withholding information that would be obvious to the characters isn't going to make your players happy. It's going to make them frustrated.


or the Dungeon of Potentially Easy Experience

As DM, I talked to some of my players and determined it would be fun to have my party run through a dungeon comprised almost entirely of logic puzzles/traps. However I decided I wanted to put a little twist on the puzzles: when describing them, I want to omit a seemingly minor detail, however the detail I omit from my description will actually be a shortcut or way of avoiding the puzzle.

For instance, they enter a room with two door, one behind them, and one on the far side. Through the door on the far side they can see the way onward, but the door is visibly locked by a device in the corner. In the corner they have to solve a Rubik's Cube or whatever, some small puzzle to unlock the door. However upon completing the puzzle, instead of the door unlocking, a hammer swings down from the ceiling, shattering what at this point I reveal was merely a door made of glass.

Anyone have any similar puzzles or traps they've used? The campaign is E6, so while I'd prefer things that can be used in such a setting, they don't necessarily need to be E6 compatible.

Reading is fun.

[Zaq]

He talked to his group about running a dungeon full of puzzles. His use of the word however, though, indicates a shift away from what he discussed with his party. He decided on his own to twist things up by intentionally withholding information. I'm not objecting to a dungeon full of puzzles. I'm objecting to the one source of information about the world intentionally confusing things.

Reading is, indeed, fun. That's why I read more than just the first sentence.

[Red Fel]

or the Dungeon of Potentially Easy Experience

Have you ever played a text-only game like Zork? There was a lot of this. You would be in a room with a simple description. You could LOOK AT something to see more detail. You could PICK UP something if you wanted, or try to OPEN something (unless the game says "You can't open that!") if you want. You had to figure out the precise right sequence of things to LOOK AT and PICK UP or GET and PULL or PUSH or SAY in order to proceed.

Those games deliberately withheld certain levels of detail, forcing the player to think in often convoluted ways. Which is almost okay, coming from a computer program with limited memory and processing power which, by modern standards, would be prehistoric.

The problem is that nowadays, the players assume - not unreasonably - that you, the DM, will give them all of the relevant information they're able to perceive. That if the door is made of glass, you won't just say "You see the hallway beyond it," you will at least mention that the door itself is transparent, or glass, or even glass-like. Deliberately withholding information that should be blatantly obvious to their characters just comes across as hiding the ball.

That said, I do think it's a clever concept. I don't have anything to add, at present time, except this: If you have told your players the premise of this dungeon, that you will phrase descriptions in a particular and misleading manner that includes a hidden shortcut, and if the players are okay with this, you should absolutely do it. It sounds like a blast. But if you don't tell them, or if you tell them but they think it's a jerky move, don't do it. It comes across as you laughing at your own cleverness while they slog through oh-goody-yet-another-puzzle.

And StoneCipher: The OP said the players thought it would be fun to run a puzzle dungeon. Not a puzzle dungeon with hidden details. Your tone was unnecessary.

[tyckspoon]

Eh.. depending on how paranoid/experienced your players are, they might not be willing to take the 'easy' way even if they notice the missing detail (although in the case of the door, I think they'd probably ask just to confirm that there is in fact a door and not just an open archway. Or assume there's no actual door, try to walk through it, and then end up asking you about the door when you inform them they bounce off a glassy wall... oh, and now I notice it was mentioned it had an obvious lock on it to at least make it clear something is there, so nevermind :smalltongue:) After all, a dungeon full of traps and puzzles is the kind of place that's likely to leave nasty surprises for the 'clever' adventurer who thinks he found a way to bypass the puzzle. That easily-broken glass door is probably full of some kind of nasty colorless poison gas! Better just solve the trinket puzzle and move on..

(Of course, doing this kind of thing in your traps is the sort of activity that leads to adventurers going 'Screw all that' and just tunneling new passageways to where they want to be. Especially when in the next room the 'correct' action is just to ignore all the details and walk straight through - fiddling with the interesting looking gadget/lever/potentially valuable loot is what activates that particular trap, not how you bypass it..)

[Lanson]

When I first read the title, I assumed you would describe your rooms and puzzles with overly elaborate detail. Normally DMs make the mistake of only describing the plot devices and other important items in the room, so being overly elaborate will make some players paranoid. It will also get them to interact with more of the environments you place then in. Perfect for setting up traps.

[Flickerdart]

Puzzles can be good. When the puzzle is "ask the DM the right stupid question," it is not a good puzzle, and on the third room you're going to be fielding questions such as "are there walls" and "is there oxygen" for about three hours before you give up on this ridiculous gimmick.

[Nibbens]

There was a section in the Tomb of Horrors where the players had to walk through a section of approximately 15 or so trap doors. The difficulty in this was that each player had to specifically describe "how" he tried to open the door (push the left corner, slide it right, push the right side, pull it down, push on the center, spin it to the left, etc) - all the while a trap was firing at the PC's the entire time this is happening. Each time they tried and failed to describe the exact way the door would open, they wasted their entire round and were shot with an magically reloading arrow trap.

The point of this "difficulty" (as the ToH is known for legendary difficulty) was the tedium in making players actually "do" the things that they had always taken for granted, like "opening a door."

If this is the type of play your players are after and okay with, then go for it! If their mood changes - and thus their feelings on the subject of tedium in dungeons, then change it back to a normal concept. Keep a close eye on how they are feeling and ask questions about their experiences with the game.

Remember, the idea here is to work with your players to make it fun for everyone. When a DM assumes that he is above reproach and doesn't need to heed the feelings of his players, then he will leave his friends feeling ostracized and possibly lead to complications outside the game as well.

Just my 2 cents.

[bjoern]

Something like a glass door would be obvious to the character to notice right away.

Its along the same lines as....

DM: at the end of the hall there is a room with a door at the opposite side. There are two torches on each wall providing ample light to the room. The walls are covered in moss and the room is very damp.

Player: I walk across the room to the door.

DM: there is no floor, the room is a pit that's full of water. You fall in, roll swim check please. And initiative, there's a crocodile in the water.

[StoneCipher]

Something better to reason with would be a puzzle to obtain a key to a door.

But wait! The wizard accidentally forgot to lock that door, so the key wasn't needed.

Then that drives the party mad as they try to figure out what the key is for if they happen to open the door without it.

[icefractal]

I wouldn't go with the idea in the OP. For one thing, it seems kind of bizarre and annoying. My character doesn't notice the door is made of glass why? I feel like that kind of thing is just being a bad interface to the world.

For another thing, if the players did buy in to it, the logical thing to do would be to ask questions about every single thing, slowing the game down to a crawl:
DM: You enter a 20' wide room with a domed ceiling. In the center is a stone pedestal with a potted plant on it. At the opposite side is a barred wooden door.
Players: Is there a floor? Is the floor solid? Does the floor have holes in it? How tall, exactly, is the ceiling. What is the other dimension of the room? Does the ceiling's dome go upward or downward? Are there monsters in the room? Is the room on fire or full of poison gas? Are there any other objects on the floor? Are there any other objects on the pedestal? Are there any other objects on the walls or ceiling? Is the opposite door barred shut, or barred but actually open? Are there other doors besides that one? And so forth, and so forth.

However, "the dungeon of extraneous details" sounds like it might be fun. It might also slow things down a lot, as players investigate all the red herrings you're placing. But worth a try, just be prepared to drop the red herring count during play if things are dragging too much.

[Chronos]

On the other hand, StoneCipher's idea of the door being unlocked in the first place can be great fun, especially if the rogue tries to pick it. "You hear a click, and feel the tumblers sliding to one side". "OK, I open the door." "It won't open; it seems to be locked." And then watch them try to figure out how the "other" lock works.