The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

[Strigon]

The purpose of this thread is simple: make a list of innocent things which could be put in a dungeon, which would unnerve PC's.
The general idea is that, in real life, some things are completely harmless. Those same things have been used time and again to trap unwary PC's, and most have learned never to trust these items for they are Very Bad.

So, what harmless decorations could you put in a dungeon that would make players turn tail and run? I'll start with some obvious ones.

1) Statues. Statues are never statues; rather, they are slumbering guardians just waiting to be awoken. Everyone knows this.
2) Unguarded treasure chests. If it's not at the end of your dungeon, there are one of two options. Either there's a monster lurking nearby that you can't see, or the chest is the monster.
3) A lever by a door. Levers are never good. Levers are especially never good when their purpose seems obvious.

[Douglas]

1) Statues. Statues are never statues; rather, they are slumbering guardians just waiting to be awoken. Everyone knows this.
Statues are not always slumbering guardians. Sometimes they are petrified people instead, warning sign that a medusa, cockatrice, or basilisk is in the area. Do it convincingly enough, and a set of fake petrified people could get a party to voluntarily blindfold themselves to avoid the petrification gaze attack they expect to face.

[IZ42]

Long, unremarkable hallways. Maybe lit by a few torches. Nothing else. No doors, no windows, no monsters, not even mold. Nothing. If that doesn't scare the living hell out of your players, you're doing something wrong.

[JAL_1138]

Water.

Water in D&D is always, always, always bad.

Whether it's one of the innumerable horrible monsters, poison, disease, curses, or drowning, water is always bad.

[TurboGhast]

Obvious illusions of obvious traps. Put less obvious traps on some, but not all of the illusions.

[DireSickFish]

A large ornate mirror in what is otherwise a bunch of crude caves with basic furniture. It works even better if the players have no way to detect if it is magical or not.

[Brendanicus]

Glowing floor tiles. This actually occurred in my game, where the tiles in the room the PC's were sleeping in began to glow. They fled the room and lost a night's sleep as a result.

The glowing was harmless. They don't know that, though.

[JNAProductions]

The Wandering Damage System (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0524.html).

[JAL_1138]

A business card reading "E. G. G. Architecture, Ltd., Tomb And Trap Design. Ask About The 'Acererak Special'."

[ZeroGear]

Hallway/Room full of mirrors. With the occasional monster appearing in one.

[JAL_1138]

Hallway/Room full of mirrors. With the occasional monster appearing in one.

The Fetch is a good one to put in. Or to make the players believe is in one, via heavy hints. 9hd, THAC0 11, AC 4, 2 attacks per round, only visible to its victim, and drains two levels per hit. So they start going around breaking mirrors (so the Fetch can't get through; it needs a big enough mirror) and whack a 3e-type glass Susurrus (they used to be bamboo-like plant monsters related to Shambling Mounds) in the process, and it doesn't take kindly to it.

[Yukitsu]

A single, visibly unlocked door with a friendly welcome mat. In the center is a single gold piece of the otherwise completely empty room.

[Khedrac]

Dead end tunnels where the party cannot find a secret door with a take 20 search.

Particularly if there is not much treasure the party will be sure they missed the secret door to the treasure room. (There's more than one form of paranoia.)

[Takewo]

Well, that's not exactly in a dungeon, but when the characters go to see somebody and there's no one at home (probably because they are working or elsewhere), that can give them the creeps.

[oxybe]

You find a small cave jutting from the ground in a wooden clearing and see a door. A cellar maybe, to a home that isn't here anymore?

Said door is a mimic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29)and will try to eat you. vanquishing the mimic you enter the cavernous room and find it's a storeroom full of cloaks, sacs, possibly stolen weapons, coins littered around stalags (of the mites and tites varieties) and another door on the opposite side.

This is your first mistake.

The ceiling is plastered with lurker aboves (http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e153/Sylvanspirits/LurkerAbove.jpg)and piercers (http://www.aidedd.org/dnd_monstres/images/piercer.jpg). the floor ones are Ropers (http://dungeonsmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/roper.jpg). They try to eat you.

Reaching inside the barrel for a longsword you unexpectedly pull out a xaver (http://www.headinjurytheater.com/dnd%20xaver%20.jpg). It tries to eat you.

Stumbling back into the barrel containing the xaver, you find that it is yet another mimic. It tries to eat you.

As you fend off the murderous sword and barrel, you bump into the coatrack. I mean cloaker. it's a cloaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaker). It tries to eat you.

Turns out someone had also decided to be that special kind of jerk and animated the coatrack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/animatedObject.htm).

Hoping to find a potion to cure yourself from having fended off swords, barrels, coatracks, cloaks and doors, you shove your hand in the sac on the wall. It's a bag of devouring (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#bagofDevouring) with a taste for flesh.

You decide to take a rest and sit down, having thrown the murderous sac aside, it seems you sat on a trapper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapper_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29)who was just idling and waiting for a meal. This sure isn't your day!

Jumping away from it's grip you bump into the strangely spongy... OH GORDDARN IT! IT'S A FREAKING STUNJELLY (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunjelly). Could this room not get any dumber?

Sorry, but it seems you've pissed off the bowler (http://www.headinjurytheater.com/images/d&D%20beasts%20bowler.jpg)that was chilling in the corner with your yelling.

Escaping the stupid wall and rock monsters with the cunning plan of "step away from it", you decide to grab some gold for your troubles. Then you realize that the gold is probably a gold golem or something like that (http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Games/D/Dragon%20Quest%20IX/Everything%20Else/Japan%20fever/WII52.won_dragon.tat_model4--article_image.jpg). Nope, that's a Dragon Quest monster. Turns out this is just your normal, mundane horde scarab swarm (http://940ee6dce6677fa01d25-0f55c9129972ac85d6b1f4e703468e6b.r99.cf2.rackcdn.c om/products/pictures/278415.jpg), chilling out in a cave, looking like coins.

Having had enough of all this dumb monster shenanigans, you go to the back door expecting it to be a mimic to find that it doesn't open. It's not even a door it's part of the wall... the fleshy, slippery wall that... Crapbaskets (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/mimigrea.php).

This is you last mistake.

There you go: the one-room dungeon where everything is out to kill you.

[DigoDragon]

Worse than statues are mannequins. I had a GM who made us all paranoid when we were looking through a department store (basically modern dungeon). The power was out so we were wandering in the dark with just flashlights and cell phones to contact each other. I passed by some mannequins in the women's section. They looked ordinary, wearing some expensive name brand dresses. I continue pass that and then hear a thud behind me.

I turn around. One of the mannequin heads fell off and the one next to that was holding a machete that was not there before. I ran from that real quick!

Meanwhile, another PC was in the electronics section. The TVs were off, but he thought to turn one on. It displayed that classic 'snow' static... but this was a modern digital TV so static isn't something they'd normally do. He checked behind the TV. It was unplugged. He decided to check linens...

None of these weird haunting things hurt us, but they had no explanation and so our GM was turning our imaginations AGAINST us.


A business card reading "E. G. G. Architecture, Ltd., Tomb And Trap Design. Ask About The 'Acererak Special'."

Haha, that last bit is classic. :D

[goto124]

Call your campaign 'Tomb of Horrors'.

Even if it isn't that particular Tomb of Horrors.

[DigoDragon]

Call your campaign 'Tomb of Horrors'.
Even if it isn't that particular Tomb of Horrors.

Even better if it was a misspelling of "Tomb of Honors" XD

[nedz]

A pile of rusted weapons and armour.

A Book with a yellow cover. The text is undecipherable, even with magic.

An empty room.

[Keltest]

Have a welcoming butler present to guide them through the dangerous traps to the treasure room and the room-of-relevant-plot-information. See how hard the players make it for themselves to avoid trusting them.

[JAL_1138]

A pile of rusted weapons and armour.

Ooh, yeah. Rust is always paranoia inducing.

http://dungeonsmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/rust-monster.jpg

[JNAProductions]

But rust means no rust monsters. They eat rust.

[JAL_1138]

But rust means no rust monsters. They eat rust.

Was thinking of something like "a reddish stain on the altar where metal weapons have completely corroded away" will freak out the fighter in platemail...even if it's just because it's damp in there and the weapons had the same issues as the undercarriage of a '50s Ford pickup over a longer period of time.

[goto124]

Ooh, yeah. Rust is always paranoia inducing.

http://dungeonsmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/rust-monster.jpg

How does the wizard have the Str to carry the heavy warrior in platemail?

[Eonn]

I wasn't sure if a friend told me this story or I read it on here, but potted plants.

The story went that a DM put potted plant all over his dungeon, in odd places like the middle of an otherwise empty room. Only the first one that encountered was an actual mimic, the rest were just normal plant.

[Karl Aegis]

When you approach a door within the dragon's lair, you hear knocking from the other side of the door and a pair of voices with Scottish accents. The voices start asking if they can come in and speak in a tone that one would use between old friends. If you don't open the door immediately, it starts shaking and rattling as if someone was trying to pry open the door and the voices become more aggressive as they demand to be let in. If you do open the door, there are no signs of anyone having been on the other side of the door at all.

Later on, when you approach another door within the dragon's lair the door politely asks you to turn around and leave before it gets serious.

[Maglubiyet]

A child singing nursery rhymes.

A trembling, starving dog that tentatively approaches the party. As one of the PC's tries to coax it closer (there's always one guy who does) something causes the dog's perception to look over the PC's shoulder. His ears go flat, the hackles on his neck go up, and he turns and flees with his tail between his legs.

Two boots standing in front of a door with a pile of clothes draped over them, topped with a hat.

[Atarax]

Don't forget bridges over deep chasms. That's not a great place for an encounter to happen or anything...

Also, (sorry to get slightly off topic) I'd really like to see a dungeon with paranoia inducing elements that start off very subtle and get more and more noticeable as the PC's head deeper in. All the while, they don't encounter the horrors rumored to lurk in this dark place. Finally, at the heart of the dungeon, they come across undeniable evidence that these creatures exist here, and BAM...they start crawling out of the woodworks. Now what appeared to be another casual room-by-room hack n loot has become a desperate fight just to escape with their lives. Maybe it takes days and they have to watch their rations, torches, ammo, etc...

Kinda the second Alien movie ;)

[boomwolf]

One dungeon I made (that was completely brutal and justified any and all paranoia) featured among others every map maker's nightmare, nonsense physics layout.

Turning in corridors could lead you to the same room, but with directions reversed (up is down), or to a completely new room that covers the space of a previously explored room.

Worst part, they assumed teleportation shenanigans, and went nuts when they could not find the portals or any reverse gravity traps. There weren't any, physics was just wonky there.

(to top it off, and attempt at teleportation or extra - dimensional magic backfired horribly (clues where given ahead) , but one of the bad guys COULD teleport safely. He just knew to avoid the wonky physics zones as he knew the layout, but they assumed he is somehow disrupting their magic.)

[Brendanicus]

Just say the phrase "huge empty room with chest-high walls" and you can practically hear the Fighter's player grinding their imaginary axe.

[JAL_1138]

At the room in the exact center of the dungeon maze is a housecat. Just a housecat. Looking completely unconcerned.

If there's a lvl 1 wizard (in 1e or 2e, anyway) in the group, s/he'll run screaming from the cat.

[goto124]

Don't forget to bring a housecat IRL, and watch the wizard's player run away from it screaming.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Water.

Water in D&D is always, always, always bad.

Whether it's one of the innumerable horrible monsters, poison, disease, curses, or drowning, water is always bad.


"How did he drown?"
Water weird
"But...were in the desert."
That's what makes it weird

All jokes aside, if you see a pit, either drop something, and look/listen, if the light fades/sound barely heard/no sound, ignore pit

[Feddlefew]

How about a dungeon that stalks the players? Nothing quite as bad as seeing the EXACT same abandoned farm house show up again and again, right down to the tattered drapes and fugly carpet, in increasingly improbable locations.

[ZeroGear]

Writing on the walls. Only the first instance will be a set of explosive runes. Preferably written in stanzas.

Skeletons. Not animated ones (or at least not most of the time), but regular skeletons. Preferably of various species and sizes.

Sudden scene change. One moment the players are in a dark, dank, underground dungeon; next they walk through a door and end up in a steamy sauna...full of big macho men in banana-hamas that want to oil them up real nice.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Forgot to put a thing

When I ran a homebrew, the players were in a gladiatorial setting

They just picked off a cube (new idea, narrow hallway, double cubes closing in from both ends, and one is already covering the "exit" door) so the ones running it decided to reward them with gifts, but they had to go back out to the arena before they could rest.

Large open space, three chests, experienced player got suspicious right there, huzzah games of chance (one was a mimic)

[Karl Aegis]

How about a dungeon that stalks the players? Nothing quite as bad as seeing the EXACT same abandoned farm house show up again and again, right down to the tattered drapes and fugly carpet, in increasingly improbable locations.

That's more likely to make your players feel like they're being railroaded than to induce paranoia.

[Karl Aegis]

Writing on the walls. Only the first instance will be a set of explosive runes. Preferably written in stanzas.

Skeletons. Not animated ones (or at least not most of the time), but regular skeletons. Preferably of various species and sizes.

Sudden scene change. One moment the players are in a dark, dank, underground dungeon; next they walk through a door and end up in a steamy sauna...full of big macho men in banana-hamas that want to oil them up real nice.

Watch out for hidden Xavers.

[goto124]

in a steamy sauna...full of big macho men in banana-hamas that want to oil them up real nice.

You forgot to give them beautiful women first.

And even then, the players will be suspicious of nymphs or succubi.

[JAL_1138]

Not paranoia inducing, except in the "horrible death" sense, but tangentially related on the mention of gelatinous cubes...

Deathtrap idea: 10' long, 10' wide, 30' deep pit (under hinged floor), with a Gelatinous Cube at the bottom. Triggering the collapsible floor leads to a one-round delay before the ceiling above the pit opens up and deposits another Gelatinous Cube into the pit, creating the world's worst adventurer sandwich.

[goto124]

The world's worst jelly adventurer sandwich.

[Strigon]

How about a unicorn? Or, for that matter, just about any mythical beast that typically represents purity/innocence. I've only ever heard of them being used to show just how bad things have gotten.
Also,

How does the wizard have the Str to carry the heavy warrior in platemail?
By being a wizard.
Seriously, you should've known by now that wizards can do anything.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

In 5e at least, add a bunch of portals totthe elemental planes and a bunch of those exploding mephits,

Its working for me in the elemental prince campaign. I now think everything is a portal to the plane of fire and has a bunch of fire cultists who command fire snakes and magma mephits.

Who the cleric holy smited making three who were bunched up around my warlock nearly killing her/scarring her for life

[MrStabby]

A large room with marble floors. In the middle of it a single white candle - lit and burnt half way down.


A table with a half drunk glass of wine on it and two dice - each with a number 1 face up.


A single grandfather clock at the top of a flight of stairs that lead nowhere else. The clock is counting down time.

[JNAProductions]

A room with doors that lock when everyone is inside. There's a button somewhere obvious in the room.

Once the doors lock, start a five minute countdown. Hitting the button resets it.

When the timer runs out... The doors open. :P

[Gnoman]

I find large scale mosaics or tapestries on the wall can have a pretty good effect on players that aren't used to your style. Probably because a lot of DMs don't bother to write quite so much fluff text, some meaningless tapestries of battle scenes or a mosaic of a god can cause a bit of "this place is super important, so it must be super dangerous." Of course, this is dependent on your own style - I've had players actually be surprised when the statues in the city parks walked off to war.

[NRSASD]

Not so much paranoia-inducing as evidence I've been inducing paranoia a little too much.

The PCs had to scour the dungeon to find the password to a vault, thus disarming the forcefield blocking it. Behind the barrier was a short 30 ft corridor, completely unmarked, with a large pile of treasure sitting in plain sight at the feet of a statue of the Elven god of Peaceful Resolutions at the end. No traps whatsoever.

25 minutes, 200 ft of rope, a heavy crossbow, a sledgehammer, and about 20 search checks later, the party makes it to the end of the hallway.

[Angel Bob]

How about a dungeon that stalks the players? Nothing quite as bad as seeing the EXACT same abandoned farm house show up again and again, right down to the tattered drapes and fugly carpet, in increasingly improbable locations.

Oh, I like this. Do this properly, and it could be magnificent.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

A large chessboard themed with missing prices equal to the number of party members

One of which is the king

[MrStabby]

A gallery of portraits of royalty. On inspection one is one of the PCs.

A room with a sold stone floor. 8 paces into the room there is silence and even footsteps are no longer heard.

A round dinner table set with places equal to the number of people in the party.

A series of four doors. Each leads nowhere - opening the door just reveals the wall behind.

A child's bedroom. In the corner is a rocking horse that rocks gently of its own accord.

A dais at the top of a flight of 5 steps. On the dais is a water pump made of polished brass with no signs of corrosion. Carved into the floor is an inscription that reads "Thirst first, then drought, then servitude"

A tall vaulted room with an Organ at the far end. The walls and pillars in the room are old and cracked. A single large chunk of masonry has fallen from the ceiling about two thirds of the way down the room.

[JAL_1138]

An opening for a large cistern or well with a strange glow some distance down. Two very faint points of blue light, which sometimes move, and seem to be placed on the same object. The bottom can't be seen.

[ellindsey]

An otherwise empty room, containing only a desk. On the desk is a book. Written on the cover are the words 'Learning Experience'.

Depending on your players, you may not even need to bother deciding what's inside. When I did this, not only did my players refuse to look inside the book, they were so paranoid they wouldn't even search the room.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

A pile of dead bards for which the party may cower behind

[DigoDragon]

An otherwise empty room, containing only a desk. On the desk is a book. Written on the cover are the words 'Learning Experience'.

I remember one important NPC librarian who was very helpful to the party for several adventures. One day the NPC was out on lunch and the party went throuh her desk looking for something. Scratched on the back of the name plate was the phrase 'I never returned'.

But the NPC did come back and continued being helpful as ever. Made the players real paranoid. :3

[Bard1cKnowledge]

A shop right before the end of the cave

[JAL_1138]

A floating black orb of darkness about 2' in diameter floating about waist-high, which begins to move toward the party at a slow speed whenever they enter a room, and returns to the center of the room if they step back outside.

Rather than being a Sphere of Annihilation, it's just a small area of magical darkness which is entirely harmless, although it can't be dispelled easily by the usual means. There are dozens of these in various rooms.

One or more of them is the real thing.

[Brookshw]

Call your campaign 'Tomb of Horrors'.

Even if it isn't that particular Tomb of Horrors.

Go one step further and leave a copy of the module there, the actual module itself.

Describe the opponent as a wizard.

Tell them that they're starting to get a cult following in Sigil.

Paintings on the wall of the PCs looking at the paintings.

[JAL_1138]

An extremely-heavily reinforced cell door, with multiple locks, bars, chains, braces, and supports shoring up the door, from the outside of the cell, the same side the players are on. The keys to the locks are hanging on a nail in the room.

Through the bars on the window of the door, the players see a small fuzzy adorable critter. And a pile of bones.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Llamas with hats, one of which is named Carl

[JAL_1138]

The Death Minnow. (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/deatminn.php)

[Bard1cKnowledge]

JAL standing in the middle of a lake

*hint* its not JAL

[DigoDragon]

JAL standing in the middle of a lake
*hint* its not JAL

Is this about you two having the same avatar? :smallbiggrin:

[JAL_1138]

JAL standing in the middle of a lake

*hint* its not JAL

No it most certainly is not :smallbiggrin:


Is this about you two having the same avatar? :smallbiggrin:

No, it's a reference to posts I've made elsewhere about how water is ALWAYS bad in D&D. My characters die a lot in water-related incidents, or otherwise have horrible things happen to them.

...for that matter, yesterday in Adventurer's League, my current character (who has already been cursed with an indelible and un-disguiseable tattoo by an angry sea-goddess) almost got killed by water genasi, almost got killed by I-don't-even-know-what-they-were-but-they-looked-undead-ish in a sewer, almost got killed by a water weird, almost got killed by troglodytes, almost got eaten by quippers, almost got dissolved by green slime, almost got killed by undead kuo-toa, almost drowned on failed swim checks, and got afflicted with a curse that nearly drowned him. Only survived by blowing all my spells on healing, blowing all my hit dice, and there being two other healers in the party who also blew all of their spells on healing (not just on healing me; every character got dropped at least once). The DM's dice were on fire and the entire party's dice seemed cursed, except for a couple crits against the undead kuo-toa.

[Keltest]

No it most certainly is not :smallbiggrin:



No, it's a reference to posts I've made elsewhere about how water is ALWAYS bad in D&D. My characters die a lot in water-related incidents, too.

You would never have survived in my campaign world. The primary region is called "The land of many lakes" and the only real point of major civilization is an island.

[JAL_1138]

You would never have survived in my campaign world. The primary region is called "The land of many lakes" and the only real point of major civilization is an island.

NOPE *runs away*

[JAL_1138]

Back in 2e, I lost fewer characters in actual, literal, in-no-way-metaphorical, where-Asmodeus-lives Hell, or in Ravenloft, or in the Tomb of Horrors than I did to water-related incidents.

[Lord Raziere]

welcome to underwater dungeon?

also, there is a reason why the aquatic subtype and merfolk exists guys.....maybe that should be my next character....

[MrStabby]

Oh yes! Nothing to induce paranoia like a slowly submerging dungeon.

[Strigon]

there is a reason why the aquatic subtype and merfolk exists guys.....maybe that should be my next character....

You'd just get eaten by a bigger fish. (http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0033.html)

[JAL_1138]

You'd just get eaten by a bigger fish. (http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0033.html)

Yup. Drowning's not the only issue, it's monsters including, but not limited to, sahuagin, kuo-toa, morkorths, giant squid, giant octopi, brine dragons, dragon turtles, Ixitschacan'tpronounce'em, water weirds, water elementals, crystal oozes, death minnows, water nagas, kelpies, strangleweed, sea lions, sirines, giant sea snakes, giant marine spiders, saltwater trolls, sea hags, silver urchins, whales, sea zombies, reef giants, kapoacinths, topaz dragons, giant crocodiles, crabmen, mudmen, and aboleths.

And as a merfolk? Good luck getting around on land. Where it's safe.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

A voice that continues to whisper to one PC, slowly driving him insane

Each whisper is different depending on the PC

[Bard1cKnowledge]

No it most certainly is not :smallbiggrin:



No, it's a reference to posts I've made elsewhere about how water is ALWAYS bad in D&D. My characters die a lot in water-related incidents, or otherwise have horrible things happen to them.

...for that matter, yesterday in Adventurer's League, my current character (who has already been cursed with an indelible and un-disguiseable tattoo by an angry sea-goddess) almost got killed by water genasi, almost got killed by I-don't-even-know-what-they-were-but-they-looked-undead-ish in a sewer, almost got killed by a water weird, almost got killed by troglodytes, almost got eaten by quippers, almost got dissolved by green slime, almost got killed by undead kuo-toa, almost drowned on failed swim checks, and got afflicted with a curse that nearly drowned him. Only survived by blowing all my spells on healing, blowing all my hit dice, and there being two other healers in the party who also blew all of their spells on healing (not just on healing me; every character got dropped at least once). The DM's dice were on fire and the entire party's dice seemed cursed, except for a couple crits against the undead kuo-toa.

Mulmaster? My character had the same experience, only with lava/fire mephits

Six of them clumped up close, our cleric of light used Radiance of Dawn, dropping my warlock due to exploding mephits around her. She had fire resistance. I saved 1 out of the 6 reflexes to quarter the damage,

Then of course there are those dang fire dwarves

[Lord Raziere]

Each whisper is different depending on the PC

The whispers all tell them not to trust any of the others.
"Your a paladin"
one says
"Why trust the self-admitted thief?"
another asks:
"Your a thief. why trust the paladin?"
they both say:
"you don't know them. not really. they could betray you at any moment."

also, a magic item in the middle of the room. but here is the kicker:
each person sees it as a different magic item.

finally:
put up signs all throughout the dungeon. however, what the signs actually say change every few minutes....

[JAL_1138]

A diary of an adventurer, containing rumors about the dungeon the adventurer collected, many of which are obviously inaccurate. Come up with quite a few.

One of them around the middle of the collection of rumors says something about an invisible monster. The diary says the adventurer brought along spells and items to deal with each of the rumors, as well as possible, including ones that allow one to detect invisibility, some of which are fairly powerful.

The journal details adventure prep, travel, and recounts the adventurer entering the dungeon and examining several rooms, finding only what the players have already seen.

On the last page, written in extremely shaky handwriting and in stark contrast to the previously well-written entries, is this:
If you find this get out get out get out. It's true
Haven't left LTH in days except when spell ends.
Out of food & water. Oh gods I'm thirsty. lost a lot of blood
Scrolls gone, potions gone.
tried throwing flour—out of flour. didn't work.
Worst time is when tiny hut expires. Exposed.

What if its here when Im casting it & I bring it in with me
Cant see it even with spe

[JAL_1138]

Mulmaster? My character had the same experience, only with lava/fire mephits

Six of them clumped up close, our cleric of light used Radiance of Dawn, dropping my warlock due to exploding mephits around her. She had fire resistance. I saved 1 out of the 6 reflexes to quarter the damage,

Then of course there are those dang fire dwarves

Those mephits can go right to the Abyss. Aaargh.

We rolled crazy-well on damage and didn't have much trouble out of the fire cultists. The flameskull, though...a couple points shy of max damage on Fireball and several of us dropped, one died outright.

WotC isn't pulling any punches in the Mulmaster stuff. Little railroady, but otherwise surprisingly old-school and lethal.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

The whispers all tell them not to trust any of the others.
"Your a paladin"
one says
"Why trust the self-admitted thief?"
another asks:
"Your a thief. why trust the paladin?"
they both say:
"you don't know them. not really. they could betray you at any moment."

also, a magic item in the middle of the room. but here is the kicker:
each person sees it as a different magic item.

finally:
put up signs all throughout the dungeon. however, what the signs actually say change every few minutes....

I was actually thinking more along the lines of they hear random things until they go mad

Example, the wizard hears the sound of a housecat mewling

[JAL_1138]

the wizard hears the sound of a housecat mewling

You monster. :smallbiggrin:

[AvatarVecna]

1. Have part of your dungeon be a "Hall of Mirrors" style maze. As each character makes their way through, roll a Will save whenever they would see a mirror; on a natural one, tell them they think the last reflection they made eye contact with looked somewhat malevolent. It didn't, that's just their mind playing tricks on them.

2. A small, barren room contains only a table and two chairs, all covered in a thick layer of dust. In the chair farthest from the player lays a human skeleton cloaked in a pitch black robe with its hood pulled up; on the same side of the table, a scythe rests propped against the table. On the table is a complete, ancient, ornate, and dust-free chess set, with the black pieces on the same side as the cloaked skeleton. The board is set up as if a game is about to start. The chess set itself registers as magical, but the skeleton, its cloak, and the scythe do not. If you attempt to play, the chess set appears to move on its own when it's not your turn, and the skeleton never moves...because it's dead.

3. One particularly large room in the dungeon appears to be a full-size modern playground, complete with a pack of children playing around. However, the clothes the children wear are ragged and filthy, as are the children. The children are pale and gaunt, their eyes appear sunken into their skulls, while large bags rest under their eyes. They don't smile, they don't look at you, and they don't talk to you; when they do speak (for those playground games that come with songs), they speak in a dull, world-weary monotone that sounds utterly defeated. There are no monsters here, no traps, no puzzles, no locked doors. Just a room full of children who look like they' went vacationing in The Gray Wastes.

[NowhereMan583]

One door leads to a balcony overlooking a vast hall with a throne at one end. Seated in the throne is a skeletal figure in tattered finery; it wears a black and twisted crown, and clutches a sceptre that seems to be wrought entirely of humanoid teeth supporting a large gem. Its eyes glow with bale-fire, and as the PCs watch, it stands and walks down the hall and out the main door into the rest of the dungeon. Other guys & gals this here is a lich details should be sprinkled liberally throughout the scene. From then on, the PCs will occasionally spot it moving around the dungeon on some unknown errand or fiddling with strange objects, while chuckling and muttering in an unrecognizable language. If they try to follow it, it turns a corner and vanishes. It reappears in far-flung parts of the dungeon, having apparently beaten the PCs there and set up... something. The impression should be given that the lich is just toying with them, watching and setting up traps to mess with them for its own dark amusement.
The "lich" is a dozen identically-clad animated skeletons (up-close-and-personal examination would reveal that the gem on the sceptre is glass, the crown is painted wood, &c.) that each have standing orders to follow a pre-set path around the dungeon and do various meaningless tasks, but avoid all living beings. They are enchanted with a light spell inside their skull and a magic mouth that emits randomized cackling gibberish. Their pre-set path takes them through secret passages (or possibly teleport circles), which is why it's so hard to chase them down. The "program" activated when they stepped onto that balcony -- previously, they were hidden in concealed closets throughout the dungeon.

[JAL_1138]

*A place where someone has scratched something into the wall with a rock near the entrance:
"BIG FISH WEIRD EYES
THEY WENT CRAZY
TURN BACK"

[Bard1cKnowledge]

*A place where someone has scratched something into the wall with a rock near the entrance:
"BIG FISH WEIRD EYES
THEY WENT CRAZY
TURN BACK"

Only you JAL

A small goblin with a clipboard asking the PCs about their experience delving in this dungeon simulation and how they can improve it. Such as have a dragon and its horde at the end waiting

[JAL_1138]

Only you JAL


...or anyone who's ever tangled with an aboleth. :smallbiggrin: Whether or not they share my attitude towards water in D&D (which believe it or not doesn't extend to real life), the suggestion of an aboleth ought to make most players paranoid.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

A room with doors that lock when everyone is inside. There's a button somewhere obvious in the room.

Once the doors lock, start a five minute countdown. Hitting the button resets it.

When the timer runs out... The doors open. :P

The worst thing about twists like these is it just leaves your players frustrated for five minutes until they just give up. It's not generally a fun experience.

[MrStabby]

The worst thing about twists like these is it just leaves your players frustrated for five minutes until they just give up. It's not generally a fun experience.

I quite like it. It isn't long and it sets peoples mind in a good way for the rest of the dungeon. Putting the idea into peoples heads that timing is important or getting people worried about being trapped adds to the tension. Add in a double dose of the other ideas in the thread and I think you have a great atmospheric start.


Other ideas:

A bloodstained throne

A few illusions - someone reaches to open the door and discovers the door is an illusions. Not a big problem but gives the players something more to think about.

A room full of china dolls - including dolls of the party

A picture of the person that sent the NPCs on the quest - only aged 25 years.

An old dusty box, ornately engraved about 4 inches along each side stored behind spell wards and strong locked doors.

An altar with a single gold piece on it. If the gold piece is picked up the altar begins to scream.

A stack of documents including the execution warrants for seven children.

[Ettina]

One door leads to a balcony overlooking a vast hall with a throne at one end. Seated in the throne is a skeletal figure in tattered finery; it wears a black and twisted crown, and clutches a sceptre that seems to be wrought entirely of humanoid teeth supporting a large gem. Its eyes glow with bale-fire, and as the PCs watch, it stands and walks down the hall and out the main door into the rest of the dungeon. Other guys & gals this here is a lich details should be sprinkled liberally throughout the scene. From then on, the PCs will occasionally spot it moving around the dungeon on some unknown errand or fiddling with strange objects, while chuckling and muttering in an unrecognizable language. If they try to follow it, it turns a corner and vanishes. It reappears in far-flung parts of the dungeon, having apparently beaten the PCs there and set up... something. The impression should be given that the lich is just toying with them, watching and setting up traps to mess with them for its own dark amusement.
The "lich" is a dozen identically-clad animated skeletons (up-close-and-personal examination would reveal that the gem on the sceptre is glass, the crown is painted wood, &c.) that each have standing orders to follow a pre-set path around the dungeon and do various meaningless tasks, but avoid all living beings. They are enchanted with a light spell inside their skull and a magic mouth that emits randomized cackling gibberish. Their pre-set path takes them through secret passages (or possibly teleport circles), which is why it's so hard to chase them down. The "program" activated when they stepped onto that balcony -- previously, they were hidden in concealed closets throughout the dungeon.

This is awesome. What kind of perverse spellcaster would set all this up?

[NowhereMan583]

This is awesome. What kind of perverse spellcaster would set all this up?

One with a twisted sense of humor and a good scrying setup.

[JAL_1138]

When the players arrive, they see a powerful intelligent monster, normally extremely evil. Badly injured and crawling away from the dungeon. If they interact with it, it says "Don't go in there..." with a look of pure terror in its eyes, and dies from its wounds. Bonus points if it's normally immune to fear.

[Feddlefew]

This is awesome. What kind of perverse spellcaster would set all this up?

The real lich, who is currently on vacation in some long-dead tropical civilation's most sacred necropolis. Or something like that.

[Algeh]

They find a pair of boots. They detect as magical. No matter how well anyone rolls, all they can find out about them is that they look really, really comfortable and they don't show any signs of wear.

Their entire magical properties are: they are really comfortable and won't wear out. They were commissioned by a noble who was tired of getting blisters on hikes. That's it. No one who wears these boots will get blisters and their feet will never be sore at the end of a long day of walking (this does not actually increase their move rate per day or have any other in-game advantage).

[DigoDragon]

A dungeon with the layout and trap locations seemingly exactly copied from an earlier dungeon far away ago that the PCs cleared. The only difference being that the denizens are all replaced with animated undead versions and the magical loot is all masterwork forgeries. There's a weird feeling that you're being watched too when you pass through certain rooms...

[JAL_1138]

Whenever a player enters a room, a baseball-sized eye opens from the stonework on the wall, looks at them, and closes, vanishing entirely. As they progress, the eye opens on closer walls, but eventually they stop seeing it...until they look around and find it watching over their shoulder. Every single time they turn around. Every perception roll they make, the eye on the wall is looking at them until they notice it, whereupon it closes and melds back into the stonework.

[DigoDragon]

Whenever a player enters a room, a baseball-sized eye opens from the stonework on the wall, looks at them, and closes, vanishing entirely. As they progress, the eye opens on closer walls, but eventually they stop seeing it...until they look around and find it watching over their shoulder. Every single time they turn around. Every perception roll they make, the eye on the wall is looking at them until they notice it, whereupon it closes and melds back into the stonework.

I actually did something like this once, with an old castle. :smallbiggrin:

Made the players so paranoid that they kept stabbing them whenever they had the chance. success permanently prevented the eye from coming back in that particular room. Later they found out the eyes were mostly harmless-- magical sensors that would unlock doors when they saw 'visitors' come to the place. I say mostly because there were certain rooms you can view what the eyes are seeing, but the owners of the castle were long dead so only the occasional smart bugbear that knew of the rooms used it.

But really the PCs made their presence known with the damage they were causing so... :3

[Strigon]

The more I think about it, the more I realize that (with my players, at least), anything makes them paranoid if it appears over and over again.
I once had them go into some ruins, which were made by a very aesthetically-minded civilization. As such, most of it was meticulously smoothed. Smooth floors, smooth walls, a smooth pedestal... my players began getting visibly concerned whenever I described something as smooth in the ruin, and then when something wasn't smooth, they almost had a mental breakdown :smalltongue:

I'm quite convinced if I ever describe anything else as smooth, they'll become convinced it's all a conspiracy that's somehow linked to the ruins...

[JAL_1138]

"You don't see any traps..."

[goto124]

Reminds me... (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0463.html)



This response can be cultivated. Never say, "There are no traps in the room," when you can say, "You don't detect any traps." Don't say, "There are no orcs around." Say, "There are no orcs visible within the range of the feeble flickering of your torches." And especially don't say, "It's perfectly safe to rest and regain your strength in the realm of the friendly elves. They tend to your wounds and give you delicious nuts and berries, and sweet honeyed wine to drink." Say instead, "The elves appear to be friendly, offering what they claim are healing balms and lotions. You sniff the golden liquid in a proffered cup, and think you can recognise a faint odour of almonds..."

[DigoDragon]

"You don't see any traps..."

Reminds me... (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0463.html)

Yes. The right words can cultivate a lot of delicious sweet paranoia. :smallbiggrin:

[MrZJunior]

A cookbook which rewrites itself to suit the tastes of the person holding it. Every recipe is very ostentatious, rich, and, dare I say it, gluttonous?

Later the party is hosted for dinner by a large gentleman who seems to know precisely what their favorite foods are.

[JAL_1138]

I actually did something like this once, with an old castle. :smallbiggrin:

Made the players so paranoid that they kept stabbing them whenever they had the chance. success permanently prevented the eye from coming back in that particular room. Later they found out the eyes were mostly harmless-- magical sensors that would unlock doors when they saw 'visitors' come to the place. I say mostly because there were certain rooms you can view what the eyes are seeing, but the owners of the castle were long dead so only the occasional smart bugbear that knew of the rooms used it.

But really the PCs made their presence known with the damage they were causing so... :3

Strangely enough, I also intended it to just be the ordinary Magic Eye (or whatever it's called) spell, mixed with some form of nondetection so it doesn't seem magical when checked. :smalltongue:

[Sith_Happens]

A room with doors that lock when everyone is inside. There's a button somewhere obvious in the room.

Once the doors lock, start a five minute countdown. Hitting the button resets it.

When the timer runs out... The doors open. :P

Don't forget that the button also shocks whoever presses it for one point of damage.:smallamused:


Back in 2e, I lost fewer characters in actual, literal, in-no-way-metaphorical, where-Asmodeus-lives Hell, or in Ravenloft, or in the Tomb of Horrors than I did to water-related incidents.

Any interest in a nautical campaign?:smalltongue:


Whenever a player enters a room, a baseball-sized eye opens from the stonework on the wall, looks at them, and closes, vanishing entirely. As they progress, the eye opens on closer walls, but eventually they stop seeing it...until they look around and find it watching over their shoulder. Every single time they turn around. Every perception roll they make, the eye on the wall is looking at them until they notice it, whereupon it closes and melds back into the stonework.

*yoink*

[JAL_1138]

nautical campaign

NOPE *runs away*

[Strigon]

Come on, JAL; D&D is like Dwarf Fortress: Losing is Fun!

[braveheart]

I'm not sure if paranoid is the right word, but once I had the party visit the plane of life, which I described as being a maze of vines that are slowly moving and growing in all different directions, also there were natural beasts that had flowers and mushrooms growing from their bodies in different places. the entire plane surged 1D8 positive energy every round and all the flowered beast shared a hive mind. I had given them all rings of necrotic ebergy before, and none of them would dare to remove them for their entire visit.

They were right to be afraid though, the hive mind would have taken them if they overheated too much and failed a fortitude save.

[JAL_1138]

Come on, JAL; D&D is like Dwarf Fortress: Losing is Fun!

I tell this one a lot, can't remember if I have in this thread, but back in 2e I've lost characters to such things as a housecat, a barnyard goat, a single-digit number of squirrels, and falling downstairs drunk at the inn we all met at to start the game, before we got the first quest or finished introductions.

[Strigon]

I tell this one a lot, can't remember if I have in this thread, but back in 2e I've lost characters to such things as a housecat, a barnyard goat, a single-digit number of squirrels, and falling downstairs drunk at the inn we all met at to start the game, before we got the first quest or finished introductions.

(Settles into chair, hoping to hear more)

[Callak]

A pair of boots behind animated drapes.
A dumbwaiter. Or heaven forbid. A gazebo in a inner garden courtyard

[braveheart]

In every room of the dungeon have a single clearly visible trap, then trap every other part of the room, and have the visible trap be malfunctioning and the only safe path through.

[Keltest]

In every room of the dungeon have a single clearly visible trap, then trap every other part of the room, and have the visible trap be malfunctioning and the only safe path through.

Eh. Not so much paranoia inducing as annoying.

[DigoDragon]

A gazebo in a inner garden courtyard

Several humanoid statues standing in a graveyard. Each one is only an inch thick. They almost seem to move position slightly when not looked at...

(Did this to a party in a Shadowrun game. Turns out it was just trick of their mind for being tired and drunk. Well, the moving part. The statues were actually there).

[Keltest]

Several humanoid statues standing in a graveyard. Each one is only an inch thick. They almost seem to move position slightly when not looked at...

(Did this to a party in a Shadowrun game. Turns out it was just trick of their mind for being tired and drunk. Well, the moving part. The statues were actually there).

About half my party is comprised of Doctor Who fans. If I ever want to get them unreasonably scared, all I have to do is have a statue of an angel somewhere. It doesn't even have to move or anything, or be hiding its face.

[Strigon]

I mean, any time you have a graveyard at all, it's just not a good time.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen a graveyard anywhere - in Tabletops or video games - just for show.
It's either haunted, the resting place of something very, very powerful, or something is attracted to the dead bodies. Sometimes all three at once.
Seriously. If you ever need experience, just head to the nearest graveyard; there's something there just waiting for you.

[Keltest]

I mean, any time you have a graveyard at all, it's just not a good time.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen a graveyard anywhere - in Tabletops or video games - just for show.
It's either haunted, the resting place of something very, very powerful, or something is attracted to the dead bodies. Sometimes all three at once.
Seriously. If you ever need experience, just head to the nearest graveyard; there's something there just waiting for you.

The practically come with a sign that says: Dungeon Lite.

[Strigon]

The practically come with a sign that says: Dungeon Lite.

Agreed. Every cemetery wants to be a dungeon when it grows up.

[JAL_1138]

(Settles into chair, hoping to hear more)

There's not much to the housecat story. Or any of them, really. I tried to pick it up, it clawed me for like 2 damage. I had one or two HP maximum and died.

Nor to the goat incident. I failed an animal handling roll, I had 1d4 HP, it headbutted me and I died.

The squirrels were a "something has turned the wildlife hostile" thing, a couple-three of them won initiative and rolled well on their to-hit, I was a wizard so they didn't have to roll spectacular to hit even with a lousy THAC0, and they do 1 damage per hit. I had 1d4 HP, didn't roll max HP, and thus died.

Falling down the stairs? My character got extremely drunk at the inn. So drunk that a Dex check to make it up the steps was warranted. It involved a drinking contest. Anyway, it was roll-under in those days, and I nat 20'd. Fell down the steps, received 1hp of damage, which was all I had. 1d4, rolled, and no CON bonus, die at 0.

In 2e you didn't get much of a CON bonus unless a) your class was in the warrior group and b) you rolled really high. You were capped at +2 (even getting +1 took like a 15 or something, too) if you weren't a warrior. And you rolled HP at first level. And died instantly at 0.

Thus the average 1st-level wizard had 2 or 3 HP, AC10 (so even something with THAC0 20 hit half the time), one spell per day (there were no cantrips except the first-level spell called "cantrip," now known as Prestidigitation), and the lifespan of a mayfly in the Demiplane of Bullfrogs and Spiders.

[DigoDragon]

The practically come with a sign that says: Dungeon Lite.

Haha... ^^;

I guess I subvert that expectation. I've never thrown a cemetery that was actually the site of a haunting, dungeon, or combat with something monstrous. Usually the players just meet odd NPCs that want to give them info or make some kind of trade. One time they started a fight just outside a cemetery, does that count?

[JAL_1138]

Usually the cemetery has had the entrance to the dungeon in it (the catacombs where the bones eventually get taken, a crypt that got tunneled into from caverns beneath, etc.) rather than having been an encounter location in and of itself.

EDIT: if it wasn't just a meeting site.

[Keltest]

Haha... ^^;

I guess I subvert that expectation. I've never thrown a cemetery that was actually the site of a haunting, dungeon, or combat with something monstrous. Usually the players just meet odd NPCs that want to give them info or make some kind of trade. One time they started a fight just outside a cemetery, does that count?

I think the cemetery union is going to come after you for making them insufficiently dangerous a location.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Your party hears the faint sound of a woman sobbing around the corner

[JAL_1138]

A sign, in Infernal, at the entrance: "Entering the Iron Halls of Hengist (hereinafter "the Dungeon") beyond this point shall constitute acceptance of the following End-Adventurer License Agreement: [wall-o'-text in fine print]"

[hewhosaysfish]

Agreed. Every cemetery wants to be a dungeon when it grows up.

I've sometimes wondered why people in fantasy settings bury their dead, when every cemetery seems to end up crawling with the undead.

The best I can figure is that disposing of the bodies in any other way results in even worse monsters: cremate them and they might rise as some sort of ash-wraith; throw them in the sea and they'll come back as wave-ghouls; feed them to jackals and the beasts will mutate into fleshrender murderjackals at the next full moon; etc, etc.

So they bury them in large fields outside town and wait for them to decompose and if a troublesome necromancer comes along before then the townsfolk just say "Meh, bunch of CR 1/2 zombies" and wait for the town guards to deal with it (or to hire some level 1 adventurers to deal with it).

And the higher-level people are buried in stone sarcophagi in big mausloeums - kinda like burying metal drums of nuclear waste in concrete bunkers.

[Strigon]

I agree wih that general point, although if I'm honest, I think they just don't cremate because they lack the resources to do it for everyone. Cremation would probably be the safest way, but very expensive, so only Lord Moneybags can have Dear Aunt Cindy sitting in an urn on the shelf.

Back on topic, though; a child in a dungeon. Sure, they might be a helpless orphan, but there's a statistically significant chance they're really an evil spirit or a centuries-old vampire lord.


That chance increases significantly if it's a young girl.

[DigoDragon]

When I ran Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, one of the paranoia-inducing points was when the party was exploring the castle, knowing full well Count Strahd was somewhere inside. I held back on having him show up for a little while, only hinting at places he had been to recently. So the party was getting on-edge about a high-level vampire in this castle but that they seemed unable to find him... :3


I think the cemetery union is going to come after you for making them insufficiently dangerous a location.

Uh oh. :smalleek:
Did I just dig myself in deep? Trying to find a good lawyer to fight this union sounds like a grand undertaker and I'm going to get buried in red-tape, aren't I?

[Strigon]

Uh oh. :smalleek:
Did I just dig myself in deep? Trying to find a good lawyer to fight this union sounds like a grand undertaker and I'm going to get buried in red-tape, aren't I?

Calm down; you'll work yourself to death!

[JAL_1138]

Uh oh. :smalleek:
Did I just dig myself in deep? Trying to find a good lawyer to fight this union sounds like a grand undertaker and I'm going to get buried in red-tape, aren't I?


Calm down; you'll work yourself to death!

That many unlicensed puns will get you in trouble with the Bards' union. :smalltongue:

[Strigon]

That many unlicensed puns will get you in trouble with the Bards' union. :smalltongue:

(Rubs fingers together)
Hear that?
It's the world's smallest lute playing just for you!

Help me I can't stop

[JAL_1138]

(Rubs fingers together)
Hear that?
It's the world's smallest lute playing just for you!

Help me I can't stop

That's not how you play that. It's the world's smallest lute, not world's smallest viol. Here, like this: *holds thumb of left hand against first finger thereof in a circle, palm outward, fingers facing downward. Plucks with thumb, first, and ring finger of right hand at point where thumb and forefinger of left hand meet. An extremely high-pitched version of I Saw My Lady Weepe from John Dowland's The Second Booke of Songes or Ayres, of 2.4. and 5. parts: With Tableture for the Lute or Orpherian, with the Violl de Gamba can be heard faintly*

[Lord Torath]

I agree wih that general point, although if I'm honest, I think they just don't cremate because they lack the resources to do it for everyone. Cremation would probably be the safest way, but very expensive, so only Lord Moneybags can have Dear Aunt Cindy sitting in an urn on the shelf.

Back on topic, though; a child in a dungeon. Sure, they might be a helpless orphan, but there's a statistically significant chance they're really an evil spirit or a centuries-old vampire lord.


That chance increases significantly if it's a young girl.If you want to include a small child that actually needs to be rescued in your dungeon, give the poor thing some visible rat bites on its arms and legs, thus showing that its not immune to the denizens of the dungeon, and is not likely to be in cahoots with them (and WOW that's a long sentence! My apologies). Tangle their hair, rip the knees our of their pants, and cover their face with dirt.

So many great ideas! Now I just need to have a haunted dungeon somewhere so I can use all of them.

[JAL_1138]

The instant the last party member is through a door and nobody's looking at the door, the door is gone, leaving only a blank wall. (It's just an illusion spell, but it'll freak them out at first. Or get you accused of really bad railroading, until they find out it's an illusion. Then they'll start thinking about it and wonder who or what cast the illusion.)

[Bard1cKnowledge]

That many unlicensed puns will get you in trouble with the Bards' union. :smalltongue:

Sorry, the union only accepts puns from a fifth level laughomancer. We have to revoke your liscences

[DigoDragon]

The instant the last party member is through a door and nobody's looking at the door, the door is gone, leaving only a blank wall. (It's just an illusion spell, but it'll freak them out at first. Or get you accused of really bad railroading, until they find out it's an illusion. Then they'll start thinking about it and wonder who or what cast the illusion.)

Better yet, the door was the illusion. How did they walk through it? :smallbiggrin:

[JAL_1138]

Better yet, the door was the illusion. How did they walk through it? :smallbiggrin:

Well, clearly they failed their roll to disbelieve. :smalltongue:

Maybe Passwall or Stone Shape is somehow set to briefly trigger for creatures on one side of the wall that interact with the illusion, but won't work from the other side. So, briefly, there's a real door beneath the illusion of the door, but it doesn't last.

[DigoDragon]

Well, clearly they failed their roll to disbelieve. :smalltongue:

Maybe Passwall or Stone Shape is somehow set to briefly trigger for creatures on one side of the wall that interact with the illusion, but won't work from the other side. So, briefly, there's a real door beneath the illusion of the door, but it doesn't last.

It's posts like this that explain why my 'GM batteries' are powered by the frustrated cries of PCs. :smallcool:

[JAL_1138]

It's posts like this that explain why my 'GM batteries' are powered by the frustrated cries of PCs. :smallcool:

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[Telonius]

Paranoia-inducing elements: posted signs, written in Gnomish.

For example, anywhere in the dungeon: "This hallway is not trapped."
Next to the jail cells: "These prisoners have been condemned for being serial killers and pathological liars. One of them is innocent."
Anywhere in the dungeon: "One of these signs has Explosive Runes written on it."
Anywhere in the dungeon: "Did you know that it's hard to swim in armor?"
Next to a statue anywhere in the dungeon: "There's a very simple way to avoid a Beholder. Simply"

[Spojaz]

Keep giving them potions of fire resistance, and include descriptions of scorch marks in every other room. :smallamused:

[JAL_1138]

A lone adult human molar with a bit of blood and gum tissue on it lying in the middle of an otherwise spotless floor.

[Cealocanth]

A long, broad hallway with rails and other machinery obviously designed for using heavy equipment. The walls are heavily reinforced both physically with advanced metal and magically with armoring wards. The end of the hallway has a large, extremely heavy reinforced vault door, activated only by two separate keys simultaneously, which has a sign draped on it which reads "DO NOT ENTER". The vault door is surprisingly ajar.

One custom-built monster with teleportation at the end of each attack, perfect invisibility and silence as a free action, high damage attacks, and the ability to walk through walls.

An unusually large number of spiders in this one particular room.

The floor and walls of a room covered in nothing but knee-high mushrooms of many different species.

[Elandris Kajar]

The most paranoia inducing dungeon I have played was this maze. That was fine. The creepy part was vaaaah.


We were walking through minding our own buisness, and competing to get out. All of the sudden, frm a couple of rooms over, we hear vvvvvv....Aaahhh! It was some creature, which we called vaaaah. We fought a vampire that got the upper hand, until it flew away and boom. The sound repeats. Middle of second watch: heard again close by. Divinations: it is a demigod, we cannot find out anything else. This repeats and we almost die of fear.

It turned out to be some idea he had come up with on the spot.

[DigoDragon]

In every space-faring adventure I've run, the fastest way I've found to induce paranoia in a party is to have them happen upon an abandoned starship in perfect working order. Bonus points when the ship logs have no entries that explain why they abandoned ship. In one adventure, the PC mechanic that went with the boarding team got so fed up with finding no reason why the crew abandoned their ship, he snapped and purposely damaged a key system just to calm himself down. :smalltongue:

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Paranoia-inducing elements: posted signs, written in Gnomish.

For example, anywhere in the dungeon: "This hallway is not trapped."
Next to the jail cells: "These prisoners have been condemned for being serial killers and pathological liars. One of them is innocent."
Anywhere in the dungeon: "One of these signs has Explosive Runes written on it."
Anywhere in the dungeon: "Did you know that it's hard to swim in armor?"
Next to a statue anywhere in the dungeon: "There's a very simple way to avoid a Beholder. Simply"

Simply what? I want to know

[MrStabby]

A large circle of runes etched on the floor with one rune scuffed badly. In the centre of the runes an oversized, discarded set of manacles. The room is otherwise empty.

[Elandris Kajar]

Simply what? I want to know
As far as I can tell, the implication is that the beholder got him right before he finished, so his so-called foolproof method is useless.

[TheCountAlucard]

Well, clearly they failed their roll to disbelieve.Well, we have Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration; clearly we need Shadow Transmutation for Passwall and such.

Of course for a party that can't fly or otherwise faces logistical problems crossing a vast chasm, you could instead have a Shadow Conjuration Wall of Stone act as the bridge they walked to get across the chasm. :smallwink:

[IZ42]

As far as I can tell, the implication is that the beholder got him right before he finished, so his so-called foolproof method is useless.

I read it as the gnome being a general jerk. "The simple way to avoid a beholder is to simply avoid it." Sounds like something my dad would say, actually.

[JAL_1138]

As far as I can tell, the implication is that the beholder got him right before he finished, so his so-called foolproof method is useless.

That's how I read it too. I did the same sentence-ending-suddenly thing in the adventurer's-journal entry; it's a common horror technique and almost always means that the writer died or vanished suddenly.

Bit like the old meme about a character from Freakazoid! called Candlejack who would make whoever said his name disappe

[Bard1cKnowledge]

That's how I read it too. I did the same sentence-ending-suddenly thing in the adventurer's-journal entry; it's a common horror technique and almost always means that the writer died or vanished suddenly.

Bit like the old meme about a character from Freakazoid! called Candlejack who would make whoever said his name disappe

Dam it JAL, we all know never to invoke the name Candlejack.

Remember what happened to poor little timot

[MrStabby]

That's how I read it too. I did the same sentence-ending-suddenly thing in the adventurer's-journal entry; it's a common horror technique and almost always means that the writer died or vanished suddenly.

Bit like the old meme about a character from Freakazoid! called Candlejack who would make whoever said his name disappe

Hmm. Now I am thinking of a command word that when written or spoken within a dungeon causes the speaker or writer to teleport randomly within the dungeon.

[Sith_Happens]

Every cemetery wants to be a dungeon when it grows up.

[saved for future sigging]


That chance increases significantly if it's a young girl.

Remember: All female humanoids in dungeons are succubi. No exceptions.:smalltongue:

[nedz]

Well, we have Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration; clearly we need Shadow Transmutation for Passwall and such.

Shadow Walk etc.?

Actually Shadow Divination would be very Platonic.

[hewhosaysfish]

Shadow Walk etc.?

Actually Shadow Divination would be very Platonic.

Given the way that Augury, Divination and Contact Other Plane all have percentage chances of giving you the wrong information, I wonder if Shadow Divination wasn't right here in front of us the whole time.

[Strigon]

Remember: All female humanoids in dungeons are succubi. No exceptions.:smalltongue:

And if it's an old man, do not let him out of the dungeon. Certainly don't let him out of a cage.
Nobody has ever imprisoned an old man in a dungeon. Unspeakable evils disguised as old men? They get locked in a dungeon every other Tuesday. Don't let them out.

[IZ42]

Have the entrance to the dungeon be in a forest clearing. Don't have it pimped out with skulls and gothic architecture and whatever, that's overdone and cliché and won't frighten anybody. Just have a simple doorway leading down. Now here's where the creepy part starts. If there's someone with keen senses, like an elf, just nonchalantly tell them "It dawns on you after standing in the clearing for a few moments that you can no longer hear the wildlife, or even the wind." If there's someone with scent or something like that, just tell them "The air in this clearing smells odd. Or rather, doesn't smell odd. There's absolutely no smell whatsoever." And in the clearing, describe everything with a hint of oddness, almost like an uncanny valley sort of feel, but with landscape. The grass looks TOO much like grass, so much that there's something off about it. The ground is unnaturally flat, with no dents or crevices. The dimensions of the clearing feel odd and unnatural. The party druid might feel absolutely nothing instead of the normal spirits of nature or whatever they call it nowadays. They can still cast, they just don't feel the presence of nature in this clearing. How creepy is that idea?

[Drakeburn]

One idea I have in mind for a dungeon that can drive somebody paranoid is a labyrinth of illusions!

Let me explain:

Say you have one giant labyrinth where the PCs have to maneuver through. But what makes this labyrinth so diabolical is that it is made up of real walls and illusions that look like other walls.

Just think of the possibilities you can have with this idea:


The PCs can get lost forever in a maze where they can't tell the difference between fake walls and real walls, because everything looks the same!


To make this more interesting, you can do the same with the flooring! Most of the flooring is there, while other flooring may be just an illusion, where any fool who steps through it will stumble into who-knows-what.


Putting monsters into this complex labyrinth will make this even more interesting. Can you imagine the sheer terror of a monster suddenly "phasing" out through walls to get you? :smallamused:


While we're at it, why not make illusions where several ways out of this labyrinth turn out to be illusions as well?


Why should we limit ourselves to illusions? Why not make a wall, floor tile, or even an archway at an "exit" be mimics?




....... Do you think I'm going way too far with this idea? :smallconfused:

[JNAProductions]

Yes. And I like it.

[Keltest]

And if it's an old man, do not let him out of the dungeon. Certainly don't let him out of a cage.
Nobody has ever imprisoned an old man in a dungeon. Unspeakable evils disguised as old men? They get locked in a dungeon every other Tuesday. Don't let them out.

Don't let them into the dungeon either. It invariably holds some ancient artifact of (evil) power that they want to use for (evil) things.

[MrStabby]

I am certainly going to use these ideas in a dungeon I think. I think my favourite is the dungeon stalking the players although for its appearance to remain the same and to build up the pattern of stalking you would need to remain in the same area/terrain type for some time.

I like the watching eye idea as well - I think that many players do not feel comfortable being watched.


The trouble with a lot of these places is that there is a need to populate them with challenges as well (probably monsters or people to fight). either they are unrelated to the causes of paranoia or they are by themselves very scary. It isn't paranoia if there is actually a Cabal of Liches in the dungeon. On the other hand you don't want it to be too anticlimactic. If you have people there they need a tie to the dungeon or at least can help explain its madness.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Its not a dungeon at all, but simply an overly bureaucratic level, most monsters are goblins in cubicles. There is a beholder demanding you go on a nice tour of how a dungeon is made, shouting "BEHOLD!" at every stop. In charge of it all is a wizard

If the party attacks them, they go through nine or so levels

[DigoDragon]

The party finds the dead and charred remains of one of their members. The ruined remains of the clothing/armor is different however. Later on in the dungeon the party finds some treasure and among the items is the very clothes/armor the dead PC was found in. No matter how hard they search, they never find the dead body again, and any part of the remains they stash in their bags/packs for later mysterious disappears.

I did this once and the party SWORE they were dealing with some kind of mad wizard in the dungeon. They never found one, but I think it's funny that no one thought that if there was a wizard, maybe it was an illusionist. :smalltongue:


Its not a dungeon at all, but simply an overly bureaucratic level, most monsters are goblins in cubicles. There is a beholder demanding you go on a nice tour of how a dungeon is made, shouting "BEHOLD!" at every stop. In charge of it all is a wizard

Maybe a bit more hilarious than paranoid to me, but I'd totally put this in an adventure regardless. :D

[Strigon]

The party finds the dead and charred remains of one of their members. The ruined remains of the clothing/armor is different however. Later on in the dungeon the party finds some treasure and among the items is the very clothes/armor the dead PC was found in. No matter how hard they search, they never find the dead body again, and any part of the remains they stash in their bags/packs for later mysterious disappears.


Very Doctor Who; I like it :3

Another fun thing to do is put a valuable object out in the open (double points if it's on a pedestal) in an otherwise empty room.
Watch how many potential traps they try to disarm/prepare for.

[Gnomish Wanderer]

It turned out to be some idea he had come up with on the spot.

Number one rule of DMing: NEVER let your players know you came up with things on the spot. They'll think you're a genius who plans out amazing things :P

[JAL_1138]

One idea I have in mind for a dungeon that can drive somebody paranoid is a labyrinth of illusions!

Let me explain:

Say you have one giant labyrinth where the PCs have to maneuver through. But what makes this labyrinth so diabolical is that it is made up of real walls and illusions that look like other walls.

Just think of the possibilities you can have with this idea:


The PCs can get lost forever in a maze where they can't tell the difference between fake walls and real walls, because everything looks the same!


To make this more interesting, you can do the same with the flooring! Most of the flooring is there, while other flooring may be just an illusion, where any fool who steps through it will stumble into who-knows-what.


Putting monsters into this complex labyrinth will make this even more interesting. Can you imagine the sheer terror of a monster suddenly "phasing" out through walls to get you? :smallamused:


While we're at it, why not make illusions where several ways out of this labyrinth turn out to be illusions as well?


Why should we limit ourselves to illusions? Why not make a wall, floor tile, or even an archway at an "exit" be mimics?




....... Do you think I'm going way too far with this idea? :smallconfused:


Illusory walls? 10ft poles and only make left turns. Illusory floor? 10ft pole. Illusory monster? (10ft) Polearm. Mimic? Polearm.

[Keltest]

Illusory walls? 10ft poles and only make left turns. Illusory floor? 10ft pole. Illusory monster? (10ft) Polearm. Mimic? Polearm.

When you say "polearm" with regards to the mimic, all I can envision is a giant 10 foot long arm ending in a hand being reached out to take stuff from the chest.

[JAL_1138]

When you say "polearm" with regards to the mimic, all I can envision is a giant 10 foot long arm ending in a hand being reached out to take stuff from the chest.

I meant whack it real good with a reach weapon to see if it goes "Graaaargh!" and, if it does, whack it with the aforesaid reach weapon until it's dead. Although I've used polearms with the right kind of pointy bits, choppy bits, or smashy bits on the end to pick up objects too. :smalltongue:

And now I want to add a Pole Arm to the List of Mostly Useless Magic Items.

[Keltest]

I meant whack it real good with a reach weapon to see if it goes "Graaaargh!" and, if it does, whack it with the aforesaid reach weapon until it's dead. Although I've used polearms with the right kind of pointy bits, choppy bits, or smashy bits on the end to pick up objects too. :smalltongue:

And now I want to add a Pole Arm to the List of Mostly Useless Magic Items.

I know what you meant, but a 10 foot arm seemed infinitely more amusing. However, I do rather like the "Graaaargh!" test as well, when you put it that way.

[JAL_1138]

I know what you meant, but a 10 foot arm seemed infinitely more amusing. However, I do rather like the "Graaaargh!" test as well, when you put it that way.

I figured you knew, I just wanted an excuse to write that :smalltongue:

I've used the "graaargh" test on practically every treasure chest I've ever encountered in an RPG, although I haven't had a name for it until now :smallbiggrin:

[Lord Raziere]

Illusory walls? 10ft poles and only make left turns. Illusory floor? 10ft pole. Illusory monster? (10ft) Polearm. Mimic? Polearm.

A dungeon where all poles of 10 ft or more in length grow eyes and ears and start listening and watching you.

[JAL_1138]

A dungeon where all poles of 10 ft or more in length grow eyes and ears and start listening and watching you.

Stab out the eyes and ears, continue to use them to prod the terrain and objects.

EDIT: Alternatively, make friends. They've saved your life before, after all, if you've lived past level three in AD&D.

[Lord Raziere]

Stab out the eyes and ears, continue to use them to prod the terrain and objects.

New ones pop up, until the entire pole is destroyed. :smallbiggrin:

[Blake Hannon]

1. Have a system of narrow tunnels that the PC's can barely fit through.

2. Have a bunch of skinny, climby monsters that can scamper through the tunnels easily and have Sneak Attack or can grab you and yank you in.

3. Put at least two tunnel entrances in every room.

[JAL_1138]

1. Have a system of narrow tunnels that the PC's can barely fit through.

2. Have a bunch of skinny, climby monsters that can scamper through the tunnels easily and have Sneak Attack or can grab you and yank you in.

3. Put at least two tunnel entrances in every room.

Add murderholes/arrowslits in the walls and grates to pour boiling oil through, too.

[Strigon]

1. Have a system of narrow tunnels that the PC's can barely fit through.

Do you even need more than that to make PC's nervous?

[NowhereMan583]

1. Have a system of narrow tunnels that the PC's can barely fit through.

2. Have a bunch of skinny, climby monsters that can scamper through the tunnels easily and have Sneak Attack or can grab you and yank you in.

3. Put at least two tunnel entrances in every room.

And there's how you make sure your dungeon actually contains a challenge rather than just anticlimactic paranoia -- the whole thing is run by kobolds with a cruel sense of humor.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

A bunch of werewolves sitting at a desk playing poker, they invite the PCs to play

[Keltest]

A bunch of werewolves sitting at a desk playing poker, they invite the PCs to play

While that would make me many things, paranoid would probably not be one of them. Nothing is more disarming than poker.

[Tiktik Ironclaw]

These ideas are great.

This may just be me, but look at the illustration in Tomb of Horrors for the shaking room with the acidic curtains: in the corner is some statue or stuffed animal of a polar bear. Seems innocuous, right? Except that there's no mention of it (at least in 3.5) and it's tucked away in the back of the room, not disheveled like the rest of the room, and it is grinning! I even called this out in a story I wrote from the point of a party exploring the room. The party, a hobgoblin mage, human fighter, kobold rogue, Boccob priestess dressed only with the fake Acererak's cloak and ring, hobbit bard with a magic guitar, and a bratty drow sorceress, show up. The stout warrior begins flipping out at the sight of the thing, and the wizard says to leave. Then a the room shakes and a gnome merc gets melted by a curtain.

Also, mind flayers are obvious as the villains behind a paranoia dungeon (if cliche). A thread a while ago about either them or eldritch horror mentioned how a single illithid in charge of a complex could delude adventurers into thinking their whole life was traveling and dying horribly in the terrible complex, never seeing the amused captor. Say, go a few poorly lit rooms, until they reach a dead end. Let them search but find nothing. They open the door back up, and find a football-length sea of lava where once the passage was. Then, a door at the back that hadn't been there creaks open, leading into blackness with faint wails issuing forth. Then, magic gets weird. Be prepared for whimpers, people running away, or the sudden need to mop up your kitchen table chairs. :smallamused:

[TurboGhast]

Put a dangerous trap in an obvious place once. Depending on preference, have it show up again in a less obvious spot or just sit in the back or the player's minds.

[Strigon]

When they next visit a tavern, have an old man "have what they're having". He then has a heart attack later in the night.

Just like that, they'll be convinced someone is out to kill them!

[DigoDragon]

When they next visit a tavern, have an old man "have what they're having". He then has a heart attack later in the night.
Just like that, they'll be convinced someone is out to kill them!

I'd personally prefix this one with asking the players to make a Fortitude check before they enter the tavern, but not tell them why. Only continue with the scene as nothing is wrong. Yet. :smallbiggrin:
Occasional checks without context will get a player to wonder.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

The deeper you go, the more primitive the monsters become, eventually you start running into stone age eldritch horrors, or as I like to call them, neanderthralls

[Drakeburn]

What if the dungeon was alive?

What if the adventurers are wandering inside a primordial, a gargantuan animated statue, a slumbering ancient god who has been forgotten?

[Strigon]

When the Pc's enter a dungeon, their torches go out. No mundane attempt to relight them succeeds. If they use a magical source of light, an ear-splitting scream emits from deep inside the dungeon.

[NowhereMan583]

When they next visit a tavern, have an old man "have what they're having". He then has a heart attack later in the night.

Just like that, they'll be convinced someone is out to kill them!
By the same token: if they go on a shopping trip before they head into the dungeon, one of the merchants they buy equipment / rations / rope / whatever from seems to abruptly vanish shortly afterwards.

In an open-air market:
"As you're looking for someone to fix up Alice's shield, you notice that Moderately Honest Nick's stall, where Bob bought those waterskins and ten-foot poles, isn't there anymore."
No other NPCs remember the merchant in question, and there are no records of him anywhere. Once they get into the dungeon, when they use whatever they bought from the guy, casually remind them of this.

"I use my ten-foot pole to prod at the flagstones on the ceiling."
"Is that the pole you bought from Moderately Honest Nick yesterday before he disappeared?"
"Yes."
"All right. The stones don't seem to move when you prod them."
If your players are appropriately cautious, this should have the result of convincing them their equipment is cursed, giving them something extra to be paranoid about the whole way through the dungeon. Bonus points if you do this with something they genuinely need (say, the fighter's newly-enchanted sword) and they stop using it at all because they're afraid something will go wrong. Naturally, there's a reasonable explanation for everything.

"Moderately Honest Nick's stall is back? Where did he go last time?"
"Oh, he just packed up for the day and went to visit his daughter. Personal reasons."
"Why didn't anyone remember him?"
"It's a busy marketplace and he's not very memorable."
"Why were there no records of him ever existing when we investigated this last session?"
"Clerical error."
"Why did you keep asking whether we were using Nick's equipment?"
"It's masterwork. I was giving you a +1 bonus whenever you used it."
"A masterwork pole?"
"Nick takes pride in his work."

Along the same lines, give a lot of the equipment they find in the dungeon unsettling inscriptions and names.

"The rusted sword sticking out of the skeleton's ribs has an inscription on the hilt in Infernal. The symbols are very small, but if you squint you can see that it is labelled 'Tulzsch-Xothu, the Treacherous Blade.'"
"Great, another one. I'll toss it in the Bag of Holding along with 'Dla-Yekub, Scourge of the Innocent', 'Nianoshoa, the Heretic's Axe', 'Aratach, That Which Shields Only Sinners', 'Nthlyu-Addith, Harbinger of Devouring', and 'Yog, the Apocalypse Caltrop'. We're going to have to get all of these examined when we can find a decent sage."
Some of these items detect as magic, and others don't. All of them should be found in situations that could be taken as hints not to trust them.

"The creature takes a swing at you with its enchanted axe. However, the weapon fails it at the worst possible time, and the nacreous flames that emanate from the blade cause horrible burns on its arms. It falls to the ground screaming." (Naturally, this is perfectly innocent flavor text for a critical fumble -- the axe has no mind of its own and cannot turn on the wielder.)

"As you lift the battered ebon shield labelled 'Aratach' from the stone chest, you hear malevolent laughter from somewhere far away." (The laughter is coming from elsewhere in the dungeon, and is completely unrelated; the timing is pure coincidence.)

"It's a statuette of a demon, carved of a material you've never seen before, with 'Nthlyu-Addith, Harbinger of Devouring' engraved on its base. It is the most detailed work you've ever seen, down to teeth, tongue and toenails. You swear you can see the pores on its abominable flesh if you look closely. Along the base, in the space around the letters, you can see miniscule scenes in bas-relief, carved so finely that you would have to use a powerful magnifying glass to actually make them out. The whole thing is much heavier than it looks like it should be, and almost seems to shine with a sinister inner glow; in your torchlight, it seems to move in a menacing fashion."
"Detect Magic."
"No result."
"Wait a minute -- don't artifacts sometimes detect as non-magical?"
(It really is just a fantastically well-made statue of some stone that isn't common in the region.)
There is nothing dangerous about any of these items. Some are minor magic items, some aren't magical at all. They were made by a culture that considered it important for things to have names -- not unusual, given that named weapons are a pretty common fantasy trope. The reason they all seem so... evil is, again, cultural. Some devil-cult or other just happened to be the dominant religion among the people who made these things. However, the obvious conclusion for the players to reach is that there's something seriously wrong with these and they need to worry -- so they won't use any of the new magic items they find.

I'm not sure if this next one will induce actual paranoia or just screw with the players unnecessarily, but it's an idea I tried to throw at my players a while back. (They didn't take the bait, unfortunately.)

When they're exploring the dungeon, they discover an incredibly valuable item. Not just "incredible" meaning "very" -- it is so valuable that it's difficult to wrap their brains around. It's worth more than the GDP of the nation in which they live. If the aristocracy of the entire continent banded together and pooled their funds, they couldn't afford it. And it's huge. Let's say... it's a statue, roughly ten feet tall and ten feet wide, carved from a single enormous diamond. It's even somewhat magical: specifically, it's completely and utterly indestructible. No mundane tool can so much as scratch it, and all magic just slides off it.

So now the PCs are, in theory, rich. Not only rich, but the richest people in the world. Except... what do you do with that thing? You can't get a fair price for it anywhere -- whoever you sell it to can only give you a small fraction of its value, and there aren't many people who are willing to shell out huge quantities of money for a glorified lawn ornament. In order to make it an even trade, you'd have to get several Europes in exchange, but that's not going to happen. You can't break it down and sell the material; it's indestructible. It's even a pain to get out of the dungeon; you have to widen each doorway just to get it through. (Gods only know how it got down there in the first place.) It resists magic, so you can't shrink it or teleport it. So they just have this massive unwieldy thing that doesn't do anything except sit there and take up space, but no self-respecting adventurer would leave that kind of loot behind.

They'll have to drag it overland for miles and miles... and then presumably find somewhere secure to keep it, because no matter how unwieldy it is, someone's going to try to steal it, and they don't want to be known as the adventurers who had twelve figures worth of loot stolen from them... so it's just constantly sitting in the back of their heads that they have the most valuable statue in the world locked up in their headquarters and they can't make that benefit them in any way.

Bonus points: Though the workmanship is exquisite, and the materials are obscenely valuable, the statues's not even decorative, because it depicts the mating habits of carrion crawlers and nobody wants that in their living room.

[Strigon]

(About a good page and a half of pure evil.)

I don't know if you're sadistic or just a jerk, but I congratulate you on literally all of that!

Just never invite me to play at your table.

[Keltest]

I don't know if you're sadistic or just a jerk, but I congratulate you on literally all of that!

Just never invite me to play at your table.

Id love to play at his table. I am entirely ignorant of any feelings of immanent doom.

[Cluedrew]

Id love to play at his table. I am entirely ignorant of any feelings of immanent doom.Afraid? Why should I be afraid? What does that even mean?

In my experience most of these things will even slow my fellows down as they charge to victory. And then the more intelligent of us pull them out of the pit trap. It is a shame that most of the good ones rely the players having some sort of survival instinct, and hence can't be used in any group I have played with.

[Sith_Happens]

Except... what do you do with that thing?

Charge people a more realistically obscene amount of money to look at it, duh.


Bonus points: Though the workmanship is exquisite, and the materials are obscenely valuable, the statues's not even decorative, because it depicts the mating habits of carrion crawlers and nobody wants that in their living room.

You're seriously underestimating the decorative value of "made of a single giant diamond." It could be a statue of the Orc Centipede giving birth to Cthulhu and people would still want it in their living room.

[Drakeburn]

Throwing out another idea here, and it is one that might not necessarily need a dungeon.

Imagine this:

The adventurers are going through what appears to be your average dungeon. Inside however, a certain detail creeps everybody out: everything appears to be facing the adventurers, or at least looking at them. Statues, pictures, masks, helmets, suits of armor, skulls, etc. Technically anything that has a face, that is worn on or over the face, or has eyes.

Say the party is passing through a hallway of suits of armor. The suits of armor look normal at first, but when they come back to the hallway (or one of the adventurers look back after they passed), they'll see all the suits of armor turned towards them.

Or when the corpses of slain adventurers they're passing by looks as though they're watching them.

This can be especially great for haunted dungeons, or a wizard's place.

[NowhereMan583]

You're seriously underestimating the decorative value of "made of a single giant diamond." It could be a statue of the Orc Centipede giving birth to Cthulhu and people would still want it in their living room.

"My word, Reginald! What is that dreadful thing?"
"That, my dear Jocasta, is Abominable Teratogenesis, the crown jewel of my collection. I gave three-quarters of my estate to some adventuring ruffians for the privilege of displaying it this season."
"Its blasphemous contours are causing my optic nerves to vibrate inside my skull!"
"Yes, but it is carved from a single giant diamond."
"How gauche."

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Pretty much the entierty of the joco song creepy doll

"And the doll disapprovingly asks if you really need that much honey?"

[JAL_1138]

*One thing I'd take issue with is the lack of description indicating the +1 for the pole. Unless they'd never handled one before, they'd know it was a superior-quality item to the ones they normally buy, I think, without needing any kind of check. I'm perhaps overly-informative to players, though, so take that with a grain of salt.

*Related to the notion of having the players make random checks, periodically roll dice behind the screen, look down, ponder a bit, and resume narration. The die rolls mean nothing.

[NRSASD]

You know Jal, I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned the dreaded water cat (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/catwater.php). It seems right up your alley, being a feline familiar that lives in water.

[Lord Torath]

You know Jal, I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned the dreaded water cat (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/catwater.php). It seems right up your alley, being a feline familiar that lives in water.Got a possible sewer-themed dungeon on the horizon, initiated by Rats And Things fleeing the sewers. I'll have to keep this guy in mind. (The other option is a swamp-quest for star metal - Gee, I wonder where I got that idea? - to forge into a sword. Sorry, JAL, neither of these look good for you...)

How about an ocean voyage where the only non-ship encounters are sighting of whales, dolphins, and other marine life, none of which actually want to eat the PCs? Or at least don't want to try to get though the ship to do so. Poor JAL would always be waiting for the one encounter that isn't benign...

[JAL_1138]

You know Jal, I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned the dreaded water cat (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/catwater.php). It seems right up your alley, being a feline familiar that lives in water.

Dragon Magazine content didn't get used much in the 2e games I played in, so I was unaware of its existence. However, it is clearly an unholy abomination to be avoided at all costs. Or killed, but engaging would be a terrible idea without being relatively high level and having a Stoneskin spell up.

[JAL_1138]

Got a possible sewer-themed dungeon on the horizon, initiated by Rats And Things fleeing the sewers. I'll have to keep this guy in mind. (The other option is a swamp-quest for star metal - Gee, I wonder where I got that idea? - to forge into a sword. Sorry, JAL, neither of these look good for you...)

How about an ocean voyage where the only non-ship encounters are sighting of whales, dolphins, and other marine life, none of which actually want to eat the PCs? Or at least don't want to try to get though the ship to do so. Poor JAL would always be waiting for the one encounter that isn't benign...

Dolphins are evil. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2009/05/13/dolphins_are_violent_predators_that_kill_their_own _babies.html)

[Zavoniki]

Not exactly a dungeon, but on a similar note:

The PCs are part of a military/espionage organization that does secret shadowy stuff(even better if they are involved in something that they don't quite understand/know how to control, ALA Delta Green and the Cthulu Mythos).

They get their mission briefing that an outpost has gone dark and stopped sending its daily reports. The PCs need to go in to ascertain the situation.

When they arrive, everything appears fine, and the outpost occupants don't even think there's a problem, as they've been able to send their reports out fine. The PCs will then, being the mistrustful sorts, burn down everything.

What happened? The wire responsible for sending messages back home was accidentally cut/blew out/whatever. No enemy action or strange mystery has occurred.

I'm pretty sure close to 100% of the time this scenario leads to either a TPK or the entire Outpost dead.

[Keltest]

Not exactly a dungeon, but on a similar note:

The PCs are part of a military/espionage organization that does secret shadowy stuff(even better if they are involved in something that they don't quite understand/know how to control, ALA Delta Green and the Cthulu Mythos).

They get their mission briefing that an outpost has gone dark and stopped sending its daily reports. The PCs need to go in to ascertain the situation.

When they arrive, everything appears fine, and the outpost occupants don't even think there's a problem, as they've been able to send their reports out fine. The PCs will then, being the mistrustful sorts, burn down everything.

What happened? The wire responsible for sending messages back home was accidentally cut/blew out/whatever. No enemy action or strange mystery has occurred.

I'm pretty sure close to 100% of the time this scenario leads to either a TPK or the entire Outpost dead.

Maybe its just my group, but theres always the one person who isn't the DM who thinks burning everything isn't a good idea for some reason. Even more inexplicably, people listen to him.

[Bard1cKnowledge]

Maybe its just my group, but theres always the one person who isn't the DM who thinks burning everything isn't a good idea for some reason. Even more inexplicably, people listen to him.

What? No bad people, you don't burn down villages.

You burn the crops :D

[DigoDragon]

Maybe its just my group, but theres always the one person who isn't the DM who thinks burning everything isn't a good idea for some reason. Even more inexplicably, people listen to him.

That first part is me. Second part not so much. :smallbiggrin:

[MeowfaceMcGee]

When the Pc's enter a dungeon, their torches go out. No mundane attempt to relight them succeeds. If they use a magical source of light, an ear-splitting scream emits from deep inside the dungeon.

5/6 of our members have darkvision =w=

[dspeyer]

Directly above the lurker... is another lurker.

In fact, one room has a ceiling 10 ft higher than the hallway in, and the excess space is entirely lurkers. There's a doorway out in the upper half of the room, accessible once all the lurkers are out of the way.

[Kami2awa]

Even better if it was a misspelling of "Tomb of Honors" XD

Dare you enter... the Tomb of Horace?

(Horace was a level 1 fighter who died fighting 3 goblins. There's nothing special or dangerous in his tomb at all.)

[Kami2awa]

Something really weird that, apart from being weird, doesn't do anything. Like a bunch of roses growing out of solid stone, or a campfire in the middle of the room that doesn't consume it's own fuel. A dead body that's not animate, but is never in the same place twice.

True plants growing in the dungeon at all would be suspicious. Where do they get light?

Sounds whose source can never be found (there was even a random table in the old DMG for these). This could even be explained away as odd acoustic reflections from elsewhere in the complex. Ditto scents, which could diffuse through cracks from just about anywhere.

Another corpse that was clearly killed by a HUGE monster (maybe in a very narrow area that no such monster could get into). The PCs will never encounter this monster.

Footprints (inhuman?) on the floor. They don't go anywhere and their source is unknown.

Minor earthquakes that shake the dungeon from time to time. They have no mechanical effect but should worry the PCs if they consider the possibility of cave-ins or similar.

Someone is following them, just outside the range of whatever kind of vision they have. They can never be caught or identified.

[Douche]

I'll share a story of how the DM messed with us.

My group was travelling through the plains during the rainy season. We had encountered several hobgoblin warbands in the past few days. When looking for a good place to find shelter for the night, we happened upon a single room hobgoblin crypt with crude paintings on the walls and 2 sarcophagi. Instead of resting, the party decided to immediately bust open a sarcophagus and loot the corpse inside (we got a gold crown and a +1 longsword out of it so that was nice) it caused a wraith to come out of the corpse and begin attacking us.

After killing it, I insist that we take our rest before busting open the second sarcophagus (which I'm against anyway, being a cleric. Didn't want to disturb the dead, nor fight another wraith). All throughout the night, the first person on watch felt a faint scratching coming from the second sarcophagus. Next watch, me and the fighter were on watch, we heard the scratching too and thought we saw the lid move, so we started piling all the weight we could onto the lid and sat down on top of it. Still moving.

I asked the rogue for the crown back, and the fighter had the sword. We respectfully put it back into the first sarcophagus (at least until we finish resting). The disturbances seemed to stop... Long rest over, we prepare ourselves to open the second sarcophagus and light up whatever is inside. As soon as the lid is moved, I cast sacred flame, paladin swings in there for a smite. Suprise round over, DM reveals.... that the sarcophagus is completely empty. Thinking there might be a tunnel underneath, we try to smash the bottom... Just dirt underneath the sarcophagus.

No loot, no skeleton, no wraith. Alright, screw it. Rest is done, lets leave. After, we ask the DM "what was the deal with the scratching?!?" he says there was never anything there, he was just messing with us. It worked :smallbiggrin:

[MrStabby]

Will o' wisps are pretty good.

Something seen in the distance. Something known for leading people into traps. A faint light flickering ahead - maybe enough to illuminate some detail or other that is gone when the party approaches. The part knows it is being watched.

Add in the patter of tiny feet at the edge of earshot, an ominous slow ticking, the hollow clang of a door closing behind the party and then silence. Everything they sensed before is just gone. No light, no sound, no smell.

[Strigon]

Will o' wisps are pretty good.

Something seen in the distance. Something known for leading people into traps. A faint light flickering ahead - maybe enough to illuminate some detail or other that is gone when the party approaches. The part knows it is being watched.

Add in the patter of tiny feet at the edge of earshot, an ominous slow ticking, the hollow clang of a door closing behind the party and then silence. Everything they sensed before is just gone. No light, no sound, no smell.

As a DM who has always felt swamps were sorely underused, Will-O'-The-Wisps are some of my favourite tools; they have the rare ability to instill a creeping fear, one that starts out silent, until that little voice in your head grows louder and louder.
Is that the lights of the town you're looking for ahead? Is it a cabin? Whatever it is, it's a welcome respite from this cursed swamp!
Where did the lights go? Did we lose our way?
Ah, there they are! ... Are they moving?

Et cetera, et cetera. It's really quite a joyous thing!

[Tarlek Flamehai]

A broken summoning circle.

Stuffed animals, preferably poorly made and of things that would otherwise be terrifying (hydra, jabberwocky, beholder, etc).

Untraceable giggling or nursery rhymes.

An empty human skin.

[MrStabby]

An empty table set for dinner. Each place has a plate with a rune on it. One plate is broken. There is a faint smell of sulphur in the air.

[JAL_1138]

Numerous smallwake upclues that the PCs areplease wake upunder the thrall of a lichthis isn't realor abolethWAKE UPand are really justthis isn't real moldering away instead ofWAKE UP adventuring, and have been for years...

[PrincessCupcake]

An extremely attractive woman in fine quality-but-very-revealing clothing behind a heavily locked door. She is bound by a long silvery chain attached to her ankle, but otherwise looks fairly well treated. The room she is in has a bed, fine furniture, a bath suite, and a table with two chairs. When the PC enter, she tries to hug whoever gets close and clings to them. If freed from her chain she sobs with joy and wants to leave the dungeon immediately. If the PCs try to detect magic, they get traces of illusion, abjuration, and transmutation magic, from her and the room. If she is targeted by Dispel Magic, roll a d6.
1- nothing appears to happen. (The magic was keeping her clothes clean.)
2- an Alter Self spell fades and she is revealed to be some kind of monstrous humanoid appropriate to the dungeon.
3-It turns out she is a Lawful Good Tiefling Cleric.
4- a Disguise Self fades and she turns out to have freckles or scars or something.
5- she vanishes entirely, leaving only the chain holding her sitting on the floor. You hear her laugh joyously.
6- the room suddenly changes. The fine clothes and furniture become rotted fabric and wood. The metals tarnish and rust. And where the girl was sitting/standing/laying, she is replaced by a moldering skeleton.

Or come up with your own equally trolly/sadistic ending.

[goto124]

Freckles and scars aren't attractive? :smalltongue:

[PrincessCupcake]

Freckles and scars aren't attractive? :smalltongue:
Dangerously so. :smallsmile:

[Strigon]

Freckles and scars aren't attractive? :smalltongue:

Well, it's down to personal preferences; myself, I can appreciate some freckles.
Scars... less so, but it's hardly a deal breaker.

Of course, the point is kind of irrelevant; I think the implication was that she was obviously maltreated, and it caused her appearance to suffer; her face is ragged and scarred, with years of poor hygiene leading to a skin condition - I've heard some people refer to pimples as freckles, maybe this is the case?

[PrincessCupcake]

Well, it's down to personal preferences; myself, I can appreciate some freckles.
Scars... less so, but it's hardly a deal breaker.

Of course, the point is kind of irrelevant; I think the implication was that she was obviously maltreated, and it caused her appearance to suffer; her face is ragged and scarred, with years of poor hygiene leading to a skin condition - I've heard some people refer to pimples as freckles, maybe this is the case?

Actually, it's a little more open ended than that. Maybe she's mistreated, maybe she's just supremely self-conscious. The spell is just there so she can be in control of something, even if it is only her appearance. I used freckles because it is used to describe both the aftermath of a skin condition and a cosmetic difference that more than a few people freak out about having.

(And thus leaving the level of horror/silliness up to the tone of story.)

[goto124]

both the aftermath of a skin condition and a cosmetic difference that more than a few people freak out about having.

I imagine pimples would've fitted that better - many people love freckles, so the whole 'freaky appearance' thing may not get across as well as pimples would have.

For scars, it depends on how it's described. Could easily go both ways.

[Draconium]

If one of the players is an idiot and goes off on their own for whatever reason, have them end up in a room that appears to be a study of some sort, complete with a lamp, desk, and furniture. On top of the desk, there is a book, or more specifically, what appears to be a diary.

If the player decides to read it, it reads just like a normal diary, except that it seems to contain information on the dungeon that they're in that could be useful. However, after reading the first page or so, they feel their eyes begin to itch, as if from tiredness. As they read further and further, the itch grows worse and worse, getting to the point where it feels like there's something crawling in their eye sockets.

At this point, they have to make a Will Save. If they succed, they can read another page (or put the book down) without worry. However, every new page (or round), they have to make another save. When they fail (eventually), the itch causes them to snap, and they begin clawing their eyes out, desprate to relieve the itch.

At which point, they wake up. The itch is gone, and their eyes are normal, and they're in the center of the room. The title on the diary, however, is now blood-red. When they eventually get back to the party, the other members note that they appear to have scratch marks around their eyes.

The diary actually belongs to a powerful mage that kept personal secrets in it, so it was enchanted to appear as something else, and gave out an illusion to anyone who read it for too long. The blood-red title is actually the title's original color, and the scratch marks are from some rat that crawled across the character's face while they were under the illusion's effect.

Finally, have that player come across a similar-looking book in most of the dungeons he goes into for now. Watch him (and anyone who heard what was happening to him) freak out. :smalltongue:

[JoeJ]

In a large cavern there's a lake, how deep is not immediately clear. In the middle of the lake, on a small island, is a chest. Near where the PCs entered the cavern there's a dock with a normal appearing rowboat tied up. The oars are in the boat.

[Kami2awa]

Nice simple one:

Put raised portcullises across corridors. Preferably with big rusty spikes on the bottom.

No, you walk under first.

[Dark Cider]

That one encounter you have in a dungeon, that seems too easy, or too good to be true. The person you are fighting almost bleeds to death, but right before that he summons something nasty, in my instance, Iuz the Evil, to come turn you inside out, literally. Anything like that seems to keep players on edge. With lingering combat music, and the, "is combat over?" From the party.

[dramatic flare]

Dolphins are evil. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2009/05/13/dolphins_are_violent_predators_that_kill_their_own _babies.html)

https://www.topatoco.com/graphics/00000002/rb-dolphin-sm.gif

Ahem.

Apologies.

Start off the adventure crossing a vew narrow chasms on the way to the dungeon.
Once in the dungeon, present them with a chasm too wide to reasonably jump. Attempts to anchor a line to the opposite side with a grappling hook all fail. Finally somebody tries to climb down or the rope ends up actually lying on the surface. Surface?

The chasm is a glass skyway.

The next cham has a skyway as well, except this one has a hole in the middle where a pane fell out.

[goto124]

Thing is, IRL, we can see glass. Also, what's holding up the glass walkway? Did someone cast an invisibility spell on it? Why would anyone do this?

[DaveSonOfDave]

One that I pulled off: the players were in water, and they kept hearing a splashing noise at random intervals. It took them forever to figure out that it was just them moving.

[JoeJ]

Our party had sent up camp in the woods once. Sometime in the middle of the night, the character on watch heard something rustling in the underbrush, but he couldn't see anything. He woke everybody up and we grabbed our weapons and built up the fire. Now we could all hear something moving through the brush. Still none of us could see anything, though. We searched through the woods a bit, getting jumpier and jumpier. This went on for about half an hour (real world time), by which time most of us had climbed up into the trees to hide. At that point, the creature we'd been frightened by finally came out into the clearing where we could see it. It was a rabbit.

[goto124]

Did they kill the rabbit and set its corpse on fire?

[JoeJ]

Did they kill the rabbit and set its corpse on fire?

I think we ate it.

[TeChameleon]

Wellp, one that I used during my brief tenure as Shadowrun GM had my players just about crawling the walls.

The setup was thusly:

They were sent into Chicago to try and find an abandoned bunker/hideaway. For those that don't know, in Shadowrun, Chicago is kind of a hellhole; it's known as 'Bug City' in-universe, after the massive invasion of otherworldly, demonic Insect Spirits. Between the Insect Spirits and the attempts to repel said Bugs, the city went from 'mostly thriving modern trade hub' to 'Fallout-style anarchic wasteland', complete with deadly radiation and huge bugs, although these bugs don't just kill/eat people, they also possess them and breed with them, although in this case, it's more 'breed' in the xenomorph sense than anything more traditional.

The PCs had prepared as best they could, getting demonic-insect repellent and a wide variety of tools, and after a bit of legwork, found their way into the tunnel system near where they thought the hideaway would be.

Naturally, since their GM is kind of a **** :smalltongue:, they promptly blundered into a nest of Ant Spirits. Or rather, past said nest, and didn't realize it until they would have to go further to get out than to just keep going. On the far side of the nest, they found one tunnel that had been rather emphatically blocked off... by the Bugs themselves.

After burning through the barricade, the entirety of the Ant Hive went insane, committing suicide on the traps the Runners had left in waves to try and get at the opening. The Runners, not seeing a lot of other options, started to explore, since they had about half an hour/forty five minutes before the bugs managed to punch through the multi-layered traps they'd left along the tunnels leading to the hideaway.

The first thing they see on the other side of the barricade is an almost entirely empty room decorated from floor to ceiling in demonic bug innards, like somebody had dropped the Bugs into a huge (sideways) blender with no lid. Other than that, there was a bunch of loose paper piled in 'drifts' around the edges of the room, and that was about it.

A bit creeped out, they started to explore further in. The 'paperdrifts' were omnipresent, to the point that the Runners were basically wading in some spots. And they gradually became aware that there were rustlings that they weren't causing.

As they explored, they found evidence that the hideaway had been a hidden school for the magically-active children of the wealthy and powerful Initiates of the New Dawn (semi-)secret society, and that it had fallen a month or so after the Bug City incident began.

Aaaand then they found the main assembly hall, with scattered toys, drifted paper, a few other bits of detritus of a typical elementary-school-age assembly room, along with the huge ritual circle in the centre of it, the small corpses of what was presumably the entire student body of the school inside the circle (around a hundred of them), and the flensed corpse of the guy that had presumably cast the ritual just outside the circle.

It took a while before they were even willing to go into the room :smallamused:

They didn't actually find much in the assembly hall at that point, but when they regrouped at the main entrance doors, the biggest guy in the group (an Orc Medico) nearly got knocked off his feet as a huge slash appeared across the back of his armour. Just cosmetic damage- the finish was ruined, basically- but it was enough to rather seriously unnerve the team.

Now more than a little nervous, the group headed back to the opening they had come in, ready to fight off the Bugs if they broke in. Instead, the Bugs finally broke through the last layer of traps... and sealed the opening up with a wall three times thicker than before.

Eventually, after some extremely cautious searching that yielded a few clues (including a room with 'DON'T BLINK!' scrawled all over the place in a variety of substances, including blood), while the rustling intensified and there were occasional chlidlike giggles, they ended up back in the assembly hall, where a good perception check spotted a strip of kevlar that matched what had been torn off the back of the medico's armour... sticking out of one of the paper drifts.

Paranoia achieved. The team's archery sniper/face carefully brushed a bit of the paper away with an arrow subbing in for a ten-foot pole, and, when she found dusty pink fur under it, opted to just shoot whatever was in the paper drift rather than mess with it, and freaked out when the arrow slapped into the pile, then just sort of stopped and fell to the floor, like it had hit something soft but not actually penetrable.

Charging up to the pile, she swatted the paper aside, and found... an old, apparently perfectly ordinary, pink teddy bear. Cue animalistic berserk terror (the archer/face was an Eagle shifter, which in Shadowrun meant that she was actually a bird that had achieved human level intelligence and shapeshifting abilities, not a human who could turn into a bird) that fluked into the thing's elemental weakness, destroying the teddy. This, in turn, freed the blood spirit that had been powering it, which promptly attacked and was equally promptly dispatched, although its shrieking appearance had somewhat unnerved the PCs, especially given that it was clearly connected to the ritually murdered children.

Cue the slowly dawning moment of realization as the PCs looked at the circle again and realized just how many there were in it, and how many toys there were just in the room they were in alone. Along with the rather unsettling realization (on their part) that Raggedy Anne was just like the Weeping Angels, in that neither could move while being watched :smalltongue:

The rest of the dungeon was mostly attempts at capturing and disposing of the various homicidal toys, along with trying to figure out what happened, and rather less paranoid. But getting there was definitely fun :smallbiggrin:

[dramatic flare]

Thing is, IRL, we can see glass. Also, what's holding up the glass walkway? Did someone cast an invisibility spell on it? Why would anyone do this?

We can see glass if there's light bouncing off of it, but this isn't always the case. In a semi lit tunnel with no direct lighting on the glass, it will not be visible. The glass would be anchored into the stone of the dungeon itself, and it's there because the creator of the tunnel liked the sense of vertigo suddenly walking out onto it gave his guests.

https://emigratetonewzealand.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/port-french-alps-lookout-void-20-25-940x628.jpg

[Strigon]

We can see glass if there's light bouncing off of it, but this isn't always the case. In a semi lit tunnel with no direct lighting on the glass, it will not be visible. The glass would be anchored into the stone of the dungeon itself, and it's there because the creator of the tunnel liked the sense of vertigo suddenly walking out onto it gave his guests.

https://emigratetonewzealand.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/port-french-alps-lookout-void-20-25-940x628.jpg

I think the bigger problem with this setup is anyone who's seen Indiana Jones is going to have a guess almost immediately.
I don't know how big the franchise is internationally, but 'round these parts the odds of someone having not seen it is essentially zero.

[goto124]

it's there because the creator of the tunnel liked the sense of vertigo suddenly walking out onto it gave his guests.

https://emigratetonewzealand.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/port-french-alps-lookout-void-20-25-940x628.jpg

That reminds me (http://cdn.designrulz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/designrulz1.jpg).

[Zwiebelchen]

Here are two suggestions simply based on geometry:

- have a room with pillars coming up from a seemingly endless pit; with just enough spacing between them so that you have to jump from one pillar to the next to cross the room ... have the pillars in a grid so that there is more than one path for the adventurers to take... and yup; none of these pillars is an illusion. It was just a crazy architect that likes to jump ...

- have the dungeon full of secret doors that always lead to somewhere else in the dungeon (but is always an easily accessable place) and otherwise serve no purpose ... players will go nuts in trying to find a secret door that actually HAS a purpose

[BootStrapTommy]

My players are headed to a pretty chaotic place in a couple of sessions.

Needless to say, this is my favorite thread and much of its suggestions may find their way into an upcoming dungeon...

[MrStabby]

So I was thinking of something like this for my next dungeon.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.lipson/escher/relativity.jpg

[Surpriser]

So I was thinking of something like this for my next dungeon.
I recommend the "Halls of the Mad Mage" module (freely available for download).

One of my PCs managed to end up on the end of a rope like a ballon, falling towards the sky...

The simple suggestion that they create a map of the dungeon can lead to paranoia if you have previously used non-euclidean geometry or teleporting traps.

[MrStabby]

I recommend the "Halls of the Mad Mage" module (freely available for download).

One of my PCs managed to end up on the end of a rope like a ballon, falling towards the sky...

The simple suggestion that they create a map of the dungeon can lead to paranoia if you have previously used non-euclidean geometry or teleporting traps.

Heh. It seems like there are quite a few things in common between my plans and his.

My plan was to try and have the dungeon self contained but folded up on the inside surface of a Klein bottle, with occasional open topped rooms where you could see to the other side.

One thing I was nervous of messing with was things like endless staircases going up and down. My players would abuse them to create super-accelerated-slinky-cannons or similar to blow holes in the walls.

[Tarlek Flamehai]

One thing I was nervous of messing with was things like endless staircases going up and down. My players would abuse them to create super-accelerated-slinky-cannons or similar to blow holes in the walls.

Serious updraft, gale wind, up the stairs?

[LnGrrrR]

One thing I've done is to pass notes to people. "You feel strange... suddenly you put your hands to your mouth, and realize you don't have one. It is as if one was never there." The player roleplayed it wonderfully, and his fellow PCs were really freaked out that he suddenly stopped talking and began miming everything to them. It didn't help that he was a warlock who started fighting melee instead. Other notes might be something like, "You don't know the rogue exists, will exist, or has ever existed. Pretend he's not there." or "You hear a loud buzzing outside the room, and it sounds like it's getting closer," or "You feel the heat in this room, to the point where you are sweating. And it's getting hotter." Try to mix in things that sound like they could actually be "hidden info" from a DM.

[Surpriser]

One thing I was nervous of messing with was things like endless staircases going up and down. My players would abuse them to create super-accelerated-slinky-cannons or similar to blow holes in the walls.

You can alleviate this problem by having the stairs be narrow, rather flat and with sharp turns. Any projectile will simply not have the space to accelerate to meaningful speeds. Just as long as they don't pour down water and build a dam for free energy...

[MrStabby]

You can alleviate this problem by having the stairs be narrow, rather flat and with sharp turns. Any projectile will simply not have the space to accelerate to meaningful speeds. Just as long as they don't pour down water and build a dam for free energy...

Yeah, I have learned to never hand out decanters of endless water as loot.

[Strigon]

Yeah, I have learned to never hand out decanters of endless water as loot.

I've had rather the opposite experience; simply putting a decanter in a dungeon fills my players with fear for some strange reason :smalltongue:

[goto124]

What, they don't try to loot it?

[SpoonR]

- have the dungeon full of secret doors that always lead to somewhere else in the dungeon (but is always an easily accessable place) and otherwise serve no purpose ... players will go nuts in trying to find a secret door that actually HAS a purpose

Have secret doors that really are shortcuts between roughly two pairs of rooms. Empty, calm, and unnaturally quick corridors. Make this part of the dungeon look like an abandoned mansion. Ballroom, kitchen, etc. Have lots of heavy but inexpensive knickknacks - candle holders, heavy piece of metal kinda sorta shaped like a hand crossbow. Put the BBEG in the center, he is immune to everything except certain of the items in the nearby rooms (BBEG is an egotistical hoarder, he keeps his bane close so no one else has them). Maybe require something to open the doors - token from a room maybe?
See how long it takes the players to realize it's a game of Kill Doctor Lucky (or Clue, if you want).

Have one or more rooms with furniture, wall hangings, table with food, etc. The food on the kitchen table looks to still be steaming hot, everything looks like the owners stepped out seconds before the PCs arrived. Outside the room, have a few piles that are mostly ash, with some recognizable bits of bone. If they touch anything, the stasis goes away and hundreds of years of decay catch up - nothing but random useless scraps left. Bonus points if they find a magic item (now broken) that caused this, and later see others that look fine - maybe on standby waiting for some event.

Make everything insectoid. Orcs with compound eyes. Cows that look like giant aphids, etc.

[JAL_1138]

Enemy corpses disappear the instant no one is observing them, even if everyone just blinks at the same time. The bloodstains they left don't disappear. Sometimes there are drag-marks that lead to the nearest flat wall.

[MrStabby]

Enemy corpses disappear the instant no one is observing them, even if everyone just blinks at the same time. The bloodstains they left don't disappear. Sometimes there are drag-marks that lead to the nearest flat wall.

Oh, I like the drag marks to the nearest wall. That is a nice touch.

[Strigon]

What, they don't try to loot it?

I mean, they tried the first time.
When they identified it, they had the wizard - with abysmal strength - try it on its highest setting. he got knocked flat on his back, as per the rules, and it only got worse from there.

To make a long story short, not only did they almost die, but they had to abandon much of the other loot, and put a nearby village in very real danger before they managed to stop it. They consider the things death machines now, and refuse to have anything to do with them, on any setting.



Anyway, why stick to corpses? Maybe a creature runs from them, turns a corner, and disappears - simply leaving behind the same bloodstain mentioned before.

[Balain]

Not sure if this was mentioned. Last time we played, the floor the party was in was tiled with different colours. During the big fight in the room the party went out of their way to make sure they didn't touch any other coloured tiles. There was nothing special about the tiles

[Madbox]

Have an ancient tomb, but all of the booby traps have fallen apart from centuries of neglect. Make sure the players know this, with pressure plates that are stuck in place, trip wires rusted or rotted through, etc. Then have one or two highly visible traps in pristine condition, right before a room filled with treasure.

[Lord Torath]

I mean, they tried the first time.
When they identified it, they had the wizard - with abysmal strength - try it on its highest setting. he got knocked flat on his back, as per the rules, and it only got worse from there.

To make a long story short, not only did they almost die, but they had to abandon much of the other loot, and put a nearby village in very real danger before they managed to stop it. They consider the things death machines now, and refuse to have anything to do with them, on any setting.Really? Don't they top out at 30 gallons per minute? That's only 4.01 cubic feet per minute. That's like a creek 4 feet wide and 6 inches deep moving at 2 feet per minute or about 1 inch every 2 seconds. A 10'x10' room would be 1 foot deep after about 25 minutes. Hardly the sort of thing that will threaten to fill a dungeon, let alone a village...

Regarding the Glass Walkway, a hole would be easily visible. The refraction at the corners would make it easy to see. If you rounded the edge to try to avoid that, you'd get light reflecting back at you. Making the whole thing out of permanent Walls of Force is an option, but Detect magic will show them.

[Strigon]

Really? Don't they top out at 30 gallons per minute?

Actually, it's 30 gallons per round. (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Decanter_of_Endless_Water)

An easy mistake to make, but one that makes a huge difference.

[goto124]

... that's DandDwiki...

[DCraw]

As you enter the cavern you see "Beware the tomb of Gai G'x" scrawled in blood above a stone doorway. The blood is glistening, still fresh. There are no other bloodstains or signs of what could have written it. What do you do?

[Strigon]

... that's DandDwiki...

Sorry, still not used to the etiquette on sources.
In any case, I checked my DMG to make sure; my copy says 30 gallons per round.

[goto124]

Oh, even the DMG book says per round?

Since one round is 6 seconds, and one minute is 60 seconds, leading to 10 rounds in one round...

The Decanter creates 300 gallons of water per minute!