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View Full Version : What I learned about DMing from playing Death House



shadow_archmagi
2016-06-16, 09:56 AM
Last night I participated in the first part of the 5E Ravenloft campaign. I'll be out of town with a new job for a few months, so I was a "special guest" for the first couple sessions while the party completed the introductory adventure "Death House." I liked the group a lot, but had some complaints, and wasn't sure about the ratio of problems-because-DM-is-green and problems-because-book.


So, the adventure starts with magic fog surrounding the party and forcing them down a road and into a town and to a specific house. Outside the house are two spooky children who are afraid of a monster. Since you have no other options, you go into the house to help them.

The house is well-furnished and decorated. Characters who closely examine the decorations will find that they are actually spooky instead of tasteful. (Stuff like a painting of a beautiful forest actually having corpses hanging from the trees in the background.) One room has the ghost of the children's nurse, who attacks as soon as PCs enter the room. There's also a bunch of spooky suits of armor, one of which attacks as soon as it is approached. (The book explicitly says they fight until destroyed and cannot be reasoned with.) One room has a secret chamber with a letter from Strahd, and the attic has the children's skeletons and their ghosts, who explain that the house is evil and tricks people into coming inside.

So, out of the first 22 rooms, exactly four have "something." Of those four, two just have combats against enemies who fight to the death, can't be reasoned with, and can't really even be avoided. (Specifically, One room has the ghost of the children's nurse, who attacks as soon as PCs enter the room. Another has spooky suits of armor, one of which attacks as soon as it is approached.) That's 20/22 boring rooms for the first half of the house.

The basement "Dungeon" isn't a lot better, but I want to focus on the top house. Let's be clear here: 20 empty rooms and 2 rooms with the plot in them is not exploration. Exploration involves acquiring mastery over your environment via information collection. You're lost and helpless, you explore, now this place is like home. It is not a game of Eye Spy.

So here's my fix: Add in stuff that does stuff.

Example: Let's replace "There's a ghost in the nursery that attacks immediately and basically nothing else so if you skipped the nursery you just missed nothing" with "You hear weeping from the next room. A tall, feminine, but fundamentally inhuman shape is bent over an empty cradle, sobbing. On the table near her is an iron key. If you do approach, she snarls protectively, looking up and revealing burning orange eyes. If the players back off, she resumes weeping. If the players approach, she attacks. If she is approached while the party is carrying [Walter the dead baby], she will hold out her arms and make plaintive sounds. If given the remains, she will cradle it in her arms and fade away."

In this version, the party has a reason to want to visit the room (Key!) and multiple options for doing so. If they've already found the dead baby, they can run back and get it if they're clever. If they're not clever, violence is an option. Heck, if they brought a rogue, they can even shrug and say "No ghost lady for us today" and close the door and resolve to just pick whatever lock the iron key was for.

SilverLeaf167
2016-06-16, 11:47 AM
Wow, that really does sound pretty bad. Of course, it's kind of understandable for a building to have a lot of rooms with nothing in particular (for the sake of realism verisimilitude if nothing else) but the players shouldn't really be expected to pay that much attention to every single one of them. It's hard to find a balance of unsubtle metagaming - just outright skipping every unnecessary room - and keeping up a reasonable pace, but it's usually necessary in a place like this. Was this just a generic, very basic example from the book, or intended as an actually detailed adventure?

I definitely like your suggested fix, though. Even if the "solution" (handing over the baby) can be easy to miss, it's usually good that the players at least have a way of avoiding the ghost or planning ahead of time. Random encounters with neither build-up nor consequences are really just filler, unless the battle itself is mechanically fun. A haunted house sounds more suited to exploration and puzzles than combat to begin with.

Honestly, the simplistic nature of a lot of enemies (basically almost anything mindless or animalistic) is why I don't really like running standard dungeon crawls, even when I probably should just suck it up every now and then. The players don't mind them too much anyway, within certain limits at least. It's hard to include a lot of options in a linear, typically enclosed space; but trying to plan a more open-ended dungeon is even harder, and I admire anyone who can do it well.

shadow_archmagi
2016-06-16, 12:08 PM
Was this just a generic, very basic example from the book, or intended as an actually detailed adventure?

I'm not sure; it's intended as an optional "introduction" adventure for Ravenloft. Our group managed it in two sessions, totaling something like 6-8 hours. My commentary on the basement isn't as detailed because our DM realized that it was almost midnight and he was losing us, so he started just rattling off room descriptions without waiting for us to say which way we were going (Including outright saying things like "in this room there are three coffins and two have some coins or something and you don't open the third coffin because it's full of bees for some reason") until we got to the finale.


The characters find an alter that's been chanting ominously. When they step on it, the chant changes to "One must die." PCs can choose to kill something on the alter, in which case they can leave safely and the adventure is over, or leave without killing anything, which summons a shambling mound. If the PCs leave the basement, they find out that the Death House goes full Death House mode, with smoke billowing out of fireplaces, rats bursting from the walls, and every doorway to the outside becomes a hallway full of scythe pendulums.

That's... actually a pretty sweet crescendo. It's a shame that the module doesn't do much to build up the sentience of the house beforehand and make the players really feel like "Maybe we should give the house what it wants" is a viable option. My character responded to the "One must die" chant with "I didn't get where I am in life taking advice from murderghosts!" and the party nodded in agreement. Then we fought the shambling mound and killed it, which ended the house's curse, so I didn't actually get to see the crescendo murderhouse mode since we never left the dungeon.





Honestly, the simplistic nature of a lot of enemies (basically almost anything mindless or animalistic) is why I don't really like running standard dungeon crawls, even when I probably should just suck it up every now and then. The players don't mind them too much anyway, within certain limits at least. It's hard to include a lot of options in a linear, typically enclosed space; but trying to plan a more open-ended dungeon is even harder, and I admire anyone who can do it well.

For sure. My favorite moments in the CRPG Darkest Dungeon were the ones where I was talking to myself like "Okay, so, I need one more Cursed Pearl. The best options are... like this or like this. This route has two rooms with treasure and monsters, and this route has just one room with monsters. Obviously I'd like to open two more chests, but I don't know if I can survive two extra fights. Hmmmm."

Actually sitting down and trying to make that come to life on paper has been a project of mine for awhile now.

SilverLeaf167
2016-06-16, 01:06 PM
For sure. My favorite moments in the CRPG Darkest Dungeon were the ones where I was talking to myself like "Okay, so, I need one more Cursed Pearl. The best options are... like this or like this. This route has two rooms with treasure and monsters, and this route has just one room with monsters. Obviously I'd like to open two more chests, but I don't know if I can survive two extra fights. Hmmmm."

Actually sitting down and trying to make that come to life on paper has been a project of mine for awhile now.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with what you said, but it just happened to remind me of something related.

Another of the biggest problems with the basic dungeon formula (in a TTRPG at least, CRPGs tend to work just fine) is that it's supposed to be divided into self-contained encounters in separate rooms. This brings up a simple question: fundamentally speaking, do you allow enemies in other rooms to hear or otherwise find out what's going on?
If yes, unless there's a lot of empty space between rooms, the party should rightfully get swamped with most or all of the dungeon's populace as soon as they engage any part of it - especially if the inhabitants are intelligent, but otherwise as well. In any even slightly longer dungeon, this amount of enemies is probably impossible for them to deal with all at once. Not very reasonable.
If not, well, the game becomes a series of self-contained encounters in separate rooms. This can get repetitive or simply weird pretty darn quick, and is rather unrealistic too, and the one time someone does fetch reinforcements really opens up a can of worms. Not very sensible.
There are a couple of ways to subvert this issue, including enemies that only really "trigger" when you get close to them (such as... well, pretty much everything in the Death House apparently, but we already established the issue with those) or going through a lot effort to simply avoid combat altogether, but something like a stealth mission tends to be pretty impractical too, as you'll be lucky if even half the party can actually participate.

Of course, the easiest method is to simply not care too much if the dungeons feels a little videogamey, but I think that's something most DMs strive to avoid.

shadow_archmagi
2016-06-17, 06:43 AM
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with what you said, but it just happened to remind me of something related.

Another of the biggest problems with the basic dungeon formula (in a TTRPG at least, CRPGs tend to work just fine) is that it's supposed to be divided into self-contained encounters in separate rooms. This brings up a simple question: fundamentally speaking, do you allow enemies in other rooms to hear or otherwise find out what's going on?

Personally, my interpretation is:

1. Creatures that aren't allied generally keep some empty rooms between them.

2. Creatures that aren't allied aren't super keen on helping each other out. Someone screaming down the hall? Not my circus, not my monkey. That's what random encounter rolls are for; someone peaking their head around the corner about all this noise.

3. Creatures that are allied are considered one big encounter. That's not four goblin rooms, that's the goblin lair, which happens to have multiple rooms. Encounter notes include something like either "After two rounds, more goblins arrive" or "When morale breaks, they retreat here to link up with the others."

ChildofLuthic
2019-01-10, 01:33 PM
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with what you said, but it just happened to remind me of something related.

Another of the biggest problems with the basic dungeon formula (in a TTRPG at least, CRPGs tend to work just fine) is that it's supposed to be divided into self-contained encounters in separate rooms. This brings up a simple question: fundamentally speaking, do you allow enemies in other rooms to hear or otherwise find out what's going on?

In my own campaign, I avoid this by 1) making most monsters be about as intelligent as animals, 2) spacing out the dungeon, and/or 3) making it so people need time to prepare. This has worked so far in my game, although there was one time where the cultists from one room chased down the cultists in another room. Of course, the Skyrim style "let's start killing all the humanoids in this cave" thing doesn't work, but I tend not to like doing that anyway, because then my players will try to talk to everything instead of killing it.

Segev
2019-01-10, 02:02 PM
I've not played Death House, but given the comments here, I have some thoughts on improving it wrt the complaints given.

The point about there being a crescendo that is nice, but is unfortunately lost if the party does the straightforward "nope, give us the boss fight" and wins, is a good one.

So, the key changes are to use the upstairs to build a sense that the house is, in fact, messing with them. That it wants something. Possibly many somethings. And that escaping it is reliant on doing what it asks.

To that end, many of the empty rooms should be filled with riddles and puzzles. Games the PCs must play for the house's amusement, lest Bad Things happen. Rooms surrounding puzzle rooms might have those billowing clouds of hellish smoke coming from fireplaces, or fill up with rats and other horrid things, should the party try to circumvent, dodge, or cheat the riddle/puzzle/whatever. But appeasing the house in some fashion, promising to come back after searching for more clues (or indicating that's their plan) might leave them an opening to escape, just with... a warning.

The ghost of the nursemaid just wants to be with her charges. She is, however, trapped in that room. Each time she kills somebody in the house, however, the mirror over the dresser will transform into an image of the children's ghosts, letting her see them, at least. She doesn't like killing, but she goes mad with obsession. She might be reasoned with if the party can promise something she wants regarding the kids. Their safety, a chance to see them, or to do her a favor and carry a message, even.

The ghost children, themselves, call the house "Uncle," and act like it's an abusive guardian they must appease but cannot escape. Disobedience is childish, not adult rebelliousness and independence. They're terrified to be caught misbehaving, and they know many of the house's arcane rules. They'll encourage the party, whenever encountered, to follow the rules, or at least not get caught breaking them. And will be the source of learning many of them as the party does something the house forbids. One of those rules is that the children aren't allowed in the wing of the house with the nursemaid's room. The house goes into full horror mode and tears into their ethereal flesh with a vengeance if they do. They won't do so willingly without being pushed practically to Fanatic loyalty.

This will require far more writing and work than my little essay here represents, as the riddles, puzzles, and arbitrary rules would need to be crafted to make a strange kind of totalitarian sense for a wicked trickster-house that wants to "playfully" torment its victims.

Though to an extent, Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events might be a reasonable starting point for its personality. (I just watched the first episode on Netflix last night.)

The Shambling Mound appears in the basement, yes, but only as a first round of the boss fight should the party refuse to play along with the final "game" of "one must die." After beating the shambling mound in the basement, the house does go into full horror mode, making more demands and showing its teeth. If they fight their way back out, they face a massively upsized shambling mound that has the house as a hat. A genius loci, practically, though probably technically undead or an outsider as it's fed upon all the evil and death it's forced on people.

RobD
2019-01-10, 02:55 PM
"Lots of Rooms but nothing to find" was a problem I ran into a lot in Curse of Strahd, actually. My group never made it to Castle Ravenloft itself, so I can't speak to that, but I do remember thinking that there was a whole lotta not-much in Death House and Argynvostholt.

Reversefigure4
2019-01-11, 05:35 AM
I liked the group a lot, but had some complaints, and wasn't sure about the ratio of problems-because-DM-is-green and problems-because-book.

Keep in mind what the purpose of the Death House is. It serves as both an introduction to 5e, and specifically an introduction to Ravenloft (and the Curse of Strhad campaign), for both the players and the GM. It needs to have skill checks, exploration, and combat (and because it's Ravenloft, at least a couple of these need to be outright unfair to the players, teaching them how to deal with Strhad). I think your problem is part book, part new GM, but the adventure is well written and does what it sets out to do.

The start is a blatant railroad, but that's consist with how Ravenloft works, given the hook into the campaign is "A mysterious mist you are powerless against steals you from your life." It's not even inappropriate, since being outclassed and powerless is a part of the Ravenloft setting.

I disagree that the empty rooms are pointless - several more of them contain treasure, as well as secret passages around the house that can become useful later. Moreover, it's designed to build up at atmosphere of creeping dread (whether or not it does so successfully is quite debatable, but that's the intent - death could be around the corner, or it could be a broom closet). In the hands of a skilled GM, it could be packed with creepy atmosphere - in the hands of a newbie GM, it's still a unique adventure much different from your standard level 1 "goblins stole my ring" adventure.


The assorted secret doors and exploration can come in more handing if you flee from the Shambling Mound - a strong encounter quite capable of destroying parties of 1st level adventurers.

This epic escape the house chase scene is very cool, and well put together, but it sounds like the OP just smashed the Mound to pieces instead, which unfortunately bypasses it. The adventure can hardly make the mound stronger - it's already an overwhelming encounter to the expected party of 4 level 1 adventurers.

SirGraystone
2019-01-11, 10:23 AM
Most D&D adventures are like action movie, Death House is more like an horror movie, lots of room without monsters when you start but there to spook your players, hearing the nanny singing from the floor below, seeing weird thing in mirror, moaning noise, ... The real action is when you get to the basement.

Now if you have a group only looking for fighting, this is probably not the adventure for them. But for those who like a gothic horror stories they should enjoy themselves. Curse of Strahd as something call Mark of Horrors (I think) which should give inspiration to scare your players.

Douche
2019-01-16, 09:16 AM
When I ran the Death House, I made the nurse ghost passive. I thought it was silly to make her immediately attack.

I decided that if they wanted the key, they would need to return her bones to her from the attic... only, I didn’t realize that her bones were behind the door that the key opens (iirc) so that was redundant lol. I’m just lucky that the players were wary of getting into unnecessary combat, because they didn’t bother trying to take the key.

Overall I disagree with you though. While you may not like the “dungeon” mechanically speaking, I think that it does exposition very well, telling a self contained story of this family that worshipped a dark force, neglected their children, and even had some issues with the husband’s infidelity. My players found it very interesting to investigate the mystery of what happened in the house, and it also helps to give some light buildup to Strahd.

I will say that CoS contains a lot of “stage direction” that I disagree with. Most of the character development and narrative delivery is really well done... but every now and then there’s some stupid anticlimactic stuff they throw in there that requires the DM to think for them self... which is actually a good thing.

The biggest example is when Strahd invites them to a dinner party and then they show up and it turns out it’s just an illusion that takes 30 seconds to taunt them and then disappears. Pretty dumb tbh... but I think the authors didn’t want the DM to feel obligated to have Strahd interact with them for a prolonged period. It’s up to the DM to decide how He wants the dinner party to play out

EDIT: added spoiler tags cuz i originally wrote this on mobile