A Little Advice on Pacing

[PapaQuackers]

So I think the hallmark of a good DM is the ability to temper pacing in a campaign, to dictate the flow and speed of events in such a way that is thought provoking and exciting at the same time.

I find myself at a bit of a cross roads in this campaign that has just started up and I don't want to make you read through all the campaign notes but the jist of it is there's a big war after all the elves get together, including the dark ones, and band together with a handful of other races to enslave all the peoples. It works and it's 20 years later, humans, gnomes, dwarves and a few others are subjected and treated like garbage.

This happened because humanities God failed to return as he was prophesied, humanities empires fell into chaos, their king-priests were executed, and they warred internally. This made them ripe for conquest and I'm sure you get the idea.

The other end of the spectrum is that the evil Goddess in direct opposition to humanities good God is rising to power as necropolis rise where humans are being slaughtered and left there. Now she is gaining traction among humans and is waging a war on the Elves with an undead army and to their surprise she's beginning to gain ground.

Meanwhile the good God has been reborn into a child Aasimir unknown to the world and one of our tasks for the PC, though most of them don't know it yet, is to help him complete the trials he needs to ascend to God-Hood once again.

One of our players is a Monk who is destined to be the good God's shepard

One of our players is a Machinesmith who has discovered ancient technology which would pivot the war in any direction and he is pursued by the resistance, the undead, and the Elves for the knowledge he posses.

Our last player is a Bard who has been slowly molded by the Goddess of evil his whole life unbeknownst to him. Now that he is an adult traveling with two key players in the world he must face his destiny to do her bidding and betray them, or betray his destiny and aid his friends.

So that's the idea with the plot, as it happens they all started out in an underground prison after being captured by the Elves. They were rescued by a Dark Elf who they believe is a member of the resistance, because that's what he tells them, but is actually an ancient of the Evil Goddess.

Now that they are directly out of the prison they are traveling through a labyrinth to make it to the outside world.

Here's where my pacing issue comes in: This labyrinth has no encounters in it, it's all traps and puzzles, and it's fairly long. Upon them entering it I realized none of them have the skills to deal with it appropriately and I errored in my creation of it.

I know where I want them to go next roughly, a city of thieves free from Elven control that can get them to the resistance base for a price, but I don't know if I should cut out the labyrinth entirely or just speed them through it as fast as possible. I don't want them to get bored but I don't want to take away the weight from the world.

I'm also open to suggestions about interesting places the story could go from here, so let me know what thinks.

[Specter]

For a labyrinth, you can either have INT checks for remembering direction, some clever player solution (like dropping specific objects along the way) or the paths following some kind of logic. Anything else is boring, and better left to description.

[Oramac]

Why not sub out a few of the traps for combat encounters? You could even have one of the mooks in the encounter carrying a note/letter/parcel/whatever that points them to the Underground City.

The only real question, then, is how do they get to the city without their traitor Drow friend following and leading all the bad guys there?

[PapaQuackers]

The resistance and the undead aren't in conflict as they share a common enemy. The Drow works for the undead as a power play and doesnt want the resistance gone.

[Oramac]

The resistance and the undead aren't in conflict as they share a common enemy. The Drow works for the undead as a power play and doesnt want the resistance gone.

Ahh. I misunderstood that part. Still, it'll make for some interesting story after the big bads are dead.

In any case, I'd still say subbing out a few traps for encounters would probably be the simplest way to get the pacing and PCs where you want them.

Maybe a few random mercenaries that were hired to scout the tunnels and report their findings? The PCs find their notes revealing the underground city, and something that indicates the Mercs never had a chance to report in before being defeated.

Just spitballing here.

[Aett_Thorn]

Give the players checks against various things that they actually are decent at to find shortcuts through the maze.

For instance, if they actually have decent perception, then use that to find hidden tunnels that go below the walls of the maze. If you have one that is good at Arcana, then maybe have some sort of mystical doors that can be opened if they can be noticed or figured out. Basically, redesign it slightly so that they can pass by some of it, but if they get a couple bad checks they'll have to go through your traps. But use what they are good at to do the partial redesign.

[longshotist]

Just change it, the players don't know how it was laid out. Use some combat encounters instead. Is the dark elf still with the party? Have him halt the party a couple of times to disarm a trap for them. Also, in 5e you don't have to be a rogue to deal with traps.

If you want to journey through through the caverns to take longer or shorter, just adjust on the fly (players and you getting bored? shorten the distance; having fun - stretch it out).

[DKing9114]

Shift a few traps out for combat encounters (assuming the puzzles are designed to challenge both characters and players), and give them a rogue companion for the time being. If your plan at this point is to guide them towards the thief city, let the rogue introduce them to the city.

[PapaQuackers]

Just in case you wondering, I did swap out some traps and they made it through. Though I did accidentally turn our rogue into a werewolf and Aranel (the Drow) died after they made it to the city.

[Sabeta]

Option 1)
>Reduce Traps, add combat.

I don't really like this option all that much. I prefer designing very intricate combat scenarios, and removing a trap in favor of a mook doesn't really add anything to this labyrinth.

Option 2)
>Reduce Traps

So here's the thing. There needs to be a consequence to failure. If all of your traps can be defused by allowing your characters an infinite number of attempts, and there's no risk of failure besides getting hurt by the trap, then they aren't really good traps in my opinion. It just encourages your players to slow down even more and be extremely cautious. Thus, reducing your traps.

Typically, if I have reason to believe players would have certain information or that they would be able to normally pass something if they took a few shots at it, then I let them auto-succeed and move on. There's no point to a locked door if your players can take 20 tries to unlock it. However, I would make them roll if this locked door was a possible escape route and there was a security guard about to round the corner and find all of you.

In fact, going back to option 1 we can make this pretty entertaining. Disable most of the traps, and then toss in security guards. If they get caught the guard sounds an alarm which conveniently disables most of the traps, but also brings in a ton of enemies to fight through. The only remaining traps are those that lead to escape routes, which adds some real tension when you're trying to disable something and you've got a dozen angry elves or whatever chasing you.

Option 3)
>Skip the labyrinth

Tell your players that this dark elf guy escorts them through the labyrinth, and simply start the story in a more interesting place. It sounds to me like there's not very much narrative reason for the labyrinth to exist other than you thought it would be a cool prison break setting. If that's the cases, and your characters don't have the skills to pull it off, then just let them skip it. It sucks to have lost that much work, but it's better than a bored party in my opinion.

tldr: I both hate unnecessary combat and unnecessary skill rolls. Create tension by making skill roles a way to avoid combat so that players can now choose between stealth and skill rolls (the easy road provided they meet skill checks in a timely manner), or fight their way out while ignoring all of the traps (harder, but with less thinking for those who lack skills)