A Child's Playhouse Dungeon Idea

[KittenEV]

I've been trying to come up with a fun puzzle dungeon for my players, and I think that I have an idea but I don't know how good it is for DnD mechanics wise.

I want to do a dungeon that is based on traditional children games and have the boss be an evil spirit of a child who wants to play.

So far for the rooms I have:

Hopscotch:

A room is filled with pressure plates from end to end. At end the players start on, there is a pedestal filled with rocks. A detect traps check DC 13 will let the players know that the pressure plates only get set off when when pressed down and then released. So essentially, the players would throw the rocks and jump to those pressure plates to get across. Or fly of course.

Freeze Tag:

A room has a pedestal with a bowl of fire in the center with a unlit torch next to it. A single statue that looks to be frozen stands beside it. A perception check DC 15 will let the players know the statue has a key around its neck. When the players enter the room, the statue comes alive and begins to chase players and try to touch them with a successful attack. Once touched, the player must make a DC 15 Dex save. On a failed save, the player is considered frozen for 1 minute. Defeat the statue and get the key to the door to the next room. Also, if a player wants, they can light a torch and touch a player to unfreeze them.

Red/Green Light:

In a long room, there is a light at the end that intermittently shines red or green. A player must make a DC 15 Dex save if moving when the Red light is on. On a failed save, the player takes 4d6 piercing damage from arrows coming from traps in the walls.

Marco Polo:

In a large room shrouded in magical darkness that no one can see through, the players take one step and fall into water. The players must shout to find the entity at the other end. Once called to, the entity will shout back and a DC 13 perception check will tell the players the direction where the entity is.

The Floor Is Lava:

There is a room with boulders scattered through out. As soon as the players enter, a clicking noise starts and in a single turn, the floor fills with lava leaving only the boulders as safe places to rest. Basically, find a way out of the room without touching the lava.

Hide and Seek:

Pretty self-explanatory, find the entity hidden in the forest/room through perception checks.


That's all the ones I could think of so far. I'm new to creating dungeons so I don't know if this would be any fun or not. Opinions? Also, if you know of another childhood game turned puzzle that'd be great to hear!

[pwykersotz]

Sounds super fun and creepy! Some of these you'll need to telegraph the rules the the players a little bit. Otherwise, unless they pick up on the exact game, they'll be playing a lot of kind of boring guessing games for a while. As an idea, the child could throw a temper tantrum if they do it wrong, and tell them the rules they are supposed to follow, maybe with a bit of added psychic damage as it screams in their minds. You could alter the difficulty of the final encounter or provide additional loot based on how well they play along versus bypassing the games. Or maybe the games secure the method to put the child forever to rest.

Hopscotch works well as a way to open a sealed door or chest in addition to any other traps.

Most of these other games might be a bit tough. They're based on reaction times, visual and audible queues, and spatial perception. All of these are difficult to mirror in a fun way in a tabletop game. Not impossible, just interestingly difficult. Also, I really think the child should participate in all these. Insubstantial and untouchable for now, until they locate it's true form.

Freeze tag sounds cool, but you'll almost certainly need a grid and pieces to make it come alive. Give the statue a few cool moves it can make in addition to normal movement to add a bit of fun and strategy.

Red light/green light could involve a few gambles. Make a path 100 feet long. Tag the light in 5 rounds and get a neat prize. Each player decides how far to go and then makes the move. The GM secretly determines the duration of time (before they guess), and each player that surpasses that travel time must make the save. They can go slow and guarantee victory but lose the prize, or go fast and risk death for high reward.

Marco Polo is tough. Audible directional queues while blind eh? I have no ideas right now.

The floor is lava should almost certainly have cool stuff in it. Specifically, the highest place where the winner resides. I recommend illusions of a castle tower, a pirate ship, etc that wrap around the boulders. Again, a map would be helpful. The goal can be to get as much treasure as possible and reach the highest space while dodging the lava. Again, risk reward. The harder places to reach have more treasure. The person at the highest place wins, but if someone gets more treasure and reaches that place, they get to knock the other person down. Give the winner a boon, and make it seem just casual enough to get the party to compete with each other.

Hide and seek is also tough. Random encounters could spice it up. Defeat or coerce the random creatures in the wood which attack you while you hide. Choose too noisy a method or do the wrong thing to the wrong enemy, and the noise will get you found and you get tagged out for that round.

These are just ideas, but hopefully they'll inspire ideas for how to make these games extra fun!