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Has your dungeon crawl turned into exactly that, a crawl? Do you wish you could turn it into a dungeon sprint?! Well wish no more!
The rules are simple:
1. Be the first to open a door to a new room, or enter a new location (the DM is final arbiter of when a location is new), score 1 point.
2. Participate in combat (attack, buff, heal, etc), score 1 point
3. Whoever has the most points at the end of the session (and survives) wins.
4. Winning means you're awesome at the Dwarven Door Game, there is no greater prize.
Things to remember while playing:
-opening or closing a door is a move action.
-combat will usually score you less points than doors, but gathering a following of enemies will often result in death.
The Dwarven Door Game was invented by Trollbear Thundersnow, a dwarven barbarian, who was a little bored one day.
Disclaimer: The Dwarven Door Game is very exciting. You might get caught up in opening doors really fast. Side effects include:
- Death
- Total Party Kill
- Excitement
- Great Stories about your character dying
- Death
Feel free to try the Dwarven Door Game at home, no purchase required. Post stories about how you almost won the Dwarven Door Game, but died. Post variant rules that you've experimented with in your own game.
Has your dungeon crawl turned into exactly that, a crawl? Do you wish you could turn it into a dungeon sprint?! ...
LOL. Excellent idea!
Sounds like one of the common strategies on some of the online mmorpgs
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Steal!!!
I am going to have to try this in my next dungeon. I think I will have to dangle a carrot in front of my party, but it should still be fun for them.
The key is to just start playing. Open a door and nonchalantly comment on how you scored a point and are winning. When they look at you like you're crazy, tell them about (very briefly) about the game. They'll dismiss you as crazy... but you'll open another door and score a point. Then another person will open a door and announce they've scored a point. Your group will now be playing the Dwarven Door Game.
"Hey, I've got an idea, lets split up so we can cover more ground.... with our blood!"
This is cool.
(I'm laughing and crying at the same time.)
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Steal!!!
I am going to have to try this in my next dungeon. I think I will have to dangle a carrot in front of my party, but it should still be fun for them.
The key is to just start playing. Open a door and nonchalantly comment on how you scored a point and are winning. When they look at you like you're crazy, tell them about (very briefly) about the game. They'll dismiss you as crazy... but you'll open another door and score a point. Then another person will open a door and announce they've scored a point. Your group will now be playing the Dwarven Door Game.
"Hey, I've got an idea, lets split up so we can cover more ground.... with our blood!"
Simply Brilliant
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This is an example of how the Dwarven Door Game can go horrible wrong... or is it horribly right?
This is an actual play experience from book 3 of Rise of the Runelords. Not too much for a spoiler in there, but just in case:
I was playing a sword and board paladin at the time, Bruce. His standard role was standing in doorways and killing things while everyone hid behind him, buffing and using ranged attacks.
As we entered the fort proper, Bruce started making his way down the main hallway, looking to clear a central but defensible area first. That's when someone secretly remembered the DDG, opened a side door and said "That's a point." The next two hours of the game session occurred in initiative order.
Bruce, seeking to still stay ahead and keep himself between the party and most of the danger had some difficulty. Human in heavy armor only has a move of 20 feet, opening a door is a move action, so he was often trailing just behind people. (Un)Fortunately, he had the point position when we made it to the second level. Bruce took a full-round move to position himself near two doors. Next round he opened one, took a 5-foot step and opened the other, this started combat with two CR 10 opponents, plus a couple CR 8's... for a 6th level party.
After one round of combat, we had a fortunate break, two late comers to the session joined us. To help mimic their real-life confusion at what was going on, the DM had them roll initiative and started them at the entrance to the first floor of the keep. Luckily, they weren't left wondering where we were for very long.
My paladin, fully buffed, and using all his smite evil's for defensive purposes, move actions for his lay on hands died on round 3. After that it started to be a mop up job for the ogres. Several people were knocked unconscious, a couple died.
The rogue (appropriately enough a dwarf) in the party had just taken a level of assassin and had a ring of invisibility. He developed a new tactic. Moving to the corner in a hallway furthest from the ogres, took a single shot at them, ran away, using stealth, then activated his ring on the next round. He started applying poison to caltrops for when they chased him, leading them over the poison multiple times. It took him probably 30-35 rounds to finish them off, but he did. He then looted all the dead bodies (including players), when that was finished he tended to the wounded.
He was given the nickname "Single-handed".
I ended up making a new character. A ranger with favored enemy giants, not really realizing how useful that was going to be. I learned my lesson, higher movement and ranged attacks get you more points and a higher stealth score helps you survive.
I would like someone to try this in The Cleaves. :)
Notice that an elf can really rack up points with secret doors.
Summoned, charmed, or animated creatures, count for their special friend.
NPCs with an agenda will often pick a special friend when they hear about the door game.
I need a ruling. Is the lid of a chest a door?
Have 2 sets of adventurers.
First the doorbusters charge in.
The group trying to complete the quest follows virtually unopposed. They drag the losers back to town for a Resurrection and a restoration.
I would like someone to try this in The Cleaves. :)
Notice that an elf can really rack up points with secret doors.
Summoned, charmed, or animated creatures, count for their special friend.
NPCs with an agenda will often pick a special friend when they hear about the door game.I need a ruling. Is the lid of a chest a door?
OMG, I didn't notice the question. Sorry.
A chest lid would count if it leads to a new "area" to explore. As noted in the rules, the DM would be final arbiter.
I would advise a general rule of thumb that it has to be big enough for a person (note that this is relative, because of creature size) to enter into. So I would rule that a door on a dollhouse wouldn't count... unless opening said door shrunk you and put you into the dollhouse (or some other type of magical portal). But that's me and how I interpret it.
If higher movement, ranged attacks, and stealth are what help you succeed at the Dwarven Door Game then it seems like elves might be a lot better at the game than dwarves. Maybe the elves "beating the dwarves at their own game" could be one reason why elves and dwarves don't tend to get along well.
The variant rule awarding a point for opening a chest sounds good. You could also give points for pulling levers, pressing buttons, and drinking from unidentified fountains and pools. I suppose that dungeons suitable for the DDG could also include stuff like magic slot machines which randomly dispense treasure, damage, curses, etc. I suddenly feel like I should develop some sort of casino style card game for the Deck of Many Things.
"I just reached two hundred thirty points. I win, right?"
"No. I have two hundred forty."
"Bloody Jzadirune!"
If higher movement, ranged attacks, and stealth are what help you succeed at the Dwarven Door Game then it seems like elves might be a lot better at the game than dwarves. Maybe the elves "beating the dwarves at their own game" could be one reason why elves and dwarves don't tend to get along well.
The variant rule awarding a point for opening a chest sounds good. You could also give points for pulling levers, pressing buttons, and drinking from unidentified fountains and pools. I suppose that dungeons suitable for the DDG could also include stuff like magic slot machines which randomly dispense treasure, damage, curses, etc. I suddenly feel like I should develop some sort of casino style card game for the Deck of Many Things.
High AC, good saves, resistances are good too. They don't make you faster to a door, but the DDG is both a sprint and a marathon. It's important to survive both to the next door and to the end of the session.
You could totally add more ways to score points. I recommend a guiding principle that ways to score should follow two principles:
1) potential to cause confusion, chaos and havoc
2) participate in the dungeon
So I like the idea of allowing things where you don't know what the potential consequences are to score points. I personally like keeping it to doors, as it focuses on the exploration and simultaneous encounters, plus Doors is in the name. But please, I would love to hear stories of awful things happening as characters race to drink from mysterious fountains.
In Dwarven Door Ultimate you open everything, including walls, floors, ceilings, ect...
Similarly, the Dwarven Door Game (Sigil Edition) gets pretty crazy.
Regarding other dwarf games, I had a 1.5e dwarf (the DM used the 1e DMG with the 2e PHB) who had enough hit points to survive any fall and used to joke about him going cliff jumping. With the increased HP in Pathfinder we thought up a challenge kind of like the Polar Bear Plunge where you jump off a 300' cliff into a pool of lava.