Seeing as my kobold hideout campaign is going to get wrapped up soon, I started to work on our next adventure. I have a neat concept, but I'm not sure how to execute the navigation mechanics.
Average Party Level will be about 3.
The story is that once the PCs wipe out the kobold tribe threatening the nearby town, they go to its mayor, who they had previously bullied into paying for their services. The town, which has not yet been able to profit from the mines that the PCs rid of disease and liberated from kobolds in an earlier adventure, is rather poor. So, rather than pay them the 500-1000 gp each that he promised, he offers them a map that leads to a mountain cavern said to hold untold riches within. Being the greedy bastards that they are, I am assuming that they'll jump at the chance, though I'm making preparations in case they do not.
The cave the map leads to of course, is far from empty. The PCs will have to fight through a mosh pit of goblins, goblin dogs, spiders, spider swarms, and the like. The real part of the adventure comes when they reach the deepest part of the cavern, which quickly begins to wind into a large tunnel maze.
Should they be able to navigate the labyrinth (which may or may not have a Gelatinous Cube in it), they enter the final chamber, which has a rather large treasure room door in it, albeit locked with a rather large lock. The key happens to be tied around the neck of a minotaur, who isn't very happy to see them - after all, he's the guardian. If they manage to best him, they get to enter the treasury, and claim practically the entire campaign's treasure budget in items and whatnot at once, since goblins don't have any use for gold (presumably).
Now, this sounds all fine and dandy in my head, but the problem is, I have NO idea how the maze part will work out. I'll probably have a battlemat for this adventure, but I'm not too sure of how I should go about mapping out the maze, or if I should just find some skill-based mechanic for navigation instead (though they'd miss out on the Gel Cube and being trapped in a hallway by spider swarms).
Any suggestions?
The traditional way of running through a labyrinth is for the DM to have a map on graph paper, and sketch it out as the PCs go through it.
The players, if they are experienced, might come up with a simply way of going through, such as always following the left wall. This can be a time saver, as you can follow the left wall on your map and let them know when they encounter something.
One trick I often use is have an NPC party member who is responsible for mapping. I would typically draw up a map as the PCs went through the maze, showing where they've been. That way the players can refer to it for strategy, but are spared the labor of drawing it themselves.
As far as I know, I'm the only one who uses this trick.
Unfortunately, my group's players are pretty new to this game - the two quests we've done so far have been mostly hack n' slash, though we're gradually working our way towards more roleplay experiences. So I'm not sure if the left wall trick will come at them easily.
Not sure about the map drawing though.
I was thinking about taking a leaf from Greek mythology and have a trail of yarn that was left there by a previous adventurer, but I feel that it would detract from the idea of it being a maze.
Better yet, have several strands of twine of varying age leading off in all directions.
Many strategies can take time, can be confusing, and get very boring. Personally, I'd draw the maze on a paper, and have the players solve it- coloring book style. It's quick, simple and changes things up.
Before you start drawing maps for your PCs, see if they actually have a way to map out the maze. If they don't, then describe the rough passages to them but don't draw anything out (until combat happens, and then erase it after the combat is over). Be sure to explain the twists and turns and intersections to them, and they will quickly realize just how lost they have become without a map.
If they opt for the breadcrumb trail (or string, or droplets of oil or chalk or candle wax or whatever) be sure to utilize the folly of such a device against them. There's a reason young adventurers don't often make it out alive. The minotaur is no fool. He's been around a while. He knows the maze and can hit and run against a party of heroes bumbling around in the dark. He can just as easily disrupt any trail they may leave behind, or alter it to lead them into traps they somehow avoided.
Be sure to throw in traps (deadfalls, covered pits, poisoned arrows/spears/darts, etc.) that are level-appropriate. Wandering around lost in a maze is no fun if that is ALL you're doing.
The "follow the left wall" routine is nice, but what happens if the wall suddenly shifts (rotating walls, pivot walls, etc.) and now they're in another section of the maze with no idea how it relates to where they just where? Doubly effective if the party gets split up as a result.
All of this is to say simply that making the maze more "alive" than "static" will be more likely to make it a memorable and fun encounter for all. Good luck!
Watch out: mazes can turn dull, becoming more frustrating than interesting. The players will be intrigued for a few minutes, but their interest will wane unless something interesting keeps them involved.
I'd suggest that you move most of the encounters into the maze, so the party has several encounters there. The goblins and their pets will have modified the areas where they're living, vandalizing some things and adding others.
Add lots of "scenery" to the maze, such as small chambers and intersections with statuary, fountains, skeletal remains, holes in the walls, secret doors, gates, and stairways. Frescos and carvings along the walls can help the players tell one area from another, or trick them into thinking they're in an area they already explored. Dividing the maze into multiple levels can keep the players guessing.
Classic traps for a maze include walls that shift, mists, teleportation effects, portcullises, and pits. Moving stonework can really get their attention, but makes it possible the force a party into fights they can't handle: Be careful!
I'd add an "alarm" trap: You'll really get their attention when the players find themselves in an area where numeous corridors converge and then a gong rings out, followed by the sound of something large approaching them.
A cruel teleport trick is to put the teleport past an area with distinctive decorations, then have it teleport the players near an area that looks similar but has some vital change, such as a covered pit trap.
Even more cruel, place some distinctive item in the area they first visit, only in the new area have something similar, but ancient and battered: The players may worry that you've pulled a "Rip Van Winkle" on them, especially if you call for a (spurious) Fort save as they teleport. "As the mysterious vapors clear, you find yourself in a hallway similar to the one you already explored, but the fresco work seems much more battered and faded. Where the heavy urn sat, a shattered heap of fragments is visible. Torn fragments of linen and shattered pieces of bone lie approximately where you saw the mummified nobleman's remains."
Watch out: mazes can turn dull, becoming more frustrating than interesting. The players will be intrigued for a few minutes, but their interest will wane unless something interesting keeps them involved.
+100 to everything Sir Wolf just said...
I've done my share of mazes and labyrinths over the years and, as mentionned above, can't stress enough to have more than corridors in your maze. Avoid an entire session of "Left"... "Left"... "Right"... "Left"... "Straight"... "Left"...
"Yawn, whatever"...
There's no sense in filling out an entire 8" x 11" sheet with hallways and tunnels (and rooms). Have a few rooms, connected by a few hallways (i.e.: have lots of "earth" between your tunnels and rooms). A total of ten rooms or special places (like an intersection with a fountain in it) should suffice. Believe me, when you're IN IT (as a character), the place seems a whole lot bigger than what's on the sheet.
Go crazy with puzzles and riddles though. If you can find a way to incorporate what you can find in one of those nifty puzzle/enigma books into your maze, then it will become remembered as a really cool place by your players.
Ultradan
Lots of good stuff here.
I kinda like the twine idea, but honestly I wouldn't have it lead in the right direction after a bit, but rather into a trap. After all there are living creatures in your maze and what better thing for them to do than to 'fish' for PCs?
I might actually implement this one - the twine would be more of a reference than a direct rip of the myth, and would still promote conflict in the maze. I suppose some goblins could have set it up - it sounds simple enough for even them to have thought of it.
If they opt for the breadcrumb trail (or string, or droplets of oil or chalk or candle wax or whatever) be sure to utilize the folly of such a device against them. There's a reason young adventurers don't often make it out alive. The minotaur is no fool. He's been around a while. He knows the maze and can hit and run against a party of heroes bumbling around in the dark. He can just as easily disrupt any trail they may leave behind, or alter it to lead them into traps they somehow avoided.
I didn't even think about actually having the minotaur wander around in the maze. It would be pretty neat, and it'd take advantage of its inability to get lost. My only issue is that if by chance the party encounters it, they're going to have very little room to fight it in, and running away from it would be impossible, since it'd know the maze like the back of its hand.
Classic traps for a maze include walls that shift, mists, teleportation effects, portcullises, and pits. Moving stonework can really get their attention, but makes it possible the force a party into fights they can't handle: Be careful!
Ha, ha, I suppose the traps were a given. I can see the portcullises (perhaps an indicator they are going in the right direction?) and pits working well enough, but I want to avoid making the thing too complicated.
There's no sense in filling out an entire 8" x 11" sheet with hallways and tunnels (and rooms). Have a few rooms, connected by a few hallways (i.e.: have lots of "earth" between your tunnels and rooms). A total of ten rooms or special places (like an intersection with a fountain in it) should suffice. Believe me, when you're IN IT (as a character), the place seems a whole lot bigger than what's on the sheet.
I can't agree more with you - I detest actually drawing mazes, but I really do want to make this idea work somehow. You gave me an idea about how to work the rooms though.
Perhaps instead of focusing on the winding corridors, I just design a series of rooms that each have several different exits that lead into different hallways and what not. Each room could have a different encounter in it, and when the player passes through one of the exits, I just describe a generic winding tunnel to them, which leads to whichever room connects to it. On occasion, I could actually turn the hallways into encounter areas.
Here's a few of the ideas that I had for the kinds of encounters to put in the various rooms. The PCs will only be APL 3, so I'm limited as to what I can do, but I tried to be as creative as possible:
- A small, square-shaped room with a locked door on the other side, with a lock level that is likely too high to be picked. At the center of the room is a Gelatinous Cube, which has the key to the door floating inside of it - of course, the PCs won't see the monster unless they pass a DC 15 Perception check. Depending on whether there's any more treasure in the cube, I may have to lower the DC based on circumstance.
- A long hallway, 10 feet or so in width. As the PCs reach the hall's center, a Spider Swarm crawls down from both ends and slowly closes around them.
- A room with skeletons littering the ground. Naturally, they get up and attack the PCs once they enter the vicinity. Nothing complicated here.
I'm still thinking of more, and I'm open to any ideas.
By the way, is it possible to make traps with a CR lower than 1? I've been going by the book so far, and from what I can see, 3 CR3 traps in one room would be pushing it, let alone more.
Lots of good stuff here.
If they opt for the breadcrumb trail (or string, or droplets of oil or chalk or candle wax or whatever) be sure to utilize the folly of such a device against them. There's a reason young adventurers don't often make it out alive. The minotaur is no fool. He's been around a while. He knows the maze and can hit and run against a party of heroes bumbling around in the dark. He can just as easily disrupt any trail they may leave behind, or alter it to lead them into traps they somehow avoided.I didn't even think about actually having the minotaur wander around in the maze. It would be pretty neat, and it'd take advantage of its inability to get lost. My only issue is that if by chance the party encounters it, they're going to have very little room to fight it in, and running away from it would be impossible, since it'd know the maze like the back of its hand.
So don't have it just wandering around, have it camped out near the entrance so it can follow stealthily along behind the PC's, closing doors and resetting traps.
So don't have it just wandering around, have it camped out near the entrance so it can follow stealthily along behind the PC's, closing doors and resetting traps.
Given the Minotaurs horrendous Stealth bonus coupled with his Large size, I wouldn't want to risk him being caught at the "wrong" time. I suppose trap maintenance would be a given though.
I don't know if you are familiar with 4e, but I would run this as a "Skill Challenge". Have the characters find their way (you don't even need to map this, it is more about description as they go) based off of skill checks, with set amounts of consecutive successes or something getting them to certain points.
So after 2 successes, they get to a room that is more unique...the fountain room or something...and then you can throw in whatever combat or special encounter you want. Then continue with description and skill checks.
After 2 more successes, maybe the next specific moment of the Maze you want to throw at them.
After the 3 or so encounters you have planned, and after a certain amount of successes, they get to the main room with the Minotaur.
If you do it this way, you can also give them bonuses or penalties for successes and failures. Like...if they nail 3 successes without any failures on skill checks, then they see the gelatinous cube coming. If they have more than 2 failures before they get enough successes to find that encounter, then they are surprised, or take a penalty to their perception to notice the gelatinous cube.
Successes could give surprise rounds or bonuses to initiative, while failures could cause them to wander into trapped rooms, take penalties to initiative, become fatigued, etc.
I think it would be a flavorful and fun way to do it, without complicating things for the players in terms of mapping or worrying them with finding their own way.
Right, it is VERY booring to send the PCs into a maze and then play out every twist and turn.
Instead describe to them that they obviously wandered into a confusing maze and let them roll appropiate skill checks to see how well they fare. Giving out bonuses to the roll if they think of something clever (marking, rope, going left...) is nice too. You can tie the skill checks to actual situations that you describe ("you are now at a T-junction like so many before but this time you hear a faint sound from somewhere and someone has scribbled an obscure sign on the wall to your left").
Then dot the maze with random encounters (Gel Cube, Wraith of a starved victim, Shriekers, green slime, the guardian wandering the maze,...) and throw these at the party.
If you want to go all out you can make a list of dependancies beforehand like "if the PCs encounter the shriekers then they have double chances to encounter anything else for two rolls afterwards".
:)
Simply have the minotaur be a statue (give him a Damage Reduction of 5 or something) and have him just sit there at the final room. He animates when the characters enter the room. The adventurers must defeat it in order to get the key.
(This way, you don't have to explain how the minotaur survives in here... He's just part of the maze.)
Ultradan
Right, it is VERY booring to send the PCs into a maze and then play out every twist and turn.
I mostly agree with this, but I think it pays dividends to play out the first few twists and turns. Just long enough for the players to realize, "Oh crap we're in a maze," or (even better), "Oh crap we're lost in a maze!"
Turn the maze into a chase and it loses the boredom factor.
DM: It's gaining on you. You can go left or right. What do you do?
Players: Uh...
DM: Quick! It's so close you can smell its awful breath!
Players: Left! No, right! Right!
... [after another turn]...
DM: Dead end!
The idea of using skill checks sounds pretty interesting, I suppose it would just be a matter of which skills need to be checked.
The way I figured, it could be a combination of:
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) - probably gonna take this one out, as it is a trained-only skill.
Survival
Perception
I'd allow any skill a PC can make a reasonable argument for, albeit some at higher DCs.
For instance, Knowledge(engineering) instead of Dungeoneering on the basis that a maze like this has to be built and planned out and mapped, and based on the dynamics of it and space requirements a character with Engineering background might be able to make some headway.
Also, you can put in certain scenarios to require different things your characters have.
As they go along, they could eventually make it to a dead end, but the top corner of the dead end has crumbled somewhat, and if they can make climb checks they can get to it and get through that way.
Or Escape Artist checks for a crack in a wall.
Perception is always good.
Survival is good.
Knowledge (Nature) maybe even with something about the moss or lichen growing in certain parts of the maze.
A downed portcullis with jammed gears may require a Disable Device check to get it working again....otherwise the characters are back into the heart of the maze to figure out another way.
Hastily chiseled directions on the wall in some dead language by a long ago adventurer is a go for Linguistics.
Swim checks could be used if you stick in some water obstacle.
Use Magic Devise to trigger some wicked old "magical fingerprint scanner style device" on a door even though you are not who it is meant for.
If you're creative, you could do those kind of things to mix it up with standard Dungeoneering, Survival, and Perception checks. A certain number of successes to the heart of the maze, while failures count towards triggering encounters or putting the group at a disadvantage for encounters you are going to have them do regardless.
I'd allow any skill a PC can make a reasonable argument for, albeit some at higher DCs.
For instance, Knowledge(engineering) instead of Dungeoneering on the basis that a maze like this has to be built and planned out and mapped, and based on the dynamics of it and space requirements a character with Engineering background might be able to make some headway.
Also, you can put in certain scenarios to require different things your characters have.
As they go along, they could eventually make it to a dead end, but the top corner of the dead end has crumbled somewhat, and if they can make climb checks they can get to it and get through that way.
Or Escape Artist checks for a crack in a wall.
Perception is always good.
Survival is good.
Knowledge (Nature) maybe even with something about the moss or lichen growing in certain parts of the maze.
A downed portcullis with jammed gears may require a Disable Device check to get it working again....otherwise the characters are back into the heart of the maze to figure out another way.
Hastily chiseled directions on the wall in some dead language by a long ago adventurer is a go for Linguistics.
Swim checks could be used if you stick in some water obstacle.
Use Magic Devise to trigger some wicked old "magical fingerprint scanner style device" on a door even though you are not who it is meant for.
If you're creative, you could do those kind of things to mix it up with standard Dungeoneering, Survival, and Perception checks. A certain number of successes to the heart of the maze, while failures count towards triggering encounters or putting the group at a disadvantage for encounters you are going to have them do regardless.
That's a load of amazing suggestions right there. I'm going to use as many of those kinds of things as possible, as it'd make things a whole lot easier (and make my party's Rogue feel more useful).
I want there to be more "mandatory" (in the loosest sense of the word) encounters for the PCs, so I'll probably shorten the length of the goblin-infested portion of the cavern, and put the bulk of the challenges in the magical labyrinth.
Well, I've been putting more work into the campaign, and I gotta say, there isn't any shortage of encounters. I suppose the inherent idea with a maze is that the PCs won't encounter everything in it.
Seeing as it is a labyrinth, I've been thinking about incorporating some puzzle elements into it to give it a bit more flavor.
The idea is new to me, and it isn't covered by any of the Core Rulebooks. Could anybody give me a general ideas of how a puzzle encounter would work, and what kind of EXP reward (or none) it should have?
You stand in a long hall, the walls are of worked stone that have weathered the years well, the ground worn by the passage of many people (a check to determine what kind of tracks: humanoid, goblin etc).
(Perception 10: You noticed several items of interest in this immediate area. You see a chalk marking upon the right wall, the shape of an arrow and what looks like someones initials. In the dust and soil on the ground you see what could best be described as drops of white wax as if burned from a candle and you see a length of twine tucked up against the left wall.)
((Detect magic will reveal the invisible arcane marking left by some wizard that traveled here))
As you travel and come to an intersection you see the twine turn down the left passage and the chalk marks turn to the right.
(Perception 10: The waxs travel down both directions, but there is more wax down the left path. It looks like whomever was using the candle went left and then doubled back over his path and traveled right.)
If left, you follow the twine for 20-50 feet and find a well decomposed human corpse, cut in half from some sort of wicked blade, most likely a trap. The rest of the twine rests by his skeletal hands. The wax pools in this area as if someone stood where you do now and gazed upon this sight before going back.
If right resume the rest of this dungeon...
Later on, have them across a massive dried blood stain sprayed across a wall with a broken piece of chalk on the ground.
To back up what the others have said...run the maze as a series of events, rather than an actual maze.
Have the players make some skill checks, and if certain conditions are met, they find their way to a "challenge", which can be a trap, an encounter, both, etc.
If they fail, perhaps they wander aimlessly for an hour before they happen upon the next challenge. Perhaps there is a time goal they need to beat?
Challenges (mentioned so far):
Goblins and their Pets
Minotaur animated statue
Spiders
Flipping Walls
Pit Traps
Mists
My $.02:
A long dark straight hallway. They walk, but the hallway never seems to end (There is a teleport style trap that snags everyone and teleports them back 100' endlessly). People with a very high Perception roll may notice the same group of pebbles on the ground, or perhaps Spellcraft can notice the effects of the teleport.
So the maze itself isn't important as the things in it. Think of the movie Labyrinth. They didn't show Sarah wandering for hours and hours. The scenes were all her encounters in the Labyrinth.
Alright, I've been making some great progress so far, interlinking a number of encounters using skill checks and obstacles. A few red herrings thrown in to keep them guessing.
I want to keep things interesting, but I'm trying not to use too many things from the Bestiary, so I decided to spin some things around by throwing in a few Yellow Musc Creepers, and a variety of zombie races.
Taking something from what Ultradan mentioned, is there a template that can be applied to monsters to make them animated statues? He mentioned a DR of 5 (bypassable by bludgeoning?), but I was wondering if any other mechanics should be thrown in.
Make the maze the size of the battle mat. I like to start mazes in a corner of the battle mat.
I like the idea of making lots of 15 by 15 or 20 by 20 rooms. 5 foot cooridors can be very limiting for battle positioning, but sometimes (SOMETIMES) this can be fun and exciting (like a gun battle I was in on a private jet that was 1 square by 8 with 3 unarmed PCs and 2 ARMED NPCS + NPC pilot in d20 Modern).
I would suggest having lots of little rooms that loop together, because that could lead to some dynamic fights as NPCs and PCs run away and toward each other. Just picture a bunch of little kids running around a house with 2 or 3 inter-connected loops of rooms. Fun and chaotic!
And lots of little dead ends where you don't expect them, or even better, locked gates, etc. that swarms can go thru, but PCs can't.
EDIT:
If you want to go the labor-intensive method, pre-generate to-scale rooms and hallways on card paper or cardboard and just place down each room on the tabletop when the PCs get there. You have to be pretty organized to do it, but it saves a lot of time in game play with drawing lots of little rooms. It just takes a ton of time during prep.
EDIT EDIT:
Just give them hardness 8 (the same as stone), 9 (bronze), or 10 (iron), or 5 (wood). Or check out the animated object monster entry.
Also, area effect Inflict Spells that also heal skeletal marauders!
Well, thanks for the help everyone. The campaign is this Wednesday, and I have to say, I still haven't actually designed the dungeon itself. I spent a little too much time designing interesting events, but not much with actually linking them together. I couldn't really figure out a way to put everything on paper.
So, the system I have in mind now feels like a cop-out, but it goes like this:
If you are familiar with the random treasure generator in the Core book, then this might be familiar. I'll have two or three tables, each of them assigned to a different Survival DC. Each encounter on those tables will have a percentage attached to it, with varying ranged depending on how difficult or important the event is. These ranges will be different on different tables (for example, on the DC 10 table might have the twine event as 47-49%, while the DC 20 table has it as 45-55%, etc).
So basically, the PCs make their Survival checks, I take the highest one and look at the corresponding table, and then roll the percentage die. The PCs then come across that encounter, and throw it at them. Once an encounter is completed, I cross it off the list and just reroll percentage if I land on it again. I then repeat the process until X number of encounters is completed, anywhere from 10 to 15, perhaps based on another skill check. Once they complete that number, they come upon the Minotaur/Treasury finale.
I kind of hate using this system, as it takes away from having the PCs use intuition to get through the labyrinth, but I do feel it simulates the almost complete loss of direction that occurs in such a situation.
Don't forget sounds and perhaps smells. The old Undermountain boxed set had random tables for these. What the players don't see can be quite enjoyable.
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Okay, I know a lot of people find mazes and labyrinths to be boring and they can be a real challenge. But I can give you a sure fire way to make it a hit.
No maps. No directions.
Mapping out the maze is time consuming and boring. It quickly leads to disinterest. Having the map already made on a big battlemap, just means someone will look at the map and find the path that leads straight to the goal. Also really boring.
I would advise using Skill Challenges as a way to get PCs into the feel of the maze.
Devise a Skill Challenge based upon those rules, possibly requiring 4-6 successes. Have a variety of encounters prepared and ready to go, and run an encounter for each time they fail the Skill Challenge. You describe the journey through the maze as narrative.
Think of it like a story or a movie. You NEVER see a movie or story follow the characters through EVERY twist and turn. It skips the long boring parts and only focuses on when something interesting happens.
You will only need a map for specific encounters. And, depending upon some of the encounters, you might not need a map even then.
As an example, watch the movie Labyrinth; a movie all about journeying through a maze. It also has a really great soundtrack :)
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Well, thanks for the help everyone. The campaign is this Wednesday, and I have to say, I still haven't actually designed the dungeon itself. I spent a little too much time designing interesting events, but not much with actually linking them together. I couldn't really figure out a way to put everything on paper.
So, the system I have in mind now feels like a cop-out, but it goes like this:
If you are familiar with the random treasure generator in the Core book, then this might be familiar. I'll have two or three tables, each of them assigned to a different Survival DC. Each encounter on those tables will have a percentage attached to it, with varying ranged depending on how difficult or important the event is. These ranges will be different on different tables (for example, on the DC 10 table might have the twine event as 47-49%, while the DC 20 table has it as 45-55%, etc).
So basically, the PCs make their Survival checks, I take the highest one and look at the corresponding table, and then roll the percentage die. The PCs then come across that encounter, and throw it at them. Once an encounter is completed, I cross it off the list and just reroll percentage if I land on it again. I then repeat the process until X number of encounters is completed, anywhere from 10 to 15, perhaps based on another skill check. Once they complete that number, they come upon the Minotaur/Treasury finale.
I kind of hate using this system, as it takes away from having the PCs use intuition to get through the labyrinth, but I do feel it simulates the almost complete loss of direction that occurs in such a situation.
Grab that PDF I linked earlier and check it out.
Make your encounters ties to the PCs failing their Skill Challenge. Then the PCs are "in control" of when and what encounters happen. Think of it as rewards for them doing well, and "punishment" for failing. Though honestly who can think of an encounter as punishment! lol
I am not a big fan of just random rolls determining outcomes. I like to tie it all in to skill uses or something the PCs do. I lets the PCs feel like they are in control of their destinies.
If the PCs are doing too well to start with, just increase the DC for the challenge to be sure they will get some failures and thus have some encounters.
Then just narrate some interesting description of the maze that leads to their encounter. Repeat until they get to the climactic end!
Promise it will work, and it can become an adventure that will long be remembered as a great time.
Anytime you make the PCs feel in control of their destinies, whether they are or not, players will love it!
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Well, thanks for the help everyone. The campaign is this Wednesday, and I have to say, I still haven't actually designed the dungeon itself. I spent a little too much time designing interesting events, but not much with actually linking them together. I couldn't really figure out a way to put everything on paper.
So, the system I have in mind now feels like a cop-out, but it goes like this:
If you are familiar with the random treasure generator in the Core book, then this might be familiar. I'll have two or three tables, each of them assigned to a different Survival DC. Each encounter on those tables will have a percentage attached to it, with varying ranged depending on how difficult or important the event is. These ranges will be different on different tables (for example, on the DC 10 table might have the twine event as 47-49%, while the DC 20 table has it as 45-55%, etc).
So basically, the PCs make their Survival checks, I take the highest one and look at the corresponding table, and then roll the percentage die. The PCs then come across that encounter, and throw it at them. Once an encounter is completed, I cross it off the list and just reroll percentage if I land on it again. I then repeat the process until X number of encounters is completed, anywhere from 10 to 15, perhaps based on another skill check. Once they complete that number, they come upon the Minotaur/Treasury finale.
I kind of hate using this system, as it takes away from having the PCs use intuition to get through the labyrinth, but I do feel it simulates the almost complete loss of direction that occurs in such a situation.
Grab that PDF I linked earlier and check it out.
Make your encounters ties to the PCs failing their Skill Challenge. Then the PCs are "in control" of when and what encounters happen. Think of it as rewards for them doing well, and "punishment" for failing. Though honestly who can think of an encounter as punishment! lol
I am not a big fan of just random rolls determining outcomes. I like to tie it all in to skill uses or something the PCs do. I lets the PCs feel like they are in control of their destinies.
If the PCs are doing too well to start with, just increase the DC for the challenge to be sure they will get some failures and thus have some encounters.
Then just narrate some interesting description of the maze that leads to their encounter. Repeat until they get to the climactic end!
Promise it will work, and it can become an adventure that will long be remembered as a great time.
Anytime you make the PCs feel in control of their destinies, whether they are or not, players will love it!
One common player strategy is to "follow the left (or right) wall". Keep that in mind when planning your encounters.
If you go the skill challenge route, as planned, you might want to have two lists of encounters. The first is what they find if they are "on course" and not lost. The second list is what they encounter when they blow an encounter or roll, or flee something and get lost.
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I had great fun years ago designing a dungeon level with 20 random teleport doors. The players figured out what was going on when they opened a door and tossed a coin through the open door. Then they closed the door and opened it again and saw that the coin was gone and the other side of the door was different. The wandering monsters on that level were nasty. They were irritable and hungry!
If TL;DR, skip to the last sentence :P
Thanks again for the help everybody! I went through the campaign last Wednesday, and for the most part, it turned out great. My group is a lighthearted bunch of oafs, so we don't take roleplaying too seriously. They ended up lighting the twine trail on fire before following it - sometimes I think they do these things just to annoy me.
I ended up going with the "random" encounter path, throwing a number of challenges at them depending on how well they rolled their Survival checks. Some of the challenges were a tad too easy, and they leveled up in such a way that I had to buff the final boss to stop from getting killed by a critical hit from our druid's scimitar (he got a bunch of legit natural 20s that day!).
I ended the adventure with the treasure room, which contained perhaps too much raw gold and platinum, as well as one final dilemma. There were three great treasures in the room (for their level): an adamantine battleaxe, an amulet of natural armor +1, and a chain shirt of shadow. The catch was that one of them had to be left behind, lest every door in the labyrinth slammed shut until they put it back. They tried to find a loophole by pulling an Indiana Jones trick or two, but in the end, they left the chain shirt behind (I think our Rogue failed to realize the significance of it!).
In conclusion, it turned out better than I expected. For some reason the way they handled the exploit reminded me of 8-Bit Theater, if you know what I mean. I'll be GMing one more time before swapping places with the druid.
So that brings me to one last question: would it be a good idea to use a campaign to introduce the character I'll use in the next GM's campaign? As in, he'd be an NPC that the PCs come across. I figure that I'd be in control of him either way, so it works out in theend.
Um excuse me I feel a bit insulted, explain to me how I am an oaf the rest ok but me? lol And we weren't trying to annoy you (ok maybe the randomness at the start in town was but that was all in fun) from the very first day I have treated my character as a pyromaniac so lighting the twine was to keep with that personality trait. The dice gods were on my side that day. Remember our Rouge is more of a Ranger so she wouldn't care about the chain shirt. I already have an how I am gonna incorporate you into the party, it will be somewhat like how our Rouge joined us.
To all who mentioned things that were common player thought patterns they don't really apply to our group, we are random to the point that up until one point we would just make movements in circles after making realizations about the dungeon, hell we even tried to split up (Well I tried to split up)
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We didn't bully him we just told him to pay or we will withhold vital information.
Um excuse me I feel a bit insulted, explain to me how I am an oaf the rest ok but me? lol And we weren't trying to annoy you (ok maybe the randomness at the start in town was but that was all in fun) from the very first day I have treated my character as a pyromaniac so lighting the twine was to keep with that personality trait. The dice gods were on my side that day. Remember our Rouge is more of a Ranger so she wouldn't care about the chain shirt. I already have an how I am gonna incorporate you into the party, it will be somewhat like how our Rouge joined us.
To all who mentioned things that were common player thought patterns they don't really apply to our group, we are random to the point that up until one point we would just make movements in circles after making realizations about the dungeon, hell we even tried to split up (Well I tried to split up)
//edit
We didn't bully him we just told him to pay or we will withhold vital information.
I figured you would pop up eventually, lol. You weren't so much the problem or an oaf - I realize you were roleplaying your character, but everybody else just sorta went along with it, regardless of their alignment. It just struck me as a little odd that nobody would question it, especially since everybody had above-average INT/WIS scores for the most part.
And you're right about the "common player thought patterns." For some reason I figured that the group would have found some way to get through. Honestly, with your mad high Survival checks, I think you would have been able to get through the whole thing with just your tiger. Well. Except maybe the Minotaur.
The minotaur would have raped me alone, the yellow musk creeper may have also posed a threat. Our Barbarian is also NE so him going with it would make some sense but your right the other two going with me didn't make sense but that was probably just because they could, especially our fighter who seems to always go with me and our barbarian's crazyness.
Mazes can be a bugger (and are on the uncommon side in canned adventures for a reason), but one trick is to print multiple copies of just the 'maze' area and bring some crayons and a timer.
You can let the party nominate a 'maze solver' or you can rotate the job around the table, give them a crayon, mark the start location with a little star and keep the maze face down until the timer is started. Start the timer and flip the sheet.
If there is a keyed encounter stop and run the encounter when they reach that section of the maze (take the maze copy back while you are running the scene). Or if they haven't solved the maze in the timer limit, through a planned wandering encounter at them from you list (or some other hazard at them). Once the encounter is over, mark a clean maze copy with a start star at the endpoint of their last interruption (using a new crayon color in case you get lost on the order) and repeat the procedure.
I generally give 10 to 15 seconds on the timer per interval and it's usually worth a laugh (especially if you have keyed encounters in the maze and have to look over the players shoulder to see their progress...distracting them with sound effects and other commentary). Keeps the game flowing and somewhat interesting instead of the boring methodical graph method or the mechanical 'keep rolling until we're out' means of using a maze.