The easiest way to fight Nirrum is appetite suppressants
The easiest way to fight me, on the other hand, is with a punch or two
I've talked a bit about the mutability of the world, how by definition, things can be changed if they have been made. Some settings get around this by saying that the knowledge is lost or that a god has hard banned the most powerful of magic which is needed to undo the curse found in your average "unforgettable hat". Personally I like to take a different approach if I don't want something broken.
The Dungeon has Green Serpentine (Of course) Walls, with snakes in relief. The walls seem to smell of blood, or copper but none is present. The walls are nearly a meter thick at least. (but not indestructible if someone takes a pick to it, go to 20 if they escape). The walls feel glassy in all places where the carving has been finished, though occasional imperfections in the material will create a void or a small rough spot
Notice the bold text, which indicates the intent. This part is not described to the players, and when I ran it, they almost noticed anyway. Almost. This is a pretty typical misdirection. One of these two aspects of the dungeon is disproportionately reinforced and it's the one that is in the way the most. Players tend to assume that the door, which is an experience of egress, is the weakest aspect of the dungeon's construction. You can still get around it after all. The door's strength is indicative of the effort put into the least permanent, the most targettable and thinnest point in the wall. The walls are oft seen as immutable in their own right, Surely if the door is that reinforced, the walls must be doubly so.
Ma, Mishliatab ra kao'u. Eh, One could think that.
Building up expectations of how the world works and then the subsequent subversion of those expectations is comedy, it creates and releases tension. Not releasing those tensions obviously makes them build up. Your choices, Drama and Comedy, are a win-win narratively. These walls are obviously an expectation. The expectation is that it's faster to go around, that the walls are harder than the way forward. For those that have experienced a dungeon, a level, or a setting for too long can tell you, there's often a better, quicker way in retrospect. I talked about rewarding exploration before, and this is an extension of that, you can now reward players for their choices by allowing those choices to matter. Tunneling through a wall in the middle of a siege has its own issues and challenges, but don't be afraid to experience "your" puzzle being defeated by 6 munchkins with a cart. The degree of importance of any given challenge will come with rather telegraphed defences for the most part. Thick walls, sentry patrols. Just about everything that they'll come up with has been tried historically. A quick google search of what was done to defeat a tactic will give you plenty of results.
As mentioned in my post on Random Dungeons, Tedium is your only real enemy as a dungeon master, and We should keep that in mind as we continue.
Misdirection
Consider this quote from the temple of the world spirit
The dungeon has black doors inlayed with gold filligree in the shape of a poem in abyssal, describing how the world-speaker should stay out of the way of the yuan-ti. The words are charged with magic that prevent the door from being damaged while it is in the feywild. The doors are large and their frames are hexagonal. They have no hinges but a handle on one side allows the door to be opened by rolling it sideways. Opening doors requires an action with a DC 11 Strength(Athletics) check. The doors are well-balanced but are mechanically Driven to close. Keeping them open for more than one round causes the DC to increase by 5 for every round that passes up to a maximum of 30, If the door is held open past this point, it breaks and remains open. Undoing the Door's Magic requires two checks, a DC23 arcana check to learn how to pause the magic and a DC15 Sleight of Hand to scratch the appropriate lines. The doors feel glassy with obvious changes in texture where the writing is.
Pretty sturdy overall. The walls however, have this description
The dungeon has black doors inlayed with gold filligree in the shape of a poem in abyssal, describing how the world-speaker should stay out of the way of the yuan-ti. The words are charged with magic that prevent the door from being damaged while it is in the feywild. The doors are large and their frames are hexagonal. They have no hinges but a handle on one side allows the door to be opened by rolling it sideways. Opening doors requires an action with a DC 11 Strength(Athletics) check. The doors are well-balanced but are mechanically Driven to close. Keeping them open for more than one round causes the DC to increase by 5 for every round that passes up to a maximum of 30, If the door is held open past this point, it breaks and remains open. Undoing the Door's Magic requires two checks, a DC23 arcana check to learn how to pause the magic and a DC15 Sleight of Hand to scratch the appropriate lines. The doors feel glassy with obvious changes in texture where the writing is.
Pretty sturdy overall. The walls however, have this description
The Dungeon has Green Serpentine (Of course) Walls, with snakes in relief. The walls seem to smell of blood, or copper but none is present. The walls are nearly a meter thick at least. (but not indestructible if someone takes a pick to it, go to 20 if they escape). The walls feel glassy in all places where the carving has been finished, though occasional imperfections in the material will create a void or a small rough spot
Notice the bold text, which indicates the intent. This part is not described to the players, and when I ran it, they almost noticed anyway. Almost. This is a pretty typical misdirection. One of these two aspects of the dungeon is disproportionately reinforced and it's the one that is in the way the most. Players tend to assume that the door, which is an experience of egress, is the weakest aspect of the dungeon's construction. You can still get around it after all. The door's strength is indicative of the effort put into the least permanent, the most targettable and thinnest point in the wall. The walls are oft seen as immutable in their own right, Surely if the door is that reinforced, the walls must be doubly so.
Ma, Mishliatab ra kao'u. Eh, One could think that.
Building up expectations of how the world works and then the subsequent subversion of those expectations is comedy, it creates and releases tension. Not releasing those tensions obviously makes them build up. Your choices, Drama and Comedy, are a win-win narratively. These walls are obviously an expectation. The expectation is that it's faster to go around, that the walls are harder than the way forward. For those that have experienced a dungeon, a level, or a setting for too long can tell you, there's often a better, quicker way in retrospect. I talked about rewarding exploration before, and this is an extension of that, you can now reward players for their choices by allowing those choices to matter. Tunneling through a wall in the middle of a siege has its own issues and challenges, but don't be afraid to experience "your" puzzle being defeated by 6 munchkins with a cart. The degree of importance of any given challenge will come with rather telegraphed defences for the most part. Thick walls, sentry patrols. Just about everything that they'll come up with has been tried historically. A quick google search of what was done to defeat a tactic will give you plenty of results.
As mentioned in my post on Random Dungeons, Tedium is your only real enemy as a dungeon master, and We should keep that in mind as we continue.
Obfuscation.
Many dungeon masters have made good use of obfuscating an easy path to increase drama. Six guards wait outside the door, each armed, wary and attentive. Their armor is thick and they are disciplined. Upon witnessing a disturbance, one guard knocks on a small grated window and shortly thereafter, a patrol of five comes out to deal with the disturbance. Six hours of throwing rocks and conscripting and fighting locals, the bard finally decides "Excuse me, could we go in?" would be a good way to attempt ingress. If they haven't made an enemy of the guards by now, the answer might likely be "yes, just sign in at the guardhouse and leave your weapons there, you'll have to register if you're a caster, security reasons and all that." Bonus points for a cheeky "it's been a rough night out, best watch yourselves"
Twelve standing stones, each with a different symbol begin to glow as you approach. A mountain-sized monster glares your way as head toward it, following your movement closely. You stand in a room, and upon the wall is the word "overthinking" (NSFW link, by the way, very entertaining though). All of these things are methods of obfuscation without slowing the player down, because until they get in operating range, nothing is going to happen. Compare this to the hypercube dungeon, or worse, the new monster that is a penteract dungeon in which the obfuscating factors are hard set and more of an impediment, slowing the players down and removing their flow. The first group represents a far more easily digested circumstance while the latter two are Dick moves.
Twelve standing stones, each with a different symbol begin to glow as you approach. A mountain-sized monster glares your way as head toward it, following your movement closely. You stand in a room, and upon the wall is the word "overthinking" (NSFW link, by the way, very entertaining though). All of these things are methods of obfuscation without slowing the player down, because until they get in operating range, nothing is going to happen. Compare this to the hypercube dungeon, or worse, the new monster that is a penteract dungeon in which the obfuscating factors are hard set and more of an impediment, slowing the players down and removing their flow. The first group represents a far more easily digested circumstance while the latter two are Dick moves.
The Fear of God
Your players might catch on to a lot of these and begin to breeze through them, let it happen a couple of times before manifesting what should have been their fears rather directly. It makes for great drama and is a sustainable power-release gambit, in that your players will always get complacent given the chance. Have that giant throw a rock, have those standing stones zap them into the plane of suck.
N'hikao, hialo
-Nirrum
N'hikao, hialo
-Nirrum
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