Topic: secret doors

From Zak's Grinding Gear review:

In fact, if there is a major mechanical "bump" in this adventure it's that DMs will need to know exactly how they want to adjudicate the "find secret doors" rules for whatever system they're using before they run The Grinding Gear.

. . .

Before publishing this review, I sent Raggi an e-mail asking how he ran it, here's his response:

I absolutely allow re-tries. Each search takes one turn. I thought that
was the D&D standard... But with all the different editions and clones
that all change minor details, it very well may not be standard...

I recommend that--in addition to the other very helpful introductory notes on rules to pay particular attention to when running The Grinding Gear--Raggi includes something like that passage if TGG is ever printed again.

I wanted to chime in with my agreement on this point, for The Grinding Gear and also for other publications.

As documented in the Death Frost Doom Experiences thread, I struggled with adjudicating the secret door in the High Priest's Temple. The characters suspected a secret door was present, rolled to find it, and failed. We've been using Moldvay Basic as the rules foundation for the campaign, and reference to page B21 provided: "Each character has only one chance to find each secret door." I readily made it an interactive challenge after that, but I hit a mental block and couldn't think of a mechanism for the secret door. Thankfully the player came up with a good idea on his own and I went with that.

As a result, when I first opened The Grinding Gear and looked at the dungeon map, I saw all those secret doors and thought, "Oh hell, I hope Jim describes how those work."

Stating in the module that the dungeon has been designed with the assumption of allowing re-tries to find secret doors would help some. However, if that requires a mysterious change in the rules of a given campaign, it may be an unwanted signal to the players that important secret doors lie ahead.

I would suggest a better solution would be to specify a default mechanism for secret doors in the module. Or, a small table of random secret door mechanisms. Having the nature of the secret door provided allows it to work in both campaigns that do and don't allow re-tries, and also campaigns that omit rolling for secret doors at all in favor of interactive exploration.

Re: secret doors

giantbat wrote:

As documented in the Death Frost Doom Experiences thread, I struggled with adjudicating the secret door in the High Priest's Temple. The characters suspected a secret door was present, rolled to find it, and failed. We've been using Moldvay Basic as the rules foundation for the campaign, and reference to page B21 provided: "Each character has only one chance to find each secret door." I readily made it an interactive challenge after that, but I hit a mental block and couldn't think of a mechanism for the secret door. Thankfully the player came up with a good idea on his own and I went with that.

See, I started with Mentzer and then moved on to AD&D, and neither has language like that. I can honestly say it had never occurred to me that anyone would use a "one chance only" rule to find secret doors. In fact, with probabilities, to me that sounds like most secret doors won't be found, period, if characters only get one chance. That's... really messed up. It's hard to believe that there was a two-year period in history when four rooms in B1 weren't really meant to be found except on some off chance.

Checking the various rulebooks now, it seems that only Moldvay (and Labyrinth Lord... *sigh*) have this language. OD&D, S&W, 1e, OSRIC, Mentzer, and Holmes do not say anything about getting only one try, just that an attempt takes one turn.

I just assume, lacking any specific information on a particular door, that it's of the "find the hidden catch/press or twist a certain stone and the door opens" generic variety. The classic module are full of "generic" secret doors like this.

Re: secret doors

This has bothered me all morning.

I'll just go ahead and say that I think my entire style of gaming would be unplayable with "one chance per character only" secret doors.

That Grinding Gear has necessary secret doors was a function of several things coming together, with the guy intentionally setting up a dungeon to screw with adventurers. They are there specifically as a time sink, not as things which are not meant to be found.

Death Frost Doom's secret doors are another trick - remember one is given away by the painting in the cabin so it should be easy to find. But quite costly to open... the ungimmicked secret door in that room was originally not going to be there at all, but requiring the sacrifice of someone in the party would have just been too cruel.

Insect Shrine has no *necessary* secret doors, but there is one point where saying "nope, can't search anymore, you blew it" would make the party look like friggin morons.

Old Miner's Shame has but one secret door, but it has a fully described mechanism, and my players found the trigger to open the door before they found the door itself.

I'm not sure which project will be next after those, but the way I use secret doors, not being able to find them will result in missing out on a good deal of treasure or missing strategic opportunities where not finding the secret door means blundering head-on into something best not blundered head on into.

(I love that sentence. tongue)

Re: secret doors

All of my D&D experiences were of the 'one try is all you get variety'.

As a player I assumed that what lay behind a secret door was 'optional'; later, as a GM I realised that some adventures relied on someone finding one or more secret doors but the rules made that difficult. Eventually I decided 'if they look in the right spot and spend a turn, they find it'.

I like the try and try again approach but I'd need to re-educate my players.

It's not the years, it's the mileage.