Ideas that give boners to GMs

[phlapjackage]

Nope, I'm with hogarth, rolling dice and then entering rooms is not a maze, and pretty much eliminates what few possible good things could come from a maze.

I mean, if you oversimplify it to the extreme of "roll dice, enter room" then it sounds bad. So does "roll dice, die" or "roll dice, kill dragon" or "roll dice, open door" or whatever.

Instead, it should be something like "roll dice, and your result determines what room you encounter in the maze. Better rolls get your further and further into the maze, and bad rolls get you lost and possibly backtracking, and each room is it's own mini-adventure, and..."

Sure, you could possibly think of a better way to run a maze, and I'd love to hear the ideas, but on the surface the roll-enter mechanic seems pretty solid.

[hyzmarca]

Nope, I'm with hogarth, rolling dice and then entering rooms is not a maze, and pretty much eliminates what few possible good things could come from a maze.

I mean, if you oversimplify it to the extreme of "roll dice, enter room" then it sounds bad. So does "roll dice, die" or "roll dice, kill dragon" or "roll dice, open door" or whatever.

Instead, it should be something like "roll dice, and your result determines what room you encounter in the maze. Better rolls get your further and further into the maze, and bad rolls get you lost and possibly backtracking, and each room is it's own mini-adventure, and..."

Sure, you could possibly think of a better way to run a maze, and I'd love to hear the ideas, but on the surface the roll-enter mechanic seems pretty solid.

The basic way to run a maze is to make an actual fucking maze, and have the players decide which room they go into. That is, in fact, the entire basis of the dungeon crawl. The expectation is that the players will map the area as they go through it, and that more complex dungeons will be maze-like.

[Kaelik]

Again, that's not a maze. Like, look. If your decisions literally don't decide where you character walks, then there is literally no difference between a maze any other series of rooms. They could just be a line, it wouldn't matter. Because your decisions don't matter.

Now, sure lots of mazes your decisions also don't matter, which is why lots of mazes suck too, but the one actual advantage of a maze as opposed to anything else is that the decisions of the players allow them to work out or bypass the maze.

[phlapjackage]

The basic way to run a maze is to make an actual fucking maze, and have the players decide which room they go into. That is, in fact, the entire basis of the dungeon crawl. The expectation is that the players will map the area as they go through it, and that more complex dungeons will be maze-like.

If you make an actual maze, I think you're going to try to find a way to make it more interesting and playable than "turn left or right? now, turn left or right? now, turn left or right or straight?" over and over and over and over...

I agree that a dungeon crawl should be more interactive for the explorers and they should be mapping and so on (I always imagine an infocom game like zork, here), but I think there is a difference between a dungeon-crawl and a maze-crawl, however similar a dungeon might be to a maze...

*edit*

Again, that's not a maze. Like, look. If your decisions literally don't decide where you character walks, then there is literally no difference between a maze any other series of rooms. They could just be a line, it wouldn't matter. Because your decisions don't matter.

Now, sure lots of mazes your decisions also don't matter, which is why lots of mazes suck too, but the one actual advantage of a maze as opposed to anything else is that the decisions of the players allow them to work out or bypass the maze.

I'm definitely not advocating for not allowing PCs a creative way to bypass the maze (or certain portions of it). If they can fly over it or destroy walls or see through walls or whatever, that's great. If they can't do these things or don't think of them or whatever, they gotta go through the maze somehow, and it should be semi-interesting and based on their decisions, and I see the "player decisions" part of the roll-enter thing as the choices they made to bring paint/chalk and take Knowledge(Architecture).

Now I'll agree that this maze-roll-enter thing probably isn't the best way to run a maze, but I think it works well with minimum fuss (rolls) and still allows some player agency (choices they made about items/skills) and so on.

maze maze maze maze maze

[hyzmarca]

The basic way to run a maze is to make an actual fucking maze, and have the players decide which room they go into. That is, in fact, the entire basis of the dungeon crawl. The expectation is that the players will map the area as they go through it, and that more complex dungeons will be maze-like.

If you make an actual maze, I think you're going to try to find a way to make it more interesting and playable than "turn left or right? now, turn left or right? now, turn left or right or straight?" over and over and over and over...

I agree that a dungeon crawl should be more interactive for the explorers and they should be mapping and so on (I always imagine an infocom game like zork, here), but I think there is a difference between a dungeon-crawl and a maze-crawl, however similar a dungeon might be to a maze...

The entire point of a maze is to test the player's mapping ability and spacial reasoning. That's literally the entire reason that mazes exist as a game.

[phlapjackage]

The entire point of a maze is to test the player's mapping ability and spacial reasoning. That's literally the entire reason that mazes exist as a game.

Yeah....I don't think that's true

[OgreBattle]

It makes playing late 80's early 90's Wizardry n Wizardry influenced games like Shining in the Darkness dang confusing when you have to navigate this:



Wit only this as your perspective:



But there is a certain appeal to having a designated mapper and filling in a grid one at a time. I'm also fine with games where a maze is a kind of terrain hazard in a zone you roll some skill against to bypass or get stuck in.

[hogarth]

The PCs were secretly the villains all along. The game was deliberately set up to obscure the actual morality of the situation by invoking game tropes that the players would accept unquestioningly.


The PCs were secretly the villains that they were fighting against all along, because of Total Recall style memory gambits. Quaid is Hauser.

Oooh...good ones. And there's the simpler: "The PCs were doing the villain's dirty work and they didn't even know it!"

--

On an unrelated note, there's:

* The PCs think they know where they are and where they're going, but secretly they're lost -- and getting loster!

[momothefiddler]

The PCs were secretly the villains all along. The game was deliberately set up to obscure the actual morality of the situation by invoking game tropes that the players would accept unquestioningly.

Invoking tropes and then using them as a gotcha in general is also relevant (and is a level of condescension that pisses me off, probably to an irrational extent).

[hyzmarca]

The entire point of a maze is to test the player's mapping ability and spacial reasoning. That's literally the entire reason that mazes exist as a game.

Yeah....I don't think that's true

Well, mazes also exist for religious meditation, but that's why I specifically used the caveat "as a game."

[Neurosis]

I realize y'all have been arguing for mazes for about a page, but I GOTSA put "let he who is without boners cast the first stone" in my sig. GOTSA.

[Kaelik]

Schwarzkopf, as a frequently banned poster from gitp, I certainly don't mean this as an insult, but where you recently banned from another forum? Because I feel like you are posting way more often than you used to. Not that I want you to stop, just wondering.

[Neurosis]

No, I've just given myself the month of August post Gen-Con off from work (my work is to write RPGs, which makes me a lucky fucker) and I have a lot of free time.

I was banned from RPG.net (at this point I feel like MOST people have been permanently banned from there, from ZakS to Frank, because they're Big Purple Fascists) but it was last year and that actually coincided with me posting LESS on the Den.

[rasmuswagner]

I was banned from RPG.net (at this point I feel like MOST people have been permanently banned from there, from ZakS to Frank, because they're Big Purple Fascists)

Perma-banned AND banned from opening new accounts, ditto paizo.com, both places for pointing out objectively shitty design by specific individuals in the industry. I regret nothing, and I don't even care enough to IP spoof a new account.

I gotta say, PurpleHive at least (used to) moderate shitty passive-aggressive behaviour and allow you to call it out when you saw it, whereas paizo.com is robotic no-harsh-words hugbox bullshit.

[Kaelik]

I was banned from RPG.net (at this point I feel like MOST people have been permanently banned from there, from ZakS to Frank, because they're Big Purple Fascists)

Perma-banned AND banned from opening new accounts, ditto paizo.com, both places for pointing out objectively shitty design by specific individuals in the industry. I regret nothing, and I don't even care enough to IP spoof a new account.

I gotta say, PurpleHive at least (used to) moderate shitty passive-aggressive behaviour and allow you to call it out when you saw it, whereas paizo.com is robotic no-harsh-words hugbox bullshit.

So you mean, when people repeatedly passive aggressively imply that I'm a troll, I wouldn't get banned for pointing out that they are breaking the rules (like you do on gitp)?

[Dogbert]

Real-life puzzles, because the neckbeard has a larger-than-life inferiority complex and wanks to making the player of the INT 30 wizard feel like an idiot. Bonus points if the neckbeard has no game design skills whatsoever and you can only solve it by reading his mind.

[hyzmarca]

Cursed weapons. Particularly cursed weapons that have illusions that make you think they're giving you awesome bonuses. So the GM lies to the player about his actual stats and fudges all the rolls.


Also, cursed weapons that do give you awesome bonuses, but are highly addictive. Like the +2 longsword of cocaine.

[PhoneLobster]

A lot of this list is really just about GMs lacking restraint about being too much of a Dick.

I mean Cursed weapon? Fine. It has a mechanic on to make it so the player character just doesn't drop it after 1 roll because it alters their perceptions or dominates their behaviour in some way? Fine. It does the same to every character without save or awareness roll or whatever just to be a big fuck you no the rest of the party can't just bop him on the head after combat and cast Remove Curse? Nope, you've almost certainly just gone to far and crossed the Dick GM line.

Throwing the PCs in prison? Campaign start? Fine. Spontaneous "soft defeat" state after an unplanned TPK? Fine. What it was an unavoidable scripted part of the campaign start but you instead faked them out with wasted work on gear and shit for a "false" and wasted hours or sessions before inevitable capture and the bait and switch to the real campaign start? Dick move. The TPK the "soft defeat" is a response to was actually a rigged intended TPK that was hard or impossible to avoid? Dick move. You do the soft defeat thing but then fuck the PCs over by never giving their gear or equivalent value back? Dick move. You actually pulled the whole thing JUST to take their gear away forever because you think they're just too powerful if they have a +1 dagger in the group? Super dick move.

And so on.

Like so much bad GMing stuff the take away is always "Don't be a dick" or even "Ok fine, be a dick for a bit, but at least at some fucking point STOP being a dick".

[Dogbert]

Bait and Switch... because fuck players' trust, right?

[hogarth]

Like so much bad GMing stuff the take away is always "Don't be a dick" or even "Ok fine, be a dick for a bit, but at least at some fucking point STOP being a dick".

It's not even necessarily about being a dick, although a dick with a boner can lead to a very uncomfortable situation, believe me.

I think the main issue is that not every plot twist or gimmick that works well in a movie or a video game will work well in a tabletop RPG. Or even if you find some high-concept idea that makes for a fun tabletop RPG encounter, that doesn't mean that using it ten times as often makes it ten times as much fun.

[phlapjackage]

The entire point of a maze is to test the player's mapping ability and spacial reasoning. That's literally the entire reason that mazes exist as a game.

Yeah....I don't think that's true

Well, mazes also exist for religious meditation, but that's why I specifically used the caveat "as a game."

Hope I'm not beating a dead maze here, but your initial post here seemed so...wrong...to me, I had trouble formulating a good response or reason why it felt like a wrong turn. Your subsequent post clarifying "as a game" helped me backtrack and realize what was bothering me so that I could move towards the center.

I think you're right, that a maze MOSTLY exists to test a player's mapping ability etc in a CRPG or CRPG-like (Zelda?). But no way does a traditional pen-n-paper RPG get away with running a maze like a CRPG. The computer game can get away with constantly forcing the player to choose left/right/straight/back, can get away with using visual and auditory clues to help the player figure out the correct way through or any tricks being played on the player. The player is moving one "direction unit", noting on a piece of paper the result, then repeating.

Asking pNp players to map a maze that same way? No way. I mean, you CAN run it that way, but it seems like that would be hella boring. I think that mazes are definitely a well-established fantasy trope, so yes you could want to include them in your adventure, and you would want to make them interesting, and so the roll-enter thing seems like an acceptable (even good?) way to handle things.

[Ice9]

I have to agree - I've never seen extensive graph-paper mapping actually be fun at the table. It's a lot of fun in the GM's head, when they're drawing out the dungeon to begin with, but at the table it's a whole lot of ...

DM: "Left or right?"
Players: *rolls die* "Uh, left."
DM: "There's a long vaulted hallway, the resting place of the eternal legion! A green ..."
Mapper: "Hold on, how long and wide of a hallway?"
DM: "15 feet wide, 140 feet long before it turns the corner."
Mapper: "Wait, 140' on the long or short side? And how wide is the corner turn."
DM: "On the uh ..." *counts* "On the long side."
Mapper: "And does it stay the same width when turning?"
DM: "No, it does a little, er ... let me see the map ..."
DM: *looks at map* "No, the wall goes in a little here, see?" *corrects it*
Mapper: "Oh, ok," *finishes drawing room* "Right, um, so what's here then?"
DM: ...
DM: "I don't even remember."

Also, choices you make without any information, which could just as easily be made by a die roll, are not good gameplay. Following the left hand rule is not good gameplay either. Most direct maze-solving is filler that could be accomplished by a simple computer program, and not worth spending a bunch of real-time on.

[erik]

Scarred Lands Relics and Rituals had a spell, dolomar's Magic mapping or something. Basically an unseen servant that maps for you. I heartily recommend it. I had my illusionist cartographer create that spell back in the day.

[Starmaker]

Give your players an unmarked map of the maze with details (secret doors, renovations) left out.

[Username17]

I've seen a lot of people have fun mapping their progress on graph paper. Like when I was in junior high and again when my sister's friends were in junior high. I think there's something about that which appeals to people in their early teens. It lets someone be "helping" in a tangible way and keeps people busy and focused.

-Username17