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| What lies beneath? |
Last night, I set up a quick Easter egg hunt for the kids. It was simple: a card on the kitchen table with a couple of mini-eggs and a slightly cryptic note about where the next treasures could be found. And so on. So they went scurrying from room to room, looking in bookshelves and behind masks, out to the garden and back in again. Despite the simplicity of the exercise, they really enjoyed it, with the younger proudly boasting about the clues she'd worked out.
One set of treasures was concealed beneath the "antelope statue", which my daughter immediately recognised as the scenic gaming item we made from one of my son's old toys (above). This was on the table about a foot away from the first note, and there was a weird satisfaction in the doubling back.
This got me thinking about dungeon design. One of the problems I have with classic adventure modules is that they typically have hidden treasures and secrets that most parties will never find.
These features presumably stem from a time when inch-by-inch investigation was a norm, and where checking for traps and the application of ten-foot poles were standard.
But most players I run games for don't act like that. They'll happily ransack sleeping quarters, store-rooms and book-cases, but they won't go around twisting the left horns of statues or tugging on torch brackets.
That's probably as it should be: sessions would crawl along at a tedious pace if the PCs were looking for secret doors at every turn. And there's much more realism in players assuming that the world conveyed to them by floorplans or GM description is largely as it seems.
At the same time, treasures and hidden doors that give themselves away are a bit silly: what's the point of them if any passer-by can spot the cracks in the stonework?
But, as this morning's egg hunt demonstrated, hidden treasures are exciting if their discovery feels earned. And that's especially true if you're recontextualising something that you've already encountered. That huge bronze statue in the hexagonal room on the first level of the dungeon? Down here on the third level, you've just learned that twisting the left horn opens a secret cache in the torso. Back we go!
How might such information be discovered? Well, here are a few ideas.
1. "Let me live, and I'll tell you a secret ..."
A dungeon's denizens will doubtless know some of its secrets. And what better way for the last hobgoblin guard to secure his wretched life than by bargaining some of the information to which he is privy?
2. Carved in stone
Murals and reliefs deeper in the dungeon can contain revelations about areas the party has already passed through. Perhaps that brazen antelope was used for horrifying Moloch-style sacrifices. If so, a relief carving might show hideous beastmen opening it by tugging on its horns and imprisoning victims within. That tells the players that the statue opens, and it shows them how it's done. But it doesn't tell them what's inside it. Their curiosity should be piqued.
3. Book learning
Sorcerers' libraries are great resources, particularly if you have a random table to generate their contents. But for especially useful information, it might be better to have a single book (open on a desk, perhaps) that describes or illustrates areas with which the players are familiar. Or perhaps a map, showing the rooms they have passed through and some secret chambers they have missed: "That door must be behind the carvings with the griffins!"
4. Tavern gossip
If the dungeon has a market or tavern - and no self-respecting underworld should be without a Mos Eisley-style speakeasy - then the PCs may overhear all sorts of useful tibits: "That fancy warrior we roasted in the goat? He had all sorts of shiny weapons, but they burned us when we touched them, so we melted them down with him."
"They didn't melt, Gruznok. I looked yesterday. Still shining in the ash and bones."
5. Threats and menaces
A villain or NPC might threaten the players with imprisonment in some secret vault or oubliette. "I'll tell you where the last sneakthief ended up - under the Jade Giant's foot. There's no getting out from the pit under that - but there are things that can get in."
Once the villain's dispatched, the PCs are likely to revisit the Hall of the Jade Giant. Of course, if the villain is merely subdued, he might offer up some additional information, as in 1 above.
6. Unusual correspondence
Remember those huge statues of open-mouthed snakes coming through the floor on the first level? Well, down here on the third, there's a matching snake descending from the ceiling. And is that ... a ladder inside the mouth? But if this one joins up to the one in the hobgoblin shrine, where does the one in the armoury lead?
And so on.
All of these should give the PCs ideas about returning to places they've already visited. The lure of loot is strong, but discovery sings a siren song of its own. Who knows? They might even find an Easter egg ...
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