Shhh! It's a SECRET (door, that is)

Secret doors are so common in classic gaming that I'm surprised when see a dungeon map without one. Players regularly search for them, assuming they'll find one at some point in the crawl. Which is odd, when you think about it. Do you normally assume there are hidden stairs or tunnels in or out of rooms when you walk into them? Of course not, but we're not real-life murder hoboes, we just play them at the table.

According to BX (Moldvay),

"A secret door is any door that is hidden or concealed. A secret door usually does not look like a door; it may be a sliding panel or hidden under a rug. Any character has a 1 in 6 chance of finding a secret door; any elf has a 2 in 6 chance. The DM should only check for finding a secret door if a player says that the character is searching for one and searching for one in the correct area. The search takes one turn. Each character has only one chance to find each secret door."

 Whenever I think of secret doors, the default in my mind's eye is a sliding panel or door that's fashioned to blend with the wall. Surely that's a classic, but it behooves the dungeon designing DM to think about the other ways that a portal may be hidden.

Secret doors might be like the images above, or they could be concealed by a tapestry. They could simply be a tunnel with loose bricks or stones stacked in the opening. Perhaps a panel that isn't nailed down or loose planks? A cave entrance could be camouflaged by brush or rocks. Maybe it's even a magical or cunning optical illusion masking an otherwise open passage? The point is, you should feel free to mix it up a bit. 

So what's the point of elaborately designing such a thing if the players are just going to roll their search and find it (or not)? Well, two things:

1. Which is cooler in play? "We go back to that secret door in the last room." or "We go back through the revolving fireplace."? 
   
2. Remember the second part of the above rule citation. "The DM should only check for finding a secret door if a player says that the character is searching for one and searching for one in the correct area."  

If the players ignore something that doesn't look like the typical secret door, then their search rolls don't apply there. Of course, they can say they search "everywhere" but that takes time.

"The search takes one turn."

If you're doing your job as an old-school DM, you should at least consider tracking things like wandering monsters, needs for rest, and torches. Also, the PCs might be on the clock for other reasons. Maybe they need to find the hidden temple before midnight in order to stop the sacrifice or some such. The point is that time is a resource that shouldn't always be unlimited.

Wasting Time

First off, let me bore you with a little bit of shoptalk.

I just got back from Garycon last week. It was great fun and I had a blast, playing, running, and working the vendor hall. Of course, having been an exhibitor, it meant wearing my "publisher" hat a little more than I normally would, but one the plus side, it meant my ego had the satisfaction of people asking me to sign some products (Really! I swear!) and having Frank Mentzer call me over saying "Jeff! I need to talk some business with you!" So, yes, while a small-press RPG publisher is not making money hand over first, the nerd cred is gratifying in a hobby I love.

That said, I have two products I am writing simultaneously. One has seen playtesting and is in rewrite stage now. The other is in rough draft form, less one section we decided to add at the last minute (that's been giving me minor fits, but mostly a matter of slogging through it). There are maps to clean up and other steps that will have to happen from there, but the point is I have projects on my desk to keep me plenty occupied.

Now, in case you didn't know, I have a day job. It gives me enough flexibility that I can, for the most part, block off my time to get my work done and still push ahead on my writing projects around the edges. But the job is my livelihood, not Faster Monkey.

Like so many writers and other "creative" types, it is terribly easy to get sidetracked by life and the internet. (If you've never seen the Simpsons episode in which Neil Gaiman guest stars; Lisa's writing troubles? THAT! EXACTLY THAT!)* which brings me to the title of today's post: Wasting Time.

When you look at the hours in the day, it seems like there are enough to do what you want to do, whether it's writing, cleaning the house, exercise, fixing that broken lamp, etc. but somehow the time just slips away. You just pop over to Facebook for a minute, you watch that one YouTube video, or you decide to go grab a Starbucks. Next thing you know, the day is over. Of course, life is filled with plenty of distractions beyond your control: kids, jobs, flat tires, errands, etc. too, but enough of them are of your own making, that it can be infuriating sometimes.

It is one of the ongoing challenges in my life (and many other peoples', I suspect) to budget time wisely and effectively. Reams of self-help advice have been written on the subject. I don't pretend to advise anyone here, I'm just noting that the condition exists. (In fact, just writing this blog post about it instead of working on stuff is evidence of the condition itself!)

Now, onto how all this relates to gaming.

I mentioned trying to get things written for publication, and of course the same issues would apply even if the adventures were just for personal use (though perhaps to a lesser degree). Apart from players (and GMs) dealing with prepping and making time for gaming, I wonder at the characters and their time management skills.

Keeping track of time in the dungeon makes sense. After all, you've got wandering monsters, torches burning out, rations, etc. It also makes sense when talking about travel time. Are you riding or walking? Is it rough terrain or a smooth road? Or are you taking a ship? What are the prevailing winds? The list goes on.

What about PCs that are just easily distracted or lazy or overworked? Do player characters ever say "I meant to get my armor repaired while we were in town, but there was a great game of cards down in the pub and I lost track of time." or "I was going to transcribe that spell at the mage's guild, but I found a note tucked between the pages of a book full of dirty limericks about the faculty. It was HILARIOUS!"

Probably not.

In truth, I don't even know that it would really add to the overall enjoyment of the game, but it might provide some amusing roleplaying fodder.

* Looks like the video isn't there anymore. Sorry

Moldvay Musings III

First off, let me just quote the entire paragraph on time (from page B19):

"TIME: Time in D&D adventures is given in turns of ten minutes each. A turn is not a measure of real time, but is a measure of how much a character can do within a given amount of time. A character may explore and map an area equal to his or her movement rate in one turn. It also takes a turn for a character to search a 10' x 10' area, for a thief to check an item for traps, to rest or to load a bag with treasure. The DM should decide how long other actions that characters might try will take."

When I first read the book, I took this to mean that a turn didn't represent ten minutes of "table time." Rather it represented ten minutes "in-game." Now, I have a somewhat different take.

The "real time" the book refers to is in-game, but the point is that only a certain amount can be accomplished within a given stretch of time (in this case, ten minutes), not that these tasks all take exactly ten minutes to complete. Is it an abstraction? Absolutely! But what a lovely abstraction it is! 

If –as some folk purport – old-school D&D puts a focus on resource management, then time certainly becomes a crucial factor. Not the split seconds of combat; but the days of food you have left, the hours of light, or the last time you rested. The turn is a simple, digestible chunk of time that allows the players and the DM to keep track of time and other resources. 

Damn! I thought torches lasted EIGHT turns!

The examples of "One Turn Tasks" given above also bring a smile to my face. Do you spend an hour searching that 20' x 30' room for secret doors? A thief needs a turn to check that chest for traps, too. "Loading a bag with treasure" taking a turn brings to mind careful loading of things like potions and statuary to avoid crushing them under the weight of coins.

Players often have confused –IMO– opinions of how quickly many things are done, often trying to "fast-forward" through the mundane stuff. A quick tap of the pommel on the wall as you walk past counts as "searching for secret doors." (Another favorite of mine is how quickly they can count thousands of coins and separate them by type.) Maybe a given task doesn't take exactly 600 seconds, but in the interests of keeping the game moving, it's a fair approximation. Further, the "mundane" can turn quite nasty if a DM is on his game and keeping track of things.