Choice Paralysis

This probably isn't news to you, but if you give humans too many choices they tend to freeze up and not pick anything at all. There is a good video about it here.

I've known that and yet I've been striving to give my players a lot of options when designing the locations they'll be exploring. I'm posting this because I wonder if my little abandoned monastery had too many choices.

Here is the dungeon in question:


This monastery is built on a rock outcrop 50' down inside the Maw. To reach it players had to ride down in a basket, then take a wooden lift from the top story to this one. The 10' x 10' square at top right is the lift they came in on.

When I designed this I was trying to avoid making it linear, so you see, from the very first room they have to decide between two doors. Both parties that explored this place chose the nearest door. Then the party is confronted with a corridor of doors as far as their light source illuminated. Both parties checked each door as the went down the corridor.

Both parties felt a draft and eventually discovered the secret passage behind the monastic cells. Then they had a quandary, because they had already seen some weird bogey-like creatures in the dim light ahead and now they knew they could be flanked.

They both seemed to lock up when the parties made it to the U-shaped intersection with the curtains. At some point the second party had had enough and started cutting down all the doors and drapes so they could at least have better visibility.

I'm wondering if a dungeon map can avoid being linear and still be more focused. I'm afraid my location detracted from their sense of what to do, where to go next. This was exacerbated by the fact that they had no real reason to be there except the prospect of booty. And it didn't help that I was trying to creep them out, so every now and then when they'd stalled out I would make a bogey appear behind them: whispering, riding a pug.

I'm curious as to other DM's experience. Have you seen parties just locked up in indecision? Is that just a sign of inexperience? With no sure way to go does an experienced party just choose randomly and push ahead?

Player Emotion vs. Character Emotion

While I've read a lot about player skill vs. character skill, I don't remember seeing anyone in the OSR blogs making the distinction between a player feeling something and their character. Until now. Over at Tao of D&D Alexis talks about starting a campaign off with the players village being destroyed and how it doesn't work. In his words:

My point is this. I am a character in your world, and you have just had my village decimated (though that doesn’t mean what people think it means), eradicated, eviscerated or expurgated ... why should I care? I didn’t grow up with any of these people as my parents, I don’t have memories of being picked up and soothed after stabbing myself in the foot with a sharp stick, none of them taught me anything about the Gods.

Makes sense to me. In the comments (which became unfortunately vitriolic) someone else strongly disagreed. This was surprising to me, not only because it seemed so alien to how I play, but I'd encountered this same idea just last night!

If you read my two Into the Maw posts you know that I had a party go into a dungeon resulting in a near TPK and a party going into the same dungeon the next day. The second party had a player from the first (who was rolling up a new character).

I was worried about this and told my friend the 3.5e player as much. "I wonder how that will work?" He said "He'll have to roleplay, that's what you do!"

In a sense I understand my friend's position. I think he was making such a strong statement because he was against the idea of metagaming-- like memorizing all the monsters in the Monster Manual and using that knowledge to have you first level peasant defeat black pudding or something. But he didn't seem to understand I was worried about player X feeling any sense of tension or discovery.

Even if player X roleplayed perfectly, he knew the exact layout of the monastery and would not have any sense of venturing into the unknown. How could that be fun?

Sure enough, player X gently led the second party to the last stand of his former ill-fated party. (How could you not? He knew there was 390 sp waiting in a backpack there). But I wanted to give him back that sense of the dungeon as an underworld and so . . . when the party got where he led them there was nothing but blood stains. He was thoroughly perplexed . . . where did 9 bodies disappear to!?

Two final thoughts:

• Thinking in-character and making decisions based on what your character would do are only interesting to me if they cause tension in the game. I have no illusions that you'll really love your cleric's religion or feel strongly for her childhood dolphin.

• Metagaming can not be avoided. That's one reason why I have never had any iconic D&D monsters appear in my sessions so far and probably won't ever. Hell, I called the Monastery of St. Eudo "Goblin Monastery" on my notes, but the creatures they encountered had stats based on kobolds and varied in size from 4 ft to 6 inches. I didn't tell them the creepy white dudes were just zombies. And they always seem to be off their feet, "What was that little dude riding the pug?" so I'll continue with that.

Oh, and this is sort of related to this old post I'd forgotten about: trying to make players feel wonder as well as fear.

Strange Objects

George Hart's geometric artforms could give you some interestingly odd objects to pepper around your dungeons. The one above is called Roads Untaken and is apparently an exploded propellorized truncated icosahedron. Make it +1 versus tigers and I'll take two!


I especially like this one, but I don't know what I'd make it do.

Into The Maw - Party II

So, next day, new session. Four players, one in common with yesterday's group. Bottle the rogue and his hireling Skrag, Zepheria and her loyal hireling Henry, Sol the cleric and cirrus his hireling, and Chalky the Bald and his veteran hireling Whistle.

No one died! This party followed almost exactly the same path as the other: talked to the blind hermit, took the long rope down to the Monastery of St. Eudo, and investigated its dark innards.

They found some grisly remains and took to cutting the humble monastic cell doors off their leather hinges, fearing closed doors behind them. They too found a secret passage way and declined searching its entirety out of fear.

They ended up in the kitchen which was bare and cleverly defeated a hungry pack of rats by setting oil on the ground (they heard the rats coming) and lighting it. They luckily dispatched a mangy wolf in a library finding a scroll and several tomes in the wreckage. And opening a storage room door revealed 4 little man-like figures brushing a pale, gaunt figure in honey. The figures threw their brushes blinding Chalky. Sol petitioned for aid and was able to hold three of the figures. The party was able to dispatch the creature with only one hireling worse for the wear. Whistle tasted some sap in a crock and thought he saw another little man warning of an earthquake.

Finally the group hurried to safety.
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The party got lucky in a few of the battles, but did a few smart things too. First they didn't panic and just run or set them selves to fight when the pack of rats showed up, they laid an oil trap. Second, Sol was trying everything he could to use his clericly powers (other players have been reluctant to try much).

I have a house rule that clerics have a chance to cast spells above their level but at diminishing chances. I figured a way to do this with just 7 dominoes and it worked out surprisingly well.

The first time Sol called for aid, even with a 70% chance, it was not answered. The second time-- and a crucial one, he managed to pull the right domino (29%), and then a third miracle he asked for later went ungranted. So, not a bunch of free magic, but he was able to ask multiple times (which just seems more divine-power-like to me) and he had a cool mechanic that was a focus of attention.

I also had the players exploring Nidus a little more. Using this mechanic here. It seemed to work well, they found stuff they wanted but it cost a lot more than normal. They hired guides to aid in this and their wandering around the markets showed them many odd and rare sights. Sol saw a giraffe giving birth and cracked up. We had fun in general. It was an interesting experience as a DM to run similar parties through an almost identical location and see how the environment shaped their decision making. Anyone wanting to practice their dungeon design skills should probably try this (I know it's hard enough to get one party together).

Into The Maw

A cleric, a fighter, a magic user, and their six porters and guards found themselves on the precipice of the Maw looking to make their fortune.

To the west, fifty feet down in the hole, a small monastery was built on a rock outcropping. To the east a set of stairs could be seen slowly spiralling down the pit. To the south a river poured into the Maw, its waterfall disappearing into the dark.

After some deliberation the party decided to investigate a hut to the west. Greeted by a scarred mastiff, they soon began conversing with a the blind inhabitant of the hut. While friendly he seemed, off. They found he delivered rounds of cheese to the monastery of St. Eudo on a regular basis and that this saint's claim to fame was that he had turned water to wine and generally enjoyed all God's creation.

After an inordinate amount of discussion and planning, the party finally lowered themselves in the basket the blind hermit used to lower his cheeses. Four went at once destroying the weathered old basket, but luckily they'd all tethered themselves to the central rope.

After finally getting everyone into the monastery proper they began a room to room search which revealed grisly remains. They encountered something small and childlike whispering in the dark along with a small secret passage running behind the row of monastic cubicles.

After finding evidence of some large animal, they actually sought it out! And luck was with them as they slew the scabrous black bear in two blows. Ulric the fighter's devastating swing doing the trick.

A ring of rats encircling a small human-like creature performing a disgusting act were handled with a sleep spell by Ehud the mage.

Investigation of the monastery's kitchen is where things started going wrong. An obese white figure was held in a chair and swarming with little creatures stuffing it with cherries. A flurry of combat ensued after which five hirelings lay lifeless on the floor. Hamo the pride of his mother Gena had fallen with needles to the eyes and nose.

The party had a bit of indecision over what was safest, to hole up and rest, or quickly get back to safety. While deciding, howling and snuffling was heard outside the door. Ehud drove the beast off by throwing pepper under the door.

The party decided to venture forth and met with a mangy wolf, first the mighty Ulric was disembowled, then Ehud the doughty mage was felled with a ripped throat and after stooping to grab some treasure from his fallen comrades, the cleric Alamon fled with his life. The slight Alamon was so driven by fear he managed to shimmy up the fifty feet of rope with difficulty.

The fate of Gena the poor mother of Hamo is unknown. She was last seen weeping and running into the darkness the sick wolf chasing close behind.

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Some thoughts:

I really don't want to have a hook for every one-off adventure "Go get this MacGuffin for me and I will pay you handsomely." But, what I realize is, without it goals can be pretty nebulous for players. I'd talked to one player about how old school players need to play like a SWAT team: get in, achieve your goal, get out. But he said this time it was hard to be a SWAT team without a goal. Maybe players should agree on what exactly will send them back out of the dungeon before going into it. Will they be satisfied with a little treasure? Will they leave if there is even one death?

I feel good about the creepy otherworld atmosphere I was trying to evoke, but I have to be very, very careful about what I say. I told players they needed to rest after combat and they took it to mean they had to camp out and sleep. I was appalled that they would think I was dictating when they should camp or not-- taking away their choices. But when I said "You're going to sleep? I meant you had to catch your breath. You don't have to sleep," they took it to mean "What, you're sleeping? you don't need to do that. That's silly" Which was probably the most pivotal choice of the night.

Still trying to digest this one. If it weren't for the only wandering monster roll that came up positive for the whole evening (the wolf), the party probably would have survived. If they had decided to sleep so that Ehud had two more spells, the party probably would have survived. If they had been more decisive in their combat in the kitchen-- everyone either fleeing or attacking in concert, the party probably would have survived.

So, it was fun, but still the nagging high death factor. But, I just don't think this is a flaw of the rules. I was so tempted to fudge on some of the more fateful rolls, but I know what lies down that path, and its name is boredom.