One time in a DND game I had a dungeon with the property “you’ll never find what you’re looking for”. This has a bunch of fun effects. Among them when the players found a spiral stairway around a hole, they tried to find the bottom and, because of the rule, could not reach it. They tried to go back up, and couldn’t reach the previous floor either.
So they decided, since they have feather fall, to just jump into the central hole and find the bottom that way.
They fell for an uncomfortable long time. They passed the other party members who had split up (and couldn’t find them).
One of the clues they found was from a survivor from the antagonist’s party who had gone in ahead of them. He said the boss-man had kept asking them lots of questions about their youth, where they’d grown up, their hobbies. Just a lot of personal questions. The survivor didn’t know why, since boss-man had never taken an interest in them before.
spoiler for my old dnd game
The trick is to walk without looking for anything in particular. If you just walk without a conscious goal, you’ll eventually find the room with the macguffin. The antagonist’s strategy was to keep them talking about stuff so they’re distracted, and not thinking about what they’re looking for.
You would likely find the end of the stairs, and then more rooms and hallways. You need to walk without purpose for a while for it to pull up the final room.
The dungeon was heavily inspired by the novel House of Leaves. Endless, featureless, black hallways. Great book.
One time in a DND game I had a dungeon with the property “you’ll never find what you’re looking for”. This has a bunch of fun effects. Among them when the players found a spiral stairway around a hole, they tried to find the bottom and, because of the rule, could not reach it. They tried to go back up, and couldn’t reach the previous floor either.
So they decided, since they have feather fall, to just jump into the central hole and find the bottom that way.
They fell for an uncomfortable long time. They passed the other party members who had split up (and couldn’t find them).
Good times. Players heads were very fucked with.
They did eventually figure it out.
So how do they get out?
One of the clues they found was from a survivor from the antagonist’s party who had gone in ahead of them. He said the boss-man had kept asking them lots of questions about their youth, where they’d grown up, their hobbies. Just a lot of personal questions. The survivor didn’t know why, since boss-man had never taken an interest in them before.
spoiler for my old dnd game
The trick is to walk without looking for anything in particular. If you just walk without a conscious goal, you’ll eventually find the room with the macguffin. The antagonist’s strategy was to keep them talking about stuff so they’re distracted, and not thinking about what they’re looking for.
What if you kept descending the stairs in anticipation of… more stairs? Would the stairs cease to manifest? And would this lead to the macguffin?
You would likely find the end of the stairs, and then more rooms and hallways. You need to walk without purpose for a while for it to pull up the final room.
The dungeon was heavily inspired by the novel House of Leaves. Endless, featureless, black hallways. Great book.
Was the musician “Bono” part of your D&D group, and did he later write a song about the experience?
Mystery solved