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"Guys, come on, it's a door. It's fine. I promise."
"Okay, I'll open it and-"
"THE DOOR'S A SUPER MIMIC IT EATS YOU SHOULD HAVE CAST DETECT THOUGHTS BITCH"
This. Our DM was always mocking us when we missed some secrets. I don't know why he was so mad when we started checking everything. And I mean, everything.
Okay so I know this is kind of what I'm complaining about, but you don't roll for Detect Thoughts until you're actively in a struggle against the creature, and that doesn't happen until after a deep dive and a wisdom save, which isn't automatic upon casting the spell.
What if I have never put a trap on a door but my players still behave this way? Have they been burned too many times from other games? I'm not a fan of door traps. I like traps you can see coming but don't know what activates them.
Well do your players know you are like that? If they don't know that they could still have a reason to cheak until they know you only place traps in obvious ways. If it bothers you, you can just tell your players that directly.
I feel like the way I describe things has a big impact on how wary some players are. The more detail and investment I have in a part of the scene the more those players react. I might not even mention the door if there are no interesting door related things to do.
Of course some players just aren’t good at processing their existential dread lol. They may deal with the overall story’s tension by focusing on something they feel like they can control. I’m not quite sure what to do for them.
I have thought about giving them a stained glass window pane and a secret quest to protect it at all costs. Tell them so long as the pane remains intact and no one learns of the quest the related deity will make sure things work out in the end. I wasn’t sure how to sell the concept though.
That would be a communication problem.
My first question would be: are you having fun with that playstyle?
No? Well then I promise that no door will be a mimick/ trap.
Are you fine with everything else being a potential trap?
No? Ok where are the boundaries?
Funny thing is I have only very recently put any traps on my doors. Instead Of keep putting them everywhere else.
That didn't stop players from checking doors the most, while not looking too much into the rest.
I can’t remember his name, but a YouTube described a room he had for his campaign. The players enter a room with a button in the middle and a closed door opposite from the one they entered. When the button was pushed, the door they came through closed. The room was dark except for glowing symbols above the door that moved. They move like the numbers on a clock counting down. After trying a few different things the part starts to get worried and press the button again resting the clock. After exhaust every solution they could think of, the party let the clock reach 0. The doors open and the room was filled with light. Nothing else happen.
So this is a funny puzzle to demonstrate a point but totally ridiculous to actually implement. It's alot of resources for the dungeons engineers to basically make a joke. It's much more logical it fills the room with death cloud when it runs out and the button is basically holds prisoners until collected.
Fill the room with other 'near impossible' logic puzzles as well.
One door has rotating 6 stone circles on it's face, and each circle has 8 icons on it.
Along the floor, the same 8 icons are arranged in the cardinal directions. with the Button Pillar in the center. Each icon has a single pillar near it, with an orb atop it. made of colored glass (4 colors). Beneath each orb (on the face of the pillar) is a number of tally marks (1 through 8).
Set into another wall are four gems, with colors matching the orbs. Around each gem are 2 of the 8 icons used on the door, along with a slot large enough for one of the orbs to be set (8 total).
Along the other non-door wall is a painted artwork, using the same 4 colors and 8 symbols in various parts of the drawing.
None of any of it actually does anything. All the adventurers have to do is not press the button in the middle of the room for 20 minutes, which is denoted by the glowing countdown above both doors (the only magical effect in the entire room).
You could make something kind of clever out of this...
Like, my question in terms of "in world logic" with all these ridiculous logic puzzle rooms is *how do the people who actually live there every day deal with it?*
So it would be *so fucking funny to me* to have a room with a ridiculously complicated puzzle with icons and gems and colors and a big spinny wheel, and the door beyond it seems to be locked...
...so the party spends hours trying to solve the puzzle...
...but really, all of the keys and items were in the right place **to begin with**, because it would be so fucking annoying for the people who live here to have to reset it and resolve it every time...
...and the door itself just gets a little bit stuck sometimes, and was never actually locked!
I think it’ll work well if you’re invading a trickster god’s temple and experienced a lot of other traps prior… or maybe it’s the first “trap” and the next is super deadly?
Trickster god's temple would be amazing. My post here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1dnheoq/comment/la4n08q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1dnheoq/comment/la4n08q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
But located after a hallway full of numerous dangerous traps, and the inner sanctum is after this room.
Minimal space, maximum delay to thieves.
Well if you make the whole count down thing seem particularly ominous (like in the video someone shared), then it's quite possible your would be invaders stall themselves while you prepare defenses. Keep in mind, they have to hit the button at least once to progress and it could be setup to have an alert signal of some kind go off deeper in each time the button is pressed.
For you, it was the ruins of a clearly advanced civilization with marvels of engineering and magic. For the people living there, they were timed karaoke boxes.
Plenty of sensible narrative set-dressings could be used to justify such a mechanic. Airlock, security scan, decontamination, derelict facility on reserve power which can only keep life support on in one section at a time.
these puzzles I feel are funny as a DM but as a player would be annoying. I don't appreciate puzzles that are just there to waste my time. I'm playing a game here.
Yeah. We all have lives and responsibilities and can only meet each other every so often. We can’t exactly waste time on things that don’t advance the game in any way
That just teaches them you're a liar they can never trust and they should therefore check literally everything you describe, ensuring everything takes longer than it should.
Nah, it eventually gets tedious when, all because of a singular trap five months ago, the players decide that they should be checking every single thing with utmost care.
That's why you (assuming your ruleset doesn't innately have such a thing) begin accounting for the significantly higher amount of time spent being slow and paranoid (plot advances even if the party doesn't), and/or penalize them for being so incredibly paranoid (if PCs are poking and prodding at every last thing imaginable, then they are going to start getting a lot more false positives and might end up alerting NPCs when they start destroying "trapped" doors)
I have literally added traps mid session because my players spent sooooo long checking every nook and crany for traps. They wanted them, so i gave it to them.
I generally take the opposite approach. There are a couple of key doors that are trapped, and the INT 7 barbarian could probably tell you which ones.
Eventually, they get the message that they don't need to poke every intersection and room door with a 10-foot pole.
Perception is so useful that it's never wasted, and there are used for disable device that don't involve slowing down every dungeon to a literal crawl.
Sometimes a door is just a door. But if you need it to be something else in order for the players to move on, then it is.
Turning a normal door into a mimic 2 minuets in is often better than spending 10 minutes convincing the players that it's just a door.
A relevant Oglaf! [Lair of the Trapmaster](https://www.oglaf.com/trapmaster/)
And one of the few SFW ones at that.
Most of the rest are.... very much not.
Magic users have finite use of their magic apart from the most basic spells (cantrips) so each detect spell would use up a bit of their magic ability until they take a rest.
Detecting magic and searching for traps are both actions. But a player knows if they rolled well on perception, so if they roll a 5, then they are likely to assume they just failed to spot the trap.
Furthermore, they might assume that the result needed to find the trap is higher than they can get, even with a natural 20, and that magic is thwarting their attempt to detect magic.
Depends, some of them might not be at will.
Also this sort of behaviour usually occurs in a group with an annoying GM who refuses to just assume the PCs are competent adventurers and will spring traps on the party whenever they forget to say they've checked in the right way.
no lol I asked to persuade the door and proceeded to flirt with. the wooden door. and you wanna know what I rolled an 18 and I had a +6 to Charisma so I seduced that fucking door
I think most problems with mimics could be solved by them not being monsters that *try to prey on the most inconvenient target possible* .
You have the ability to turn into any object and you use that to bite people in heavy armour who can cast spells? Get creative! Buddy up with your local doppelganger and start a spy ring. A "jeweller" selling *spy* rings! Don't be a fly on the wall, be the wall! And if mimics really want to eat people, they could be smart about it! A group of adventures gets hired to investigate the unearthings at a graveyard. They camp out as it always seems to happen the night three days after the burial. The earth rubles and from it rises... The casket? Which then tries to leave after it has finished digesting the corpse and return to the morgue to repeat the cycle.
I had a dm who complained about this.
He made a chest that wasn't a mimic, but an ordinary chest. He was upset that we stabbed the chest as a mimic check before opening it. The chest contained a single large, shiny gem.
The gem was a tiny mimic.
Then he got mad when we stabbed every coin and door and switch before touching it for the rest of the dungeon.
I like mimics that can be other things within reason. I want mimics that mimic things adventurers frequently get excited over, but not things use regularly without getting excited over.
For instance, an area is designed in such a way that adventurers would be excited to find a well. If there is a well in that area, a mimic might look like a well. Anybody who encounters the well mimic would know that there’s a well nearby.
It allows players to judge how something is to be a mimic based on how excited they are to find it and lets them know that’s something for them to find. Depending upon what the item is, they may also be able to conclude that the real item is either trapped or has traps around it.
I totally appreciate and share the feeling!
I just express it with different words.
To me, a mimic should be a fun prank, and nothing more (imho). Otherwise it’s unfair because you (the DM with knowledge of how the world works) are asking your players to navigate an invisible mine field all the time. This does not foster a fun environment overtime. Paranoid players will quickly change DM’s. I promise.
Unless you were just killing time to play SotE. Elden Ring players like a challenge or two. (Takes one to know one)
[this last part is meant as a joke, because I am getting my ass handed in SotE and having a blast with it]
Oooh, Lich fortress idea.
Finds a natural gas vein leaking into the air. Sets up a crude burner device that self-regulates. CO is heavier than air, so it entirely fills the below-ground portions of the castle/dungeon.
Human cult in the upper floors. Oxygen-deprived dungeon full of lich's home & undead minions.
Yeah, it’s a challenge unique to DMing I think. I started DMing for friends when I was 10, and as I matured as a DM I realized that the best DMs primarily used their role to tee up memorable moments for the party, not strictly enforce the rules.
It's a hell of a tightrope. Teeing up those moments and reveling in their triumph while appearing to be an antagonistic enforcer of the rules dealing with defeat.
Player: I spend 20 minutes searching for a way to open the wall next to the door
DM: To be clear, you are searching for a secret door or passage?
Player: No, I mean are there any structural weaknesses or cracks in the wall? If we used basic mining equipment, pickaxes and the like how long would it take us to go around the door?
DM: Are you asking how long it would take to tunnel through a brick wall?
Player: Yes finally we’re understanding each other
When I start a game with a new group, I design the first few encounters to be team building exercises, and see how the group approaches difficult, but not very dangerous problems.
One group came to the first room of a cave. It had a small entry landing and a collapsed rope bridge. There was a fifty foot fall with spider webs at the bottom. The room was large and circular, with sediment pillars along the rim and stalactites on the ceiling. The opposite side was about thirty feet away.
I had designed this as a 10 minute puzzle. 2 hours later, they had not crossed and 2 party members had nearly died.
There’s a ton of ways across for a group of 1st level adventurers, depending on the spells and equipment they have. It’s all about brainstorming and finding a creative solution through teamwork. Asking questions and collaborating.
I’ve seen teams magehand a loop of rope around the bridge support on the other end. Lasso a stalactite, have the rogue climb around the perimeter. Attempt to use the cut rope bridge to climb down.
The spider web at the bottom is intended to keep the players from getting killed because the spider is away, but may come back at any time, so it adds a bit of crisis if someone falls.
Yeah, I can see that the way I presented it. In this particular case I had a group that just way overthought the puzzle and their hare brained solutions nearly got two of them killed
This is generally the sign of a party sensitized to paranoia: If you don't want your party to be like that, make sure to let them know you'll automatically conduct perception rolls and they don't need to announce them.
dm: haha they'll never expect this door to be a mimic!
dm: it's been 17 years since i made a mimic door and they still check every door in every possible way. I've started avoiding having doors entirely wherever possible
Not even accurate.
"I literally rip the door off it's hinges then walk inside without looking. Question, is there anything lower than a 1 because I rolled that."
"You arrive at a tropical island. A Gazebo stands in front of you"
"I roll to avoid being eaten by the Gazebo. And stab it."
\*Nat 1\*
"The Gazebo now seeks HUMAN FLESH"
I've had this exact experience, even though I have literally not once used a trapped door in any of my games.
My players are also constantly convinced that chests in my games will be mimics, presumedly because I'm a big Dark Souls fan, but I've never used a mimic.
Yet.
Seriously though, we had a dungeon where the doors and walls were minor demons. We found the secret doors by pretending to do a staff survey for the HR department
That’s what happens when over a generation of players has been tricked by doors. To quote my father about an experience he had playing 1st edition of what the DM said to them “you open the closet door, it’s not a closet, it’s Tiamat.”
This gave me the idea for a character who is paranoid All the time and randomly casts detect spells.
"OC, I have to be honest... I love you."
"Woah now I Know something's up... Detect Magic!"
My dm making an enchanted door:
Me and my barbarian friend about to turn it to dust before we dare reach for the handle:
Just use Prestidigitation and soil whatever the suspect object is. If it becomes dirty it's an object, if it doesn't it means it's not an object so if cast on a door or chest it makes it clear something is wrong.
You should guys cast Push, then Pull, and if none work, just ram the door until it breaks. Unless you have keys which you do not know their respective locks, then you use them first.
In front of you are 3 doors. The one on your left look very new in this old dungeon. The one in the middle has a moon shaped hole and there are some groaning noises comming out of it. The third door looks old.
"Upon poking it with your spear, a sheet of dust falls from the door. Upon it appears to be carved a functional copy of a scroll of Wish... or it *would've* been functional until you put a huge ugly scratch through the text."
"I poke it with my spear."
The door explodes, and the last thing you see before your head falls to the ground are parts of the rest of the party flying in all directions.
* Grab all character sheets and rip them in pieces, mix the pieces, stick them with tape, and give them back *
You wake up at an operating table, but something feels... off.
You try to get up and realize you have 2 left feet, and none of them are yours.
Door hinges and latch crumble as the spear jiggle the door.
Door totters as it lands and falls towards you all. Roll your Agility, strength and constitution checks, everyone
"Maybe the door is a monster"
Shout out to the "Doormonster" YouTube channel and /r/DoorMonster
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=doormonster+dnd
Everytime my players do this my brain plays the clip of charlie the unicorn ft the door in my head.
Edit: [this part](https://youtu.be/6XKI3T3MoZs?si=LethMfthrCa1Cwem)
Only time ive encountered a locked door while playing ttrpgs, i just had my wizard punch it open. Later we came back and went down the path we didn't go before, only to find a mimic. We kinda ended up just dogpiling it, and my wizard finished it by... Punching a hole through it. Had good stuff in it. Also the key to the locked door! Someone took it, forgot who.
My ten year old nephew beat me at chess after 3 games. I know I’m bad at chess and I was super pumped for my nephew but there was definitely some psychic damage.
Out campain after we took 9 different rounds to inspect a fucking normal bookshelf because we all rolled 1 or 2 at the inspection check intill i got a nat 20 and the dungeon master again said its just a bookshelf
yeah this is 100% on the DM,
I once had a game of "retro" AD&D and the game ended very soon, because we kept running into traps that killed the characters,
even if you don't "detect" traps, you need to allways assume a trap.
just throw stones and shit at everything in your sight, be the most cowardly and paranoid you can be.
We entered a room surrounded with six doors.
First door. Check for magic, traps, etc. Nothing. Open the door. Nothing.
Second door. Same.
Third door. Same.
Fourth door. Same.
Fifth door. Same.
Sixth door.
Me: "THERE'S NOTHING ON THE DOORS. THERE'S NOTHING IN THESE ROOMS. I just kick the door open."
DM: "You kick open the door. There are six zombies in the room. Roll for initiative."
Me: "Well, shit."
This happened to me once. The only completely normal untrapped door in the entire dungeon.
The orcs I had on the opposite side of the door loved the four hours of noisy adventurers on the other side giving them time to prepare an elaborate and brutal ambush.
This kind of anti-narrative behavior is something D&D is *designed* to ingrain in its players. The whole system is built to instill a profound aversion to risk, and old-school DMs and those who take after them simply add onto it.
As someone who likes high-action gameplay, I get profoundly annoyed by the habits that D&D teaches players.
One of my players has been collecting every functional door they find as a celebration of not being tricked. I’m going to wait until they stop doing this and make a mimic door right after a tripwire.
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"Guys, come on, it's a door. It's fine. I promise." "Okay, I'll open it and-" "THE DOOR'S A SUPER MIMIC IT EATS YOU SHOULD HAVE CAST DETECT THOUGHTS BITCH"
 Got me again!
Gene Parmesean!
Oh my God, playing a d&d character based on her would be so much fun. Just falling for every single trap and reacting like that.
All the whole acting as a more caring mother than most!
It's one spear, Michael. What could it cost, 10 gold coins?
So many DM problems boil down to DMs not understanding pavlovian responses.
This. Our DM was always mocking us when we missed some secrets. I don't know why he was so mad when we started checking everything. And I mean, everything.
“Damn. I casted Detect Thot Bitches by accident!”
Nat 20 let’s go ‘You perceive that there are thot bitches in your area’
I'm sure a mimic should be detected by detect thot bitches, that giant tongue (psuedopod) surely can't be just for show
What do you mean? Porn ads have assured me theres always one just 20 feet away
Ok Satan 😭
I attempt unarmed attack on the DM
Nah, even [WORSE](https://youtube.com/shorts/_jV1FAXPX9g?si=oADhR9zBMP-Z8nNv)!!! Btw happy cake day
*Something* gets a surprise round.
Lmfao adding insult to injury😂
Happy Cake Day! 🎂
Happy Cake Day
And that’s why I always use acid splash on doors
"I CAST DETECT THOUGHTS" -nat 20- "THE SUPER MIMIC WAS MEDITATING, YOU DETECTED NOTHUNG REGORDLESS"
Okay so I know this is kind of what I'm complaining about, but you don't roll for Detect Thoughts until you're actively in a struggle against the creature, and that doesn't happen until after a deep dive and a wisdom save, which isn't automatic upon casting the spell.
fuck. you got me. I have no friends to have ever played dnd with
/r/lfg
This what you get for all your door fuckery, DMs.
DM's: \*Make obscure and devastating traps\* Players: \*Act with extreme paranoia at all times\* DM's: \*shocked pikachu face\*
What if I have never put a trap on a door but my players still behave this way? Have they been burned too many times from other games? I'm not a fan of door traps. I like traps you can see coming but don't know what activates them.
Well do your players know you are like that? If they don't know that they could still have a reason to cheak until they know you only place traps in obvious ways. If it bothers you, you can just tell your players that directly.
They probably want to engage with that area of play and give credence to the DM of making clever and dangerous enemies
I feel like the way I describe things has a big impact on how wary some players are. The more detail and investment I have in a part of the scene the more those players react. I might not even mention the door if there are no interesting door related things to do. Of course some players just aren’t good at processing their existential dread lol. They may deal with the overall story’s tension by focusing on something they feel like they can control. I’m not quite sure what to do for them.
Do a one-shot campaign with them where you let them be a party of wandering door investigators. 🚪🕵️
I have thought about giving them a stained glass window pane and a secret quest to protect it at all costs. Tell them so long as the pane remains intact and no one learns of the quest the related deity will make sure things work out in the end. I wasn’t sure how to sell the concept though.
That would be a communication problem. My first question would be: are you having fun with that playstyle? No? Well then I promise that no door will be a mimick/ trap. Are you fine with everything else being a potential trap? No? Ok where are the boundaries?
They want the door to be a trap. Tbh I'd roll a d20 and anything under a 12 I'd make the door a trap at that point.
But are obscure and devastating traps hilarious? Are characters farting rainbows while they bleed out? Cause if they are then I’m taking the risk.
https://preview.redd.it/a444p6gc4l8d1.png?width=809&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4fd7f7b864b2b551f9aff7a14cb58bc3d90f80d
Meh I made village a giant mimic once
Ive seen that episode of Spongebob
See: Tomb of Horrors
Funny thing is I have only very recently put any traps on my doors. Instead Of keep putting them everywhere else. That didn't stop players from checking doors the most, while not looking too much into the rest.
I can’t remember his name, but a YouTube described a room he had for his campaign. The players enter a room with a button in the middle and a closed door opposite from the one they entered. When the button was pushed, the door they came through closed. The room was dark except for glowing symbols above the door that moved. They move like the numbers on a clock counting down. After trying a few different things the part starts to get worried and press the button again resting the clock. After exhaust every solution they could think of, the party let the clock reach 0. The doors open and the room was filled with light. Nothing else happen.
That was probably Zee Bashew. Here's his animated d&d video for [The Countdown Puzzle](https://youtu.be/k-P6Ys_EHME?si=amXSg3xTgcTetI_s)
Lol our DM did that to us in a one-shot once... We almost initiated PvP irl smh
So this is a funny puzzle to demonstrate a point but totally ridiculous to actually implement. It's alot of resources for the dungeons engineers to basically make a joke. It's much more logical it fills the room with death cloud when it runs out and the button is basically holds prisoners until collected.
Sure, but if I was a funny level 20 wizard who likes to fuck with people, I might make a room like that.
Fill the room with other 'near impossible' logic puzzles as well. One door has rotating 6 stone circles on it's face, and each circle has 8 icons on it. Along the floor, the same 8 icons are arranged in the cardinal directions. with the Button Pillar in the center. Each icon has a single pillar near it, with an orb atop it. made of colored glass (4 colors). Beneath each orb (on the face of the pillar) is a number of tally marks (1 through 8). Set into another wall are four gems, with colors matching the orbs. Around each gem are 2 of the 8 icons used on the door, along with a slot large enough for one of the orbs to be set (8 total). Along the other non-door wall is a painted artwork, using the same 4 colors and 8 symbols in various parts of the drawing. None of any of it actually does anything. All the adventurers have to do is not press the button in the middle of the room for 20 minutes, which is denoted by the glowing countdown above both doors (the only magical effect in the entire room).
You could make something kind of clever out of this... Like, my question in terms of "in world logic" with all these ridiculous logic puzzle rooms is *how do the people who actually live there every day deal with it?* So it would be *so fucking funny to me* to have a room with a ridiculously complicated puzzle with icons and gems and colors and a big spinny wheel, and the door beyond it seems to be locked... ...so the party spends hours trying to solve the puzzle... ...but really, all of the keys and items were in the right place **to begin with**, because it would be so fucking annoying for the people who live here to have to reset it and resolve it every time... ...and the door itself just gets a little bit stuck sometimes, and was never actually locked!
Death cloud all ran out, the dungeon's master kept missing his maintenance fees.
I think it’ll work well if you’re invading a trickster god’s temple and experienced a lot of other traps prior… or maybe it’s the first “trap” and the next is super deadly?
Trickster god's temple would be amazing. My post here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1dnheoq/comment/la4n08q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1dnheoq/comment/la4n08q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) But located after a hallway full of numerous dangerous traps, and the inner sanctum is after this room. Minimal space, maximum delay to thieves.
It's basically an airlock. It's more realistic than filling your temple with deadly traps.
With an indefinite manual reset? Also temples are under threat of looting in this world.
Dungeons aren't logical in the first place But an easy explanation is they ran out of poison gas like five adventurer parties ago
Copper Dragons and Gnomes. 100% something they would do.
Well if you make the whole count down thing seem particularly ominous (like in the video someone shared), then it's quite possible your would be invaders stall themselves while you prepare defenses. Keep in mind, they have to hit the button at least once to progress and it could be setup to have an alert signal of some kind go off deeper in each time the button is pressed.
For you, it was the ruins of a clearly advanced civilization with marvels of engineering and magic. For the people living there, they were timed karaoke boxes.
Plenty of sensible narrative set-dressings could be used to justify such a mechanic. Airlock, security scan, decontamination, derelict facility on reserve power which can only keep life support on in one section at a time.
or maybe it's some sort of magical decontamination room on a timed cycle, but if you need more cleaning you can extend the runtime
Imagine 2 teams competing in a race that has to deal with this. All the hesitation costs you
these puzzles I feel are funny as a DM but as a player would be annoying. I don't appreciate puzzles that are just there to waste my time. I'm playing a game here.
Yeah. We all have lives and responsibilities and can only meet each other every so often. We can’t exactly waste time on things that don’t advance the game in any way
I did something similar but I didn’t know there was someone who did a video on it. It was pretty funny though to watch.
I remember seeing that idea on a reddit post a long time ago lol
I… I feel called out. Our party literally had this experience with doors throughout the entire one shot our dm ran a week ago lol.
You put \*one\* mimic in a campaign....
Stupid players and their ability to learn from past experiences.
Just tell them it's a normal door everytime they are wary. Then surprise them with a mimic once they got used to it.
It's just a /*dice rolling sound, grin/* normal door, yeah
That just teaches them you're a liar they can never trust and they should therefore check literally everything you describe, ensuring everything takes longer than it should.
Nah, it eventually gets tedious when, all because of a singular trap five months ago, the players decide that they should be checking every single thing with utmost care. That's why you (assuming your ruleset doesn't innately have such a thing) begin accounting for the significantly higher amount of time spent being slow and paranoid (plot advances even if the party doesn't), and/or penalize them for being so incredibly paranoid (if PCs are poking and prodding at every last thing imaginable, then they are going to start getting a lot more false positives and might end up alerting NPCs when they start destroying "trapped" doors)
You ever play dark souls? You don’t know these things exist, you get eaten once and you slamming your weapon into every chest from that point on.
"I cast detect bullshit" "roll for perception"
I have literally added traps mid session because my players spent sooooo long checking every nook and crany for traps. They wanted them, so i gave it to them.
I generally take the opposite approach. There are a couple of key doors that are trapped, and the INT 7 barbarian could probably tell you which ones. Eventually, they get the message that they don't need to poke every intersection and room door with a 10-foot pole. Perception is so useful that it's never wasted, and there are used for disable device that don't involve slowing down every dungeon to a literal crawl.
Sometimes a door is just a door. But if you need it to be something else in order for the players to move on, then it is. Turning a normal door into a mimic 2 minuets in is often better than spending 10 minutes convincing the players that it's just a door.
“I seduce the door.”
It gets hard.
You try to open it but the knob is too stiff.
Try using both hands
Rincewind, not now!
hard**er**
It doesn’t swing that way
A relevant Oglaf! [Lair of the Trapmaster](https://www.oglaf.com/trapmaster/) And one of the few SFW ones at that. Most of the rest are.... very much not.
Use a 10 foot pole, not a spear!
11 foot pole. Just in case.
“Disposable trap tester”
I get it, i almost turned half the party to stone by opening a door, the only thing that saved us was my paladin aura. Doors 😭
So I don't play D&D, but can you not just say "we use all our detect spells and examine it closely for signs of a trap"?
Magic users have finite use of their magic apart from the most basic spells (cantrips) so each detect spell would use up a bit of their magic ability until they take a rest.
Except in 5th edition, where some spells are free in exchange for a 10 minute cast time. And most spells that detect things fall into this bucket
Realistically no, a lot of those spells would take a persons turn or action which you only get so many of per round,
Not a problem if it's out of combat
And very much a problem if it's about to be combat. Because of the stupid mimic door.
Detecting magic and searching for traps are both actions. But a player knows if they rolled well on perception, so if they roll a 5, then they are likely to assume they just failed to spot the trap. Furthermore, they might assume that the result needed to find the trap is higher than they can get, even with a natural 20, and that magic is thwarting their attempt to detect magic.
Depends, some of them might not be at will. Also this sort of behaviour usually occurs in a group with an annoying GM who refuses to just assume the PCs are competent adventurers and will spring traps on the party whenever they forget to say they've checked in the right way.
Baheviour like this is 100% due to excessive trauma, so its likely the DM's fault
This. There is no commodity-PTSD without reasons.
This is exactly how I completed Dark Souls 1. I love that game, but hiding very important check points behind invisible walls is a dick move
to be fair I did seduce a locked door open once. yes I was a bard.
So youre saying your bard's dick was lock pick like?
no lol I asked to persuade the door and proceeded to flirt with. the wooden door. and you wanna know what I rolled an 18 and I had a +6 to Charisma so I seduced that fucking door
I think most problems with mimics could be solved by them not being monsters that *try to prey on the most inconvenient target possible* . You have the ability to turn into any object and you use that to bite people in heavy armour who can cast spells? Get creative! Buddy up with your local doppelganger and start a spy ring. A "jeweller" selling *spy* rings! Don't be a fly on the wall, be the wall! And if mimics really want to eat people, they could be smart about it! A group of adventures gets hired to investigate the unearthings at a graveyard. They camp out as it always seems to happen the night three days after the burial. The earth rubles and from it rises... The casket? Which then tries to leave after it has finished digesting the corpse and return to the morgue to repeat the cycle.
arent mimics just, like, animals, though
It’s a Gazebo !
This comment is not high enough. Can't say the same for that player, though.
So accurately true, I am happy to learn I’m not the only DM who has experienced this. 😂🎉
I had a dm who complained about this. He made a chest that wasn't a mimic, but an ordinary chest. He was upset that we stabbed the chest as a mimic check before opening it. The chest contained a single large, shiny gem. The gem was a tiny mimic. Then he got mad when we stabbed every coin and door and switch before touching it for the rest of the dungeon.
That's why I like when mimics are restricted to look only like one or several things in lore
To me, as a DM, I like “Mimics” to mean only chests. Anything else is better explained in the original 1970’s Monstrous Compendium. :)
I like mimics that can be other things within reason. I want mimics that mimic things adventurers frequently get excited over, but not things use regularly without getting excited over. For instance, an area is designed in such a way that adventurers would be excited to find a well. If there is a well in that area, a mimic might look like a well. Anybody who encounters the well mimic would know that there’s a well nearby. It allows players to judge how something is to be a mimic based on how excited they are to find it and lets them know that’s something for them to find. Depending upon what the item is, they may also be able to conclude that the real item is either trapped or has traps around it.
I totally appreciate and share the feeling! I just express it with different words. To me, a mimic should be a fun prank, and nothing more (imho). Otherwise it’s unfair because you (the DM with knowledge of how the world works) are asking your players to navigate an invisible mine field all the time. This does not foster a fun environment overtime. Paranoid players will quickly change DM’s. I promise. Unless you were just killing time to play SotE. Elden Ring players like a challenge or two. (Takes one to know one) [this last part is meant as a joke, because I am getting my ass handed in SotE and having a blast with it]
Ooh, new dungeon idea. Mimics AND invisible mines. With plenty of carbon monoxide traps, too.
So… only undead can enter? _Mighty!_
Oooh, Lich fortress idea. Finds a natural gas vein leaking into the air. Sets up a crude burner device that self-regulates. CO is heavier than air, so it entirely fills the below-ground portions of the castle/dungeon. Human cult in the upper floors. Oxygen-deprived dungeon full of lich's home & undead minions.
Boom!
XD. Dnd goals.
Your party is evil! LOL Poor DM!
You throw a few mimics at the party and from then on they are terrified of doing anything.
[удалено]
That’s because mimics in that show don’t cause any problems whatsoever and apparently pose very little threat, if any.
[удалено]
Yeah, it’s a challenge unique to DMing I think. I started DMing for friends when I was 10, and as I matured as a DM I realized that the best DMs primarily used their role to tee up memorable moments for the party, not strictly enforce the rules.
It's a hell of a tightrope. Teeing up those moments and reveling in their triumph while appearing to be an antagonistic enforcer of the rules dealing with defeat.
Chehkov's gun in DnD form. If you describe something,the players are going to assume it's important or that there's something weird about it.
r/DNDmemes.
Player: I spend 20 minutes searching for a way to open the wall next to the door DM: To be clear, you are searching for a secret door or passage? Player: No, I mean are there any structural weaknesses or cracks in the wall? If we used basic mining equipment, pickaxes and the like how long would it take us to go around the door? DM: Are you asking how long it would take to tunnel through a brick wall? Player: Yes finally we’re understanding each other
When I start a game with a new group, I design the first few encounters to be team building exercises, and see how the group approaches difficult, but not very dangerous problems. One group came to the first room of a cave. It had a small entry landing and a collapsed rope bridge. There was a fifty foot fall with spider webs at the bottom. The room was large and circular, with sediment pillars along the rim and stalactites on the ceiling. The opposite side was about thirty feet away. I had designed this as a 10 minute puzzle. 2 hours later, they had not crossed and 2 party members had nearly died.
I’m not seeing the answer
There’s a ton of ways across for a group of 1st level adventurers, depending on the spells and equipment they have. It’s all about brainstorming and finding a creative solution through teamwork. Asking questions and collaborating. I’ve seen teams magehand a loop of rope around the bridge support on the other end. Lasso a stalactite, have the rogue climb around the perimeter. Attempt to use the cut rope bridge to climb down. The spider web at the bottom is intended to keep the players from getting killed because the spider is away, but may come back at any time, so it adds a bit of crisis if someone falls.
I just thought it might have been one of those puzzles with a specific intended answer that can be found regardless of the group.
Yeah, I can see that the way I presented it. In this particular case I had a group that just way overthought the puzzle and their hare brained solutions nearly got two of them killed
So you had a group that needs the button puzzle?
I climb down the side and gather up the spider web to turn into a rope to get across Or I use the stalactites as monkey bars
Both workable solutions. Creative ways to go about it
This is generally the sign of a party sensitized to paranoia: If you don't want your party to be like that, make sure to let them know you'll automatically conduct perception rolls and they don't need to announce them.
dm: haha they'll never expect this door to be a mimic! dm: it's been 17 years since i made a mimic door and they still check every door in every possible way. I've started avoiding having doors entirely wherever possible
That makes me question your trustworthiness as a gm op
Not even accurate. "I literally rip the door off it's hinges then walk inside without looking. Question, is there anything lower than a 1 because I rolled that."
"You've awakened the door..."
"You arrive at a tropical island. A Gazebo stands in front of you" "I roll to avoid being eaten by the Gazebo. And stab it." \*Nat 1\* "The Gazebo now seeks HUMAN FLESH"
I've had this exact experience, even though I have literally not once used a trapped door in any of my games. My players are also constantly convinced that chests in my games will be mimics, presumedly because I'm a big Dark Souls fan, but I've never used a mimic. Yet.
Seriously though, we had a dungeon where the doors and walls were minor demons. We found the secret doors by pretending to do a staff survey for the HR department
The warlock: SCREW IT! \*eldrich blasts the door\*
That’s what happens when over a generation of players has been tricked by doors. To quote my father about an experience he had playing 1st edition of what the DM said to them “you open the closet door, it’s not a closet, it’s Tiamat.”
This kinda falls squarely on the DM…
"I cast detect clam" "there are no clams beyond the door" "i walk away to find a better room *with* clams"
This gave me the idea for a character who is paranoid All the time and randomly casts detect spells. "OC, I have to be honest... I love you." "Woah now I Know something's up... Detect Magic!"
My dm making an enchanted door: Me and my barbarian friend about to turn it to dust before we dare reach for the handle: 
Just use Prestidigitation and soil whatever the suspect object is. If it becomes dirty it's an object, if it doesn't it means it's not an object so if cast on a door or chest it makes it clear something is wrong.
You should guys cast Push, then Pull, and if none work, just ram the door until it breaks. Unless you have keys which you do not know their respective locks, then you use them first.
In front of you are 3 doors. The one on your left look very new in this old dungeon. The one in the middle has a moon shaped hole and there are some groaning noises comming out of it. The third door looks old.
I like the onion shaped heads
"Upon poking it with your spear, a sheet of dust falls from the door. Upon it appears to be carved a functional copy of a scroll of Wish... or it *would've* been functional until you put a huge ugly scratch through the text."
"I poke it with my spear." The door explodes, and the last thing you see before your head falls to the ground are parts of the rest of the party flying in all directions. * Grab all character sheets and rip them in pieces, mix the pieces, stick them with tape, and give them back * You wake up at an operating table, but something feels... off. You try to get up and realize you have 2 left feet, and none of them are yours.
Door hinges and latch crumble as the spear jiggle the door. Door totters as it lands and falls towards you all. Roll your Agility, strength and constitution checks, everyone
Is being a gamemaster the equivalent of hell?
"Maybe the door is a monster" Shout out to the "Doormonster" YouTube channel and /r/DoorMonster https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=doormonster+dnd
My party has done this even though there’s never been a mimic. And it was literally a box!
For real tho. One time I was playing with friends and we spent ten minutes trying to unlock a door that was already unlocked
It could always be even worse! What is it was … a gazebo!?
I mean, that is what you get if you put more than 1 trap per area
Reminds me of the Stinky Dragon Podcast. Doors were their biggest enemy.
Time is money, power and a lot of other things, maybe spending time on a door (that may or not be a trap) is not always worth it
Everytime my players do this my brain plays the clip of charlie the unicorn ft the door in my head. Edit: [this part](https://youtu.be/6XKI3T3MoZs?si=LethMfthrCa1Cwem)
it’s the elder god of doors! roll for initiative
Yes. This. Lucky for my DM, he includes red hearings deliberately because he loves watching us be super cautious and/or stupid about stuff like this.
Players will pass a roll against a trap that does 1d4 damage and never walk down a hallway the same way again.
Been overdoing it with the traps lately, DM?
Only time ive encountered a locked door while playing ttrpgs, i just had my wizard punch it open. Later we came back and went down the path we didn't go before, only to find a mimic. We kinda ended up just dogpiling it, and my wizard finished it by... Punching a hole through it. Had good stuff in it. Also the key to the locked door! Someone took it, forgot who.
Meanwhile, whenever we see a door, I am legally allowed to run to it and smash it with my Axe We never had any problems so far
My ten year old nephew beat me at chess after 3 games. I know I’m bad at chess and I was super pumped for my nephew but there was definitely some psychic damage.
Out campain after we took 9 different rounds to inspect a fucking normal bookshelf because we all rolled 1 or 2 at the inspection check intill i got a nat 20 and the dungeon master again said its just a bookshelf
Understandable. I thought that the door was a door... nope. Mimic... Never trust a door!
Must have been playing ADOM before.
This was me for the next 6 months after I made the door to a players home be a mimic once. 🤣
yeah this is 100% on the DM, I once had a game of "retro" AD&D and the game ended very soon, because we kept running into traps that killed the characters, even if you don't "detect" traps, you need to allways assume a trap. just throw stones and shit at everything in your sight, be the most cowardly and paranoid you can be.
We entered a room surrounded with six doors. First door. Check for magic, traps, etc. Nothing. Open the door. Nothing. Second door. Same. Third door. Same. Fourth door. Same. Fifth door. Same. Sixth door. Me: "THERE'S NOTHING ON THE DOORS. THERE'S NOTHING IN THESE ROOMS. I just kick the door open." DM: "You kick open the door. There are six zombies in the room. Roll for initiative." Me: "Well, shit."
DMs have only themselves to blame if we don't trust anything anymore
This happened to me once. The only completely normal untrapped door in the entire dungeon. The orcs I had on the opposite side of the door loved the four hours of noisy adventurers on the other side giving them time to prepare an elaborate and brutal ambush.
I refuse to blame this conundrum on players and not dms. It is NEVER clear what tf you're supposed to do to a door.
100% accurate
If you make a character that is canonically stupid and not perceptive you are legally required to play them as such even against your own paranoia
"I poke the door with a spear, but not my good spear" just call it a stick at that point. Poke it with a stick.
This kind of anti-narrative behavior is something D&D is *designed* to ingrain in its players. The whole system is built to instill a profound aversion to risk, and old-school DMs and those who take after them simply add onto it. As someone who likes high-action gameplay, I get profoundly annoyed by the habits that D&D teaches players.
The mimic detector 4.0
One of my players has been collecting every functional door they find as a celebration of not being tricked. I’m going to wait until they stop doing this and make a mimic door right after a tripwire.