Playtesting the first dungeon
Reader, last Saturday I play tested the Mausoleum of Past Persons with 4 friends.
The Mausoleum of Past Persons
I was initially nervous. I’m sharing something I’ve created that might not be good or fun. But I recalled that I’ve done this before in campaigns for my players, spun up a dungeon with a little prep. I didn’t have the context of a campaign this time, but who cares? Same thing… ish!
My players picked from some level 1 pregenerated characters. A deft assassin, a deft hunter, a strong battlewizard, and a wise monk. I told them a powerful merchant was worried because no word had been heard from the temple in 2 weeks, and the adventurers were off to check it out.
As I ran the adventure, Reader, I could not resist adding a few elements the players were looking for where it made sense. For instance, when asked “Do I see any signs of previous visitors?”, I included a scared adventurer from a previous party that had fallen prey to the Masked. In retrospect, I don’t know if I’ll keep this — the Masked may well have cleaned up after themselves. But this survivor NPC worked well to provide context about the dungeon.
I also added a hidden crypt of the dungeon’s founder behind the staircase on level 1 that contained his diary and some treasure, along with the dire warning to never place someone half alive on the throne with a mask. This provided some context as well as to what happened here. This I may well keep, and try to sprinkle more hidden elements in more rooms in future design.
I like to run feedback in a 2 step process — what worked, and what didn’t work. I tend to ignore their suggestions for solutions, but I try to pay close attention to the problems.
They loved the monster design, how the masked waited in ambush and separated the party.
Masks on the Pedestals need names.
The inciting incident that unleashed the Masked was unclear. I could solve this with showing some chaos of a fight/raiders, weeks-deserted equipment.
They loved the boss mechanics, of nested HP values and different abilities.
They were confused on how the masks worked, exactly. And they were right, I was inconsistent! I’ll make some changes.
They were looking really hard for a puzzle in the library. Having that many books made them think there was a puzzle.
Going forward, putting on a mask deals 1 psychic damage if you’re not on the throne. If you’re on the throne, make a saving throw. On a success, you can get a coherent idea of the past life’s experiences over the course of a minute. On a failure, 1 psychic damage and you lose a full minute.
I’ll definitely keep the crypt I improvised as well.
I don’t think the location needs a book cypher. If this was an ancient temple it would make sense, but given it’s going to be a pop up art exhibit gone to hell, probably not needed here.