I'm shortly going to be running Sea Ghost from Ghosts of Saltmarsh for a group but was wondering how others recommend working secret rooms, I've spoilered the exact situation below that I need some confirmation/alternative viewpoints on:
On the Sea Ghost, there's 2 Secret Rooms on the Hold Level of the ship, at one end of the ship. I use Paint.Net for battlemaps, I blank out a room at a time and reveal the map below as the party enters. I've got 3 options for doing the secret rooms:
First, and worst (I think), is I blank the room but not the outline (they'd have seen the outside of the ship so know rough dimensions)
Second, I blank the secret rooms and hull beyond to artificially shorten that deck level - this works but also makes it obvious when one room is discovered that there's another.
Third, I artificially extend each room adjacent to the secret rooms and then reveal the wall separation when they discover the secret compartment.
I trust my players not to metagame but I would rather have it as a surprise for the players also. There's not a better way that I'm missing to do this is there?
I can upload a couple of pictures to show what I mean if I'm not being clear enough?
Thanks for that, I was thinking I could keep the room size description the same to simulate the fact that it seems slightly smaller than it feels like it should be (in terms of relation to the overall size of the ship.
Because the players can see the whole floor but the characters may have an intuitive feel for the size of the space (plus, no portholes on the back wall, which there are in the rooms above
Considering that the rooms contain plot specific items and an NPC with information, the goal IS that the characters find the rooms. You really don't want them to be missed so the goal is to make them appear to be a bit difficult to discover without making them so difficult that the party misses them altogether.
In addition, when Oceanus hears creatures in the room outside his prison he starts making noise with the intent of being found. As soon as one room is found it is immediately obvious that there is likely another. The entrance could be on the outside of the ship, above or below the room but the most likely place is in the back wall of the adjacent room (which is where it is) and where the characters are most likely to look after finding one room.
I would just blank out the back half of the map so the players don't immediately see how big the ship is. However, comparing the length of the ship overall or the size of the cabins on the two decks (given the fact that they are connected by a trap door) should make it fairly easy to spot that there is space missing.
Finally, after talking to the lizard folk, the characters will probably be looking for a cache of weapons and when they don't find them they will likely start looking for hidden rooms if they didn't find them or hear the prisoner on the first time through.
P.S. I ran this on Roll20 using dynamic lighting so the characters can only see the inisdes of the cabin when they are in it - which avoided the issue. In your case, you may have different maps for each deck and I would probably implement it by only revealing the inside areas of the deck they are on ... not the outline of the ship.
Are you using a VTT? Foundry handles this pretty well automatically since players can’t see beyond any walls (including the empty space and the hull) if you set the map up that way.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm shortly going to be running Sea Ghost from Ghosts of Saltmarsh for a group but was wondering how others recommend working secret rooms, I've spoilered the exact situation below that I need some confirmation/alternative viewpoints on:
On the Sea Ghost, there's 2 Secret Rooms on the Hold Level of the ship, at one end of the ship. I use Paint.Net for battlemaps, I blank out a room at a time and reveal the map below as the party enters. I've got 3 options for doing the secret rooms:
First, and worst (I think), is I blank the room but not the outline (they'd have seen the outside of the ship so know rough dimensions)
Second, I blank the secret rooms and hull beyond to artificially shorten that deck level - this works but also makes it obvious when one room is discovered that there's another.
Third, I artificially extend each room adjacent to the secret rooms and then reveal the wall separation when they discover the secret compartment.
I trust my players not to metagame but I would rather have it as a surprise for the players also. There's not a better way that I'm missing to do this is there?
I can upload a couple of pictures to show what I mean if I'm not being clear enough?
Thanks for that, I was thinking I could keep the room size description the same to simulate the fact that it seems slightly smaller than it feels like it should be (in terms of relation to the overall size of the ship.
Because the players can see the whole floor but the characters may have an intuitive feel for the size of the space (plus, no portholes on the back wall, which there are in the rooms above
Comments in spoiler ...
Considering that the rooms contain plot specific items and an NPC with information, the goal IS that the characters find the rooms. You really don't want them to be missed so the goal is to make them appear to be a bit difficult to discover without making them so difficult that the party misses them altogether.
In addition, when Oceanus hears creatures in the room outside his prison he starts making noise with the intent of being found. As soon as one room is found it is immediately obvious that there is likely another. The entrance could be on the outside of the ship, above or below the room but the most likely place is in the back wall of the adjacent room (which is where it is) and where the characters are most likely to look after finding one room.
I would just blank out the back half of the map so the players don't immediately see how big the ship is. However, comparing the length of the ship overall or the size of the cabins on the two decks (given the fact that they are connected by a trap door) should make it fairly easy to spot that there is space missing.
Finally, after talking to the lizard folk, the characters will probably be looking for a cache of weapons and when they don't find them they will likely start looking for hidden rooms if they didn't find them or hear the prisoner on the first time through.
P.S. I ran this on Roll20 using dynamic lighting so the characters can only see the inisdes of the cabin when they are in it - which avoided the issue. In your case, you may have different maps for each deck and I would probably implement it by only revealing the inside areas of the deck they are on ... not the outline of the ship.
Are you using a VTT? Foundry handles this pretty well automatically since players can’t see beyond any walls (including the empty space and the hull) if you set the map up that way.