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Ideas for security mechanisms.


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Entering a dungeon and just running in and fighting the enemies right away can get a tad boring at times, and you can only use the old "guess the password" or "find the key" gimmicks so often. Here I intend that we share ideas for interesting security mechanisms that more intelligent enemies might have placed in their lairs and dungeons.

 

I'll start off; This one is awfully simple, really. In a special pop-up decision-box dealie(like what happens when you walk up to a turnable wheel that opens gates, you get a choice between turning it and leaving it alone.) should pop up when you enter the room that has the control levers in it. Your Brave Adventurers would have to choose the correct sequence to pull the levers(or other things) from choices presented in the choice-box. It would probably be best that you give the player fair warning that a trap could be sprung on them if they choose the wrong sequence, like saying "There are suspicious little holes in the floor here" (the old spike shooting-up trap). It would be good if there were some way to find the proper sequence, as well, like how you can find maps and passwords and things off of people in some of the Avernum games. If they choose the wrong sequence anyway, you get to describe their grisly death by the trap, or you could simply have a bunch of enemies waltz in and attack, if you want to give the player a chance to escape.

 

It's the sort of thing you COULD get right after a few reloads, so I guess it's not very good, but I'm sure that you all can think of better ones.

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Instant death traps are typically de-recommended. Unless a place was built to be sealed off forever, traps are mostly designed to inconvenience the victim or alert guards - in an inhabited place, even if the inhabitants are an evil cult, the risk of accidental death would be too high.

 

EDIT : This doesn't apply to hastily-constructed traps, which are usually intended to be death traps - but are also usually either manned or one-shot.

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Quote:
Originally written by Captain Uglyhead:
It's the sort of thing you COULD get right after a few reloads, so I guess it's not very good, but I'm sure that you all can think of better ones.
Actually, that's A Good Thing, IMO. There are players who get very frustrated with hard-to-solve puzzles. Having a builtin way to bypass the frustration (reloading) helps those players. That's one reason riddles tend to be a popular mechanism for sorta-kinda impeding player progress. They're multiple choice, and by process of elimination, you're guaranteed to get it right in a limited number of tries. smile

That is, if you're blocking progress to a required area. If it's part of an optional quest, make it a hard puzzle and let the people who don't care to puzzle it out just miss out on the fun. smile

Standard disclaimer: That's all just my own opinion, of course...
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Well, I have a Laser Mine terrain script, but, it's a little, off. I still haven't figured out how to make it fire once each time the party moves instead of contuining to pummel them until they die frown

Terrain Scripts with inovative ideas that fit with the dungueon are pretty good for stuff like that. That is once you learn to script them...

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Another realistic trap would be to have an entry room with locked/secret doors to hold any intruders up for a minute. Then, during that time the guards examine them and decide whether to manually trigger the collapsing floor/falling rocks/concealed spikes/whatever. This would reduce the change of accidentally getting the wromg guy. As for ways to get through the trap, besides the obvious ones (secret passages, passwords, keys), the characters could have to dress up in clothing and armor looted from other guards, or perhaps have a certain character with them in order to make the guard think they're friendly, or just fast-talk or bribe him into letting them through.

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Keys...keycards. smile

 

It'd be like a portcullis, except it would require a keycard to open and close after you'd gone through it (like keys, but faster, more practical, and the re-locking behind you is automatic.)

 

Another interesting mechanism would be say, a vault door that required two guards to be present at opposite ends of the outer room to insert two keycards simultaneously, thereby ensuring that noone can enter the vault alone (discouraging unauthorised theft).

 

There's also airlocks. You could have the above mechanism, and inside the vault would be a passage, at the end being another door or something, followed by the treasure/etc.

 

Inside the tube would be a key/keycard-operated lever of somesort. This would close the entrance and open the end-door, and vice-versa. That way, you could only get into the actual vault if you operated the lever while in the passage, and if an intruder entered the passage, you wouldn't operate the lever, and you'd have to die to get into the actual vault. And once you'd opened the end door, the entry door would be closed and prevent further intruders until you pulled the lever again to leave.

 

Another mechanism could be, say, you had to flip a switch in a nearby room to open a door, or something.

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If anyone's played Half-Life, there's a bit in the introduction (the first chapter, before the disaster) where you're getting let into the experiment chamber thingy, and two scientists have to do retinal scans at the same time at opposite ends of the room to let you through. You could do a similar thing with keys or keycards; so to get through, you'd not only need the key/keycard, but you'd need to enlist the help of an NPC or glue the keycard into the slot. laugh

 

Or if the player is smart and has more than one PC, they could just go into combat mode and give each keycard to a different PC... smile

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A good idea would be a rune that blocks the party, but the party can never get through because it is not relavent to the game. AND if they decide to cheat and use end combat to bypass that rune, you have a trap which teleports the party all over a big room while dragons pummel them, then show a message_dialog saying that "the only way you can get in here is to cheat, so, you cheaters will be punished!". Then put other traps that keep blasting them... Good punishment for players using that end combat to pass special encounters....

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Hmm... I want to do a puzzle based on conway's game of life. (should be possible with the new scripts) Have the player make a glider gun, or something. smile

 

But I wonder at how I can possibly justify it...

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Quote:
Originally written by GIFTSare2nice:
Good punishment for players using that end combat to pass special encounters....
Use blocked spaces, they're foolproof. Unless of course you are intentionally trying to catch people trying to use that cheat. wink
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Quote:
Originally written by Isaac:
Quote:
Originally written by GIFTSare2nice:
Good punishment for players using that end combat to pass special encounters....
Use blocked spaces, they're foolproof. Unless of course you are intentionally trying to catch people trying to use that cheat. wink
I AM intentionally trying to catch people using that cheat. That would be funny when the player passes the rune, gets the message that they cheated and will now die, and listen to them say "oh clap."
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