Player mentality is the defining factor. Do the players expect to have to run away from encounters or do the expect balanced challenge and fight everything. If discretion is part of the game, then nope-ing out of a too tough to handle situation is viable, conversely if the expectation is all fights are winnable, do not put a game over button in font of the players.

Quote from: Wisithir on July 16, 2022, 09:22:57 PM
Player mentality is the defining factor. Do the players expect to have to run away from encounters or do the expect balanced challenge and fight everything.

I feel that this is a different problem. I call it "The Balrog Problem". Let's say that a group of 1st level characters sees a Balrog and a doorway with the inscription "If you see a Balrog run away!". At once you can place that specific group of players in one of two categories: those who run away and those who say "We are 1st level so there must be a fix: maybe the Balrog is an illusion or maybe he is friendly. Let's go to him and see what happens!"

When I ran my 13 years long D&D campaign, the mantra of the players was "avoid, escape, misdirect". They were 9th level and still avoided four goblins. There were combats of course, but only when they were either unavoidable or too critical for their aims to have "run away" as an option. This made each combat memorable. This also led me to tailor the campaign on their style: build encounters against impossible odds, lay back and think "Now let's see how they will pull it off". I was never disappointed.

If the players decide to embrace a friendly, plushy Balrog, then my take is "Don't cheat": TPK 'em in a brutal way and hope that they learn. If they don't, either be extremely careful to craft only balanced encounters (notice however how a Balrog and a way to flee is balanced) or find another group.

Quote from: Wisithir on July 16, 2022, 09:22:57 PM
Player mentality is the defining factor. Do the players expect to have to run away from encounters or do the expect balanced challenge and fight everything. If discretion is part of the game, then nope-ing out of a too tough to handle situation is viable, conversely if the expectation is all fights are winnable, do not put a game over button in font of the players.

Agreed expectations are the defining factor.  The GM gets a say, too.  If the GM tells the players that some fights they can't win, but they can run away--and then they ignore that, then the "player mentality" is going to need adjustment. That adjustment can come from players learning or from players leaving, but either way some adjustment is happening.

I have never liked Chekhov's Gun as a principle.

It's one of those "rules for writing" like that has some merit for novices to break them of bad habits but once the central idea has been internalized you can and should ignore it. For example, I taught that every paragraph should be at least three sentences long and begin with a sentence introducing the topic of the paragraph. That's fine for grade school essays but ridiculous as a general guide to writing.

As you yourself have kind of intuited, it's also incompatible with organic worldbuilding. Here you have a world and you know the dungeon should be there, but you're considering removing it or changing it because of Chekhov.

The core intuition at the heart of the principle is that "What seems important should be important." You don't want your audience/players obsessing over something that isn't important and being disappointed when they learn it isn't important. The thing is, you can't entirely control what your audience/players will think is important. Many of us have been primed by enough mystery stories that we expect anything and everything to be important.

My suggestion in your case, piggy-backing on some of the other suggestions here, is to make is (a) inaccesible without going to great lengths (a special key, or a difficult puzzle to open the gate), (b) make it a rumor rather than something they necessarily find, (c) come up with plenty of other rumors of dungeons that aren't true, and finally, if possible (d) make it the focus of a later campaign. Delaying gratification can make the payoff even more satisfying.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on July 17, 2022, 08:55:41 AM
Agreed expectations are the defining factor.  The GM gets a say, too.  If the GM tells the players that some fights they can't win, but they can run away--and then they ignore that, then the "player mentality" is going to need adjustment. That adjustment can come from players learning or from players leaving, but either way some adjustment is happening.

I'd say this is a mismatch of expectations. If the GM thinks they can put dangers that can't be beaten into adventures, whereas the players think that they can win every encounter, then either both sides accept lots of TPKs, or one side adjusts its expectations. But that can be either the GM or players. If the players just want hack-and-slash, then a campaign of working out how to avoid trouble may not be their thing. Of course, it could be that the GM and players just aren't compatible.

I don't ever put anything into my campaigns I'm not willing to engage with the players in 100%. I don't tell players in my games that "some combats can't be won." Mainly because if a player is metagaming and thinks I won't kill them "just because" - they're not really playing the game I'm running, and eventually they'll learn the hard lesson: I don't ever kill PC's, the PC's get themselves killed. And won't need to go out of my way to kill anyone - it'll happen on its own most of the time.

I play my settings brutally honest - if you act honorable, if you're a good person, the world will reflect that back at you. If you play stupid, or you try to pre-suppose what I as a GM intend (I intend nothing other than to make my settings interesting sandboxes I fill with all kinds of setpieces, and stuff I make up on the fly contextually) and you play chaotic-stupid, then you will likely find yourself dead as a doornail.

So this "uber-Dungeon" might be something in the back of the OP's head, but there are ways to skin the cat. IF it's that interesting to you, then put it in there and let the chips fall. If you don't "intend" for the PC's to ever engage in it - then why is it even a thing in your head? What could possibly cause your world to rotate around this thing if you want to believe it's necessary and somehow keep it occluded from your PC's to engage with? What's the point of that?

You can place it in the game, create a set of necessary locks on the door - and leave it. And if the players can get past those locks, which should require adventures and adventures to do - then FAIR PLAY. Let them have your secret stash of Phase Pulse Rifles and X-Ray Gatling Guns you tucked away in your fantasy world. But you damn well better be prepared to let them use them (Chekhov smiles here).

Here's the thing: The PC's are the stars of your show. Not you, not your setting, not your wild narrative linear ideas about "story". Story is what emerges from what the players DO. Not what you want them to do. Give your players maximal freedom, but give them maximal consequences. This is the highest level of play. This doesn't mean you can't create your fancy-dan campaign secrets and setpieces, and your secret reasons why they interlock, and cause the sun to spin around the turtle upon which your world secretly rests. It means that you have to allow your players to play in this playground and do what they want with appropriate recourse.

This also means that you have to let them blow shit up, if they think of doing things you didn't. Your job as a GM is to roll with those punches and constantly make lemonade when you were trying to make a brisket. You present your world authentically. And if you plop a sign down that says "Here Be Dragons." You better damn well mean it. But nothing says that the "Here Be Dragons" sign wasn't put up by some NPC for an ulterior reason... does it? But either way - you have to own it.

Be the fan of your PC's as much as you setting. Kill them mercilessly when their actions deserve it. Reward them with fame and glory with equal measure. This is the way.

I do not think the OP's mystery dungeon is 'story'.

It is part of worlbuilding and background. Bog standard stuff.

The problem comes from the OP wanting this feature but not wanting the PCs to dither with it.

There are lots of ways you can pull that off. But its alot of hoop jumping that the players may still circumvent.

As said before. If you place something in the game then be prepared for the players to possibly go investigate. Or totally ignore. Because the diametric opposite can happen too. You WANT the players to go poke the mystery dungeon. But they totally ignore it. Nothing you do will get them to engage it and even if you teleport them there they will find some way to leave. 

or to put it differently. Does your setting have a moon? Yes? Then there is no guarantee that someone will not try to get there by some means. I say this because that someone was me of way the hell back. I had this ingenious, it absolutely impractical, idea of using a series of teleports to reach the moon. Why? Because it was there. Because I still have my old Tang Moon Landing cup. Because I wanted to see if I could.

This was years before Spelljammer. 

Quote from: tenbones on July 17, 2022, 03:26:29 PM
I don't ever put anything into my campaigns I'm not willing to engage with the players in 100%. I don't tell players in my games that "some combats can't be won." Mainly because if a player is metagaming and thinks I won't kill them "just because" - they're not really playing the game I'm running, and eventually they'll learn the hard lesson: I don't ever kill PC's, the PC's get themselves killed. And won't need to go out of my way to kill anyone - it'll happen on its own most of the time.

I play my settings brutally honest - if you act honorable, if you're a good person, the world will reflect that back at you. If you play stupid, or you try to pre-suppose what I as a GM intend (I intend nothing other than to make my settings interesting sandboxes I fill with all kinds of setpieces, and stuff I make up on the fly contextually) and you play chaotic-stupid, then you will likely find yourself dead as a doornail.

So this "uber-Dungeon" might be something in the back of the OP's head, but there are ways to skin the cat. IF it's that interesting to you, then put it in there and let the chips fall. If you don't "intend" for the PC's to ever engage in it - then why is it even a thing in your head? What could possibly cause your world to rotate around this thing if you want to believe it's necessary and somehow keep it occluded from your PC's to engage with? What's the point of that?

You can place it in the game, create a set of necessary locks on the door - and leave it. And if the players can get past those locks, which should require adventures and adventures to do - then FAIR PLAY. Let them have your secret stash of Phase Pulse Rifles and X-Ray Gatling Guns you tucked away in your fantasy world. But you damn well better be prepared to let them use them (Chekhov smiles here).

Here's the thing: The PC's are the stars of your show. Not you, not your setting, not your wild narrative linear ideas about "story". Story is what emerges from what the players DO. Not what you want them to do. Give your players maximal freedom, but give them maximal consequences. This is the highest level of play. This doesn't mean you can't create your fancy-dan campaign secrets and setpieces, and your secret reasons why they interlock, and cause the sun to spin around the turtle upon which your world secretly rests. It means that you have to allow your players to play in this playground and do what they want with appropriate recourse.

This also means that you have to let them blow shit up, if they think of doing things you didn't. Your job as a GM is to roll with those punches and constantly make lemonade when you were trying to make a brisket. You present your world authentically. And if you plop a sign down that says "Here Be Dragons." You better damn well mean it. But nothing says that the "Here Be Dragons" sign wasn't put up by some NPC for an ulterior reason... does it? But either way - you have to own it.

Be the fan of your PC's as much as you setting. Kill them mercilessly when their actions deserve it. Reward them with fame and glory with equal measure. This is the way.

Thanks for all the comments.  They have been helpful.  I picked this one specifically to quote.  But their were others I could have quoted aswell.

Everything you posted above I agree with and I'm cool with.  I can roll with lemonade.   If they want lemonade.  I just don't want them to think I want lemonade.   I don't want them meta gaming. 

I've had my players say "well ok, I guess we'll go over here and investigate these giants cause that's where the story is wink wink."  But the story wasn't there, I didn't have those giants prepped. I wanted they to go North, that's where the story was.  I had to wing it.  They had no reason in game to go find those giants.  They just did it because that's what they thought I wanted them to do. 

My current game has just started.  I don't know their expectations.  I don't think it is smart for me to expect that I can show them a super cool tomb with very high level undead, in the second session, and not have them expect that the game revolves around that tomb.

They can go to that tomb.  That's fine.  I can keep them out a low level, warn them at mid level and at high level go for it.  And give them the loot.   No problem.  I just don't want them to think its the key to everything. 

So I'm going to move the tomb.  It will be a remnant of the same age, just not a tomb.  The tomb needs to be there, but not right-god-damn-there.  I think if they encounter the same thing early, before they have any hope of engaging with it, but not the very first thing, there is less risk of them fixating on it. 

Then if they want to go back cool.  If they don't even better. 

Quote from: Headless on July 17, 2022, 10:09:43 PM
So I'm going to move the tomb.  It will be a remnant of the same age, just not a tomb.  The tomb needs to be there, but not right-god-damn-there.  I think if they encounter the same thing early, before they have any hope of engaging with it, but not the very first thing, there is less risk of them fixating on it. 

Then if they want to go back cool.  If they don't even better.

Just an idea: the PCs see a bas-relief depicting some great feat tied to the tomb and/or its occupants. This is one among others, so the scene does seem to tell a tale of ancient kings or whatever. Only later they learn that if you trace a very specific pattern on the bas-relief (maybe while reciting a spell that the PCs right now don't even have) the doorway to a tomb opens.

This way, you add lore and atmosphere to your campaign while keeping up to your sleeve the moment when they discover that it is a tomb. It is a bit railroading but, in my experience, it is good railroading, because if you do it well the result will be a lot of sense of wonder.

Exactly as Reckall put it.

You CAN have your cake and eat it too. The problem you're having is DM-Tunnel Vision. You think just because you put something into your game it's a tunnel leading to that ONE thing. If you're running a linear adventure, then yes. But I'm saying you need to expand your scope of your campaign.

Go ahead and put your Ultimate Dungeon of No Intention in the game. Keep it secret, keep it safe. Keep it right there in the open. You decide Create legends about it. Create red herrings about it. But don't have anyone talk about it unless the PC's ask. Pfft! It's just old fairy tales! But bring up other breadcrumbs to other adventures, and let them find old ancients tomes talking about events that lead up to the creation of your uber-No-No dungeons. Maybe put hint to another adventure that might pop on of the locks on it.

In other words: Build tension against your players insatiable greedy curiosity and extract game-time out of them. You think you're going to let them into the Secret Locked Dungeon without going on weeks or months - or even a year's(!) worth of adventuring? HELL NO.

In the meantime fill your campaign space with tons of other adventures and drip in more lore about your mega-dungeon.

The KEY here is: You're *going* to let them in that dungeon if they earn it. And they're going to have a GOOD payoff, that just might end in their death... or GLORY.