Dungeon Room Appendix: Secrets, and Hidden Things

One of the great joys of exploration in a fantasy adventure game is the chance to discover secrets.

For myself, I love the feeling of "double clicking" on a scene and learning more; it's something about the way my mental picture slowly fades into color and detail. Much of the reason I play TTRPGs is for that very experience.

You might enjoy that process in and of itself, but generally the standard incentive to engage in this sort of behavior is because it will yield something of use, whether that be simply information, or treasure and magic items.

As a player this is good fun, but as a game master, this is work, frankly. It takes work and thought (or a very good content generator) to come up with hiding places for these sorts of secrets (not even to mention coming up with the secrets themselves!).

So, in the interest of serving this need, today I want to explore secrets (and where to hide them).

Setting the scene

Before diving into good hiding places for your secrets, I should lay down the principles I adhere to in this area.

I like games that eschew mental stats in favor of player skill. In short, that means no perception rolls or anything like it; if the players want to find something, they have to interrogate the scene (via the game master) to find what's there.

That said though, it's not really good design or a reasonable expectation to hide things within the game master's brain; in other words, if a room has a safe hidden behind a painting, it's not exactly fair to expect players to instigate the conversation that leads to the discovery of the painting. ("You enter a square, 10 by 10 foot room. What do you do?" "We leave; what a boring room.") Instead, if the game master has something to hide, (and hopes it will be found), it behooves them to give the player's some kind of affordance that will set them down a trail of breadcrumbs to the thing to be found.

So, a safe behind a painting, right? Well, in this scenario, the game master needs to first clue everyone in that there is, in fact, a painting. "You enter a square, 10 by 10 foot room. There is a painting of a severe looking woman on the wall. What do you do?". The game master has essentially put a spotlight on that painting, so now if the player's don't take any interest in it whatsoever, its on them for not finding that safe. But crafty players on the other hand will say "a painting? tell me about this painting; I check behind the painting", and you'll tell them that behind the painting is a brick wall, but the mortar here looks fresher than the rest of the wall, and they will now engage in how they might break through those bricks, and next thing you know they've found the secret safe in the wall. Jackpot. (This has been called Matryoshka Search Technique by the way, and I love it.)

Now, that's good enough for me. I love the engagement, the active mental participation in the imaginary space, and I have no qualms with being somewhat generous with discoveries like this, so long as the players are actively looking in the right places. (Though I might occasionally gate a useful clue behind a relevant player background, e.g. I might not mention that the mortar on those bricks is new unless one of the players was a stonemason or something similar.) But, if you prefer games with mental skill checks, never fear, you can just slap perception or investigation rolls in front of each "layer" of this searching routine, and now you're back to conventional D&D. Fun.

Hiding Places

That out of the way, let's come up with as many hiding places as I can think of off the cuff:

• Under a rug.
• Behind a banner/tapestry/curtain.
• Behind a painting.
• Inside a desk or wardrobe.
• Under a bed.
• Under/Inside the couch cushions.
• In the closet.
• Inside a chest/barrel/crate.
• In some rubble.
• In a nest.
• In a firepit/fireplace.
• Behind a fireplace.* (I'll revisit this idea).
• In a pile of bones/inside a skeleton's stomach.
• In a pile of dung. (I love putting a magic item in the feces of some creature that ate it's original owner. Is that so wrong?)
• Inside a book.
• Behind a book.
• Behind a bookcase.
• Behind a statue.
• In a statue's hands.
• Beneath a statue.*
• On a high shelf.
• On a ledge.
• In a tree/bush.
• Buried among tree roots.
• In a coat pocket.
• In a fountain/pool of water.
• In a well.
• Behind/beneath new bricks/flagstones.

I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of, but the "method" here is basically just "think of something that would be in a room; every thing might have something hidden under/behind/inside of it". There is quite a lot of mileage to be found here I think, but I would offer a few points of advice in applying this:

• Set expectations. Player's who are accustomed to set dressing and not in the habit of searching are not just going to start. So either a conversation needs to take place ("we're doing this now"), or players need to be trained with a few really easy wins.
• Give a few clues (and only a few). If there are a hundred notable objects in a room, and only one of them hides something special, the odds of someone finding that thing are basically zero. That said, if you don't give any starting points at all, it's not likely anyone is going to volunteer "does this room have any paintings perchance?". (Unless of course you opened with something like "this room has the appearance of an art gallery") So, use your power as the game master to shine the spotlight on the trail that leads to the secret--and shine the spotlight on a couple of other things as well to not make thing's too obvious. (And of course, even rooms without secrets should get a few spotlights; keep them guessing!)

Clues

Maybe your players have gotten too good at this, or maybe you just want to hide something a little more creatively. That means you're looking for a sequence of searching more involved than simply "I look in the desk; I turn the secret crank I find there" or whatever. You're looking for ways to hint at secrets without necessarily revealing them outright.

The example with the newly mortared bricks above is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Literally, we could just say "behind the painting is a brick wall", but a brick wall is not obviously searchable, thus the little spotlight on the mortar: the hint that this brick wall is more than it seems. What you're looking for here is cues to give that something is out of the ordinary. Here are some examples and what they might imply:

• A scrape across the floor near the corner of a bookshelf. (The shelf has been moved before.)
• A book slightly protruding from a shelf. (This book has been handled; a hiding place, or secret lever?)
• A trail in the dust. (Implying someone or something has been this way, or something was moved. Does it lead to something special?).
• A painting depicting the patron of the house with one hand on the wall sconce. (That's weird; is the sconce important?)
• The desk is covered in a light dusting of dirt, except for the bronze statuette at it's corner. (The statuette has been disturbed more recently than the desk.)

You may have noticed those asterisks in the previous section, now is a good time to come back to them. Looking behind a fireplace, or beneath a statue is not necessarily obvious; it's one thing to poke around in the ashes a bit or peek around behind a statue, but looking behind or beneath in these cases is just obtuse. Therefore, if you intend to hide something in a place like this, clues like the above are helpful. Perhaps the statue is slightly crooked compared to it's neighbors, or has a similar floor scuff at it's base. Both could indicate it can be pushed aside. Perhaps the fireplace has a couple of iron hooks on either side, but one of them is notably askew, indicating it might be a secret lever.

Ultimately what you're doing here is a combination of contrast, and "show, don't tell". And the way you do that is by working backwards: "I want the players to find this secret" > "What would I tell them if I were just going to give it away?" > "What can I show them instead that will communicate roughly the same thing?" and "How can I make this thing different from what's around it?"

In the simple examples from the prior section "what can I show them?" is just "I'll make sure they notice the painting on the wall", but in a trickier example it's finding something, anything that can draw their attention to the affordances you've planted.

(Note that these principles are wildly useful in other areas of game mastery: hiding traps is almost the exact same process as listed here, and these principles can be applied to warn of nearby creatures or the contents of adjacent rooms, etc.)

Hiding things well

As a final thought, what do you do when you want to make someone work for their secrets? I can think of two methods. 

The first is to spread clues out across rooms (in effect, splitting up clues across space and time): this temple is full of statues of knights, each holds their sword point down; this room features a single statue, holding it's sword pointing defiantly upward (it obscures a secret door to a stairway to the tower above). Another: we passed through a large abandoned library earlier; a later room contains a painting, leaned against the wall with a cloth over it > the painting depicts the architect holding a large book with a deep green cover, it's title barely legible: "Principles of Illusion" (finding that book in the library reveals a secret room when it's pulled from the shelf)

The second is to nest the hidden thing more deeply: there is a pool of water > in it's depths is a large fish skeleton > in it's stomach is a skeletal hand, clutched > there is a ring in it's grip, untarnished (it's magic, woohoo!). Another: there is a large desk in the room > it is covered in dust and papers and has several drawers > as you open the last drawer, it catches at first > on closer inspection it doesn't seem as deep as it should be (it's a secret compartment, huzzah!). This particular approach is also useful because it lends itself nicely to treating characters with special skills differently: simply collapse the nesting a little. For example, if the searcher is a particularly eagle eyed elf, then they need only focus on the giant fish skeleton to catch a glint from within it's bowels, etc.

An aside on generous information

If you come from a game that relies heavily on skill checks for this sort of thing, you might complain that hiding things and giving clues in this way is just handing out freebies, or "DM fiat", or totally arbitrary.

Maybe, but I'm not convinced.

Let's really think about the difference here: in a skill check paradigm, a player shouts "I roll perception!" (or they ask "I search this desk" and you say "roll investigation!"). They do so, its a good roll, and you tell them what's there or give them a clue. They investigate further, and they find the thing. Good for them. Or, it's a bad roll, and you're appropriately coy: "it's a desk". 

What happens next? Either the player believes you, or they don't. If they believe you, this was essentially "save-or-suck" was it not? A random dice roll decided that they're effectively not allowed to find the secret thing you took pains to hide, even if, by all accounts, they're staring right at it. If they don't believe you, you now face another choice: do you enforce the roll, because their character, it turns out, just isn't perceptive enough to find anything? Or do you bend to their further roleplay and grant them the discovery? If the former, there's great potential for a disconnect and frustration (especially if the hidden thing in this case was a trap), if the latter, what was the point of rolling anyways? Aren't we just wasting time at this point?

Looking at this from the side of no skill checks, what exactly is "free" or "arbitrary" about this? A player "zooms in" on a room feature, and they find something. If they don't do that, they don't find something. This is entirely a product of player choice, isn't that a good thing? Plus, it's not like the player hasn't given up something to perform their search: searching takes time or makes noise, and dungeons (of the sort that I am building and advocating for) are dangerous places to linger; so there is an inherent tradeoff here anyways. If player's take time to search, they may find something, but also random encounters are rolled for; if they don't take time to investigate more closely, they don't find anything, but they can hurry along without invoking the wrath of the dungeon. It's already punishment enough that if there's just nothing to find then they've provoked encounter rolls and burned valuable torchlight for nothing; now, how frustrating would it be to find that there was something to find, and you didn't find it because you rolled poorly, but you still provoked encounter rolls and burned valuable torchlight?

Ultimately, some portion of this is subjective anyways: do you like a game where your character can be much smarter or much stupider than you are? Do you like really hamming up a role? Then mental skill checks will deliver that for you, and I won't try to convince you any further.

Bonus: more examples of hidden things to hopefully charge your imagination

Thanks for reading! Let me try to reward you for your persistence:

• A fountain of water gurgles sporadically > a shimmer under the water > algae clings to a fancy dagger
• A slight breeze wafts from somewhere > one of the banners hanging from the walls sways slightly > there is a hidden passage behind it
• A pool of murky water at one corner of the cavern ripples gently > looking under the water reveals an underwater passage
• A well rises from the center of the room, surrounded by pillars > one pillar has a length of rope tied to it, frayed on it's long end > dropping a light into well reveals the other half of the rope coiled below at it's floor, in front of a passageway
• A shelf lines the far wall > a row of books sit's atop it > a small corner of parchment sticks out of one of the books pages > it's a rough map of a portion of the dungeon, including a room that you couldn't find yourself
• A bedroom, covered in cobwebs, papers and clothes scattered haphazardly, a fine coat is thrown over the bed > the coat is made of fine material, and resists your pull at first > in an interior pocket is a heavy iron key (that opens a door somewhere around here)
• Four large statues flank the entrance to the dungeon, one is crumbled from the knees up, something nearby smells foul > the stench comes from a pile of some creatures fresh feces, situated just behind and to the left of the crumbled statues feet > there is a hidden entrance behind the statue
• Throughout the temple are tattered tapestries depicting the priest in front of a fruit tree, plucking a low hanging fruit from it's branch > the chapel at the back of the temple contains a mural of a fruit tree, an old chair sits against the wall beneath it's lower branches > the lowest fruit protrudes slightly from the wall > pushing it opens a secret door to an adjacent chamber
• A military barracks is lined with bunks, chest's at the foot of each bunk > most of the chests are open with rotted contents strewn on the floor; the 5th chest is locked > inside it's filled with a layer of sand > feeling around in the sand it seems as though you should be able to reach deeper > (various means) reveal a secret compartment in which rests a fine, well preserved sword
• A tapestry depicts a king on campaign, next to his feet is a chest, trimmed with gold; the thread of the chest seems especially fine and well preserved, with a particular metallic sheen > behind this portion of the tapestry (either by peeking or trying to cut out the special thread) is a wall alcove with a small chest inside
• From a high ledge protrudes a skeletal leg > climbing up reveals a long dead human, holding a finely preserved shield
• An altar looms at the end of the room, brown stains upon it > a mural on the wall behind it depicts a man cutting his own hand > dripping blood on the altar conjures an impish creature who will grant one request at a cost 
• Wandering a large library, a set of small tracks crosses your path > they lead off between a pair of bookshelves > a large, empty nest is tucked between the shelves > in the scrap of the nest is a small satchel of (neat stuff) 

The part here thats probably more art than science is "how much do I need to say to catch someone's eye?" and "how much is too obvious?". Follow your gut, and adjust as needed; sorry I can't say more.