Funhouse Dungeon Checklist

After playing through a bunch of funhouse dungeons, I came up with a list of suggested pieces.

• magical paintings
• odd statues
• ambivalent residents
• magical experiments
• clearly labeled insta-death traps
• oddities that give no benefit

The modules that gave me the inspiration for this list, X2 Amber Castle, I6 Ravenloft, Tower of the Stargazer, The Cursed Chateau, and Magical Murder Mansion. I have also read Tegel Manor, and Castle Xyntilian, but have not actually run them at a table so some of their nuances were not caught by me. My group actually passed up going to Castle Xyntillian, because they got sick of abandoned and haunted mansions :(

Magical Paintings

There is usually a collection of magical paintings that are not entirely detrimental to the party. Often one or two can insta-kill a character usually not by "normal" means. For example, the painting may de-age a person or entrap them in the painting itself. Then there is a painting that benefits a player. It could increase a random stat, give an odd ability that is a mixed blessing, or even grant a level up.

Often there is a gallery of these paintings, and then it invokes the party to investigate all the paintings. I found players will either chance interacting with all the paintings or none based on their experience. If they have had only bad experiences, they likely won't look at any. But if they have had really good luck in the past, they will try all the paintings to see if any of them are useful.

The inverse of this trope, is no magical paintings at all. When investigating a wizard's tower, would you expect to have no magical paintings at all? I find a good mix of flavorful paintings that help give insight into the background of the funhouse works best, and that the paintings that give a boon or bane have nothing to do with the background of the funhouse.

Odd Statues

These tend to be similar to Magical Paintings, but are either used as conditionally animated guardians or for hiding key items behind a puzzle involving them.

Ambivalent Residents

The residents of a funhouse tend to not really care what the party is doing there. They have their own agendas,and go about their business unless explicitly disrupted by the party. Often, the residents are prisoners of their own making (Hotel California style), or simply just not threatened by the players. I like it when one of the residents is so much stronger than the party and could wipe them but just has no interest or reason to doing so.

Magical Experiments

Every wizard that made a funhouse, always has some kind of obsession (or perhaps many), and they usually have an experiment relate to exploring the obsession. The more esoteric the better, and usually messing about will kill the unwary.

Labeled Death Traps

I'm not sure anything else needs to be said here. Basically, put in a death trap that is easily identified that it is a death trap and be sure it does the job.

These are fun because players tend to not believe that it really is a death trap and there is no reward.

I really enjoy these, yet I never want to include them in my own adventures. Somehow, my players still trust me not to indiscriminately kill their characters if they do dumb things.

Oddities

Everything so far is an oddity, but in context of a funhouse, something that isn't dangerous or beneficial is odd. The best oddities are ones where they feed into the creator's eccentricities or give depth to other residents. I like it when the oddity illuminates aspects of the creator, but there is something to be said for completely unexplained instances. They get the players questioning what the oddity is about. A good referee will take that information from the players and weave it in to the actual happenings at the table. That does require an experienced and confident referee to go with it though.

Conclusions

As I've thought about funhouses, I've realized that most of them are not written for a beginning referee. They leave a lot up for interpretation and expect that the referee can accurately and consistently give the clues for the player to discover the dangers instead of being completely capricious and random.

This has gotten me to think about how to frame my rooms, occupants, and encounters as I'm preparing A Fistful of Gold for use by others. There's Tomb of the Serpent King for introducing players to Old School Gaming and In Search of the Unknown for helping referees get used to running dungeons. Maybe this could be an introductory module for funhouses.