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Rob Norman
United Kingdom
Colchester
Essex
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I'm preparing to DM the starter set for a few friends for the first time so i've been reading the encounters to get to grips with them and I have a few questions about encounter 4 (it's the one with the chess pieces in).
The initial part says that, if the players enter from Encounter 3 (which will put them in the top two squares to the left) then they are a knight or a bishop and must move as such, but this bears absolutely no relation to what piece they'd actually be for those squares (a knight for the lower square or a rook for the top square)
However, there is nothing mentioned about telling the players what type of piece they are, plus according to the map of the "monsters" it'd be impossible for a rook to get to the other side of the room without moving illegally as there's no gap for them to get through.
I can see several ways around this, by changing the pieces they play to rook and knight and letting the players know by way of a description of a magical feeling when they step on to the board ("you suddenly feel a bit like a piece of stone" or something) or by moving the door and entrance squares a space down so that knight and bishop are correct.
Anyway, i'd like to hear other DM's opinions on how they handled this when they played.
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Michael Erb
United States
Parkersburg
West Virginia
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In all honesty, I plan to scrap this room when I run the dungeon. Though I appreciate the idea behind the room, I was put off by some of the issues you pointed out in your post when I first read the description.
It also doesn't make a lot of sense to me that the temple would have a trap based upon chess. I understand we are talking about a world of elves and dwarves and dragons, but still. What trap master designed this? And they play chess in the Nentir Vale? I would have prefered the room be based on an in-world game, something like Three Dragon Ante that has been established in the fiction as a game within the D&D universe.
Sorry, that doesn't help with your question on how to run the encounter, but my recommendation at this point would be to replace the trap with something else, either another trap or encounter. (or just leave the room empty).
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S Troxler
United States
Clover
South Carolina
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This encounter was a bit confusing to start with. The map shown in the book doesn't show the upper row of the board, yet it shows a rook directly across from the position a knight should start in. So of course it's a bit misleading. It's also odd that the encounter states that they must enter on the Knight's or Bishop's square, but also gave rules to move as King or Queen.
I got lucky as I DM for my family, and as soon as I revealed the room, they recognized the room for what it was, and related to it from the chess scene in the Harry Potter movie. At this point I decided to tell them which spaces where their starting area, and let them decide how to line themselves up. I didn't inform them that their starting square would match that of a chess piece. I let them figure that out the hard way. Unfortunately the fighter started in the King's space, and activated the Monsters side when he moved beyond the limit of the King, which in this case the King's limit is two spaces.
If your party has five players, you could include the rook on the PC's side, and have the other four start as written in the book. If the party has four or less, you could go with what is shown in the book, or choose to include the rook.
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Maurice Tousignant
Canada
Windsor
Ontario
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No comment on the encounter but I wanted to note that many times Chess has come up as a past time of characters in Greyhawk, Gygax's own campaign setting. Mordenkanen is noted to be an excellent Chess player in both modules and novels. In some cases it's called Dragon Chess where the the Paladin is the strongest piece but it's still chess and at least chess based.
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John Winter
Canada
London
Ontario
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I haven't yet run this but will be in the next few weeks. I haven't looked *too* in-depth at it, but one fix I plan on implementing is allowing the players a few mistakes. They'll take the psychic damage and be pushed back to the square they were on, but it'll take two or three mistakes for the pieces to fully gear up and start attacking. That way they can do a bit of trial and error to figure out what pieces they're supposed to be before the monsters start attacking.
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Rob Norman
United Kingdom
Colchester
Essex
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Thanks for the responses guys, they've been very useful. I think what i'm going to do is combine a few of the ideas by moving the room entrance down so that it fits with the pieces properly and also allow the players a few mistakes before the other pieces attack.
I tend to agree that it feels a bit out of place, but I don't want to remove it entirely as it's pretty much the only non-combat encounter (well, it starts as non-combat anyway) in the whole place so i'd like to keep it in in some form to show the players that the game isn't just "kill stuff, grab loot"
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Freelance Police
United States
Palo Alto
California
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I ran the room and the players set off the trap in the first five seconds.
So... yeah. Rewrite the encounter however you want. It's bound to be an improvement...
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