Idea for a Blind Dungeon

[HisDirkness]

I don't know how many Adventure Time fans we've got on these forums, but has anyone seen the episode "The Hall of Egress"? The episode has a Dungeon that the character, Finn, goes into, where in order to pass through the front door he has to shut his eyes. When his eyes are closed he can walk straight through the stone door, if they are open, it's a solid stone door that cannot be opened. Once through the door with his eyes closed, if he opens them, he finds himself back, standing in front of the door, transported back to the moment in time right before he entered. He has to traverse the Dungeon blind, with his eyes shut.

I'm thinking about designing a Dungeon around this mechanic. My questions are these:

Has anyone tried anything like this before?

If so, was it successful?

Does this seem like an interesting Dungeon, or like a needlessly convoluted gimmick?

Would it be fun, or just frustrating?

I wanted some opinions from others before I throw my players into it, at which point there's no turning back. I'm imagining it's mostly traps, with few, if any, enemies. Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[Bjarkmundur]

How do you even begin a project like this? :O

[HisDirkness]

I'm thinking of just making a standard Dungeon, but with the understanding the no one can see. My concern is that it would get tedious, perception checks for anything they want to do and it turning into a slog to get through. Of course anytime things get hairy they just open their eyes and pop back to the start.

[Bjarkmundur]

Ummmm, alright...

Then, hm, let's see. Wait, let's not see. Ugh, I'm already having struggles.

Alright, this is me just thinking on paper.

Let's not make bumping into walls a thing. Navigating the dungeon should be easy, it's the inability to scout ahead and assess risks that makes the gameplay. At any given moment you find yourself in the middle of an encounter you never saw coming. I think the appeal of this will be the suspense of it all. So the general format is "You follow the wall with your hands, and then something happens". So they always know what's going on in their exact location, but not 10 feet behind/in front of them.

Now, with 4 PCs connected with a rope all walking blindly following a wall these are the interesting things that immediately come to mind.

1) Do you follow the right side of the hall, or the left?
2) Smells, sounds and texture are all tools for you to add suspense. When the floor suddenly becomes soft and wet, and then wet up the their ankles they know you're changing the scenery for a reason. They just can't see why. Man the suspense would kill me!
3) You grab something _________
4) You step into _________
5) Look at your players skillsets and prepared spells, and add challenges based on what they have. For example. Describe a smell that stings, not unlike vinegar. Roll INT (it's a flammable gas that is lighter than air and condenses in the ceiling). Then bats come swooping down from the ceiling, harrying your party. Luckily your wizard has burning hands. *SWOOSH*
6) Have an encounter that grants as a reward "beads of mindsight". You can throw one of these beads and they telepathically send an image of the target aread (15ft radius) to your brain. Can be a fun resource to utilize, and can help you make the dungeon design more dynamic. The second use of this bead automatically grants access to some route you have designed, no matter where the throw it. It ensures they are rewarded for using it, instead of punished for not reading your mind an knowing exactly where you want them to use it.
7) Singing. I don't know what it is, where it comes from, and what kind of charm-trap it is, but it's there.
8) Combat encounter where some static enemies use psychic attacks. This means the players just have to survive the psychic attacks and find the static enemies. It's like a combat encounter but no moving parts to worry about.
9) Discourage 5-minute adventure days by having the first part of the dungeon change slightly whenever they return to the dungeon.
10) Ping Pilons. Just someway to gauge progress. The players activate the pilons by touch and they give a subtle white-noise hum the players can use to help keep track of where they've been. They eventually move forward and forward and forward until they hear a soft constant hissing coming from up ahead. They soon realize they just walked in a circle. They feel a breeze, but can't determine where its coming from. Wherever they throw their Bead of Mindsight is gonna be the way out, a rope that leads to a lower/higher level of the dungeon
11) Walk straight into the mouth of a creature that just sits there and waits. Hitting the thing won't be a problem, but it will introduce some interesting interactions. The party is slowly suffocating/being digested/chewed.
12) LOTS of mysterious sentient smart creatures that live in the dungeon. Think 'Riddles in The Dark', and that 'You Chose Wisely' guy from Indiana Jones, Sphynxes etc. Like the type of enemy that just talks, but could tear you apart in nought-point-three seconds if you say the wrong thing.
13) A puzzle using heat and cold as navigation tools in an open space.

As long as all the challenges are design specifically around being fun without eye-sight, I can't see why it doesn't work. I mean, a dungeon designed to be fun and engaging should end up being fun and engaging, right?

EDIT: I'll keep adding stuff as I think of it!

[HisDirkness]

I'm definitely thinking of doing away with most of the minutiae. Most of the stuff that would apply with the blindness condition I'm throwing out. When there's only one character that's blind, they are impaired relative to the other players, so they need disadvantages to reflect that. With everyone blind I'm thinking what you're describing would be the right way to go about it.

[JackPhoenix]

Remember that a LOT of spell require you to see the target. While it sucks to always attack at disadvantage, spellcasters may lost most of their arsenal.

[LordEntrails]

Gimmick.

As mentioned, you have the whole problem with spells. Then all you are effectively doing is making a bunch of perception checks (at disadvantage) and then every attack at disadvantage.

Then rather than describing a room or area, you have to walk through the exploration of every room by feeling the walls.

All of this works for a room, or two, but beyond that, just boring repetition for no gain.

[Bjarkmundur]

Spells won't be a problem, I assure your. He'll create all the risks before the characters are creates, I assume, so there won't be any trap options for the players.

Let's at least see what he comes up with before we write him off. Do yo have any players on the forum, or can you share with us your Google doc file once you created the first draft of your dungeon?

[Laserlight]

I had a party that included a warlock with Devil's Sight, so I gave them a large room with Darkness, several pits, several burning braziers, and some golems or some such with blindsight and Shove. The warlock tried to give everyone directions, in six second increments, keeping track of "go five paces right, wait, that's MY right, go LEFT", except he wasn't paying attention to the golems and got shoved into a pit himself.

It was amusing but I don't think I'd do that for more than a five room dungeon.

[denthor]

I would just not go in.

I had a cleric that every time he went to the dock got on a boat ended up in the water with a good NPC pulling him out. Four times over 4 years. That character would not go near a boat. When he teleported to a boat he got teleported into a mast then ejected into the water.

The other PC players thought it was funny until I refused an adventure they wanted. They all decided not go do that adventure I was a cleric out voted 7 to 1.

[Callin]

I would keep it short. Just a few rooms, long hallways so you can describe twists and turns but only 3 or so rooms. Use the other senses to create suspense and give a "visual" of whats going on. Use ALL the senses.