Trust No Sense: Adding Mystery and Challenge to Your D&D Campaign

The party carefully stalks through the thick fog. The surrounding mists seem to cling to everything, blanketing it in obscurity. Continuing down the road, they see a light from ahead of them. As the party moves closer, the paladin spots what appears to be the shape of a person waving a lantern in their direction. “Come, friends!” he shouts. “We have made it to town!” The party tries to suggest caution, but cannot stop the paladin from rushing off into the fog towards his salvation. His image slowly disappears into the fog. The party hears his footfalls stop, followed by a moment of silence. “Wait, you're not-” is all they hear as the paladin’s voice is cut off by what sounds like a bear trap slamming shut. There is silence, and then the figure appears with their lantern again. The figure then glides forwards towards the party.

In Dungeons & Dragons, perception is a powerful tool. It provides the party with information about their surroundings, and can make them aware of potential traps. The players will often trust what they perceive, assuming their eyes do not deceive them. If they can’t see an enemy, they will assume the coast is clear. But what if their perception deceived them? Obstacles in the surrounding land suddenly stand in their way, moving from where they were or just appearing. Perhaps something that appears mundane and safe (like our silhouetted figure above) turns out to be a deadly ruse? I recently pondered how to bring this kind of challenge to my table, after having time to play the game Dredge..

Reeling in Eldritch Illusions

In Dredge, you take on the role of a fisherman. Awoken in a strange town, you take to the waters, your fishing gear ready to earn you a day’s wages. As you spend some time in the area, however, you realize things are not what they seem. Something sinister lurks just below the waters, waiting for the sun to disappear.

Below are slight spoilers for the game Dredge. 

While on the surface Dredge appears to be just a fishing game, its Eldritch identity reveals itself once the player fishes after dark. You will occasionally catch fish that are just wrong. Gigantic eyes, calcified skin, sacs full of writhing, worm-like beings, or seemingly endless rows of teeth tell you that something in the area is pushing its corruption. Fishing at night can increase your revenue through easier chances to get these creatures and access to nocturnal fish in the area. While the locals are more than happy to pay extra money for these non-euclidian fish, fishing at night presents a few challenges, with a few that focus on how everything might not be how it seems.

The Deceptive Rocks

Much like in the real world, rocks and other large objects in the water can serve as a hazard for a ship, threatening to tear into a hull and leaving any unprepared fisherman without transportation. Dredge takes this a step further, bringing the eldritch elements into the game. When traveling at night in your boat, rocks will appear directly in your path. As long as you have a light source handy, you will illuminate the rocks and avoid them. Returning to these places during the day, however, shows no sign of such an obstacle.

When the sun was out (and the panic a little lower) this rock was not here.

When I initially ran into these rocks, I assumed I was not paying attention to my surroundings. However, as I payed more attention, the mechanic became clear to me. Since these rocks would appear randomly, there was no proper way for me to avoid them except through carefully moving (much more slowly) whenever I came near land. Even if I wanted to, I could not map out these obstacles since they disappear almost as soon as they arrived.

The Illusory Fishing Boat

The other occurrence is that occasionally, players will see what appears to be a similar fishing boat. This ship appears off in the distance, just a silhouette with a light. If you approach it, the fishing boat will move towards you. As you watch, you find the ship silhouette fades away. This leaves the unfortunate player staring down an angry (and hungry) angler fish; the boat turning out to be a clever trick of its lure.

Like the rocks, this trick plays off of deceiving your perception, but takes it to a different level. Where the rocks are appearing where there is nothing, the Angler fish is making a false image that actively deceives the player. When you look into the fog, you see another ship. It only resolves into a trap when the fish is about to strike, leaving you little time to rush away.

Translating Dredge's Deceptive Mechanics to D&D

Now that we understand how the system works in Dredge, we can sort out how to bring this into our TTRPG games. One thing to remember when trying this is that telling players what their character experiences gets close to taking away their agency. Although this mostly comes into play with emotions, it can get close here. Try to focus on describing what they see, and only directing them towards what it might seem like. So in our example at the start, you would want to tell the paladin, “You see a shape in the fog, with a light. It seems to be shaped like a person, with the light waving back and forth, like a figure gesturing towards you”. But with that in mind, these options give us some great ideas.

The simplest way to incorporate these examples into your game is by using them to flavor degrees of success and failure on rolls involving perception. If you are not familiar, check my Fail Forward article, which goes in depth on these optional rules in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Perhaps perceiving a monster in a Lightly Obscured has a DC of 15. We add that at a DC of 10-14 the player will perceive that there is something ahead of them, but will not know that it is a threat until it’s too late.

If we want to have the same effect as the appearing rocks did, you can have the terrain change when it is dark. An easy option would be to have it affect when a creature cannot see at all. For any creature without darkvision, moving five feet has a chance for a trap, hazard, or obstacle to appear in front of them (determined by a d10 or d100 roll). To up the challenge, make it occur if there is no source of light instead of being unable to see. This takes deceiving perception to a higher level, since many characters with darkvision will choose to proceed in dimly lit areas without light sources.

There are a few options for the party to detect these threats. The simplest is having any light source reveal the threats. The party needs to have a torch, lantern, or magical light in order to see the obstacles in front of them. This creates a need for light, which can come with some drawbacks for the players, such as having to carry the light source or drawing attention to themselves. You can also lean into the high fantasy a bit more and create a specific spell or object that reveals the danger. A green burning torch is the only thing that reveals the hidden traps, but it also draws the attention of creatures in the shadows. This will limit who can detect the traps, and force your party to work together to overcome this challenge.

Another option is to have the entire location change when no players are actively perceiving a location. That tripwire at the beginning of the room, now unobserved, seems to have moved to the center of the room. It now blocks the party’s way out. The reason could be a variety of things. A plane in the Far Realm (or area affected by one) might not obey normal laws of physics, having an area change when it is not being observed. A powerful entity, such as an Archfey, might do this as a prank. Give your party clues so that they can tell what is going on, and potentially the tools to prevent it from happening. A room could have a set of mirrors that need to be adjusted in a certain way so that you can view hazards behind you as you move forwards. The ideas are endless!

Final Thoughts

Challenging a player’s trust in what their character perceives adds new depth and dynamics to your game. The PC's senses are the window into the world for a player, and making them unreliable enforces the danger that can be found around the corner. While sometimes that can be difficult, Dredge was an excellent inspiration for that. The game’s emphasis on unknowing horrors in the deep and a mechanically backed way to have players not trust their senses felt like it would be right at home in certain circumstances at a TTRPG table. Hopefully, I will get a chance soon to test these out on my players!

Do you have methods or mechanics you used to make your players question their senses? I would love to hear about them below!

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