I love the fact that you're stressing how important the logic behind secret passages is, just like you did with traps. It makes DMing feel like actual learning and that's awesome. Kudos

Secret doors can also change with time. Moss grows on stone, not illusions.

During a battle, the druid crit failed a ranged attack at an enemy. The wall behind him had a secret door. So I said "roll another attack, please." she rolled a natural 20, so of course her arrow hit the switch to open the door. It was a total improvisation on my part to put the switch there too, but it worked in the moment, and the players loved it.

The BBEG; "There's no way she'll find the secret entrance." PC; "There's a doormat here that says secret entrance!"

I like how the 'Timer-Door' works, like a lever on one side the castle opens a door/gate on the other side and the party has to run fast to go through in time. That really fits in horror settings.

Servant/workman passageways. As an idea for why there be concealed doors. Also for theatrics. A musician's balcony to a grand hall might have a door that blends in with a decorated wall but is easy to open.

It's good to keep in mind the "tech level" of the dungeon's architects. Most civilizations or designers can make a door that looks like a wall, if they can build a wall in the first place. Anyone can plaster over a passage. It takes a great deal of mechanical knowledge and resources to build a secret door unlocked by machinery in another room. And it takes some magical knowledge/power to create an illusory wall or warded passage.

Another fun secret door is the lost to renovation door. In places that are hundreds of years old it is expected for some construction at a later date to change the floor plan. Rooms get sealed shut when no longer in use then forgotten and the door is plastered up for a new fresco or fancy wood paneling.

One way to approach the illusory passage idea is to consider the potential of players finding it accidentally. The party walks into a room and in the opposite wall there is a doorway that looks like the rest of the wall unless perceived from a specific angle. You can have hints that guide players to a specific landmark in the room where they will see ths doorway. Example: There is writing on the wall outside saying "those who seek knowledge will find the passage" and the party walks in to find some treasures, miscellaneous furniture, but importantly a bookshelf. Whoever stands at the bookshelf can look at the wall and see the doorway that was previously disguised.

I'd totally forgotten about the 'lever opens a door you can't see' version of a secret door, thanks! The Interdiction Door is also a really good idea I haven't used before. Here's to another year of fantastic tips for games!

I think the best way to assist players who struggle with puzzles is to have them chase someone into a room without an obvious exit. Then seed in some clues. They know the door has to be there, or at least something

2:54 Oh I love this slide.

There are little jokes in the art that I adore! The references to "This is not a pipe" and "The rumor come out" were a couple of my favorites.

Glowing runes that can only been seen in the light, because players always have darkvision, so reward the use of torches/lanterns. lol

There is also a difference from a Secret Door (usable by a select few) and a Concealed Door (usable by every one that knows). Concealed Doors are used to prevent breaking up architecture or furniture details. (Door in a panel behind row of Choir Chairs) that aren't readily visible. Or the passage behind tapestries.

I had a secret door that is attached to an illusion trap. Where the door behind them closed when they walked into a small dead-end room. Illusory water starts to pour into the room and the players have to perceive the water is an illusion. Those who don't take small increments of cold damage as the rounds advanced for them honestly wait it out. If they were able to perceive the water to be fake they stop taking cold damage in the end. This was set in an abandoned monastery where throughout the whole complex up to this point was "Mind over matter."

I had a secret door in a dungeon I made. It was activated on a statue behind the book-shelf in the library. I added a note in the jail that someone the goblins had captured was taken there to read some dwarvish runes on the stone wall further in.

one of my players was investigating a church library. he had a really good perception on the room itself and I described how he stopped dead in his tracks and was confused about the layout of the stacks. and he went through a good investigation of the bookcase that was hiding a stairwell up to the offices of a midboss. never said anything about a secret door at first, just described his confusion and let him work it out

Good to see the channel is still active!

Bypassing traps is such a good idea, I never would have thought of it.

So excited for the new video. Something I recommend is adding some furniture to the room you do your recording in. I can hear the echo bouncing around and some padding or heavy curtains can help take that out and absorb the extra sound

10:00 this is super great advice for more than just secret doors. It can be applied in so many ways. I just wish I was smart enough to have thought of that...

"All secret doors have a purpose." Nethack: Are you sure about that?

So happy y'all are back ! Great video. Had a illusionary secret door half way down a well with clues it was there, after running multiple parties though it someone finally found it.

a personal favorite of mine is a callback to the game Riven, where a door hides a passage when it is opened just by obstructing it. it would be a temporary measure in a lot of cases, as the secret is revealed once the entryway is more closely inspected or once people decide to just close the door as they take their time to investigate the room.

9:04 changed the way i think about secret doors, tysm my dm'ing life has changed 😭

This gave me many new ideas... Thanks!

A tip from an old school wizard for anyone running games with people that really like crafting or spellcasters: if you realize after creating a trap, door, or puzzle that a PC or NPC would be able to accomplish creating that obstacle, it doesn't hurt to come up with the numbers. If you could create an illusory wall using silent image and permanency or some previously established advanced tech, do so. If your players wonder how something works, you can tell them and they can even choose to have their characters research and learn how to create such an obstacle themselves. Tricking out a home base or keep with hectic traps and BS is fun as hell. As the video says at roughly 10:08, you don't have to come up with numbers, but you can (in the example, you'd want to figure out the level of the caster). Additionally, don't just think about why the obstacle is there, consider HOW the obstacle is there. It may not make sense for a thieve's guild HQ to have illusory walls if there are no local casters that can and would set that kind of obstacle up. They could hire a far-off wizard at greater expense, in which case maybe the reward for bypassing the obstacle should be greater (obviously, the thieves have to be able to pay the wizard) or supplemented (perhaps the thieves guild has some members that picked up magic in order to steal better, who also sometimes act as guards). Edit: fixed a typo that gave me a good idea. Use secret doors in other stuff. Combine secret doors into your traps, traps in your puzzles, and puzzles in your doors. If your players like it, double-down. Make a trapped door with secret puzzle components. Make a puzzle door open into a trap. Make disarming a trap a puzzle and put hints behind secret doors.

thanks! ive been a tad bit lost when comes to making rooms more interesting, now i realize that the door can set the scene rlly well!

I caught that "the rumor come out" joke. Nicely done

Perfect timing for my heist session tomorrow!

Always look forward to your videos, thank you!

One use for secret doors in larger dungeons can be to bypass previously explored areas. Kinda like how Dark Souls will have those doors that can only be opened from the other side, but doing so creates a shortcut so the player doesn't have to trudge back through previously explored areas. In this case, you have secret doors that are obvious from the other side, but that the players probably won't find till they've actually explored the dungeon and reached said other side.

Yaya! New video!

my campaign would be alot worse without your channel. def gonna use this for my next session

something else that can be helpful is outside of games things. like have someone or ppl who arent in the game go through the scenes to see if its too hard/easy ect, or after the session talk with players about things they missed to better understand how they see things and they get better ideas what to look for with you. gotta keep in mind YOU know all the details so its a different experience for you then for them.

i'm SO glad you're all still posting you're my favorite dnd youtube channel

Extremely useful and informative video for dungeon Masters, definitely saved this one and shared it on my server. I'm surprised you don't have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of subscribers, your videos are always very well done and incredibly informative.

Another great video! Have y'all ever thought about making a published adventure or dungeon using some of the principles you elaborate on in the vids? Think my favorite one is the Metroidvania video.

Wow, welcome back! We missed you. And a great topic to start off the new year.

Always happy to see a helpful video from you guys! I will always use your tips and advice to help me in my DM skills.

Good to see yall! Great video; traps, puzzles, and secret doors are all things I want to use but it is an art to do it in ways that are natural, engaging, and meaningful.

So glad to see ya back! Thanks for the video! Hope you're having a great year thus far!

I've been DMing for years and have always struggled to implement secret doors. This video was mindblowing for me, had me going 'ohhhhhh' at several points at the genius obviousness of your suggested implementations. Passive perception for hints and active perception for fully revealing the door is brilliant, as is the system of setting DCs based on information already known. I have new hope about including secret passages in my adventures!

Missed y'all! Another solid discussion of a specific topic

All players, DM's and content creators should be aware that wizards is circulating a change to the OGL that will allow them to take and republish the content produced by other creators (Including YOUR DM) without compensation. Don't do anything that requires you to sign on with OGL 1.1. #OpenDND Master the dungeon, good video. These are all fantastic tips for DMing. I once built a dungeon that was a structure where no door led to the same place from both sides. Split the party almost instantly when someone found a hidden passage lol

"The rumor cone out" was a hilarious bit to add. It made the video more enjoyable for me (:

Passages only accessible via magic, like Shape Water/Ice, Mold Earth or similar cantrips, might be a bit much, but I like that idea. Just to make some specialised cantrips work. All depends on the group, of course. If no one has those spells, no need to add them unless you give the players an option to do so, like magic items. Finding doors could also be done by roleplay, aye. If someone says they lean against a specific wall or does something super special, they should be rewarded.

A main setting of my current campaign is a giant fey labyrinth, so I am getting to use secret and puzzle doors very frequently.

Best channel for dungeon design! I can’t wait to make a giant dungeon that any party I play with could confront if I forgot to prep 😂

Haven't used it, because it hasn't come up in any campaigns I've run, but watching this video makes me think of a couple novels I've read in a political intrigue setting where the Ruler's sleeping chambers are hidden behind a secret door as a safeguard to assassination attempts.

8:36 I have firsthand experience with this. I've been running The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and one of the plothooks is that something was stolen from each of the players and they're trying to get it back. A while back the players found the place, but while the adventure offers all sorts of clues to all kinds of extra secrets, there was zero clues for where or even how to get past the secret. The players were ready to leave the place when the session ended and I had to do a lot of hinting and nudging to make them have a second look. This is only making me more involved with adjusting prewritten content

Yes! Welcome back!!!

Oh heck I forgot I subscribed to this channel, what a wonderful way to start the new year!

This channel is so good, very good explanations and examples!

I put a mission critical item behind a secret door once. You can do it just realize you have to change the parameters of success and failure. A group of baddies was in the next room with a hidden door between them and the party. I gave the PCs an investigation check, if they rolled well they found the secret door and surprised the enemies. If they rolled mediocre they found the door but didn’t surprise the enemies. If they rolled poorly they made too much noise searching and the bad guys opened door surprising the party. In all cases that door was opening and there would be a fight. The roll just determined which side had an advantage. Don’t hide content behind a skill check. The door must always be opened.

Very informative video! Now my players are going to have some more exploring to do!

This is the best tear down of secret doors I've ever seen. I love traps and doors and features that make sense and reward players for figuring them out, or reinforce the world verisimilitude when revealed. I can't wait to see the rest of your videos. Thank you!

I tend to use secret doors a lot in my dungeons, but only for optional treasure/magic items they could use. Here's a couple that I used: One was inside of a crypt. The party enters into a room with a number of statues, and urns - big and small. One of the statues is turned at a sharper angle than the others. Upon closer inspection, the floor has deep scratch marks seemingly from the statue being moved back and forth from against the wall to away from it and vice versa. One of the players searches the wall for any levers or switches, and finds none, but DOES discover that one of the bricks is very loose and the mortar around it has fallen away from being pulled out multiple times. She pulls the brick free and reaches inside the shallow hole, finding a lever inside and pulling it. The wall beside them rises up and the party finds TREASURE! I have also used the "wall that looks like a normal wall" secret door. In the world, it was an old dwarven trick where they'd use something akin to paper mache to create thin walls and put wood boards in front of it so it looked like a rock wall behind some support beams in a mine. Any sharp object would cut right through it with enough force. The players managed to find this out based on a clue in a journal they found that was written in dwarven. Thankfully for them, the cleric player knew the dwarven language even though she wasn't a dwarf. The journal said, "Where ever you see your face, it is near." The players would find playing cards printed with dwarven kings, queens, jacks, and jokers scattered throughout the mine, so when they found one, the players would cut through the wall and find small caches of treasure inside.

Ok, using Labyrinth as a reference gets instant respect points.

Love this! Thanks for another great video with clear and thorough explanations!

New vid, _absooorb._

I would love to receive issues of that Secret Doors of Faerun magazine. Also super glad to see a video pointing out that the logic of why a secret door exists should be a hint to the players to look for one.

Glad that you're back, and with a great video as well!

Here's an Idea - "The Emperor's new door." It basically follows the narrative of the Emperor's new clothes. This door is only visible to those with an int score above a certain amount. It could be made by a prideful mage thinking no one could be smarter, for laughs the int requirement might even be a low 12. You can make it so only those that meet the requirements can enter the room even if the others know it to be an illusion then make a huge empty room with a single chest to challenge the players inside. They would be left thinking what would happen to them if trouble finds them without their usual Brute force tank buddies.

This video came at the perfect time! My players are about to dungeon crawl through a wizard school library, and I wanted some secret doors and passages

Great video! So glad to see you again :)

Now I want to make a magic secret door that looks like a painting of a tunnel or similar, like wile e coyote

One thing that I like to do is put very well-hidden secret elements in a room, and then only once they've cleared the scene will they be informed about the secret. Then they go back to the dungeon with new eyes, and potentially new monsters and a new owner. One example was that I hid a macguffin behind a secret passage. They missed the passage despite my hints, and learned later what they missed. But the second time around, the dungeon was now populated by kobolds, some of which were geared up with armor and items that the PCs had previously left behind. But with their previous familiarity of the dungeon, they opened up their old maps and were able to plan around what they knew. Instead of exploring, they were planning a heist.

A well trained Mimic makes a great secret door.

I’m building my first campaign right now and your videos have been super helpful

Hey, nice to see you back

Yay! New video! Happy New Year!!

It’s a great idea for riddles to secret doors to fit a context, like a diary entry, a letter or scribbles on a map. For example: - Harberd told me to install a secret passage in the bookshelf in room 3, but Elmyer gave specific instructions to make sure Harberd can’t find it. I arranged the authors alphabetically and tied the bookshelf’s key to the book with his name on! (Players might not know which is room 3, or who Harberd or Elmyer are, but by looking on the bookshelf they can find a series of clues, such as the only book series where the abbreviated name is never shown, for example) - Dear Mr Alkabrizz, please ignore my previous letter regarding the star-shaped room. I had not realised that you’d been as sneaky as to hide the fifth point behind a collapsing wall, but please, in future, stick with my instructions TO THE LETTER. It took my servants a week to figure out what you meant by the door opening being hidden ‘a bit too on the nose.’ Kindly, Mayor Gollis (The hint being that the hidden wall is in a room that looks like a star with one of the points removed, with that hidden door opening by finding a painting of Mayor Gollis and pushing a button on the painting’s nose)

This is super helpful! Thankyou!

Just wanted to say hello, and I am loving your channel. I’ve been role playing since the 1980’s and love finding so many new content creators. One of the things i love about this genre of gaming is how many different ideas, thought processes and just cool ways people have to get or keep players involved or interested in the game. Keep up the great work and I look forward to catching up with your videos. Thanks for the work you put in to make games better or just showing a different way of looking at things.

The sims 3 world adventures did a good job of using hidden doors. Most of the main paths were either unbidden or east to find. The trickier ones were for unnecessary but rewarding discoveries. If you just wanted to dash the quest you could get it done in a few minutes. If you wanted to explore every square, it would require lots of investigation, some trial and error, and in some cases multiple doors were ganged together. The fear of being discovered or attacked made investigating more than a chore

Happy new year!

Welcome back!

Yoooooo, you're alive. I thought a mimic ate you, or something

This is going to be so helpful!! Thank you!!

The players cannot roll above a 2 to safe their lives? Don’t care, give them the secret door or treasure anyway. Then hint at a much larger mystery or bounty that they failed to uncover. They could just return at a later stage and look again, hooked forever! 😊 „Adjusting the DC on the fly“ is, imo, exactly why my group of nerds dethroned their original DM and switched over to my game. He ran a game that was very much ‚by the book‘, no deviations allowed. But discovering secrets and failing forwards is much more fun! Above mentioned guy is arguably the ‚best‘ player at my table when it comes to roleplay and him sitting on the other side of the screen definitely elevated PC interactions as well as immersion within the world and my NPCs. I assume stepping down from the forever DM position was to his liking as well 😂

one of my favourite uses of a secret passage not mentioned here is *hidden convenience* it may just be a faster or secret way between two otherwise very separate rooms and can be used for tropes like *forbidden love*.

I really enjoy your content and how you look at and run things in D & D. I hope you keep making more content.

You could also make a secret door that is not hidden at all but can take the players to a different location depending on the actions taken prior to opening the door. For example the door the players opened when they first met at a tavern (or other place the party could first meet) could lead to said place normally, but take the players somewhere completely different if specific actions are taken when opening the door.

Thanks for this.

I generally operate on the concept I learned watching enough Matt Colville: "It doesn't exist until they make it exist." You can make a secret door pretty quick, all things considered. And they'll never know if you placed it there for their sake unless you make it obvious or outright tell them. You'll know they *want* the secret door if they even ask. Everything exists in your campaign settings in a state of superposition. It is and isn't there and your job as the DM is to flip the switch on your quantum computer.

Ooh great video! I’m just about to sit down and draw up a dungeon for a little adventure I’m running this weekend, so the timing is perfect! Now onto that traps video…

These videos give me life and secret doors are legitimately one of the things I look forward to adding whenever I make any homebrew dungeon. Really glad that I had the right idea before watching. Bit Clichè probably? I was wondering about a secret door being a portal disguised as a mirror.

Love these vids their very usefulll

I have had a case where the players were actively looking for a secret room they KNEW was in said room. (Bad guy went in, bad guy didn't come back out) They couldn't be 100% certain it wasn't magical in nature ofcourse but he was just a normal cultist, so they deduced it was more likely to just be a secret door or something along those lines. They were correct but couldn't for the life of them figure out where it was in neither roleplay nor in roles. (it was under them. Basically a really well hidden trapdoor. Don't ask me why they never even thought about the floor...Maybe it was the lack of a carpet) They were getting a bit frustrated and were just about to give up when one stated "God damn it! I throw my hammer onto the floor and walk out!" Obviously just wanting to make a light joke about his character being as frustrated as he was. That was all I needed. It ended up being one of the funniest sessions as this meathead of a barbarian made a "god damn it....Iahhh!" sound as the ground under him suddenly vanished as he fell down into the secret tunnel like a magician might disapear on a stage. Sometimes, them failing doesn't mean they can't succeed..just..not in as graceful a way as they might have expected. (As a little sidenote. Yes, they did NEED to find this secret hangout but if they really couldn't find it, they could have just stalked the place out, found one of the other several secret doorways or "interrogated" one of the cultist. It was at most a light setback.)

I like using secret doors for what I think of as the "Skyrim Locked Door". Basically, a shortcut after the boss fight or exploration or other objective is complete, and it's not secret from that side. The key difference from Skyrim's locked doors though, is that it's not a locked door that can't be opened, but a secret door that can be discovered. So, if they find it earlier, they can potentially bypass traps, guards, etc. and get to their objective quicker. And if they miss it, then they can use it later as a shortcut. This gets even better if it's a location they'll return to later, as they might remember it, have left some mark to find it again, or even left it open (propped, destroyed, etc.). Which, at minimum, gives them more known options when returning, but potentially even an advantage to exploit.

Seeing this video reminds me of an idea for an unusally complex book case door I had at one point. One book might be called a history of traps, and has to be removed first in order to safley open the secret door, another might be called a history of secret doors and has to remain on the shelf, the third would be called something like how to open secret doors and is removed in order to open the door. however if history of traps is not removed before how to open secret doors the room will try to murder you instead of opening the secret door.

While you may want to avoid campaign critical items or information behind secret doors, a potential exception to that is if instead of that being the only way the players can find said item/information, it's a way to access them early. They may even lack the context at the time of discovery to know why that information or item is important, but that early discover may give them a leg up in a later scenario or otherwise act as a clue that there's more going on than they first thought. Essentially, they can act like an optional plot twist that progresses the story if found, but doesn't halt the story if not. Otherwise, if the plot demands they need to go through a secret door, then the players need to be armed with the knowledge that the secret exists somewhere (overheard conversation, interrogation, notes, reliable rumor, etc), and either get clues on where to search, or tail a suspect to reveal said secret.

The "un-secret" door (more of a puzzle than a secret): A door in the side of a passage is plainly visible (and open), but a large hidden pressure plate in front of it causes it to slam shut the moment any weight is placed on it. The party must find some way of bridging over the pressure plate to access the door. If you want to be a real stinker, place something nearby that looks as though it will solve the problem, but actually cause problems of its own if taken carelessly. Examples: a long bench that turns out to be a mimic, or some heavy timbers leaning against a wall that are actually propping up the unstable wall.

Why do I like watching D&D videos so much if I never even played it?

It's fine to have traps with passive perception if they made a character with the specific purpose of having it be super perceptive, but making a few tweak's to make it into a small puzzle or a skill check even makes for it to feel a tad more interactive

I once had a player who found a complex secret door mechanism purely by RP, so i gave him advantage on the check and he rolled double 1. So I described how he unlocked the mechanism but the hinges were eroded and the entire massive stone door fell ontop of him. xD

Welcome back! Another well done and thorough video! I just miss the old music though 🥺 new music sounds a little too low or feels like it can only be heard sometimes. I'm eagerly awaiting the next one!!!!

3:41:POV you just saw your friend noclip into the backrooms.