The adventure "Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker appeared in DUNGEON magazine JULY/AUGUST #36 and if you want to make the most of this Remix then I highly suggest picking up a copy of the issue.
The Prison of "Granite Mountain Prison" is described in the following manner, ". . . Three hundred and ten years ago, the king who ruled Bangor commanded his court wizard to build a prison. The records say that he requested 'a prison of surpassing security, an engineering marvel that will amaze and terrify generations to come' . . . the wizard . . . completed the prison in three years. The final product was as much an engineering marvel as it was a terrible place of punishment, and despair . . ." (25)
The prison is a trick prison where prisoners are positioned in one of 365 cells that are then rotated by the efforts of the combined prisoners (a wheel of woe). The idea of the prison is that only one prisoner can enter and leave on any single date. They are put into the cells through a spell that shrinks them and released through a similar method as there are no doors, only an opening to look out at their doom and a tray slot to allow food to enter. From the description of the prison you might expect it to have a unique design, but the only thing unique about it is the wheel of woe.
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| Granite Mountain Prison 1st Floor from page 29 |
As you can see from the included map this design isn't inspiring the imagination towards some magnificent engineering accomplishment, rather, it feels more like the designer was looking to substitute complexity for efficiency. Let's compare this map with a more famous, real life prison: Alcatraz.
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| Alcatraz floor plan from National Park Maps |
The reason why I want you to see these two is to highlight how a complex floor plan isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to making something effective. We already have the trick of the prison in the wheel of woe and by focusing on creating a difficult pathway that would make things more challenging for the players we've lost the nature of the dungeon. A simpler path structure might work better.
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| Simplified version of the map |
I have eliminated a lot of the rooms and the circumnavigation from the map here for the purpose of demonstrating that the extra rooms aren't needed. As referees we gained nothing from including 26 rooms before the players meet the wheel; all we did was put up unnecessary blocks and slow downs.
The prison's strength doesn't come from having a convoluted structure but rather from the trick of the wheel of woe. If you add all these other layers you create an impression for your players that there is hope that they will be successful. They need to know that the reason why you aren't filling the building up with countless rooms and traps isn't because you fear a breakout, but because you know there won't be one. It needs to feel inevitable - because that makes success feel so much more special.
This adventure requires you to help the players build the skills necessary for success prior to this adventure. In order to do this it's important that we provide them with examples of the challenges they will face prior to appearing here. The best practice is to provide an opportunity to accomplish the three big challenges prior to encountering all of them here in earlier adventures. This way when they come upon them they are able to think of ways to beat this scenario that doesn't end in frustrated exasperation.
Learning Scenarios
1. The players should encounter a situation where someone is trapped with no door but with a small opening that food, air, and water could enter. The key is to help them figure out how to get them out.
2. The players should encounter a situation where they must bluff/sneak past guards towards a goal. These guards must be hostile to the players normally so that they are challenged to get by without killing or alerting the guards. The key is to teach them how to infiltrate a hostile area so that they can accomplish their goals.
3. The players need to encounter an automaton that has an intelligence. This key is to teach them how to interact with creatures that may not have a hostile disposition towards them, but that can be used as allies if approached correctly with the right triggers.
Scenario 1 will be connected to a natural disaster in my campaign so that the players will learn the lesson without feeling like it's shoehorned into the game.
Scenario 2 will be done within 3 sessions of the prison infiltration. The lessons they learn, from planning to sneaking through the building towards their goal will need to be fresh on their minds. I want them to see what success and failure feels like in a less high stakes environment so that they are able to be prepared for the challenge of Granite Mountain Prison.
Scenario 3 is going to be brought into the game in the next session. I want them to become familiar with automatons so that they are able to deal with the adventure's unique monster and can come to a conclusion other than, "Let's smash it."
Granite Mountain Prison Remix
Part 1, The World Set Up
Part 2, The Prison
Part 3, The Three Villains
Works Cited
"Granite Mountain Prison" by Roger Baker from DUNGEON MAGAZINE Issue #36 JULY/AUGUST, 1992. pg 25, 29
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