Don’t worry too much about map secrets

We tend to overthink the importance of keeping our D&D map secrets hidden from the players until their characters discover them. This includes secret doors that are marked by an “S” on the map, or rooms and hallways which the characters cannot see yet. This often happens naturally: When players see the big black shape in the center of the map where they haven’t gone yet, they know that there’s a central chamber there.

Let’s look at two arguments why we can worry less about hiding these map secrets from players.

• Revealing map secrets drives players “deeper” into the mapped location.
• The players maintain a sense of discovery if we create obstacles in the location which require more than just noticing them to overcome.

Visible secrets drive the game forward

We want the characters to explore the dungeon. Otherwise, why did we prepare a map? Presumably, we want the characters to delve deeper and deeper into hidden chambers and corridors. Revealing secret passageways and undiscovered areas of the map to the players, helps them move the story along together with us as the DM. If the players can see the secret doors, they’ll guide their characters in that direction. They won’t just follow the obvious path, and disregard the interesting secrets we have prepared behind that second door.

We want characters to explore the secrets of a dungeon. Letting the players know where those secrets are can move the story forward more quickly. It avoids the guessing game of investigating every inch of every wall to make sure there are no secret doors the characters are missing.

Turn revealed map secrets into obstacles

The fun of secret passages, rooms, and doors is not simply in rolling a high enough Wisdom (Perception) check until the DM tells the players where they are. We can create exciting encounters after the characters have discovered the secrets. Maybe the characters need to splash the secret door with water to please the water spirit hidden inside it. Perhaps the builders of the dungeon hid a chamber for a reason: the toxic fumes inside poison anyone who enters. Or a terrible monster lives in an obscured hallways, which is why the passage was blocked off in the first place.

Turning a map secret into a puzzle challenge, a dynamic trap, or a combat encounter creates a sense of struggle and progress which can be more meaningful than discovering these secrets. We can cut the “actual” discovery process by revealing map secrets to players, and then focus on the interesting scenes that develop once the characters arrive at the secret.