Dirty door tricks

Doors, the lifeblood of the dungeon, or something. They show up all the time in our fantasy dungeon crawling games, yet are often underdescribed. Most of the time, it doesn't matter much. But there are a couple of question that come up during play, and you as the Referee might find yourself stuck. Quick ways to deal with this:

Which way does the door open?

Often, this is not specified neither in the key, nor the map. There are a couple of quick ways to improve this

1. Towards the room with the higher number on the map… (e.g., the door between rooms #12 and #14 opens towards #14) [my preferred way]
2. Flip a coin, roll a dice for low/high, even/odd = inward/outward
3. Of course, if you have the time, consider what makes sense: if the dungeon builders/denizens want to barricade the door, then barricades only work in the room the door is swinging towards. If they want to rush out quickly, it's better to have the door swing outward. Etc.

The same can be done for the dreaded “where are the hinges on this door” question.

 And here's a d10 door table:

1-3 door swinging inward

4-6 door swinging outward

7 door sliding left

8 door sliding right

9 door sliding up

10 door sliding down

How hard is it to break down a door?

Breaking down a regular door takes 1 turn, via a non-modified check.

For every extra descriptor in the adventure key, breaking down the door takes +1 turn or there is an increment penalty on the check. “Wooden” does not count towards this.

So, “reinforced wooden door” = “metal door” = 2 turns/-1 on the check. “Reinforced metal door” = 3 turns/-2 on the check.

That's it, just wanted to note this stuff.

PS: a bunch of door-themed random tables over at ktrey's blog