*jumps in late*
*signs the petition thread dealie thingie*
I'll affirm that renamed placeables are really the way to go. Years ago I knocked together a farcical module titled "Holy $#!t, RUUUUUNNNNN!!!"; the module only allowed Level 1 characters, and the gist of it was that the characters had to make it
alllllll the way from Hinoki's Entrance Chamber, through the Hall of OMFG DRAGONS!!! and down into the Hall of Unlikely Legends, where the characters would receive 1,000,000 Experience, 1,000,000 Gold and a whole mess of magic items at the end, along with whatever goodies they managed to scoop up along the way and a chance to save their suddenly grotesquely overpowered characters for use in other modules.
(Random trivia: Hinoki was the pseudodragon from the Endless Quest book
Dragon of Doom, and Shen--the black Dragon of Doom and one of the antagonists in the story along with the evil wizard Zed--was among the dragons attempting to thwart the players' flight to the Hall of Unlikely Legends. Also included among the cast were other noteworthy dragons such as Smog (
The Hobbit), Singe (
Dragon's Lair), Draco (
Dragonheart), the Huge Red Dragon From Tower of Doom (
Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom) and the unholy trinity of Yorgle, Grundle and Rhindle (Atari's world-famous
Adventure). And Falkor (
The Neverending Story) was the friendly white dragon who approached and greeted the very rare survivors in the Hall of Unlikely Legends; the first few conversational lines of player text included such appropriate repartee as "AHHHHHHHH!!!" and "EEEEEEEEEKKK!!!" and "NOOOOO, PLEASE don't eat me, Mister Dragon!" and "Before you explain the details of my pending horrific demise, can I have a moment to pray to the god of my choice?" as Falkor patiently explained the player's great accomplishment and repeatly denied charges that he ate people.
)
The problem, of course, was that the Hall of OMFG DRAGONS!!! was a long,
long labyrinth of a hall, and a whole bunch of dragons had been scattered throughout the maze. Each dragon was surrounded by oodles of treasures, and the closer you got to the center of the dragon's treasure pile, the better the treasures were; you might find a measly bag of 50 Gold a couple of cells from Singe and a Longsword +5 Holy Avenger right under his butt. Of course, the dragons were certain death to anyone who got too close, and those dragons had a
huge aggro range. You couldn't fight them; they'd plow right over you. You couldn't sneak past them; they had Spot and Listen out the wazoo. If anyone actually
did make it to the finish line (and out of all the times my friends and I used to run through Holy $#!t, RUUUUUNNNNN!!!, only two characters ever made it), it was through running like hell, running some more, running around walls or other big obstacles, avoiding all the Slow traps, skirting well around the dragons (which wasn't always possible, since some of the dragons lingered around doors and other chokepoints) and having certain players act as sacrificial lambs, luring the dragons away with ranged weapons and trying to stay alive as long as possible while the rest of the players ran past...not that it always worked, as the sacrificial lambs usually died quite swiftly and horribly, and the dragon would immediately turn around and wipe out the rest of the party with a well-placed breath weapon. But in a sick and perverse way we found entertainment in watching the dragons stomp us into the flagstones, and sometimes we competed to see which one of us could suffer the most brutal death possible. "You dumb lard-butt! I can't believe you went through the gate with the twin Slow traps. Ooh, damn! Yorgle critted you for 30 points on a bite? Lucky you!"
Getting to the point, among the treasures and surroundings I scattered a number of renamed objects which catered to the lighthearted yet fatalistic tone of the module. The Book of You Are So Very, Very Dead. The Staff of Miracles Such as You Still Being Alive. The sarcophagus renamed "Here Lies You...in about eight seconds". The skeleton renamed "Your Uncle Bob, who apparently never finished his trip to Nilbog". The sheet of paper named "Survey: What color of dragon would you rather be eaten by?" The other sheet of paper named "Fill in the Blanks: Last Will and Testament" (which, when examined, said "I, [your name], of soundly terrified mind and soon-to-be-mulched body, do leave my entire estate to the dragon Smog in the event that Smog should successfully eat me...which, at this point, seems very, very likely. __[your signature]__"). The door renamed "Which would you prefer? Cremation or burial?". The Deadly-spike-trapped door renamed "Touch Me and DIE!". And the list goes on.
And I'm pleased to assert that the renamed items didn't cause any lag at all.
However, the one time when we somehow got Grundle, Rhindle and Shen to converge in the same room as all four of us shouted stuff like "In the name of Monty Hall, CHARRRRRGE!" or "I REGRET NOTHING!" before charging them like berserk lemmings...
that caused a little bit of lag. But it didn't last more than a few seconds.