Traps are a Trap

[Person_Man]

This comic (http://pvponline.com/comic/2012/05/18/the-sudden-stop) from PvP perfectly illustrates why traps should be rare in games.

1) Player attempts to find trap.

2) Player finds trap. Trap is bypassed. Nothing exciting happens. Or Player fails to find trap, and someone in the party sets it off.

3) Trap injures party. Someone heals. Players sleep to regain spells if needed, but things generally just progress as if nothing has happened. Or at least one Player is killed, and angry they were killed by a trap and not in combat or some other "meaningful" death.

Thus, the most probable outcomes of putting a trap in your adventure is that nothing happens, your players are mildly inconvenienced, or a player is killed and feels cheated.

Discuss.

[sonofzeal]

Agreed.

I'm a big fan of "Encounter Traps" from Dungeonscape for precisely this reason. They work a heck of a lot better than 4e's "skill challenges", and accomplish the goal of making the trap dynamic and interesting, and opening them up for more than just Rogues, while still leaving Rogues a valuable niche in dealing with them. Plus they're fun.

[Answerer]

The main problem with traps and other skill-based things is that the skill game is not very well developed. Combat has tactics, options, choices, actions, etc. etc. Skills have a d20 roll and a (mostly static) bonus modifier. And attempting to have "puzzle traps" tends to end poorly since they frequently come down to a test of how well the player can think like the designer.

I haven't read Dungeonscape's Encounter Traps; do they fix these things?

For the record, I'd also point out that Legend's got a much more robust system for handling these sorts of things, in the form of skill games. Like combat, skill games involve actual choices, not simply rolling.

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

Traps are fun because you know they could be there.

It's not actually about dealing with traps or their consequences. It's just the added suspance and tension they provide just by virtue of existing.

[sonofzeal]

The main problem with traps and other skill-based things is that the skill game is not very well developed. Combat has tactics, options, choices, actions, etc. etc. Skills have a d20 roll and a (mostly static) bonus modifier. And attempting to have "puzzle traps" tends to end poorly since they frequently come down to a test of how well the player can think like the designer.

I haven't read Dungeonscape's Encounter Traps; do they fix these things?
Yes.

Every encounter trap I've run has had some interesting choices. There's often multiple XYZs that produce damaging effects in ABC areas, and each has to be smashed/disabled separately. Doing so while avoiding the damaging effects can be difficult, but can also involve teamwork. The last one I remember had the Cleric boosting the Rogue up above the trap-pillar so he could disable it, while the Barbarian and the Fighter hacked away at a second one to try and overcome its hardness/hp before they got blasted by too much damage. Good fun.

[Duke of URL]

Yeah, the best traps are the kind that provide a side challenge inside of another encounter. That is, party needs to fight a group of creatures, but there are (potentially) traps making the encounter environment hard to navigate.

1) Player attempts to find a trap; this costs him/her actions that could have instead been used to fight the actual enemies.

2a) Player finds trap. Player and/or party need to spend actions to disable the trap or find ways to bypass (or absorb) it.

2b) Player fails to find trap (or doesn't even try), trap winds up affecting party.

3) Trap injures or incapacitates someone in the party. Healing can be used, at the cost of actions (in-combat healing is sub-optimal, after all). HP damage is still generally pretty sucky, since unless it brings someone pretty low, it's an out-of-combat heal; but there are other types of traps (ability damage poisons, snares/nets, teleportation, pits) that can place the affected character(s) at a tactical disadvantage.

[Darrin]

Classic case of Bad Trap Syndrome (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/90/bad-trap-syndrome/). Also, Part 2 (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/91/bad-trap-syndrome-curing-the-bad-trap-blues/).

In brief: the most exciting part about traps is figuring out what they do and then circumventing them. So discovering the trap should be obvious. Getting around it... that's where the real challenge is.

[dropdadgbe]

Yeah, the best traps are the kind that provide a side challenge inside of another encounter. That is, party needs to fight a group of creatures, but there are (potentially) traps making the encounter environment hard to navigate.
This. While the traps described in the OP are pretty forgettable, so are a lot of random encounters unless there's something extra about the setting or circumstances to make it interesting. The trick is being able to incorporate the trap into the environment in ways that complement the scenario, not expect them to stand alone as encounters.

[Midnight_v]

I just wrote something about this over on min/maxboards. They linked to Tuckers Kobolds, and really the trap thing leads to escalation, and/or hard feelings.

Mostly though, the issue (for me at least) is that the effective traps seem to be like the one in the comic above, the "Trapfinder minigame" doesn't WORK on them very well.

So the above happens and the rest of the party sees it and leads to sillyness, like sending livestock through the dungeon first, or summons etc. . . so yeah traps are a trap, I agree with the op, pretty much completely.
Finally, theres nothing heroic or fun about dying in a pit trap.

* a brief anecdote or 2.
You guys play Darksouls? It's in a lot of ways a near perfect D&D video game (with a hardcore DM). They have mimics.
I've noticed (and read) that the first time a mimic gets someone, or the first time people encounter it, they attack every chest they see at range/with magic. Till they know where all the mimics are. The game actually DOESN'T randomize the mimics each play through so after game 1, you know where they are, but still... traps in my head trigger a kind of paranoia escalation, if ran badly.
They can also end an adventure. I had a trap cast "bestow curse" on me then reset. The rest of the party was like... okay back to town, which is weird, but I took -6 to a stat and it was a main stat so I was out. They decided to go back to base as opposed to continuing on a man down.
Real life sometimes thats not an option, but in most D&D games, Teleporting home, walking out... literally IS the best/most available option. . .

[Essence_of_War]

Maybe it's me being stupid, but I'd never even considered the "let the players see all of the traps" approach from bad traps 2.

I like the idea a lot.:smallsmile:

[Saph]

My favourite types of traps are:

Alarm traps: Deal no damage, but leads to an encounter with enemies. They're also cheap and cost-efficient, making their use believable. (There's a reason they're the most common type of trap in real life.)

Combat threats: The snipers firing from behind cover have mantraps set up to catch anyone who tries to rush them. The swordsage the party is fighting has seeded the tunnels with 10' wide pit traps that she can leap over but which the party will fall into, hindering their attacks. These sort of traps do mild damage, but the real reason they're dangerous is because you're fighting enemies at the same time.

Story traps: These are there to tell a story about the place you're going through. One old ruin I designed had a thick metal door sealed with an arcane lock. When the party broke through with knock spells the wall behind was revealed to have a symbol of pain and a symbol of fear, sending them running screaming in agony. After they finally got through, the next room triggered a programmed image of the wizard who'd created the place, who delivered the following speech:

"Good evening, and welcome. My name is Silvas. If you are listening to this message, you have successfully bypassed the arcane lock upon the outer doorway, as well as the symbols within it. As the more quick-witted among you have hopefully already surmised, I am the mage responsible for the creation of these same spells. Since you have now defeated them, there is a question I would like to pose to you: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, YOU IDIOTS? Did it ever occur to you that this door was sealed for a REASON? Or were you under the impression that those spells were there as some sort of interior decoration? In case it has so far escaped your notice, I have gone to considerable trouble to discourage your progress into this area without actually killing you. Those runes of power could with equal expenditure of effort have been symbols of death and insanity. Since the combination of nightmarish terror and agonising pain has evidently been insufficient to convey the requisite message to your dim minds, I will spell it out to you in words of not more than two syllables: GO AWAY.

"If after this you still lack the basic intellectual capacity to recognise the wisdom of retreat, I will not hinder your progress further. Your destination is to be found within the room beyond. I would like to believe that you will display sufficient rudimentary common sense to depart, but your previous actions suggest otherwise. As such, I leave you with the sole consolation that by hurrying to meet your inevitable fate you will at least improve this world’s genetic pool insofar as you are able. Message ends."

[Essence_of_War]

Sidenote:

I think your programmed image trap served its purpose well.

I am now intrigued about the story being said old ruins. :smallsmile:

[Karoht]

The main problem with traps and other skill-based things is that the skill game is not very well developed. Combat has tactics, options, choices, actions, etc. etc. Skills have a d20 roll and a (mostly static) bonus modifier. And attempting to have "puzzle traps" tends to end poorly since they frequently come down to a test of how well the player can think like the designer.
I usually employ traps as a more live thing. For example, lets take a group of goblins. They know they can't take the party on their own, thats just suicide. So their plan is hit the party, hurt them a little, take some stuff, and run for it.
The trap is there to slow down the party as the goblins make a getaway. Or the trap is there to distract as the ambush goes off. Or the trap is designed to separate the party to some extent.

The trap then becomes more of a part of the live combat, rather than being a static element somewhere else. It can make a bunch of low CR critters that little bit more threatening or annoying, and really force the player party to take them seriously.
"We had our asses kicked by a bunch of Goblins who stole our stuff, all because of that stupid tripwire?"

[lorddrake]

I agree with those who have said that the (not-certain) existence of traps create tension. I never make my traps one-hit Kill because of this. They either lead to an encounter (mimic, alarm) or deal moderate damage or some annoying condition (poison, sleep).

With this my players have been more and more paranoid (they shoot chests as soon as they see them) and with this I can play with their expectations (shooting a chest triggered a gas trap on the chest, for example).

My players never complained, but I don't do this often.

One trap I loved was this: The players found a ring with magical properties on the way to a fight with a comic relief villain. They took it, obviously.

Eventually they fell on a pit filled with water and in the dark they could see pirañas on the water. They suddenly panicked, but eventually discovered they were dead.

They imagined that the lame comic relief villain was incapable of taking care of the pirañas or was so lame had only gotten dead ones to the pond.

But when the ring touched the water they were undead pirañas. Hilarity ensued.

[Starbuck_II]

This comic (http://pvponline.com/comic/2012/05/18/the-sudden-stop) from PvP perfectly illustrates why traps should be rare in games.

Discuss.

No, it illustrates why traps should all be interactive.
I remember the 4E DMG had an adventure with all interactive traps like the boulder, the skull tether ball, etc (it should have included one with the boss fight vs the dragon).
So when I ran it I added them back in, it made it much more exciting.

Sadly, I only ran a little 4E so I don't know if they always maintained those kind though.

[willpell]

Traps are fun because you know they could be there.

It's not actually about dealing with traps or their consequences. It's just the added suspance and tension they provide just by virtue of existing.

I wouldn't say "suspense" so much as "paranoia". Traps teach the player not to trust the DM. I believe they should be used very sparingly, with an eye to how they will be received and how the players' behavior might change after the first time they're smacked while vulnerable. The same goes for "gotcha" monsters like the Mimic. Use these things if they get cocky; stop using them if they overreact and start poking everything with 10-foot poles and refusing to take plot hooks because there's too much risk.

[Slipperychicken]

refusing to take plot hooks because there's too much risk.

Adventuring is, by it's nature, extremely risky. Every day, in terms of danger-level, you're basically trudging through a high-fantasy Vietnam, just waiting for the arrowhead or Explosive Rune that ends it all. You don't charge headfirst into Hell and expect to come out on top. If a character can't take (or at least mitigate) that risk, it should stop pretending to be an adventurer, and someone with more balls should take its place.

That's what separates heroes from grave-robbers: the former can take the path that leads to his grave, can make that sacrifice when no one else will. The latter wants to get rich by sacking tombs.

[Righteous Doggy]

Traps are not bad, but there are bad/boring traps. The point is to be entertaining, a simple trap that sets off a fireball and had no warning aside from that rogue checking the whole place out square by square is dreadfully boring. One that sets off and does something neat like change the dungeons setup/appearance, call foes from the next room, or starts an event is considerably more interesting and builds the world. I know adventuring is risky and dungeons need to be manacing or have a threat, but covering it with landmines in a game where you just roll dice to look for them is kind of boring...

[prufock]

This comic (http://pvponline.com/comic/2012/05/18/the-sudden-stop) from PvP perfectly illustrates why traps should be rare in games.

1) Player attempts to find trap.

2) Player finds trap. Trap is bypassed. Nothing exciting happens. Or Player fails to find trap, and someone in the party sets it off.

3) Trap injures party. Someone heals. Players sleep to regain spells if needed, but things generally just progress as if nothing has happened. Or at least one Player is killed, and angry they were killed by a trap and not in combat or some other "meaningful" death.

Thus, the most probable outcomes of putting a trap in your adventure is that nothing happens, your players are mildly inconvenienced, or a player is killed and feels cheated.

Discuss.

Design better traps.

No, really, that's the crux of this "problem." Breaking it down into its most boring possible component parts can be done with any in-game mechanic. Example: combat.
- Player tries to kill enemy.
- Player kills enemy, enemy dies, nothing exciting happens.
-Or Player fails to kill enemy, enemy injures party, someone heals, sleep if needed.
-Or at least one player is killed, and angry because he was killed by a lucky shot and not some important plot point.

Traps are encounters. Just like other types of encounters (combat, stealth, interaction, puzzles, etc), they can be done well or done poorly.

[Slipperychicken]

I know adventuring is risky and dungeons need to be manacing or have a threat, but covering it with landmines in a game where you just roll dice to look for them is kind of boring...

Totally agreed: traps ought to be fun/dynamic/interesting. I was just talking about PCs turning down adventures because of the risk involved.

[nedz]

I use them sparingly, and mainly only because players will make rouges who put skill points into the relevant skills. Not using traps would invalidate their characters.

I mainly use them when I am running Kobolds, because it would be rude not to.

I did have a lot of fun with a Trap Haunt though, which basically lampshades the whole trap thing.

[GutterFace]

You can mix it up having traps as part of a story line, or at least tied in. I like mixing in puzzle traps when people are doing a 'crawl'.

for instance, last game the were in a Church catacombs looking for an old book...blah right?

i had a trap when they wandered into a room where the door sealed shut behind them and the only way out was through a mirror/glass like wall on the order side. they could see through it but could not break it open. The room was 10' high and 30' on each side. solid stone. and 4 spigots on the walls. There was a seal on the ceiling that was partial obscured.

One of the player teleported through the glass wall and was waiting. the other 3 were int he room (all Level5) a Dread Necromancer, Crusader, and Binder. they also had a Cleric Guide NPC.

The room starts to fill with water. at a rate of 1' per round. they have 10 rounds to escape before they die.

they all scramble to break the mirror/glass wall and cant. the Necro fails to decipher the seal on the ceiling. and the binder dumps his rogue to try and bind to something useful. so now he's out of the running to help the others.

long story short no one bothered to ask the Cleric what the seal was even though they were in a Church catacombs!

eventually 1 round...1! before the were going to die someone figured out to ask the Cleric, he translated the seal. and cast Daylight and poof the mirror wall opens the PC's and water flow out. they rest. and onward!

[Spuddles]

Classic case of Bad Trap Syndrome (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/90/bad-trap-syndrome/). Also, Part 2 (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/91/bad-trap-syndrome-curing-the-bad-trap-blues/).

In brief: the most exciting part about traps is figuring out what they do and then circumventing them. So discovering the trap should be obvious. Getting around it... that's where the real challenge is.

Agreed. As written, traps are terribly unfun. The most fun I've had, as a player, vs traps, are in low level parties with no rogue, and everyone contributes to getting around problems. They're more like obstacles, and you have to use magic, skills, and creative thinking to get around it. Like having the mage ready a benign transposition to cast on the barbarian jumping across a pit trap. Should he fall, the mage can just switch the places of the barbarian and a conjured mount.

[Diarmuid]

/SNIP
eventually 1 round...1! before the were going to die someone figured out to ask the Cleric, he translated the seal. and cast Daylight and poof the mirror wall opens the PC's and water flow out. they rest. and onward!

The problem with this is that the Cleric guide was just going to sit there and die because no one thought to ask him what something he could read meant?

[GutterFace]

The Cleric had to roll to decipher as well, but since he has knowledge religion in class and decipher he rolled well. the point was to make the players think not just with their skills but with everything they had in hand. including an NPC. He also heals for the party but i don't have him do it spontaneously. I make the players call out to him for aid when it is needed. The best part of traps and puzzles and such is not the difficulty or the complexity its about making the party work together to figure it out. any DM and flip a coin and make a pit trap or a fireball trap. how many will take the time to design something fun and new?
like a room full of treasure chests and randomly roll how many should be mimic's?
ha!

Also no one ever makes traps with Sonic spells/triggers. don't you just love to make your players deaf for a few rounds? hard to communicate for a while :)

[Larkas]

I agree with Diarmuid on this one: what if they didn't think of asking the NPC Cleric? Were they all to die and that's the end of that? It makes much more sense for said Cleric to act on his own accord, even if it took some time for him to notice the rune. His life was on the line too! The intent was good, the execution, not so much.

[NichG]

There are two problems here:

1. Traps either have consequences that are too severe, or are immediately moot.


This first issue is really edition and campaign-specific. In 2ed D&D, healing is not a nearly limitless fountain, and 'the party rests, regains spells, and presses on' is not viable since a dynamic dungeon will react to the party's initial foray, and so there are actually consequences for forcing a rest. For example, I'm running Labyrinth of Madness and the players have commented that 'these occasional 1d6 falling damage dings are going to add up and kill us eventually' (after a sort of comic 'no fail except on a 1' sequence when three people failed what should have been rendered a trivial climb). In 3ed, you break out the Wand of CLW and the bits of damage are gone. In 4ed, you spend healing surges, but you still have much more healing than in the much earlier editions.

In some sense, the same logic applies to encounters that are not life or death. A mook fight has pretty much no consequences to party resources in 3ed+, but the dings add up when healing is rare and resting is not an option.


2. Traps involve no decisions on the part of players other than the random die roll 'do I find it/not?'


This comes to the core of it. A good trap shouldn't just be interacted with via the success/failure mechanics, but should be multi-stage, be hinted at by the environment, and be disarmable/avoidable with no check by a clever player. Furthermore, you can use this to have traps where setting off the trap creates peril that must be answered.

An example, again from Labyrinth of Madness, there's a trap that locks one or more PCs into a room that is warded, doesn't unlock for a week, etc. If the entire party gets stuck in there, then they have to work out how to escape. If part of the party gets stuck in there, they can work out a rescue based on the trap's trigger in the previous room. Also, there's loot in the trap basin, so if the party avoids the trap once but sees the loot, they will voluntarily interact with it further to try to get the loot. In this case, simply disarming the trap locks the loot away, so they have to actually bypass the thing cleverly.

Another example, there's a set of braziers used in a ritual which, if lit, create creatures that are hostile to people not garbed appropriately. Its a trap that becomes an encounter if set off.

Another example is the classic drowning room trap, where once the trap is set off (water begins to enter), the party has to figure out how to stop it/get out/etc.

Another example is a trap that is guarding sensitive documents, such that if the trap is triggered, the documents (ostensibly the party's objective) are destroyed. An example might be a scroll-tube filled with a gas that ignites on contact with air, designed to be opened under a non-wetting fluid (mercury, say). Its a failure mode that isn't trivial, nor is it insta-death to a PC. It may be possible to get the documents out without setting off the trap, and it requries some thought rather than just a 'Disable Devices' roll.

[nedz]

I agree with Diarmuid on this one: what if they didn't think of asking the NPC Cleric? Were they all to die and that's the end of that? It makes much more sense for said Cleric to act on his own accord, even if it took some time for him to notice the rune. His life was on the line too! The intent was good, the execution, not so much.

The Cleric could have acted at the last possible moment I guess, but that would have been a fail for the players. It would be a lesser mary sue moment.

[SowZ]

As a DM, I've usually ran traps the way listed above and usually they aren't too eventful. Come to think of it, the one time a trap happened that was memorable and engaging it was a pit door trap with a bunch of snake type things that grappled the players and held them there. If they were cut in half, two more would split out and the grapple would be harder. The party had to work together to solve the problem all the while knowing they had a time limit because of other problems. Some suggested leaving them there and coming back. It had some cool inter-party drama and stuff. They finally found a clever solution.

That is the only time I can remember running a 'good' trap and I never gave it much second thought, with traps in the future being pretty vanilla. But I will have to keep that in mind for the future, huh.

[Larkas]

The Cleric could have acted at the last possible moment I guess, but that would have been a fail for the players. It would be a lesser mary sue moment.

Exactly. I mean, making a trap that relies on the skill of a NPC to be disarmed is not the best way to go at it, the concept is flawed from the onset. This kind of trap should, if possible, rely on the PC's, and only the PC's, strengths to be disarmed. For example, if any of the casters that were trapped had Knowledge (Arcana), the trap could use that instead of the Knowledge (Religion) none of them had. Like I said previously, the intent was good; the execution, not so much.

[nedz]

Exactly. I mean, making a trap that relies on the skill of a NPC to be disarmed is not the best way to go at it, the concept is flawed from the onset. This kind of trap should, if possible, rely on the PC's, and only the PC's, strengths to be disarmed. For example, if any of the casters that were trapped had Knowledge (Arcana), the trap could use that instead of the Knowledge (Religion) none of them had. Like I said previously, the intent was good; the execution, not so much.

Well the DM may have seen it as a safety catch, sort of playing safe, so that the trap appears lethal, ..., but actually isn't. They still get the time-tension and they did actually work out that they had to use the NPC. Its still a bit of an anti-climax though.

I used to set a lot of traps for which I had worked out one possible solution, and the players always found a different one. If the DM was open to another solution being found then this would be better. It is very hard to judge how difficult to make traps when you have a time constraint though.

[Fineous Orlon]

Exactly. I mean, making a trap that relies on the skill of a NPC to be disarmed is not the best way to go at it, the concept is flawed from the onset. This kind of trap should, if possible, rely on the PC's, and only the PC's, strengths to be disarmed. For example, if any of the casters that were trapped had Knowledge (Arcana), the trap could use that instead of the Knowledge (Religion) none of them had. Like I said previously, the intent was good; the execution, not so much.

It can be OK or even good at the beginning of a campaign, to help make sure the players warm up to the DM's style of trap, but I am not really disagreeing with you.

[Jack_Simth]

This comic (http://pvponline.com/comic/2012/05/18/the-sudden-stop) from PvP perfectly illustrates why traps should be rare in games.

1) Player attempts to find trap.

2) Player finds trap. Trap is bypassed. Nothing exciting happens. Or Player fails to find trap, and someone in the party sets it off.

3) Trap injures party. Someone heals. Players sleep to regain spells if needed, but things generally just progress as if nothing has happened. Or at least one Player is killed, and angry they were killed by a trap and not in combat or some other "meaningful" death.

Thus, the most probable outcomes of putting a trap in your adventure is that nothing happens, your players are mildly inconvenienced, or a player is killed and feels cheated.

Discuss.

... you're missing two clauses on your conclusion. The 3.X DMG example traps (and traps in those styles), if placed in isolation, are horrible. They're 'roll search', 'roll disable device', fail either roll and roll damage. Heal up (or not, if it's unnecessary), and move on. There's very little interesting about them.

If you stick critters with them that are effectively immune (flying critters around pit traps, fire immune critters around fire traps, lightning traps around lightning-immune critters, and so on) or even benefit from the traps (negative energy traps around undead, acid traps around clay golems, fire traps around iron golems, and so on), that's a little bit of a different story.

[Invader]

This comic (http://pvponline.com/comic/2012/05/18/the-sudden-stop) from PvP perfectly illustrates why traps should be rare in games.

1) Player attempts to find trap.

2) Player finds trap. Trap is bypassed. Nothing exciting happens. Or Player fails to find trap, and someone in the party sets it off.

3) Trap injures party. Someone heals. Players sleep to regain spells if needed, but things generally just progress as if nothing has happened. Or at least one Player is killed, and angry they were killed by a trap and not in combat or some other "meaningful" death.

Thus, the most probable outcomes of putting a trap in your adventure is that nothing happens, your players are mildly inconvenienced, or a player is killed and feels cheated.

Discuss.

I'd pretty much agree with this. You can tailor traps that affect a characters equipment instead of just dealing damage. You're right that no one really cares about taking damage out of combat but destroy or steal a players magic items and suddenly they take traps a whole lot more seriously lol.

[JoshuaZ]

Story traps: These are there to tell a story about the place you're going through. One old ruin I designed had a thick metal door sealed with an arcane lock. When the party broke through with knock spells the wall behind was revealed to have a symbol of pain and a symbol of fear, sending them running screaming in agony. After they finally got through, the next room triggered a programmed image of the wizard who'd created the place, who delivered the following speech:

"Good evening, and welcome. My name is Silvas. If you are listening to this message, you have successfully bypassed the arcane lock upon the outer doorway, as well as the symbols within it. As the more quick-witted among you have hopefully already surmised, I am the mage responsible for the creation of these same spells. Since you have now defeated them, there is a question I would like to pose to you: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, YOU IDIOTS? Did it ever occur to you that this door was sealed for a REASON? Or were you under the impression that those spells were there as some sort of interior decoration? In case it has so far escaped your notice, I have gone to considerable trouble to discourage your progress into this area without actually killing you. Those runes of power could with equal expenditure of effort have been symbols of death and insanity. Since the combination of nightmarish terror and agonising pain has evidently been insufficient to convey the requisite message to your dim minds, I will spell it out to you in words of not more than two syllables: GO AWAY.

"If after this you still lack the basic intellectual capacity to recognise the wisdom of retreat, I will not hinder your progress further. Your destination is to be found within the room beyond. I would like to believe that you will display sufficient rudimentary common sense to depart, but your previous actions suggest otherwise. As such, I leave you with the sole consolation that by hurrying to meet your inevitable fate you will at least improve this world’s genetic pool insofar as you are able. Message ends."

That is amazing. Do you mind if I steal this sort of thing for my own campaign?

[Saph]

That is amazing. Do you mind if I steal this sort of thing for my own campaign?

Go ahead! Happy for it to see some use. :)

[MukkTB]

Our group doesn't worry if we have a rogue for traps. The reason why is that traps come in two forms for us.
#1 Some damage. We shrug it off. DM isn't interested in killing us outright so at worst someone needs some healing.
#2 Curses and nasty traps placed on objects that would logically be protected. The idol in the central of the temple, the kings casket, ect. These we expect and we (mostly) treat objects of that order with caution.

[Soranar]

It really depends on your playstyle. If you never use traps, I recommend you warn your players (so they don't invest in the proper ACF or skills for no reason).

Personally I use them a lot, both as a player and as a DM.

Noise traps go both ways, they are great DM tools.

Especially if say an NPC sets them up around to camp to feel safe but, instead, freaks the whole party out as small animals (and the occasional thief) trips them while they sleep.

Also there's plenty of inspiration to be found (to rip off) from movies.

You don't necessarily need to railroad your players into following a given path but, if a giant boulder is rolling their way, I expect to run in the opposite direction (in 1 instance of this the team's dungeoncrasher decided to smash into the thing instead). All the while giving them an incentive to use the trapped hallway

[Necroticplague]

I tend to view traps not as encounters on their own, but as "arena hazards" for actual fights. The PCs aren't intended to fall into that pool of acid, the acidborn kraken is meant to drag them into it.The lava is just for show, until the goliath tries to bull-rush you into it. The lightning bolt magic trap isn't for the characters to get hit by, its a healing station for the iron golem they're in the middle of fighting.

[Lord_Kimboat]

I don't know. I see films like National Treasure or Raiders of the Lost Arc and see the tension created by deadly traps there, is there no way we can bring this sort of tension to the game? Maybe its a game mechanic problem.

[enderlord99]

That's what separates heroes from grave-robbers: the former can take the path that leads to his grave, can make that sacrifice when no one else will. The latter wants to get rich by sacking tombs.

Most P.C.s are both... at the same time!:smalleek:

[nedz]

I don't know. I see films like National Treasure or Raiders of the Lost Arc and see the tension created by deadly traps there, is there no way we can bring this sort of tension to the game? Maybe its a game mechanic problem.

It can be done, but most traps are problems to be solved or Gotcha's.
The first are fine, but get old, the second are just annoying.

The way dynamic traps are normally done is to use monsters in an encounter.

[Jack_Simth]

I don't know. I see films like National Treasure or Raiders of the Lost Arc and see the tension created by deadly traps there, is there no way we can bring this sort of tension to the game? Maybe its a game mechanic problem.You can, but to do it, you pretty much have to remove the rogue's trapfinding class feature... which reduces the rogue's usefulness, slightly, and they're not one of the ones that could use a nerf.

[GutterFace]

D&D isn't always about players, it's about the PC's they create. if i designed a campaign before PC's are rolled and everyone makes a barbarian and my campaign is in an arcane setting, they will be killed. none can translate or read...its not just how they play the game but how their characters can play the game. No one in the party had knowledge religion or decipher script, yes. BUT no one thought to detect that the door was a moving slab and brace it open. no one thought to break the spigots, or clog them. I lent the party usage of an NPC Cleric to help out, they all assumed he was just going to heal. but good lord as a DM if i roll out an NPC use everything about them. no one would use a barbarian npc to just kill cause they should know he probably can bend the hell out of some bars too. bottom line: maybe the NPC Cleric didnt think to decipher the seal...its a team game of team thinking efforts and as a DM im not going to give hints.

think of it like this; as a DM the world i create is my dream, my story. the adventurers are like a virus infecting my dream, trying to overcome how i want things to be. i am not going to make it easy for them and im not going to make a no win scenario. this keeps it hard and because it's hard its fun when they overcome obstacles.

if your a DM and your party of 4 kill some sleeping kobolds and get some magic items. try harder. the sleeping kobolds should be an illusion trap set up by a malignant wizard.

[Deophaun]

but good lord as a DM if i roll out an NPC use everything about them.
I just had a vision of your all-barbarian party butchering the cleric and putting everything to some use.

[Duke of URL]

You can, but to do it, you pretty much have to remove the rogue's trapfinding class feature... which reduces the rogue's usefulness, slightly, and they're not one of the ones that could use a nerf.

Not really. As pointed out several times in this thread, one of the most effective use of traps is to make them part of encounter combinations -- in an out-of-combat setting, a rogue* has enough time to safely detect and disable traps. Or not, in which case they just go off, typically. Boring, which seems to be the original point.

But once inside an encounter (combat or otherwise), each action becomes a precious resource and unless the rogue has taken Skill Mastery for the specific skills, (s)he can't take 10 or 20, either. Now, detecting and/or dealing with traps is a tactical decision, not just a roll-and-check-result rote task. As the trap expert, now I get to do things like call out "don't worry about those arrows, they're fairly harmless, but don't move to your left until I can take care of this thing over here!". Some traps can be ignored (minor harm that hopefully won't be life-and-death issues), others can be avoided, and some have to be dealt with.

Take for example, the idea of an iron golem and a trap that spews out fireballs at some small fixed or random interval. Well, now that iron golem just got harder because it's get healing, and while fire resistance is fairly common for PCs, keeping that up may drain actions and resources. So now, disabling that trap is now a key part of making the encounter winnable, and the rest of the party needs to protect whoever is going to take care of the trap while it gets disabled.

*And by "rogue", I really mean anyone functioning in the "trap expert" mode

[Karoht]

Take for example, the idea of an iron golem and a trap that spews out fireballs at some small fixed or random interval. Well, now that iron golem just got harder because it's get healing, and while fire resistance is fairly common for PCs, keeping that up may drain actions and resources. So now, disabling that trap is now a key part of making the encounter winnable, and the rest of the party needs to protect whoever is going to take care of the trap while it gets disabled.A perfect example of a trap used well to augment a combat.

If designed well, a trap can feel more environmental. Take the same encounter, the Fireball trap and the Iron Golem. If you have several of those fireball traps, and they follow a pattern on the ground, then part of the challenge to fighting the Golem becomes making the Golem move out of those locations to prevent the golem from healing. Meanwhile, the trap monkey can disable traps, creating more safe spots and increase the margin for error.

[Necroticplague]

And the best part is that it is something that wouldn't break verisimilitude to find that combo in place. After all, the XP cost for a magic trap is relatively low compared to the cost of a whole new golem if it breaks, so having a repair station like that would make perfect sense. Same can often be said of other similar circumstances, it's a reasonable use of resources, so it makes sense from both a world-building and a game-playing view to have traps like these around.

[Rubik]

I like using "traps" as an adjunct to battle strategy.

Your players are going up against a dungeoncrasher/barbarian ogre who likes bull-rushing people about? Line the encounter area with pits lined with spikes and filled with other interesting goodies for them to encounter (like gelatinous cubes and acidborn sharks).

Throwing a necropolitan necromancer at the party? His sanctum should have resetting negative energy floor traps everywhere.

Is there a human/ooze hybrid immune to bludgeoning damage? Place it in a sloped hallway with a giant stone cylinder that drops from the ceiling to roll down and crush everything (but the ooze-man).

Are they storming a red dragon's lair? Lots of lava floes and hazards he can fly over and push enemies into.

Are they going up against kobolds? Oh dear. Let's hope they have life insurance. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8664950#post8664950)

[Invader]

I had a DM that once had us put together an actual jigsaw puzzle in game. We were able to study the picture for like 30 seconds and we then had a set amount of time to finish the puzzle.

There were undead in the room that we had killed earlier and we went over the allowed time and the undead reanimated and we had to fight them again. After we killed them we had another set amount to finish the puzzle, we didn't and the undead reanimated a second time and we had to kill them again. We finished the puzzle on the 3rd try and it was actually a clue on how to kill a stronger enemy we'd be fighting in the future.

The encounter/puzzle thing was a hit with all the players and it was really well executed.

[Rubik]

I had a DM that once had us put together an actual jigsaw puzzle in game. We were able to study the picture for like 30 seconds and we then had a set amount of time to finish the puzzle.

There were undead in the room that we had killed earlier and we went over the allowed time and the undead reanimated and we had to fight them again. After we killed them we had another set amount to finish the puzzle, we didn't and the undead reanimated a second time and we had to kill them again. We finished the puzzle on the 3rd try and it was actually a clue on how to kill a stronger enemy we'd be fighting in the future.

The encounter/puzzle thing was a hit with all the players and it was really well executed.I probably would've just crushed all the bones so they couldn't reanimate. That, or found some way to seal them off (such as a Wall of Stone), depending on level.

[Invader]

I probably would've just crushed all the bones so they couldn't reanimate. That, or found some way to seal them off (such as a Wall of Stone), depending on level.

I was actually able to seal 1 inside a stone sarcophagus but we didn't have time for much else because it was 2nd ed. with the whole 1 min=1 round thing and I think we only had 30 seconds a pop to figure out the puzzle.

[Dairuga]

D&D isn't always about players, it's about the PC's they create. if i designed a campaign before PC's are rolled and everyone makes a barbarian and my campaign is in an arcane setting, they will be killed. none can translate or read...its not just how they play the game but how their characters can play the game. No one in the party had knowledge religion or decipher script, yes. BUT no one thought to detect that the door was a moving slab and brace it open. no one thought to break the spigots, or clog them. I lent the party usage of an NPC Cleric to help out, they all assumed he was just going to heal. but good lord as a DM if i roll out an NPC use everything about them. no one would use a barbarian npc to just kill cause they should know he probably can bend the hell out of some bars too. bottom line: maybe the NPC Cleric didnt think to decipher the seal...its a team game of team thinking efforts and as a DM im not going to give hints.

think of it like this; as a DM the world i create is my dream, my story. the adventurers are like a virus infecting my dream, trying to overcome how i want things to be. i am not going to make it easy for them and im not going to make a no win scenario. this keeps it hard and because it's hard its fun when they overcome obstacles.

if your a DM and your party of 4 kill some sleeping kobolds and get some magic items. try harder. the sleeping kobolds should be an illusion trap set up by a malignant wizard.


It is understandable, that you wish to create your own world, and rule it as it should act. Everyone story-driven roleplayer feels the same way. They wish to convey a story, a world, to let the playersi mmerse themselves in what you have created, and see the grand displays of your imagination. And, as should be underlined, you want your world to be -alive-. To live on its own.

As you stated yourself, you are not tailoring your world to the party. The party is the ones invading your world. If they are barbarians, they are illiterate bastards that will not survive for long, and that is their fault, for trying to invade your dream-world incompetently. And thus, you are placing the world in your hands, with them having to Conquer it, if they can.

The problem is, as stated earlier, in that water-filling room of yours. You said that there were religious symbols in the ceiling, and the cleric had to decipher them, to understand what was going on. You also said that the cleric deliberately did not do anything (You said that you waited until the ninth turn before the party remembered to ask the Cleric), even when the Cleric's own life was on the line. The cleric is a living, breathing part of your world. He is a person, and he certainly would not want to die... But yet, you waited for the party to solve the puzzle, and he just hung around and waited to die, even when obviously-religious runes (He had knowledge: Religion, meaning he would know they were religion if he passed the check upon first seeing them) were in the ceiling?

This rather breaks the moment of suspense, sadly, because no sane person would let themselves die, because other people (The ragtag group of adventurers) did not have it in their heads to ask him to decipher it. Granted, it does make sense that a Healer-for-Hire does not want to expend extra services than necessary and not healing up before he is asked, but when his own line is on the line; not so much. A minimum-smart cleric would screw the rest of the party's feverent and bumbling actions, figure out the runes, and do what was necessary all on his own. Possibly gloating about it, too, if he is that sort of character.

This raises quite the contradiction. You say that you aren't tuning your world to the adventurers. You give them a fair chance, yes. but you are not going to jump hurdles for them, or break an arm to give them a chance to shine. They have to grasp it themselves, or die due to not thinking clearly. But when you dumb down your own world, making the people inhabiting it unable to even save their own lives due to you as a DM wanting the Party to figure out things on their own, then things have gone wrong somewhere.

Did you honestly meaning to kill off everyone if the party had not thought about asking the Cleric? Had you planned on making the Cleric miraculously figuring out that he knew the symbols all along (Granted that the knowledge checks are not retry-allowed; you either know it or you don't) and save them at the last second?

As the others have stated, good planning, but rather badly executed, by the sound of it.