Best idiot trap?

[Kishigane]

DM's of GiantITP, what is the best idiot trap you've pulled on players? As in, a trap that is so obvious that only a blithering idiot would ever fall for it.

[KaussH]

The goblins begged for mercy, and offered to show them big treasure....
Lead the party down a hallway to a "pile" of coin ( layer of silver over some sacks) stepped on the pressure plate and set the trap off...

[Telok]

NPC: Here are written instructions to bypass the deathtrap that the top wizards at the Tower of the Magi made to defend the pocket dimension where we keep the really nasty stuff. The entrance is at the back of the high security lab for dangerous experiments, I'll show you the way.

Later...
PC: I turn the crank counter clockwise.
All: Clockwise.
PC: No. I want to see what it does.
All: RUN AWAY!

Later...
DM: Well, next character.

[Glorthindel]

Not so much a trap, but I find the good old Gelatinous Cube is a excellent idiot magnet.

I have had the cube show up in every campaign I have run for decades (even non-D&D campaigns, my players cursed me for weeks over using one in Dark Heresy, they thought they were safe there :smallamused:), and I always give my players a fair chance to detect the danger, but they are always just too inquisitive.

For example, the most recent 'use', I described a barely-perceptible 'shimmer' in the air of the corridor ahead. Expecting a forcefield, spell effect, of other mystery, a character (quite sensibly) rolled a single coin down the corridor, which i described coming to a sudden abrupt slow, then stop, at about the point they saw the shimmer (which again repeated as the coin slowed to a stop), and over the next couple of minutes, described that the coin was slowly sliding back down the corridor. Now, if all that didn't scream "cube", I don't know what does (and my players are all experienced, with several having run campaigns as long if not longer than me), but still, a character just had to creep closer, and try to retrieve the coin...

[Kardwill]

An idillic valley, home to an utopian society.

in the middle of the valley, an old concrete bunker, dirty and sinister, with a rusted armored door.

Above the door, a sign reading "Don't release the monster!"

They opened the door. And released the monster. Which destroyed the utopian society.


To be fair for the players, releasing the monster was the only way they found to escape the valley (the dreamscape of a mad scientist - the "monster" was the suppressed part of him that didn't want to be trapped forever in an illusionary paradise). So it was not really idiotic. But seing them struggle with temptation in front of the door was pretty entertaining. Especially when they first found it and didn't know yet it was the "exit", but reaaaaaally wanted to know what this "monster" business was about. ^^


Big red buttons with obvious "don't press the button" signs are Player-characters magnets.

[King of Nowhere]

a line of coins on the floor. the players started picking them up, never checking for traps

[Democratus]

An empty room with a large red button on a pedestal.

Works every time.

[Kishigane]

My personal favorite is to have two signs under a rug.

The first sign says, "That sign is a mimic."; the other says, "No, THAT sign's the mimic!".

They're both signs. The mimic's the rug underneath.

[Ajustusdaniel]

I've found that if you provide a Knights and Knaves puzzle, the players, after correctly deducing the safe path, will often pause on the way out of the dungeon to see what was behind the other door.

[Nifft]

An empty room with a large red button on a pedestal.

Works every time.

https://i.ibb.co/5Ft7SBZ/proxy.jpg (https://ibb.co/16hSP8c)

[Kane0]

Any sort of statue with gemstones or other valuables on/in it. My players will always stop to plunder, deface and vandalise statuary no matter the consequence.

[Pauly]

The goblins begged for mercy, and offered to show them big treasure....
Lead the party down a hallway to a "pile" of coin ( layer of silver over some sacks) stepped on the pressure plate and set the trap off...

You do know by doing this you are training your players to be murder hoboes don’t you?

[anthon]

The giant magnetic cliff face...

it was black, and about 1000 yards nearly vertical. Skeletons of corpses were strewn all around the ground, which was visibly dead. Hundreds of weapons and countless metallic objects stuck in its side like a pin cushion. Some of the armor pancaked flat or deformed.

The players had to ascend this cliff to get into the entrance of the cave.

Atop the cliff was a giant black swirling energy storm, numerous thunder bolts striking the plateau...

DM notes to Players: As the players got close, they could feel a slight tug from anything with iron in it, while characters like druids and so forth didn't notice anything.

Players: "Draw weapons and get closer"

[BlueScreen85]

Any sort of statue with gemstones or other valuables on/in it. My players will always stop to plunder, deface and vandalise statuary no matter the consequence.

That seems more like it.

[KaussH]

You do know by doing this you are training your players to be murder hoboes don’t you?

Nah, that's if the harmless merchant pushes them into a pit. If goblins who were part of an attacking force, surrender when a bunch die, come up with a story about treasure and offer to escort you into the dungen area its in.. you should be a lot more carefull and a lot less "let's follow the goblins" :)

[noob]

It is a big hole and there is an display above it indicating "this is a trap with lava" and looking at the pit fills you with an instantaneous understanding that it is a trap and that falling in it hurts you.
The pit have very bright glowing lava at the bottom of it and there is safety railings around the pit.
Furthermore there is someone nearby willing to tell you it is a trap if you did not already understand and this person will protect others from the trap by blocking access to it.
If you fall in it all that happens is that the fall hurts and the lava hurts too.

[Telok]

I found the post where they triggered the trap.

linkback

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I don’t have to trap my players, I can describe to them the lovely unguarded escape route and they will ignore it/forget about it in favor of trying to batter through the increasingly hopeless fight. :smallannoyed:

[noob]

I don’t have to trap my players, I can describe to them the lovely unguarded escape route and they will ignore it/forget about it in favor of trying to batter through the increasingly hopeless fight. :smallannoyed:

I do remember some players in a scenario where they were supposed to lose not being aware of it and being happy there was a constant onslaught of opponents ramping up in strength more and more to fight.
Maybe they just like fighting that much?

[Unavenger]

The best example I have ever seen of an idiot trap is probably what the DM in this story did (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uXH5baOwcc). It's pretty common, but I liked how they changed it just enough that if you were familiar with the trap from another DM, you still wouldn't be able to notice it immediately.

[JNAProductions]

The best example I have ever seen of an idiot trap is probably what the DM in this story did (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uXH5baOwcc). It's pretty common, but I liked how they changed it just enough that if you were familiar with the trap from another DM, you still wouldn't be able to notice it immediately.

Ah yes. The perfect trap.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I had one in a tutorial dungeon for new players. They were well aware that the place was totally ackbar'd, there had already been traps. Their job was to get an item and get out.

A big room, with two statues. And big, colorful, totally out of place rugs covering most of the floor. There was a clear path to each side and down the middle. Under the rugs a pressure sensor magic glyph that set off an alarm, waking the guardians.

One group walked straight across them, even with a "show me the path you take" warning. Facepalm.

Another was even better--they recognized that the rugs were traps, then decided to roll them up to see what was under them. Double facepalm.

One group, totally new to ttrpgs but totally genre savvy, avoided all the traps but were convinced that the cup they were sent to grab had a pressure plate under it out a trap around it. So they developed a plan to lasso it off. No trap there though.

[King of Nowhere]

Another was even better--they recognized that the rugs were traps, then decided to roll them up to see what was under them. Double facepalm.


that's actually not a silly idea. assuming there were regular pit traps, it would have worked. they could also have concealed trapdoors to something useful. one thing i like doing, and one thing a savy dungeon maker could actually do, is to set up some obvious traps that actually hide treasure or other rewards. the idea is that a savy adventurer will stay away from those, and thus miss the stuff. so, checking the obvious traps is not actually a bad idea.

[PhoenixPhyre]

that's actually not a silly idea. assuming there were regular pit traps, it would have worked. they could also have concealed trapdoors to something useful. one thing i like doing, and one thing a savy dungeon maker could actually do, is to set up some obvious traps that actually hide treasure or other rewards. the idea is that a savy adventurer will stay away from those, and thus miss the stuff. so, checking the obvious traps is not actually a bad idea.

But by having the clumsiest person just start rolling them up, not even taking any precautions?

And this was an illusion dungeon, in universe a training exercise. They knew that they'd not get anything unless they finished the job, no matter what they found.

[Grendus]

There's a room with a shadowy alcove and a few containers. As we enter the room, we set off a few traps. We find them, disarm them, and start working on getting the chests open.

And creatures ambush out of the obvious shadowy alcove.

[Lemmy]

I've seen players stand on top of a literal target painted on the floor... Because it had a small sign saying "Wait here" next to it.

It felt like something out of a Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon...

[TeChameleon]

In my very limited experience GMing, the best I managed was a schmuck bait trap- described the scene in detail, including the (currently inanimate and apparently innocuous) monsters... and a single, out-of-place gold pen.

The gold pen was just a gold pen, dropped by one of the mages doing the ritual that created the monsters when said monsters promptly killed them.

The players weren't happy when they discovered that the perfectly innocent plush toys were, in fact, extremely angry golems animated with blood magic :smallamused:

[Kardwill]

I've found that if you provide a Knights and Knaves puzzle, the players, after correctly deducing the safe path, will often pause on the way out of the dungeon to see what was behind the other door.

Videogame logic.
1 - The princess is being sacrificed to some elder abomination in the chapel
1b - The sacrifice will take place only when we get into the room, so that we have our climax scene
1c - The chapel is behind the right door
2 - There are probably stuff to kill and treasures to gain in the rest of the dungeon. Maybe even sidequests
2b - When we finish the quest, we won't be able to explore the rest of the dungeon
3 - So the rational thing to do is to open the right door and explore the entire freakin' dungeon, and go into the chapel at the very end.

That's the reason I can't take dungeons in CRPGs seriously anymore, and it kinda bleeds into TTRPGs sometime.

[Mastikator]

The goblins begged for mercy, and offered to show them big treasure....
Lead the party down a hallway to a "pile" of coin ( layer of silver over some sacks) stepped on the pressure plate and set the trap off...

Similar story. Goblin begged for mercy and told the party it could help them navigate through the mountain and avoid the trolls.
It navigates them into the goblin lair. They are forced to flee and the goblin survives and becomes a hero to the other goblins.

The players REALLY hated that goblin, no idea why they trusted it in the beginning.

[BlueScreen85]

Videogame logic. [...] That's the reason I can't take dungeons in CRPGs seriously anymore, and it kinda bleeds into TTRPGs sometime.

The chapel door is magically sealed from the inside. You need to find another hidden way in through the rest of the dungeon. Easy fix. Plus, it allows the players to skip the dungeon and interrupt the ritual earlier than expected if they find a way to dispel the magical barrier.

[icefractal]

The players REALLY hated that goblin, no idea why they trusted it in the beginning.Well maybe because after a while, looking at the blood on our hands, the piles of corpses behind us, the trail of death and destruction ... we look on our works and find them not so good. We're in a constructed world where we can be anything, and we're just relentless murder-bots?

But hey, here's a chance to do something different. If we accept surrender, work with people when they're willing, then maybe we're not murder-bots, we're just having to deal with mostly unreasonable opposition. Maybe we can make an alliance with one group here and ... oh. It was just a trap. Welp, back to being murder-bots. Beep boop.

[Mastikator]

Well maybe because after a while, looking at the blood on our hands, the piles of corpses behind us, the trail of death and destruction ... we look on our works and find them not so good. We're in a constructed world where we can be anything, and we're just relentless murder-bots?

But hey, here's a chance to do something different. If we accept surrender, work with people when they're willing, then maybe we're not murder-bots, we're just having to deal with mostly unreasonable opposition. Maybe we can make an alliance with one group here and ... oh. It was just a trap. Welp, back to being murder-bots. Beep boop.

Yes.... but the goblin threatened them with "my big troll friend will eat you and crap you into a shallow grave you dumb ugly humans" followed by a "ok please don't kill me I'll show you through the mountain".

[Wraith]

I forget where I saw it, but I remember a particularly devious trap that horrifies most parties.

They spend hours - days? - killing monsters, wedging open doors, disarming traps and they finally get to the McGuffin at the bottom of the dungeon. The McGuffin itself isn't trapped, but it is magically warded like the Holy Grail - once it leaves the room in which it's stored, it activates a massive Dungeon-wide reset and every trap rearms, every door slams shut again and locks anew, and a few new ones not yet seen come online.

The players are now trapped *in* the Dungeon and, tired, injured and probably low on resources, now have to make their way back OUT again. Have fun!


My personal favorite is to have two signs under a rug.

The first sign says, "That sign is a mimic."; the other says, "No, THAT sign's the mimic!".

They're both signs. The mimic's the rug underneath.

"You walk into a room, which eats you. The ceiling is a Lurker Above, the walls are Stun-Jellies, the floor is a Trapper and the door is a Mimic. Roll initiative, jerks." :smalltongue:

[Kardwill]

There's a room with a shadowy alcove and a few containers. As we enter the room, we set off a few traps. We find them, disarm them, and start working on getting the chests open.

And creatures ambush out of the obvious shadowy alcove.

Sounds like classic loss of information. The characters see the shadowy alcoves, but the players just heard about it once, just before they had to deal with a bunch of traps. Chances are they completely forgot the layout of the room.

Quite often, when players do something idiotic, they're not idiots. They just don't have the same mental image as the GM, because they forgot/didn't hear/didn't understand some information, or its rules implication. So reminding them might be a good idea, since it will allow them to do an informed choice.

"You're jumping over the chasm. The 7-meter-wide chasm over a river of lava. The chasm that you would need a DC30 jump roll to clear, and that will instakill you if you fail. You sure?"

[Lord Torath]

"You walk into a room, which eats you. The ceiling is a Lurker Above, the walls are Stun-Jellies, the floor is a Trapper and the door is a Mimic. Roll initiative, jerks." :smalltongue:And there's a gelatinous cube moving up the hallway behind the party...

[Wildstag]

I've fallen for it, but the GM threw a dungeon at us where the doors were all locked with high DCs but had no magic traps or mundane traps on them (except for a doorknob covered in oil). But the walls on either side of the doors were trapped with magic traps.

We didn't need to go through one door, but the Open Lock DC was too high for the rogue. So me being the strongman, I took a pick and tried to break a hole in the wall around the door. It didn't occur to me to just break the door, I just tried to hit the wall and all of a sudden a flash of multi-colored lights. I saved, but the priest did not and was turned to stone.

And since then I have not been allowed to touch walls.

[noob]

I've fallen for it, but the GM threw a dungeon at us where the doors were all locked with high DCs but had no magic traps or mundane traps on them (except for a doorknob covered in oil). But the walls on either side of the doors were trapped with magic traps.

We didn't need to go through one door, but the Open Lock DC was too high for the rogue. So me being the strongman, I took a pick and tried to break a hole in the wall around the door. It didn't occur to me to just break the door, I just tried to hit the wall and all of a sudden a flash of multi-colored lights. I saved, but the priest did not and was turned to stone.

And since then I have not been allowed to touch walls.

You did everything wrong: you collapse the dungeon on the hostages from far(destroy the evil walls and the people at once) then rescue the monsters and kill the loot(if there was loot that survived it meant that loot was artefacts and so was likely to be evil and needed to die).

[LoneStarNorth]

A devil who lived in town, relatively out in the open. Anyone could walk into his tent, pay him a hundred gold, and have him permanently increase an ability score of their choice by 1... and decrease a different random score by 2.

Although, to the players' credit, the lower their intelligence and wisdom scores got, the more believable it became that they'd keep going back.

[Kane0]

A devil who lived in town, relatively out in the open. Anyone could walk into his tent, pay him a hundred gold, and have him permanently increase an ability score of their choice by 1... and decrease a different random score by 2.

Although, to the players' credit, the lower their intelligence and wisdom scores got, the more believable it became that they'd keep going back.

Wow, each and every player in my group would fall for that every time...

[aglondier]

Vecna's Head. Nuff said.

But for the not quite gullible enough for that one...the Deck of Many Things. There is always at least one who will overdraw from the deck.

Also the ancient colossal mimic who sits openly on a bare hilltop on cold, rainy, miserable evenings disguised as a ruined watchtower. Anyone who shelters in it...

[GloatingSwine]

An empty room with a large red button on a pedestal.

Works every time.

I dunno. I rate it as about 80% effective without an accompanying Do Not Touch sign.

[Rynjin]

I was running a homebrewed Elder Scrolls game, and at one point the party was clearing an Oblivion Gate which was set up as a series of tests for Dremora; stuff like the Test of Accuracy, Test of Endurance, etc. There were prizes for each room completed.

They come across a puzzle clearly labeled "The Test of Deception", with a woman strapped to a table. They immediately move to free her, and a Dread Wraith pops out from under the table, which they dispatch. The woman thanks them and introduces herself as Aurelia, a Priestess of Mara (the goddess of love). They take this at face value, and free her from the Oblivion Gate, upon which she offers a boon from Mara to the PC who's been the nicest to her. He also takes this at face value, and gets a nice kiss on the forehead which grants him an "untyped" bonus to a stat.

Aurelia met them a few more times, always asking for aid with something or another. The party never did quite catch on that she was actually a priestess of Boethia (the Daedric Prince [read: demon lord, basically for those unfamiliar] of among other things, deceit, betrayal, and plots) and a Succubus to boot. She was using them to undermine rival cults, and was quite taken with the idea of having power over life and death for one of the great adventurers of the realm without his knowledge.

[MrStabby]

A magic sword. Hilt covered in gems. Lit by a red light. On a pedestal. In a temple of a demon cult of Mamon.

[BisectedBrioche]

Best accidental idiot trap: My DM trapped us in a cottage with a bunch of shadows.

We spent ages trying to find a source of UV light (after my character triumphantly tried to ward them off with a lantern, which didn't work).

Turns out we'd forgotten it was still daylight, and we could just open the door/windows.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I've had a couple of good traps and "AHA! I've got you now! And now you DIE!" moments [notably from a Traveller game which had a bunch of hilarious bond-villain-esque traps], but I think the most idiot-bait one was from a Black Crusade game:

At one time, my party was preparing to assault a spaceport, and received word that an artillery battery had set up position a distance away to provide support to the defenders. The trap, of course, was not outwardly idiot bait. The guns were protect by a battery of SPAAA and a company of mechanized infantry who had taken up prepared positions in the buildings around the square, with their IFV's guarding the approaching roads. The rest of the battalion was waiting in the wings to launch an encircling counterattack if the party attacked in force, and destroy them in detail with the artillery both serving as the bait and the anvil for the mechanized force's hammer. This was the real intended trap, and it was not idiot bait.
BUT...
The party observed the area, and determined that they were going to attempt an aerial insertion directly into the center of the square. Directly into the lethal crossfire of the SPAAGs and the company of prepared infantry, where they had no cover. Somehow, the party had managed to not only find a trap that I hadn't planned for, but also walk [well, jump] right into it.




Nah, that's if the harmless merchant pushes them into a pit. If goblins who were part of an attacking force, surrender when a bunch die, come up with a story about treasure and offer to escort you into the dungen area its in.. you should be a lot more carefull and a lot less "let's follow the goblins" :)

You are absolutely training them to be murderhoboes. After such an event, they are unlikely to accept surrender or take surrender or negotiation seriously at all, which seems to be precisely what you want them to do given that you expressed effectively that "only an idiot would accept an offer of surrender".

Once bitten twice shy caused by this situation is exactly why it's a war crime to use surrender, negotiation, or other symbols of protection as cover for military action.

[Kane0]

A machine, crystal ball, etc clearly labelled ‘unstable, do not expose to magic’

[Mutazoia]

Back in the 80's and 90's there was a series of books called Grimtooths Traps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) that listed nothing but really outrageous (and extremely deadly) traps.

[Kardwill]

Back in the 80's and 90's there was a series of books called Grimtooths Traps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) that listed nothing but really outrageous (and extremely deadly) traps.

Not really idiot traps, though. Most of them were "gotcha" traps designed to slaughter cautious PCs by subverting their expectations (like pit traps that made you fall "up"). The idiotic thing was the very idea of using those contraptions in a real adventure, and expecting the players not to rebel and tar-and-feather you afterward ^^

[Misereor]

Also the ancient colossal mimic who sits openly on a bare hilltop on cold, rainy, miserable evenings disguised as a ruined watchtower. Anyone who shelters in it...

Hey, there was an adventure like that in an early Dungeon magazine!
The setup was that the party enters an abandoned town, where a group of Giant Mimics disguised as everything from chicken coops to baker shops are stalking them.
Much hillarity was had as players would notice movement out of the corner of their eyes, and there would suddenly be an outhouse standing in the middle of the road, standing suspiciously still and all but whistling innocently.


Best idiot trap I ever saw someone walk into was from an old 1st ed. TSR module.
- Big, empty room with a prominent red X on the floor.
- Player immdiately declares "Too obvious!", and goes and stands on it.
- Gets squashed by big block of stone, roadrunner style, for tons of damage, and as we were using the Player's Options Black Books, he also got a fractured skull and brain damage.
- Five minute break until everyone can stop laughing.

[Telok]

Back in the 80's and 90's there was a series of books called Grimtooths Traps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) that listed nothing but really outrageous (and extremely deadly) traps.

Actually having read those books I recall only about half the traps being deadly threats. Most of them are what a real dungeon builder would want, hard to detect, activates with no easy evasion, maims or cripples an intruder. They just don't fit into the modern D&D thinking of "level appropriate" HP/healing drain & multiple combat encounters a day.

Really, playing something like DwarfFortress you don't build a single trap in a corridor. You put a retractable floor over a 80' by 80' by 80' pit that you can flood with lava or water (bonus points for fire imps and sharks). Critters with [trap_avoid] tags don't get to skip past it, no dodge/parry chances, certain death even to stuff like a bronze colossus. Exactly what a defender wants from a trap.

[EggKookoo]

I had both a set of idiots and one savvy player in a single trap/event. Party had been hiking through the wilderness for days and came across a rustic cabin. Upon entering, a crone greeted them behind a table set out with a fresh-made meal. She invited them to eat. They must be tired and hungry, after all. I ask the players if they eat. Various perception checks reveal nothing (not the best rolls), so I get wary nods all around (mostly, as we'll see...). These were not newbie players, mind you. I think I must have just described things in a way that threw off their suspicions somehow.

After some dinner roleplaying and some covert rolls, I announce that the party has fallen under her spell due to enchantments in the meal. At which point one player pipes up and says he didn't touch the food. A quick discussion jogs my memory and I'm forced to agree that, yes, he actually refrained from agreeing but instead just sat and watched with some amazement at the rest of the party. He ended up breaking the enchantment and saving the other PCs.

[icefractal]

Actually having read those books I recall only about half the traps being deadly threats. Most of them are what a real dungeon builder would want, hard to detect, activates with no easy evasion, maims or cripples an intruder. They just don't fit into the modern D&D thinking of "level appropriate" HP/healing drain & multiple combat encounters a day.

Really, playing something like DwarfFortress you don't build a single trap in a corridor. You put a retractable floor over a 80' by 80' by 80' pit that you can flood with lava or water (bonus points for fire imps and sharks). Critters with [trap_avoid] tags don't get to skip past it, no dodge/parry chances, certain death even to stuff like a bronze colossus. Exactly what a defender wants from a trap.
Sure, traps like that are logical (if you have the resources), but you know what else is logical? Not trying to engage with the trapped dungeon at all, and instead tunneling / excavating your way through. Dungeons don't 100% make sense, and neither does the way PCs typically explore them - it's done that way for gameplay reasons.

Now you have to ask - what do traps that can't be detected or avoided add to the game? I'm not saying it's nothing, but I'm not seeing a lot of benefit either.

[Telok]

Sure, traps like that are logical (if you have the resources), but you know what else is logical? Not trying to engage with the trapped dungeon at all, and instead tunneling / excavating your way through. Dungeons don't 100% make sense, and neither does the way PCs typically explore them - it's done that way for gameplay reasons.

Now you have to ask - what do traps that can't be detected or avoided add to the game? I'm not saying it's nothing, but I'm not seeing a lot of benefit either.

Turn it around. What do unavoidable dungeons and monsters add? What do random encounters add? What do carrying limits and ammo counts add? What do morale rules add? What does random treasure add? What does treasure tailored to the party add? You can ask that of anything in your game. Personally I don't find value in the traditional static dungeon stocked with monsters that conveniently ignore each other, come in "level appropriate" clumps, and posseses but does not use treasure that happens to be exactly what the PCs need to meet some "level appropriate" rule.

[Rynjin]

Sure, traps like that are logical (if you have the resources), but you know what else is logical? Not trying to engage with the trapped dungeon at all, and instead tunneling / excavating your way through. Dungeons don't 100% make sense, and neither does the way PCs typically explore them - it's done that way for gameplay reasons.

...How is that logical, exactly? Unless you know the exact layout of the dungeon you have no idea where you're going to or what awaits you there. You may spend days digging and miss the dungeon entirely. What happens if/when the walls are too thick to easily dig through? Spending months or even years on a task that can be accomplished in hours isn't logical at all; all the preparations made for your dig could be better spent on protections from the dungeon threats.

[icefractal]

Spending months or even years on a task that can be accomplished in hours isn't logical at all; all the preparations made for your dig could be better spent on protections from the dungeon threats.What protections? We're talking about stuff like corridors that flood with lava and there's no way to detect or defuse them from the wrong side.

It varies by system, but in 3.x for example, "able to survive lava or quickly teleport the whole party" is a higher-level thing than "able to turn into an earth elemental and/or summon thoqquas to melt tunnels".

[noob]

What protections? We're talking about stuff like corridors that flood with lava and there's no way to detect or defuse them from the wrong side.

It varies by system, but in 3.x for example, "able to survive lava or quickly teleport the whole party" is a higher-level thing than "able to turn into an earth elemental and/or summon thoqquas to melt tunnels".

Destroying the dungeon from far away with thrown rocks is also appreciated.(just in case the walls are filled with lava and disintegrate things touching it)

[Pauly]

Yes.... but the goblin threatened them with "my big troll friend will eat you and crap you into a shallow grave you dumb ugly humans" followed by a "ok please don't kill me I'll show you through the mountain".

From what I get from your description there was no neutral/good path to success for the players by accepting the surrender. Their choices
- Believe the Goblin and walk into a trap
- Kill a helpless captive (Evil)
- torture the goblin for information (Evil)
- release the goblin and have run back and alert the rest of the goblins.
- keep the goblin as a captive and slow down the party
- enslave the goblin (evil)
What was the path for success for the party if they accepted the surrender?

I’m fine with the goblin leading the players into a trap if they did something like snatch a goblin from a patrol, or the goblin surrendering without a fight when an easy escape was available to him. I’m fine if it was an evil party and they tried a non-evil option. But if the goblin has offered to surrender from a normal combat situation punishing the players for accepting the surrender isn’t an idiot trap, it’s being an adversarial player hating GM.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Destroying the dungeon from far away with thrown rocks is also appreciated.(just in case the walls are filled with lava and disintegrate things touching it)

IMX it's a rare dungeon where it's just "there are bad things inside, kill them all". Often, there are things that people want on the inside, or people that they'd rather rescue. Both of those make "take off and nuke it from orbit" rather suboptimal.

[noob]

IMX it's a rare dungeon where it's just "there are bad things inside, kill them all". Often, there are things that people want on the inside, or people that they'd rather rescue. Both of those make "take off and nuke it from orbit" rather suboptimal.
There is no such thing as "people to rescue": if they survived the dungeon instead of dying to the super ultra lethal traps it meant they were in fact bad guys.
Or if they survived those traps not through being a bad guy but by being tough then collapsing the dungeon on them ought to reduce the damage they take per turn.
Or you have the least trapped dungeons in the world with only 50 traps per cubic feet or some similarly impossibly low trap count.
Maybe your dungeon is not even made of trapped mimics, killer floors and orcuses(and invisible prismatic walls just in case).
Them "being in the dungeon" only means you should have rescued those people before they went to the dungeon and so you should have pressed on against the bbeg and their army to stop them from taking "hostages"(they all died the moment they set a foot within a radius of 10 kilometres of the dungeon).

[Lord Torath]

There is no such thing as "people to rescue": if they survived the dungeon instead of dying to the super ultra lethal traps it meant they were in fact bad guys.
Or if they survived those traps not through being a bad guy but by being tough then collapsing the dungeon on them ought to reduce the damage they take per turn.
Or you have the least trapped dungeons in the world with only 50 traps per cubic feet or some similarly impossibly low trap count.
Maybe your dungeon is not even made of trapped mimics, killer floors and orcuses(and invisible prismatic walls just in case).
Them "being in the dungeon" only means you should have rescued those people before they went to the dungeon and so you should have pressed on against the bbeg and their army to stop them from taking "hostages"(they all died the moment they set a foot within a radius of 10 kilometres of the dungeon).I'm not sure how serious you are, but the Caves of Chaos has merchants who had been caught in a raid by some hobgoblins on their caravan. If you didn't rescue them, they'd end up in the stewpots.

If the 'dungeon' you're exploring is anything other than just a trap for adventures, then, yes, there will be things you want to go in and bring out rather than just destroying the whole thing.

[Coventry]

It's almost not fair to include the one I am thinking of, but after two days, my desire to tell the story has overwhelmed my reservations.

Standard first edition AD&D campaign, where the current villain had sent a bunch of zombies to attack the party ... after equipping them with magic that would be harmful to the living. The PCs won the battle, used detect magic, and found all sorts of glowing items - more than they could identify easily. The party members decided to divvy up the items to test them out to see what they were.

First item ... cursed.
Second item ... cursed.
Third item ... cursed.
Fourth item ... cursed (but backfired ... see addendum at the end).
and on and on it went.

So it came time for the last item to test - the belt. The player started regaling us about one time a previous DM (armed forces) of his had given that party a belt of femininity/masculinity and how peeved he had been that his character flipped from male to female.

Everyone else in the room clammed up ... including this player's real-life-wife ... to see if he was pulling my leg or not. "So, do you put on the belt?" "Yes". "May I have your character sheet for a moment" (changes "male" to "female" and hands it back).

The look on his face said everything. He had NOT expected that to happen again. We all busted out laughing.

Then his wife strong armed me into changing his character back. I already knew she could thrash me, so I complied.

The backfire? One of the items was an amulet of thought projection. The bard thought it was wonderful, and used it to disrupt enemy spellcasters. I heard that player singing the smurf song soooo many times the rest of that campaign. sigh.

[Azuresun]

Actually having read those books I recall only about half the traps being deadly threats. Most of them are what a real dungeon builder would want, hard to detect, activates with no easy evasion, maims or cripples an intruder. They just don't fit into the modern D&D thinking of "level appropriate" HP/healing drain & multiple combat encounters a day.

I've run something like that, and the thing about "realistic" super-lethal traps is that after the shock of the first "gotcha" moment, they're dull, and train very bad habits into players.

Either they cheese through the dungeon with tactics like "Okay, I summon another Unseen Servant (or fiendish monkey in 3e) and sent it running down the hall, poking at every tile.", or it degenerates into "check a 10ft cube for traps, walk down, check another 10ft cube for traps, walk down, check another 10ft cube for traps, walk down, check another 10ft cube for traps...."

There's a reason that Tomb of Horrors, a dungeon based around cheap and hard-to-detect traps, is the least fondly remembered of the classics.

[Democratus]

There's a reason that Tomb of Horrors, a dungeon based around cheap and hard-to-detect traps, is the least fondly remembered of the classics.

I don't think this is true.


It was voted the greatest D&D adventure of all time by the staff of Dragon Magazine.
Dungeon Master for Dummies rated it as one of the 10 best classic adventures.
It was featured prominently in Ready Player One
It spawned remakes and sequels.


The module was groundbreaking when it first came out, highly rated by contemporary gaming publications. It had a reputation for testing players to their limits and beyond, encouraging them to try again and again - which we did! There were real bragging rights for a party that delved the Tomb and came out alive.

[Corsair14]

In a game with new groups I love putting pools of water in dungeons with illusionary goldfish and a gold coin or two on the bottom. If a player touches the water with any part of their body they get teleported under the water and the surface is solid. The only escape is if another player uses a pole or a sword or scabbard and puts that in the water to pull the character up before he or she drowns.

Later in the campaign I might use similar traps to put items in or just have them not be traps at all.

[icefractal]

That's an interesting trap, but I don't think it qualifies as an idiot trap. I mean, OOC, pools of water are often traps, but IC there's no reason that should be true. If someone can put a tele-drowning trap on their ornamental pool, they could put it on a random floor tile or doorknob, so really the only safe move would be never touching anything (which at high-ish level is possible, now I want to put a paranoid group who does that in my next game).

[Nifft]

so really the only safe move would be never touching anything (which at high-ish level is possible, now I want to put a paranoid group who does that in my next game).

10 ft. poles as chopsticks.

The 10 ft. chopsticks are used to hold a third 10 ft. pole, which is what you use to actually touch things.

You're also standing on 10 ft. pole stilts, each of which is wearing a high hard boot.

[Furnator]

The gold pen was just a gold pen, dropped by one of the mages doing the ritual that created the monsters when said monsters promptly killed them.

[DwarfFighter]

Trap or not?

GM (Wizard): "This platform will teleport you to the fountain of life, which you seek. Do not attempt to open either of the doors in that chamber."

Players: "Why not?"

GM (Wizard): "Because I tell you not to."

Players: "Aww!"

The party teleports to the chamber with the Fountain of Life. They see two big bronze doors at opposite sides of the room, each with a big lock. Huge debate on whether or not to open the doors. Players eventually decide not to and instead teleport out.

Four character levels later they enter a dungeon and fight the monsters. One of the rooms in the dungeon is the same chamber.

Players: "Huh. We could have died back then!"

-DF

[Roninblack]

There's a reason that Tomb of Horrors, a dungeon based around cheap and hard-to-detect traps, is the least fondly remembered of the classics.

I'm gonna second this as not sure that's true. The trick is to understand the purpose of tomb of horrors. My understanding is that Gygax designed the tomb of horrors as a way to challenge the players and not the characters. Hence any number of dumb choices get people killed and your class or feats no way help.

He would pull out the module when someone said ex. My ubercharger barbarian is unkillable, it cannot be defeated, I have won D&D. ToH is designed to make "unbeatable characters" cry, because the players are beatable, even if the character isn't.

[Leon]

A decently deep hole in the floor of a cave with a pile of rusted weapons at the bottom, it wasn't a trap per say but a rubbish pit and the PC jumped into it anyway.