Best idiot trap?

[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.