Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Norseman9 03-07-08, 11:26 AM	Hi all. first time posting. I'm struggling with presenting interesting and challenging tricks, traps, puzzles for my players. is there a repository of ideas out there I could leverage? Thanks Norseman9
Tisi 03-07-08, 12:08 PM	Use your sadistic imagination. My DM had a big mirrored room (walls, ceilings, floors all mirrored), hundreds of skeletons hung on the walls, and each skeleton was holding a big fat gem. Ya, if this doesn't scream "trap," nothing does. A rogue caved to temptation and took a gem. INSTANTLY, every skeleton jumped off of the wall, dropping their gems, ripped off their left arms and proceeded to beat the rogue with their arms until the rogue died. Another trapped room was a huge room filled with gold. The door out of the room was waaaaaay on the other side of the room (100-150 feet). The floor was covered in gold coin. Problem was that the floor was on a pivot. If someone removed too much gold and took it to the other side of the room to the exit, the whole floor would shift, everyone would go to the pit beneath, and then be buried alive in gold. As a DM, you need to develop a sick and twisted sense of humor, if you don't already have one :D
vaderboy 03-07-08, 01:02 PM	Agreed, the more sick and twisted the better. But, at lower levels it is best to stick to something simple. Once I used an illusionary maze to great effect. My characters had all funneled into a large room that was sort of the connection point between the first section of the dungeon and the rest of the dungeon. As they entered the huge room and saw all the walls in front of them they just assumed it was a normal maze (failed spot checks miserably). They spread out like rats throughout the room (it was 100 squares by 120 squares) and started looking for exits to the maze (of course there were none that the players could see so they spent nearly an hour looking for the doors out. Just when they were about to give up one of them hit a slick spot on the floor and failed the balance check. He fell down, through the wall and the other players immediately realized what had happened and stepped through the walls. None of those players have ever taken any of my puzzles since then at face value.
sakuradm 03-07-08, 03:12 PM	Hmmm... try like what I do, I let some players go out on a hunting trip in the local forest, one stepped on a flying net, got pulled thru the canopy of the trees, cut himself free, fell into a big pit trap (which wasactually a chute to a big pool of evermead) where he almost drowned and swallowed a bunch of it, turned to a wee little kid, and the others had to come rescue him... PM for details and such. Try the above mentioned ideas, Ireally like the idea about the mirror house... except... try an 'ENTER THE DRAGON' approach and have them Fight a single or a handful of tough baddies instead of an unbeatable hoard of skeletons or something...
Tisi 03-07-08, 04:15 PM	The unbeatable hoarde of skeletons were teaching people to not be greedy :rofl:
sakuradm 03-07-08, 04:31 PM	I think you can teach someone to not be greedy w/o killing them! :P