Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 bawylie Sep 24, 2014 17:56:17	Remember Home Alone - that film with the abandoned kid who defends his home from burglars with clever booby-traps? That movie cracks me up, makes me think, "Man, I gotta get traps like these in my next dungeon!"  Only, hang on. In the movie, the audience is rooting for the kid to pull one over on the burglars. In D&D the audience would BE the burglars! They're the adventurers looting my dungeon - and in case you missed the film, the burglars didn't have a good time.  See, we already use traps like the kid in Home Alone - and as a result, our players feel like they have to poke and prod every inch of dungeon so they don't wind up bumbling through an endless series of humiliations. When we design our traps, we think in terms of tactics & devices but we overlook their roles as game elements.  We totally ignore the effects our traps have on our audience, even while we gleefully torture their characters.  Oops. Practically, there's no limit to the number of deadly devices you could implement. Conceptually, a few categories stand out that suggest purpose.  Land Mines A land mine is a harmful consequence attached to an invisible trigger. This makes them especially effective and spectacularly boring. See, there's no decision or choice involved in a land mine - just punishment, which makes them terrible on the receiving end.  In Home Alone, the kid uses an electric iron to superheat a door knob. When one of the burglars tries to open the door, he sustains serious burns. This is a typical land mine.  Booby Traps A booby trap also has an invisible trigger but the consequence isn't directly harmful - instead it's a substantial change in circumstances.  Because the consequence is indirect harm, booby traps don't take away the players' agency. You can use these liberally without making your players feel cheap or cheated.  There's a great booby trap in the movie Speed. It's a bomb that arms itself once the bus it's attached to achieves a speed of 55mph & it will detonate if the bus drops below 55mph. While the bomb is directly harmful, the "players" retain agency in how they choose to address the change in circumstances (maintaining speed, fuel, and disarming the bomb).  Mousetrap/Honeytrap A Mousetrap is kind of an inversion of a land mine or booby trap. The trigger or the bait is visible, but the consequences are not. The trick to Mousetraps is irresistible bait tempting your players into high-risk behaviors.  In The Matrix, while Neo & Morpheus are walking through a tutorial, Neo spots an attractive woman in a red dress. Morpheus "pauses" the tutorial and tells Neo to look again - the woman in the red dress has become a deadly Agent, gun drawn and poised to kill. It's a Honeytrap (even if Morpheus is merely using it to make a point to Neo).  There's a good Mouse Trap in The Empire Strikes Back. Vader tortures Luke's friends so that Luke can feel their suffering through the Force. That's the bait. The trap itself is Vader, as he attempts to corner and convert Luke to the Dark Side (or freeze him in carbonite).  Vault Security The triggers and consequences of Vault Security traps are invisible and unknowable (barring excellent recon). But the purpose is containment or imprisonment.  In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry & Dumbledore go hunting for one of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes (phylacteries). This particular horcrux is a locket in a bowl of poison on an island in a watery cave. The only way to get the locket is to drink the poison and the only antidote to the poison is the surrounding water (which, is chock full of zombies). The entire cave is rigged to protect the horcrux and to entrap and keep anyone who tries to obtain it.  Deadfall A deadfall trap has an invisible trigger, but a very obvious consequence - impending death. These are the traps made notorious by the intrepid Indiana Jones. While they result in death, like land mines, the deadfall gives your players some time to maybe escape.  The iconic deadfall is in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Once Indy grabs the Hovitos idol, the whole shrine rumbles and starts to come apart and a giant round boulder comes crashing through the whole place, ready to flatten Indy, if he can't get out in time. (See also Temple of Doom where Indy and Short Round almost get squished by a descending ceiling, and The Last Crusade, where the removal of the Holy Grail, causes that temple to collapse, too).  The point in examining these concepts is to get away from land mine traps, which are about as fun as a drive-by shooting. When you next design an encounter or a dungeon, start thinking about traps that change the situation or circumstances, traps that lead to interesting decisions whether they go off or not, traps that completely change how the players think - traps your adventurers can play with!
#2 bawylie Sep 24, 2014 17:56:59	(Thanks to Akeisha Roberts and Iserith for letting me pick their brains).
#3 arnwolf666 Sep 24, 2014 18:42:51	So, how do you like to use traps in your game?
#4 MechaPilot Sep 24, 2014 20:04:02	arnwolf666 wrote:
#5 Wuzzard Sep 24, 2014 20:50:33	The best trap is the obvious trap, with the prize almost within reach. The players have to figure out what the trap was intended to do and come up with a plan to thwart it. No roll playing to solve the trap! That's boring. Challenge the players to figure out a way to neutralize it, and the only way to tell if they got it right is to set it off. It's okay if they can set it off from a safe place, but the outcome of setting it off will impact their ability to recover the prize.  It's best if it takes multiple steps to neutralize the trap, like block a hole, prop up a beam, etc. for each of these, as the trap is being sprung you can make rolls against the players skill in making these alterations.  Think about it like a skill challenge if you must, but no rolling until all actions to neutralize are declared!   the next best trap is the obvious trap that is actual inoperable! and it's not clear what it is protecting. It's ancient after all., who knows what those denizens of yore had in mind. Your players will be puzzled  by this and probably want to poke around anyway. Too much poking around may cause the traps intended effect to happen anyway.    I really need to make a town called Yore.
(Reply to #3) bawylie	arnwolf666 wrote:
(Reply to #2) Akeisha	bawylie wrote:
#8 iserith Sep 25, 2014 5:47:52	Good stuff, I really like the movie references.
#9 sleypy Sep 25, 2014 7:20:53	Cool write up.   I tend towards vault security and honeypot traps. I'll admit I really like heists and love shows like Leverage. I don't use traps often, but when I do it is mostly obvious that its a trap... understatement. Its obvious that there are dozens of traps. Most of which can be avoid by just walking away. (Players, just...walk... away... Who am I kidding?)  I prefer to reserve traps for extra equipment and treasure. stuff that that is not needed, but it would be well worth the effort of defeating the trap.     I hope there are plenty of legendary lairs because I'll definitely be using the legendary lair stuff for traps in the future. (Can a trap have a legendary lair...?)