The Tyranny of Traps
I’ve been away dealing with real life and as such I’ve had decidedly less time to be Enthusiastic recently (I remain, as ever, unfailingly amateurish). However we’re back with an exciting Tuesday mini-blog, today talking about Traps in Dungeons & Dragons.
Traps are an essential component of Dungeons & Dragons. Pit traps, poison darts and leering demonic faces are as core to the experience as Goblins and +1 Swords, that said they’re a component I tend to use infrequently. Why is that?
If you’re not familiar with Dungeons & Dragons let me explain; a trap is most commonly a static feature with a specific trigger that injures or inconveniences the player characters in some way. A pit trap with a covering that falls away when stepped on, for example.
The problem with traps is that You either spot the pit and avoid it, or you miss it and fall in. Dungeons & Dragons is based on a simple binary success/failure state but, there’s something about traps that flips a switch in the players heads. For some reason there’s something very visceral about being ‘fooled’ by a trap that causes players to recoil.
Whether the trap catches the party is immaterial; once players are aware of a trap every room must be scoured, every door examined with suspicion. Grab your ten foot poles and tap every tile and statue for fear that something will come out and grab you.
Now if your game is about this (Perhaps you’re running Tomb of Horrors* which is all traps, all the time with trap sprinkles on top) then it’s fine. Your players get spooked, their characters get cautious, the iron spikes are drawn and they go to town.
However if your game, like mine, runs on a certain amount of dramatic heroism it starts to steal momentum from the characters. Getting felled by an enemy is heroic, falling down a pit less so, and whilst a little bit of humility (and humiliation) can be good from time to time I’d rather it came from the decisions they made, rather than whether they could roll a 12 at the right time.
So is there no place for traps in my game?
I wouldn’t go that far. Like most things this is about implementation. Whilst the traditional trap doesn’t work for the theme of my campaign there are still two ways to employ them.
The first is the rather funky traps outlined recently in Unearthed Arcana. Far from the traditional hole in the ground many of these are full chambers or corridors that have to be contended with over a series of gruelling skill challenges and saves. These traps I wouldn’t even hide, giving the players a full view of the gauntlet that stands between them and their objective.
The second is as a feature of another encounter. Again this trap isn’t hidden as much as it looms over the encounter obviously. The open pit in the floor, the whirring cogs of an ancient mechanism, the slow falling lavafall that splits the area in half. Each is obvious and presents the players with opportunities to drive their enemies into them, or to fall foul of them themselves.
You’ll notice both of my suggestions take from the trap it’s defining feature, the fact that it’s hidden. Perhaps this defeats the point; they’re not really traps if you see them coming. Then again if the trade off is not having a party crawling through rooms side-eyes locked on every nook and cranny, it’s a trade I’m prepared to make.
Until next time remember not to stick your hand in the statue’s mouth!
Good luck and good hunting Dungeon Master!
I agree with your point - there is nothing satisfying about a hidden trap from either the DM's perspective or the players'. And the older style of traps found in compendiums like Grimtooth's Traps are so lethal as to blat the player for something as simple as one failed roll.
ReplyDeleteWhat I prefer is to sprinkle clues aplenty, and make the traps more of a mental challenge than a dice rolling one. Also they tend not to be as deadly. Perhaps trap the players in a room and they have to figure a way out. Most of the time I don't even have a good idea of how they will get out, but I provide enough detail that the players will start trying different things. Eventually they'll try something cool that I hadn't thought of and I'll think "yup, that'll do it".
There is still the threat of death and the occasional pit trap, but I prefer the consequences of the trap to be something like a curse or releasing a powerful monster. The curse or monster is what will kill the players, and they still have the chance to get away.
So the real consequence of the trap is not death, but danger.
This is something I've already got scheduled for a post on Thursday, but the idea that that a trap can lead to a more interesting consequence does a great deal to allay the issues I have with them effectively being dead ends with damage.
DeleteI treat traps like minefields & barbed wire they are only really effective if covered by machine guns. Er Orcs.
ReplyDeleteTraps on their own are either anti-climactic death or unexciting HP attrition. Special exemption for the huge elaborate ones that are encounters in their own rights, not that I ever use those but I would if I could think of a good one.