Traps

Let's talk traps. We all love them, they make dungeons fun and dangerous, but how do you give your players a chance to avoid them without poking every other square with a 10' pole or throwing rocks all over the place? Do you roll perception checks for them before they come across them? Do you just use the save DC when they walk into them? How do you run your players through a trap-filled dungeon without slowing the session to a crawl?

At its worst, a trap is a collection of numbers that does damage to the party if they don't behave neurotically, and does nothing if they do.

At it's best, a trap is a feature that makes the party think, even for a moment. Think about how to circumvent it, or disable it, or why it's there in the first place.

How I've used traps in my games has fallen into two broad categories: the standard DC-to-find/DC-to-disable traps which are used sparingly, usually mundane and simple, and only where one might expect an actual reasonable person to put such a trap (no stone hallways that miraculously have a 40' pit trap dug in the middle, for example); and then the puzzle traps which have neither a DC to find or disable, the solving of which usually turns into a whole-party roleplaying affair

Never have traps that appear out of nowhere.
Traps should be:
>Located in areas of maximum security
>Specifically located in expectable areas (choke points, altars for sacred idols, etc)
>Have a defined disarm method, and that means if there's a keyhole there's a key in a known location
With that being said they should also
>Have hideous consequences
The challenge should never be about searching every 5' for mild peril. It should be about safely proceeding through an expectable area of danger. Indiana Jones would be boring if he literally poked a stick ahead of him everywhere. He sees some environmental cue, and has to work through an obstacle based on it.

If your're untrained, a circular saw or any kind of powered industrial equipment would qualify as a trap. It also encourages interaction, since mastering the equipment will bring advantages.

Imagine a barbarian having access to a modern hospital/nuclear bunker/space station and all the specialised equipment there. Places are full of traps that aren't traps.

Conaider what the equivalent would be for a wizard or ancient magical civilisation and go from there.

In the games I run, as a GM I can't introduce a trap without a mechanical prompt to do so. When the player describes something like exploring the dungeon I can make them roll. With a success, they get to describe something positive themselves. With a failure, I get to introduce something negative. The dice mechanic is aimed at getting mixed results, where they get to describe something positive and then I insert something negative afterwards.

So for example if they roll a 12 when exploring the dungeon, that's a mixed success (above 10, under 15). Maybe they describe finding some arcane inscriptions from a past age during their turn, but then I get to introduce, say, the activation of a mechanical trap.

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please fuck off

> The trap trap

> Burning torches in iron sconces line the walls of this room, lighting it brilliantly.

> At the room's center lies a beautiful trap with cat ears.

> She looks at you with flirty eyes

> "Riddle me this, naugthy rogues" Speaks in a menacing voice

> "Are traps gay?"

Yes.