You should only place traps that your players know will be there

Traps should have a hint they should be there, dependent on your group. If they don't put much effort into looking for traps, make it obvious.

I remember an user talking about a pyramid dungeon where he made two sets of traps: one set was built by the ancients, and the players could avoid them if they read the writing on the walls and solved riddles. The second set was put in place by grave robbers, but were only fit into places where there was broken stonework or it could be hidden behind wooden beams.

After the first trap, the players understood that there were SIGNS of traps, even if they didn't know what the traps were. Even then, they only spotted them about 75% of the time.

So really, you should describe each area with enough detail to suggest there might be a trap. Otherwise your players will move at a snail's pace poking every floorboard and doorframe.

Fun of predicting and disarming traps > realism of undetectable traps.

gay bar dungeon?

At that point they're not really traps, more like obstacles.

This. You'd expect D&D dungeons would be lousy with corpses of past adventurers; even if there are slimes removing the bodies, there would be triggered traps around.

nope.

>this is fair

I've been on this site too long to read that in the way it was intended the first time.

no

traps should be where they are reasonable to be

an empty tomb can have ten traps around every corner as long no one need to live there and the builders had something important worth all that effort

a stronghold needs traps that the dwellers can live with, ideally even when drunk

>you should only place traps that your players know will be there
What sort of dipshittery is this?

Good answer user, do you have caps by any chance?

This definitely explains why everyone on Veeky Forums thinks trap focused dungeons are boring.

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I both do and don't agree.

On the do side, I agree because certain traps are the sort of thing in which if it goes off, at all, no dice rolling no save no nothing you are dead the end period.

On the don't side because the traps that aren't instant-game over can possibly be avoided by good dice rolling, luck, or careful playing.

FPBP

Traps are just a lazy way to drain player resources and drag out a session for no reason

Fuck yes? Some traps being obvious make sense if you want to use them to dissuade. Like how some minefields have their mines marked because the goal is not to kill but to delay or force them to take a detour.

Imagine a falling ceiling trap guarding a treasure in a palace. It makes sense they make it a "look, there is a trap here that's going to fuck you up." Because unlike, let's say, a tomb, that trap needs to be reset and replace the now cracked floor. And that takes money.

Also, traps that rearm themselves and have triggered more than once in abandoned places leave marks. Traps are not only gotchas, they are devices and are therefore bound to all the limitations that entails.

>live with
Those types of traps are called "fortifications"

And I'll add: for all that praising of the ten foot pole as a good player practice, having your players poke every single room with a pole gets old faster than "I roll for perception"

Yeah man that's why nobody in real life uses punji sticks because they're just imaginary shit made up by lazy gms

I only use traps as a "puzzle" or an obstacle.
Having a dildo randomly materialize in someones butthole is no fun, unless it's a punishment perhaps.

>it's not really a trap if they KNOW it's there. but it needs to be some place that makes sense at least

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Attentive and clever players should be able to beat traps first time without having to throw bodies at them. But if they are stupid and reckless, yeah, the trap should take a few of them out.

This of course needs to be balanced with making sure “being attentive” not being “poke every tile and brick with an 11 foot pole.”

People using traps during a war is not the same as people using traps for a random tomb in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

I mean, when you think about it, who is maintaining these traps in the first place? It's not like the orcs, goblins, or other low INT creatures you fight are going to bother rearming a trap once someone triggers it.
Besides, traps do exist to drain player resources and the way to beat them usually becomes less interesting than just exploring the tomb as if it were just another building.

>people would never use traps to defend their property that's why nobody ever uses razor wire fences this isn't a war okay gosh jeepers

Depends on the people playing. Super experienced players? surprise shit everywhere.

> on first session of a new campaign with 4 people that have never done D&D before.
> DM asks for perception checks when we approach a place he plans a trap.
> player in lead sees it, when asked what are your actions, player says "I step over it and keep moving".
> next person in line rolled super low, DM says he triggers the trap.

It was this moment, the new players had a "ooooooh" moment, and started calling out to the party about traps if someone detects it by any means. DM was talking to me next day and says "I'll start expecting them to check for traps themselves in questionable areas since they are picking up on on the RP / D&D imaginary world aspect". But like the other user said, the first trap of a hostile area can be mild so when it does surprise the group, it isn't fatal.

Who owns an abandoned tomb in the middle of nowhere?

>But like the other user said, the first trap of a hostile area can be mild so when it does surprise the group, it isn't fatal.
What's the point of setting up a trap when it a) isn't going to kill the trespassers and b) will make them weary of the better traps located deeper inside the tomb?

At that point don't even bother having traps, just have a welcome mat with a whoopie cushion underneath ad run straight combat.

Who owns the graves in graveyards that are protected with sharp fences? What are you fucking stupid?

>you should only place traps in places where traps would be

Makes more sense.

>Who owns the graves in graveyards that are protected with sharp fences?
Probably the village nearby who buries people there or the groundskeeper whose job is to dig the graves in the first place. Even then, a graveyard that's being maintained is not the same as an ancient tomb that was abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

Traps should be interactive and interesting. There is little as boring as 'Roll perception, fail, roll reflex, eat damage'. A room slowly filling with water while you scramble to work out how to disable it or trying to fight in a room where there is a heap of dart traps to trigger can be a lot of fun.

Like most other things in RPGs, presentation and how you use it is key.

>sharp fences vanish as soon as you stop mowing the grass
>especially if you put them inside the actual tomb because graverobbing adventurers are common

No. Traps should be every where and lethal as fuck.

The traps would either be ineffective because nobody is going through the process to maintain them or they would end up getting triggered by previous uninvited guests, whether they be adventurers or monsters who just stumbled into a trap because they were stupid and/or not paying attention.

Even still, a graveyard is not the same as an ancient tomb in the middle of nowhere.

talking to you while you sprint around with the goalposts is the biggest trap of all. fuck off, retard

Which goalposts have I moved? This was my original position the entire time A graveyard that's a short walk from a nearby village is not the same as a tomb in the middle of nowhere. People maintain the former while most people may not even be aware that the latter actually exists. Also, any traps within the tomb would either fall to disrepair because nobody is maintaining it or all the traps would already be triggered by some of the random creatures that are mulling around within the tomb.

I don't know how this is difficult to understand.

What if overthinking itself is the biggest trap of all?

Sorry not falling for it twice retard

...no? Maybe you're wording it like a faggot. Traps can be derrants as well as they can be hazards. But what's the point of a spike pit the players already know exist? A good DM will describe rooms in such a way as to suggest something is wrong, as let the players roleplay it out; the less actual perception checks you make the better, save those for the real stuff.
PLACE them wherever and however you please, TRIGGER them only if the party failed to make a reasonable effort to find it.

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cage traps are good for noobs and can work well in the outside/wilderness as well as in a dungeon.

Get caught, you've maybe got an hour before whoever set the trap turns up.

Falling for what? I'm just stating a fact. Logistically it doesn't make sense to have active traps within a dungeon anymore. If anything, any "traps" that occur within a dungeon should be a result of the dungeon itself likely being old and in a state of immense disrepair; like a piece of the ceiling randomly falling off if you hit a wall too hard or the floor giving out from underneath you if you are too heavy.

They shouldn't be machinations that can be disarmed like locked door, they should be traps that come about as a result of the environment being clearly ransacked and ravaged by the passage of time and the creatures that exist within said tomb should be able to use the environment to their advantage as well.

Yet DM's are okay with making players waste resources on mild annoyances.

*deftly avoids talking to you*

To be honest, the reason why cages work so well in catching animals IRL is because there's no way for the animal in question to escape since they lack the manual dexterity to undo the lock or the INT to realize that the lock is a thing that could be used to help them escape.

If I were someone in the business of catching adventurers, I'd just break the lock in a way that prevented it from being picked and then just tear tear open the door with my superior strength once the people inside are confirmed dead (likely after dunking them in a vat of boiling water/oil for a delicious meal before taking anything that's powerful to survive the boiling process, such as magic items).

>rolls a 1

Statement: Traps that potentially instakill your players, while possibly thematically justified, do not actually improve the enjoyment of the campaign.

Good thing traps aren't humanly possible and have never ever been used ever or I'd be in trouble

That was for a WIS check to see if you realized that this was a conversation which required a CHA roll instead of a DEX saving throw.

So you basically spill your spaghetti and jump out a window.

>I don't like traps but I'll railroad you like crazy
Ah, I see

Rolled 2, 2, 5 = 9 (3d6)

You were the one trying to roll a DEX save to avoid a conversation man, I would've told you to roll CHA if you didn't jump the gun.

On the upside, you got out of the conversation at least. The downside is that you took...

...9 damage from the fall, which could've been worse.

Lucky.

Here, to give an example, my players were exploring some DEEP DARK ruins and came across a long, thin hallway rigged with a gas trap. I described the air as thicker and dry, and a small "hissing" sound could be heard if you leaned against the wall. The players immediately knew it was a gas trap of some sort, and deduced from the stones that it was triggered by stepping in the wrong order. So they used rocks and plotted out a course, escaping the trap. However, I had planned the trap to be triggered by a tripwire, so I changed the trap to suit the players, who had taken up my cues and had constructed a plan to circumvent the trap. Perfectly justfied.

Had the players known of the tripwire, beforehand, they would have not had the five minutes of roleplaying action listening to and arguing with the rogue as he tried to explain the mechanism.

Doesn't that kind of defeat part of the point of a trap?

choo choo, all aboard the traps are unfair and lame but railroading is awesome express!

It depends on the purose of the trap. If it's there to kill as many players as possible then no. If it's one of those traps that is supposed to deter adventurers on pain of death then yes. It's like having a sign warning intruders of the electric fence/land mines vs letting them figure it out for themselves.

Hey man, you rolled a 1, shit happens.

>You rolled a 1, your character says these three specific paragraphs about how I was right and then does a backflip into some spikes, nothin' personal kid

My players are the type of morons who would stab themselves repeatedly in order to have enough blood to throw blood in someone's face to escape.

All I have to do is leave an empty hallway for them to progress through and they'll find some way to kill themselves, even if I don't put any actual traps in the hallway, especially if I tell them "hey, there are no traps in the hallway." At first it was frustrating watching them turn every campaign into an episode of the three stooges but nowadays I just kick back and watch them screw themselves over while I just sit here devoting 5% of my maximum effort to challenge them.

You only took 9 damage. At the level you're at you can heal that after spending a Hit Die or two during a short rest.

No need to be a baby about it, like I said, it could've been worse.

>*deftly avoids talking to you*
>*rolls a one*
>*Keeps talking or another 30+ minutes
Man, this shit works on a meta level too.

Meta railroading. Nice.

Not even the dude you're talking to, I just laughing at how badly you played yourself.

Sure thing sweetie

WAT
That makes no sense. It is like saying to your players "So guys, you're about to get ambushed by a troop of orcs. Roll initiative".

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Whilst mine are so bad for dying, they attempt the most bizzare things for totally mundane situations. I had study wooden door as an etrance to an old smugglers tunnel that was locked, they eyed it for a long time and started knocking on it.

>Do I know a secret knock?
No, its just a door that's locked, and the hardened criminals you've worked with have never used contrived clichés like secret knocks.
>Okay so I knock again.
Right, so it's obviously abandoned.
>So do I know this is the right door? Is there a mark on it? Do I find a key hidden nearby?
Why would smugglers hide the key to their secret hideout *at* the door of the secret hideout? No. It's locked. This isn't hard.
>I try and open the door.
Still locked.
>Well what do you want me to do?!
You have a set of lockpicking tools..
>Oh yeah. So I failed the roll. Now what?
You tell me
>WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO TO PASS THIS DOOR, WE'VE TRIED EVERYTHING (literally shouting this)

It took them ten minutes of debating of what to do for them to remeber they have axes and explosives. I love my friends, but sometimes GMing is almost like being their carer.

In all honesty?

It's not worth to place traps at all. Your players become paranoid and all movement slows down to a crawl as they will check every single nook and cranny for traps. When their checks succeed and they conclude that there are no traps in the room, or in the whole dungeon? They'll think they failed, and will still be wary of traps.

Some people may enjoy the "tension" or "paranoia", but not me. And that's a cheap way to create it. I save my paranoia-inducing tactics for when I'm GMing Call of Cthulhu.

>stop guarding treasure just let them walk into it for free or you will hurt someone's feelings

You're still here?

I will literally put down traps that are triggered by pulling a lever right next to it. My retarded party will trigger that shit every time guaranteed without even making a perception check

>*railroads*

Still not the dude you were arguing with, but thanks for the (you).

The character who placed the traps doesn't need to have intentionally placed a shittier trap, user.
>trap outside a cave or dungeon or whatever
>same exact trap as the ones inside the cave/building/whatever
>but it's shittier than the rest of the traps because it's exposed to the open air/weather/etc.
It's worn to the point where it's gone from "lethal" to "dangerous". And since it's outside, the players can probably take their time dealing with it before heading in if they aren't retarded. Or heck, go back and get aid before continuing on if it's bad. The point is for the first trap to teach the players about it. Then again I'm a /v/irgin and value the concept of a well-done tutorial that teaches you as you play without being in your face about it. But there's nothing wrong with teaching players a lesson by just dropping the world on top of them. They probably won't enjoy it as much though, but whether that even matters is up to the you as the GM.

>*continues railroading*

As long as the treasure isn't some bullshit like "friendship".

>you should only place traps that your players know will be there
do I look like a faggot?

Do you really want the answer to that question?

No, the idea of a trap being something you should know about is fucking retarded.

The sort of dipshittery that thinks a character should never die or even have bad things happen to them.

Fuck no. What are you, fucking gay?

all encounters exist to drain player resources, traps are just another ingredient to an encounter like creatures.

One telltale sign of an amateur DM is one who introduced traps and creatures separately.

Sounds like you're advocating for hazards rather than traps.

I don't see a problem with that, but it seems pretty presumptive to always assume what a dungeon SHOULD be especially in a world with magic.

All I'm saying is, something has to be maintaining all these traps and rearming them every so often, otherwise it just raises questions that can't be solved logically unless everyone involved just accepts "it's a dungeon, dungeons have traps, whatever."

Hazards work better for dungeon design because it works WITH the dilapidated state of the dungeon proper, rather than working against it. Granted, if you have a civilization that's maintaining all the traps in the tomb for whatever reason then that's a completely different matter entirely.

>One telltale sign of an amateur DM is one who introduced traps and creatures separately.
The only time I've seen an RPG introduce monsters and traps at the same time was PF1e, and it became a clusterfuck because you got EXP from dealing with traps and you got MORE EXP from disarming them than actually managing to avoid them.

So you had parties willingly setting off traps because of bonus EXP, rather than avoiding them and moving on with the actual dungeon.

>this

/thread

Fucking no
Traps are meant to take the adventurers by surprise
they're traps

That's what golems, undead, bound demons, puzzles, secret passages and, y'know, guards, are for.

>OP pic
Oh just stop guys. Those dragon heads will stop the giant stone ball.

What does it even mean?!
Players being aware that a dungeon may have traps? As soon as they trigger one trap, they wil know it.
Players being aware of every trap they encounter? That defeats the purpose of placing them.

>can see in the pic the rock is smashing the dragon heads with ease

I only have one, maybe two traps on a floor at any given time.

Considering how long it usually takes for them to clear a floor, they always blunder into it, never encounter another one the whole floor. By the time they've gotten to the next trap they've forgotten about the last one and aren't expecting the next one. They're caught in an infinite loop of "oh fuck, a trap" and "that's probably the last one"

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My view is that traps are good if they have a point beyond "your character takes a shitload of DM Fiat Damage and may well die". It is very easy for traps to spoil the atmosphere of a game by making the players hate you.

See attached PDF for discussion of traps.

Attached: Tricks, Empty Rooms and Basic Trap Design.pdf (PDF, 4.73M)