[RPG Blog Carnival] The Indifference Trap

The topic of this month’s RPG Blog Carnival, sponsored by Elthos RPG, is “Tricks & Traps”.

The truth? I’m not a big fan of traps. The typical outcome is binary. Either the party disarms it and bypasses is, in which case big whoop, or characters end up horribly mangled or dead. Neither of these is particularly fun for me, as a player or as a gamemaster. Maybe I’ve just never played with a gamemaster who does traps well (doubtful, but I’m not here to brag on the awesome GM’s I’ve been privileged to play with), or maybe its one of my weaknesses as a GM (I’ll admit to that possibility). More likely, it’s a flaw with how the traps are used, and often with the construction of the traps themselves.

The trap has to serve a purpose
In my mind, there are three basic purposes for a trap: to guard things, to give an opponent tactical advantage, and to capture player characters without killing them. Your actual mileage may vary.

Guardian: One purpose of a trap is to prevent people from getting to something, whether it’s a treasure, a prisoner, or the actual opponent. Inflicting damage is often how the trap does this, but serving up massive hit point loss should not be the first, or sole, objective. The wizard doesn’t want you to get into his spellbook. The merchant doesn’t want you stealing his gold. The orcs don’t want you to rescue the princess. A trap deters the player characters without requiring the trapper or his minions to put their lives on the line.

Tactical: Another purpose of a trap is to kill you, weaken you, or slow you down so the adversary doesn’t have to fight you, or gains some advantage when the fight actually occurs. The actual foe may be weaker than the player characters, may be cowardly, may be a cheat. Think about that the trap says about that opponent; are they brilliant, or just a jerk? If you already know their personality and tactical competence, let the trap reflect that.

Subdual: Some traps are designed to capture characters. It’s easier than fighting them. It may be easier to kill them when they’re captured. The trapsetter may want them alive for some reason, to interrogate them, to turn them over to someone else for a reward. Capturing rather than killing is going to be plot-driven decision, and say something about the trapper’s personality and motives.

The trap has to move the plot forward
Why is there a trap there? Oh, it was a slow beat in the adventure, something needed to happen here, it didn’t feel right to fight more orcs when you just fought a bunch of orcs, I wanted to break up the monotony. Okay, sure, a trap as an alternate encounter when you’ve had combat, combat, and more combat is fine. There are ways to make is mean something, though.  Maybe the “trap” is nothing more than avoiding making noise so more orcs don’t come. Maybe the “trap” is a crawlspace or secret room that characters can hide in to heal up and recover spells, if they can figure out how to get into it. Maybe the “trap” forces them to go back and deal with something they’d previously avoided, like finding out the key or password to avoid the trap is back in the room with the monster they didn’t want to fight and just spiked the door shut instead. Maybe I’m stretching the concept of trap out into a metaphor for “obstacle”, but I’m not going to apologize for that. “Random” traps can and should be used either as setbacks or milestones towards the player characters’ ultimate goals, even if those goals are nothing more than slaying the boss monster and getting the treasure.

My favorite plot device is the Dead Adventurer. He’s the guy that had the answers to the riddles, or at least more clues than the party had, but still didn’t make it. Loot the body, read his notes, pick up that key or scroll or magic item. It’s heavy-handed foreshadowing, but it works. It he ties into the rest of the plot somehow, awesome.

The trap has to make sense
Over the years I have read some astonishingly clever and convoluted traps that see designed to either show off how create the gamemaster or trap maker is, or to stump the players. If this fun? Not particularly. These traps also tend to defy logic. The cost of building the trap would exceed the value of the treasure it’s guarding. The monster of villain using this trap wouldn’t have the level of magic or technology to operate it, let alone build it. If you’ve got the time and resources to come up with that, aren’t there better, more effective things that could have been done?

Then there are all of the minimally-intelligenced wandering monsters who somehow manage to avoid the trap. Actually, one of my favorite tricks as a player back in the day was to send a thief or a character who could magically turn invisible to scout ahead, following wandering monsters to see how they avoided traps. Reall,y gamemaster, those kobolds walked right over that pit trap and didn’t fall in, they didn’t walk around it or press a secret button or say a magic word first? I call shenanigans.

My other pet peeve is the trap that only has one solution. Half the time the party doesn’t get the wonderful clue that only makes sense when you see the trap and have the “aha!” moment where it become clear what needs to be done. There’s also the clue that’s so obscure that it makes no sense even when the big reveal is made. This assumes there’s a clue at all. Traps that require a particular spell (which the party may or may not have), a certain device (which the party may or may not have), or a magic word or phrase (which the party may or may not have) also tick me off. We’re supposed to guess? If the party does come up with a creative solution, one that’s not in the script, just let them do it and say yes! Reward cleverness, don’t punish them for their inability to read your mind.

In closing
Good dungeon design has thought behind it. It’s more fun for everyone when things make sense and there’s a consistent logic. Use traps as reflections of the trapper’s personality and motivation.