ry's Threats, Rewards, Assets, and Problems (TRAPs)

[Ry]

Delivery for the late Mr. Bones

Problem

A ghost entreats the players to return her bones to her family plot, to be reunited with her husband. Unfortunately, her husband was a hero buried in a public park in a major city... and most people who spend their time digging up graves attract some suspicion.

 

[Ry]

Save the Ship!

Problem

During a rainstorm, a ship just off the coast of a town or village the PCs are in has run aground and is sinking in choppy water. Skum, sahuagin, or just plain sharks are starting to swarm in the area. As an additional complication, the captain has an Aboleth's eye in the hold, built into a magic item ordered by a powerful (and impatient) wizard.

 

[Ry]

Problem

A noblewoman (or queen), in a play for petty revenge on a friend of the PCs, appears to have her most valuable jewels stolen at a party the PCs attend. The PCs must recover and return the item on short notice before their friend, the host, must cough up some ridiculous sum in line with the politesse expected among the nobility.

 

[Ry]

Threat

From a suggestion by Land Outcast with a parallel in Greek Mythology.

Thornhawk: A giant hawk, which can hurl some of its steel-hard feathers with a flap of its wings. A Thornhawk uses the same stats as a Manticore.

 

[Cheiromancer]

This is tantalizing, but a little mysterious. In some of the examples it seems unclear what the difference is between a threat and a problem, or between a reward and a resource. To me it seems like a problem is an indirect or potential threat, and a resource is an indirect or potential reward. A reward, in turn, is a sort of anti-threat; a way of overcoming threats and thereby gaining more resources/rewards.

 

[Ry]

Threats, in my view, mean danger in an immediate sense. Problems can lead to threats but are not imminently dangerous in the same way.

Resources and rewards don't break down in quite the same way.

Resources can take a lot of forms (this lever causes water in the dungeon to rise 5 feet, the Baron can be convinced to aid the party if they're polite, an Alchemist has set up shop by the crossroads). But they're things that the PCs have to choose to use.

Rewards also take a lot of forms (magic items, gold, cute girl feeding apples to your horses, banquet in your honor) but they're not things PCs are likely to pass up. If you think of magic items and gold as resources, then there is some overlap, but I think players do feel rewarded when acquiring those things, even if they proceed to use them resourcefully.

PTRR is about making sure you write stuff that will see use. In My Experience, when the GM puts something before the players, these 4 things are things the GM needs. I did a big diagram a while ago to determine the flow of play in my D&D games; I found after the player-characters are created and the players have accepted the basic premise (we're playing a game, your characters are fantasy heroes, here's a basic context for where you are) the DM's job was to put interactive elements in front of players.

Bad design, whether it's railroading, DMPCs, or boring settings, all have one thing in common: They put inert elements in front of players (a.k.a. they're all a waste of time).

"Here's the prince of Roundheria, he's thinking of invading the peaceful land of Overtheria, but you can't convince him not to."

"Here's the dragon of the west mountain, but he's so powerful he'll kill you all instantly, so listen to his monologue before he flies off to what I've already decided he's doing, OK?"

"You're in a town. There's an inn. No, nothing interesting is happening."

"Elminster talks to you for half an hour, here's his 20-page explanation of why he's not going to help you. No, you can't convince him."

 

[Ry]

In short: if it comes time for the DM to add some element to the game, and it's not a problem, threat, resource, or reward, it's a waste.

 

[Cheiromancer]

In short: if it comes time for the DM to add some element to the game, and it's not a problem, threat, resource, or reward, it's a waste.

Gotcha, thanks.

 

[Ry]

Here's an example of a crappy problem:

The dopplegangers in the city are trying to hide from aboleths, who enjoy using them as their slaves.

This doesn't actually put anything in front of the players. A better problem would be:

Walking down a busy street, a player sees a woman turn around, and just for a second, she has a different face. She flees from the player if approached. If they catch her, or ask after her with the locals, they can eventually find out that she is a member of a doppleganger village that moved to the city fleeing a group of aboleths. They are terrified at discovery because the aboleths, and many skum, have come to the sewers below the city / the lake near the town.

 

[Ry]

I tried remaking the flowchart from memory, it's attached above.