D&D General Want to use traps? Make them obvious

[Reynard]

I could be fabricating this but is seemed that early D&D and maybe Gygax in AD&D did discuss the general malevolence of some
Dungeons. I don’t have the source…may read up for fun.

I think there was a general rationalization for game components that are not “logical” but so many years and ao
Much beer….i might be wrong

I recall reading about this before, that dungeons are living, malevolent things that constantly shift around (like Jim Henson's Labyrinth, or anime dungeons like the one in "Delicious in Dungeon") and the place is actively fighting against you. It's a neat concept, but it's also kind of meta as to what's actually going on, and why the guy running the game is called a "Dungeon Master", lol.

The first time I recall reading it succinctly was on Grognardia where he talked about Dungeons as the "mythic underworld" but I got the feeling that was restating an older idea.

 

[James Gasik]

That can be the case. But that case has been made about combat, exploration and almost everything else. Over reliance and poor design on any of these components can make them a “drag” I suppose.

But then I wonder: “what am I trying to race toward? When I stop fast forwarding, where do I land?”

So much of this is a taste thing. Combat, traps and exploration are what we do a lot of, happily. I know that is not close to universal anymore. The narrative game market alone tells us that!

What you said about traps in a set piece combat is interesting.

One of the biggest 5e thrills I have ever had we being knocked into a pit full of ghouls
Due to a trapped bridge. No trap and no fall would have meant a much less exciting session.

Yes, you aren't wrong, everything becoming combat is a problem with the game, and I'm not sure why. I remember exploration being a big deal when I played years ago, but when I try to run a game where there's minimal combat and the focus is on exploring a strange place, it kind of falls flat.

Like I ran this adventure where the party explores ruins of a lost city thinking it would be this great experience, and it was basically a hex crawl in small scale. "Ok we check out this building."

Is there something interesting there? Great, 20-30 minutes of play. No? Carry on to the next building.

It got old fast, so I quickly turned my "random encounters" into "actual encounters" to keep the session from dragging. I realized that one of two things was happening.

Either A), I was nostalgic for something that never really was, and the only reason I thought it was cool was because I was younger and more ignorant.

Or B) I just suck at this sort of thing, lol.

Regardless of which it is, it told me that I should focus on my strong suits.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, you aren't wrong, everything becoming combat is a problem with the game, and I'm not sure why. I remember exploration being a big deal when I played years ago, but when I try to run a game where there's minimal combat and the focus is on exploring a strange place, it kind of falls flat.

Like I ran this adventure where the party explores ruins of a lost city thinking it would be this great experience, and it was basically a hex crawl in small scale. "Ok we check out this building."

Is there something interesting there? Great, 20-30 minutes of play. No? Carry on to the next building.

It got old fast, so I quickly turned my "random encounters" into "actual encounters" to keep the session from dragging. I realized that one of two things was happening.

Either A), I was nostalgic for something that never really was, and the only reason I thought it was cool was because I was younger and more ignorant.

Or B) I just suck at this sort of thing, lol.

Regardless of which it is, it told me that I should focus on my strong suits.

I think exploration is hard because it is difficult to convey the things that make exploration interesting, challenging, frought and compelling in real life. So we resort to "did I find/encounter anything cool" in place of "this exploration is cool"

I'm not sure what the solution is, other than forcing everyone to explore some modern ruins or going on an unmarked trail hike to get them to understand the point of the thing.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Yes, you aren't wrong, everything becoming combat is a problem with the game, and I'm not sure why. I remember exploration being a big deal when I played years ago, but when I try to run a game where there's minimal combat and the focus is on exploring a strange place, it kind of falls flat.

Like I ran this adventure where the party explores ruins of a lost city thinking it would be this great experience, and it was basically a hex crawl in small scale. "Ok we check out this building."

Is there something interesting there? Great, 20-30 minutes of play. No? Carry on to the next building.

It got old fast, so I quickly turned my "random encounters" into "actual encounters" to keep the session from dragging. I realized that one of two things was happening.

Either A), I was nostalgic for something that never really was, and the only reason I thought it was cool was because I was younger and more ignorant.

Or B) I just suck at this sort of thing, lol.

Regardless of which it is, it told me that I should focus on my strong suits.

Players suck! You can’t please them!

(I play more than half the time so…I can say that)

 

[James Gasik]

I think exploration is hard because it is difficult to convey the things that make exploration interesting, challenging, frought and compelling in real life. So we resort to "did I find/encounter anything cool" in place of "this exploration is cool"

I'm not sure what the solution is, other than forcing everyone to explore some modern ruins or going on an unmarked trail hike to get them to understand the point of the thing.

It could be just that I'm not making it evocative enough. I always thought I wrote good flavor text, but maybe my players just check out until there's a thing to be done.

One of the big issues I know is lore. If the players aren't really invested in wanting to know what happened to the ancient Star Elven city, and don't particularly know anything about why the lost temple of Zandilar the Dancer is a big deal, then it's going to fall flat until they are either attacked or find a loot pile to sift through.

Gygax knows I try to invest people in the setting's lore, but I'm not Tolkien, generating reams and reams of lore takes time, and I can't expect people to have the time to read all that to get more enjoyment out of their couple hours of free gaming time a month. : (

 

[James Gasik]

Players suck! You can’t please them!

(I play more than half the time so…I can say that)

I've been playing a lot the past few years, the last time I ran was pre-pandemic. I have a game coming up next weekend and I got the jitters lol.

 

[James Gasik]

A story I heard a few years back was about this guy who kept being robbed when he would leave his house for a length of time, so he set up a shotgun to go off if someone opened a door. A robber was badly injured, and sued, and won the court case, because the judge ruled that the robber "had no expectation of his life being in danger" or somesuch.

Apparently if you want a deathtrap in your house you have to warn people about it!

Personally, if I was the judge, I would have said that this is the epitome of "f around and find out", but I guess I'm not Lawful enough.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I've been playing a lot the past few years, the last time I ran was pre-pandemic. I have a game coming up next weekend and I got the jitters lol.

People are eager to play. Unless a DM is tyrannical or super super railroady, players will be grateful.

I was mostly joking in that we have had fun recently with pretty simple stuff. Talking like a warlord (not the class!) or burgeoning sorcerer and chucking d20s is just fun…

Most people are just eager to play and don’t demand any kind of perfection!

 

[Quickleaf]

We have had this discussion a number of times recently and it usually boils down to a couple opposing viewpoints.

There are those that want their traps to make sense in the fiction, which has a whole lot of cascading consequences but usually lands on "traps should kill intruders and secure locations."

Then there are folks who think traps are there for the game more than the fiction. This usually leads to "make them.dynamic and complex and encounters in their own right."

The other "school" usually can be summed up as "traps are dumb and/or unfun and don't belong in the game."

In the end, the discussion usually ends up being a proxy argument about agency and fairness.

Well said! I think the realization from the OP is a good one.

I don't think it's a "one answer fits all sizes" thing though. There are multiple ways to use traps or reasons why a GM might use them. "Adding spice or variety besides combat" is something I often hear on the Discord servers, but that's only a very surface answer, so I'm going to share my approach...

Traps That Contain/Capture/Redirect – These are often hinted at early on through the whole concept of the dungeon, e.g. a shifting hedge maze or the laboratory of a mad wizard with tons of cages and glyphs binding monsters. But they tend to be less obvious in the moment because triggering them typically is not devastating & doesn't present a dead-end to the adventure, but rather changes how it proceeds from there. The more consequential these become, e.g. splitting the party across vast distances or forcing them down into a much deadlier part of the dungeon, the stronger and more recurrent the foreshadowing.

Traps That Kill / Severely Harm – These are the ones best served by the OP's realization to "make traps obvious." Another way to say this is to present the trap as an Obstacle. If the players decide to go this way, if they don't devise a way to circumvent the path, then they need to creatively resolve or devise countermeasures to the trap...and that may not be guaranteed success. So it's a risk vs. reward situation. This means that the reward has to be worth it to the players. That's something that I see missing fairly often, but the reward can be a person held hostage, any kind of treasure, a new route that shortcuts dangerous/tedious/undesirable areas of the dungeon, a wishing well for blessings/charms/undoing curses/regaining wounded ability scores, gaining access to weaponize that traps or several traps against enemies in the dungeon, etc. As important as making the trap interesting and engaging to multiple PCs (not just the rogue) is making the reward desirable, interesting, creative, and at least somewhat clear/obvious (otherwise there's no lure).

Traps That Attack Resources – These are the "plinky" traps you'd see in many AD&D adventures that would deal damage to PCs with "gotcha" moments. Mostly they're uninteresting mechanically. However, the effectiveness of these traps is more interesting when they don't target Hit Points (or that's secondary to their main effect), but rather target something that's genuinely a resource in this dungeon (e.g. rations/water in a prolonged megadungeon; torches/light in a dungeon with waterfalls passages, monsters consuming magical light, tricks vs. darkvision, and so forth; exhaustion; time when faced with a time limit; spell slots either as a penalty or unique expenditure to bypass obstacles). If a "gotcha" trap is present that specifically targets Hit Points, it's important to think especially closely about narrative & presentation, and the AngryGM's "Click Rule" is especially important to implement (I've found it's often a good guideline with non-obvious traps, but especially these punishing kind). Another trick to making "gotcha" traps more interesting is having the trap reveal something after it triggers, like it opens a secret/concealed door, a boulder punches through a wall revealing a corpse you can speak with dead on, etc.

Traps That Alarm – Alarming traps have a 50/50 chance of being non-obvious, but there's less onus to give immediate clues about the non-obvious ones as long as they're logical for the dungeon. Myconid or Zuggtmoy themed dungeon? Shriekers are right at home. Thieves Guild rigged against city watch incursion? Tripwires to alarm bells/gongs makes sense. Tower of a paranoid mage? Alarm spells. These don't get used as much, but there are far fewer restrictions for their use to be interesting / players to get bought in, IME.

EDIT: A question I see regularly on Discord from newer GMs is "Running a X-themed dungeon. What's a trap I can put in this room?" There's usually no context given. The specific problem there is that traps exist in context even more so than monsters or treasures. While those things exist in context, traps need context to give the players meaningful information/clues/foreshadowing. Kobolds ambush you? Ok, Stealth v Perception. Treasure is cursed? OK, there's a bit of lore you can get that hints at that. Walls smush you in this area? The burden for clue-giving is higher on the GM / adventure.

The other problem with this sort of question is that it is blind to the distinction between the trap types I outlined. Not all traps do the same thing, and because of that they are best handled in different ways with different objectives.

EDIT EDIT: I'll add that if you're including a Poisoned Lock or Poisoned Chest, it's reaaaaallllly important to decide consciously what type of trap this is.

 

[James Gasik]

People are eager to play. Unless a DM is tyrannical or super super railroady, players will be grateful.

I was mostly joking in that we have had fun recently with pretty simple stuff. Talking like a warlord (not the class!) or burgeoning sorcerer and chucking d20s is just fun…

Most people are just eager to play and don’t demand any kind of perfection!

Thanks for saying that, it's just, I know all too well what playing at a lackluster DM's table is like, and I've always wanted to Do Better. Unfortunately, the kinds of games I want to play in, the years-spanning games with hugely developed campaign settings, aren't the kind of games I'm any good at running, lol. If a game goes for over a year, that's a milestone to me.