this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023
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The thing about traps feels like very naive advice. They suggest just "add more traps" to make it feel more old school, but they don't discuss what makes a good trap. They mention that traps should do different amounts and types of damage, but that's far from the most important consideration. If you just peppered a bunch of pit traps and swinging blade traps all over the place it wouldn't necessarily make for a fun dungeon. Trap-heavy can be good, but you need to be thoughtful about making each trap an interesting puzzle to solve rather than just a bunch of "Oops, you forgot to say you were looking for traps. Take 2d6 damage!"
That's an apt observation!
I struggled with traps a lot in the past, both as GM and as player, because the "Oops, your forgot to say..." you describe just never felt like an interesting or satisfying outcome, and handling traps speculatively dragged the pace down and distracted a bit from the core of what's fun for my groups.
What opened my eyes was Chris McDowall (of Into the Odd & Electric Bastionland), saying that how one reacts to obvious danger, so to paraphrase: taking decisions on known and open ended problems, is one core element of RPG gameplay. You cannot make useful decisions, if you are missing too much info, otherwise it starts becoming gambling. And this really turned my mind around on using traps. I generally try to follow these recommendations from old-school or old-school adjacent games:
And in my experience, this transformed the "Oops, Take 2d6 damage!" into a fun bit of "How do we best get through this hall of spears, without getting skewered?" problem solving.
The Angry GM has a recent article on exactly this!
Thanks for sharing! I was not aware of The Angry GM, but this article looks pretty well thought out at first glance. Will add it to my reading list!