Actually, the situation and players' PCs' reactions to it tend to get the characters into trouble--usually despite sometimes obvious warnings of some sort, veiled usually, from me. as the GM. Of course, in the role of an adversarial NPC of any type I am likely doing my best to bring them to grief.
The outstanding instances of that, including my own PCs' gaffs, have been pretty well covered in the Dragon magazine column.
The veterans of my LA game group are likely to hang their heads if asked what happened to them in the "Gmome Maze' when adventuring in The Hermit module. They lost a lot of good Avatars there, and all because of being thoughtless. spoiled my night too, for that ended play in the setting :\
Cheers,
Gary