Should traps have tells?

[Bill Zebub]

I hope you'll indulge me quoting from the other thread. No, I agree with your broader understanding of tells. But it's the same issue for me--that just wouldn't always happen, and if I always had a clue it would start to feel less immersive and more like a puzzle game.

I get what you mean about a "puzzle game". Or....a detective/murder mystery game, which is a particular flavor of RPG that bores me to tears. Which is one reason I typically go pretty light on "hard to find, easy to avoid" traps and prefer "easy to find, hard to avoid" types. E.g., you look down a corridor and you know it's trapped (skeletons with steel bolts in their skulls, maybe), so how do you get down it?

At the same time, I have come to find dice rolling for traps (and secret doors) to be "board gamey." Whether it's "Ok, I need a Perception roll from everybody" or "I search for traps"/"Ok, make a Find Traps roll", I just don't find a reduction of the story down to a single roll with a binary outcome to be very interesting or engaging. YMMV.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Traps might be designed to make some sort of sense in the world, but they are really the ultimate expression of D&D being a game, not a world simulator or a story engine. Traps exist for essentially purely gameplay reasons.

Agreed.

So the function a given trap serves in the gameplay should determine its tell, if any. Traps designed to whittle away hit points or other resources in order to balance the boss fight (or whatever) should not have a tell -- or if they do, it should still require some sort of resource expenditure to bypass it. In most games, skill checks so not eat resources (Gumshoe is an exception I can think of off the top of my head) but failed checks might eat some sort of metacurrency to negate that failure.

Agreed again, but...I don't personally like games, or adventures, where "whittling away at hit points," without it being a consequence of player decision-making, is part of intentional design.

As an example, although I really want to like The One Ring, its Journey rules (I'm describing 1st edition here) don't actually present players with hard decisions/choices. The LM rolls dice to find out what flavors of Hazards the party faces, including who will have to make what sort of roll, and if the roll is failed what the resource cost is. Sure, it's jazzed up with text flavor, but...it's a board game. (Which makes sense: the author is a well-known board game designer.)

 

[Jahydin]

Traps are certainly more fun when there is a "tell", especially if they have deadly consequences. Sure, the Thief gets a die roll to really point that tell out, but everyone should have the chance to point out that something doesn't seem right. Not only does it boost engagement of your wonderful room descriptions, but lessens the sting when the trap isn't found.

Nothing sucks more than:
GM: "The room opens up to a short hallway that lead to a closed door 30' away."
PCs: "Cool, we go check out that door."
GM: "You walk down the short hallway and... makes some rolls... everyone takes 13 damage from the dart trap sprung by the pressure plate. Oh, and Save vs Poison."
PCs:

 

[aco175]

The movies always have the person step on a land mine and hear the click. Then there is 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to get him off or disable the bomb. Not sure how this fits into the game with checks and players interacting with the trap.

I fell it make some situations better if the PC steps on a pressure plate and hears the click. Maybe by failing the Perception check by 5 or less.

 

[Reynard]

The movies always have the person step on a land mine and hear the click. Then there is 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to get him off or disable the bomb. Not sure how this fits into the game with checks and players interacting with the trap.

I fell it make some situations better if the PC steps on a pressure plate and hears the click. Maybe by failing the Perception check by 5 or less.

Cinematic tools for drama and tension don't really work that well at the table, in my experience. Unless you have really immersion oriented players, it still immediately becomes a gameplay conundrum and everyone looks at their character sheets for a system appropriate solution.

I think this is okay. I think we should lean into the gaminess of traps instead of trying to emulate how they apply to other media. I mean, that is true of everything in RPGs, IMO, but it is especially true of traps. If you are going to include them -- and let's be clear, no one ever has to -- recognize and celebrate that they are a gameplay construct.

 

[Fenris-77]

Cinematic tools for drama and tension don't really work that well at the table, in my experience. Unless you have really immersion oriented players, it still immediately becomes a gameplay conundrum and everyone looks at their character sheets for a system appropriate solution.

I don't think the bolded needs to be a default game state at all, it's just about what you players are used to [and] what kinds of games they have played in. If you want to change that default game state you have to try and chivvy them toward something different. A cinematic approach, IMO, is a fine interstitial step because most folks have an intuitive grasp of the logic that applies. At any rate, I don't think the bolded is in anyway a reason that X won't work.

 

[Reynard]

I don't think the bolded needs to be a default game state at all, it's just about what you players are used to what kinds of games they have played in. If you want to change that default game state you have to try and chivvy them toward something different. A cinematic approach, IMO, is a fine interstitial step because most folks have an intuitive grasp of the logic that applies. At any rate, I don't think the bolded is in anyway a reason that X won't work.

Specifically the tension of "oh crap don't move or you'll die" is not something I have ever seen work at a table outside of its gameplay implications. There is a degree of removal from the action, with the dice and character sheet etc... serving as a veil. Like I said, i don't think it is impossible. You could have immersion oriented players willing to throw themselves into the mindset. but it is exceedingly rare.

That doesn't mean don't do it, though. As I said before, lean into the gameplay aspects and it can still be fun and worthwhile.

 

[aco175]

Specifically the tension of "oh crap don't move or you'll die" is not something I have ever seen work at a table outside of its gameplay implications. There is a degree of removal from the action, with the dice and character sheet etc... serving as a veil. Like I said, i don't think it is impossible. You could have immersion oriented players willing to throw themselves into the mindset. but it is exceedingly rare.

That doesn't mean don't do it, though. As I said before, lean into the gameplay aspects and it can still be fun and worthwhile.

I have had player think of this situation and gameplay it thinking that they could survive the 8d6 damage or something. Same as jumping off a building thinking that the fall is 50ft and only does 5d10.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The movies always have the person step on a land mine and hear the click. Then there is 10 minutes of trying to figure out how to get him off or disable the bomb. Not sure how this fits into the game with checks and players interacting with the trap.

I fell it make some situations better if the PC steps on a pressure plate and hears the click. Maybe by failing the Perception check by 5 or less.

I remember reading here a few years ago...can't remember the poster but I think somebody who isn't here anymore...who said that when a character springs a trap he says, "Click!" and the players have a heartbeat to say how they respond. "I dive forward!" "I duck!" "I cast protection from elements!" Whatever they want, but the action they choose affects the outcome.

I don't think I actually want to play that way, but it's kinda cool.

(A neat Thief ability would be: "Describe two actions, then after the GM describes the trap you can pick which of the two you actually use." Kind of like having Advantage on the action declaration.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

Cinematic tools for drama and tension don't really work that well at the table, in my experience. Unless you have really immersion oriented players, it still
immediately becomes a gameplay conundrum and everyone looks at their character sheets for a system appropriate solution.

I mostly agree, except I really like henchmen dying to traps...which is very cinematic...as a tell.

I think this is okay. I think we should lean into the gaminess of traps instead of trying to emulate how they apply to other media. I mean, that is true of everything in RPGs, IMO, but it is especially true of traps. If you are going to include them -- and let's be clear, no one ever has to -- recognize and celebrate that they are a gameplay construct.

100% agree here. Which is why I don't ascribe to the "all traps having tells breaks verisimilitude" argument.