Actual play: my first "social only" session

[pemerton]

wedgeski, agreed. And AbdulAlhazred has made the same point in the past, I think. Like you say, with disarming traps and the like it's basically just a complex skill check, and can be run in a pretty simulationist fashion.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

wedgeski, agreed. And AbdulAlhazred has made the same point in the past, I think. Like you say, with disarming traps and the like it's basically just a complex skill check, and can be run in a pretty simulationist fashion.

Right. You probably want to still inject a sort of narrative in there to create tension, and maybe stimulate the players to some added creativity. So maybe the tricky puzzle lock does something when you get a failure. Tumblers randomize themselves, bits of mechanism move, a bunch of small openings appear in the wall, whatever. That kind of thing will usually get the players hanging on the edges of their seats even though such a challenge is not really all that dynamic. Since it should be over in a handful of checks though it should work OK.