Best practices for easy-to-run modules [+]

[overgeeked]

Whether traps have tells is an unrelated tangent. Kindly take that elsewhere.

Thread 'Should traps have tells?'

Yesterday at 5:33 PM

Tangent from another thread.

Simple question.

Should traps have tells?

• overgeeked
• Replies: 26
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

• 

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, they should.

Now, it's ok if the 'tell' isn't right there in front of the door or trap. Maybe the players have to rely on clues found elsewhere. Maybe they just have to keep careful maps to realize there's a big blank in the middle of the dungeon. Whatever.

But relying on:

1. Players just happening to look in the right spot, or...
2. Players getting into the habit of looking in every spot, or...
3. The DM either asking for a roll, without any action declaration by the player, or...
4. The DM secretly rolling or relying on a "passive" skill...

...are all antiquated, board-gamey, bad RPG design philosophy.

Characters getting into the habit of looking in every spot isn't bad design philosophy in the slightest: if it's what the characters would do in reality then it's what they should be doing in the setting.

As for the other things, I don't subscribe to the "gotchas are bad" take that seems so prevalent here. Sometimes you're just gonna be "got", be it through bad luck, inattention to detail, or simply that the dungeon element beat you.

Success in combat, or with spellcasting, should be a combination of player (choices/tactics) and character (mechanics/rng).
Likewise, resolving secrets (opening a secret door, or disarming/avoiding a trap) can be a combination of player and character.

But discovering secrets should always be 100% player.

Attempting to discover secrets should be 100% player. Success in such discoveries shouldn't be nearly so guaranteed, though, and sometimes failing to discover a secret (or not even bothering to look for it) means the secret is going to reveal itself in a quite unpleasant manner.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The first one; it seems to preclude the idea that there are good traps.

Suppose the players got enough money to build a fort and added some traps to it. Would these be required to have tells? If so, that feels artificial. If not, then why can't anyone else build that way?


I suppose no different than the ones they'd take for traps with tells that they can't find. And making sure they have spells remaining to deal with hazards, have supplies and hps to spare.


The desire that the world is internally consistent and that all traps have a tell are in tension. Traps having a tell is a choice made for gameplay reasons. In-universe, people would want to build traps that don't have tells. So making there be a tell to give the players a puzzle can break internal consistency.

I think maybe you're interpreting "tell" to mean that the trap itself telegraphs it's own presence. Tells can also be things like the remains of previous victims, a sprung trap of the same type that is up ahead (or offing a henchman with the first of several traps), hints/clues/warnings encountered elsewhere that have to be remembered at the right time, etc. Literally anything that might cause a player to look for the right thing in the right place at the right time using their own deductive skills and not relying on RNG.

So, no, traps don't have to be built with tells. But by the time the adventurers get there the should have encountered tells anyway.

Is that any less verisimilitudinous than never finding dungeons completely cleaned out, with all traps sprung and all treasure taken? Isn't it strange that everywhere PCs go they just happen to find exciting adventures? Almost as if there's some all-powering being manipulating things just for their benefit.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Characters getting into the habit of looking in every spot isn't bad design philosophy in the slightest: if it's what the characters would do in reality then it's what they should be doing in the setting.

Worst design rationale ever.

 

[Lanefan]

Worst design rationale ever.

Not from the perspective of "It's what the characters would do", which is always my starting point. I first and foremost want the characters to be played like real people, and real people usually* have a fairly keen sense of self-preservation. Searching carefully for hidden hazards in what is probably a dangerous place plays right into this.

* - I say "usually" as a nod to some spectacular exceptions I've seen over the years both in the game and out...

 

[Bill Zebub]

As for the other things, I don't subscribe to the "gotchas are bad" take that seems so prevalent here. Sometimes you're just gonna be "got", be it through bad luck, inattention to detail, or simply that the dungeon element beat you.

I agree with "inattention to detail". Which to me is synonymous with "the dungeon element beat you".

"Bad luck", however, sounds suspiciously like "screwed by RNG", and that I don't agree with. The only reason I like dice rolling in combat is that the outcome is typically the result of a lot of dice rolls, so good and bad luck tend to balance out, and if the encounter is well-designed it's the player decisions that really matter.

But rolling a single d20 where N or greater means "you don't take any damage" and below N means "you take 1d8 damage"? That's just pointless, except maybe for the nostalgia value of playing the way we did in 1980.

Attempting to discover secrets should be 100% player. Success in such discoveries shouldn't be nearly so guaranteed, though, and sometimes failing to discover a secret (or not even bothering to look for it) means the secret is going to reveal itself in a quite unpleasant manner.

Yeah, hard disagree. If you look in the right place (or otherwise do the "right" thing, whatever that means and whatever the tells suggested) then in my game you find the trap. But searching takes time, and time is money, friend.

I also don't use dice rolls* when there's no consequence to failure, with stakes understood by the player. (And, no, failing to detect the trap is not a consequence of failure because you're still in the same state you were in before making the attempt.)

Confession: it's really hard to break decades of habit, so sometimes I still call for dice rolls for finding traps or knowing a fact or whatever. But I am constantly striving to get better at it.