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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6987980" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that last sentence is a bit misleading - "fairy tale" logic is not equivalent to player fiat. It can (and in most RPGs does) turn on dice rolls, checks etc.And there is a "due to my character traits, I find all the traps" element to classic D&D - elves find secret doors, dwarves new construction, etc, due to their elvish sight or their dwarvish famlliarity with underground settings.Traps more generally I think are a site of deep tension in classic D&D. From the point of view of fiction, I think they're meant to evoke the sort of feel one finds in (say) the REH Conan story <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600821h.html" target="_blank">"The Scarlet Citadel"</a>:How long he traversed it in utter darkness, he never knew, but suddenly his barbarian's instinct of near peril halted him short. He had the same feeling he had had when standing on the brink of great precipices in the darkness. Dropping to all fours, he edged forward, and presently his outflung hand encountered the edge of a well, into which the tunnel floor dropped abruptly. As far down as he could reach the sides fell away sheerly, dank and slimy to his touch. He stretched out an arm in the darkness and could barely touch the opposite edge with the point of his sword. He could leap across it, then, but there was no point in that. He had taken the wrong tunnel and the main corridor lay somewhere behind him. Even as he thought this, he felt a faint movement of air; a shadowy wind, rising from the well, stirred his black mane. Conan's skin crawled. He tried to tell himself that this well connected somehow with the outer world, but his instincts told him it was a thing unnatural. He was not merely inside the hill; he was below it, far below the level of the city streets. How then could an outer wind find its way into the pits and blow up from below? A faint throbbing pulsed on that ghostly wind, like drums beating, far, far below. A strong shudder shook the king of Aquilonia. He rose to his feet and backed away, and as he did something floated up out of the well. What it was, Conan did not know. He could see nothing in the darkness, but he distinctly felt a presenceAs well as this sort of thing, classic D&D traps also involve jets of flame, more-or-less unlimited arrows (see eg ToH), and other things that are hard to explain in naturalistic terms.But the 10' pole, stop-and-search-at-every-door routine does naturalise them. Which createas a tension, I think, between the dramatic/story function they initially might have fulfilled, and the non-dramatic, Advance Squad Leader style of play that they engender. Different styles of post-classic D&D, I think, resolve this tension in different ways.</blockquote>

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