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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2248195" data-attributes="member: 27012">The monsters are generally supposed to be "second owners".  That is, they moved in and filled a void left by the person who built the 150 room palace died, was killed, or left, perhaps centuries ago.  As for the traps, they make a lot more sense if you simply make sure that the occupants always have an easy way to avoid the trap but it will be likely to snag an intruder who doesn't know it is there.One of the best examples is a pit trap under a floor that collapses if more than 80 pounds of weight is put on it used by goblins and other small creatures who won't, if they are smart, ever exceed the trigger limit.  Another option is to put traps down dead-end corridors or create honey-pot rooms -- places that will lure intruders in but no resident would ever go to or mess with.  False doors that trigger traps are also an option.  Magical traps might be evaded with an amulet that all of the residents wear (or wore).  In once case, I hid a Symbol of Pain behind a curtain near the door to a dungeon.  Once the Paladin did a Detect Evil (the spell is of type Evil), they felt obliged to look behind the curtain with disasterous results.  Again, that's something that's easy to set up and won't bother the residents, who know better than to look behind the curtain.Harder to justify are elaborate puzzle traps that can be reasoned around (which are really designed to test the players).  Possibilities there include dungeons designed as tests and puzzles solved by knowledge or skill that the particular owner or group who resided there would know and could bypass easily.  For example, an alchemical worshop dungeon might have locks and traps based on elemental keys related to substances that to an alchemist might be as simple as a chemist knowing that the chemical machine with a display blinking "SNaCK" wants Sulfer + Sodium + Carbon + Potassium and not some food.</blockquote>

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