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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8698734" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>So I'm going to move the direction of the conversation a little sideways. Hitherto we've just been addressing the part of the OP's question that has to do with interaction between PCs and NPCs. But the OP correctly broadens the question to note that this problem with social encounters tends to extend to almost all interactions between the PC's and the world. For example, if the PC's are in a raft floating down the river, it tends to be that one character that is good with boats that makes all the rolls with the raft goes through rapids. Or for that matter, it tends to be that one PC that was good with crafts that made the raft from available natural materials. In general, for non-combat challenges the one player that is the best does all the important work and at best the rest of the team is making rolls that assist that player (helping their chance of success) but which don't involve making any real choices. The PC ranger is the one that makes the wilderness lore roll to see if the swamp hazards can be avoided, and so forth. All of these amount to one person does something while the other players watch, and hopefully those other players don't have phones to distract them.</p><p></p><p>The solution to this problem is good encounter design. Good encounter design forces everyone in the party to pitch in on the problem in more complex ways than just rolling to assist. And while good encounter design is too broad of a topic to cover in one post, I'm going to try to get the big stone ball rolling on one particular encounter type and that is the trap.</p><p></p><p>The vast majority of traps in published modules are badly designed, and there is very little published that I know of that really gives a new DM good advice on how to make good trap encounters. Traps as they exist in most modules are taxes on party resources with payoffs in play that aren't worth it. Nothing particularly fun tends to happen if the players get caught in the trap, and nothing particularly fun happens if they don't. Not getting caught in a trap is at least satisfying on the level that you can feel satisfaction at skilled play, but ideally getting caught in the trap ought to be fun as well.</p><p></p><p>So first let's talk about why most traps fail to be fun. The attributes of most traps in most published works are:</p><p></p><p>a) They are placed in arbitrary and sometimes nonsensical places in the dungeon. This forces players to search for traps reflexively everywhere because they could be anywhere.</p><p>b) Searching for traps generally involves one character that is skilled at finding traps repeatedly doing the same thing.</p><p>c) If the trap is found it's easily avoided or if not easily avoided involves the one player that can disarm traps repeatedly doing the same thing.</p><p>d) If the trap is not found it does a large amount of damage in an instant and then the trap has done it's thing and any further interaction with the trap is anticlimactic. Often dealing with a trap in this case involves the cleric casting one cure spell and the game continues with the trap having achieved it's goal of consuming resources.</p><p></p><p>This almost guarantees an unfun experience by all. While one player does get a lot of spot light, everyone else can only watch. And while there is satisfaction in winning against the traps, there isn't a lot of satisfaction when the dice tell you that you've been caught in the trap. </p><p></p><p>Good traps on the other hand:</p><p></p><p>a) Are placed in places where it makes sense for a trap to be and make sense for the purpose of the trap. The players should sort of know from environmental clues that this is a likely place for a trap. People don't generally build death traps in well travelled corridors. They might build an alarm in an entrance to alert intruders, and an alarm (as we will see) is an example of a good trap.</p><p>b) Good traps create predicaments that the whole party must work together to solve. In effect a good trap is one that puts the party in combat with the trap. Good traps can isolate the party that is in the predicament, but never so much so that they rest of the party can't observe the predicament and interact with it. A trap that drops or worse teleports the other party member out of sight leaves those left behind with insufficient information to engage with the predicament. It's important that the party not be split up to the degree that a part of the party is out of the encounter.</p><p>c) To do this, good traps don't do a lot of damage up front. Instead, good traps do a smaller amount of damage over time, with the maximum damage reached only if the players fail to win the combat with the trap and mitigate it's effect. That is to say if the party extricates itself from the predicament efficiently, then they take less damage, but if they fail to extricate themself then they take a lot of damage. </p><p>d) Good traps tend to snowball with the trap getting worse and worse over time, increasing the tension on the party, and therefore ramping up the tension and excitement.</p><p></p><p>I don't want to give away too many of my tricks, but as a very simple example a trap that sprays an area with acid that does 1d8 damage to all effected for 4 rounds is a much better trap than one that does 4d8 damage to the party instantly because the first trap creates an ongoing predicament that the party can work together to solve. More dice will get thrown and more decisions will be made by more players in the first case. Players for example can try to pour water over each other to wash off the acid. A spell caster may need to make a concentration check to cast a spell to create water. </p><p></p><p>Or consider examples like the following:</p><p></p><p>a) A harpoon trap reels a player up to the ceiling.</p><p>b) A cloud of stinking gas that forces a con save every round to avoid choking and retching engulfs the area while doors open that release battle-axe wielding zombies into the room. </p><p>c) The door slams shut and the room begins to fill with scalding hot water.</p><p>d) A metal grill covers a pit trap, and the portion of the party that escaped the fall can see that a monster has been let loose on the portion of the party caught in the trap. </p><p></p><p>Think about all the things that the players then might do to work together to defeat the trap. Every archetype in a typical adventuring party has something that they might do. It's not just about the thief anymore and how much patching up the cleric has to do.</p><p></p><p>Now, I'm not saying that these are hard and fast rules. Once you know what you are doing you can break these principles. Nor am I saying that every encounter needs to be heavily designed. Verisimilitude will create situations of encounters that are more mundane. But I am saying that if you work on having encounters that are good show pieces and focus the game time on those you'll avoid the problem you've noticed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8698734, member: 4937"] So I'm going to move the direction of the conversation a little sideways. Hitherto we've just been addressing the part of the OP's question that has to do with interaction between PCs and NPCs. But the OP correctly broadens the question to note that this problem with social encounters tends to extend to almost all interactions between the PC's and the world. For example, if the PC's are in a raft floating down the river, it tends to be that one character that is good with boats that makes all the rolls with the raft goes through rapids. Or for that matter, it tends to be that one PC that was good with crafts that made the raft from available natural materials. In general, for non-combat challenges the one player that is the best does all the important work and at best the rest of the team is making rolls that assist that player (helping their chance of success) but which don't involve making any real choices. The PC ranger is the one that makes the wilderness lore roll to see if the swamp hazards can be avoided, and so forth. All of these amount to one person does something while the other players watch, and hopefully those other players don't have phones to distract them. The solution to this problem is good encounter design. Good encounter design forces everyone in the party to pitch in on the problem in more complex ways than just rolling to assist. And while good encounter design is too broad of a topic to cover in one post, I'm going to try to get the big stone ball rolling on one particular encounter type and that is the trap. The vast majority of traps in published modules are badly designed, and there is very little published that I know of that really gives a new DM good advice on how to make good trap encounters. Traps as they exist in most modules are taxes on party resources with payoffs in play that aren't worth it. Nothing particularly fun tends to happen if the players get caught in the trap, and nothing particularly fun happens if they don't. Not getting caught in a trap is at least satisfying on the level that you can feel satisfaction at skilled play, but ideally getting caught in the trap ought to be fun as well. So first let's talk about why most traps fail to be fun. The attributes of most traps in most published works are: a) They are placed in arbitrary and sometimes nonsensical places in the dungeon. This forces players to search for traps reflexively everywhere because they could be anywhere. b) Searching for traps generally involves one character that is skilled at finding traps repeatedly doing the same thing. c) If the trap is found it's easily avoided or if not easily avoided involves the one player that can disarm traps repeatedly doing the same thing. d) If the trap is not found it does a large amount of damage in an instant and then the trap has done it's thing and any further interaction with the trap is anticlimactic. Often dealing with a trap in this case involves the cleric casting one cure spell and the game continues with the trap having achieved it's goal of consuming resources. This almost guarantees an unfun experience by all. While one player does get a lot of spot light, everyone else can only watch. And while there is satisfaction in winning against the traps, there isn't a lot of satisfaction when the dice tell you that you've been caught in the trap. Good traps on the other hand: a) Are placed in places where it makes sense for a trap to be and make sense for the purpose of the trap. The players should sort of know from environmental clues that this is a likely place for a trap. People don't generally build death traps in well travelled corridors. They might build an alarm in an entrance to alert intruders, and an alarm (as we will see) is an example of a good trap. b) Good traps create predicaments that the whole party must work together to solve. In effect a good trap is one that puts the party in combat with the trap. Good traps can isolate the party that is in the predicament, but never so much so that they rest of the party can't observe the predicament and interact with it. A trap that drops or worse teleports the other party member out of sight leaves those left behind with insufficient information to engage with the predicament. It's important that the party not be split up to the degree that a part of the party is out of the encounter. c) To do this, good traps don't do a lot of damage up front. Instead, good traps do a smaller amount of damage over time, with the maximum damage reached only if the players fail to win the combat with the trap and mitigate it's effect. That is to say if the party extricates itself from the predicament efficiently, then they take less damage, but if they fail to extricate themself then they take a lot of damage. d) Good traps tend to snowball with the trap getting worse and worse over time, increasing the tension on the party, and therefore ramping up the tension and excitement. I don't want to give away too many of my tricks, but as a very simple example a trap that sprays an area with acid that does 1d8 damage to all effected for 4 rounds is a much better trap than one that does 4d8 damage to the party instantly because the first trap creates an ongoing predicament that the party can work together to solve. More dice will get thrown and more decisions will be made by more players in the first case. Players for example can try to pour water over each other to wash off the acid. A spell caster may need to make a concentration check to cast a spell to create water. Or consider examples like the following: a) A harpoon trap reels a player up to the ceiling. b) A cloud of stinking gas that forces a con save every round to avoid choking and retching engulfs the area while doors open that release battle-axe wielding zombies into the room. c) The door slams shut and the room begins to fill with scalding hot water. d) A metal grill covers a pit trap, and the portion of the party that escaped the fall can see that a monster has been let loose on the portion of the party caught in the trap. Think about all the things that the players then might do to work together to defeat the trap. Every archetype in a typical adventuring party has something that they might do. It's not just about the thief anymore and how much patching up the cleric has to do. Now, I'm not saying that these are hard and fast rules. Once you know what you are doing you can break these principles. Nor am I saying that every encounter needs to be heavily designed. Verisimilitude will create situations of encounters that are more mundane. But I am saying that if you work on having encounters that are good show pieces and focus the game time on those you'll avoid the problem you've noticed. [/QUOTE]
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