"It's a Trap! Do Not Enter!"

[Evilhalfling]

I had a water temple in the center of an inner sea. The 10th lvl PCs were after some great weather controlling artifact. Climbing a narrow stare they find a diamond the siaze of a hen's egg floating in mid air the Thief appraises it - as "what ever the market will bear" or 50k +

without batting an eye the party decides its a trap and carefully avoids the very real diamond.

slightly further along on the stairs they find a spell book floating in midair - written on the cover is "the Book of Infinate Spells" this time the wizard has to pry himself away, but again the party passes by.

The treasure was fishing lures, placed by white eithergaunts, which would have sucked anyone touching either one off to thier home plane- the diamond was real the book was "merely" a used baccobs blessed book belonging to the eithergaunt (13th lvl wiz)

 

[Sammael]

Last night, our party entered an underground complex to look for our lost dwarven friend (former party member) who went in there alone to explore. We found his charred corpse (or what was left of it) in the middle of a huge chamber aptly named "Chamber of the Test of Fire." Around him were remains of three bonfires he had lit in three circles, apparently to start the Test. So... what does our barbarian do? He pulls some rags out of his backpack and burns them at the three indicated spots, thus summoning three noble salamanders.

We (1) had no intention of going deeper into the dungeon at the time (the Test had to be passed to open the door that led further on), (2) had at least two more pressing things to do at the time, and (3) hadn't made any preparations to fight fire-based creatures (despite the obvious clues). My character didn't stop the barbarian because he was seriously shaken by the dwarf's death.

All in all, we nearly died (except my character, who didn't get as much as a scratch, thanks to his flying capability). And for nothing - when we were done, everybody was too battered to move on, and, as I said, we had far more pressing matters to attend to. So we left the dungeon to the dwarves who had arrived after us to search it, after eliminating what was probably the biggest threat to them (and one of our key goals is to... eliminate those dwarves). Miserable failure.

 

[Admiral Akbar]

It's a trap!

 

[jdrakeh]

I once had a Deathtrap Dungeon-like affair that I would use for short camapigns (4 weekly sessions, usually). From start to finish it was all traps, may of which weren't built to kill, but to separate party members (either physically or through debate). It was an abandoned proving ground of sorts designed by a sorcerer in the distant past to test potential companions. It was a really nasty crawl, but all of the traps made some kind of sense (which would be the primary difference between it and most 'old school' gauntlets).

[Edit: The clue that it was a trap-laden pit was in its undisturbed state - it was in the middle of a monster-infested wilderness area and could have provided shelter for any number of the local goblinoid tribes... but for some reason, they all avoided it.]

 

[EricNoah]

Charred bodies in front of a door. PCs miss the clue. One PC opens the door, and all are blasted with chain lightning. The best trap isn't the one that's completely hidden. The best one is the one where the players go "duh, we should have seen that!" afterwards.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Not subtle enough...

In one campaign, the DM had worked up a session revolving around a mysterious town. The party arrives in town to find a body drawn and quartered in the crossroads. The DM asks the Bard to make a Bardic knowledge check and then pulls him aside. The Bard comes back and announces to the party that the town in ruled by an evil cult. The party immediately exits said town, and the DM pitches his notes in the trash and starts to roll random encounters

 

[Balgus]

GM's: What is the most subtle context clue you've consciously given PC's to give them a chance of figuring out that they were headed to an unpleasant situation? And were they able to piece it together "in time"?

My Dm was a little ilprepared one night and was a little tired to boot. So, instead of drawing out the map room by room like he usually does, he just made a photocopy of the map and said- "you find a map of the area". On the map, was a 'T' in one of the rooms. We read the map for a bit and someone ate some rancid meat and had a really bad stomach ache.

He looked at the map and said, "I am going to take a dump in the TOILET"

DM "What toilet?"

Player "Where the map says 'T'"

DM "So you walk over and take off your pants. Make a ref save"

Player "12"

DM "you fall into the pit with your pants down. luckily, it gets caught on the ledge and now you are hanging upside down by your pants"