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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8444140" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I appreciate the attempt to bring some clarity to the conversation! I think the impression you got is… not quite accurate, but it may be onto something. I do have some degree of specificity to traps - take, for example, the exchange I recounted with the player at my table who was taken aback by being asked to state an approach with more specificity than “I check the door for traps,” where the door in question would hit a lever and ring a bell when opened. That trap was a specific object in the game world, not just an abstract trap. But, part of the point of that example was the point I made that I know my players aren’t engineers and neither am I. There is a certain degree of abstraction in my traps. The clay drawer handle thing is WAY more specificity than I would put into designing a trap. First, because I’m just not that inventive, but second because I wouldn’t want to put the expectation on my players to just know how to find and deal with that situation.I would say the balance of specificity/abstraction I aim for in traps is about the same as that found in the example traps in the core rules. I don’t know exactly how the mechanism of a needle trap would actually work, and I don’t think my game would benefit from that degree of mechanical precision. It’s enough to know that there’s some sort of mechanism in the lock that, when the wrong key (or a set of lock picking tools) is used, a poisoned needle springs out. That’s enough for me to judge if a reasonably specific approach to trying to detect this trap could succeed at doing so, if it could fail at doing so, and if failing at doing so would have consequences.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8444140, member: 6779196"] I appreciate the attempt to bring some clarity to the conversation! I think the impression you got is… not quite accurate, but it may be onto something. I do have some degree of specificity to traps - take, for example, the exchange I recounted with the player at my table who was taken aback by being asked to state an approach with more specificity than “I check the door for traps,” where the door in question would hit a lever and ring a bell when opened. That trap was a specific object in the game world, not just an abstract trap. But, part of the point of that example was the point I made that I know my players aren’t engineers and neither am I. There is a certain degree of abstraction in my traps. The clay drawer handle thing is WAY more specificity than I would put into designing a trap. First, because I’m just not that inventive, but second because I wouldn’t want to put the expectation on my players to just know how to find and deal with that situation. I would say the balance of specificity/abstraction I aim for in traps is about the same as that found in the example traps in the core rules. I don’t know exactly how the mechanism of a needle trap would actually work, and I don’t think my game would benefit from that degree of mechanical precision. It’s enough to know that there’s some sort of mechanism in the lock that, when the wrong key (or a set of lock picking tools) is used, a poisoned needle springs out. That’s enough for me to judge if a reasonably specific approach to trying to detect this trap could succeed at doing so, if it could fail at doing so, and if failing at doing so would have consequences. [/QUOTE]

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