Should traps have tells?

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I want players to engage their own skills. Even in combat. Sure, they don't know how to swing a sword, but I want the players to at least think through, "Hmmm...I should stand in that doorway instead of

As you say: "That's one philosophy, but not mine." Or rather there's another trade-off. Yes it's nice when player cleverness aligns with what the character would do, and when players can make choices for their character's actions at a more detailed and less abstract level. But this is often not possible, so the GM lets the player do what he can and has the game mechanics abstract or otherwise deal with the details. Sure my players don't have personal hands-on experience with the sort of traps that exist in the game-world, but at least they can think about "Hmm... what might these little oddities that Derek noticed and pointed out mean?"

Although even that has limits, as I want success and failure to be, in the end, more dependent on character skill than on player skill. A table where the PCs are chess pieces controlled by players-as-chessmasters isn't for me. Because "challenge" is not that important to me in an RPG. It's not the kind of fun I'm looking for at an RPG table, and I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice it for the kinds of fun I am looking for.

 

[Lanefan]

But they also seem to be a fan of un-telegraphed traps (and secret doors) that will only get spotted if somebody happens to search in the right place and rolls well. That's pretty much the suckiest kind of all.

I'm a fan of secret doors (and traps, to a point) where you only notice them if a) you're proactively searching and b) your searching hits paydirt.

In other words, if I put a secret door into a dungeon I'm doing so with a vague idea of whether they're likely to find it or not. A passage that suspiciously dead-ends for no reason, yeah they'll probably find that one because they'll keep looking until they do and if all else fails they'll probably just have their Dwarf dig through the wall (I've seen that before!). A secret door in an otherwise innocuous bit of passage, however, is something they're not likely to find.

The latter type fits with my Vizier's escape route from upthread. It's there because (at least one of) the dungeon occupants want it to be there, and is there for their use rather than as something for adventurers to find. If the adventurers get lucky and happen to find it anyway, good for them: they've probably just bypassed a bunch of challenges and made life easier on themselves.

One thing about both secret doors and traps: I'll always* keep in mind why either the original builder of the place or a subsequent occupant would have put it there.

* - unless it's a funhouse or gonzo dungeon where design-wise, anything goes.

 

[Lanefan]

Overall, I use traps very sparingly. They're a hassle for NPCs & monsters to set up, so they won't without believing they have a good reason to, and they're a hassle for me as a GM, so I won't go looking for reasons why the NPCs & monsters might set them up.

Also, my NPCs and monsters mostly prepare for and expect to face opponents that are much less skilled and powerful than the PCs. So any traps that they do set will be suitable for keeping out the riff-raff, but no more than speed bumps for a PC party.

One element I've put into dungeons a few times where the owners wanted some serious defenses are parallel passages each starting in, say, Room A and ending in Room B. One of the passages is obvious, but filled with nasty and noisy traps and has false marks at each end indicating frequent use. The other, untrapped, one is hidden behind secret doors at each end and is, of course, the one the occupants actually use in their day to day lives.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Although even that has limits, as I want success and failure to be, in the end, more dependent on character skill than on player skill. A table where the PCs are chess pieces controlled by players-as-chessmasters isn't for me. Because "challenge" is not that important to me in an RPG. It's not the kind of fun I'm looking for at an RPG table, and I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice it for the kinds of fun I am looking for.

I think the different goals...the different types of "fun"...that people seek determine a lot about what kind of games and rules people want.

Upthread I mentioned how much I dislike the journey rules The One Ring because there is no player agency, no decision-making. There are labels attached to the dice rolls (E.g. "Dangerous Crossings: A path across a flooding river must be found. The character with the role of Scout makes a Travel check, and if they fail they lose 2 Endurance.") but there's no problem to solve, no risky trade-offs to make. You could build a spreadsheet for TOR that would tell you how much of each resource everybody loses by the end of the journey; no player (or GM) input is required to run an entire TOR journey. It's just dice telling you what happens.

My criticisms of this fell on a lot of deaf ears. I was slow to realize that some people don't care about making making hard trade-offs within a system of rules. They enjoy taking the cues generated by the dice rolls and improvise the storytelling...the telling of their character's story...from the results. And they have a blast doing that! But they are looking for an entirely different experience than I am.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The latter type fits with my Vizier's escape route from upthread. It's there because (at least one of) the dungeon occupants want it to be there, and is there for their use rather than as something for adventurers to find. If the adventurers get lucky and happen to find it anyway, good for them: they've probably just bypassed a bunch of challenges and made life easier on themselves.

That's actually a great tell: "Wait....how did the Vizier get out?" "Maybe he drank an invisibility potion?" "Maybe....or maybe there's a secret door!"

 

[Lanefan]

That's actually a great tell: "Wait....how did the Vizier get out?" "Maybe he drank an invisibility potion?" "Maybe....or maybe there's a secret door!"

When searching the Vizier's chambers, sure. Not much help with the secret door at the other end - which the party walked past on their way in - at the time they walked past it. And it's that one on the way in that's the key piece here: they have to look for it in order to even have a chance of finding it, and as there's no obvious reason to look for it they probably won't.

But if they do happen to find it, not only do they get to bypass whatever guards and other hazards await on the more obvious route, they also get to approach the Vizier from a very unexpected direction.

 

[Celebrim]

What do you mean by "tells"?

They might be signs that "everyone sees automatically, the GM shouldn't require a roll."

They might be signs that "characters with good perception scores may spot, even if not actively looking."

They might be signs that "only characters who actively look for them have a chance of spotting."

Not sure about the rest of the thread, but I don't mean any of those things.

A tell is best illustrated by the scene in "Monty Python's Holy Grail" where the nights have been told about a terrible beast and they get there and it's just a rabbit. But the "tell" here is "My god man look at the bones!" and an NPC hyping up how dangerous the rabbit is. The idea behind a tell is that there is something in the fiction as presented to the players that should tell them, "This is a dangerous place that might be trapped." A tell isn't a mechanical thing but rather some clue in the fiction that the players should evaluate this place as threatening.

A more serious tell - actually a series of them - is the opening sequence of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the trap filled Tomb featuring the ray of light over the stabbing trap, followed by the hexagonal pattern in the stones where Indy stops the other man from rushing forward aware that the vibe on this room is bad, followed by the stone slowly sinking after he removes the idol. Those are all tells. A "trap tell" in an RPG prepares the players to perceive the room is likely trapped and so extra caution should be required. It should communicate ideally at the players information level and not rely on the character's information level, although the character's information level can supplement player knowledge.

Examples of tells:

A non-functional trap or perhaps one which has already been sprung is encountered early in the dungeon.
The dungeon is iconically some place you'd expect a lot of traps in a fantasy scenario - a tomb, a treasure chamber, the lair of kobolds/goblins.
A literally warning written on the archway of the entrance.
The remains of former victims of the trap.
The dungeon has subtle signs or clues in the carvings or artwork as to which corridors or safe and which are trapped.
The goblin infantry is not rushing forward to engage, but forming a line of battle on the other side of the room and taunting you.

 

[Bill Zebub]

When searching the Vizier's chambers, sure. Not much help with the secret door at the other end - which the party walked past on their way in - at the time they walked past it. And it's that one on the way in that's the key piece here: they have to look for it in order to even have a chance of finding it, and as there's no obvious reason to look for it they probably won't.

But if they do happen to find it, not only do they get to bypass whatever guards and other hazards await on the more obvious route, they also get to approach the Vizier from a very unexpected direction.

Yeah, sure. But either way, the secret door serves a story purpose even if the players never even suspect its existence. They might always wonder how he escaped. In that sense it's almost like giving the Vizier a potion of gaseous form.

Again with a hypothetical post-mortem reveal, I think there would be a big difference in player reaction between:
"Remember when the Vizier escaped? It was through a secret door you never found."
and
"There was a secret door with some awesome treasure behind it, but I rolled a 4 on a d6 so you didn't find it."

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not sure about the rest of the thread, but I don't mean any of those things.

A tell is best illustrated by the scene in "Monty Python's Holy Grail" where the nights have been told about a terrible beast and they get there and it's just a rabbit. But the "tell" here is "My god man look at the bones!" and an NPC hyping up how dangerous the rabbit is. The idea behind a tell is that there is something in the fiction as presented to the players that should tell them, "This is a dangerous place that might be trapped." A tell isn't a mechanical thing but rather some clue in the fiction that the players should evaluate this place as threatening.

A more serious tell - actually a series of them - is the opening sequence of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the trap filled Tomb featuring the ray of light over the stabbing trap, followed by the hexagonal pattern in the stones where Indy stops the other man from rushing forward aware that the vibe on this room is bad, followed by the stone slowly sinking after he removes the idol. Those are all tells. A "trap tell" in an RPG prepares the players to perceive the room is likely trapped and so extra caution should be required. It should communicate ideally at the players information level and not rely on the character's information level, although the character's information level can supplement player knowledge.

Examples of tells:

A non-functional trap or perhaps one which has already been sprung is encountered early in the dungeon.
The dungeon is iconically some place you'd expect a lot of traps in a fantasy scenario - a tomb, a treasure chamber, the lair of kobolds/goblins.
A literally warning written on the archway of the entrance.
The remains of former victims of the trap.
The dungeon has subtle signs or clues in the carvings or artwork as to which corridors or safe and which are trapped.
The goblin infantry is not rushing forward to engage, but forming a line of battle on the other side of the room and taunting you.

Other than our diverging opinions about Angry DM, I think we're pretty aligned on the overall question.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Upthread I mentioned how much I dislike the journey rules The One Ring because there is no player agency, no decision-making. There are labels attached to the dice rolls (E.g. "Dangerous Crossings: A path across a flooding river must be found. The character with the role of Scout makes a Travel check, and if they fail they lose 2 Endurance.") but there's no problem to solve, no risky trade-offs to make.

Well, this is a standard skill check so there are actually a number of choices to be made, and some RP also. Additionally there are occasional other choices

• Obviously, there is the often tricky choice of whether or not to spend hope to improve your chances. Classic RPG decision on balancing current needs versus future possibilities. It becomes more tricky again when you have magical success as an option. Yeah,. you will succeed, but what attention will you attract?
• With a large party, or (as for my players) when they have a guide, which roles do you double up on?
• My players will often change roles during journey as one of them is losing hope or endurance. Do you stick with a guide who is nearly miserable, but has 3 skill, or one who is pretty hopeful, with only two skill? This has proven to be a tricky decision.
• My players will also try to solve the challenge in a way that engages either their helpful items, or that makes them inspired when they spend hope.
• Not common -- but it has happened in my game that players have to decide whether to force march or not to make up time lost

I'm not saying that journeys are any favorite part of TOR -- I generally agree that they could do with more, and I usually also players to choose other skills if it makes sense when rolling on the vanilla table. But there are more decisions required than I think you are either aware of, or maybe just haven't played?