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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rmcoen" data-source="post: 9811349" data-attributes="member: 6692404">From a "defend my place" perspective, traps are meant to discourage or kill intruders when you aren't there, or supplement your defense when you are there.  Traps should never be about mildly inconveniencing the intruders... that's just a waste of the defender's time and resources.  [This goes for most "puzzles" too... is this an ego-trip thing, or kind of a "password protecting your lab" thing?]So when I put traps into a location, I am considering what the defender felt was a likely threat -- and how the defender would reasonably avoid/turn-off the traps for daily use.  A 10' false floor on the main hallway better have an alternate way around, or a jam/block mechanism that allows the trap to be "off" -- I have enough trouble remembering to avoid the slippery spot on my own wood floor where I spilled the cleaning solution last week, and that'll break my neck as easily as a 10' fall!  Likewise, if the hostile neighbors/invaders are kobolds, my traps need to be low, and "lethal" enough to inflict about 7 damage... which isn't a threat to most adventurers after 1st level, but in this case, I wasn't trying to kill adventurers!Lastly, I think about the nature of the location -- this will come up again in a moment -- as this influences how the trap has potentially aged. In the old Palace of the Silver Princess D&D module, the players fall into a pit trap filled with oil, and then a torch is dropped in... an UNLIT torch, because the guards are gone (stone, iirc?) and couldn't maintain the lighting mechanism!So that's the background thought behind the purpose of the trap.  To the OP's question, though, "Should the trap have tells?"  If this is a "ruin" or a long-inhabited location - i.e. time has passed since the trap was installed - then my answer is almost always "yes".  It might have been hidden at first, but now the PCs can see the stone is worn on the left side of the hallway just in this 15' or so... or maybe the darthole cover weathered at a different rate/fashion than the surrounding stone, and now no longer blends in.  Sometimes, though, I like to have the "tell" be discoverable information - perhaps during researching the dungeon or its creator, the PCs learn he has a penchant for scythes, or hired a master dwarf to create moving-stone traps?  Or a receipt discovered in an earlier room for "18 dart throwers, 100 poison-tipped darts, and 3 trigger mechanisms"...Is the trap meant to DISCOURAGE intruders? Then "yes"!  It should be obvious - an OPEN pit, with spikes, and maybe even a ceiling-turret behind it to DISCOURAGE the jumpers.OTHERWISE, "no"!  The trap is meant to kill intruders, why the heck would I advertise it?  HOWEVER, PCs are exceptional people with exceptional and often supernatural abilities to sense the hidden and avoid the unexpected.  So I might set a REALLY high DC (for that Alert expert-Perception PC to try for) to notice something no one else could possibly see ("curious how the veins in the marble wall are almost perfectly circular in a couple places near the floor up ahead... on both sides...").  And love the mechanic I read about long ago:  "Click!  what do you do?"</blockquote>

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