Traps and the Clock

[Bullgrit]

It need not be frustrating if one doesn't take every overblown example personally.

It's not that anything is taken personally, it's that overblown examples don't promote discussions, they prompt arguments.

A rational discussion can begin with two ridiculous extremes and end up fairly well sorted out by the end.

That's like saying we can begin with two sacks of trash and end up with a decent dinner. We shouldn't have to start from any ridiculous extreme -- discussions are more productive and fun when we start from fact or truth, or at least honesty.

I guess some people just like arguments more than discussions.

Bullgrit

 

[roguerouge]

An example was asked for... In one chamber, it tells you that turning the key clockwise does nothing, but turning it the other way accesses both the secret and activates the trap. In another room, turning the key a particular way animates three stone golems.

This is why discussions on ENWorld get so frustrating. One poster exaggerates a situation in one edition, and then another has to throw in hyperbole directed at the other edition as a counter. Truth and facts are anathema on the Internet.

Bullgrit

Oh, please. I asked a question. In reading Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, I was reminded that this updating of a Dungeon #37 issue classic featured a detail that doesn't occur nowadays: which way do you turn the key? I'll also note that your thread jack is itself an example of that which it critiques: hyperbole.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It's not that anything is taken personally, it's that overblown examples don't promote discussions, they prompt arguments.

That's like saying we can begin with two sacks of trash and end up with a decent dinner. We shouldn't have to start from any ridiculous extreme -- discussions are more productive and fun when we start from fact or truth, or at least honesty.

I guess some people just like arguments more than discussions.

Bullgrit

Arguments can be productive if they remain on topic. After all, a debate is simply an argument with a structure.

Extreme hyperbolic beginnings are only completely trash if there is no truth in them at all.

Old school traps can be very arbitrary and not fun.
New school trap detection/removal can be very boring and not fun.

Those are the truths that I see on both sides of the issue. The argument can be productive if it illustrates or explores methods to make either stereotype not universally true.

We can have perfectly fine discussions without any opposing viewpoints. While these can be pleasant enough to participate in they rarely offer as much insight and understanding as a good, well reasoned argument.

 

[Bullgrit]

[No message]

 

[olshanski]

Well, to counter Bullgrit, I do recall at least a few encounters where doing one thing was bad and doing something similar was good... In particular, the Tomb of Horrors had a whole sequence of secret doors that were tricky to open... some you had to rotate on their axis, some you had to lift from the bottom... things like that.

There are a number of good reasons for the "turn the key one way you get your arm ripped off, turn it the other and things are fine"....
You could find instructions on opening turning the key in some places.
You could question a prisoner to find out how to get past a lock.
You could force a prisoner to test the key in different directions.
You could cast the VERY POPULAR 2nd level cleric spell "Augury" to help.
You could hook up a 10' pole in order to rotate the key from a distance.
You could get frustrated and go somewhere else.

Basically, it was an opportunity to get creative or get frustrated.

In the adventure "White Plume Mountain", I swear our party spent an hour of real-time trying to figure out how to get into the place... we were going crazy. Eventually we found that a secret door was on the floor under a layer of mud (so elven secret-door detection wasn't picking it up). I think we found it by accident when we used create water in an entry chamber for some stupid reason and accidentally washed away enough mud to see the secret door.

I'd say that many of my favorite modules from the old days had one or more of the arbitrary elements/traps similar to what the OP describes. Particularly the "S" series, the Desert of Desolation series, I believe some of the Slavers series, and several of the "C" series all had elements of this type.
I would not be surprised if some elements of the GDQ series also had these elements... I seem to remember that there were some screwey eggs that only opened with very specific spells.

Certainly there was a majority of ordinary traps, like pits or curses... but there seems to have been a higher portion of oddities like the OP described in the early AD&D adventures.

It seems to me that there were far fewer (if any) of those elements in the BECMI modules.

 

[Ariosto]

The particular does not in fact strike me as "so many" examples, and moreover it is unclear to me just how any such thing has been, or could be, "removed from the game".

Addressing the question of what, considering what is actually a general principle, is interesting, the primary answer to my mind is one word:

Exploration.

A key aspect of the dungeon game is manipulating the environment and investigating the consequences. So, for instance, moving a lever in one room might open or close a secret door in another room. Replacing a missing piece of a statue might have any one of several effects typical of such cases. Magical pools are another classic feature often explored by trial.

Various magic items are basically indistinguishable from others of their general type -- including baneful ones -- as well as from mundane examples.

That introduces another word: Risk.

There is an element of risk essentially inseparable from potential reward. To undertake an adventure is to incur risk, to be reliant to some extent on fortune. It is to venture into the unknown.

 

[airwalkrr]

traps like that are meant to be approached from the point of view of trying to do something the trap designer (the dm or writer) didn't expect that foils the trap.

How do you know there's a trap there? Because you're in a dungeon and expect there to be traps everywhere. There's no way in hell you're going to turn the key with your hand, and preferably you'll work out some way to either
a) progress without ever touching or even standing near the key
b) turn the key while being a long, long way away, or invulnerable or some such.

As to whether that's fun or not? Personally i'd like every trap to be detectable with relative ease, but require explicit countermeasures like that to overcome. I think the current "succeed at thievery 43 times before 3 failures" design for some things makes for the worst possible trap encounters.

qft

 

[Starfox]

the Tomb of Horrors had a whole sequence of secret doors that were tricky to open... some you had to rotate on their axis, some you had to lift from the bottom... things like that.

This, in combination with deadly traps and no time pressure at all, makes such modules into "cast every divination spell in the book at every problem, then rest up" kind of play. Not my favorite.

And the 43 successes before 3 failures model really isn't fun either.

The DM notes for 4E has some good ideas about traps - that is make them part of encounters. A pit in your path is not very exiting when you have all the time in the world. But when chased by a rolling stone ball, it takes on an entirely new significance.

Likewise, the poison needle in itself is not very exiting, but when it makes you lose the use of your hand right before the big duel, it can be very interesting.

 

[Saeviomagy]

This is why discussions on ENWorld get so frustrating. One poster exaggerates a situation in one edition, and then another has to throw in hyperbole directed at the other edition as a counter. Truth and facts are anathema on the Internet.

Bullgrit

It wasn't meant to be an edition war. I like 4e quite a lot, and I actually dislike most of 2nd edition's rules. And it's not every trap that has the "roll a lot of successes on a single skill to disable" model, just the bad ones.

2nd edition "think your way through the trap" traps had nothing to do with the rules of the game: they work equally well or badly regardless of edition because they have no rule content except for the rules contained within the trap itself.

4e's traps are a mixed bunch: some of them are sensible, allowing a single disable device roll to cripple some component of the trap but not the entire trap, while also allowing various other skills to avoid or negate elements of it. This is the GOOD 4e trap. The entire party can contribute, no specific skill is needed, but thievery still sees use.

Any of the traps which feature a skill challenge are, I feel, actually something that needs to be erratad. First of all, skill challenges aren't supposed to be simply rolling a single skill over and over again. Secondly the skill challenges offered are more difficult to succeed at than simply smashing the trap component in question. Finally, there's nothing more boring than standing next to a trap and saying, each round "I roll thievery again". Especially when you might do so 4-7 times before anything at all happens.

 

[Beginning of the End]

You introduced your question with a fallacy: "Why do old modules have so many traps where . . ."

Yeah. That's not actually what the word "fallacy" means.