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@@bethanytaylor554 If you wait for a week or so Google will automatically add captions. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to do captions for my videos.
Perhaps traps could be divided into the categorys of "Trick" (Where it doesn't actually harm the player but inconveniences them somehow), Hazard(Where it can harm the player, though is usually obvious enough that you'll probably see it without having to specifically looking for it as long as you aren't rushing ahead or acting recklessly...) And Ambush, where the thread of harm is still there but it's more of an attack activated by whatever enemies are attacking you... (Like a Kobold trying to swing a Bear trap into your face to lock you down while the others pepper your character with arrows and the one that swung in on the bear trap is now trying to shank you as well...)
@@minnion2871 I concur with this thought. The 1e DMG Appendices G and H provides tables and guidance for Tricks and Traps, but does make a fairly clear delineation between one being a harm / hazard (traps) and the other more of a puzzle, obstacle, or weird occurrence (tricks) for the PCs to overcome or at least deal with. Not to say that a trick can’t be hazardous or harmful, but I believe the spirit of the thing is as per your point.
One of the best "traps" I ever made wasn't even a trap at all. It was just a (recently deceased) mad scientist's normal bedroom in his hidden lair. By the time they reached it, they had already had several things try to kill them, so when they found a normal looking door, they went full S.W.A.T. team, and tried to breach and clear the room, and whatever baddies were hiding inside. The door was actually unlocked, and the room was mostly empty with just some mundane set dressing that elaborated on the scientists tastes and interests. Their paranoia nearly got them to start a fire in an underground bunker with poor ventilation, and almost turned a totally safe room into a potentially deadly scenario. Sometimes the absence of any *actual* danger can be one of the most deadly things a party of overly paranoid adventures can encounter!
In old-school dungeon crawling, it was assumed that searching carefully for traps came at the expense of time. Traps were largely just revealed if they were going slowly and carefully, just as you suggest here, but they were well-enough hidden that characters moving quickly for any reason could and probably would blunder right into them.
I agree that rushing headlong should be its own risk, and even that is an informed choice on the part of the players - so the consequences are commensurate with their choices. Aside from a warning that moving hastily might make them miss secret doors, traps etc., there's nothing else the GM has to advise. Let them lie in the bed of spikes they made.
My favourite way of doing concealed traps: the click rule. It's super simple and goes like this: "As you march down the hallway, you hear a faint 'click' from under your boots. What do you do?". No save or damage yet, and all the tension of standing on a live landmine. You can mix it up with traps that don't give you time to strategize around but still have a click, giving players a single action before shit hits the fan. That way they still have agency, but it's not a puzzle-like obstacle. What's important is that they're thinking about what they could have done to avoid it entirely.
Yeah, this is actually sick advice! The tension is there, and the coolest thing about this as well, is your players will immediately ask for details in the room that would normally be just simple flavour. They step on a pressure plate and hear a click, so they ask 'Okay, do I notice any holes in the wall, or other markings on the floor? And you can describe that in more gritty detail, giving your players tension, but also immersion. 100/10 great advice.
I like mixing visible traps with discharged and hidden traps a lot. Visible traps are a warning sign, and are meant to be seen. Discharged traps are traps that someone else has triggered or disarmed, and make for good flavor text. Hidden traps are a hazard and do give XP when disarmed or triggered.
@@demonzabrak I give xp if the party triggers or disables the trap, not for already discharged traps. Traps are one shot hazards, and are usually dealt with when encountered, and discharged traps that the party finds are set dressing, like cobwebs and dirt in the dungeon. Sorry if I wasn't more clear.
One idea is to show the trap but hide the trigger. Make it so that it's obvious to anyone being careful that danger is present, but maybe the trigger could require more investigation to discover.
Idea: a room which is obviously a falling roof trap. Inside are two ropes - one blue, one red. One lifts a cage, granting access to the treasure chest. One drops the ceiling. Do you snip the red wire, or the blue wire?
@Reggie Jackman Not really. A simple achievable landmine in dnd would be creating a thin clay vessel, and placing a alchemist fire inside, then lightly bury it. While it wouldn't "boom" like a traditional landmine, but a pc's leg would burst into flames and they'd need to put it out. "Machine guns" exist in D&D in the form of Repeater Crossbows. They have a mounted case, usually 6 bolts, and can fire a bolt for each attack made with it, needing to reload when the case is empty.
@Reggie Jackman I mean, no one can force you to like D&D, and if it was one of the worst designed systems, it would've disappeared into the abyss like countless other rpgs. 5E is D&D's most successful iteration of the game, so it must be doing something right.
This advice was so great, literally all I did was place a huge hole in front of my players in a narrow hallways and they seemed to be having much more fun doing that then all the traps I ever had with comparatively useless skill checks.
I had a trap in a cave that was basically just a pit leading to an underground lake. The players could see treasure glittering below the water, but the issue was the water itself would try to grab and drown anyone who touched it. They rigged a net from an extra chainmail shirt they had, tied a rope around one of the player characters, and tossed him into the lake with the mail net to fish out as much treasure as they could. The water would toss him around, but the rest of the PCs just pulled him out if he failed his roll to hold his breath. It was a lot of fun.
Your book Labyrinth is a perfect example of this subject. Almost every encounter is clearly presented and my kids love problem solving a way out without rolling any dice.
Great stuff! I’ve always loved the idea of traps in RPGs, but I’ve never managed to pull them of very well. I’ve only really added one trap that the players had fun with and that was a classic swinging blades trap that I just threw in there in improvised fashion, because I realized that the hallway they where going down was to empty. I didn’t plan any skill checks or anything for the trap, and the trap was obvious. I described how there where giant blades swinging from one side to the other. I thought it was going to be to simple and boring for them but they had a lot of fun looking at their inventories and their spells. Eventually they decided that they wanted to try to freeze the blades with their mage’s once per day ability “Frost nova”. So I allowed it, because it was fun, and they felt really satisfied with it. After watching this video I understand why it was fun, and why that improv trap was actually pretty good. Keep up the good work!
I definitely agree that having obvious hazards is better than a ton of traps. Not only can hidden traps be unfun to traverse, it can also slow the game down to a crawl with the PCs checking every inch as they go. You don't have to come up with a solution to bypass the traps IF there aren't any NPCs that regularly bypass the traps. However, if- for example- the traps are protecting the big bad's treasure room, and the players know that the big bad regularly goes to their treasure room to store or retrieve treasure, then its good to have a solution for how your NPC bypasses the trap. If the NPC designed and/or built the trap, they probably have a secret way to get past it; its unlikely they'd risk their life every time they want to get past the trap.
I think this has completely changed my mind on traps. Also, I have been playing Dungeon World, which has a particular take on traps which I didn't completely grasp. I think the way you explained it applies completely to Dungeon World, so thanks a lot!
I was thinking the same thing as I was watching this - old school complex traps are much more in line with Trap Expert and how it would manifest in the fiction than the 3E-plus traps that have been more the norm for the last 20 years.
considering thieves tools and dexterity checks to disarm traps are commonly a core and defining feature of the rogue that can apparently be passed around like candy via backgrounds. i'd remove the thieves tools from every background and make them rogue exclusive.
Or investigation (based on clues), like a blood trail moves into the entrance of the cave but hen stops suddenly in a clean line. What do you do? "I would like to Investigate."
I largely agree with your take on traps. If you have hidden traps that the players are likely to miss with their usual tactics (passive PER or Take 10 by the best character, for instance), the party will be harmed essentially at random. The only way to stop this random damage is to take more time and search more thoroughly. How much time would you like to spend (either at the gaming table or in world), while the players search every square before entering it. (That's what any sane character would do in that situation unless there were a _very_ strong reason not to. Hidden traps are boring: "Jason Bourne steps into the room, but unfortunately doesn't spot the laser trigger that runs close to the ground. The Claymore mine goes off and turns him into people puree." There's a reason you don't see this* in movies. What you see instead is the interaction of the character with the nefarious creation of the villain. I would modify things just a bit, though. I would set the detection threshold below that of the perception of the best character, so that when circumspectly exploring, the party will virtually always find the trap. But if they get lazy (or start frantically running for some reason, or the character with the best perception is incapacitated), they can still get hit. This gives an advantage to the character who cared enough to boost that skill. Similarly, I would require a roll for at least some of the challenges in the trap, some routine, but some quite difficult: "OK, so you're going to jam the rotating mechanism of the balance beam with a piton.... When you step onto the balance beam, I need Joe to roll his Disarm Trap skill to see how well jamming the beam actually worked.... OK, the beam turns slightly and you hear a grinding sound, it doesn't turn enough to spill Ferdinand the Black, but you see sparks start to fall toward the pool of naphtha." This is similar to what happened to Indy in the first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he knew how to disarm the trap ... in theory. ("The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there's no difference between theory and practice.") * There's an exception for establishing scenes, but those are about establishing the threat, not playing out the story.
I recall one scene in a Bourne movie where he did miss a laser tripwire that set off a silent alarm, telling enemy forces he had entered the room/house/whatever it was in that scene. So it was like a D&D trap ringing the alarm bell.
Do you remember “Taking 20”? Pepperidge Farm remembers. But yeah, taking 20 is how you can check for traps without taking ages making rolls and decisions at the table. It’s not a thing in 5e I think, so I’ll explain it even though it feels very obvious to me. Ignore that bit if you know. It’s like taking 10, but takes 2 minutes instead of 6 seconds. It represents taking time to meticulously and slowly perform the skill check. It requires you to effectively roll a 1, 2, 3… until roll 20 after 20 rounds (2 minutes) of effort. Taking 10 on the other hand is a single round. You just try for average and wind up a half point under. It requires no rolls, and the same amount of time to walk down the hall from a play time perspective. “I walk down the hall, taking 20. I find DC (whatever) traps automatically.” Ta-da. That’s all it took. It’s also why older editions had four types of “turn timers.” 6 second rounds for combat, but also 10 minute rounds for local/dungeon area exploration, hourly for overland exploration, and daily for downtime and the like. You can pick 5 squares to take 20 on per exploration round. Ten minutes deducted from your hour(s) long spells, pick another 5. Repeat until combat. Role play when appropriate. That was the gameplay loop. It took essentially no time, because it is just how searching used to work. You decided fast or slow, and use either 10 or 20.
@@demonzabrak Somebody said, "How much time would you like to spend (either at the gaming table _or in world_)...". Perhaps somebody was thinking of taking 20. So let's examine the process from the in-universe viewpoint: 10' wide hallway that is 100' long with two rooms, each 30' square that need to be searched. Depending on how the GM works, you might also have to search either the walls and ceilings or the upper 5' cubes, since only an idiot would put all the traps at ground level. For this examination, we'll take the more charitable assumption and use the upper cubes, since it's faster. That ends up with 224 5' cubes, which will take 448 minutes to search, or just a bit under eight hours to travel 100' and search two rooms. Perhaps that makes sense in the worlds you play in or run; it makes no sense in mine. Everything in the "dungeon" would attack during that time, either in waves or as a single massed assault. And without that, two rooms per game day is boring and unbalancing, even if you subscribe to the 4-encounter model. (FWIW, I have run as many as 17 encounters in a single game day in a dungeon, because that makes sense to me. YMMV.) "Traps everywhere" is boring, especially if you're not the thief. As for "older systems", let's just say that I first played D&D more than 45 years ago. I was old-school when it was just "school". I graduated.
Great advice. As a player, I don't enjoy rolling dice, I like to co-create the story. I was the thief on our last campaign, so I was disarming several traps. The DM did a great job of describing the traps (he generally skipped detection in the manner you describe). We had fun role playing the disarmament as a group.
I really like how you explained the process and benefits of making traps obvious and more like a hazard. I've almost always do that, but never really thought about why I do it! Great video, Ben :)
"There is 5 of them and 1 of you ; they are going to outthink you every time." I believe this is a maxim to prep by. It sums up my recent experience as a dm very accurately XD
I love the move that the OSR paradigm has made toward increased player agency. The mindset that I see in the games you mention, as well as the 24XX line and Zotiquest games is refreshing: Advise the players of hazards, their risks and consequences... and then let them make informed decisions as to how they intend to approach and resolve the situation. In the worst case, they fail at their attempt (and this goes for anything, not just traps) but there's still involvement and agency and even failure can be interesting, exciting, or entertaining. Nobody loves to be a blind victim of _anything_ in RPGs.
Found your channel a few days ago, and just wanted to say I love your content. I never got to play back in the day, but I enjoy reading through older edition's adventures! And while I love the modern sensibilities/style of play of 5e, I'm constantly finding ways to improve elements of the game (like dungeon crawling) with elements and perspectives from those times - Which is why I find your videos so helpful! So thanks!
An additional problem to DM's that think they need to solve their own traps: they tend to think there is only one solution. That is a puzzle. Also, I disagree with the detection aspect as I think it can make certain players feel that their characters are relevant beyond combat. If the player likes to roll I'll have them roll, and I'll alter the description to suit. "Something's got you on edge," "you smell machine oil," "you wonder why your footsteps sound differently" they will almost always immediately take the cue and start role-playing, even if that isn't their strong suit. At that point they have to start giving me descriptions of hwo they're going to test the environment just to find it. Once that occurs it runs much like you say, although I still often have them roll to see the degree of success. Especially when it involves things like throwing corpses onto pressure plates and the like. There is a high degree of player involvement, and then a roll, which is how I think it should be. Isolated rolls that trigger a success are boring.
I can't tell you how freeing this was. I've always thought I had to anticipate every possible move my players might make as well as the branching paths that each might lead to. This is going to make DMing so much more fun for me!
I think all traps should be accompanied by monsters, so the players can't just take forever to solve it. I ran a trapped room with a pillar in the center that began to fill the room with water, and also deposited snakes into the room. So the party had to deal with snakes while trying to close the trap that was filling the room with water.
Some of my favorite traps are super simple and are super effective in Roll20: - create a complex map of a dungeon, often a sewer, a cave system, or just a maze, it works best if it has multiple levels - create multiple versions of each floor but rotate your map 90 degrees or reverse it, when you design the exit keep this in mind which direction you want to rotate it - when you players go from one map to the next you drag their tokens to that map, and when you drag them back, you drag them onto a different map, this is done if they weren't marking their path along the way. - Quickly they will find themselves doubling back, and each time you can rotate them to a different map - I have one severe system that has about 9 maps that only represent about 3 levels of the sewer but it does a great job of giving the sense that they are lost. - This trick also works great with forests, bogs, or any nature where a predator might lure them off the road into the woods only for the players to realize they are quickly running out of daylight and can't find the road again.
" ...and the modern renaissance that is bringing them back to life". They never died Ben, all versions have been played continuously since publication.
This is SUUUUUCH good advice!!!! I really love the idea of letting the players out-think you *on purpose*. You'll make them feel clever and draw them further into the fiction. I'm going to use these ideas, thanks Ben!
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There is a fourth D: "Death" Traps are designed to kill. That's also the D that makes traps not boring...
I think this is spot on. Especiall the part of basically, setting up a scenario without an predefined notion on how the players are going to solve it. Just create an envirnoment, be ready to improvise as they investigate the situation and come up with their own suggestions, etc. It's a ton of fun and as you say, players frequently come up with really crazy cool ideas you never would have thought of.
My favorite kinds of traps for solo games are just quick little things that add a bit of spice to an encounter, usually something random just drawn from a deck or rolled up on a table. For me, traps are more about the story points they create than anything else.
I'm a big fan of well hidden mimics next to obvious mimics and a wall of fire being put out by pipes while there is also in a illusion fire going on in the exact same place so the players get real confused when their shit "doesn't work" despite there being no more heat
I'm a big fan of giant pit as a low level trap! I absolutely love the traps as hazards technique, and use character choices as what their specific options are. Barbarians get that suspicious tingle, but share heaving a stone door open with fighters. Wizards puzzle out arcane wards with Rogues who get mechanisms and delicate work, and Druids notice the signs of animals or the dissonance of monsters. Player choice is key to engagement, and I find that counts charcter generation choices too! Everybody gets to show off, across the dungeon. I've had some excellent experience running traps like Portal levels, teaching a trap and solution before complicating it, and completely separately as the much maligned quantum ogre. I describe a bunch of features in an empty room, and when players notice or try things, I roll a d4 and let the result tell me which tactic they use works, the first the third whatever. I sometimes use escalating traps! I use initiative order if the game has it, and start things off with a big obvious TRAP BEGINS moment, in the style of an Indiana Jones blade hallway or snake pit, amping up the stakes each cycle.
The detection part can be fun too, as long as it isn't arbitrary. As long as the traps make sense, you're rewarding intelligent play. Mechanical traps have to be maintained or they'll stop functioning after a few years. Unintelligent or disorganized monsters won't bother to maintain traps and organized, intelligent monsters won't put them in halls or rooms that are constantly in use. So your more complicated traps will only be found in key places, like the hallway that leads to the treasure hoard. Traps that are harmless because of rust or accumulated dirt or because someone else triggered them and they were never reset... these all add atmosphere and warn the players to stay on their toes. Another interesting feature is the >unintentional> trap. Old bridges collapse, ceilings fall. Flooded sections can be extremely dangerous if the PCs can't breathe water, especially if it has a strong current.
Brilliant advice, thanks. I would just add that I like players to learn when to look for traps. There are times and conditions when they should expect them. Second note. I like to add a non-obvious solution in a previous room to take get them to think. One of the 1st edition modules in the A series had a sticky creature. In a previous room there was a barrel of alcohol that would neutralize the effects.
Sidenote, there is an analogy here for lovecraftian or mystery ttrpgs - instead of having players roll to find clues, hand the clues to the players directly and let the challenge be to discern information from the clue.
You should check out Torchbearer, it's a system that really nails a gritty dungeon-crawling vibe. Keeps some life in parts of the dungeon that become stale quickly.
Nice Video! My favorite trap so far has been a corridor full of four sets of dormant animated armor with a mechanical mouse and a bell. When the players enter the room, if they walk down the hallway they each make charisma saves to show no trepidation in the silent gaze of the animated armor. If they fail, the armor awakens tries to grapple the players and, initiative is rolled. Then a "combat" occurs where the armor tries to restrain the players while the mechanical mouse moves down the hallway to ring the bell. The mouse is invincible, but every time it is hit with a ranged attack it falls prone due to malfunction and must use its movement to stand up next turn. If the mouse makes it to the end of the hallway, it rings the bell, guards are summoned, and the armor begins to attack the player instead of grappling or restraining them.
Finally someone who said this things, thank you, amazing video. The only real trap I ever made was: in this dungeon at the enter you find a very visible string of steel going wall to wall, with holes in the wall( so you just don't have to touch it). The n, later in the dungeon you find another one, and here also you don't have to do nothing in particular. Finally before the last room of the floor you find another one, but this is different, in fact right before and after it there is ashes of something. Here the player migth say " nothing, just like the others" and go forward, but if they do this after the string there was a pressure plate that the ashes hides and so they will explode and take serious damage. Instead of they think of why there are this ashes and why here and they say they want to see the floor or even not but they just think about one solution, I will reveal the pressure plate that before they don't notice because of the ash. Obviously don't step in the string or the pressure plate doesn't need a check.
Dungeon interior designers must be the most gifted salespeople in the realm. They routinely get evil wizards to spend exorbitant amounts of money on bottomless pits, crazy death machines (that need maintenance) and collections of venomous animals (that have to be fed and cared for), when just a wall with a really sturdy door and a DIY magical ward would do the trick.
This is great stuff! It mirrors a lot of the trap designing process I've been writing up for myself since I've always hated how traditional traps work. This method works perfectly with the aspects of roleplaying games and is, as far as I've been able to tell by playing, the best method!
One I’ve thought of but haven’t figured out the tech. Of it is a room with an incline at one end, an open door, and a constant flow of alchemists fire coming down the incline. Maybe every now and then the floors made of flint, and it’s slippery or hard to climb.
The non trap. A loose stone or similar object triggers an audible illusion somewhere else. The creaking sound of a heavy gate or portcullis being opened out of sight. Followed by a low, angry growl, or groups of growls. This is especially useful when they are trying to accomplish something with a time limit. Also for running out the clock on various protection spells/potions they've used as they make futile searches and backtrack looking for a non-existent enemy.
I love to reduce the need for the detection step by narratively making the party a latecomer to the area. Adventurers before them died in the trap, so physical evidence of their perishing leave clues as to the hazard. Scorched outlines on a wall, bones on the floor with injuries consistent to the trap, and the like.
Enjoyed your commentary. I prefer using traps that cause obstacles, delay, diversions, or even separating members of the party rather than simply causing damage. I think most mechanical traps should also have bypass mechanisms that characters could find. Sort of like finding secret door mechanisms.
Some trap Ideas that I've thoght would be fun.... The bulging door: You've seen this "trap" in cartoons before I'm sure, where an overstuffed closet spills its contents onto anyone unlucky enough to open it.... Same thing really.... You open a door and an avalanche of stuff falls out. Maybe dead bodies, maybe treasure, maybe a bunch of junk or dirt from a cavein, or perhaps a mix of all of the above.. Slides: Well the "Trap" part is what is at the bottom.... Maybe a Gelatinous cube, maybe a pile of garbage in a trash compactor, maybe a rope waiting for the Kobold who built it to swing across to safety while anyone following them down the slide goes off into the pit because the Kobold took the only rope with which to swing across said pit because they went down first... Or maybe there is a spiked door at the bottom the Kobold shut and barred to injure and slow down anyone chasing them... Another good one for Kobolds: Stuff hanging from the ceiling all the way down the hall.... Just string curtains made of Caltrops and fishhooks, soaked in oil and hanging three and a half feet above the ground. Those standing in it have a hard time seeing what is right in front of them.... And at any time the Kobolds can just set the whole thing on fire causing it to eventually drop down to cover the floor in flaming fish hooks and caltrops.... Even without the fish hooks to snag any medium creatures not crawling down that hall, just oil soaked strings could be a hinderance to vision too... and again the threat of flaming string falling down on top of you would still probably be enough to make for some interesting encounters... Though Hanging corpses close enough together to obscure the players vision could be good too.... (As well as a fun hiding place for monsters to drop down from should the players be crawling under them)
The way I've done hidden traps is if they do step on a pressure plate it's very minor and then the rest of the trap is seen to be far more dangerous. So that initial scare is there but it's not punishing. Now the hazard is in place and I follow very similar what you described in the video.
I partially disagree. I think that "detection" is important. If it's totally obvious, then it isn't a "trap". The essence of a trap is to take someone unawares. The key is that interaction with the trap is the result of a player choice. Why go down this hallway, when there are no tracks in the dust? Or the faint sound of hidden machinery? That being said, I prefer not to rely on rolls for searching / disarming; I would rather solve it through description and choices.
@@richmcgee434 I think you have to use common sense, and the content of your site should match the concept. Are you saying that a dungeon cannot have a room or corridor that the inhabitants know to avoid? This whole point sounds like wanting to dogmatically limit design choices because of preferences expressed in the latest hipster rule book. Do whatever you want, obviously, but the hidden trap is a trope for a reason, regardless of whether Ben finds it fun.
I don't think hazards are good and traps are bad. I think the problem is that rolls should never be passive. All rolls should occur as a result of player action. This means it is bad DMing to present a trap without clues to its existence. A hazard is a trap that is presented as obvious. Players need reasons to take action and that only happens because the DM told them there were actions that could be taken. Some players will not enjoy needing to pay tons of attention, especially today when the average person has an attention span measured in seconds. In any case, odds of detection should depend on how obvious the trap is (hazards are 100% obvious while death traps are perhaps only 1-5% obvious and other traps somewhere in between) and what players choose to do to find them (class and circumstance could play a factor here in addition to specific actions as some archetypes will have an easier time than others at detection even if the same approach is used). For disarming, again rolls should occur as a result of player action. When a player declares they want to try to disable a trap the DM should ask how they want to do that. The player can only answer that question if the DM has already provided clues to options through description. Lack of such description indicates a bad DM. Again, circumstances, tools, player action, etc., should determine odds of success in combination with the complexity of a trap. A very complicated trap may even require multiple rolls to disarm/disable different aspects of a trap (I think of it like doing damage to a trap and the trap is no longer dangerous after it has accumulated enough "damage"). Perhaps different pieces of the trap have different difficulties and playera could choose to start by dealing with the more difficult and dangerous portion or with the least dangerous part. Give players enough information to make choices. Finally, for damage players should once again be involved via action. A good DM will have, once again, provided clues on possible strategies to avoid or minimize the bad stuff. The action attempted by the player will suggest what rolls and modifications to apply in an avoidance roll. Depending on the trap a player could avoid the trap entirely, swinging blade, or the character(s) will always receive at least partial damage, gas chamber. Perhaps a trap can be intentionally set off to make it inert and safe without any damage to characters. The key is to engage in dialog with players providing as much information as possible and reasonable so players can make choices and take action along the way. I mean, if we run combats the same way people seem to run traps, then combat would be just as boring and not engaging. Player A swings, roll dice, success, roll damage. Player B swings, roll dice, failure. Player C swings, roll dice, ... you get the point.
This video does have a lot of good advice on how to run better traps by turning them into hazards but the techniques should be used for all trap types to different degrees. This is a great video!
Great video! You framed in the issue that I have with modern trap mechanics in dungeons and dragons 5E. I often make the passive perception DC to notice a trap extremely high, but if they verbalized that they are actively checking for traps, I make them very obvious. To me that’s just a matter of getting them engaged in the moment and not just running on auto pilot. I also completely agree with the notion that you should design a trap without a solution in mind. Often, if you’re thinking about how to solve it, you’re forcing the players to think exactly the way you do. It’s much more engaging and fun for them to be completely creative on their own and come up with solutions you hadn’t even considered.
great advice! Another idea to solve the "detection" problem is to make sure there are signs of previous victims. i.e. smeared bloodstains, severed limbs, crushed piles of bones, etc... that tip players off.
Well, your description of how "it is currently done" was a revelation for me, again! I constantly ask myself, do people really play that way? And the answer is YES! They are using an RPG to emulate their computer games.
This reminds me of the ethos for traps by the roguelike game: Brogue. The author believes that the ideal trap creates organic drama and puzzles in concert with the rest of the environment plus the monsters. Sometimes monsters will trigger traps and catch you in them, or you can use traps as a desperate effort to overcome powerful monsters. Great comment btw on not needing to anticipate the answer to the puzzle. If the obstacle is plausible, naturally fits into the dungeons, and is built from the perspective of legitimate security, there may be many solutions.
5e does have rules for disarming traps, you can disarm them solely through roleplay. It’s more than just ‘make a roll’. It still isn’t great, the detection issue, but the game is very helpful with ‘yeah just put a shield in front of the dart trap’
Hiding traps doesn't even make sense in the fiction. You WANT people to know there is a trap, a trap is a deterrent! If people don't know about it they still go into your dungeon, set them off and then you have to deal with getting rid of the body, rearming the trap which has some cost. Heck your probably not even there to reset it. If you know there's a deadly trap, most would think twice about adventuring into your dungeon. It's like I tell you : this high voltage wire might or might not have current. If it does it'll kill you. Even if there's only 1% chance, would you risk it?
Great episode! 😃 I've watched it a few times now! Pretty much every time old modules mention annoying traps 😆 Also cool to see a copy of the old Into the Odd rules! I don't know if I'll ever find one but I'd love to get a copy someday! 🥰
Tomb of Annihilation do this very well. The moment the players enter a room in the "Tomb of Nine Gods" they know there is a trap there. They know the tomb is a giant death trap.
As a dm I absolutely love traps. They are fun and make the players think. Some are devious some are dangerous. Traps are fun. I like them as a player. Please don't take all the cool stuff.
Funny. I was watching this to help with the 2nd and basement levels of my dungeon and when you described the portcullis trick, I remembered I had the same trick in my 1st level where, when the party gets to a certain room, a portcullis blocks off the entrance and a tentacled creature lurches from the corner. I even had a second door that cannot be open unless the portcullis is lifted. And if you open the door from the other side, it slams shut and pushes whatever is front of it inside. Along with the portcullis closing and the door locking.
Really a neat take on traps. However, I still would think, hiding some (maybe not all) traps just a bit - instead of an open pit, a swinging floor for example - so the thief can nail one or two climbing irons right above the floor in the wall to stop the floor from see-sawing down, when you cross the axis, also gives a lot of opportunity to interact. And in general I like the old-school approach to traps (back in the day when we hadn't this new-fangled 'detection' skill) - pour water on the ground to look for little gaps, throw a stone on a suspected pressure plate, stuff some wooden stakes in the suspected arrow-hole or just duck and run under the flame throwers...
I tried to make a puzzle simple for my party and they spent 20 mins analyzing the whole room. All they needed to do was pull the blue lever that was hinted to by the blue symbol on the wall above the three levers(yellow red blue)
A tip to dm"s is you dont necessarily need to have a solution for any trap prepared. For 90% of the traps I make i dont even think of solutions. Let the players thrive and figure something out and surprise you. The results can be awesome!
First time seeing your channel in my feed and loved your video; hitting lots of notes I think about when running my games too. Traps as a HP tax are just awful. I also enjoy running traps whose outcome is putting the party in a more dire situation (a trap that alerts the enemy of your arrival instead of just doing 1d10 bludgeoning damage). At any rate, you've got my sub! Well done.
I like to present facilitated traps at the beginners with clues, dead body, something already open, even false traps that could never act anymore. However, my main problem is creating traps for the high levels and expert players that already know all the alternative ways to pass them. Lately, i like to combine traps. A pit with spikes and giant rats waiting for a new body. A pit that opening releases a storm of bats confounding the players during the actions. A hidden malevolent cleric casting curses on the players while they are trying to pass the trap. An evident trap in the floor while there is another one hidden on the ceiling. A huge mechanical trap that when the rogue fails to break involve also the other players behind even if they are very far, like a flooding corridor. Or even traps that are controlled by the enemies that do not leave the rogue the time to break them. Among the advanced ones, a pit hidden under the dust, under which a spiked ball starts to rotate, under which a magical portal to the void attracts everything trying to pass over the open pit, while a huge monster lurks in the dark corner. Believe me, my players pass it anyway often without damage. :-( If you know epic advanced or combined traps reply please!
While I agree with not worrying about the solution to a trap or obstacle, if it was placed by an intelligent being, it has to be able to be bypassed by them from the "this is the stuff/place being protected" side of it. Whether that bypass is an obvious level on the far side from the PCs POV, or a hidden switch around the corner out of the PCs sight, or a secret path around the hazard, there has to be a way for those who made/set the hazard to have set it, and possibly to get back out when they need to. Like the knob on the inside of your deadbolt that requires a key from the outside.
4:30 Remember in Knights of the Dinner Table, when Bob the Thief wasn't able to play for some time, and the rest of them are trying to take a jeweled egg (?) from in the center of a rug, and they can't walk on the rug, can't use magic, can't do a lot of things because the high-level guardians are keeping things fair for all the contestants, making sure everyone follows the rules? And when Bob comes back, his solution is so simple, the rest of the party attacks him for being right? Just describing the trap, which technically this side quest represents, I guess, and he describes what he character does.
I'd encourage you to revisit this topic. I say this in light of Seth Skorkowsky's video distinguishing traps, obstacles, puzzles, and tricks. I would say "Traps" should remain hidden but many of the things referred to as traps are really obstacles, which should be observable without detection.
I wrote a tome of encounters for Nerdarchy (Out of the Box Encounters, which is now printed and shipping out for Kickstarter backers). In that book there's an encounter called "Balance". This is a puzzle and trap all in one, but not with the players' safety in jeopardy. No. There's an NPC in critical danger and it's up to the players to come up with a solution to save this NPC from being dropped into a pool of acid by solving a complicated trap that needs perfect balance. I put no solution in it because players will always come up with their own. Another trap I've used is one that triggers future events. A series of murder holes above an entrance will spill sheep's blood and fat on the players from above, which will trigger guard animals ahead. Now the players have to consider their approach and if they clean up, rush forward, or use it as a lure. The rank smell of this blood from above will be their clue, and what they do with that clue is their choice. I've also had a pit that moves about like a construct, which is triggered by noise. Some players literally fell for it (pun intended) and bashed at it from inside the pit, while others threw objects and such to lure it away. Again - it came down to player-based solutions. I've used Green Slime a lot, until players started farming it and gathering it up into ceramic jars to use as grenades. Again, player ingenuity. I've seen doors removed from hinges to be later used as bridges over pits or makeshift rafts to cross water. I've seen wooden walkways with archers set ablaze to remove an ambush, and flour used to generate dust explosions. The players became expert sappers after being exposed to trap after trap, upping my game. Give the players more credit, I say.
Something else that we need to keep in mind about traps, and I didn't really see it mentioned in this extensive discussion: Whoever placed the trap had to have an obvious method in mind to disarm it themselves, otherwise it would be as much of a risk to them as to others. Why would you trap your treasure room in a way that prevented even you from getting to it? What good does it do to make an impassable minefield if it keeps the owner out as well? Consider the trapper's intent and aims, and how they would avoid it _themselves_ . Keeping that notion in mind changes the way that GMs and even players approach the concept of traps.
I am a DM, been doing it since 1980. In that time I have concluded that traps are not popular and generally considered a pest. Players hate them. I hate them. They are zero fun and add nothing of any interest, ever. Traps are not puzzles, they are just a damage tax, they slow thing down and add nothing interesting to the plot or story. I have tried various methods but have concluded that simply removing them entirely and not telling anyone seems to work best. The game runs smoothly and has a better pace. Nobody notices their omission and that speaks volumes in and of itself.
DM since '79 here. Mostly agree with you but I still use traps in places that would logically have them. Tombs with few guardians, set by goblins/kobolds/monsters as part of their lair protection set up, and the occasional ancient magical place that has defenses against intruders. My players are mostly from my generation so they expect traps in such circumstances and like to 'match wits' with me old school style.
Yes yes yes perfect. Traps should be fun and interesting for players and GM, not punishment for failure to have a high passive perception, dexterity roll or 10-foot pole. Great design philosophy, and excellent example!
Excellent advice! Thank you, sir for your knowledge and insights. Also, I finally broke down and signed up for your newsletter after I caught a glimpse of the conceptual magic blog articles you recommended.
"You can make the clues super obvious like blood everywhere and skeletons with their heads cut off" My dear players entered a room with three corpses with signs of poisoning in a single row, with arrows sticking out of them, and statues showing snakes with open mouths on the side, and walked right into the pressure plate dart shooting trap without a second thought.
One “trap” my players bested was just a giant room with a thin hallway leading towards it, in the giant room is an enormous toad who’s tounge could travel down the hallway, they just covered the smallest with poison...
Great thoughts and advice! I do think there is a place for hidden traps - but how about this: add a one round delay. So after the PC triggers a trap, there is a few seconds (accompanied by ticking, whirring, or whatever sound or signal you desire) during which the players must decide how to prepare for whatever is about to happen. If they have been searching thoroughly they may have spotted clues (holes for darts, scrape marks for falling ceilings etc) but the trigger itself should almost always be undetectable (but with a 50% chance to trigger for each passing PC). I think this method captures the cinematic feel of traps from movies, where you will always have that "oh shit" moment when the trap is sprung, but the effect has yet to go off.
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Can you add closed captions to this, please? I am deaf and want to watch the video but it doesn't have captions. :(
@@bethanytaylor554 If you wait for a week or so Google will automatically add captions. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to do captions for my videos.
I’ve been playing DND for 35 years and this is one of the best takes on how to run tricks / traps I’ve seen. Excellent treatment
Perhaps traps could be divided into the categorys of "Trick" (Where it doesn't actually harm the player but inconveniences them somehow), Hazard(Where it can harm the player, though is usually obvious enough that you'll probably see it without having to specifically looking for it as long as you aren't rushing ahead or acting recklessly...)
And Ambush, where the thread of harm is still there but it's more of an attack activated by whatever enemies are attacking you... (Like a Kobold trying to swing a Bear trap into your face to lock you down while the others pepper your character with arrows and the one that swung in on the bear trap is now trying to shank you as well...)
@@minnion2871 I concur with this thought. The 1e DMG Appendices G and H provides tables and guidance for Tricks and Traps, but does make a fairly clear delineation between one being a harm / hazard (traps) and the other more of a puzzle, obstacle, or weird occurrence (tricks) for the PCs to overcome or at least deal with. Not to say that a trick can’t be hazardous or harmful, but I believe the spirit of the thing is as per your point.
One of the best "traps" I ever made wasn't even a trap at all. It was just a (recently deceased) mad scientist's normal bedroom in his hidden lair. By the time they reached it, they had already had several things try to kill them, so when they found a normal looking door, they went full S.W.A.T. team, and tried to breach and clear the room, and whatever baddies were hiding inside. The door was actually unlocked, and the room was mostly empty with just some mundane set dressing that elaborated on the scientists tastes and interests. Their paranoia nearly got them to start a fire in an underground bunker with poor ventilation, and almost turned a totally safe room into a potentially deadly scenario.
Sometimes the absence of any *actual* danger can be one of the most deadly things a party of overly paranoid adventures can encounter!
DIABOLICAL, hahaha
the trap _is_ the player!
This is genius
No party I have ever played has been able to just cross a simple nondescript bridge without becoming paranoid. It must be a trap!
In old-school dungeon crawling, it was assumed that searching carefully for traps came at the expense of time. Traps were largely just revealed if they were going slowly and carefully, just as you suggest here, but they were well-enough hidden that characters moving quickly for any reason could and probably would blunder right into them.
Good point! Really great reminder as to why movement rates actually mean something.
I agree that rushing headlong should be its own risk, and even that is an informed choice on the part of the players - so the consequences are commensurate with their choices.
Aside from a warning that moving hastily might make them miss secret doors, traps etc., there's nothing else the GM has to advise. Let them lie in the bed of spikes they made.
My favourite way of doing concealed traps: the click rule. It's super simple and goes like this: "As you march down the hallway, you hear a faint 'click' from under your boots. What do you do?". No save or damage yet, and all the tension of standing on a live landmine. You can mix it up with traps that don't give you time to strategize around but still have a click, giving players a single action before shit hits the fan. That way they still have agency, but it's not a puzzle-like obstacle. What's important is that they're thinking about what they could have done to avoid it entirely.
love this!
Click is great, been using it 3 months and it’s great
I heard about this from Dael Kingsmill, who got it from someone else haha. But yeah I love the idea!
Yeah, this is actually sick advice! The tension is there, and the coolest thing about this as well, is your players will immediately ask for details in the room that would normally be just simple flavour. They step on a pressure plate and hear a click, so they ask 'Okay, do I notice any holes in the wall, or other markings on the floor? And you can describe that in more gritty detail, giving your players tension, but also immersion. 100/10 great advice.
Love this, mix in at a roughly 11 : 1 : 8 ratio with obvious hazards:standard traps:time-delayed traps with obvious signal on preparing to activate.
I like mixing visible traps with discharged and hidden traps a lot. Visible traps are a warning sign, and are meant to be seen. Discharged traps are traps that someone else has triggered or disarmed, and make for good flavor text. Hidden traps are a hazard and do give XP when disarmed or triggered.
Serious question: why XP for being discharged? It feels like giving XP for getting attacked by a monster and immediately running away.
@@demonzabrak I give xp if the party triggers or disables the trap, not for already discharged traps. Traps are one shot hazards, and are usually dealt with when encountered, and discharged traps that the party finds are set dressing, like cobwebs and dirt in the dungeon. Sorry if I wasn't more clear.
One idea is to show the trap but hide the trigger. Make it so that it's obvious to anyone being careful that danger is present, but maybe the trigger could require more investigation to discover.
Idea: a room which is obviously a falling roof trap. Inside are two ropes - one blue, one red. One lifts a cage, granting access to the treasure chest. One drops the ceiling. Do you snip the red wire, or the blue wire?
A good D&D trap should threaten a high-level PC, but can be solved by a first level one.
Instakill landmines.
Walking along, then boom, no more adventurer.
@@zubbworks I'm not sure you're following the spirit of the original poster, there...
@@benvoliothefirst With a spot check of like 12 or something.
@Reggie Jackman
Not really.
A simple achievable landmine in dnd would be creating a thin clay vessel, and placing a alchemist fire inside, then lightly bury it.
While it wouldn't "boom" like a traditional landmine, but a pc's leg would burst into flames and they'd need to put it out.
"Machine guns" exist in D&D in the form of Repeater Crossbows. They have a mounted case, usually 6 bolts, and can fire a bolt for each attack made with it, needing to reload when the case is empty.
@Reggie Jackman
I mean, no one can force you to like D&D, and if it was one of the worst designed systems, it would've disappeared into the abyss like countless other rpgs.
5E is D&D's most successful iteration of the game, so it must be doing something right.
This advice was so great, literally all I did was place a huge hole in front of my players in a narrow hallways and they seemed to be having much more fun doing that then all the traps I ever had with comparatively useless skill checks.
I had a trap in a cave that was basically just a pit leading to an underground lake. The players could see treasure glittering below the water, but the issue was the water itself would try to grab and drown anyone who touched it.
They rigged a net from an extra chainmail shirt they had, tied a rope around one of the player characters, and tossed him into the lake with the mail net to fish out as much treasure as they could. The water would toss him around, but the rest of the PCs just pulled him out if he failed his roll to hold his breath.
It was a lot of fun.
Your book Labyrinth is a perfect example of this subject. Almost every encounter is clearly presented and my kids love problem solving a way out without rolling any dice.
Agreed! The Labyrinth game is a master class in non-combat-oriented role-playing. Great for kids and adults too!
This has a cool background / camera set up.
I particularly like the map of Sigil...!
Thanks!
I just commented the same thing basically. I agree completely. 👍🏻👍🏻
Great stuff! I’ve always loved the idea of traps in RPGs, but I’ve never managed to pull them of very well. I’ve only really added one trap that the players had fun with and that was a classic swinging blades trap that I just threw in there in improvised fashion, because I realized that the hallway they where going down was to empty. I didn’t plan any skill checks or anything for the trap, and the trap was obvious. I described how there where giant blades swinging from one side to the other. I thought it was going to be to simple and boring for them but they had a lot of fun looking at their inventories and their spells. Eventually they decided that they wanted to try to freeze the blades with their mage’s once per day ability “Frost nova”. So I allowed it, because it was fun, and they felt really satisfied with it.
After watching this video I understand why it was fun, and why that improv trap was actually pretty good.
Keep up the good work!
I definitely agree that having obvious hazards is better than a ton of traps. Not only can hidden traps be unfun to traverse, it can also slow the game down to a crawl with the PCs checking every inch as they go.
You don't have to come up with a solution to bypass the traps IF there aren't any NPCs that regularly bypass the traps. However, if- for example- the traps are protecting the big bad's treasure room, and the players know that the big bad regularly goes to their treasure room to store or retrieve treasure, then its good to have a solution for how your NPC bypasses the trap. If the NPC designed and/or built the trap, they probably have a secret way to get past it; its unlikely they'd risk their life every time they want to get past the trap.
I think this has completely changed my mind on traps. Also, I have been playing Dungeon World, which has a particular take on traps which I didn't completely grasp. I think the way you explained it applies completely to Dungeon World, so thanks a lot!
I was thinking the same thing as I was watching this - old school complex traps are much more in line with Trap Expert and how it would manifest in the fiction than the 3E-plus traps that have been more the norm for the last 20 years.
considering thieves tools and dexterity checks to disarm traps are commonly a core and defining feature of the rogue that can apparently be passed around like candy via backgrounds. i'd remove the thieves tools from every background and make them rogue exclusive.
Yes, this is excellent, you're really spelling out a lot of my more unformed thoughts on the matter. Well done.
Or investigation (based on clues), like a blood trail moves into the entrance of the cave but hen stops suddenly in a clean line. What do you do?
"I would like to Investigate."
I largely agree with your take on traps.
If you have hidden traps that the players are likely to miss with their usual tactics (passive PER or Take 10 by the best character, for instance), the party will be harmed essentially at random. The only way to stop this random damage is to take more time and search more thoroughly. How much time would you like to spend (either at the gaming table or in world), while the players search every square before entering it. (That's what any sane character would do in that situation unless there were a _very_ strong reason not to.
Hidden traps are boring: "Jason Bourne steps into the room, but unfortunately doesn't spot the laser trigger that runs close to the ground. The Claymore mine goes off and turns him into people puree." There's a reason you don't see this* in movies. What you see instead is the interaction of the character with the nefarious creation of the villain.
I would modify things just a bit, though. I would set the detection threshold below that of the perception of the best character, so that when circumspectly exploring, the party will virtually always find the trap. But if they get lazy (or start frantically running for some reason, or the character with the best perception is incapacitated), they can still get hit. This gives an advantage to the character who cared enough to boost that skill. Similarly, I would require a roll for at least some of the challenges in the trap, some routine, but some quite difficult: "OK, so you're going to jam the rotating mechanism of the balance beam with a piton.... When you step onto the balance beam, I need Joe to roll his Disarm Trap skill to see how well jamming the beam actually worked.... OK, the beam turns slightly and you hear a grinding sound, it doesn't turn enough to spill Ferdinand the Black, but you see sparks start to fall toward the pool of naphtha." This is similar to what happened to Indy in the first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he knew how to disarm the trap ... in theory. ("The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there's no difference between theory and practice.")
* There's an exception for establishing scenes, but those are about establishing the threat, not playing out the story.
I recall one scene in a Bourne movie where he did miss a laser tripwire that set off a silent alarm, telling enemy forces he had entered the room/house/whatever it was in that scene. So it was like a D&D trap ringing the alarm bell.
Or the party can use better tactics.
Do you remember “Taking 20”? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
But yeah, taking 20 is how you can check for traps without taking ages making rolls and decisions at the table. It’s not a thing in 5e I think, so I’ll explain it even though it feels very obvious to me. Ignore that bit if you know.
It’s like taking 10, but takes 2 minutes instead of 6 seconds. It represents taking time to meticulously and slowly perform the skill check. It requires you to effectively roll a 1, 2, 3… until roll 20 after 20 rounds (2 minutes) of effort.
Taking 10 on the other hand is a single round. You just try for average and wind up a half point under.
It requires no rolls, and the same amount of time to walk down the hall from a play time perspective. “I walk down the hall, taking 20. I find DC (whatever) traps automatically.”
Ta-da. That’s all it took.
It’s also why older editions had four types of “turn timers.” 6 second rounds for combat, but also 10 minute rounds for local/dungeon area exploration, hourly for overland exploration, and daily for downtime and the like. You can pick 5 squares to take 20 on per exploration round. Ten minutes deducted from your hour(s) long spells, pick another 5. Repeat until combat. Role play when appropriate.
That was the gameplay loop. It took essentially no time, because it is just how searching used to work. You decided fast or slow, and use either 10 or 20.
@@demonzabrak Somebody said, "How much time would you like to spend (either at the gaming table _or in world_)...". Perhaps somebody was thinking of taking 20.
So let's examine the process from the in-universe viewpoint: 10' wide hallway that is 100' long with two rooms, each 30' square that need to be searched. Depending on how the GM works, you might also have to search either the walls and ceilings or the upper 5' cubes, since only an idiot would put all the traps at ground level. For this examination, we'll take the more charitable assumption and use the upper cubes, since it's faster.
That ends up with 224 5' cubes, which will take 448 minutes to search, or just a bit under eight hours to travel 100' and search two rooms. Perhaps that makes sense in the worlds you play in or run; it makes no sense in mine. Everything in the "dungeon" would attack during that time, either in waves or as a single massed assault.
And without that, two rooms per game day is boring and unbalancing, even if you subscribe to the 4-encounter model. (FWIW, I have run as many as 17 encounters in a single game day in a dungeon, because that makes sense to me. YMMV.)
"Traps everywhere" is boring, especially if you're not the thief.
As for "older systems", let's just say that I first played D&D more than 45 years ago. I was old-school when it was just "school". I graduated.
Great advice. As a player, I don't enjoy rolling dice, I like to co-create the story. I was the thief on our last campaign, so I was disarming several traps. The DM did a great job of describing the traps (he generally skipped detection in the manner you describe). We had fun role playing the disarmament as a group.
Nah I'll stick to my pit in front of treasure, thanks. Can't beat that!
I really like how you explained the process and benefits of making traps obvious and more like a hazard. I've almost always do that, but never really thought about why I do it! Great video, Ben :)
"There is 5 of them and 1 of you ; they are going to outthink you every time."
I believe this is a maxim to prep by. It sums up my recent experience as a dm very accurately XD
The best video on traps I have seen so far thank you
I love the move that the OSR paradigm has made toward increased player agency. The mindset that I see in the games you mention, as well as the 24XX line and Zotiquest games is refreshing: Advise the players of hazards, their risks and consequences... and then let them make informed decisions as to how they intend to approach and resolve the situation.
In the worst case, they fail at their attempt (and this goes for anything, not just traps) but there's still involvement and agency and even failure can be interesting, exciting, or entertaining. Nobody loves to be a blind victim of _anything_ in RPGs.
Found your channel a few days ago, and just wanted to say I love your content. I never got to play back in the day, but I enjoy reading through older edition's adventures! And while I love the modern sensibilities/style of play of 5e, I'm constantly finding ways to improve elements of the game (like dungeon crawling) with elements and perspectives from those times - Which is why I find your videos so helpful! So thanks!
When thinking about how to portray traps in an action packed way I'd look to the Indiana Jones trilogy for inspiration.
An additional problem to DM's that think they need to solve their own traps: they tend to think there is only one solution. That is a puzzle. Also, I disagree with the detection aspect as I think it can make certain players feel that their characters are relevant beyond combat. If the player likes to roll I'll have them roll, and I'll alter the description to suit. "Something's got you on edge," "you smell machine oil," "you wonder why your footsteps sound differently" they will almost always immediately take the cue and start role-playing, even if that isn't their strong suit.
At that point they have to start giving me descriptions of hwo they're going to test the environment just to find it. Once that occurs it runs much like you say, although I still often have them roll to see the degree of success. Especially when it involves things like throwing corpses onto pressure plates and the like. There is a high degree of player involvement, and then a roll, which is how I think it should be. Isolated rolls that trigger a success are boring.
I can't tell you how freeing this was. I've always thought I had to anticipate every possible move my players might make as well as the branching paths that each might lead to. This is going to make DMing so much more fun for me!
I think all traps should be accompanied by monsters, so the players can't just take forever to solve it.
I ran a trapped room with a pillar in the center that began to fill the room with water, and also deposited snakes into the room. So the party had to deal with snakes while trying to close the trap that was filling the room with water.
Some of my favorite traps are super simple and are super effective in Roll20:
- create a complex map of a dungeon, often a sewer, a cave system, or just a maze, it works best if it has multiple levels
- create multiple versions of each floor but rotate your map 90 degrees or reverse it, when you design the exit keep this in mind which direction you want to rotate it
- when you players go from one map to the next you drag their tokens to that map, and when you drag them back, you drag them onto a different map, this is done if they weren't marking their path along the way.
- Quickly they will find themselves doubling back, and each time you can rotate them to a different map
- I have one severe system that has about 9 maps that only represent about 3 levels of the sewer but it does a great job of giving the sense that they are lost.
- This trick also works great with forests, bogs, or any nature where a predator might lure them off the road into the woods only for the players to realize they are quickly running out of daylight and can't find the road again.
" ...and the modern renaissance that is bringing them back to life". They never died Ben, all versions have been played continuously since publication.
This is SUUUUUCH good advice!!!! I really love the idea of letting the players out-think you *on purpose*. You'll make them feel clever and draw them further into the fiction. I'm going to use these ideas, thanks Ben!
There is a fourth D: "Death"
Traps are designed to kill. That's also the D that makes traps not boring...
I think this is spot on. Especiall the part of basically, setting up a scenario without an predefined notion on how the players are going to solve it. Just create an envirnoment, be ready to improvise as they investigate the situation and come up with their own suggestions, etc. It's a ton of fun and as you say, players frequently come up with really crazy cool ideas you never would have thought of.
I agree. Traps are best played as puzzles. You have, by the way, made an excellent argument for diceless role playing.
My favorite kinds of traps for solo games are just quick little things that add a bit of spice to an encounter, usually something random just drawn from a deck or rolled up on a table. For me, traps are more about the story points they create than anything else.
I'm a big fan of well hidden mimics next to obvious mimics and a wall of fire being put out by pipes while there is also in a illusion fire going on in the exact same place so the players get real confused when their shit "doesn't work" despite there being no more heat
Really good essay on traps. You've changed my mind about this topic. -- Kudos for the Time Bandits map. Make sure Supreme Being gets it back.
I'm a big fan of giant pit as a low level trap! I absolutely love the traps as hazards technique, and use character choices as what their specific options are. Barbarians get that suspicious tingle, but share heaving a stone door open with fighters. Wizards puzzle out arcane wards with Rogues who get mechanisms and delicate work, and Druids notice the signs of animals or the dissonance of monsters. Player choice is key to engagement, and I find that counts charcter generation choices too! Everybody gets to show off, across the dungeon.
I've had some excellent experience running traps like Portal levels, teaching a trap and solution before complicating it, and completely separately as the much maligned quantum ogre. I describe a bunch of features in an empty room, and when players notice or try things, I roll a d4 and let the result tell me which tactic they use works, the first the third whatever.
I sometimes use escalating traps! I use initiative order if the game has it, and start things off with a big obvious TRAP BEGINS moment, in the style of an Indiana Jones blade hallway or snake pit, amping up the stakes each cycle.
The detection part can be fun too, as long as it isn't arbitrary. As long as the traps make sense, you're rewarding intelligent play. Mechanical traps have to be maintained or they'll stop functioning after a few years. Unintelligent or disorganized monsters won't bother to maintain traps and organized, intelligent monsters won't put them in halls or rooms that are constantly in use. So your more complicated traps will only be found in key places, like the hallway that leads to the treasure hoard.
Traps that are harmless because of rust or accumulated dirt or because someone else triggered them and they were never reset... these all add atmosphere and warn the players to stay on their toes.
Another interesting feature is the >unintentional> trap. Old bridges collapse, ceilings fall. Flooded sections can be extremely dangerous if the PCs can't breathe water, especially if it has a strong current.
Brilliant advice, thanks. I would just add that I like players to learn when to look for traps. There are times and conditions when they should expect them. Second note. I like to add a non-obvious solution in a previous room to take get them to think. One of the 1st edition modules in the A series had a sticky creature. In a previous room there was a barrel of alcohol that would neutralize the effects.
Sidenote, there is an analogy here for lovecraftian or mystery ttrpgs - instead of having players roll to find clues, hand the clues to the players directly and let the challenge be to discern information from the clue.
You should check out Torchbearer, it's a system that really nails a gritty dungeon-crawling vibe. Keeps some life in parts of the dungeon that become stale quickly.
Nice Video! My favorite trap so far has been a corridor full of four sets of dormant animated armor with a mechanical mouse and a bell.
When the players enter the room, if they walk down the hallway they each make charisma saves to show no trepidation in the silent gaze of the animated armor. If they fail, the armor awakens tries to grapple the players and, initiative is rolled.
Then a "combat" occurs where the armor tries to restrain the players while the mechanical mouse moves down the hallway to ring the bell. The mouse is invincible, but every time it is hit with a ranged attack it falls prone due to malfunction and must use its movement to stand up next turn. If the mouse makes it to the end of the hallway, it rings the bell, guards are summoned, and the armor begins to attack the player instead of grappling or restraining them.
This is a simple step but it makes so much sense and there are examples too! very good guide
Finally someone who said this things, thank you, amazing video.
The only real trap I ever made was: in this dungeon at the enter you find a very visible string of steel going wall to wall, with holes in the wall( so you just don't have to touch it). The n, later in the dungeon you find another one, and here also you don't have to do nothing in particular. Finally before the last room of the floor you find another one, but this is different, in fact right before and after it there is ashes of something. Here the player migth say " nothing, just like the others" and go forward, but if they do this after the string there was a pressure plate that the ashes hides and so they will explode and take serious damage. Instead of they think of why there are this ashes and why here and they say they want to see the floor or even not but they just think about one solution, I will reveal the pressure plate that before they don't notice because of the ash. Obviously don't step in the string or the pressure plate doesn't need a check.
Dungeon interior designers must be the most gifted salespeople in the realm. They routinely get evil wizards to spend exorbitant amounts of money on bottomless pits, crazy death machines (that need maintenance) and collections of venomous animals (that have to be fed and cared for), when just a wall with a really sturdy door and a DIY magical ward would do the trick.
Been trying to work out how I wanted to run traps in my Superhero game, this really helped. Allows for way more creativity
This is great stuff! It mirrors a lot of the trap designing process I've been writing up for myself since I've always hated how traditional traps work. This method works perfectly with the aspects of roleplaying games and is, as far as I've been able to tell by playing, the best method!
One I’ve thought of but haven’t figured out the tech. Of it is a room with an incline at one end, an open door, and a constant flow of alchemists fire coming down the incline. Maybe every now and then the floors made of flint, and it’s slippery or hard to climb.
The non trap. A loose stone or similar object triggers an audible illusion somewhere else. The creaking sound of a heavy gate or portcullis being opened out of sight. Followed by a low, angry growl, or groups of growls.
This is especially useful when they are trying to accomplish something with a time limit. Also for running out the clock on various protection spells/potions they've used as they make futile searches and backtrack looking for a non-existent enemy.
I love to reduce the need for the detection step by narratively making the party a latecomer to the area. Adventurers before them died in the trap, so physical evidence of their perishing leave clues as to the hazard. Scorched outlines on a wall, bones on the floor with injuries consistent to the trap, and the like.
Ben, I’m loving your recording space. The background of your video is inspiring, to match your videos. Great channel, man. Great channel.
Thanks! It's mostly due to patrons that I could buy all that art.
These tips are great. Immersive sessions can be harder to prep but it's worth it
This is one of your best videos ever - gave me a lot to think about when designing my next dungeon!
Enjoyed your commentary. I prefer using traps that cause obstacles, delay, diversions, or even separating members of the party rather than simply causing damage. I think most mechanical traps should also have bypass mechanisms that characters could find. Sort of like finding secret door mechanisms.
Some trap Ideas that I've thoght would be fun....
The bulging door: You've seen this "trap" in cartoons before I'm sure, where an overstuffed closet spills its contents onto anyone unlucky enough to open it.... Same thing really.... You open a door and an avalanche of stuff falls out. Maybe dead bodies, maybe treasure, maybe a bunch of junk or dirt from a cavein, or perhaps a mix of all of the above..
Slides: Well the "Trap" part is what is at the bottom.... Maybe a Gelatinous cube, maybe a pile of garbage in a trash compactor, maybe a rope waiting for the Kobold who built it to swing across to safety while anyone following them down the slide goes off into the pit because the Kobold took the only rope with which to swing across said pit because they went down first... Or maybe there is a spiked door at the bottom the Kobold shut and barred to injure and slow down anyone chasing them...
Another good one for Kobolds: Stuff hanging from the ceiling all the way down the hall.... Just string curtains made of Caltrops and fishhooks, soaked in oil and hanging three and a half feet above the ground. Those standing in it have a hard time seeing what is right in front of them.... And at any time the Kobolds can just set the whole thing on fire causing it to eventually drop down to cover the floor in flaming fish hooks and caltrops.... Even without the fish hooks to snag any medium creatures not crawling down that hall, just oil soaked strings could be a hinderance to vision too... and again the threat of flaming string falling down on top of you would still probably be enough to make for some interesting encounters...
Though Hanging corpses close enough together to obscure the players vision could be good too.... (As well as a fun hiding place for monsters to drop down from should the players be crawling under them)
The way I've done hidden traps is if they do step on a pressure plate it's very minor and then the rest of the trap is seen to be far more dangerous. So that initial scare is there but it's not punishing. Now the hazard is in place and I follow very similar what you described in the video.
I partially disagree. I think that "detection" is important. If it's totally obvious, then it isn't a "trap". The essence of a trap is to take someone unawares. The key is that interaction with the trap is the result of a player choice. Why go down this hallway, when there are no tracks in the dust? Or the faint sound of hidden machinery? That being said, I prefer not to rely on rolls for searching / disarming; I would rather solve it through description and choices.
@@richmcgee434 I think you have to use common sense, and the content of your site should match the concept. Are you saying that a dungeon cannot have a room or corridor that the inhabitants know to avoid? This whole point sounds like wanting to dogmatically limit design choices because of preferences expressed in the latest hipster rule book. Do whatever you want, obviously, but the hidden trap is a trope for a reason, regardless of whether Ben finds it fun.
@aaron Yes, you are right. It isnt a trap, it's a hazard. Hazards are good, traps are bad. That's my takeaway from this video
I don't think hazards are good and traps are bad. I think the problem is that rolls should never be passive. All rolls should occur as a result of player action. This means it is bad DMing to present a trap without clues to its existence. A hazard is a trap that is presented as obvious. Players need reasons to take action and that only happens because the DM told them there were actions that could be taken. Some players will not enjoy needing to pay tons of attention, especially today when the average person has an attention span measured in seconds. In any case, odds of detection should depend on how obvious the trap is (hazards are 100% obvious while death traps are perhaps only 1-5% obvious and other traps somewhere in between) and what players choose to do to find them (class and circumstance could play a factor here in addition to specific actions as some archetypes will have an easier time than others at detection even if the same approach is used).
For disarming, again rolls should occur as a result of player action. When a player declares they want to try to disable a trap the DM should ask how they want to do that. The player can only answer that question if the DM has already provided clues to options through description. Lack of such description indicates a bad DM. Again, circumstances, tools, player action, etc., should determine odds of success in combination with the complexity of a trap. A very complicated trap may even require multiple rolls to disarm/disable different aspects of a trap (I think of it like doing damage to a trap and the trap is no longer dangerous after it has accumulated enough "damage"). Perhaps different pieces of the trap have different difficulties and playera could choose to start by dealing with the more difficult and dangerous portion or with the least dangerous part. Give players enough information to make choices.
Finally, for damage players should once again be involved via action. A good DM will have, once again, provided clues on possible strategies to avoid or minimize the bad stuff. The action attempted by the player will suggest what rolls and modifications to apply in an avoidance roll. Depending on the trap a player could avoid the trap entirely, swinging blade, or the character(s) will always receive at least partial damage, gas chamber. Perhaps a trap can be intentionally set off to make it inert and safe without any damage to characters.
The key is to engage in dialog with players providing as much information as possible and reasonable so players can make choices and take action along the way. I mean, if we run combats the same way people seem to run traps, then combat would be just as boring and not engaging. Player A swings, roll dice, success, roll damage. Player B swings, roll dice, failure. Player C swings, roll dice, ... you get the point.
This video does have a lot of good advice on how to run better traps by turning them into hazards but the techniques should be used for all trap types to different degrees. This is a great video!
Great video! You framed in the issue that I have with modern trap mechanics in dungeons and dragons 5E. I often make the passive perception DC to notice a trap extremely high, but if they verbalized that they are actively checking for traps, I make them very obvious. To me that’s just a matter of getting them engaged in the moment and not just running on auto pilot.
I also completely agree with the notion that you should design a trap without a solution in mind. Often, if you’re thinking about how to solve it, you’re forcing the players to think exactly the way you do. It’s much more engaging and fun for them to be completely creative on their own and come up with solutions you hadn’t even considered.
great advice! Another idea to solve the "detection" problem is to make sure there are signs of previous victims. i.e. smeared bloodstains, severed limbs, crushed piles of bones, etc... that tip players off.
Well, your description of how "it is currently done" was a revelation for me, again! I constantly ask myself, do people really play that way? And the answer is YES! They are using an RPG to emulate their computer games.
Favorite trap/hazard for beginners. 10x10 hole in a hall way with a rope swing. Tease them with swinging across and just a day of damage on a fail.
This reminds me of the ethos for traps by the roguelike game: Brogue. The author believes that the ideal trap creates organic drama and puzzles in concert with the rest of the environment plus the monsters. Sometimes monsters will trigger traps and catch you in them, or you can use traps as a desperate effort to overcome powerful monsters. Great comment btw on not needing to anticipate the answer to the puzzle. If the obstacle is plausible, naturally fits into the dungeons, and is built from the perspective of legitimate security, there may be many solutions.
Pit trap? Oh! The dungeon owner left a ladder on the other side, just there! Maybe you could use mage hand to bring it over?
Xanathar's Guide has a great section on Complex Traps (pg 118) that are the kind of traps (environmental challenges) mentioned in this video.
5e does have rules for disarming traps, you can disarm them solely through roleplay. It’s more than just ‘make a roll’.
It still isn’t great, the detection issue, but the game is very helpful with ‘yeah just put a shield in front of the dart trap’
Hiding traps doesn't even make sense in the fiction.
You WANT people to know there is a trap, a trap is a deterrent!
If people don't know about it they still go into your dungeon, set them off and then you have to deal with getting rid of the body, rearming the trap which has some cost. Heck your probably not even there to reset it.
If you know there's a deadly trap, most would think twice about adventuring into your dungeon.
It's like I tell you : this high voltage wire might or might not have current. If it does it'll kill you.
Even if there's only 1% chance, would you risk it?
Great episode! 😃 I've watched it a few times now! Pretty much every time old modules mention annoying traps 😆
Also cool to see a copy of the old Into the Odd rules!
I don't know if I'll ever find one but I'd love to get a copy someday! 🥰
Tomb of Annihilation do this very well. The moment the players enter a room in the "Tomb of Nine Gods" they know there is a trap there. They know the tomb is a giant death trap.
Wow I love this. I love puzzled and PCs often don’t love them, they feel contrived. This makes puzzles fun for them too.
Nice. I'm going to use a modified version of the flammable gas pit trap in an adventure I'll run this week and next week. Really great idea.
As a dm I absolutely love traps. They are fun and make the players think. Some are devious some are dangerous. Traps are fun. I like them as a player. Please don't take all the cool stuff.
Funny. I was watching this to help with the 2nd and basement levels of my dungeon and when you described the portcullis trick, I remembered I had the same trick in my 1st level where, when the party gets to a certain room, a portcullis blocks off the entrance and a tentacled creature lurches from the corner. I even had a second door that cannot be open unless the portcullis is lifted. And if you open the door from the other side, it slams shut and pushes whatever is front of it inside. Along with the portcullis closing and the door locking.
Great video! I've been struggling with coming up with new ideas for traps.
Love the map from Time Bandits in the backround!
Traps are handled real good in a game system I love called D100 Dungeon.
Most game rules and the charecter sheet in D100 Dungeon are real awesome.
Really a neat take on traps. However, I still would think, hiding some (maybe not all) traps just a bit - instead of an open pit, a swinging floor for example - so the thief can nail one or two climbing irons right above the floor in the wall to stop the floor from see-sawing down, when you cross the axis, also gives a lot of opportunity to interact.
And in general I like the old-school approach to traps (back in the day when we hadn't this new-fangled 'detection' skill) - pour water on the ground to look for little gaps, throw a stone on a suspected pressure plate, stuff some wooden stakes in the suspected arrow-hole or just duck and run under the flame throwers...
I tried to make a puzzle simple for my party and they spent 20 mins analyzing the whole room.
All they needed to do was pull the blue lever that was hinted to by the blue symbol on the wall above the three levers(yellow red blue)
Dude you have been on a roll lately, awesome work
I like this concept a lot and will definitely try employing it next time I create a trapped dungeon.
A tip to dm"s is you dont necessarily need to have a solution for any trap prepared. For 90% of the traps I make i dont even think of solutions. Let the players thrive and figure something out and surprise you. The results can be awesome!
Oops tired this out before reading the last minute haha, well i totally agree with him if you couldn't tell
First time seeing your channel in my feed and loved your video; hitting lots of notes I think about when running my games too. Traps as a HP tax are just awful. I also enjoy running traps whose outcome is putting the party in a more dire situation (a trap that alerts the enemy of your arrival instead of just doing 1d10 bludgeoning damage).
At any rate, you've got my sub! Well done.
I like to present facilitated traps at the beginners with clues, dead body, something already open, even false traps that could never act anymore.
However, my main problem is creating traps for the high levels and expert players that already know all the alternative ways to pass them.
Lately, i like to combine traps. A pit with spikes and giant rats waiting for a new body. A pit that opening releases a storm of bats confounding the players during the actions. A hidden malevolent cleric casting curses on the players while they are trying to pass the trap. An evident trap in the floor while there is another one hidden on the ceiling. A huge mechanical trap that when the rogue fails to break involve also the other players behind even if they are very far, like a flooding corridor. Or even traps that are controlled by the enemies that do not leave the rogue the time to break them. Among the advanced ones, a pit hidden under the dust, under which a spiked ball starts to rotate, under which a magical portal to the void attracts everything trying to pass over the open pit, while a huge monster lurks in the dark corner. Believe me, my players pass it anyway often without damage. :-(
If you know epic advanced or combined traps reply please!
While I agree with not worrying about the solution to a trap or obstacle, if it was placed by an intelligent being, it has to be able to be bypassed by them from the "this is the stuff/place being protected" side of it. Whether that bypass is an obvious level on the far side from the PCs POV, or a hidden switch around the corner out of the PCs sight, or a secret path around the hazard, there has to be a way for those who made/set the hazard to have set it, and possibly to get back out when they need to. Like the knob on the inside of your deadbolt that requires a key from the outside.
Every time I click on one of your videos, I find a gem that I end up saving for future reference. Excellent material.
4:30 Remember in Knights of the Dinner Table, when Bob the Thief wasn't able to play for some time, and the rest of them are trying to take a jeweled egg (?) from in the center of a rug, and they can't walk on the rug, can't use magic, can't do a lot of things because the high-level guardians are keeping things fair for all the contestants, making sure everyone follows the rules? And when Bob comes back, his solution is so simple, the rest of the party attacks him for being right? Just describing the trap, which technically this side quest represents, I guess, and he describes what he character does.
Excellent Ben!
You just solved a problem I have been nurturing a couple of months now - thanks!😊
I'd encourage you to revisit this topic. I say this in light of Seth Skorkowsky's video distinguishing traps, obstacles, puzzles, and tricks. I would say "Traps" should remain hidden but many of the things referred to as traps are really obstacles, which should be observable without detection.
I wrote a tome of encounters for Nerdarchy (Out of the Box Encounters, which is now printed and shipping out for Kickstarter backers). In that book there's an encounter called "Balance". This is a puzzle and trap all in one, but not with the players' safety in jeopardy. No. There's an NPC in critical danger and it's up to the players to come up with a solution to save this NPC from being dropped into a pool of acid by solving a complicated trap that needs perfect balance. I put no solution in it because players will always come up with their own.
Another trap I've used is one that triggers future events. A series of murder holes above an entrance will spill sheep's blood and fat on the players from above, which will trigger guard animals ahead. Now the players have to consider their approach and if they clean up, rush forward, or use it as a lure. The rank smell of this blood from above will be their clue, and what they do with that clue is their choice.
I've also had a pit that moves about like a construct, which is triggered by noise. Some players literally fell for it (pun intended) and bashed at it from inside the pit, while others threw objects and such to lure it away. Again - it came down to player-based solutions.
I've used Green Slime a lot, until players started farming it and gathering it up into ceramic jars to use as grenades. Again, player ingenuity. I've seen doors removed from hinges to be later used as bridges over pits or makeshift rafts to cross water. I've seen wooden walkways with archers set ablaze to remove an ambush, and flour used to generate dust explosions. The players became expert sappers after being exposed to trap after trap, upping my game.
Give the players more credit, I say.
Something else that we need to keep in mind about traps, and I didn't really see it mentioned in this extensive discussion:
Whoever placed the trap had to have an obvious method in mind to disarm it themselves, otherwise it would be as much of a risk to them as to others.
Why would you trap your treasure room in a way that prevented even you from getting to it? What good does it do to make an impassable minefield if it keeps the owner out as well? Consider the trapper's intent and aims, and how they would avoid it _themselves_ . Keeping that notion in mind changes the way that GMs and even players approach the concept of traps.
I am a DM, been doing it since 1980. In that time I have concluded that traps are not popular and generally considered a pest. Players hate them. I hate them. They are zero fun and add nothing of any interest, ever. Traps are not puzzles, they are just a damage tax, they slow thing down and add nothing interesting to the plot or story.
I have tried various methods but have concluded that simply removing them entirely and not telling anyone seems to work best. The game runs smoothly and has a better pace. Nobody notices their omission and that speaks volumes in and of itself.
DM since '79 here. Mostly agree with you but I still use traps in places that would logically have them. Tombs with few guardians, set by goblins/kobolds/monsters as part of their lair protection set up, and the occasional ancient magical place that has defenses against intruders. My players are mostly from my generation so they expect traps in such circumstances and like to 'match wits' with me old school style.
Yes yes yes perfect. Traps should be fun and interesting for players and GM, not punishment for failure to have a high passive perception, dexterity roll or 10-foot pole. Great design philosophy, and excellent example!
Excellent advice! Thank you, sir for your knowledge and insights. Also, I finally broke down and signed up for your newsletter after I caught a glimpse of the conceptual magic blog articles you recommended.
Good vid. Very helpful and inspiring
"You can make the clues super obvious like blood everywhere and skeletons with their heads cut off"
My dear players entered a room with three corpses with signs of poisoning in a single row, with arrows sticking out of them, and statues showing snakes with open mouths on the side, and walked right into the pressure plate dart shooting trap without a second thought.
At that point they had it coming
Hey, greetings from Ukraine!
Haven't seen this backdrop before, this den looks awesome! :)
Ahh Triple D, Guy would be proud of another D&D joke in his honor lmao
One “trap” my players bested was just a giant room with a thin hallway leading towards it, in the giant room is an enormous toad who’s tounge could travel down the hallway, they just covered the smallest with poison...
That's an excellent trap
Great thoughts and advice!
I do think there is a place for hidden traps - but how about this: add a one round delay. So after the PC triggers a trap, there is a few seconds (accompanied by ticking, whirring, or whatever sound or signal you desire) during which the players must decide how to prepare for whatever is about to happen. If they have been searching thoroughly they may have spotted clues (holes for darts, scrape marks for falling ceilings etc) but the trigger itself should almost always be undetectable (but with a 50% chance to trigger for each passing PC).
I think this method captures the cinematic feel of traps from movies, where you will always have that "oh shit" moment when the trap is sprung, but the effect has yet to go off.