Thread by @hexcrawl

1. The description of a trap should not be limited to a mechanical effect. Understand how the traps work and communicate that to the players.

This can be tricky for magic traps. Here's an article that can be useful for this.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1290…

https://twitter.com/WinghornPress/status/1255604802437996546

From that article: "It’s important that a DM not allow any interaction at the table to become purely mechanical (...) because specificity and detail usually leads to creative gameplay. Traps are a key example of this. If all you can do with a trap is...

...make a skill check to Search for it, make a skill check to Disable it, and/or take damage from it, then the trap will be fairly boring. You can try to spice that up mechanically or (and this is easier) you can spice it up by being relatively specific about how the trap works."

In the language of the Art of Rulings, this detail allows for player expertise to trump character expertise, and that's usually where interesting stuff happens.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4238…

2. Building on that, traps in a particular dungeon/environment should follow certain patterns/rules so that the PCs can learn from them.

For example, I had a dungeon with gravity field-based traps: You'd walk under an open shaft and an inverted field would cause you to fall up 60 feet. Or you'd walk past an intersecting "corridor" and sideways gravity would make you "fall" sideways 60 feet.

Once players spotted the pattern, they could preemptively take precautions while approaching intersecting corridors (tying a weight to a rope and throwing it out to see what would happen).

And this created interest even in areas WITHOUT traps, like when they were running away from a monster but were terrified that a side corridor up ahead might be a gravity trap. (It wasn't, but the thing they'd learned about this dungeon enhanced the encounter.)

3. Design traps that are more interesting/involved than "single mechanical interaction = damage or no damage."

Framing things using fortune in the middle techniques is useful here, but any trap that presents the PCs with new situation or dilemma is gold.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/3857…

The old school traps that teleport you to another location or trap a PC are a great example.

For example, imagine a trap that causes anyone walking into a 10' square to fall into a magical coma. Somebody walks in, falls unconscious. Somebody goes to help them; BAM! Unconscious.

Now what do the other PCs do about that? That response/problem-solving is interesting.

See also slowly flooding rooms, a confusion poison that makes the victim attack their friends, a trap that releases monsters for them to fight, etc. etc. etc.

The opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark is a great example: Bunch of traps that Indy has to think up a clever solution for. And when he misses a check and triggers a trap, it doesn't just zap him for damage! It causes the whole dungeon to start collapsing! A whole new problem!

4. Also note how the specificity of method in how Indy disarmed or bypassed the earlier traps becomes relevant as he now has to flee the dungeon.

So also avoid the simplicity of "Disarm Device check = trap no longer exists." Know what the check (if any) actually represents!

You'll know you've got the right balance when your PCs start draining the alchemist's fire out of one trap to pour down the arrow holes of another.