Meta Gaming Support Blog

Question: So I’m currently running a fantasy campaign as a regular DM and my group and I enjoy the challenge of regular contests in a “dungeon of the week” type of setting, I like to map them out and plan the challenges the group faces, they enjoy actually trying to work their way through the dungeon and break into new rooms, beat the monsters assigned to guard certain areas, collect treasure, and face fiendish traps of my own design.  It is that last part though that is becoming a bit of a challenge, I find myself often reusing traps from guides or other sources, or simply recycling traps that I’ve used before.  After you faced a hallway of swinging blades several times in a row it begins to feel kind of stale.  Any suggestions for how to put some extra vim in my traps?

Answer: One of the challenges of any campaign in which you feature a “dungeon of the week” sort of theme is keeping the dungeons fresh and interesting, I actually consider designing interesting dungeons to be one of the most challenging aspects of running a fantasy campaign.  Getting players interested in a hidden maze of twisty passages and secret rooms is never easy unless there is a gripping story behind the location and a series of interesting challenges to keep the players entertained.  Traps are actually one of the most interesting and powerful tools for a Game Master (GM) to actually spice up the experience for the group.  Unlike undead guardians or living creatures guarding a dungeon space traps require no motivation to stay in place, no support structures to keep the guards alive, and are not vulnerable to player tricks such as smoke, poison gas, or flooding.  Traps also provide an amoral force in a dungeon, they are mechanical or magical in nature and simply complete their function, regardless of the target.  But to make a trap truly memorable you have to twist peoples anticipations of how to actually solve the trap or beat it.

First off the trap should require an interesting or unique method to get through it, something that cannot simply be defeated by a roll of the dice by a skilled party member.  What I recommend is following a dual reward approach, allow the players the opportunity, if they wish to use it, to defeat a trap by whatever normal rules are actually in place in your game.  However let the players know that if they attempt to complete a puzzle or a task there is a larger reward for them, in other words if they interact with the trap they can defeat it and gain a larger benefit, if they just attempt to disarm it they will avoid injury but miss the larger reward.  Interesting traps are almost always magical in nature, magic is a lovely means of having a trap that can do anything and require any sort of interaction to defeat the trap.  Magical traps are also lovely because they open up other possibilities for the traps negative effects beyond just violent personal injury.  A trap that turns a player into a being a tiny fraction of their normal size is far more interesting then one that impales them with spikes coming up from the floor.

Second put traps only in locations where they stand out in memory, for example if you want to have a trap involving water spirits have them come out of a fireplace rather then out of well.  If you want to have a trap built around blades that explode out of walls mechanically or magically put them in a room filled with silk draperies and other fine delicate items, the blades follow paths that avoid the valuable items.  Designing traps with unique mechanical devices is another means of achieving the same end in a campaign with less magic, although mechanical traps often limit your capacity to provide rewards for further cooperation by the players.  If you are going with mechanical traps I recommend going with multiple layers for the traps and making them epically horrifying in their level of damage inflicted and mechanical design, a room filled with swinging blades on pendulums is boring, a room that turns into some sort of massive food processing unit of nothing but blades flying from everywhere is quite memorable.  If you go with mechanical traps I often recommend putting them on automatic timing mechanisms that require the players to dance around or through the trap to reach the means of deactivating it, if you follow this procedure add trigger effects as well that go off as the players attempt to work their way through the trap.

Finally if all else fails or you want traps that are single use, defeat after activation items, at least make the decorations interesting.  A falling rock crushing a player is conventional, a falling statue of a much hated and deposed Dwarf king know as The Hammer on the other hand mechanically achieves the same effect and is quite a bit more memorable.

- Dungeon Monkey

Have a question for the Dungeon Monkey?  Want to seek out some gaming suggestions?  Email Dungeon Monkey at dungeonmonkey@umich.edu and get your answers!