Everything you think about Game Mastering is probably wrong: Part VII - Traps and avoiding the game
This may not seem worthy of one of these posts, but I think it's emblematic of a larger problem with Game Mastering. Game Masters often run traps wrong (specifically wrong as in not playing into the strengths of the medium if you've read the previous articles in this series).
A trap run right requires very little mechanical interaction, it is pure role playing. The players move into a chamber, they see giant gems inset into the eyes of a statue. If a PC runs up and takes a prybar to remove a gem their character will be sprayed in the face with caustic acid, as the head was hollowed and full of acid, and the gem acted as a stopper.
Often I will see this abstracted to something along the following:
"roll to detect traps"
17
"you found an acid trap!"
I roll disable device, 8
"Oh no! you trigger it and coat yourself in acid, lose 12hp"
This is bad enough, but abstracting away elements of the game you don't want to deal with to simple rolls is something I can understand design wise (and will be a future post) but often it is worse and this is FORCED to be the only solution. If you don't have detect traps or disable or the like you can't find/interact with the trap.
The correct way to run the trap (again, correct as in leaning into the strengths of the medium not as in the most fun) would be more similar to as follows.
"You see gems inset in the eyes of the statue"
I look for traps
"What exactly are you doing?"
I look around and see if anything is out of the ordinary
"Do you have any way to know what's ordinary with underground gem studded demon statues?"
Oh, it's a demon statue? Is it a gargoyle?
"You are certain its not"
Wait, is this another dumb joke, is it a Grotesque instead?
"Oh that is certainly possible"
Ok, I pull out my holy symbol and brandish it at the statue
"How far away are you? Like other side of the room or close?"
A ways away.
"So are you loudly performing an Exorcism or just holding it out?"
Just holding it out
"It doesn't flinch, but you haven't done anything that would harm it"
I try to get closer with the holy symbol to see if it burns it
"Are you getting close? Close enough it could reach out to attack you?"
Arg..yes fuck it, I touch the holy symbol to it.
"Nothing happens...that you notice anyway"
Ok, I take a closer look at the statue, what's it made out of
"Its a heavy mofo, seems to be black iron, but how close are you getting"
I mean, I am in melee range
"Sure, you are within like a foot or two, but are you like leaning down in awkward positions with your face a few inches from it to see by candlelight..."
Fine, sure
"Are you going to touch it?"
Nope, not at all.
At this point the GM might ask for a roll, since he is close but isn't really committing to it, some form of Perception check is in order. The PC Passes.
"You notice there is a ring of copper, around the eye sockets where the gems are inset."
Are they like welded or soldered in or whatever?
"You touching them to see?"
Nope
"You are unsure unless you have some specific skill in metalworking"
I do actually, I am a jeweler as my background
"They aren't, though it looks like they are a snug fit. You can also tell the copper is discoloured"
Another player pipes up
I am an alchemist, can I tell what would cause that?
"Are you going up to look? You'll have to get your face really close since its just a tiny ring of copper"
Sure
"It looks like some form of acid discolouration,from trace amounts of it seeping between the gem and the copper of the years. Copper doesn't react strongly with acid, not like the iron would anyway"
Do I have anything that would counteract the acid on me?
"Do you? I mean, its a strong acid so you'd need something incredibly basic..no stop, don't. I know I heard myself, just don't say it"
Spoilsport.
End Scene
And so we can see how a trap becomes an entire encounter. It is a major element, it is solving a puzzle using free form creativity in a way that is unique to the medium. In a computer game, "detect traps" and "disable device" as pure numbers (or perhaps an expendable resource like a tool kit) work fine. You can't have a computer program (currently) that could handle all the billion shenanigans to try to solve this problem.
As an example, I've seen a party solve an acid trap by figuring how much ash would be produced by starting a wildfire. It would be hard to plan for that in a computer game, as such that type of problem solving is something unique to the medium of role playing games.
So why is the other method of dice rolling so common? Two reasons:
1.) The people playing the instance of the game don't really like solving traps and puzzles. This is fine. It's like how some game tables just handle all social interactions with a skill check or charisma role. "Don't bother talking it out, just make a diplomacy roll and against the Baron we'll move back to the dungeon". This reason gets dismissed a bunch, but it's fine if you do it with purpose. If you know what you want the game you are playing to be about, this is a good way to force a focus. If you are doing this as a GM, you should also then design the scenarios to minimize the instances where this comes up. You find you are making lots of these checks, you might be fighting against the medium.
2.) Legacy. The shape of a medium is only truly known when another medium surpasses them. There is a whole post in this series on that. In the early days there were no computer games, and so some styles of gaming that now can be better handled by computer games were also handled by role playing games . The impact of rules to support that style of play cast a long shadow.
So how should you run things like traps if you want to lean into the strength of the medium? You have to get into a mindset of thinking there are no character sheets mechanics to help (even if there are) and think about how it could be solved in a free form. How would players know there is a trap to look for? You have to telegraph the danger somehow. This is a huge factor to the true danger level of the trap. Regardless of how deadly it is when sprung, the most dangerous trap is often one with no clue to its existence, while the one with a pile of charred corpses in a room containing a magic sword is actually not that dangerous. Just don't go for the sword. Even the level of difficulty in disarming the trap isn't that important, because if you know about it you can avoid it.
The level of telegraphing in the example far above is the simple fact that there is unguarded treasure. Its not certain there is a trap, it might just be that the builders assumed no one would dare defile such a holy site. Any even slightly cautious player will be suspicious of unguarded treasure though. A suspiciously unguarded route into an enemy camp is similar, the treasure being "a good opportunity".
Too Long Didn't Read: Traps in Specific
1.) Traps should be treated as puzzles to be solved through role playing rather than skill checks to find and disable. It is an encounter that should test player wits and be interesting to solve on its own merits.
2.) The danger of a trap is and how difficult to disable it are only a small part of its challenge. How well its existence is telegraphed is the most important part when setting the difficulty.
Too Long Didn't Read: Overall Point The point of playing the game is to play the game. If you find yourself making rules to bypass areas of the game (such as a roll to find and disable traps) then you should look at cutting that element from your game or minimizing it highly.