Musing on Traps

I like the idea of traps. I really do. But I think I was tainted by 3rd Edition D&D, and more specifically by Bioware.

See, I came to regard traps as falling into essentially two camps:
1. as a kind of friction that caused some minor damage to the party but not really dangerous
2. as a super-danger that killed people outright

I never found either camp to contribute to fun at the table, so I largely scrapped them. Especially since I typically couldnt justify them being in a location.

But, I have been influenced. Admittedly, by James Raggi and all the discussions about the deadliness of his modules. Granted, I have never actually read any of his stuff, only people crying about how deadly it is. Now I have not been influenced into Raggi's camp. My understanding is that his traps are a lot like the big stone head in Tombs of Horrors. They have no rhyme or reason, they just kill you.

This got me thinking about how someone would design an actual trap. See, an actual trap should kill you. That is the designer's goal. He isnt trying to slightly injure you as you sneak into his tomb. No, he is going for the jugular. But I have long thought such things to be unlikely to exist in a place frequented by monsters and lost to the sands of time. So where would these things be?

I am thinking they should be somewhere that someone really really doesnt want you to be. Not in some random hallways, not in some empty room. Highly strategic placement. And they should give you three chances to avoid them. 1st to spot them, 2nd to avoid getting caught, 3rd to escape once caught.

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Example: Dragging Death Trap
Classic Snare design that grabs your foot. You get a save to detect it and a save to avoid getting snared. Once snared, a stone block drops down into a pit. As a result, you are dragged across the floor towards the pit trap. You get one final chance to draw a weapon and cut the snare line. If you fail, you go down into the pit a long long way and die.
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I think this kind of thing can work for me in my games.

* Cross-posted at http://www.synapserpg.com/blog *