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Post by castiglione on Oct 22, 2008 8:15:09 GMT -6
If anyone can remember the issue of Dragon in which the above mentioned article was in, I'd appreciate it if they posted it.
I'd really love to read that article.
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Post by grodog on Oct 23, 2008 21:56:32 GMT -6
One of these, perhaps, compliments of Dragondex??
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darneson
Level 3 Conjurer
Co-Creator of OD&D
Posts: 56
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Post by darneson on Nov 2, 2008 10:52:52 GMT -6
Of course there is always the ever popular "Hobbit On a Rope."
Dave Arneson "Dark Lord of Gaming"
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Post by snorri on Nov 2, 2008 11:54:16 GMT -6
Of course there is always the ever popular "Hobbit On a Rope. That's the best one! I remember use of kobold prisonners to detet pits... and a friend of mine reported use of hens, which is a little fairest. Fortunately, french poles are better than 10' anglo-saxon one ; in french transation of Moldway's red box, which was the first d&d version published in french, they were 4 meters, so more than 13'. By the way, tunnels were largers, but pits deeper...
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Post by coffee on Nov 2, 2008 17:37:58 GMT -6
Not just for traps, but a bag of flour comes in handy. Throw a handful in the air and it's easier to spot invisible things (not just foes).
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Post by kesher on Nov 2, 2008 18:47:42 GMT -6
Not to mention, if you run out of supplies, you can maybe make bread!
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Post by ragnorakk on Feb 27, 2009 14:44:30 GMT -6
I REALLY thought about buying a sack of flour in this on-line game right now. My character is very poor...
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invoker
Level 1 Medium
I'm only human Living in this beautiful mess!
Posts: 13
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Post by invoker on Apr 8, 2009 0:08:36 GMT -6
You've all seen Raiders, right? Aye, but it wasn't too effective a ploy in the film! And anyway wasnt that a bag of sand???
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Thorulfr
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 264
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Post by Thorulfr on Apr 20, 2009 11:41:42 GMT -6
Tie a 6' length of string/thread to the end of your 10' pole, and tie a small, lightweight object to the other end of the thread. Hold the pole in front of you so the object on the thread dangles just above the ground. If you come across any tripwires, the object will stop moving forward and will suddenly start to move up toward the wire.
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Thorulfr
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 264
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Post by Thorulfr on Apr 30, 2009 23:31:36 GMT -6
That's the best one! I remember use of kobold prisonners to detet pits... and a friend of mine reported use of hens, which is a little fairest. Once, when my party was feeling flush from a previous (successful) expedition, we blew a couple hundred gold pieces on a large herd of hogs. We then drove the swine down into the dungeon (after letting them go hungry for a day or two) and sat back until the noise died down. When we went down to the first level, they had set off most of the traps and knocked down most of the doors in search of food; they even managed to kill off some of the weaker monsters. We simply followed the trail of bodies to the more powerful monsters (and had a plentiful supply of ham and bacon, to boot.) Yeah, it was really pushing the boundaries of "Chaotic Good," and it kind of pissed off the DM, so we never repeated the stunt, but it was worth it to see the expression of disbelief on the DM's face as the insane plot unfolded.
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Post by chgowiz on May 1, 2009 7:19:22 GMT -6
"pissed off"? Are you kidding? I would have so much fun with that. I can see how the pig undead would rise... I could see pigs setting up kingdoms underground, ohyea, you guys would have gotten benefit, but who knows what would have happened 6 months from now...
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Post by apeloverage on May 1, 2009 7:24:00 GMT -6
And the monsters would've all been angrier and meaner. No one likes getting spam.
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Thorulfr
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 264
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Post by Thorulfr on May 1, 2009 12:23:47 GMT -6
"pissed off"? Are you kidding? Well, this is the DM that never quite recovered from the time we stripped every door off of the current dungeon level and used them for building materials, fuel, barricades, a sled... We could be an unruly bunch of players, and often went off on weird "think outside the box, then use the box to make something" tangents. We could be...difficult. (But WOW...an undead hog would be...well...terrifying. My wife used to work with someone who was missing half a hand - a hog ate it when she was a kid. Ate it.)
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Post by castiglione on May 1, 2009 16:10:01 GMT -6
I'm picturing undead hogs AND monsters, who usually are on the edge of death/survival just subsisting on other dungeon monsters and the occasional dungeon delver suddenly experiencing a glorious bounty of walking ham...a couple of months later, you have bigger, meaner monsters, who are no longer half-starved and are flushed to the gills in porcine protein.
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Post by Morandir on Mar 13, 2011 21:12:22 GMT -6
TITLE: QUESTION ABOUT SPRINGING TRAPS
Page 9 of volume III has this to say about traps:
"Traps are usually sprung by a roll of a 1 or a 2 when any character passes over or by them. Pits will open in the same manner."
Easy enough. My question for you guys is this: what do you do in your games if you roll 3-6? Obviously the trap doesn't activate, but does that mean that the PC discovered it, or it's just stuck/broken/etc., or something else?
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Post by jcstephens on Mar 13, 2011 21:59:52 GMT -6
Think land mines. They don't go off unless you step on them, or hit the tripwire or whatever. But they're still there when someone else comes along. So you can never be COMPLETELY sure you've found them all.
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Post by talysman on Mar 13, 2011 23:41:12 GMT -6
I agree, but if you want more detail, you could say 3-5 = no activation, 6 on first encounter = actually broken.
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Post by inkmeister on Dec 17, 2012 14:05:16 GMT -6
TITLE: SECRET DOORS AND TRAPS
My question to those of you who run dungeons is whether you use many secret doors and traps in your designs, and how you feel these affect play.
There are some various theories of how these things work or should work.
The Old School Primer seems to posit a free form, verbal description approach to these features; you actively describe how you are searching and how you are trying to operate various mechanisms.
The actual rules give basic probabilities for trap and secret door detection on the d6, coming in to play when players are actively searching.
These two approaches seem to be at odds with each other.
Furthermore, there is the question of how these impact play. The structure of the game takes into consideration what may happen when players become ultra paranoid or curious and decide to constantly search for traps or secret doors; they pay the price of time, resources, and the added risk of wandering monster checks. That's fine, but is it FUN to have paranoid players laboriously searching every 10 foot section of wall for secret doors, and constantly searching for traps?
One blogger - I forget who it was - took the interesting approach of deciding to make all traps obvious! I should say that it was obvious that some sort of trap was present, but the precise risk or method of operation was not obvious. Thus, players had to approach traps carefully. This approach mitigated the constant trap-searching, but still allowed for interesting traps and risk associated with them.
I think a similar approach could be viable for secret doors; it could be apparent that there is some passage present, but how to utilize it must be discovered.
So again, my concern is how traps and secret doors affect play - are they fun for you and your players in practice? How do you utilize them? Do you take a free-form Old School PRimer approach, or by the book?
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Post by talysman on Dec 17, 2012 15:33:15 GMT -6
My thought on this is that the die roll is a surprise roll, basically, and certain search techniques trump bad results on a die roll.
Thus, you roll to see if you are "surprised" by a secret door; elves who are occupied with looking for secret doors have the normal chance to be surprised, while those who don't search, and any non-elf who searches, has double normal chances of being surprised (automatic surprise for non-elves who don't search.) Being surprised by a secret door means it goes unnoticed, and should a monster use an unnoticed secret door to attack, the monster gains automatic surprise. Standard secret doors, the way I conceive them, are slabs or false walls on a central pivot that rotate when pressed, so the method of opening is obvious once found; other secret doors may have a method of opening specified, which must be searched for.
I had a whole series of blog posts about methods of search and trap construction, but the summary is that people blundering along have no chance, examination at a distance (normal attentiveness) gets a surprise roll, specifying close visual or auditory examination of an item or area automatically detects many kinds of traps (but not their operation or effect,) and specifying touching or moving something associated with a trap either detects or triggers the trap, as appropriate.
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Alex
Level 3 Conjurer
Posts: 92
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Post by Alex on Dec 21, 2012 13:56:26 GMT -6
I can't manage too much detail as DM. I'm working on it, but I'm very bad with such things. My approach in all past dungeons I created was to only use secret doors and traps where they logically made sense for the owners of the dungeon complex. Thus there were /very/ few secret doors or traps. This also resulted in problems, "what do I do if the party can't find the secret door?" and "what do I do if the party walks into the trap and dies?" I then came up with ideas on using the rolls for normal dungeon exploration and giving the players 100% accurate information if they specifically indicate they search the correct area and have reason to believe something is there (rather than just searching in the hope of getting lucky).
My current dungeon is a mega-dungeon and I based it on maps I obtained from another source, modified to fit together, but otherwise kept unchanged. So the secret doors and traps are where they were in the original maps, which solves my previous problems. There are secret doors and traps in random spots I wouldn't think to place them and I go by the book in terms of rolls. So far none of the secret doors were found (they only searched where there are no secret doors) and the two pit traps they crossed without checking got them good. And in this case a roll means the trigger mechanism is found which makes the door obvious if used.
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Post by makofan on Dec 21, 2012 16:13:27 GMT -6
I think it is Zak that has two good rules
1) Never put in a secret door that you intend the party to find 2) Never put in a trap that you don't expect to set off
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Post by inkmeister on Dec 21, 2012 19:04:01 GMT -6
Good posts.
Zak is always pretty sensible.
I think I reject the old school primer approach. To me it comes off as unrealistic and dogmatic. In reality it seems to me there is an almost board-gamey aspect of D&D, and the basic cost of searching for secret doors or traps is the time lost in doing so (and the added risk of wandering monsters). The problem I find with traps is that if you put a few, then players are constantly looking for them, and it makes sense that they would, but it also gets tedious to be rolling dice for every few feet of dungeon space. On the other hand, it sucks to just be walking along and find yourself dead because you stepped on a trap. I think I like the approach of making the traps obvious in some way, like a puzzle versus a "gotcha!" type thing. I'm thinking Indiana Jones style where he mostly knows where the traps are, it's just a matter of finding an ingenious method to foil the trap.
I'm cool with secret doors. I'm also cool with them not being found. I often have them act as simple short-cuts, and it makes sense to have them from a dungeon inhabitant standpoint. Behind others I just put a little dollar sign which stands for "unguarded treasure," which can be looked up on U&WA for the appropriate dungeon level. Most of my maps have a pretty heavy amount of secret doors. While I'm not a huge fan of the Arduin dungeon maps, they did inspire me to think of putting secret doors into my dungeons much more often.
I welcome further thoughts, experiences, observations, rants, complaints, accusations, etc.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Dec 21, 2012 20:14:22 GMT -6
The best method I've found (from the referee perspective), is that if a player specifically says he searches for a trap or secret door in the correct location, he finds it. End of story.
The 2-in-6 (or 4-in-6 for thieves) chance of noticing a trap or secret door is then merely the chance that a PC will sense "something" is amiss without the player's specific instruction. I.e., the referee can warn the player that his "spidy senses are tingling" in any number of ways. Was that a draft you felt? An echo you heard? Did that shadow just move? and so on.
The former rewards players for actively searching, and the later is a nice way for the referee to provide occasional hints which subsequently encourages players to actively investigate, which is subsequently rewarded, and so on.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Dec 21, 2012 20:55:51 GMT -6
I use the dwarven "find traps" and elven "find secret doors" abilities as passive sensors - if they pass one of these things, they get a chance to notice without actually trying. Otherwise, players will say they are moving while checking for traps and secret doors, but I only make one roll (for the next time they encounter one). I don't make pretend rolls continuously behind the screen. It's easy enough to confuse the players with the odd meaningless roll that you don't need to roll the dice every time they say their characters are doing something.
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Post by ishmann on Jan 13, 2013 13:24:40 GMT -6
According to page 9 of The Underworld and Wilderness adventures:
"Traps are usually sprung by a roll of 1 or 2 when any character passes over or by them. Pits will open in the same manner."
My thoughts on this is that a dungeon is a dark and damp place. This could cause the mechanism of the trap to be stuck or faulty. Just because the trap is there doesn't necessarily mean it will activate. So, character #1 could pass by the trap and not set it off, but his buddy right behind him could.
Also, you could make a ruling that you pass over the trap, it doesn't go off, but you hear a faint clicking, or feel a flagstone depress underneath your boot. It is then up to the characters to decide what to do next.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jan 13, 2013 16:58:58 GMT -6
I usually like my dungeons to make a certain amount of "sense" (except where they are specifically intended to confound sense). In the "makes sense" scenario, traps and secret doors would only occur where their existence "makes sense". They need a purpose to justify the cost and effort of their construction. Secret doors are an excellent fit for many dungeon environs and could (among other things) be used as: * Short cuts -- allowing a resident to get from A to B quickly, or from A to B while circumventing C, * Surveillance -- allowing a dungeon resident to "peek" into other rooms from a secret passage or place, * Safe houses -- a safe/secret place to retreat to in case of threat (including the PCs), * Treasuries -- a place to hide valuables. Remember also that secret door can be of the "Man"-made or the naturally occurring sorts. The naturally occurring sort might be more common in an ancient or disused dungeon that has fallen into ruin; a rock-fall, mud-slide, rising water, or any number of other phenomena could very easily hide a portal. On the other hand, passages hidden behind waterfalls, that are only accessible at low tide, and so on are not uncommon. The "Man"-made sort have been "made" for a purpose. It's worthwhile (in my opinion) knowing what this purpose was when the dungeon was built, or is now (if the dungeon is still inhabited and the secret door is still in use). This will help you out when a players asks "Does it look like the dust on the floor has been disturbed recently?", which is a reasonably common way of searching for pointers to secret doors. Traps should be less wide-spread, in my opinion. The reason being that they could (and should) be sprung by anyone who passes by, not just the PCs. There are relatively few locations where a trap could be set and remain undisturbed until the PCs arrive. Some places where traps could be encountered include: * Uninhabited places in a dungeon where a trap was set long ago and has not since been triggered (or has been triggered and reset), * Inhabited places where denizens purposefully maintain one or more traps for protection, hunting, or other purpose? * Treasuries, which are purposefully trapped for protection, * In secret passages that are purposefully trapped/alarmed by their users (who know how to avoid the trap). Naturally occurring hazards such as collapsing stonework, steam geysers, quicksand, sink holes, and so on, might be considered "natural traps" which must be circumvented or avoided all together. Some of these types of hazards could be "enhanced" by denizens who are thoughtfully laying traps. These could occur almost anywhere, but would generally be dangerous to the dungeon denizens as well as to the PCs; excepting the locals might be aware of the danger, while the PCs may not be so well informed. A few things to chew on...
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2013 20:49:10 GMT -6
1) As written, D&D assumed multiple groups of players. Secret doors become VERY important in such a situation; what you miss, somebody else might find.
2) Traps are dangerous but you are not strolling along blindly: The movement speed of 120 feet in 10 minutes assumes that you are moving VERY carefully.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jan 13, 2013 21:39:49 GMT -6
2) Traps are dangerous but you are not strolling along blindly: The movement speed of 120 feet in 10 minutes assumes that you are moving VERY carefully. Yep, that's why it makes good sense to me to allow the PCs a roll to detect traps or secret doors even when the player doesn't state he is explicitly searching for such. Except in flight or pursuit, it's assumed that the character is moving cautiously. FWIW -- it's my understanding that there are two moves per 10 minute "exploration turn" underground (U&WA p8), making it 240ft per turn for an unencumbered Man. But movement rate per turn doesn't impact the players' odds of locating traps or secret doors, either way.
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Post by snorri on Jan 14, 2013 7:06:54 GMT -6
In my current pbp, there are nuemrous traps, but some of them have been spoiled by older attempts to break in the dungeon, or by the efefts of time : skeletons impaled on scythe blades, deathly poison turns to be a lower trouble, and so on. it gives players the feeling the dungeon is really old and the'yre not the fisrt ones to come in.
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Post by blackbarn on Jan 15, 2013 16:46:24 GMT -6
I put in secret doors, and like to have them be in somewhat logical places, perhaps hinted at with either the map layout or room appearance. I generally don't like traps of the damage-dealing kind, as they seem to invite a host of problems as discussed here. When I have used them they tend to be the Indiana Jones type things, with interesting stuff for PCs to interact with, where they know they should be very cautious just by looking at the area.
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