One player in my group, Warrior/Tank, started "solving" all traps by throwing scrap metal at it. He had a bag of holding he filled with broken armor and equipment he found on newly minted corpses. To break this, I made a hallway-trap with one door at either end. It was long enough they couldn't sprint through. Once triggered, intense fire would shoot from nozzles all along the ceiling melting any metal / non-magical gear once the doors had locked shut. Due to the severity of this, I made ducking back out the door before it closed DC8 and made the trap spotted once approached. There was a lever by the far door that needed flipped to disable the trap. I was expecting a Mage-hand or a well-placed arrow to solve this. Hell no. In classic PC fashion, the group's teifling player stripped down and took the Warrior/Tank's magic shield. He ran naked, and screaming, down the hall taking 1/2 fire damage from racial bonus and another 1/2 from using the shield as a fire-umbrella (and due to my personal amusement at their creativity). He made it to the other end and flipped the switch once he hit 1/3 of his HP.
MrCharisma He did let it slide as the entire group, including the DM had fun w their solution. Guy has a video on subtle DM meta gaming needed to make the game enjoyable for all... including the DM. In this case, DM three a different kind of trap, and the party had fun solving it. Doesn’t stop tank player from trying their metal-throwing solution at subsequent traps, either. DM mixed it up well!
Nice move. It is important to raise difficulty once the players already have an easy solution for everything. I wouldn't say you were metagaming. I prefer to think that the guards/bandits were progressively investigating why the hell their traps weren't working. Like Phantom Pain does with enemies' equipments
As far as traps go, I used to like the old 'locked door and 3 levers' trap. One lever unlocks the door, one triggers a falling portcullis or slip and slide to a handy oubliette trap and one sounds an alarm. One player in particular would want to pull all three, even if they opened the door on the first go. It got that way they would leave him behind or all stand back and wait because they knew he would pull all three levers no matter what. Incidentally, they could work out which was the door lever just by passing a simple check to see which one was dirtiest or had the most wear on it (that being the one the guards pulled all the time to open the door). It was an endless source of amusement for me I have to say... I miss having friends...
I would love it if you continued this series on traps. It could be really useful and insightful for making traps more interesting than "take 1d6 damage because you stepped on the pressure plate because you didnt say you were checking for traps as you moved down the corridor".
It's hilarious that you published this today. You should check out Matt Colville's video that he published today. "Cause it was too high level. I warned you!" is basically what he said not to do as well. The players play D&D to be heroes. They're gonna fight insurmountable odds so they can feel like heroes. Solid video that gives more advice than on just traps that can be applied to other areas of DMing.
I was thinking this episode was about crossdressing characters and NPCs that pass as the opposite gender. Which makes this episode a trap in and of itself. Good job, GreatGM, you have created the ultimate meta-trap about traps!
*I saw the title and came immediately...then after I cleaned myself up I watched the video!* it's hilarious when you watch this with slang term "traps" in mind.
The best trap i've ever done, is a Gargoyle on a door, who would repeatedly tell the party to not open the door it was on (it was named, the Doorgoyle, and i love him), what do the party do? Of course, they then open the door, and get attacked by a group of creatures. This was a one-shot, and it ended with them bringing the Doorgoyle back to the guy who got them to do the job for him, and the Doorgoyle was left with him, and the guy is one of the BBEG's, so he now has an extra trap, involving the Doorgoyle telling them they definitely need to open the door.
My way of making combat not boring is to briefly describe how the action the PC took was accomplished, "you cut off a piece the orcs shoulder"= -8 hp damage or so on.
Robert McNally what I call boring is when it's dice rolling session. Your turn : I attack, roll the dice; next; round ends; Your turn : I attack roll the dice.
Well that's when you get more imaginative with the ways battle can be handled, such as Dice Camera Action does on the D&D channel every Wednesday. Have you ever seen them fight? They seem to almost never merely roll the dice, they always do something that would be out of the ordinary. If you watch it you will see what i mean. God bless you and thanks for the response/clarification.
allowing for options and rewards for alternative methods of attack could be another way of providing a dynamic setting for the field. say there is stationary weapons or the combat is not the core of the interaction, rather you just have to hold of the attackers while you work on the solution. i also have an enemy concept that involves a particular weak spot but the opponent can also be disabled by other means only to reassemble if not killed appropriately while in combat or after it is disabled.
Unless you are going for a super serious tone I would suggest letting your players use any silly but effective tactics they come up with. I had a campaign where a beguiler in the group would summon the biggest creature he could summon in mid air above the opponent. Nothing spices up combat like defeating an enemy by summoning an elephant about 60ft above their head and letting it drop. And before anyone says animal cruelty, summoned creatures return to where they came from unharmed if they are killed while summoned.
Beautifully timed, after a long journey to end a zombie horde, my Players are close to the Death Tyrants dungeon. I'm thinking of spicing the mechanical trap with undead: zombie filled hidden pit, falling crawling claws instead of falling net, corridors littered with corpses some of which are 'sleeping' zombies, and some sort of somatic puzzle with a 'crushing wall' of slow and lumbering zombies. I like the idea of some Skill dependent traps, and I will definitely include them.
I'm thinking of setting up a segment where my players have to design their own traps to stop/slow down pursuing enemies whilst they try to reach their goal (probably some Goonies-esque treasure run). I think the tension of them wondering how effective said traps are as they themselves race against time would be fun. It's also a nice twist on the typical mechanic.
Some traps and dungeons for higher level characters is okay within campaigns, or the world doesn't feel very real is everywhere you go, everything is perfectly scaled to you. Instead, the way I have personally found to deal with such situations is to make it clear their characters are aware the area they are in is filled with terrifying monsters that are said to be overwhelmingly dangerous, or see a trap trigger that carves something they see as extremely tough into tiny pieces. As long as the players and characters are absolutely aware of the immense dangers, it's their prerogative to bull-rush in, or to use a little sense and avoid the area for the moment. (This is of course assuming there are many things for the PCs to do, and there are other, more level-appropriate things nearby).
Traps are security systems, and security systems have two functions: wasting time and attracting attention. The point is to give a person the opportunity to interrupt you, to stop whatever you're trying to do.
When I use such a trap I try to think, if this was my dungeon and I wanted to kill people that invaded it, how would I proceed? Maybe lay some statuette or something and put traps around it to catch greedy invaders. So thats precisely what I do, I put some shiny object surrounded by traps and its actually worthless, a total waste of time and efforts. And when the players realise this they feel like they have been cheated and are even more angry after those pesky monsters that succeded in trapping them :o
Its not just role players; people in general seem to have this need to be contrary. After all, how many times has someone said "don't look down!" and the other person immediately looks down? It can be incredibly frustrating, but it can also be immensely entertaining when you use it to completely goad players/people into doing something simply by telling them not to do it.
If my players wanted to fight a monster that was simply too powerful for them, and insisted despite my warnings and went to where the monster has to be (say, a high-level evil NPC who's in the world), it would not be a good story for me to make sure that it wouldn't simply kill them. They're not very powerful, and that baddy is, so of course they're going to die unless they run. Weak characters conquering the world just because I shouldn't give them a challenge that they can't beat devalues everything that they have accomplished. It's kind of like using a Dues Ex Machina to make sure they don't die just because they've been rolling badly. Of course that situation can make for a pretty bad story, but it can also provide great tension. Party wipes based on bad decisions can improve the next group of adventurers, especially if they actually succeed and live through that same experience because they became powerful enough to beat it before-hand.
Disclaimer: I am complete newbie and learning. How about we let the players decide to be stubborn and end up encountering the big bad guy(s) in which case they would normally die, how about making the bad guy beat them easily but instead of killing them lets them live instead or plans on killing them but for whatever reason something else demands his attention or prevents him from finishing them off. Wouldn't this create a new incentive to go after bad guy? Learn about him more, level up get stronger and come after him again? In other words wouldn't that make a good story? What do you think?
I can't believe I forgot to mention having the big baddy not kill the party, but still beat them soundly. There are plenty of reasons why he would let them live, including examples like they are so far beneath them that he'd rather let them live (barely) with that knowledge than simply kill them. Or he has places to be, or he captures them, or leaves them to some of his goons (which are still almost too powerful for them, but possible) and promptly forgets about them. These situations can actually be intentionally added to introduce a baddy before the PCs are supposed to defeat him. But traps have no such decision making power. If the PCs wander into a dungeon that has claimed many lives of much more powerful adventurers and stumble into a trap that is designed to kill them (as traps generally are) then you have very few options about how the trap won't kill them without eliminating the idea that this is a deadly dungeon that they are not yet ready for. It could be a trap that captures them (intended to kill by starvation), which they could potentially escape from, but then it's a really badly designed trap unless they have some semi-unique power (such as they are put in an anti-magic unclimable pit, but one of them has natural wings and can fly everyone out, but more powerful parties would be prevented by the anti-magic). The trap can't really get distracted or decide that they're not worth finishing off. Your best bet is to change the trap so that it will kill them, but they have plenty of opportunities to realize this and still leave (I saw an idea for a room filled with mono-filament wires that can cut through anything as easily as air can pass around them, which if devised as doing high amounts of damage only partially into the room, the PCs can realize that they will die before they get through before it's too late to turn back). Other options include something that doesn't kill but is impassible without a certain key or phrase, that the PCs have to go on a long adventure to get. The adventure and travel would allow them to improve, engage in side-quests and be powerful enough to overcome the actually deadly traps/enemies by the time they return, all the while wondering what is actually on the other side. But technically encountering the impassible thing could be as frustrating and as bad of a story as getting killed by it, depending on how you look at it. My main point was that making everything possible for the party to conquer is not a good alternative to saying, "there are things out there that you cannot kill, traps that you cannot figure out, and challenges that you cannot overcome...yet."
This guy has some really great insights and advice. His take on the Chaotic alignments is the best that I have ever seen, period. Matt Colville has a series specifically for new GMs, and it's fantastic. It's more heavily focused on D&D than this series, but he also goes through things like how to design your first adventure, how to run random encounters, some different types of campaigns, and gives some recommendations for adventure modules that he likes to use and why someone might want to use them instead of making their own adventure. If you look up Johnn Four outside of RUclips, he has literally hundreds of articles giving advice and ideas for GMs, which are (generally) self-contained so you can browse through the titles to find things that might address particular problems you run into. But while all of the advice and tips about GMing across the internet are useful, they're best understood in practice. So good luck on getting started and remember not to get discouraged. Nobody runs a perfect first campaign.
Oh my god this is sooo much help, had you not put the extra effort here I wouldn't have bothered exploring other sources! I have been binge watching this guy and now I shall do the same with Matt Colville's who is just as valuable! While I was inventing my own world map I got an idea which may solve our problem for PC's taking on opponents and dungeons out of their leagues. If it is known to PC's that there is something to explore then they will explore it, so the solution here is to not give them that knowledge in the first place! If there is nothing to explore, naturally people will go to another site of attraction. Later on we can give them clues (whenever we feel they are ready) in their side quests which lead to the location of these hidden marks (as I call them.) where they get to meet the true villain or learn of some grand evil scheme which makes them take on the main plot-campaign mission. This way players will not feel as if the gm was being a dick by placing something they cannot overcome and they will also feel a sense of buildup and accomplishment too (because it was well within their capability.) while making a better story. Thanks for the encouragement! With all this preparation, if I were a gentle stream before, I now feel like a river to my people.(PC's)
I would just like a solid example of the kind of trap you're taking about, maybe a few different ones even. I'm enthralled with the idea of putting in traps that aren't just bejewled with dice, and I've exhausted my players with chases. The other issue is justifying traps: I've a few players who ask why a bbeg is using certain kinds of traps as opposed to other undeniably more efficient traps even though they would make it impossible for the party to continue.
there's multiple really simple explanations for why the bad guys aren't using the most efficient traps or equipment: they don't have access to the books, they may not have the expertise or may not have thought of it or may not have the resources for it or may have delegated the trap building to someone less capable.
More trap details! My favorite trap I did was a competition between lots of adventuring parties, they found a small chamber in a sewer where another party were all put to sleep. There was a beehive of angry robber bees that put people to sleep. They had a lot of different interesting attempts until they got in. I though they'd just take the prize of some robbers wax. Instead they took the whole hive bees and all!
in terms of a campaign over all how would you ballance centerpiece traps or puzzle gates over fighting a boss? certainly both would be the centerpiece of a session or area.
You can also make "traps" that aren't roadblock so that even if the player don't figure it out they are only hindered and don't die or are completely stopped. For exemple you are chasing a group of mercenary and they have laid traps on the road. Well if your players figure them out they'll be able to pass right through them and catch onto the mercenaries leading to an easy fight. If they don't then maybe they are not harmed but a tree falls and destroy the bridge crossing the river, so either they have to find another solution to crossing that river or they have to take the long way around. If they take the long way around then maybe the mercenaries have arrived at their camp, you still catch on to them but the battle is much more challenging. So failing at avoiding the trap did not stop the story whatsoever and it wasn't an instant failing, but it still increased the challenge and maybe will force the players to change their approach to the next battle. I think that's something I'm more comfortable with when using traps.
Would love to hear your opinions on trap dungeons. One of my group's favorite modules has been the Tomb of Horrors converted for pathfinder, and I've kicked around the idea of designing a custom gauntlet-style trap-heavy dungeon crawl for them, but want something with a richer story than the old module provides.
One of the things that I always laugh about in fiction is when u get some dudes room that is trap primed to the bone and of course the traps are there to stop the protaganist story wise, BUT HOW DOES THE DUDE WHO LIVES IN THE HOUSE GO TO THE GOSH DANG BATHROOM WITHOUT GETTING STABBED MAIMED OR OTHERWISE SQUIDHED
the way i go about it is: service tunnels and magic. the dungeon is basically just the renovated (and expanded) remains of the dig leading to the main room or floor. the owner just teleports to said destination whereas any dungeon explorer would have to suffer. any non-magical access points are hidden, thin and snaky service tunnels which can give access to almost any point to rearm traps, clean up or whatever in relative safety but can still be potentially nightmarish (or even impossible if they're designed for small creatures) to attempt to use to circumvent the dungeon, assuming they're even found.
I like taking this into consideration in the design of the trap: Pressure plates that won't activate for small creatures are excellent for a goblin / kobold cave. Poisonous / necrotic energy for the lich / construct habitant who is immune to those effects. As people pointed out below, the players have only found one entrance, likely the 'back entrance' and maybe there are other, much more well hidden entrances on the other side. In the specifics of certain 'trap spells' you can specify conditions a trap would go off in. Still, you put this image in my head of the dark lord coming home with a headache and the traps are like the over-eager dog waiting at home, that the dark lord has to deal with.
Even a simple pit trap can be interesting. The way that I do them, is that I don't have the roll necessary to find the trap not as one number, but as three. Let's say that its 10/13/16. That creates four ranges of number. 9 or less, 10-12, 13-15, 16+. The highest one, you notice the pit trap and you see what it likely does. Second range: You unfortunately didn't notice the trap until it was triggered, but you did notice at just the last moment. You get a roll to avoid the trap and you get a bonus to the roll. Third range: You triggered the trap and you roll to avoid the trap. No bonus to the roll, but no negative either. Bottom range: You stumble head first into the trap without even an inkling that it was there. Roll to avoid the trap, but with a penalty. I've found that makes things a little bit manageable and so far my players have enjoyed it. Feel free to use this kind of system in your own or not. That is entirely up to you. - Happy gaming and may your loot always be plentiful.
I would love to know more on how to make dynamic traps, and how to setup involvement with them. And What perhaps constitutes as a trap. A sentry gun mounted on the ceiling pointing down a hallway doesn't feel too much like a trap at all when you think about it, feels more like an enemy. Depending on how it's triggered of course. So I would like a topic revolving around when does a trap become an encounter, and when should you use this kind of situation or not.
I would recommend the D&D 3.5 "Secrets of Xen'drik" source book, it has a section dedicated to setting up traps as encounters. It lists a few specific traps you could use as is, as well as guidelines for creating your own. Other than that, trap encounters can work however you set them up.
Hi, loving the series so far i would really like to thank you. I may have watched years of production in the span of three weeks as i approached my first time mastering, next Sunday will be the third session. I would like to ask, have you already covered general itemization so far? i can't seem to find anything on that broad subject, and i'm at a loss when it comes to shop for my NPCs.
You find a 10 feet wide 20 ft deep pit. At the bottom you see various weapons and suits of armor. Pouches lay about and random coins and gems are scattered. You don't notice anything else at the bottom. If the go down without being cautious or checking it out they lower themselves onto a gelatinous cube. All the stuff were the remains of previous victims.
that one is obvious. why not let them lower themself into an arena where they have to fight now. the loot they found can still be there if they win. but sadly most of it is to heavy damaged so you only get this boots or what ever
Hey, I was had a question that I was too late to reasonably post on your map-making on the fly video, as you wouldn't see it since it's on an old video. I just wanted to know how you practiced making things on the fly, or if you didn't and just kind of DID. I want to try doing things on the fly, but I don't know if I should use my players as Guinea Pigs or not, while at the same time can't think of a way to improve my skill without doing so. Thanks!
In my opinion, players should sometimes fail to escape a trap, but it obviously depends on what kind of trap. If the players come into a dungeon where there is a trap which may kill them, they should of course get as many chances as possible to escape, but if it's a trap which just makes them unable to go anywhere else it is a good opportunity for the story to take a turn. For example, they might be sneaking into an abandoned castle and when they go into a room, the door shuts behind them, locked. They can try to break the lock or the door, but if they fail an evil mage reveals himself to have been there all the time, trying to catch them. Now they have to fight him, or else he will sell them to the great antagonists (assuming the PC:s have an important role to play in defeating the bad guys). Of course the players will eventually escape the bad guys, but it might even take until they are already in the lands of the enemy before they escape. So since they failed to escape the first trap they are now in a completely different position. . So to summarize: failing to escape a trap should always be possible, and failing should drive the story in a new direction. Otherwise no traps will ever be important in the grand scheme of things.
If you've seen Avatar the last airbender there is an episode in season 3 where Ang and (Firebending instructor) explore an ancient fire temple. The goo trap at the end is one I plan on using in the future. The touch the magic treasure, and funk starts to fill the room. The door has slammed shut, and they have to 'swim' or suffocate. At the end, the are trapped and helpless while cultists from the temple drop in to say hello.
Your most helpful video so far (for me anyway) I have been GMing for about 12 years now, and I must say that the idea of traps is generally unterestimated, GMs need to know how to make it more interesting
How about scenario traps? Such as trying to have your players do something that seems completely wrong at the moment, or things like rogues that have prepared a scam to play on the players and so on. What should the main focus be on these? When I gm I always feel like I'm giving away too much information, the players usually find the solution easilly enough, but I'm afraid that if I gave less they would miss the point completely ._. I guess it's not important as long as the players are having fun but I still wonder how to balance all the information you give.
I was GM for years before I ever played a character. My group started as complete tabletop virgins, so no one else thought they could manage it. I made my first campaign, and it went over pretty well. It helps if you pick a more "story-centric" system, like Dungeon World or it's offshoots, because those have rules meant to cut down on GM prep and increase player involvement. Every player class has moves that end in "tell the GM what happened". This takes away a lot of the problems that people have with new GMs, because if the story doesn't work out, they can actively try to change the script, instead of just getting more and more upset. It also keeps it interesting for the GM, as you could imagine, helping to prevent burnout.
Can you do a video about pvp? How and when is it appropriate or not. And is it ok to attack a rogue that steals from their party? If not how do you deal with them
One follow-up question I have on this is how do you make traps interesting if the party has a "rogue" type who's player insists on just rolling the disable skill and never thinking? I want to include traps so I allow him to use the skill he has put points into but I feel that there is no interesting way to include a trap that is always bypassed in just a few rolls
Have a second trap that immediately triggers when the first one is disabled. Instead of having to just deal with a lock that spits poison at you if you don't have the correct key, the ceiling is now going to crush you unless you can figure out the ruins on the floor. And the mechanisms for the second trap are out of reach, thus you cannot use disable trap. Or put a curse on the rogue and now certain skills are at a disadvantage or have a penalty to their rolls (for whatever system you're using). Now part of the adventure is uncursing him but until that happens, his disable skill is won't work very well. Or, possibly, try to have him roll play it out. Skills are not magic. You don't simply wave a wand or mutter an incantation. You have to know which gear to pluck out, which wire to cut, which code to enter. I will typically ask my players to tell me what they're planning on doing first before they roll. I don't allow, "I'm going to roll a bluff check," at my table. It doesn't have to be said in character (not everyone's comfortable with that), but I at least need the person to say, "I go up to the guard and ask him how dare he talk to me like that! I'm Princess so-and-so!" That earns a dice roll.
What I mean is: How do you explain a nice trap without making it obvious? I dont't like to bring them into a room and suddenly I say: "well you activated a trap and this happens." This will end up in a group that uses a 10 ft pole and fly all the time to avoid boring traps. How can I give them enough counterplay/time to react or time to think about the trap to avoid them, without spoiling them? Was there a moment in one of your groups where everyone was like: "Damn this was amazing/ I didnt expect this! This trap was epic ect." (Sry for bad english)
Make it simple. "You spot a pressure plate" Ok, they know something is there, let then investigate they do not know. It will cause a rockslide? (Meybe the see a poor constructed roof if invstigate further) A pit will open? (They find a trapdor?) It just sounds the alarm? (It is magical?) It opens a secret door?? (They might disable the mecanism out of fear and miss it) You need to give the players the chance to investigate and make decisions, start with smiples ones, and as you (and your players) become better a it, make it a little more complex. But the simple but fun never fail
Id love to see the adventure that is the big bad asking the players to save him because he filled his keep with traps but forgot to make himself a way out
I really should show this video to my next DM...in my entire 3 years of playing, I have never ONCE had a DM that made a trap that was fun to solve or survive through. Every single trap I've encountered in-game has been this grand, Rube Goldberg-esque train wreck, that was entirely too complicated, and had only one acceptable solution.
Maybe iam just to uncreative with traps, but i cant rly think of many really good traps. Can you give some examples for traps. Or what are the best and interesting traps you ever used in your sesions, in your opinion. PS. Rly love your content :D
One way you could actually make an unsolvable trap work is to do what happened in Star Wars Episode 3, when Obi-Wan and Anakin were trapped in the ray shields. The trap can only be deactivated from the outside, and it will be deactivated by the villain or his minions. That way, the trap still plays into the plot, and the party isn't stuck forever.
There is a huge mountain of gold in the middle of the room....on top of it stands a throne and burned corpses lay on the scorched ground around the mountain...a few corpses are covered with red scales that look like embers. you assume noone had ever touched the gold... what do you do? ->lets run straight up to the gold and get rich.
traps tuned to the party is not nessisary traps with out numbers. looking at what the players can realistically pull off in terms of checks and attempts and having it so the players need to examine and explore the details of the trap to get out. similar to that of a puzzle gate or ceremonial gate.
Traps still stupefy me as a newer GM. "do this with your traps" "make your traps fun and entertaining" I still don't really know how to run traps. He talks about spots on the floor but how do you determine if somebody triggers a trap, or if they stand in a spot, or if they stand on a certain tile, do you just say "as you walk down the hall, where are you stepping?" Smaller triggered traps seem to be hard to do or judge unless you specifically ask them if they do something, if they stand somewhere, or whatever. I'd like to see some examples of actual traps that people have used and not just nebulous ideas that don't really talk about what traps are good to use and how to actually run them, how to tell who hits them if it's only 1 person, etc.
As a lifelong dungeon master/storyteller whenever I place a SUBSTANTIAL trap in their path I feel obliged to play something important, pertinent or elusive just passed it Why did this dungeons keepers bother to booby trap this desiccated section of corridor except that the ring with all the keys for first level hangs on the wall just beyond it The trap rewards them twice Once with the hidden object, information, or passage And the exhilarating thrill of their continued existence
Im noy a fan of building a player to a mission, or building a mission to the players. Especially since its a trap presumably the trap builder wouldnt want it defeated.
If your traps are only about players finding a successful solution to get to the next part of the story, then that is no better than railroading. If PCs can't fail, then they don't have freedom.
I my opinion, you should let your players fail... If you rob your players the chance to fail, you are cheating on then, their decisions really doesnt matter, you just gonna accept whattever solution they find, and that is a horrible comcept. Let the players fail, they will take stuff more seriosly The problem is really making the trap the ONLY way to move foward. If you are willing to to that, then you should be willing to let your players fail. If you do not want that risk of trapping your players, than just make them for optional objectives and bonus stuff.
To an extent I have to disagree with your advice against using traps to kill off players trying to enter an area that is to high of a level for them. It would make no sense what so ever for some dungeons to have traps that any party could bypass if they were clever enough, because those dungeons wouldn't have gone undefeated for a long enough time to become the legends that they usually are. A specific example- the lair of the Lich Queen Vol in the Eberron setting. She is an ancient figure of legend that has had to ward off the prying eyes and attacks from an entire continent of dragons out for her destruction. So if your group of lets say level six players decide that they are good enough to ignore all warnings that Vol is to much for them and go after her, it would make sense for them to get wiped by the first trap. The dungeon was designed to prevent a draconic attack so of course a low to mid level party wouldn't stand a chance, Vol is an epic level villain. In cases like that it isn't the DM just saying no, it is a reality check for the players to make them realize that they are not gods in the setting. If every legendary villain had a lair that any mooks could clear then the questions of "why hasn't someone else cleared this place?" and "why are they a legend?" come up.
Wrong again, if you’ve indicated several times that a dungeon or a dungeon level is beyond the characters at the moment and they decide to go in there anyway then you should absolutely stick with what you’ve designed as wrote because they’ve taken on that extra challenge despite your warnings. If they all die they all die. They might just succeed despite all odds too. Don’t rob player agency or the challenge of your world because they make poor decisions and the world you create should not always scale with PCs, it isn’t a video game.
I couldn’t disagree more: you don’t need to have a solution in mind for traps/hazards, that’s up to the players to come up with. Gamemasters are meant to adjudicate rules and set the stage, not provide solutions. If the GM is dictating how PCs should act or how they should solve a problem, they are abusing their position. If I put a chasm in a room that’s too wide to jump over, I sit back and let players creatively decide how best to tackle it. That’s how a roleplaying game is played.
Not allowing the stupid decisions of the players cause character death is, in my opinion, a mistake. If it's a common-sense don't-do-this-dumbass stupid decision--like, for example, going into a dungeon you've been told in-character has slain adventurers much more skilled than you--I have no problem letting the natural consequences fall. The suggestion to always give players an out no matter what leads to them taking greater and greater risks and assuming they'll be fine....a trend that can destroy the challenge and pleasure of play, not to mention risking the players destroying the story due to their sheer entitled arrogance that stems from "we've never been under half hit points or been seriously threatened in the whole game". I mean, by all means don't set your players up for failure. Don't tell them that this dungeon is the only way forward and not give them a way to get through it without being ten levels higher. But don't coddle them either. The world does not and should not scale in power with the players. If they stick their noses in an ancient red dragon's lair at level 5 they damn well should get burned alive...or at least terrified beyond measure, if you can come up with a reason why said dragon wouldn't kill them outright.
how to make a great trap: make a really nice npc, cute and sexy.. but she's a guy. ROLL FOR INITIATIVE! but seriously, the dumbest traps are usually the best ones, take for example a kill room with some crazy contraption that seems to be what opens the door, the adventurers try everything and only after half an hour of attempts that just ended up poisoning or hurting the players, one of them approaches the door and they notice they had to push the door instead of pulling it
For my own case: I did play my first game of role play in 1986, so today I have over 30 years experience. Role playing games are easy to get started with, but near impossible to master. Though a lot in these videos are beginners stuff for me, I still find them interesting. What I, most often, get from them is new ways how things can go wrong! - Most of what I play do go fairly well, thus I rarely see the many ways role play can fail. One of the most recent terms I have learned is: "Christmas Tree Character". (That is when people try to play role playing games as some computer game: What decoration item do we put in to the "body slot", "belt slot", "leg slot", etc. ?) Often I find questions, posed here in the comments section, that I can answer. This way I help others by providing them with some ideas. And quite often people are happy for my input. Here is it a bit sad that, despite Guy did respond often to comments in the early days of this channel, he seems to have given up on that. Though the "Comments Read Out Loud" videos do make up for it somewhat. I did expect this one to be in the category, hopefully it will come. For what the D&D type games goes, then, well, I do play them sometimes, but! It is due to some of the other players insist. I have done it as GM quite some through out the years, but never in any D&D game, as I use that extra power a GM have, in selecting the role playing game system, to select something better. To my experience, of all the systems I have tried, I rate D&D to be the worst system. Good role play is possible in any system, even D&D, it is just that the D&D system is demotivating role play. Example: The alignment system, it make the players think: "What would this alignment do?" instead of "What would my character do?". D&D match the mentality for 12 to 14 years old boys, and is a great system for them! But, when growing older people should mature and outgrow D&D. A point where I find this channel to be more interesting, than other channels I have seen, is that Guy try to keep distance to system specific details, and instead focus at "What is good role play?". As I say: Good role play can be done in any system.
D&D is only bad if you use ironclad rules. It's up to the DM to make the game their own kind. Me and my friends always joke about how our bard's alignment fluctuates when he was neutral good when we started but is now essentially dealing with mafia and other shady organizations. The rules are just tools for new players.
I play a system my friends and I created from two other systems (plus our own stuff) about fifteen years ago. But I've been playing rpg's since chainmail came out ( pre D&D) something like 35 years worth. : )
One player in my group, Warrior/Tank, started "solving" all traps by throwing scrap metal at it. He had a bag of holding he filled with broken armor and equipment he found on newly minted corpses. To break this, I made a hallway-trap with one door at either end. It was long enough they couldn't sprint through. Once triggered, intense fire would shoot from nozzles all along the ceiling melting any metal / non-magical gear once the doors had locked shut. Due to the severity of this, I made ducking back out the door before it closed DC8 and made the trap spotted once approached. There was a lever by the far door that needed flipped to disable the trap. I was expecting a Mage-hand or a well-placed arrow to solve this. Hell no. In classic PC fashion, the group's teifling player stripped down and took the Warrior/Tank's magic shield. He ran naked, and screaming, down the hall taking 1/2 fire damage from racial bonus and another 1/2 from using the shield as a fire-umbrella (and due to my personal amusement at their creativity). He made it to the other end and flipped the switch once he hit 1/3 of his HP.
Metagaming
GM metagaming is not necessarily a bad thing, as Guy himself has done video on.
@@OhNoTheFace dick gm. Let some stuff slide in order to have fun
MrCharisma He did let it slide as the entire group, including the DM had fun w their solution.
Guy has a video on subtle DM meta gaming needed to make the game enjoyable for all... including the DM.
In this case, DM three a different kind of trap, and the party had fun solving it. Doesn’t stop tank player from trying their metal-throwing solution at subsequent traps, either. DM mixed it up well!
Nice move. It is important to raise difficulty once the players already have an easy solution for everything. I wouldn't say you were metagaming. I prefer to think that the guards/bandits were progressively investigating why the hell their traps weren't working. Like Phantom Pain does with enemies' equipments
As far as traps go, I used to like the old 'locked door and 3 levers' trap. One lever unlocks the door, one triggers a falling portcullis or slip and slide to a handy oubliette trap and one sounds an alarm. One player in particular would want to pull all three, even if they opened the door on the first go. It got that way they would leave him behind or all stand back and wait because they knew he would pull all three levers no matter what. Incidentally, they could work out which was the door lever just by passing a simple check to see which one was dirtiest or had the most wear on it (that being the one the guards pulled all the time to open the door). It was an endless source of amusement for me I have to say... I miss having friends...
I would love it if you continued this series on traps. It could be really useful and insightful for making traps more interesting than "take 1d6 damage because you stepped on the pressure plate because you didnt say you were checking for traps as you moved down the corridor".
This video has inspired me to try to be a better Trap... I mean better Game Master.
I am so glad he kept the horns on for the whole video, I gotta say.
It's hilarious that you published this today. You should check out Matt Colville's video that he published today. "Cause it was too high level. I warned you!" is basically what he said not to do as well. The players play D&D to be heroes. They're gonna fight insurmountable odds so they can feel like heroes.
Solid video that gives more advice than on just traps that can be applied to other areas of DMing.
I was thinking this episode was about crossdressing characters and NPCs that pass as the opposite gender. Which makes this episode a trap in and of itself. Good job, GreatGM, you have created the ultimate meta-trap about traps!
Micheal Jordan: stop it. Get some help
My favorite trap is a telescope in a windowless room. Look into and a pike pokes out your eye. Ü
I'm so using that.
dude what if your player uses the telescope and it gives them black ink around their eye and they can't remove it.
I like puzzle traps or ones that split the party for a bit
Also the most dangerous trap is the pleasure house.
*I saw the title and came immediately...then after I cleaned myself up I watched the video!*
it's hilarious when you watch this with slang term "traps" in mind.
The best trap i've ever done, is a Gargoyle on a door, who would repeatedly tell the party to not open the door it was on (it was named, the Doorgoyle, and i love him), what do the party do? Of course, they then open the door, and get attacked by a group of creatures. This was a one-shot, and it ended with them bringing the Doorgoyle back to the guy who got them to do the job for him, and the Doorgoyle was left with him, and the guy is one of the BBEG's, so he now has an extra trap, involving the Doorgoyle telling them they definitely need to open the door.
Can you do : "How to make a good combat and not boring" ?
My way of making combat not boring is to briefly describe how the action the PC took was accomplished, "you cut off a piece the orcs shoulder"= -8 hp damage or so on.
Robert McNally what I call boring is when it's dice rolling session. Your turn : I attack, roll the dice; next; round ends; Your turn : I attack roll the dice.
Well that's when you get more imaginative with the ways battle can be handled, such as Dice Camera Action does on the D&D channel every Wednesday. Have you ever seen them fight? They seem to almost never merely roll the dice, they always do something that would be out of the ordinary. If you watch it you will see what i mean. God bless you and thanks for the response/clarification.
allowing for options and rewards for alternative methods of attack could be another way of providing a dynamic setting for the field. say there is stationary weapons or the combat is not the core of the interaction, rather you just have to hold of the attackers while you work on the solution. i also have an enemy concept that involves a particular weak spot but the opponent can also be disabled by other means only to reassemble if not killed appropriately while in combat or after it is disabled.
Unless you are going for a super serious tone I would suggest letting your players use any silly but effective tactics they come up with. I had a campaign where a beguiler in the group would summon the biggest creature he could summon in mid air above the opponent. Nothing spices up combat like defeating an enemy by summoning an elephant about 60ft above their head and letting it drop. And before anyone says animal cruelty, summoned creatures return to where they came from unharmed if they are killed while summoned.
Such great advice for traps in the game. I hate traps in games when I'm a player.....and therefore I've hesitated to use them in my game.
Beautifully timed, after a long journey to end a zombie horde, my Players are close to the Death Tyrants dungeon. I'm thinking of spicing the mechanical trap with undead: zombie filled hidden pit, falling crawling claws instead of falling net, corridors littered with corpses some of which are 'sleeping' zombies, and some sort of somatic puzzle with a 'crushing wall' of slow and lumbering zombies. I like the idea of some Skill dependent traps, and I will definitely include them.
I'm thinking of setting up a segment where my players have to design their own traps to stop/slow down pursuing enemies whilst they try to reach their goal (probably some Goonies-esque treasure run).
I think the tension of them wondering how effective said traps are as they themselves race against time would be fun. It's also a nice twist on the typical mechanic.
Love your content! You're the best! This is my obligatory content to improve your results in the RUclips algorithm. :) Very funny intro.
Great video on trap use. Love the horns.
Some traps and dungeons for higher level characters is okay within campaigns, or the world doesn't feel very real is everywhere you go, everything is perfectly scaled to you. Instead, the way I have personally found to deal with such situations is to make it clear their characters are aware the area they are in is filled with terrifying monsters that are said to be overwhelmingly dangerous, or see a trap trigger that carves something they see as extremely tough into tiny pieces. As long as the players and characters are absolutely aware of the immense dangers, it's their prerogative to bull-rush in, or to use a little sense and avoid the area for the moment. (This is of course assuming there are many things for the PCs to do, and there are other, more level-appropriate things nearby).
You deserve way more subscribers.
Traps are security systems, and security systems have two functions: wasting time and attracting attention. The point is to give a person the opportunity to interrupt you, to stop whatever you're trying to do.
Exactly! That is what I use traps for when I GM.
To distract the players and waste their time.
So do I ^^
But is that not kinda boring? There must be a way to create a great and epic trap everyone enjoys!
When I use such a trap I try to think, if this was my dungeon and I wanted to kill people that invaded it, how would I proceed? Maybe lay some statuette or something and put traps around it to catch greedy invaders. So thats precisely what I do, I put some shiny object surrounded by traps and its actually worthless, a total waste of time and efforts. And when the players realise this they feel like they have been cheated and are even more angry after those pesky monsters that succeded in trapping them :o
My point is that traps don't stand on their own - use them to set up (and to complicate) other encounters.
Horns truly befitting a GM.
I always max out my Reroute Power Through the Trap Thing skill.
Its not just role players; people in general seem to have this need to be contrary. After all, how many times has someone said "don't look down!" and the other person immediately looks down? It can be incredibly frustrating, but it can also be immensely entertaining when you use it to completely goad players/people into doing something simply by telling them not to do it.
If my players wanted to fight a monster that was simply too powerful for them, and insisted despite my warnings and went to where the monster has to be (say, a high-level evil NPC who's in the world), it would not be a good story for me to make sure that it wouldn't simply kill them. They're not very powerful, and that baddy is, so of course they're going to die unless they run. Weak characters conquering the world just because I shouldn't give them a challenge that they can't beat devalues everything that they have accomplished. It's kind of like using a Dues Ex Machina to make sure they don't die just because they've been rolling badly. Of course that situation can make for a pretty bad story, but it can also provide great tension. Party wipes based on bad decisions can improve the next group of adventurers, especially if they actually succeed and live through that same experience because they became powerful enough to beat it before-hand.
Disclaimer: I am complete newbie and learning.
How about we let the players decide to be stubborn and end up encountering the big bad guy(s) in which case they would normally die, how about making the bad guy beat them easily but instead of killing them lets them live instead or plans on killing them but for whatever reason something else demands his attention or prevents him from finishing them off.
Wouldn't this create a new incentive to go after bad guy? Learn about him more, level up get stronger and come after him again? In other words wouldn't that make a good story? What do you think?
I can't believe I forgot to mention having the big baddy not kill the party, but still beat them soundly. There are plenty of reasons why he would let them live, including examples like they are so far beneath them that he'd rather let them live (barely) with that knowledge than simply kill them. Or he has places to be, or he captures them, or leaves them to some of his goons (which are still almost too powerful for them, but possible) and promptly forgets about them. These situations can actually be intentionally added to introduce a baddy before the PCs are supposed to defeat him.
But traps have no such decision making power. If the PCs wander into a dungeon that has claimed many lives of much more powerful adventurers and stumble into a trap that is designed to kill them (as traps generally are) then you have very few options about how the trap won't kill them without eliminating the idea that this is a deadly dungeon that they are not yet ready for. It could be a trap that captures them (intended to kill by starvation), which they could potentially escape from, but then it's a really badly designed trap unless they have some semi-unique power (such as they are put in an anti-magic unclimable pit, but one of them has natural wings and can fly everyone out, but more powerful parties would be prevented by the anti-magic). The trap can't really get distracted or decide that they're not worth finishing off. Your best bet is to change the trap so that it will kill them, but they have plenty of opportunities to realize this and still leave (I saw an idea for a room filled with mono-filament wires that can cut through anything as easily as air can pass around them, which if devised as doing high amounts of damage only partially into the room, the PCs can realize that they will die before they get through before it's too late to turn back).
Other options include something that doesn't kill but is impassible without a certain key or phrase, that the PCs have to go on a long adventure to get. The adventure and travel would allow them to improve, engage in side-quests and be powerful enough to overcome the actually deadly traps/enemies by the time they return, all the while wondering what is actually on the other side. But technically encountering the impassible thing could be as frustrating and as bad of a story as getting killed by it, depending on how you look at it.
My main point was that making everything possible for the party to conquer is not a good alternative to saying, "there are things out there that you cannot kill, traps that you cannot figure out, and challenges that you cannot overcome...yet."
Thank you so much for you insight! I've never been in a session before and I want to be the GM for my first one and this helps a lot! :D
This guy has some really great insights and advice. His take on the Chaotic alignments is the best that I have ever seen, period.
Matt Colville has a series specifically for new GMs, and it's fantastic. It's more heavily focused on D&D than this series, but he also goes through things like how to design your first adventure, how to run random encounters, some different types of campaigns, and gives some recommendations for adventure modules that he likes to use and why someone might want to use them instead of making their own adventure.
If you look up Johnn Four outside of RUclips, he has literally hundreds of articles giving advice and ideas for GMs, which are (generally) self-contained so you can browse through the titles to find things that might address particular problems you run into.
But while all of the advice and tips about GMing across the internet are useful, they're best understood in practice. So good luck on getting started and remember not to get discouraged. Nobody runs a perfect first campaign.
Oh my god this is sooo much help, had you not put the extra effort here I wouldn't have bothered exploring other sources! I have been binge watching this guy and now I shall do the same with Matt Colville's who is just as valuable!
While I was inventing my own world map I got an idea which may solve our problem for PC's taking on opponents and dungeons out of their leagues. If it is known to PC's that there is something to explore then they will explore it, so the solution here is to not give them that knowledge in the first place! If there is nothing to explore, naturally people will go to another site of attraction.
Later on we can give them clues (whenever we feel they are ready) in their side quests which lead to the location of these hidden marks (as I call them.) where they get to meet the true villain or learn of some grand evil scheme which makes them take on the main plot-campaign mission.
This way players will not feel as if the gm was being a dick by placing something they cannot overcome and they will also feel a sense of buildup and accomplishment too (because it was well within their capability.) while making a better story.
Thanks for the encouragement! With all this preparation, if I were a gentle stream before, I now feel like a river to my people.(PC's)
I would just like a solid example of the kind of trap you're taking about, maybe a few different ones even. I'm enthralled with the idea of putting in traps that aren't just bejewled with dice, and I've exhausted my players with chases. The other issue is justifying traps: I've a few players who ask why a bbeg is using certain kinds of traps as opposed to other undeniably more efficient traps even though they would make it impossible for the party to continue.
there's multiple really simple explanations for why the bad guys aren't using the most efficient traps or equipment: they don't have access to the books, they may not have the expertise or may not have thought of it or may not have the resources for it or may have delegated the trap building to someone less capable.
I was gonna make a joke about traps and gayness but your cockney construction grunt enthralled me with his character, well done.
I was 37 seconds too late for a similar comment.
- LollipopSunder - not cockney! Generic northern accent like Shaun Bean.
- LollipopSunder -
Jokes on you, they were a trap too.
More trap details! My favorite trap I did was a competition between lots of adventuring parties, they found a small chamber in a sewer where another party were all put to sleep. There was a beehive of angry robber bees that put people to sleep. They had a lot of different interesting attempts until they got in. I though they'd just take the prize of some robbers wax. Instead they took the whole hive bees and all!
Star Traps ... sounds like an interesting setting.
in terms of a campaign over all how would you ballance centerpiece traps or puzzle gates over fighting a boss? certainly both would be the centerpiece of a session or area.
You can also make "traps" that aren't roadblock so that even if the player don't figure it out they are only hindered and don't die or are completely stopped.
For exemple you are chasing a group of mercenary and they have laid traps on the road. Well if your players figure them out they'll be able to pass right through them and catch onto the mercenaries leading to an easy fight. If they don't then maybe they are not harmed but a tree falls and destroy the bridge crossing the river, so either they have to find another solution to crossing that river or they have to take the long way around.
If they take the long way around then maybe the mercenaries have arrived at their camp, you still catch on to them but the battle is much more challenging. So failing at avoiding the trap did not stop the story whatsoever and it wasn't an instant failing, but it still increased the challenge and maybe will force the players to change their approach to the next battle.
I think that's something I'm more comfortable with when using traps.
Would love to hear your opinions on trap dungeons. One of my group's favorite modules has been the Tomb of Horrors converted for pathfinder, and I've kicked around the idea of designing a custom gauntlet-style trap-heavy dungeon crawl for them, but want something with a richer story than the old module provides.
One of the things that I always laugh about in fiction is when u get some dudes room that is trap primed to the bone and of course the traps are there to stop the protaganist story wise, BUT HOW DOES THE DUDE WHO LIVES IN THE HOUSE GO TO THE GOSH DANG BATHROOM WITHOUT GETTING STABBED MAIMED OR OTHERWISE SQUIDHED
Mequam BlueSpark
Bhua ha ha! Excellent point. An NPC my age would not survive the night. #DeadlyRestroomBreak
the way i go about it is: service tunnels and magic. the dungeon is basically just the renovated (and expanded) remains of the dig leading to the main room or floor. the owner just teleports to said destination whereas any dungeon explorer would have to suffer. any non-magical access points are hidden, thin and snaky service tunnels which can give access to almost any point to rearm traps, clean up or whatever in relative safety but can still be potentially nightmarish (or even impossible if they're designed for small creatures) to attempt to use to circumvent the dungeon, assuming they're even found.
How can people live in a house with alarms?
It's so annoying hearing it every time someone pass the entry door.
(joking)
I like taking this into consideration in the design of the trap:
Pressure plates that won't activate for small creatures are excellent for a goblin / kobold cave.
Poisonous / necrotic energy for the lich / construct habitant who is immune to those effects.
As people pointed out below, the players have only found one entrance, likely the 'back entrance' and maybe there are other, much more well hidden entrances on the other side.
In the specifics of certain 'trap spells' you can specify conditions a trap would go off in.
Still, you put this image in my head of the dark lord coming home with a headache and the traps are like the over-eager dog waiting at home, that the dark lord has to deal with.
Even a simple pit trap can be interesting. The way that I do them, is that I don't have the roll necessary to find the trap not as one number, but as three. Let's say that its 10/13/16.
That creates four ranges of number. 9 or less, 10-12, 13-15, 16+.
The highest one, you notice the pit trap and you see what it likely does.
Second range: You unfortunately didn't notice the trap until it was triggered, but you did notice at just the last moment. You get a roll to avoid the trap and you get a bonus to the roll.
Third range: You triggered the trap and you roll to avoid the trap. No bonus to the roll, but no negative either.
Bottom range: You stumble head first into the trap without even an inkling that it was there. Roll to avoid the trap, but with a penalty.
I've found that makes things a little bit manageable and so far my players have enjoyed it. Feel free to use this kind of system in your own or not. That is entirely up to you.
- Happy gaming and may your loot always be plentiful.
I would love to know more on how to make dynamic traps, and how to setup involvement with them. And What perhaps constitutes as a trap. A sentry gun mounted on the ceiling pointing down a hallway doesn't feel too much like a trap at all when you think about it, feels more like an enemy. Depending on how it's triggered of course. So I would like a topic revolving around when does a trap become an encounter, and when should you use this kind of situation or not.
I would recommend the D&D 3.5 "Secrets of Xen'drik" source book, it has a section dedicated to setting up traps as encounters. It lists a few specific traps you could use as is, as well as guidelines for creating your own. Other than that, trap encounters can work however you set them up.
I'd love a video about running puzzles
Those horns are fantastic. Where can I get a pair of those horns?
I wanna wear them to work.
Hi, loving the series so far i would really like to thank you.
I may have watched years of production in the span of three weeks as i approached my first time mastering, next Sunday will be the third session.
I would like to ask, have you already covered general itemization so far? i can't seem to find anything on that broad subject, and i'm at a loss when it comes to shop for my NPCs.
Where can I find a source for a good traps ? please give suggestions
Best examples of Magic traps and mechanical traps?
You find a 10 feet wide 20 ft deep pit. At the bottom you see various weapons and suits of armor. Pouches lay about and random coins and gems are scattered. You don't notice anything else at the bottom.
If the go down without being cautious or checking it out they lower themselves onto a gelatinous cube. All the stuff were the remains of previous victims.
that one is obvious. why not let them lower themself into an arena where they have to fight now. the loot they found can still be there if they win. but sadly most of it is to heavy damaged so you only get this boots or what ever
Hey, I was had a question that I was too late to reasonably post on your map-making on the fly video, as you wouldn't see it since it's on an old video. I just wanted to know how you practiced making things on the fly, or if you didn't and just kind of DID. I want to try doing things on the fly, but I don't know if I should use my players as Guinea Pigs or not, while at the same time can't think of a way to improve my skill without doing so.
Thanks!
How about traps that change your alignment?
Does anyone have links to good trap websites?
Somebody: Sure. Here's a link.
Questioner clicks on link, and gets ransomware.
Great content
In my opinion, players should sometimes fail to escape a trap, but it obviously depends on what kind of trap. If the players come into a dungeon where there is a trap which may kill them, they should of course get as many chances as possible to escape, but if it's a trap which just makes them unable to go anywhere else it is a good opportunity for the story to take a turn.
For example, they might be sneaking into an abandoned castle and when they go into a room, the door shuts behind them, locked. They can try to break the lock or the door, but if they fail an evil mage reveals himself to have been there all the time, trying to catch them. Now they have to fight him, or else he will sell them to the great antagonists (assuming the PC:s have an important role to play in defeating the bad guys). Of course the players will eventually escape the bad guys, but it might even take until they are already in the lands of the enemy before they escape. So since they failed to escape the first trap they are now in a completely different position. .
So to summarize: failing to escape a trap should always be possible, and failing should drive the story in a new direction. Otherwise no traps will ever be important in the grand scheme of things.
If you've seen Avatar the last airbender there is an episode in season 3 where Ang and (Firebending instructor) explore an ancient fire temple.
The goo trap at the end is one I plan on using in the future.
The touch the magic treasure, and funk starts to fill the room. The door has slammed shut, and they have to 'swim' or suffocate. At the end, the are trapped and helpless while cultists from the temple drop in to say hello.
Your most helpful video so far (for me anyway) I have been GMing for about 12 years now, and I must say that the idea of traps is generally unterestimated, GMs need to know how to make it more interesting
How about scenario traps? Such as trying to have your players do something that seems completely wrong at the moment, or things like rogues that have prepared a scam to play on the players and so on. What should the main focus be on these? When I gm I always feel like I'm giving away too much information, the players usually find the solution easilly enough, but I'm afraid that if I gave less they would miss the point completely ._. I guess it's not important as long as the players are having fun but I still wonder how to balance all the information you give.
I like your horns, but as a mini painter I found myself staring at the mold lines on them, ha ha. 😜
Star Traps: such a sexy parody!
Dungeons & Traps : Where do I sign up for that RP? A few good looking Fembois would really spice up a quest!
I'm having trouble with trap concepts, can you make a video on the thought process behind traps? (Specifically for a starwars game)
What should a gm do if they're going to run their first game? Should they use a premade campaign or try making one first?
I was GM for years before I ever played a character. My group started as complete tabletop virgins, so no one else thought they could manage it. I made my first campaign, and it went over pretty well. It helps if you pick a more "story-centric" system, like Dungeon World or it's offshoots, because those have rules meant to cut down on GM prep and increase player involvement. Every player class has moves that end in "tell the GM what happened". This takes away a lot of the problems that people have with new GMs, because if the story doesn't work out, they can actively try to change the script, instead of just getting more and more upset. It also keeps it interesting for the GM, as you could imagine, helping to prevent burnout.
shaness112233 thanks!
Can you do a video about pvp? How and when is it appropriate or not. And is it ok to attack a rogue that steals from their party? If not how do you deal with them
Great great video
How to tailor traps to your specific party?
One follow-up question I have on this is how do you make traps interesting if the party has a "rogue" type who's player insists on just rolling the disable skill and never thinking? I want to include traps so I allow him to use the skill he has put points into but I feel that there is no interesting way to include a trap that is always bypassed in just a few rolls
Have a second trap that immediately triggers when the first one is disabled. Instead of having to just deal with a lock that spits poison at you if you don't have the correct key, the ceiling is now going to crush you unless you can figure out the ruins on the floor. And the mechanisms for the second trap are out of reach, thus you cannot use disable trap.
Or put a curse on the rogue and now certain skills are at a disadvantage or have a penalty to their rolls (for whatever system you're using). Now part of the adventure is uncursing him but until that happens, his disable skill is won't work very well.
Or, possibly, try to have him roll play it out. Skills are not magic. You don't simply wave a wand or mutter an incantation. You have to know which gear to pluck out, which wire to cut, which code to enter. I will typically ask my players to tell me what they're planning on doing first before they roll. I don't allow, "I'm going to roll a bluff check," at my table. It doesn't have to be said in character (not everyone's comfortable with that), but I at least need the person to say, "I go up to the guard and ask him how dare he talk to me like that! I'm Princess so-and-so!" That earns a dice roll.
Don't you think this is kinda frustrating? We had this two trap scenario once and we really did not like it.
Kevin Heimbach That's why I gave other options. It can be a dick move but sometimes, you need to wake the players up. Use your best judgement.
"a bad trap is something they can spot straight away"
Can you give a good example for aq well thought Trap please? I struggle to create a fun to play Trapy that has good counterpaly. Thanks
What I mean is: How do you explain a nice trap without making it obvious? I dont't like to bring them into a room and suddenly I say: "well you activated a trap and this happens."
This will end up in a group that uses a 10 ft pole and fly all the time to avoid boring traps.
How can I give them enough counterplay/time to react or time to think about the trap to avoid them, without spoiling them?
Was there a moment in one of your groups where everyone was like: "Damn this was amazing/ I didnt expect this! This trap was epic ect."
(Sry for bad english)
Make it simple.
"You spot a pressure plate"
Ok, they know something is there, let then investigate they do not know.
It will cause a rockslide? (Meybe the see a poor constructed roof if invstigate further)
A pit will open? (They find a trapdor?)
It just sounds the alarm? (It is magical?)
It opens a secret door?? (They might disable the mecanism out of fear and miss it)
You need to give the players the chance to investigate and make decisions, start with smiples ones, and as you (and your players) become better a it, make it a little more complex.
But the simple but fun never fail
What are your thoughts on home brewed traps and riddles? Do you find it difficult to challenge a group of close friends who know you well?
If your going to capture a zoid, do you make a trapezoid?
Trick-onomics.
Id love to see the adventure that is the big bad asking the players to save him because he filled his keep with traps but forgot to make himself a way out
I really should show this video to my next DM...in my entire 3 years of playing, I have never ONCE had a DM that made a trap that was fun to solve or survive through. Every single trap I've encountered in-game has been this grand, Rube Goldberg-esque train wreck, that was entirely too complicated, and had only one acceptable solution.
Maybe iam just to uncreative with traps, but i cant rly think of many really good traps. Can you give some examples for traps. Or what are the best and interesting traps you ever used in your sesions, in your opinion. PS. Rly love your content :D
More of these videos
One way you could actually make an unsolvable trap work is to do what happened in Star Wars Episode 3, when Obi-Wan and Anakin were trapped in the ray shields. The trap can only be deactivated from the outside, and it will be deactivated by the villain or his minions. That way, the trap still plays into the plot, and the party isn't stuck forever.
One on trap/puzzle rooms specifically
A good idea I find is to have a mix of traps and live enemies.
It's a trap!
10/10 IGN
There is a huge mountain of gold in the middle of the room....on top of it stands a throne and burned corpses lay on the scorched ground around the mountain...a few corpses are covered with red scales that look like embers.
you assume noone had ever touched the gold...
what do you do?
->lets run straight up to the gold and get rich.
Trapfinder :D
"The story is not Dungeons and Traps" seems like a good campaign thought lol
I like teleport traps that port a party away from an area that they pay too much useless attention to.
Wheres the puzzles video! :(
traps without number
trap heresy
a fun game :D
traps tuned to the party is not nessisary traps with out numbers. looking at what the players can realistically pull off in terms of checks and attempts and having it so the players need to examine and explore the details of the trap to get out. similar to that of a puzzle gate or ceremonial gate.
Traps still stupefy me as a newer GM. "do this with your traps" "make your traps fun and entertaining" I still don't really know how to run traps.
He talks about spots on the floor but how do you determine if somebody triggers a trap, or if they stand in a spot, or if they stand on a certain tile, do you just say "as you walk down the hall, where are you stepping?"
Smaller triggered traps seem to be hard to do or judge unless you specifically ask them if they do something, if they stand somewhere, or whatever.
I'd like to see some examples of actual traps that people have used and not just nebulous ideas that don't really talk about what traps are good to use and how to actually run them, how to tell who hits them if it's only 1 person, etc.
As a lifelong dungeon master/storyteller whenever I place a SUBSTANTIAL trap in their path I feel obliged to play something important, pertinent or elusive just passed it
Why did this dungeons keepers bother to booby trap this desiccated section of corridor except that the ring with all the keys for first level hangs on the wall just beyond it
The trap rewards them twice
Once with the hidden object, information, or passage
And the exhilarating thrill of their continued existence
Dungeons and traps, star traps, if we want to look further into traps. I almost died.
I ran an adventure with a Trap once. He was an elven bard and was completely useless in comba- oh. Oh, that kind of trap. Oh ok. Those are good too.
great! but reeeaaaly need help with puzzles.
How to use traps?
Simple, make a very feminine Incubus. Then they're a trap by both definitions.
Owo ! What's this?
Not sure what it is. But he looks different
Haven't finished the trap in a couple minutes? make something snap and break, say the trap broke due to age.
No Ackbar joke? I am disappoint.
look at desc
Im noy a fan of building a player to a mission, or building a mission to the players. Especially since its a trap presumably the trap builder wouldnt want it defeated.
Whip Cream pit
If your traps are only about players finding a successful solution to get to the next part of the story, then that is no better than railroading.
If PCs can't fail, then they don't have freedom.
I my opinion, you should let your players fail... If you rob your players the chance to fail, you are cheating on then, their decisions really doesnt matter, you just gonna accept whattever solution they find, and that is a horrible comcept. Let the players fail, they will take stuff more seriosly
The problem is really making the trap the ONLY way to move foward. If you are willing to to that, then you should be willing to let your players fail. If you do not want that risk of trapping your players, than just make them for optional objectives and bonus stuff.
To an extent I have to disagree with your advice against using traps to kill off players trying to enter an area that is to high of a level for them. It would make no sense what so ever for some dungeons to have traps that any party could bypass if they were clever enough, because those dungeons wouldn't have gone undefeated for a long enough time to become the legends that they usually are. A specific example- the lair of the Lich Queen Vol in the Eberron setting. She is an ancient figure of legend that has had to ward off the prying eyes and attacks from an entire continent of dragons out for her destruction. So if your group of lets say level six players decide that they are good enough to ignore all warnings that Vol is to much for them and go after her, it would make sense for them to get wiped by the first trap. The dungeon was designed to prevent a draconic attack so of course a low to mid level party wouldn't stand a chance, Vol is an epic level villain. In cases like that it isn't the DM just saying no, it is a reality check for the players to make them realize that they are not gods in the setting. If every legendary villain had a lair that any mooks could clear then the questions of "why hasn't someone else cleared this place?" and "why are they a legend?" come up.
Dungeons in itself make no sense when you consider the costs of building and the upkeep and repair of all these traps and feeding of monsters.
Wrong again, if you’ve indicated several times that a dungeon or a dungeon level is beyond the characters at the moment and they decide to go in there anyway then you should absolutely stick with what you’ve designed as wrote because they’ve taken on that extra challenge despite your warnings. If they all die they all die. They might just succeed despite all odds too. Don’t rob player agency or the challenge of your world because they make poor decisions and the world you create should not always scale with PCs, it isn’t a video game.
I couldn’t disagree more: you don’t need to have a solution in mind for traps/hazards, that’s up to the players to come up with. Gamemasters are meant to adjudicate rules and set the stage, not provide solutions. If the GM is dictating how PCs should act or how they should solve a problem, they are abusing their position.
If I put a chasm in a room that’s too wide to jump over, I sit back and let players creatively decide how best to tackle it. That’s how a roleplaying game is played.
Not allowing the stupid decisions of the players cause character death is, in my opinion, a mistake. If it's a common-sense don't-do-this-dumbass stupid decision--like, for example, going into a dungeon you've been told in-character has slain adventurers much more skilled than you--I have no problem letting the natural consequences fall. The suggestion to always give players an out no matter what leads to them taking greater and greater risks and assuming they'll be fine....a trend that can destroy the challenge and pleasure of play, not to mention risking the players destroying the story due to their sheer entitled arrogance that stems from "we've never been under half hit points or been seriously threatened in the whole game".
I mean, by all means don't set your players up for failure. Don't tell them that this dungeon is the only way forward and not give them a way to get through it without being ten levels higher. But don't coddle them either. The world does not and should not scale in power with the players. If they stick their noses in an ancient red dragon's lair at level 5 they damn well should get burned alive...or at least terrified beyond measure, if you can come up with a reason why said dragon wouldn't kill them outright.
how to make a great trap: make a really nice npc, cute and sexy.. but she's a guy. ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!
but seriously, the dumbest traps are usually the best ones, take for example a kill room with some crazy contraption that seems to be what opens the door, the adventurers try everything and only after half an hour of attempts that just ended up poisoning or hurting the players, one of them approaches the door and they notice they had to push the door instead of pulling it
Do any of the people who watch these to types of videos even play a rpg?! And if you do, do you play Dungeons and Dragons(D&D for short)?!💙💚💙💚😜
yes
These are certainly interesting, but I don't think many who don't play (D&D for example) would actively be searching for these kinds of videos =/
For my own case: I did play my first game of role play in 1986, so today I have over 30 years experience.
Role playing games are easy to get started with, but near impossible to master.
Though a lot in these videos are beginners stuff for me, I still find them interesting.
What I, most often, get from them is new ways how things can go wrong! - Most of what I play do go fairly well, thus I rarely see the many ways role play can fail.
One of the most recent terms I have learned is: "Christmas Tree Character". (That is when people try to play role playing games as some computer game: What decoration item do we put in to the "body slot", "belt slot", "leg slot", etc. ?)
Often I find questions, posed here in the comments section, that I can answer. This way I help others by providing them with some ideas. And quite often people are happy for my input.
Here is it a bit sad that, despite Guy did respond often to comments in the early days of this channel, he seems to have given up on that.
Though the "Comments Read Out Loud" videos do make up for it somewhat. I did expect this one to be in the category, hopefully it will come.
For what the D&D type games goes, then, well, I do play them sometimes, but! It is due to some of the other players insist.
I have done it as GM quite some through out the years, but never in any D&D game, as I use that extra power a GM have, in selecting the role playing game system, to select something better.
To my experience, of all the systems I have tried, I rate D&D to be the worst system.
Good role play is possible in any system, even D&D, it is just that the D&D system is demotivating role play.
Example: The alignment system, it make the players think: "What would this alignment do?" instead of "What would my character do?".
D&D match the mentality for 12 to 14 years old boys, and is a great system for them! But, when growing older people should mature and outgrow D&D.
A point where I find this channel to be more interesting, than other channels I have seen, is that Guy try to keep distance to system specific details, and instead focus at "What is good role play?".
As I say: Good role play can be done in any system.
D&D is only bad if you use ironclad rules. It's up to the DM to make the game their own kind. Me and my friends always joke about how our bard's alignment fluctuates when he was neutral good when we started but is now essentially dealing with mafia and other shady organizations. The rules are just tools for new players.
I play a system my friends and I created from two other systems (plus our own stuff) about fifteen years ago. But I've been playing rpg's since chainmail came out ( pre D&D) something like 35 years worth. : )
I thought it was going to be about guys who play as girls...