Traps that Make Sense || D&D w/ Dael Kingsmill

One of my favorite dungeons: characters enter the complex seeking a mcguffin for their employer, set off a trap that sprays them with a fine mist. Nothing happens. Puzzled, they continue. Next room features pressure plates that cause globes of intense light to flare, dazzling the characters and disturbing a nest of spiders. Lights seem harmless other than dazzling. Next trap triggers a flare of brilliant silver light, no apparent effect. Characters find the mcguffin and steal it. Employer thanks them, leaves. They later figure out employer is a vampire, who would have been very unhappy to encounter to spray of holy water, the sunlight globes, or the extremely empowered turning effect. Traps should definitely inform a clever player about Team Us, and also what they are expecting Team Them to be.

A thing I see a lot of people forget is that monsters in D&D can have immunities, Liches who trap their layer could literally have the entire dungeon filled with poison air or even no air at all. Fire giants could instead of having a door have a curtain of lava. Their biology is the way to bypass the trap as it were.

"and hey, maybe that feeling you wanted them to feel is death" -Dael Kingsmill 2018

"Riddles on doors make no sense." Me: looks at computer password hint. sweats

It could be that the poison trap is ineffective because it was set so long ago that the poison has passed its sell-by date.

I like the idea of traps that make narrative sense. My favorite dungeon I've designed was an old abandoned wizard school; all the traps were glyphs of warding storing nonlethal spells, triggering if any non-professor opened the trapped container, because they didn't want to actually kill their students (stuff like a Levitate-for-a-few-hours trap, and one that cast Continual Flame on the thief's head). These were inconvenient, but any mid-level spellcaster could easily dispel the effects (but the students couldn't). I think my players thought I was going easy on them with the nondamaging traps until they figured out that every trapped chest they'd opened had booze in them, and I reminded them that this school generally taught teenagers.

My favorite trap, and the one that has been most informative for me as a DM, are the decoy chalices from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Nothing about the trap is complicated. It is just a bunch of decoys that serve to filter out the avaricious from those who truly understand the nature of the Holy Grail - but the decoys offer only death. It is a great trap, deeply thematic, and also one that cannot be checked for by the rogue, since there is no mechanism, and one that cannot be dodged with Detect Magic, since all the cups in the chamber are enchanted. Good stuff.

Favorite of mine: Door in the Thieves Den. Doorknob is engineered assuming most people are right handed. If the knob is turned clockwise, rods inside the door slam into place silmilar to a safe and guaranteeing the door won’t budge. An alarm also sounds. Members of the thieves band know to turn the knob counter clockwise to open it.

I feel like the lollipop was essential to the entire feel of the video. 10/10

In defense of Severus Snape, the theory I'm behind is that the "layers of defense" of the Philosopher's Stone weren't actually intended to keep Voldemort out of the inner chamber. They were intended to keep him focused on getting there and make him feel like it was his best shot at resurrection, so that he wouldn't leave Hogwarts and go after other, more practical ways of returning to life. If Dumbledore only wanted to keep him away from the stone then he could have left it in his desk cupboard and never told anyone.

The doors of moria weren't supposed too be a riddle door. They were intended to be language lock. It was established earlier in the book that very few noldor/high elven speakers remained in middle Earth. Hollin, the elven nation that was built smack up against the walls of moria, was a noldorian nation, and the doors had been installed there for the sake of opening a trade route. And it makes utter sense to make the door open to the rare language of the people you want to trade with. (Plus, there was a garrason of guards stationed at the door when it was in use )

So I'm running a game tomorrow morning that will feature a puzzle lock on a door in a beholder's lair. Thank you so much for pointing out how stupid that is at the perfect time, now there'll be a note saying something like "Stop leaving clues for yourselves!" and the hints hidden around the room by its various minions.

Colville shirt on the day I get Strongholds and Followers? Excellent. +2 charisma and advantage on thumbs up.

I love today. I finished Critical Role, I skimmed through Colville's Strongholds and Followers right into a Dael Kingsmill video.

With respect, I think there are many situations in which a 'kill you dead' style trap e.g. the poison lock, not really being a lethal threat to an adventurer - DOES makes sense. Just because the builder of the trap would ideally WANT their trap to kill someone dead instantly, maybe they don't have the skills or materials to build such a trap. Maybe the best thing they have is a puffer full of spider's venom, but a puff of it is half as lethal as when it's stabbed into you. Or, perhaps they might have the means, but it's just not worth the full investment to create a powerful trap when a cheap/easy one will be sufficient to deter or kill the most likely people to try and enter: Amateur thieves or the over-curious, rather than a (relatively) hardened team of veterans helping each other. A simple car door lock deters 90% of people who would steal something valuable from your car, a car alarm 'trap' deters another 9% and that last 1%? Eh, it's probably not worth the cost of worrying about them, because even if you splurge on a fancy trap just for them, there's a decent chance that if they can bypass the alarm they'll bypass or survive whatever else you put in their way. Besides, if they persist after getting acid splashed all over them or some pretty severe burns from your flamethrower trap - Well, that's why you have multiple traps or monsters or minions behind that ddoor to finish the foolishly stubborn interlopers off!

One of the best traps I ever experienced as a player was where we were in the house of someone who we suspected to be working with an evil cult - there was a magical trap which basically caused each of the characters to see a completely convincing illusion of their worst fear. The only way that the character would break free of this would be to somehow force themselves to engage with this fear - my character - Larissa, a Tiefling Sorceress - had lost all her magic, and then found herself in a room, looking at the lifeless body of a fellow party member that she was secretly (to the other characters, not so much to the players) in love with, and written over and over on the walls, in blood, were messages from this other character asking where Larissa was. Larissa broke through this, when, on being attacked in the vision by zombies that she had no real defence against (no magic, and very poor with weapons), she made herself pick up the body of her companion before fleeing...

ooh, that "tripwire and nothing happens" is amazing

Just going to point out, my computer has a "password hint." Maybe hints to the password on a door isn't such a bad idea, so you don't forget what the password is.

“And a player died... AND IT WAS SICK!!!! .... and heartbreaking...” I love that

Professor Dael Kingsmill strikes again (seriously, you as a content creator combined as a teacher, killer combo)