Dungeon Design Tips: Combine Combat With Traps

A while back I put together an article titled Consider Removing Doors From Your Dungeons, and it was popular enough that I thought I'd come back to the topic of dungeon design this week. And before I get into this next topic, I wanted to ask my readers out there... is this something you'd like to see me turn into an ongoing series? And if so, would you like to see it remain part of my Crunch updates, or would you like to see it become its very own section? And, for that matter, do you want it to remain hosted on this blog, or should I put it over in My Vocal Archive?

All input is welcome, as it's the voices of my audience I use to try to guide my decisions going forward. With that said, onto this week's topic!

After all, not all traps are this obvious!

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Combat And Traps: A Match Made In Hell

As I mentioned in the previous installment, a lot of us tend to think of our dungeons in segmented parts and pieces, which we don't allow to interact with one another. If there's a room with an encounter in it, then no matter how long or loud the combat gets, other denizens of the dungeon won't come to see what's happening, even though that's the logical thing to do... it's as if the doors are all soundproof, and none of the other monsters want to overstep the limits of the arena they're placed in. To help break us out of that mindset, my suggestion was to eliminate doors, or to at least leave them open so it's clear they aren't a barrier between what happens in this part of the map, and what happens further away.

However, just as we often section off our rooms and arenas, keeping them separate and apart from one another, we often refuse to let two other parts of our dinner touch; namely traps and combat encounters.

Guys, got a monster! Stop checking for traps and help me!

Consider this. A majority of the time we put traps in long hallways, cramped corridors, and otherwise empty rooms because (whether we're thinking about it or not) we consider the trap to be the encounter in that area. While some doors might have traps on them (thus allowing the trap to act as the opening salvo of an encounter), that is a one-two punch rather than a genuine combination of a trap and encounter. Like having a burger and fries in the same take out container, but they're still not touching each other.

No, this week's advice is to purposefully and deliberately combine traps with combat encounters as a way to create a more dynamic arena, and to increase the difficulty/challenge rating for your players.

There are a few different ways I would suggest thinking about this. Some of those methods, with examples, include:

- Added Threat: Consider a room with hidden crossbows or arrow traps, but which all fire at a height that will hit a Medium creature and not a Small one, and which go off when triggered by a higher weight than a Small creature possesses. This ensures the goblins in the room can run amok, goading the party to close the distance via certain routes, thus setting off additional, hidden attacks. Bonus points if the bolts/arrows are drugged or poisoned, thus creating an additional danger.

- Ticking Clock: We've all been in a room with a flooding trap before, putting a ticking clock on how long players have before they're drowned... but what if there are hungry crocodiles released into the rising waters? Or skeletal warriors who aren't bothered by things like a need to breathe? The water doesn't hurt the characters in and of itself, but it does add one hell of a challenge.

- Battlefield Control: The party steps into a room with a handful of orc archers firing their longbows. Clearly the solution is for the barbarian to charge them so they can no longer take pot shots at the party. But that's when the roaring brute finds, to their chagrin, that parts of the floor are loose, leading to drops into spiked pits. The enemy knows where the camouflaged pits are, and while the party now has to move carefully, the enemy can fire at will, or engage however they wish to.

These are just a few ways that traps can add additional threats to a situation, and create an additional threat for your party to deal with!

With that said, consider some of the following caveats...

Before going ham and adding traps to every encounter, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Because when choosing the proper traps to mix into your combat, it's important to consider the following questions:

- Is This An Equal Opportunity Trap? Most traps will likely be avoided by the monsters in the room, but there are some traps which will only be an issue for the party, even if they go off. A poison gas trap, for example, won't affect the zombies in a room, even if it creates a deadly poison cloud that can be a serious danger for the party.

- Is This A Crippling Trap? Most traps are dangerous in-the-moment, but if someone survives the trap, will it create a condition that character now has to deal with for the rest of the dungeon? Something that deals hit points, or which creates a short-term negative is very different than something that gives the victim a permanent negative, or which takes away one of their options to participate in the game going forward. Just like how a monster sundering a fighter's sword is a serious issue that shouldn't be considered lightly, so too is a trap that leaves an effect on a character after the room it's encountered in (other than hit point loss, as that's often reparable).

- Does This Trap Make Sense In This Location? If the party is invading the secret underground lair of a mad alchemist, then it makes total sense for rooms to be rigged with poison gas, explosive traps, and other challenges... but would those same devices be found in the lair of a dragon? Or a defunct crypt that no living person has entered in a century? Just because a trap might make good tactical sense, that doesn't mean it makes sense with the world's internal consistency.

- Is This Avoidable? There shouldn't be a guarantee that a trap goes off. There should be a chance that players avoid it, whether it's moving in a certain way to avoid triggering it, making a Perception check to notice the trap, or having some ability to negate or stop it from going off. Traps that you basically have to set off, or disable while you're under attack, can quickly suck the fun out of an encounter, and they're something you should avoid doing often (or at all, depending on the opinion of your table).

One last thing I would add as a piece of advice here is to choose your traps carefully. Just like how players will get tired of fighting the exact same monster over and over again, or how they'll come up with strategies to deal with specific tactics, a particular trap layout is only going to work so many times before it goes from a new and dangerous threat to an annoyance or frustration.

More importantly, though, is that the real advantage of traps is the uncertainty they create. For example, if your party snuck into a forbidden crypt, and they had to do battle with undead squires to enter the tomb proper, then the lack of a trap might make them confident. But then they have to cross a bridge that is trapped while undead archers fire arrows at them, that might leave their confidence shaken. When they enter the depths of the tomb, and find a skeletal champion and its retainers waiting for them, is the party going to assume this is another straight-up fight? Or will they be moving with caution, wondering where the booby traps are?

A trap only has to happen every now and again for the party to become wary of them. However, traps can grant a serious home field advantage, often allowing a small number of adversaries (or even just one) to take on an entire party of well-armed, well-prepared player characters!

Speaking of Traps...

Part of the reason I was thinking on this topic was that I've been re-reading my recent supplement Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Baker's Dozen of Booby Traps that I put out a little while back for my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. I'm slowly gearing up to write a few more missions set in this world to follow up the first release A Night At Breckon's Beacon, and at least one of these missions is going to have a lot of traps as part of the challenge a squad is going to have to face.

Seriously, grab a copy if you haven't yet!

If you're looking for a game that definitely encourages the use of traps as part of the challenge (for both allies and enemies), then grab yourself a copy of Army Men for the holidays! And if you just want some improvised mayhem in your game, well, Army Men is based off of a 5E engine, so if your game also runs on something 5th Edition, or a 5th Edition port, these booby traps should be equally useful for you as well! And while some are meant for dealing with infantry, there are several that are meant for taking out vehicles, as well as their entire crew... so tread carefully!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Game Masters, Stop Trying to Hide Things From Your Players

Chances are good this is one of those entries that people are going to see the title of, and just start commenting before they actually read the entry. As such, I thought I'd provide my clarification right here, at the top of the page.

What I'm not suggesting is that Game Masters stop putting plot twists in their games. I'm not saying to never use shape changers or disguised villains, or suggesting that we never have the face-heel turn where the party's benefactor turns out to have been using them for their own ends. All of those things are good, and when done right, they can make a campaign extremely fun and memorable!

What I am saying is that, as Game Masters, we need to stop trying to keep our players in the dark about things, or deluding ourselves that our settings, our stories, and our plots are so unique, so original, and so mind-blowing, that we need to ensure our players go in knowing as little as possible in order to properly experience things. Because nine times out of ten that we pull this it's going to blow up in our faces.

Trust me, going in blank is doing no one any favors.

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No Spoilers!

As a Game Master you have to walk a fine line. On the one hand, you want to get your players psyched up for the game you're running, and invested in the campaign. On the other hand, though, you want to allow them to organically explore the setting, and to experience the plots you have prepared. It is, in a lot of ways, akin to getting your friends together for a movie night. You want to make sure your selection for the evening is something everyone is into, but you also don't want to give too much away regarding what's going to happen.

I've run my share of games, and chosen my share of movies. I can safely say that you should always err on the side of telling someone too much, rather than playing things mysterious and just telling them, "Guess you'll have to wait and find out!"

I guarantee you're not as clever as you think you are.

There's two major reasons that I say this.

The first reason is that when you clam up about stuff, it illustrates where the limits are going to be between you and the players as a storyteller. So if your player asks you questions about the genre, the setting, what sorts of general plots to expect, and you turn getting those answers into pulling teeth, it sets the expectation that there's not going to be a lot of communication going forward. You can negate this somewhat by being as open as possible about other aspects of the game, giving out details that players are going to run into anyway in order to get them invested, but it's generally better to be as honest and open as possible when your players ask you questions.

The second reason is that if your table is genre savvy in the slightest there is no trick you can pull from behind the screen that's going to shock or surprise them in a good way. However, something that a lot of Game Masters forget is that most players aren't actually interested in being shocked or surprised... most of the time they're playing games in a particular setting or genre precisely because they know it well, and they like engaging with it.

The second reason is what's responsible for most of the table blow ups, in my experience.

I Was Told This Was a Fantasy Game?

Yes, well, ah, about that...

A while back I warned Game Masters not to pull what I call a total-genre-shift in their games. This is, more or less, where you sold the table one genre of game, then after giving them enough time to get really invested and having fun you pull a lever and reveal it's been a completely different genre the whole time! The fantasy game is actually a sci-fi dystopia, the space opera sci-fi turns out to be a video game and now we're logged-off in a modern investigation game, and so on, and so forth.

This is the most blatant example of a GM hiding something that should be mentioned up-front, and which all players need to sign on for. Because this shift could work if you have player buy-in. It might actually get some players more excited about the game. But out of the blue it feels like you all agreed to get pizza, but when it came time to open the pizza box inside there was lasagna. It might still be good lasagna, but that isn't what the players were told to expect.

Think of player questions in that light. Because you might think getting onions on the pizza really brings things together, but if one player is allergic to them, and another just doesn't like the taste, then you shouldn't put them on. Same thing with game content, and player questions. Because some players can roll with anything, and they'll be happy as long as there's a good game. Other players have certain genres they really don't like, or they have strong feelings on story content, or house rules versus rules as written. And if you're worried that answering too many questions or giving your players too much information is going to ruin the game and make things less enjoyable, consider the alternative; you held something back that your players wanted to know, and then when you present it they excuse themselves from the table and go home.

You shouldn't be telling your players who the hidden villain of the game is. Don't lay out the duke's double cross around level 5, and don't tell them how many trolls they're going to be fighting in the Frost Moors. They don't need to know the hidden weakness of the vampire queen. But if your players ask you questions about the world, about the premise, or about what they should expect, it's better to risk giving them minor spoilers to make them feel you're going to be open, honest, and up-front than to play things cloak-and-dagger and misjudge exactly whether a surprise is going to stick the landing.

Also, if you're looking for more advice on running your games, make sure you check out 100 Tips and Tricks For Being a Better Game Master!

Have You Checked Out The Silver Raven Chronicles Yet?

I talked about this a month or so ago, but I'm doing something a little different over on my Table Talk page. I'm currently doing the write-up for my group's run through the Hell's Rebels adventure path, but instead of the roll-by-roll break down I provided for past games I wanted to go in another direction. This time around I'm writing a series of pulp-style short stories about particular moments throughout the campaign which tell the tale of how Kintargo's resistance was built, and the challenges it's faced.

Seriously, come check it out!

Table Talk is my least-read feature, and hosting these stories on Vocal has made them hard to get eyes on (particularly since Reddit blacklisted the site and made it nearly impossible to share content from). So I wanted to ask my readers to check it out, and if you want to see me keep it going (perhaps extending this format to future write-ups) to share it on your social media pages, and leave a tip if you feel so inclined!

- Part One: Devil's Night

- Part Two: From The Ashes

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!