The Value of Traps

[Kabas]

I mean, if your forgotten tomb beneath the ancient sands doesn't feature any of the wall darts, falling boulders or leaking poison gas you're doing the forgotten tomb wrong.

What tombs had traps? This is purely a fantasy genre trope that tombs must have hidden loot and traps.

So are the woman adventurers casually fighting while wearing a chainmail bikini or twinky guys wielding longbows.
Sacrificing some realism is acceptable for the sake of fun and my dick.

 

[xuerebx]

For me, traps in regular games are a nuisance and they just require a potion, rest or reloading. I could do without them.

For roguelikes however, they are something which can ruin your run and you need to prepare/stockpile for them and actually be careful and strategize intelligently.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The proper answer to this question is that RPGs should have puzzles, not simplistic traps, following the example of Dungeon Master and its descendants:

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I like when traps have some kind of mini-game to them. I know, not very popular around here, but often it's just a roll to disable with no risk involved. Red outline on the ground? Send in your thief to disable it for free XP. With some kind of mini-game, you can actually fail at it which translates to real danger. And if you are brave enough you can even try some harder ones, with even greater risk. I'm a fan of mini-games in general, but that stuff should still get easier through point allocation if you don't want to mess around with it too much.

Someone prolly likes Hillsfar locks too (which usually trigger a trap if failed to be picked).

D2 had great traps.... for assassin use. Ha!

 

[0sacred]

I feel like we've had this conversation before.

Traps often are simply there to justify the inclusion of a thief class, or the other way around. As such they get a hard pass from me.

I don't have a lot of ideas of how to make traps work. But one thing I'd like to see is them having a bearing on dungeon crawling. Traps should be impossible to disarm, and they should occur in every man-made dungeon, where they serve to limit the amount of distance you can cover before you have to rest. No way around them, and no way to prevent them. So no matter how overpowered your party is, there's only so many steps you can go before you have to rest in a dangerous location, or possibly backtrack to a safe resting spot far away.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Traps on treasure from mobs
Traps on treasure
Traps to get to treasure
Traps everywhere because spinners, pushers, endless darkness, anti-magic, damaging squares, mana drain squares, radiation and lava aren't enough.

Punishment is demanded by some crazy designer.
*some don't consider chutes, pits, ladders, ropes, elevators or sinking rooms as traps but features to exit or enter levels.

 

[ds]

I think we have to differentiate between more action-oriented games here where it is up to the player to spot and/or react to traps himself and stat-based RPGs where finding and disarming traps depends primarily on character stats. For the former, instant death is very much appropriate to encourage being perceptive and cautious and to reward fast reaction times - as long as there are is sufficient information to see the trap ahead of time or adequate time to jump out of harms way. Trapdoors that activate/deactivate in a repeating pattern as seen in Grimrock are a great example of this but so are Oblivion's rope-triggered traps and spike traps in Ayleid ruins. If you can see the trap or react fast enough, you survive - if not, git gud.

For traps as an RPG system depending on dice rolls, I think ongoing damage, debuffs or other effects that the player can deal with without reloading are usually a better fit unless the traps are easy to find but hard to disarm in which case deadly traps can serve to gate off optional or high-level areas. Even if traps are only there to encourage you to bring a rogue they end up rewarding role-playing instead of focusing on combat effectiveness alone - If you are going to explore dangerous structures, bring someone that knows how to safely traverse them. If traps don't mean random death then this choice becomes a tradeoff, allowing for multiple different play styles. Traps as a mechanic also don't have to only punish for failing to deal with traps but can also reward for success by getting extra loot when disarming them properly - either components from the trap itself or items that get destroyed if you just tank your way through the trap or abuse spawns. Of course getting the balance right is hard so often the trap disarming class ends up either essential or useless (for that purpose at least).

In both cases traps along with other kinds of environmental hazards serve to reinforce the sense of danger that should come with certain areas as well as an environmental storytelling device. If there are active traps that don't automatically reset then either they are being maintained or the area has been untouched since they were set up.

I also very much agree t hat integrating traps with puzzles is a great way to make both more interesting - essentially making traps an adventure gaming mechanic.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't have much to add to the conversation, but traps that you can set during combat in Greedfall are absokutely overpowered, and murder everything.

 

[Modron]

I think it was Bound By Flame where you could set 20 something traps on the ground in the same spot if you want to talk Spiders and overpowered traps.

 

[ds]

Is there a game that does player-set traps well? Something where they are interesting but you can't use them to effortlessly cheese encounters. I guess this is mostly an NPC AI problem where you'd need to find a way to make opponents not run into danger like idiots but also able to be tricked by a sufficiently clever player. But you'd also need the trap setup to be more involved than just dropping glorified proximity-detonated fireballs.

 

[0sacred]

Even if traps are only there to encourage you to bring a rogue they end up rewarding role-playing instead of focusing on combat effectiveness alone - If you are going to explore dangerous structures, bring someone that knows how to safely traverse them. If traps don't mean random death then this choice becomes a tradeoff, allowing for multiple different play styles.

This is always a non issue because one of these is always true:

1. You have more than enough character slots or skill points

2. Rogues are still ok at combat

3. Traps are non-lethal and treasure can be obtained even without a Rogue

 

[Kabas]

Is there a game that does player-set traps well? Something where they are interesting but you can't use them to effortlessly cheese encounters. I guess this is mostly an NPC AI problem where you'd need to find a way to make opponents not run into danger like idiots but also able to be tricked by a sufficiently clever player. But you'd also need the trap setup to be more involved than just dropping glorified proximity-detonated fireballs.

To give an example from the recent game i played, Arthurian Legends features two types of traps - caltrops and bear traps.
Somewhat cheesy on normal, absolutely essential tools on higher difficulties. They're very common as far as consumable items go so you have little reason not to use them.

Do keep in mind that certain enemies can still bite you even if they got caught in your trap. Some rare enemies are also big enough to outright ignore them.
I mean, does the bear trap looks big enough for this fella?

Edit: Yeah, not the example of "more involving than dropping close proximity-detonated fireball" and the enemies do run into them like idiots but these two traps still feel like an essential part of your arsenal.

 

[BING XI LAO]

My favourite trap is deploying one in GMS in underrail, where it gets spotted by a sentry bot that my char can't fight. The sentry bot moves over to disarm the trap, while it's doing that I hastily shut it in the room preventing it from returning to guard an exit.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Traps in games today are horrible; see VN & VN-Like games.

Traps in early ultimas say 3-4 were basically damage bastards. I'll discount energy fields. 5 I'm fuzzy on atm. 1-2 I honestly can't recall either as dungeon romps for 1 was just to complete mob quest so maybe pitfalls and dmg, while 2 might be the same. Tbh, you can avoid U2 dungeons completely. No, I recall 3-4 the most. 3 wasn't all that creative. ARRGGG!!! A TRAP!!!

No shit.

 

[Infinitum]

Traps often are simply there to justify the inclusion of a thief class, or the other way around. As such they get a hard pass from me.

This. The gameplay is bad and from a realism perspective they make no sense in any context.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I personally like traps, but I would like to see them follow PnP more closely. I played on a hardcore rules, role-playing, NWN persistent world and they did a good job if this. For example, there was a Kobold lair that had many traps. Near an entrance there was was a rug over a hole. If the PC did not detect not evade it, they would fall below into a locked cage with Kobold spearmen and archers attacking. The situation was dire, but not hopeless. My party actually survived because the party rogue picked the lock under the cover of Darkness that my cleric cast. That's the kind if trap I want to see. One that is a scenario.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I personally like traps, but I would like to see them ... more closely. I played on a hard... rules, role-playing, ... persistent ... a good job if this. For example, there was a Kobold lair that had many traps. Near an entrance there was was ... a hole. If the PC did not detect not evade it, they would fall below into a locked cage with Kobold spearm and ... attacking. The situation was dire, but not hopeless. My party actually survived because the party rogue picked ... ... the cover .... that my cleric .... That's the kind if trap I want to see. One that is a scenario.

Oh god. Not kobolds again.

 

[Justinian]

IE traps are basically worthless and add nothing to the games.

 

[Alienman]

That would solve the issue of unwelcome guests in real life.

 

[Aphex81]

Traps are gay.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

I am a huge proponent of using traps/mines and other such devices in RPGs and any other genres, both for players as well as part of the environment. IMO they add space for additional skills that would otherwise find little use, open tons of new tactical options and allow players to punch above their weight (ie for example in Underail I remember solving plenty of encounters by placing poisoned caltrops all over the place and luring strong enemies into them, in Fallout Tactics I had plenty of fun doing the same with mines).

 

[Rean]

Not liking traps is gay, because it means not being attracted to the girlishness.

 

[laclongquan]

Is there a game that does player-set traps well? Something where they are interesting but you can't use them to effortlessly cheese encounters. I guess this is mostly an NPC AI problem where you'd need to find a way to make opponents not run into danger like idiots but also able to be tricked by a sufficiently clever player. But you'd also need the trap setup to be more involved than just dropping glorified proximity-detonated fireballs.

Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3.

There were plenty of mines, frag, plasma, pulse, gas, freeze.

They are not OP because setting together they can trigger each other but the damage calculation is not very beneficial.

They mostly being used to set as forewarning, wounding, and delay enemies getting to battlefield.

The one exception is pulse mines. IT damage robots and Power armor users only. So if you dont use PA, you can get close to tough robot (or tough PA spawns) and launch pulse mines, each shot will explode immediately leaving your hand. Thus you can do big damage in short time. The limit to this method is availability of both mines and applicable spawns.
------
Another situation is Silent Storm and Silent Storm Sentinels (not Hammer Sickles because no applicable)

SS and SSS has plenty of tough spawns in term of Panzerklein. There's very rare battlefield where you can set full selection of mines onto the place they appear. But there's many locations where you can set trap as forewarning, wounding, and delaying.

Extra goody is that both games feature destructible environment so you can use lots of booms to change the terrain.

 

[whydoibother]

When I first played Fallout 3 on release, and before I realized its not that good, I had fun with trying to play a trap build. Wish there was more depth to it, but it was fun setting up and herding enemies into the kill zone.
Also, a module that makes use of traps and trap placement, for the player to disarm or place and fuck with enemies, is the fan favorite A Dance with Rogues. Though it would've greatly benefited if the engine allowed for enemies to trigger their own traps. After all, traps aren't on Team Skeleton or Team Protagonist.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Traps are a must in D&D.