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[Cramulus]

My favorite trap-room as of late is from this adventure called Crucible of the Gods. It's a situation where there is no "safe" place to stand, the encounter is an exercise in managing risk.

The room is rectangular, and has six 10 x 10 protrusions along the north and south walls, each labeled with a roman numeral. The room has four pit traps spread out in it, and there's a giant brass golem which is attacking you. (if you note where he moves, it gives clues about the pit traps).

The center part of the room (everything except the 10x10 protrusions) gets blasted by these flame jets in the ceiling. You can avoid the flame jets by ducking into one of the 10x10 cubbies.

But right after the flame jets fire, a crushing-ceiling trap slams down in a randomly-determined cubby. It deals a shitload of damage.

So the dance here is that you can take the constant light flame damage by staying in the center, or you can gamble by hiding in one of the cubbies. There's a 5/6 chance it'll miss you, and a 1/6 chance it'll flatten you like a pancake.

The other complication is that each of the crushing ceiling traps has a skull mounted on the outside -- which fires a death ray at the closet adventurer. Three hits from the death ray will kill you. Each skull only has 1 hit point, but you'd have to decide if it's worth attacking because there's only a 1/6 chance (each round) of that skull being active again.

There's a trap door in the back of each cubby. Two of the cubbies have the magic torches the party is looking for, the other four cubbies have duds. A nearby tapestry is actually a clue about which cubbies have the solution. There's a brazier on the far side of the room, and if you light it with the correct torches, the exit appears. If you light it with one of the wrong torches, it explodes as a fireball centered on you.

Really insidious room! I mean, there's five different things to worry about in there - excluding the puzzle. When we finished that encounter, the players were all out of breath. feckin awesome.

not sure if that description made sense, here's a shitty diagram

[Cramulus]

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I know what a real Grognard was.

What does their version refer to?

[Cramulus]

I've always known it to refer to grumbly older gamers who are attached to the style of game they first played, and think everybody playing today is a munchkin.



oh here we go------

Wictionary says Someone who enjoys playing previous editions of roleplaying games when new editions of the game are available.

I can't keep up with the slang these days. Damn kids!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've always known it to refer to grumbly older gamers who are attached to the style of game they first played, and think everybody playing today is a munchkin.



oh here we go------

Wictionary says Someone who enjoys playing previous editions of roleplaying games when new editions of the game are available.

I can't keep up with the slang these days. Damn kids!

HAH!

When I STARTED gaming, with the manilla paper books & Chainmail rules, I'll have you know that we didn't have dice.  We didn't even have those numbered chits.  We slammed our heads against the edge of the table and then counted the blood droplets.  You had to WANT your crits, back then.

And there was nothing of this sissified "saving throw" business.  Damn game's going straight to hell, I tell you!  STRAIGHT TO HELL!

Actually, everything from 2E back pretty much sucked, but was better than nothing.  The game didn't really allow anything resembling individual characters until 3.0, and we've settled on Pathfinder, just because we like the feel, and because we hate what Hasbro's done with the game from a merchandizing POV, and we don't want to give them any money.

[Freeky]

In addition to all those valid points, if you read the material on them for more than five seconds, it is pretty clear what kind of behaviour is expected from each one.  So you can use them to screen your players for stupidity, using the good old "kobold and goblin children" test.  Then you can never invite the ones who fail said test back to the table again.

Everyone's a winner.  Except idiots.

Actually, my acid test for who comes back to the table is "which ones make the game fun?".

Right now, I have two grabby bastards at the table, and it amuses me to no end.  They're both good players, but if I throw a decent magic item out, I make sure I have popcorn first.

I TRYnot to get grabby.  But it's so shiny!

So very shiny.  O____O

[Freeky]

Traps I make tend towards puzzle, or not an immediately immenently dangerous one. 

My favorite was this trap which was, all in one go, three encounters, a lock, PHAT LOOT, and 2 separate traps. 



This essentially was a lot of XP for not a lot of danger, except for the brown mold hanging over the lava.  You had all the time in the world to figure it out, because at the time I didn't know how to run a living dungeon as opposed to a static one.

[Freeky]

Actually, everything from 2E back pretty much sucked, but was better than nothing.  The game didn't really allow anything resembling individual characters until 3.0, and we've settled on Pathfinder, just because we like the feel, and because we hate what Hasbro's done with the game from a merchandizing POV, and we don't want to give them any money.

Truth.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In addition to all those valid points, if you read the material on them for more than five seconds, it is pretty clear what kind of behaviour is expected from each one.  So you can use them to screen your players for stupidity, using the good old "kobold and goblin children" test.  Then you can never invite the ones who fail said test back to the table again.

Everyone's a winner.  Except idiots.

Actually, my acid test for who comes back to the table is "which ones make the game fun?".

Right now, I have two grabby bastards at the table, and it amuses me to no end.  They're both good players, but if I throw a decent magic item out, I make sure I have popcorn first.

I TRYnot to get grabby.  But it's so shiny!

So very shiny.  O____O

Oh, no sweat.  Just try not to get mad when Ross thinks the same way.

[Freeky]

In addition to all those valid points, if you read the material on them for more than five seconds, it is pretty clear what kind of behaviour is expected from each one.  So you can use them to screen your players for stupidity, using the good old "kobold and goblin children" test.  Then you can never invite the ones who fail said test back to the table again.

Everyone's a winner.  Except idiots.

Actually, my acid test for who comes back to the table is "which ones make the game fun?".

Right now, I have two grabby bastards at the table, and it amuses me to no end.  They're both good players, but if I throw a decent magic item out, I make sure I have popcorn first.

I TRYnot to get grabby.  But it's so shiny!

So very shiny.  O____O

Oh, no sweat.  Just try not to get mad when Ross thinks the same way.

It isn't that he thinks the same way.  It's complicated and vague.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In addition to all those valid points, if you read the material on them for more than five seconds, it is pretty clear what kind of behaviour is expected from each one.  So you can use them to screen your players for stupidity, using the good old "kobold and goblin children" test.  Then you can never invite the ones who fail said test back to the table again.

Everyone's a winner.  Except idiots.

Actually, my acid test for who comes back to the table is "which ones make the game fun?".

Right now, I have two grabby bastards at the table, and it amuses me to no end.  They're both good players, but if I throw a decent magic item out, I make sure I have popcorn first.

I TRYnot to get grabby.  But it's so shiny!

So very shiny.  O____O

Oh, no sweat.  Just try not to get mad when Ross thinks the same way.

It isn't that he thinks the same way.  It's complicated and vague.

WHICH, of course means "It's the same thing, only not me doing it."

[Freeky]

In addition to all those valid points, if you read the material on them for more than five seconds, it is pretty clear what kind of behaviour is expected from each one.  So you can use them to screen your players for stupidity, using the good old "kobold and goblin children" test.  Then you can never invite the ones who fail said test back to the table again.

Everyone's a winner.  Except idiots.

Actually, my acid test for who comes back to the table is "which ones make the game fun?".

Right now, I have two grabby bastards at the table, and it amuses me to no end.  They're both good players, but if I throw a decent magic item out, I make sure I have popcorn first.

I TRYnot to get grabby.  But it's so shiny!

So very shiny.  O____O

Oh, no sweat.  Just try not to get mad when Ross thinks the same way.

It isn't that he thinks the same way.  It's complicated and vague.

WHICH, of course means "It's the same thing, only not me doing it."

  NUH UH

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Heh, I've only ever played one D&D game, set in the 4e  Dark Sun setting. I am playing an Elven Druid. We hit level 8 tonight. None of the party have chosen any alignment, in fact the DM specifically avoids it. Tonight we were crawling through the dungeons of a palace of the Sorcerer Queen, and we come across this room with her fancy psionic bird on a magical tree of life in it. Earlier I had found a very expensive herb that boosted psi abilities, and the Ardent (psionic healer) who I had given it to... FEEDS THE FUCKING BIRD WITH THE VESPA WEED, after it just asked "food?"

The bird then psychically demands more, the monk steps forward to attack the bird and both him and the Ardent take a load of damage. while I'm fuming about the fact that the herb AND the bird were 1) valuable 2)I'm pissed that they didn't FREE the bird or at least consider its financial value for resale, and 3)they fed it something that if they had asked me with my 21 WIS and Nature skill up the wazoo, would have told them that it was a Bad Plan. The monk then STUPIDLY KILLS THE FUCKING BIRD, which lets out a psionic alarm which brings about 8 guys in the employ of the sorcerer queen belting down the corridor baying for our blood. To top this, tho, is the fact that the Fighter in our party has the randomly allocated "wild" psionic ability to communicate psychically. So we COULD have quite happily stolen the bird, used it as an ally and then sold it or freed it. I did wander off with a cutting of the magical tree, to see if i could make a funky potions from it once I get back to my garden.  My party is not going to hear the end of this beef from me for some time. Bastards.

[Freeky]

Sounds like you have some Bad Players (serious idiots) in your group.  Your druid should do something about that.

[Don Coyote]

Sounds like you have some Bad Players (serious idiots) in your group.  Your druid should do something about that.

Like eat them.