Trap materials.

B

Bond

Newbie
Regarding trap construction, we are almost stuck using anachronisms for triggering mechanisms. In fact, the rulebook suggests using electricity and electronics to create triggers and noisemakers or lights. Partially this is by necessity, but it can certainly get out of hand. Some traps use a simple (and small) anachronisms like mousetraps, but it can range up to electrical circuits and devices with circuit boards and micro controllers.

A common analog for a pressure plate being those Halloween mats that make spooky sounds when you step on them. They get used as a stand in for a pressure plate which could have existed but uses technology that is completely out of place and far more complicated in some respects. So the question is, how complicated is too complicated? Electricity is in, it's cited and suggested in the rulebook. How about light beam triggers? Photo-sensors? The precedent exists for pressure plates, how about motion detectors or thermal detectors, infrared? Are these too complicated or is trap construction an exception?
 
Given that we are in a magical world, and that any sufficiently advanced technology will be indisguishable from magic, I would say that anything you mentioned could be a viable trap trigger as long as it can be bypassed easily and reset by a marshal.
 
The issue that requires the anachronisms is what you are capable of re-creating without having the actual trap. I use the pressure plate traps to represent pitfalls. I use the battery and buzzer instead of having the glass vial falling on the metal pad and so on. You can't have really cool things like falling blocks or pillars so I just use the expandable laundry baskets.

The only thing to remember is that there must be a way to disarm the trap and it should be something that the trap setter can do easily. I have seen too many traps that were so hair triggered that after they went off, I asked plot or whoever set it to demonstrate how it should have been disarmed and it took them a dozen tries to do it themselves. I don't feel that that is in the spirit of the game.

Remember that the fun of the trap isn't in killing the guy setting it off but rather in the guy managing to disarm it. If you want to really screw with them though, use the contact gels. I don't remember the last time I came across any vaseline phys repped poison. ;)
 
Remember that the fun of the trap isn't in killing the guy setting it off but rather in the guy managing to disarm it.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree, and my motivation for putting these traps together isn't that I don't want them disarmed, but rather than I want the encounter to be unique and challenging. I also don't want to tip my hand so I won't say exactly what I'm planning. ;)
 
To be honest, most of my/Kauss's traps did not use power. Most were connected to bells, and the bells ringing indicated X went off. Now as to my massive traps, lucky for me they can have moving parts so that was easy to do. Pits and pressure plates can be bubble wrap (High tech but when under a rug not visably so.)

You dont have to use the higher tech, but your traps may not set off quite so easy. On the flip side, avoiding the common triggers often means people miss them.
 
Bond said:
How about light beam triggers? Photo-sensors? The precedent exists for pressure plates, how about motion detectors or thermal detectors, infrared? Are these too complicated or is trap construction an exception?
Click to expand...
All of these things have been ruled out before, since the intent of the rule is that possessing the skill "Legerdemain" is supposed to do most of the 'hard' work. I have light/laser sensors, and they've been explicitly disallowed. I've got a couple of mercury switches that I've generally had allowed since I could demonstrate the principle working with a simple hanging mass, however.
 
I'd have to agree with Matt here. Motion sensors definitely seem beyond the intent of the rule (and seemingly have no non-anachronistic analogue); the same goes for light beams/sensors.
 
Just to tack on support to what Seth said - I don't believe there should be an issue to using a light-sensor to determine when a Warder Glyph goes off. For "Create Trap" traps, though, I think it should be disallowed, since it lacks any non-anachronistic counterpart (Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider examples not withstanding).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top