On The Why of Red Herring Agency

All of these traps are predicated on the idea of Agency.

What's that mean, functionally in play?

When players have their characters walk into the room, they get a description of all relevant manipulable widgets. This way if they miss something, it is due to player choice/skill and not due to a die roll.

This is a very engaging way of playing. Sometimes the experience is so horrible that people will think that other people should not be allowed to play this way! Why is that? Because if this is done poorly it isn't fair. After all, you just killed your players with no warning! Who would want to play in that game?

Not me.

Here is the problem I ran into when I started. I would describe the room, with all its relevant features. Then my players would avoid the rooms with burn marks, stains, pulverized dust - or only approach them in hazmat suits; and immediately start manipulating every object listed in the room. I didn't want to be unfair. I didn't want to leave anything out. Therefore, at first, everything was simple.

What was the solution? Complex mechanisms and Red Herrings.

When an encounter is designed, you need to leave some clues for traps and such. Do these clues need to be obvious? No. Do these mechanisms need to be simple? No. Does everything you put in the room have to be relevant? No.

Remember, their interactions in the room take time. During this time you're rolling encounter checks. This is the cost of being thorough. Make sure that some of your encounters can threaten your players, so this is an actual cost.

Some actual rules clarifications are useful. I allow people, when unsure of the environment to perform a thorough search. One person can search a 10' x 10' surface section per turn. When they search they get standard chances to detect secret doors. Knowing that the door exists does not automatically mean they know how to open it. I do not inform them of the results of the rolls. This turns the decision into an interesting choice.

Read Part II here. . .

originally published 6/2012

---

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Newsletter, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating)

On The What of Red Herring Agency

Last weeks article is here.

How to avoid being obvious. There are three watchwords here.

Be Subtle

Be Complicated

Be Crafty

Of course this requires planning your room descriptions out ahead of time. My model for this is the 1st Edition DMG.

"DM:'The sacks hold rotten grain, so the cleric will go and help the magic-user as ordered. They find the refuse consists of castings, some husks of small victims of the spider, hide, bones, a small humanoid skull, and 19 silver pieces. Do you now fire the webs overhead?'
LC: 'Examine the skull first. What kind of humanoid was it? Can we tell?'
DM: 'Possibly a goblin. When you are looking at it more closely, you see that there is a small gem inside - a garnet.'"

And

DM:'First, the others checking the containers find that they held nothing but water, or ore totally empty, and that the wood is rotten to boot. You see a few white, eyeless fish and various stone formations in a pool of water about 4' to 6' deep and about 10' long. That's all. Do you wish to leave the place now?"
LC:'Yes, let's get out of here and go someplace where we can find something interesting.'
OC: 'Wait! If those fish are iust blind cave types, ignore them, but what about the stone formations? Are any of them notable? If SO, I think we should check them out.'
DM:'Okay. The fish are fish, but there is one group of minerals in the deepest part of the pool which appears to resemble a skeleton, but it simply - '

Be Subtle:  This means downplay the things you mention. Mention them as if they are unimportant items in the room. There's a yellow cloak, some leather boots and a sword. Is the cloak covered in yellow mold? Do the boots hold a key? Is the sword rusted or magical? If you just described 10 other things in the room will the important thing stand out?

It shouldn't.

Walls aren't soot covered or covered in blood. Walls are stained, dirty, dark, filthy. The floor isn't covered in pulverized rock, the ground is sandy, dirty, or dusty.

Be Complicated: The way into the secret room, isn't always in this room. Secret doors are not always two way. Your hints, maps, treasure maps and clues can be abstract. Mechanisms can be specific (You must lift up on the east side of the slab, the spider decoration on the iron chair in the corner must be lifted, the right eye of the frog mosaic must be pressed in 3 times.) For the uninitiated, here is Why This Is Not Pixel Bitching.

Be Crafty: This is, know what your players are expecting. Did you trick them with yellow mold once? So they are expecting gold or yellow things to be dangerous? Put a gold or yellow thing on a wall that when poked, triggers a trap. When the poke it with a stick, to test if it's yellow mold, they get hit with the trap! Don't design your encounters in a vacuum. Have a repeating feature in your dungeon, like round stones in the wall. Have one of the stones depress to deactivate a trap, and another that presses in to activate a trap. Then leave a map as a clue, but make the map vague and abstract. Engage your players, make them think!

Originally published 6/2012

---

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Newsletter, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating)

On the Thursday Trick, Doors & Chests

Doors & Chests 
I talk a lot about agency in traps, about having signs of the traps be obvious but subtle, about distracting from what the real clues are and about how to make them interesting.

All this gets tossed out the window for doors and chests. Why?  Because they are common and commonly trapped. In most cases the trapping mechanism is subtle and hard to detect. And the procedure for checking them using player skill would rapidly reach the point where it was comprehensive and going through that process would be boring and repetitive.

It is an actual example where character skill trumps player skill. I can explain how to crack a safe or pick a lock, but it is practice and exposure to different safes and locks that really determines your ability.

So, for traditional, classic, door and chest traps, I don't bother describing the mechanism of the trap. 
This is reliant upon the relevant thief skill.  It is the thief's equivalent to fighting or casting spells. I do certainly think it is reasonable to create a unique game or subsystem for opening locks or detecting traps (Such as pulling Jenga blocks, winning hands of war, etc.)

Detection/Disarming: Here are some lists of common door and chest traps!

• Poison
• Contact poison on treasure
• Contact poison on container
• Poison needle in lock or handle
• Poison darts in front, top, inside lid, or bottom.
• Poison Gas (in chest, in door handle)
• Scything blade, cutting, up, down, etc.
• Contains deadly vermin
• Triggers another nearby trap, trap door, crushing stone block, etc. (Note that this trap can have plenty of agency)
• Triggers a Magic Spell
• Mimic
• Acid spray
• Explosive

How to deal with overactive door kickers?

• Dropping blades
• Weighted line that releases a metal spear shaft from the ceiling behind the kicker
• Weakened doors that break eaisly to allow blades to amputate the limbs
• Snares in the door
• Spring loaded blades in doors
• Shooting blades that fling out
• Portcullises that drop when the door is opened (to prevent the peek and flee)
• Spiked clamps triggered around the surrounding ceiling, floor, or walls
• Door contains deadly substance
• Doors that spring out, slamming targets into the walls, floor or ceiling
• Things perched on the tops of doors
• Doors covered in sticky, toxic, or dangerous substances

If you like posts like this, support me on Patreon!

---

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Newsletter, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating)

On the Thursday Trick, Vents, Sprays, and Agency

This post was originally published in September of 2011. If you're interested in Tricks and Traps like these, be sure to check out Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas, collecting all of these along with beautiful illustrations. 

Vents & Sprays (Vents/Sprays)

Trigger: Varies	Effects: Multiple Targets, Never Misses
Save:Wands	Duration: Instant
Resets: Automatic	Bypass: Avoid

Description: These traps are characterized by a variety of factors that separate them from spells or ranged attack traps. First, they often involved gasses or liquids and because they are often sprayed out over a large area they have the property of never missing.

In some cases there is also an onset delay. This means these traps can be triggered and the effect happen in a certain amount of time (sprinklers in a room) or a delay before the substance affects the characters (such as a room filling with water.

Examples of the things that might be vented or sprayed included slime, shrapnel, cold, acid, boiling water, flaming oil/tar, sewage, mummy dust, poison, fire, magma, smoke, methane, sand, steam, sulphur, and water.

If a to hit roll is required it will always ignore armor, but not necessarily shield bonuses. Saving throws may apply given the circumstance. Rods, Staves and Wands is the traditional saving throw for such attacks, allowing half damage or to avoid instant death.

Detection: These traps can be both the best kinds of traps, and the worst kinds of traps. Because they often have extremely negative properties, they can be ran in such a way where they are just Gotcha! traps, causing death or massive damage very quickly. However, this is an extremely poor way to run such traps, for several reasons. None of the vents and sprays above will be able to remove signs of their presence. Some examples

• Slime will leave a slick slimy coating on the walls and floor
• Shrapnel will leave gouges and scars in the walls and floor and ceilings
• Cold vents and sprays may show some signs of their presence due to temperature differences,  areas where the cold strikes repeated may show cracking, the growth of natural molds and fungi may be retarded. If the trap is triggered often or recently, there may be frost, ice or water on surfaces. If it has been triggered somewhat recently, the water will affect the appearance of the walls (they will be cleaner).
• Acid will leave pits and scarring on whatever surface it is sprayed on. There may be a scent, or the players eyes may start to become irritated.
• Boiling water may show up due to temperature differences, and will generally insure a sparkling clean area where the walls and floor are blasted with it.
• Flaming oil and tar will generally cover the upper walls and ceiling with black soot, and the floor may appear greasy or covered in scorch marks. Tar will stick to a surface and blacken and harden under high heat. The hallway may carry a scent of burning tar.
• Sewage will smell overpoweringly terrible, unless it is stored behind water (like in a toilet) or behind an air tight valve or door.  There will still be an odor because it will be triggered occasionally filling an area with filth. There may be an unusually high amount of mold or spores or other type things in the area due to the rich food source the filth provides.
• Mummy Dust may leave a coating of dust on surfaces, cause a musty spell, and their may be corpses in the hallway.
• If a poison is being used in a spray, it most likely is fairly virulent, and therefore their should be corpses, either dessicated in a forgotten dungeon like a tomb, or bones or signs of being dragged off in a more active area.
• If fire is being vented out, then on the surface that the fire is across from there will certainly be burn or scorch marks. Their may also be burnt corpses.
• Magma if sprayed or vented out, will melt and re-solidify, causing whatever surface the magma contacts to deform. Areas where magma is sprayed will bubble, twist, buckle, and bulge from the constant melting and re-hardening. Bones and various other mineral items (armor and such) may be embedded in seeming solid surfaces.
• Smoke will often linger for far longer then it takes to dissipate, leaving a smell for 60' to 100' from the location of the trap for days.
• Methane is a very dangerous trap, relying on the players flaming light to trigger an explosion. There are several things to keep in mind with methane. First, it is odorless, the natural gas smell you are familiar with is a modern additive to help detect leaks. Second, it displaces oxygen, so even if the entire party has some means of seeing in the dark, it can rapidly cause asphyxiation. Use the rules for how long characters can hold their breaths unprepared for the length of time they can stay conscious.
• Sand will both collect on the floor (and in clothes, armor, food, despite the best intentions). The first notice the adventurers will have will likely be the sound of sand crunching under their feet. Any surfaces subject to a spray of sand will likely be scrubbed clean. Repeated sand blastings will scour a surface clean, but will also remove the top layer, exposing rougher rock or metal beneath. Sometimes this will be used to fill a sealed chamber, in which case sand coated corpses will often be discovered.
• Steam is going to insure that whatever surfaces the steam hits are clean, except for the bits of boiled flesh that it removes from it's targets. Do not forget to continue to apply damage as heat metal for people caught in steam wearing metal armor.
• Sulfur is an interesting compound, either acidic causing burns, or a fine dust causing explosions, or a gas, causing choking and irritation. It is also known as brimstone. The primary method of detection is it's overpowering rotten eggs smell, which is natural.
• Water is often not sprayed on people for damage, but more often is used to fill a sealed chamber trapping and drowning whoever is within. Water traps often leave water marks, as the fluid removes dirt and grime from surfaces and deposits it on a line along the wall. It also can have a briny or salty smell.

Do not forget that the vents and sprays also must come from somewhere. Nozzles, slots, slats or shutters will be visible places where the substances are expelled.

If you like posts like this, support me on Patreon!

---

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Newsletter, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating)

On The Thursday Trick: The Kissing Maiden

This post was originally published in December of 2011. If you're interested in Tricks and Traps like these, be sure to check out Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas, collecting all of these along with beautiful illustrations. 

In honor of the only trap in Skyrim to cause me to die. Twice.

Swinging Grate (Melee Attack)

Trigger: Pressure Plate	Effects: None
Save: Wands	Duration: Instant
Resets: Automatic	Bypass: None (Avoid) Disarm

Description: Often triggered by a pressure plate that releases tension, this trap swings forward impaling anyone standing in its way. This can be a single sharp post (al' la the original Conan movie), an entire wall, or even a statue of a beautiful woman. The trap often comes equipped with a counterweight for automatic rearming.

Detection: In the vast majority of cases this trap must be visible. It can be camouflaged or concealed, but the impaling mechanism can be seen. Common means of camouflaging the trap include vegetation growing on the mechanism, dim light, and angled walls and corners.

There are often blood spots on the floor and end point of the traps arc of execution. Even if successful, there will rarely be a body, due to its tendency to become impaled on the trap itself. If struck by a trap with a body already in it, damage might be mitigated. Bodies or skeletons hanging without supports on the wall might be another way to detect this trap.

More subtle means of detection include the hollow space where the counterweight resides. This will often be in either a wall or floor. The trap can be disarmed, but this almost universally results in the trap being triggered because it is under tension. Having a firm grip on the trap and releasing the tension slowly is one option, another is to not be where the trap is triggered.

If you like posts like this, support me on Patreon!

---

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Newsletter, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating)

On Magical +1 Weapons

It's not only swords that need the +1 love.

Part of a series in the OSR on magical +1 swords that are not +1 swords.
Different Magic Swords: A Proposal by JD Jarvis
Evocative +1 Sword Replacements by Gus L.
Weird Swords and Not Swords by Arnold K.
On Magical +1 Swords by -C

Studded Stunner
This mace is notable because the ball that the rounded metal studs are attached to is invisible. It is also known as Sharak-mok in dwarven low speech, as the weapon is of dwarven make. When striking an opponent, a bright burst of light is released from this invisible ball with what sounds like a clap of thunder, causing all low intelligence and lower creatures to immediately make a morale check. On a critical the target hit by the mace must save versus paralyzation or be stunned for a moment, losing their next action. The mace is quite heavy, doing +1 damage for those who can effectively wield it.

Scythe of Blood
This is an ancient weapon, looking tarnished with use. It appears as a normal scythe, except in the hands of a druid. When held by a druid it appears rich in color and vibrant, rather than an arcane relic. Anyone struck by this weapon when wielded by a druid continues to take a point of damage from bleeding every round. This blood flies through the air and into the scythe which then grants that hit point to the druid. The bleeding and hit point absorption is cumulative. When worn by a druid it is always mistaken for a tool and never a weapon.

Spear of Force
This is a wizard weapon. It consists of no more than a 9" piece of arcane wrought silvered steel cylinder. When the command word is said (Munder-Ca, death lance in the old arcane speech.) a 8' glowing shaft of force with a sharp point springs from the steel. This force is cool to the touch and unbreakable. The tip is quite sharp and any wizard may use this weapon as if he is proficient with it.

Orcish Maul
Yugish the smith of the bloodtooth clan forged this mighty maul. Those who chant the battle cry of death to their enemies deal devastating blows. Each time the player is able to shout the battle cry (TORK! TORK! TORK!) from the moment the damage die leaves their hand till it stops rolling, can add 1 point of damage to the attack. They must yell this quite loudly, and there is a 1% chance per yell that their voice goes out for 2-24 hours.

Dwarven Hammer
This well-balanced hammer has the screaming face of a dwarf at the top, with arms going out to either side, the heads of the weapon dwarven fists. When wielded by a dwarf it is light and agile, granting a +1 to hit and damage, but it may also be thrown to do double damage. The weapon need not be retrieved. There is a 25% chance per melee round that the hammer returns to it's scabbard, a golden ring that the hammer hangs from.

Bow of Brilliance
This shortbow is made from golden wood. It is unstrung. When drawn as a normal bow, it produces a bowstring and arrow made from light. This missile is fired with no bonus from strength to damage. It does normal damage, however it will also affect incorporeal targets and targets only affected by magical weapons.

---

Hack & Slash

On Magical +1 Swords

Swords should feel magical.

Part of a series in the OSR on magical +1 swords that are not +1 swords.
Different Magic Swords: A Proposal by JD Jarvis
Evocative +1 Sword Replacements by Gus L.
Weird Swords and Not Swords by Arnold K.

Blackthumb

This shortsword appears to have a metallic green blade that quickly darkens to black as it moves towards the tip. Vegetation and plants near the wielder curl, rot, and wither as he passes by. It can be stuck into earth to salt the soil, and does triple damage versus plants and vegetative creatures. It has a scabbard made of stone and set with a single opal.

Fearflame
This longsword is scorched and blackened. It is unwieldy and heavy making it somewhat difficult to use with one hand. The blade appears to constantly weep some sort of thick viscous substance. This substance with a modicum of effort can be set aflame by taking 1 round. When aflame, the blade does an additional 1d6 points of damage to targets, and on a roll of 6 or if the target is covered in oil, may set the target aflame. The blade is unharmed by this flame, but it provides no protection to the wielder, who takes 1 point of damage per round the sword is aflame, as well as taking 1-6 points of damage from fire on a roll of a '1' to hit in combat.

Alchemist's Friend
This short blade always appears immaculate and new. The round pommel of the sword unscrews. and there is space for up to 3 doses of any alchemical reagent to be placed within the sword. Once placed within the sword, the user may either have these alchemical items be triggered on a successful hit, or, can attack any target they are in melee with the reagent at no danger or penalty. This attack is with the alchemical item itself, usually requiring only a touch attack versus the target, as opposed to having to bypass the armor class of the target (as the attack triggered on a successful hit must do).

Cat's claw
This short blade has a green cast to it's metal. Anyone who wields this weapon for a substantial amount of time finds their pupils becoming more and more vertical. When drawn and held forth, the wielder can see in the dark up to 120'. Also the blade is light and agile. Any hit that exceeds the targets armor class by 4 or more allows the user to immediately attack again once per round. The weapon is too light to take advantage of a high strength, strength provides no to hit or damage bonuses with this weapon, though any bonuses to dexterity do provide a bonus to hit and damage.

Stinkshaft
When wielding the sword, you smell like garbage. The scabbard is some kind of plastic sack filled with filth. Any wound you cause with this sword has an 80% chance of getting a nasty infection. Anyone who engages you in combat must save versus poison become weak and nauseated, receiving a -1 on rolls and armor class each round they engage in combat with you. Leaving the sword behind, attempting to hide the sword, or using perfumes and magic to mask the scent does nothing. This affects all your social interactions providing a substantial penalty.

Temper's edge
This sword pulses red when drawn. The wielder receives a penalty to wisdom and becomes extremely argumentative. They find themselves believing that people are plotting against them, and start developing plants to murder or destroy people and things around them. They don't take action on these feelings, recognizing them as abnormal, but their patience is extremely limited. During any encounter where an opponent is neutral or worse, the bearer must roll a saving throw versus paralysis to avoid attacking. All of that said, once combat begins, the sword glows and pulses red granting both an extra attack and a +2 bonus to damage against all targets.


Further entries to this series should link the earlier entries. . .

---

Hack & Slash