When did traps get silly?

[Michael Thayne]

A lot of traps published in RPG adventures / sourcebooks are, frankly, silly. Sometimes, this is just a matter of being in an illogical place. Like, sure, pit traps are a perfectly sensible sort of trap that have been used to good effect in real life, and could easily be built with medieval technology, but why did the dungeon-maker put one blocking a path that dungeon inhabitants would have to walk on a regular basis? With dungeons that are supposed to be very old in-story, you can postulate that the long-forgotten creators were insane, but if the dungeon has since been taken over by a different group of intelligent creatures, there's a question of why the new management hasn't managed to seal the pit shut, or put a wooden board over it, or at least put up a ****ing sign to warn people.

Then there are the traps whose construction doesn't quite make sense. The trap shoots arrows or darts or alchemist's fire, but the module never manages to make clear just how much ammo it has. Or there's the good ol' "scythe popping out of the wall" trap—sure the first "shot" of the trap could be spring-loaded, but how does it keep resetting itself? And those pressure plates—how exactly did they build that, if they didn't have the option of using the depressed plate to complete an electrical circuit? In the case of some of these "illogical construction" traps, you might be able to conjure up some elaborate mechanism with counterweights that could do the job, only the walls of the dungeon don't seem thick enough to hide such a mechanism.

Then there's the rooms whose ceilings have been rigged to collapse. Why would you do that to your own building? Why? Oh sure, in Tomb of Horrors, Acererak probably has an army of demons to rebuild these areas after they collapse, but most dungeons aren't built by all-powerful demi-liches. What's everybody else's excuse?

Now here's where I start finding things especially puzzling. If you only know a little bit of the history of tabletop RPGs, you might assume that all these nonsensical traps became standard fare in fantasy RPGs because Gary Gygax saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and decided he wanted to rip off the opening sequence in everything he wrote. But when I've looked at old modules like Temple of Elemental Evil, this doesn't seem to be the case.

In those old modules, the most common sort of trap seems to be the trapped treasure chest, which I love: the trap is a sort of last-ditch in the event that a thief (1) gets to the room where the chest is and (2) manages pick the lock. That means it doesn't matter if the trap only has one "shot". If the chest only needs to be opened occasionally, that reduces the number of opportunities to set it off accidentally. And since presumably few people have the key, only a few people need to be taught how to disarm the trap safely.

So my question is: when exactly did silly traps become so common in tabletop RPGs? I am so very curious to know the history there.

[Anders]

Grimtooth's Traps which is a source of many silly traps is from 1981.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Anders

Grimtooth's Traps which is a source of many silly traps is from 1981.

That crossed my mind as well, but I'd go so far as to question the premise. I don't think that there was ever a time when traps weren't at least a bit absurd. Yes, even the simple pits and deadfalls. Certainly, some dungeons stuck with the classics like pits and tripwires, and post-Grimtooth, the tendency to get ever more florid with traps wasn't universal, but I think traps were mostly seen not as sensible defenses rising organically from the built environment, but rather as challenges to PCs, much like the classic dozen storm giants in a 10 by 10 room.

And ultimately this predates RPG. Elaborate traps go back to adventure serials of the 30s and adventure fiction before that. And they're mostly there for the same reasons: to provide a dramatic challenge to the protagonists. No, they don't make sense in context. But individually, many people think they're fun and interesting.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Anders

Grimtooth's Traps which is a source of many silly traps is from 1981.

Grimtooth also had flavor text in which the traps were reset by the hard-working monsters employed by the dungeon for exactly that purpose.

That's why my dungeons often have what's left of traps, which have either been triggered or fallen apart after decades of neglect. If the traps are still functional, it's a pretty good indicator that the place is occupied by sapient beings who repair and reload them.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Like, sure, pit traps are a perfectly sensible sort of trap that have been used to good effect in real life, and could easily be built with medieval technology, but why did the dungeon-maker put one blocking a path that dungeon inhabitants would have to walk on a regular basis? With dungeons that are supposed to be very old in-story, you can postulate that the long-forgotten creators were insane, but if the dungeon has since been taken over by a different group of intelligent creatures, there's a question of why the new management hasn't managed to seal the pit shut, or put a wooden board over it, or at least put up a ****ing sign to warn people.

Personally, when I design traps, I pretty much always include a (hidden) mechanical bypass that the inhabitants can use to safely get past it. I'm also fond of having such bypasses in the form of a lock-type mechanism, so that an inhabitant can activate it with a key (and adventurers would need to pick the lock once they find it, unless they happened to have killed and looted one of the keyholders previously).

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Then there are the traps whose construction doesn't quite make sense. The trap shoots arrows or darts or alchemist's fire, but the module never manages to make clear just how much ammo it has. Or there's the good ol' "scythe popping out of the wall" trap—sure the first "shot" of the trap could be spring-loaded, but how does it keep resetting itself? And those pressure plates—how exactly did they build that, if they didn't have the option of using the depressed plate to complete an electrical circuit? In the case of some of these "illogical construction" traps, you might be able to conjure up some elaborate mechanism with counterweights that could do the job, only the walls of the dungeon don't seem thick enough to hide such a mechanism.

I also always include some means of reload for reusable traps. Basic ones may simply rely on the denizens to manually reload them, more complex ones might have a magazine or a clockwork battery (for spring-loaded scythe-blades), and exotic ones might use magic for infinite uses. One of my personal favorites was a trapped chest that shot poisoned darts. The act of unlocking it actually loaded it, and it immediately fired and then re-engaged the lock. The "correct" way to get through was to locate the hidden bypass (which used the same key) and "unlock" it, which decoupled the firing/relocking mechanism and allowed the chest to be opened normally. The players instead opted to rig a piece of scrap metal in front of the hole the needle shot out of and just unlock it until it ran out of ammo (I ruled the relocking mechanism didn't work right if the weapon dry-fired). As for pressure plates, I always assumed those were at the end of hidden levers, attached to a hidden cord, or similar, such that the act of moving it pulled a more proper trigger elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Then there's the rooms whose ceilings have been rigged to collapse. Why would you do that to your own building? Why? Oh sure, in Tomb of Horrors, Acererak probably has an army of demons to rebuild these areas after they collapse, but most dungeons aren't built by all-powerful demi-liches. What's everybody else's excuse?

It's a pretty effective way to deny the enemy passage, comparable to rigging one's own bridge to explode. A pit trap, once activated, can potentially be crossed using ropes, planks, ladders, etc - a collapsed room requires hours (or more) of labor to clear it out so it's passable again. This isn't a good strategy for a sideroom, however - it needs to be a room leading somewhere important, somewhere you'd rather trap yourself (or get stuck outside of) than allow invaders to get into it.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

So my question is: when exactly did silly traps become so common in tabletop RPGs? I am so very curious to know the history there.

I'd expect it to be relatively early on, although it probably would have taken a while to show up in official modules and the like. Essentially, sensible versions of these traps would have shown up in official publications first, then more amateur GM's would have thrown them into their own dungeons without serious thought, largely thanks to the kewl factor. Eventually, those GM's would have been the ones writing (or at least contributing to) official modules, and would have been inclined to throw those same kewl traps in. At least, that's my guess.

[Celjabba]

It has been suggested that one of the inspiration for D&D Dungeons and their traps was the Vietnam war tunnel system, which were definitively creatively trapped, including pit traps with poisoned sticks, explosive devices and various other unfun things.

Sliding granite blocks and collapsing ceiling as well as hematite powder coating are averred in Egyptian tombs, although certainly not as frequent or impressive as the movies versions :)

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Anders

Grimtooth's Traps which is a source of many silly traps is from 1981.

Thank you, that's interesting.

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

That crossed my mind as well, but I'd go so far as to question the premise. I don't think that there was ever a time when traps weren't at least a bit absurd. Yes, even the simple pits and deadfalls. Certainly, some dungeons stuck with the classics like pits and tripwires, and post-Grimtooth, the tendency to get ever more florid with traps wasn't universal, but I think traps were mostly seen not as sensible defenses rising organically from the built environment, but rather as challenges to PCs, much like the classic dozen storm giants in a 10 by 10 room.

There's some truth to this, but reading old modules I'm still struck by how good Gygax was at designing challenges that feel justified in-story even if there's obviously a very different Doylist explanation for why they're there. This extends beyond traps, so maybe Gygax was just a better game designer than most of his imitators. But you'd think copying old classic adventures wouldn't be so hard?

And ultimately this predates RPG. Elaborate traps go back to adventure serials of the 30s and adventure fiction before that. And they're mostly there for the same reasons: to provide a dramatic challenge to the protagonists. No, they don't make sense in context. But individually, many people think they're fun and interesting.

It's true you can trace these to adventure serials, but it's interesting that the adventure serial source material doesn't seem to have had such a major influence on early modules. That's what surprising about this to me!

[whswhs]

I began running dungeons in the mid-1970s. They had traps, and I don't recall that I made any effort to avoid silly ones. I'm not sure there would have been any point in it; dungeons as such are largely silly, after all.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

It has been suggested that one of the inspiration for D&D Dungeons and their traps was the Vietnam war tunnel system, which were definitively creatively trapped, including pit traps with poisoned sticks, explosive devices and various other unfun things.

Sliding granite blocks and collapsing ceiling as well as hematite powder coating are averred in Egyptian tombs, although certainly not as frequent or impressive as the movies versions :)

Were the granite blocks and collapsing ceilings actually meant to be triggered by thieves, or were they meant to be triggered by work crews after they'd finished building the tombs as a way of sealing them up?

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Were the granite blocks and collapsing ceilings actually meant to be triggered by thieves, or were they meant to be triggered by work crews after they'd finished building the tombs as a way of sealing them up?

No idea. I remember reading quite a few years ago about one dig were they found a collapsed ceiling with bodies under the rubble in a tomb that was plundered ... but I can't remember if they had been able to determine if the collapsed ceiling was a triggered trap, a deliberate sealing up or a construction mishap ...