Rethinking Trap Procedures

Traps: they should logically exist in at least some places in our games. Kobolds are very popular at the moment, and kobolds love traps, so you almost can't get away from them. However, too often they're simply not fun.

Common potential problems:

• GMs slapping their players with damage they couldn't be reasonably expected to avoid
  
• Players neurotically searching and re-searching areas "just in case"
  
• Metagaming responses to low rolls or the GM's unfortunately-worded descriptions resulting in the PCs completely disassembling harmless bits of dungeon dressing step by step
  
• GMs slipping in false positives or intentionally suspicious language in an attempt to dissuade metagaming resulting in a lot of time pointlessly wasted
•  An absolutely huge number of perception/search rolls that don't mean anything
• Attempts to spend real time only on interesting content inherently telling the players that a particular spot is interesting, mysteriously making the heroes psychically aware that a hazard is likely near

 Existing trap procedures, each fixing some of these pitfalls, form an even longer list - which I'm not bothering to describe.

The goal, as always, is to have them exist in the game in a form that they actually make the game more fun, not less fun. This is my own attempt to design the trap process in games to mesh elegantly with existing structures. It is a modification of the process described in Many Rats On Sticks: it makes some assumptions about what you are already doing to run the game. It is also completely untested!

1. If the party proceeds cautiously, they are assumed to be trying to not set off traps accidentally, and get some indication of all traps.
   
2. If the party suspects something is a trap, they should be encouraged to investigate it without permanently expending resources (for reasons that will become clear).
   
3. Resolve their actions according to reasonable expectations, as normal
   
4. If the party begins to regularly employ techniques that DO consume resources when they poke anything suspicious, those resources should be added to the depletion process of normal exploration to indicate that they use it frequently (just like torches, and food)
   

Example: Poking every exposed surface with a long pole will not deplete the pole as a part of normal progress. If there is a trap that will grab/destroy the pole, resolve it at that point when they actually poke it. Same thing for driving livestock in front of the party; they keep the livestock until they actually run into something that would deprive them continued usage of said animal.

Example: Sprinkling dust should not deplete, or deplete extremely slowly, because you can just collect it back up and reuse it. Again, special circumstances that would make the dust irretrievable would reduce your inventory.

Example: Pouring water to look for seams, bubbles, or low patches should definitely be added to normal expenditure of consumable items unless the party has some explanation of how they are getting all the water back. 

I suggest just keeping a section of notepaper where you list their common approaches to strange things - a new technique gets written down, and a checkmark for each repetition. Outliers get added to the depletion list. Of course, it's up to you to decide about how fast each thing should be used up.

This procedure can also be combined with the Click Rule for extra excitement whether or not anyone is in actual danger when they set off a trap (say, by poking the trigger intentionally). I think I'll be using it.