DeathTraps - are you for or against them?

[Molly O'Hara]

This is a spin-off from the thread ‘Death Penalty Options’ on the Mud Design board.
I put it here, because once the DT code is implemented in the Mud, it’s the Builder's choice to use it or not.

Traditionally a DeathTrap is defined as a room where you not only get instantly killed when you enter, you also lose all your equipment.

The questions are simple:

1. Does your Mud have DTs and if so, do you use them in your zones?
2. What are the pros and cons for DTs?
3. What are your own motives for using/not using them?

[Alayla]

Midnight Sun doesn't have death traps (actually it's against imm rules to make one), and I was never sorry it's the case. I hate DTs as a player, unless they serve some very specific purpose, like preventing people from fleeing randomly in a heavily PK area. Even then, there's better ways to get the point across.

Getting killed by a room just for walking into it, especially if you're not able to leave before you get killed, is just... plain dumb. There's no element of skill in evading the trap (other than doing it once and never doing it again, which is hardly skill), and it discourages exploration. I don't mind losing equip or dying - but if it happens, I want it to be my fault. If I climb to the church roof during a lightning storm and watch the lightning bolts, well, then I'm dumb and I deserve to die. But I should have the option to climb back down.

So I don't use DTs, and never plan to.

[Kjartan]

1. No, we don't have them. (The diku code had them but we took them out.) I guess technically we have things like rooms where you can walk off a cliff, and without a fly spell or some natural flying ability (e.g. you're a druid shapeshifted into a bird) you will fall and the damage will kill you, but they are all meant to be survivable in some circumstances.

2 & 3. Con: It's not interactive enough. We actually have a number of rooms where if you don't do something clever you will die, but they are all gradual, for example a room in which the exits slam shut and it starts filling with sand; if you don't find the secret door in about a minute (or escape with magic, if you've got it), you're dead.

I don't see any Pros to rooms that just insta-kill-you with nothing you can do about it. It is good to have danger and more importantly drama, but if there's no way you can possibly do anything about it then what's the point?

[Kyuss]

Dont have them as rooms, nor would the chars like that.

There are pitfalls where you can die, but again, your messing with the
characters work while the pfile is still alive.

When all else fails, make a hyper aggro bear with 500k hps, sanc, 100
hitroll and does 3500 damage a round, that hunts characters in the area.

Thats what I did. Characters respect danger and challenge.

An instant screw of 6 months labor is not something I would play.

[Tyche]

I don't think there should be any hard or fast rule like "no deathtraps". It's sort of like the "thou shall not use you" in building. A trap that is undetectable, unavoidable and always fatal is probably not a good idea, especially in a low-level newbie area . On the other hand it shouldn't preclude designing ingenious, complex, clever and malignant traps for tougher areas. I expect gradually introducing the player to simple non-fatal traps and ratcheting up the complexity and mortality in more advanced areas and skill levels makes them far more palatible.

From Deathtraps - "But judging a deathtrap is tricky. There must be an escape, since an ugly death in a trap is neither heroic nor dramatically appropriate. But the escape can't be too obvious, or the threat vanishes."

ObEditAside: Speaking of traps in general, the Netbooks page has a wealth of nasty ideas.
I've also got all the Flying Buffalo trap books which are deliciously nasty, but unfortunately I cannot post such stuff, but if you can find copies on e-bay they be worth the investment.

[Alayla]

[Pheralan]

I find DTs distasteful, myself. I have two reasons. One: Anything that doesn't allow the character a chance to save themselves is a problem. As Tyche said, some traps can be terribly difficult to avoid (You walked into the room with only two doors, both closed, and now the ceiling is closing in on you...screwed!) but there should be a definate chance to avoid them. Two: As a player, I walked into a DT on my "home" mud once...and proceeded to nearly quit, after about a year and a half of work. This is because, on most level muds that I've played, earning the equipment that you have is a huge undertaking. Getting the five players together to assault an Ubermob that has this random .029384575932837% drop rate in order to get this uberneat piece of equipment, only to have it eaten by some silly insta-kill....is irritating, at best.

So, that's my thought. As a builder, I wouldn't put them in because I hate them. Now, a timer that says if you don't figure out how to get out of this room within X amount of time you are dead, eq smooshed, sure....but not something that insta-kills you.

[Molly O'Hara]

Well, since everyone is so in accord about this, I have to play the devil's advocate and take the opposite stance.

We have DTs in our mud. Not many, I believe about 1 DT per 3000 rooms. They are typically placed in remote, high-level, high-risk zones and are pretty logical. For instance they could be 'The bottom of the precipice' or 'A boiling pool of red-hot lava' or 'The glowing core of the Sun', places where it would make sense that you not would only die instantly, but also irretrievably lose any equipment. There is also a general rule that they must be clearly marked with a warning in the exit desc of any room leading to them. AND the code prevents you from fleeing or teleporting into a DT, you have to consciously enter them.

DTs are no favourite of mine, I too prefer traps with a possible escape in a limited time, like that classical E.A. Poe room with the closing in walls that someone already mentioned and of which we have several versions in the mud. (My favourite trap in our mud is otherwise a large snake that devours you whole if you are stupid enough to attack it, and then leaves you the choice of dying swiftly by killing yourself, or slowly by digesting in the stomach).

But I also do use DTs myself on rare occasions. Why? Well, I guess mainly to add an amount of REAL danger to a hard zone, because dying isn't such a big deal in our Mud. To tell the truth not even the equip loss is such a big deal. Someone mentioned losing 6 months of work. In our Mud it would be more like losing 6 hours.

All muds are different. DTs would probably be a terrible idea in any mud with permadeath, or if the good equipment took an inordinate time and effort to collect. But the best equipment in our mud generally isn't planted on uber-mobs that you need a strong group to kill. Most of the best stuff is gained by questing, and quests are only really hard the first time you do them.

While losing equipment might be traumatic for a new player, especially if he got presented the equipment instead of earning it on his own, for an experienced player it's just an irritating inconvenience. New players wouldn't even get in contact with DTs, because they are not placed in the zones that newbies frequent. Older players usually have the good sense to look where they are going when in unknown surroundings. If they don't - or if they are stupid enough to jump into a room that says 'Entering this place means sure and swift DEATH!' wearing full gear - well, then my heart doesn't exactly bleed for them. For a skilled player there are always ways to find out whether a room is a DT or not, without risking to lose their equipment.

I don't believe the DTs deter any of our players from exploring. In fact I have seen them sitting at Recall comparing notes and bragging to each other about how many they hit. One of our legendary explorers, who knew the entire mud like his own back-pocket, also held the hard-to-beat record of hitting 6 in the same week. He used to say that he always wound up with better equipment after he hit a DT than he had before. His female, long-time partner, another awesome explorer, told a different story; how he used to order her to strip naked and jump into the suspected DT, while he held the equipment for her. Quite the gallant knight, eh? Stories like that become part of the mud's legends, and add to the atmosphere. DTs are just part of the environment, and the players learn to deal with them.

I know that some muds use the DTs because they want some circulation on artifacts and other restricted equipment that doesn't load too often and that some players like to hoard. I can see how that could be rather irritating to these players, but I can also see why the Admin would do it. There are probably other, and possibly better, ways of achieving the same thing, but it's one way.

But by all means, let's discuss ordinary nasty traps instead. What are your favourite ones?

Tyche wrote

[Tyche]

[Pheralan]

[Sandi]

[Molly O'Hara]

The huge Green Dragon in Haon D'or used to be a wimp in the first mud I played.

But those spiders... *shudder*