It's a TRAP!

Trap Generators:

Here are some random generators to help you danger up your ruins.  Perhaps a group or trap smith favors one trigger, trap or damage type: you know you’re in Brass Skull territory when everything is a rockfall.  Maybe the ruins were originally full of laser tripwires to keep thieves out of the gene labs.  How will you use these generators in your wasteland?

	Trigger Type
1		Pressure plate
2		Tripwire
3		Laser tripwire (alarm, triggers mechanical trap or activates robots)
4		Tension trigger (on doors, containers)
5		Proximity trigger (mines)
6		Motion activated (turrets, snares) *
7		Touch (Dex to avoid. Tin can chimes, bone chimes, electrical current)
8		Weight/gravity (pit, bear trap)
9		Spotter (box trap, cage, rock fall)
10		Energy (shooting, flame, electricity ignites gas cannister, ambient gas, oil)
11		Prop (deadfall, rock fall, pillars)
12		Treacherous interface (doorknob, terminal, AR, a live wire in a toilet)

	Trap Type
1		Explosive (device, container, gas, EMP)
2		Relocator (breakable floor, trapdoor, transporter, piston)
3		Projectiles (arrows, darts, bullets, lasers)
4		Deadfall (rocks, stone block, log, shipping container, car)
5		Snare (holds and harms if passed through.   Steaked bear trap, whip snare, taser floor)
6		Hobble (hampers movement: drag snare, leg-wounding trap, punji steaks, caltrops.  Easily combined with poison.)
7		Immobilize (holds fast without ongoing harm.  Cage, cell, stasis effect)
8		Swinging ram (disrupts movement; displaces characters. log, engine block, dead cow)
9		Pit. Roll again and combine results.
10		Gas (poison, explosive, soporific)
11		Creature release (swarm, hungry, territorial, poisonous, disease-bearing)
12		Alarm

	Damage Type
1		Fire
2		Electrical (lighting)
3		Force
4		Radiant (frickin’ lasers)
5		Necrotic
6		Ballistic (frickin’ bullets)
7		Poison
8		Cold
9		Thunder
10		Acid
11		Psychic
12		Slashing/piercing/bludgeoning

* In post-apoc games, some security measures can be controlled by computer terminals or Augmented Reality. You can treat those controls like ICRPG’s chunks: hacking the controls with effort neutralizes the threat.  Hackable traps should be least Tech Level 3. Use this to spotlight characters who have invested in pre-catastrophe knowledge or skills.

In Fallout 4, trap components such as spotlights and turrets can be traced to their controls via red wires.  Providing this kind of visual cue to your players can enliven play and deepen their setting immersion.

Trap Examples:

8,6,9

Weight/gravity, hobble, thunder.

• Shallow foot-sized pit lined with downward-pointing spikes.  1d10 damage; Dex save or Lame.  Pressure plate at bottom of hole wired to concussion grenades that destroy or block off part of the path from rest of the party.

3,5,2

Laser tripwire, snare, electrical

• Laser tripwire activates taser plates above and below characters.  Con save vs. paralysis

2,2,8

Tripwire, relocator, cold.

• Tripwire floods the room with freezing water, water lifts PC’s to another level or triggers floor drain that pulls them downward.
• Alternative: Room is a flash-freezing facility; tripwire is a trigger mechanism for the room.  Not originally a trap, but a food or scientific sample preservation asset. Characters take cold damage and save vs. sleep.

Thoughts on traps in play:

Most traps are the security measures of the ruin’s past or current occupants. These measures have an in-world logic: they provide safety for people and their possessions. But what value do traps add to the play experience? Here are some ideas:

1) Change or direct the space in an encounter. This can: disrupt the characters’ movement, physically contain them, or herd or transport them to another part of the space.

• Transport characters to another location (pit, collapsing floor, transporter)
• Change terrain (collapsing pillars, walls, and doors; cave-ins, rising water, avalanches)
• Lure and immobilize (Humane mouse trap; bear trap for bears)
• Lure and destroy (Deadly mousetrap; bear trap for humans)
• Drive or herd and catch (Driving ponies into a corral)
• Drive or herd and destroy (chasing a mammoth off a cliff)

2) Spotlighting character’s abilities: Puzzles, feats of strength, thief skills; magical, psionic or tech solutions to traps that:

• Keep intruders out
• Keep something in
• Concealment, disabling, circumventing

3) Depleting resources and controlling rest to intensify a climactic encounter. **

• Cause wounds, disease, poison
• Kill
• Demoralize or deplete resources (punji steaks wound soldiers, necessitating a change of mission, medical transport and evac, renew morale)

4) Setting a tone

• Alarm: a silent alert or loud claxon draws enemies
• Creating a sense of danger and trepidation
• Giving setting context: old tech, new uses for old tech, primitive new tech

Any of the above can also harass, deplete or affect the morale of the characters and players.

Hazards that are concealed, have triggers and can be countered are functionally traps. Steam geysers, lava jets, and crumbling walls full of spider swarms or explosive have a different narrative feel from deadfalls and tripwires.  Like man-made traps, they can be spotted, avoided, and even disarmed, perhaps by unexpected use of skills or magic by the PCs.

Trap links:

Here’s an interesting article on traps for 5e:

Unearthed Arcana Traps

Here is an infographic of Viet Kong tunnels and traps. There are plenty of ideas here for ruins and cavern complexes:

Infographic of Viet Kong tunnels and traps.

Here's a link to Runehammer's video on rest, where I got the idea for using traps to control rest.  Runehammer is great, and if you support his patreon, you get a podcast, previews and access to a great RPG thinker. Take a look!:
Runehammer's Rest mechanics video. Yee haw!

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