ODnD Searching and Traps

It's been a few weeks since that OD&D game that seems to have caused a huge, albeit temporary, flush of traffic to my oft-neglected blog. I don't doubt that RPGBloggers and an apparent link in a OD&D forum helped as well. Anyway, this post is an exploration of something that caused a bit of confusion for me, as DM, in that OD&D game: searching and traps.

The problem, stemming no doubt from my D&D 3.0 roots, is the matter of searching and the efficacy of such. I get that in OD&D, having a room with traps that exist as part of the room is important. Rather than "roll to disarm", the party should have to figure out a more physical and 'real' way to disarm the trap based on logic and reason. That's fine and dandy. The issue is thus: In 3.x, 4e, and possibly other earlier editions, you roll to search for traps. Rogues in particular, and others to a much lesser extent, can search a room for traps by rolling a die. "I search for traps, I get a 18+8 for skill, so 26". Then, you compare 26 to some DC, and there you go. They found it or didn't.

In OD&D, there is no such mechanic. How then to respond to "I search for traps"? The primer, linked in the previous post I believe, suggests requiring very specific things to look for. "I search for traps" is then insufficient, requiring something more akin to "I search for a tripwire across the hall" or "I look for cracks in the floor which might be indicative of a pit trap". The problem that arises from that is twofold: One, the players, if sufficiently paranoid/trained to expect traps everywhere, will spend hours in each room, checking every brick and cobble to be certain that flaming death doesn't await them. The second is that players will feel cheated if they search a room and miss something that they feel should be obvious. "What? How could I miss a tripwire? I said I searched!"

How to remedy this issue? Well, firstly, it might not actually be an issue that isn't already solved. Part of my reasoning for writing this post is to hear other people's rules on such things. Do you just list traps as part of a room's decor? Do you accept "I search for traps" and list them then? Require ever more specific phrases to be able to find better traps? Improvise/houserule/steal a mechanic to handle it by a die roll? I'm curious to hear your ideas.

For me, sans any exterior input, I think I will continue making traps effectively invisible unless a player specifically searches for that type of trap, or is searching a sufficiently small object, such as a chest. Searching an entire room "for traps" is laughably difficult, with a clever enough trap inventor. Hell, there could just be a poisoned barb on the back of the door handle to the next room, that a casual adventurer would grasp and pierce his hand on. Who would even think to look for it? A chest, however, is small enough and simply operated enough that one can search for trigger mechanisms at the least. Trapped chests, of course, are almost reason enough to devise some alternate method of opening them than just standing in front and kicking them open like one is Link.

The issue is that, from a 3.x/4e/videogame aspect, these sorts of decisions seem like DM arbitrary damage. Those rules effectively only exist so that the DM can't just "Rocks fall, everyone dies". If there are search and disarm rules, then it's less based on the DM's fiat, so that players don't take umbrage when they are injured. In OD&D, by design, the DM is the final arbiter on everything, superseding rules when desired. How do you avoid looking like you are just smacking the players around? If they search for tripwires, and you decide that they miss one, or miss another kind of trap, how is it not just you smacking the players around?

Anyway, sorry for the post with fewer answers than questions, but it's something I'm curious about and would like to hear the gaming community's opinion on.

Dynamic Dungeons and Spellcasting

I am in the middle of thinking about crafting a megadungeon for OD&D, and the idea of a more dynamic place came to mind. I'm trying to walk a line between overly boring and confining realism and the completely gonzo nonsense that a lot of old modules seem to show to an extent. This got me thinking about spellcasting and how mundanely it is handled in a lot of games.

Think about it like this: you have a party of PCs in a dungeon. This dungeon began as a human crypt, expanded over time as it happens in your world. The PCs are possibly on level three of five, having fought their way down through the groups of goblins and orcs that live in an uneasy peace in the abandoned structure. The druid (we'll say 3.5e) is irritated by the prolonged combat, and casts "Earthquake" under a group of goblins. Now, as a GM, you are probably tempted/expected to have the spell do exactly as it says; knock the goblins down and possibly injure them from debris (been a while since I looked at 3e, I assume it did this). The way I see it, you should have the dungeon act like a hole dug out from living rock. That is, an earthquake affects it more strongly than, say, a fireball.

When the cleric casts earthquake, the room shakes and the spell's normal effects happen. Goblins fall down, some rocks fall from above and mash a few. Still, those rocks came from above. How far above was the next level? Realistically, a few dozen feet at least, as otherwise the stone would collapse by itself. Honestly though, in most dungeons it's assumed to be more like "a foot". Anyway, you are casting earthquake underground. The rocks fall, but it destabilizes the ceiling. More rocks fall the next round, and a rumbling noise reverbates around the place. The next round, the floor breaks out and the PCs fall down a level, into a twisted and broken mass of stone, worked marble, bodies, coffins, and dust.

Does this sort of thinking allow for some screwy spellcasting to completely wreck your dungeon? Yes, of course it does. Spells like Stone to Flesh make things even weirder. (Wall of Stone, Animate Object, Stone to Flesh in that order make a living, animate wall of flesh, a weird thing to encounter in all locations) However, you players start to realize that their hugely powerful high-end effects, are, in fact, hugely powerful high-end effects. This is also notable for the idiots that think they can cast Fabricate on a block of iron a few dozen times (easy for mid-level wizard) and create a hundred longswords to sell. What? No. No town has a use for all those swords. Even aside from that, you are flooding the market, driving down prices. The local smithing guild would be all over you, and probably violently. If you are too high level to confront directly, they'll probably just hire assassins. You are destroying their industry and wrecking up their livelihoods.

Anyway, back to dungeons.

How can you, as a DM, handle this sort of thing? Make your dungeon literally 3d, with defined structural components and rock hardness, add supports and engineering data, make sure it all works together in a real setting...

No, don't do all that. That sort of thing will kill you. Ad-lib it. If the party casts Fireball in the woods, the trees catch fire. If the party casts firewall in a sealed cave, the fire burns away oxygen. If the party wants to 'cheat' and go down a level in the dungeon by casting Disintegrate on the floor, let them! However, keep in mind that effects like this are more fun if the PCs didn't intend it to happen. PC plans to disintegrate the floor cause problems. Perhaps they breach a lava pipe (though the floor should probably be warm, as a hint. Don't just kill PCs randomly), or perhaps they cause another cave in. If the PCs cast Flamestrike in the sewers of a city, nothing seems to happen. However, the column of fire coming from the sky did successfully smash into a person's house up above, and when the party comes out of the dungeon two days later, they learn of the gods' judgment raining down on the city, starting a series of violent fires in the slums of the city. Casting anything at all in the middle of the city certainly causes a general suspicion of distrust of the party. Also no charming shopkeeps, they figure it out after you leave and you end up with a warrant out for you. This also means that previously fairly useless spells (Plant Growth?) become interesting again! Plants have been breaking up stone forever. It's part of their function in the world. When your cleric casts plant growth in a dungeon, the floor cracks and splinters from the new roots. I can see it being a bit more interesting.

Is this sort of spellcasting consequence limiting to spellcasters over fighters? Yes and no. A fighter just doesn't have the same kind of abilities, though I suppose he could buy a pick and just dig downwards instead of disintegrating. Also this means that spellcasters are now much less capable during barroom brawls, but if your casters were throwing around Horrid Wilting in bar brawls before, then you need to put a stop to it anyway. Another side to this is that it marginalizes fighters and their ilk in dungeons. If the druid can nuke half the level by casting Earthquake, then what good is a barbarian's greataxe? Well, for one thing, it's more controllable. I'd actually expect non-stupid (read: Long-living) PCs to lower their use of major spells in dungeons after they start seeing effects from it. What it allows, however, is more of an old-school dynamism and interestingly non-rules-based sort of environment.

So consider it. Next time your wizard is fighting off a few muggers in town by casting "Summon Earth Elemental", consider that a towering, twenty foot tall elemental is probably going to cause more trouble than a few muggers ever could. If your evil cleric starts casting Contagion on creatures, consider that many of the diseases are airborne. If the goblin collapses, coughing violently, then the players should be aware that they are in the same 20x20 room, enclosed underground, and thus are probably breathing the same Creeping Crud (or what-have-you). If the druid's pet (not spellcasting, but still) is a tamed lion, he probably shouldn't bring it to the inn. Honestly, it needs to stay in a kennel somewhere in town, if any exist that can handle such a creature. Walking around with it would likely attract the guards' attention. Have fun with it, and make magic interesting again!