Trick or Trap

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: ,

Trick rooms and Traps are a feature of 3lbb gaming, and there is no shortage of lists and suggestions available for such things.  I can remember, for example, purchasing Grimtooth's Traps as one of my first rpg mail orders, back in the day.

Recently however I began to want a more "period" list for the dungeon I've been working on.  What we find in the 3lbb's Underworld and Wilderness Adventures are a number of suggestions, mostly on pages 5 and 6.  So I took these suggestions and listed them in a numbered table.  By themselves the U&WA material is a bit scant, but Supplement I Greyhawk, pages 61-63 adds quite a few more suggestions, and the 1975 Origens I version of the Tomb of Horrors as reported by Swanson in Alarums and Excursions suggested a couple more.  I also grabbed on to the otherwise unmentioned tricks and traps in Gygax's dungeon generator found in Strategic Review #1.

My guidlines were that I was looking strictly for architectural features built in to the dungeon.  So things like magic statures or gambling halls found in the Greyhawk supplement weren't included, nor was anything that was redundant.  Things that were similar tended to get lumped, such as pits of various depths.

Here you go:


OD&D Trick rooms
Die Roll
Room Feature
Source



1
Room with a  shifting section of wall; a secret die roll determines which way it will go: 1 = N., 2 = E., 3 = S., 4 = W., and 5 & 6 it stays put. Such a section will close any door or corridor of the wall it shifts to.
D&D 74
2
Intra-level teleportation areas, so that a character will be transported to a similar (or dissimilar) area on the same level, possibly activated by touching some item (such as a gem, door, or the like)
D&D 74
3
Illusion room
D&D 74
4
Mind control room
D&D 74
5
Geas room
D&D 74
6
Space distortion, rooms corridors or stairs which seem longer or shorter than they actually are.
Greyhawk
7
Rooms which emit rays which causes a sex to change
Greyhawk
8
Rooms which emit rays of greed
Greyhawk
9
Rooms which emit rays causing the effects of a confusion spell or a curse.
Greyhawk
10
A lengthy corridor 20' wide, at the end of which is a 20' square room which, upon being entered, slides backward with an imperceptible motion, so that when it is left from its opposite side the party is actually traversing a section of the same 20' corridor again. This process can be repeated with one or more additional rooms in series.
Greyhawk
11
Elevator room (party has entered door directly ahead and is in room), descends 1-5 levels and will not ascend for 30 - 60 turns.
SR 1

12
Doors which are open-able from one side only, which resist opening from one side
D&D74
13
Door which appears at random intervals
D&D74
14
Door which will open only for a certain class of player or to one alignment.
Greyhawk
15
Doors which will open only for monsters.
Greyhawk
16
Doors which have intelligence (and which are usually malign).
Greyhawk
17
Misty door through which things are teleported. Anything that enters partway comes back; things that go in all the way are teleport elsewhere.
Tomb of Horrors
18 = 20
Roll again








OD&D Traps
Die Roll
Room Feature
Source



1
Huge stone block, 10' thick, slides slowly shut at the count of ten and completely seals off the passageway.  This block cannot be moved or forced back. Trapped characters can escape only by casting one or more of these spells: disintegrate, passwall, stone-flesh (assuming a sufficient quantity of the block can be changed), transmute rock-mud, wish. 
Tomb of Horrors

2
As above, but passage is blocked temporarily for from 10-60 turns.
SR 1
3
Pit 10 -30 feet deep - may have a snap shut door. (Thrusting with force upon these traps with a pole will reveal them 4 in 6 (d6, 1-4).)
D&D 74 (& Tomb of Horror)
4
Pit (as #3) filled with poisoned spikes
D&D 74
5
Pit (as #3) which is also a transporter, sending anyone who falls into it into an exactly similar pit (or elsewhere). Trapdoor snaps shut.
Greyhawk
6
Trapdoor Pit at the base of a set of up stairs that turns into a slide. The trapdoor only opens when the slide is triggered.  The pit drops into a lower level.
Greyhawk
7
Trapdoor opens onto a slide leading to a monster
Greyhawk
8
Arrow trap, 1-6 arrows, roll for each to see if and score hits, 1 in 6 is poison.
SR 1
9
Spear trap, 1-3 spears, 1 in 12 is poisoned .
SR 1
10
Gas, party has detected it, but must breath it to continue along corridor as it covers 60'.
D12
Effect
1-5
Only effect is to obscure vision when passing thru.
6
Blinds for 1-6 turns after passing through.
7
Fear: run back 120' unless save vs. Magic is made.
8
Sleep: party sound asleep for 2-12 turns.
9, 10
Strength: adds 1-6 points of strength to all fighters in party for 10-40 turns.
11
Sickness: return to surface immediately.
12
Poison: save vs. Poison or dead.
SR 1



1 comments:

Tetramorph said...

This is very helpful.

I've been working on a list of table for random dungeon generation that start with treasure (in order to build a theme) first, thus inspiring the mapping of a certain design, later.

This is really helpful so I am going to grab it! Thanks!

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