Good news everyone!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 09:41:05 PM

Hey there, all!

I just wanted to pop in for a quick update: all the chapters for the book have now been submitted to editing! :D This is a really big step that is very important to ensure continuity and that things function the best that they can. After creating the content, I would say that good editing is the other time-consuming step. Once that's complete, it will be on to layout. Once the layout is complete, it will be on to clean-up and checks.

We're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

~Andrew

First 2020 Progress Update!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Jan 07, 2020 at 12:01:43 AM

Happy belated New Year everyone!

We hope that everyone had a safe and happy holiday. I wanted to pop in very quickly just to let you all know where things are at. The project isn't finished but is rapidly nearing completion. I wanted to provide you a list of where things are at in the process:

• Chapter 1: How to Use Traps - Largely written, just doing final writing and last pass check before sending off to editing.
• Chapters 2-6: Pregenerated Traps for level ranges 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20 - Complete and sent to editing.
• Chapter 7: Complex Traps - Complete and sent to editing.
• Chapter 8: Designing Traps - Complete and sent to editing.
• Chapter 9: Random Trap Generator - Complete and sent to editing (this is a huge chapter with not only the table of triggers and effects, but also details on all of them later in the chapter)
• Chapter 10: Trap-centric Dungeons -  Nearly complete, needing some inter-team checking, and design of a few potential graphical elements.
• Chapter 11: Perplexing Puzzles - Complete and sent to editing.
• Chapter 12: Puzzle-centric Dungeons - Complete and sent to editing.
• Chapter 13: Subtle Secrets - Complete and sent to editing.
• Chapter 14: Ridiculous Riddles - Being written.
• Chapter 15: Trapsmith Legends - Being written.

Those chapters are the whole book. We've been pushing incredibly hard and pulling in as many people as we're able to get this thing completed ASAP.

I've also been informed that all the major artwork for the book is all completed, so that's another element that is out of the way.

Now, as we often try to do, we'd like to give you a bit of content you can play with, so here you will find three puzzles from the Perplexing Puzzles chapter. We feel these provide an interesting variety of puzzles that can be used in various ways. Feel free to try them in your own games and alter them as you see fit! The puzzles are:

• Well-Read, Well-Reasoned
• 'Tis the Season
• Mean Muggin'

--

Well-Read, Well-Reasoned

Characters find an empty room with nine books laying randomly scattered across the stone floor. Into the floor in large letters is carved the following poem, with a few feet of space between the stanzas:

The space between awaits us,
 Red, numbers, stares, and home

A clever placement wakes us,
 Boys, embraces, fright, and stone

The magic happens at the end,
 Then close your eyes and count to ten…

Solution. The solution to the puzzle is physically arranging the books in order within the spaces between the stanzas. The GM should describe the books and their titles in a random order.

The correct placement for the books is as follows:

The books which should be laid out from left to right in the space between stanzas one and two are:

1.  Red: Crimson Nightmare by Terrance Black
    
2.  Numbers: Our World As Understood in Mathematics by Harmony Sikh
    
3.  Stares: Warring Gazes by Bobson Loveleaf
    
4.  Home: The City Whence She Came by Tordwynn Aralance
    

The books which should be laid out from left to right in the space between stanzas two and three are:

1.  Boys: Puberty in Young Male Half Orcs: A Study by Graak Hogthorn
    
2.  Embraces: Hold Me, Hardly by Elizabet Skylancer
    
3.  Fright: Tales to Tell After Twilight by Desdemona Reaper
    
4.  Stone: A Miner’s Guide to Minerals by Tokk Orlach
    

The book that should be placed at the end of the last stanza is:

1.  Magic: The Arcane Stairway (no author)
    

Once the books are arranged in this order, the entire party must close their eyes and count to ten (per the poem’s instructions). During this time, they hear the sound of flipping pages and feel rushing wind on their faces. When they open their eyes, the books have each grown to roughly 5 feet in length and have embedded themselves into a wall to form an ascending staircase. The stairs can then be climbed up through an illusory portion of the ceiling, where a hidden library or other important location can be found.

Optional. The GM should expect that the books will be opened and looked through. We encourage you to prepare or improvise what the contents of the books might be.

--

'Tis the Season

Characters enter a 15-by-15 foot room that is unnaturally brimming with springtime atmosphere. The floor of the room is covered in grass, flowers, and foliage. Sunlight streaks through rain clouds that drift and drizzle from above (though they rest just 25 feet high at the ceiling).

In the center of the grassy floor sits a 1’ square metal box. The box is near impossible to break open in its current state, though something can be heard brushing against the inside of it. In the back right corner of the room is a 5-by-5 foot square patch of tilled, unused farming soil. On the far end of the room, left of the soil, is an unlocked metal door.

Past this initial room are three subsequent identical rooms, each which embody the seasons of summer, autumn, and winter. The summer room is cloudless, bright, hot, and flooded with the scent of summery earth and flowers. The metal box remains at the center of the summer room, but hotter to the touch. The autumn room is slightly chilly with crunchier, browning grass, and is filled with a sourceless breeze that wafts through. The metal box in the center of the autumn room shows the beginnings of rust, but is still very difficult to open. The winter room is very cold, coated in a layer of snow that drifts slowly down from the clouds above. The metal box in the center of the winter room is thoroughly rusted and looks easier to open. Unlike the other rooms, the door at the back of the winter room is locked, has no handle, and sports a deep half-circle indent in its center (a bit larger than a fist).

Solution. Players who open the metal box at any point (but most easiest in the winter room) will discover that it contains a small 6” tree sapling. Traveling to previous rooms will demonstrate that the open box is open in all rooms now, not just the first.

Players can then plant the seed in the farming soil of the spring room. Doing so will result in the tree growing noticeably larger by the winter room, about 4ft tall. If players then remove this tree and take it back to the spring room, it will grow large enough by the autumn room to fruit, bearing a single, ripe grapefruit. Players can then take this grapefruit to the winter room, place it into the circular indent on the door, and the door will open to them.

What lies beyond the door could be a bounty of mystical fruits and vegetables, or perhaps a portal to another location or plane that is similarly governed by the quick shifting of seasons.

Optional. The core concept of this room could instead be used to provide interesting opportunities for roleplay with players. Perhaps key events in your characters’ lives occurred in a particular season, creating a ripe atmosphere for flashbacks or plot advancement. It’s also possible that the rooms don’t culminate in a locked door at all, but simply serve as a physical representation of character(s)’ journey thus far.

--

Mean Muggin'

Within the tavern, 3 men sit at a table, a large one, a medium sized one, and a small one. They’re waiting on drinks and sharing some food.

The tavernkeep says:

“‘Ey, c’mere. You wanna play a bit of a game? See those three? Them’s regulars ‘n’ they order the same thing every night. Here’s the game:

“These here are their drinks.” He puts three drinks on the bar. Three of you each grab a drink, and you take the drinks t’ them at the same time. They get the right drinks, they won’t start no rukus. Give ‘em the wrong drinks, and they’re like t’ fight.

“They get the right drinks, you get rooms, food, and drinks on the house. Any of ‘em fights, you pay full price, and buy a round for those three and everyone else in here. Whaddaya say?”

There are three clay mugs on the bar, each with different contents: Water, Sweet Mead, and Fire Whiskey.

All patrons are at their table, sober. Below are how each will react if given each kind of drink.

Small
 Sober (water): Belligerent.
 Buzzed (mead): Happy.
 Drunk (whiskey): Fight.
 

Medium
 Sober (water): Belligerent.
 Buzzed (mead): Fight.
 Drunk (whiskey): Happy.
 

Large
 Sober (water): Happy.
 Buzzed (mead): Fight.
 Drunk (whiskey): Fight.
 

Clue: The large man seems perfectly happy, but the medium and small men are both belligerent.

Wisdom (Perception) check clues:

1. The small man seems to be enjoying eating bread with some honey smeared on it.
    
2. The medium man looks like the food he is munching on is rather spicy, and you can see sweat beading on his forehead.
    

Solution. The small man gets the sweet mead, the medium man gets the fire whiskey, and the large man gets the water.

--

As always, thank you all for your continued patience and support. We couldn't do this without it, or any of you. :)

~Andrew

Christmastime Update!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 11:40:28 PM

Hey all and Happy December!

I honestly cannot believe that two weeks from today it will be Christmas. The speed with which this year has flown by and all the things that have happened is enough to leave just about anyone reeling.

Since the holidays are nearly upon us, I know updates from us around then might be hard to come by, so I'll make today's update as thorough as I can.

First, some general updates:

Random Trap Generator chapter. This chapter is arguably the most crucial chapter in the book (probably along with the "Designing Traps" chapter) and it has been finished and sent to editing. This is a huge step because it means that the verbiage and details for all the trap triggers and effects have been ironed out and, apart from the editing cleanup, is essentially in its final state. This is major progress that I am incredibly happy about.

Pre-generated Basic Traps. There is an insane amount of pre-made traps in this book. The random trap generator has 50 triggers and 50 effects (20 non-magical, 10 ambiguous, and 20 magical of each). Rolling a d100 (or percentile dice) on this table gives a trigger and effect combination that then inspires an idea for a trap (the chapter also contains firm details on how each individual trigger and effect should be used, including a clear description, usage suggestions/examples, and countermeasure/effect details that spell out what checks should be used, and/or how damage should be dealt). Using this, we created 50 traps at each level range (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20). That's 250 basic traps (meaning 1 trigger, 1 effect). I am also happy to say that these are essentially complete and just about ready to go to editing.

This is a good time for me to elaborate on some help that we've brought in. Some of you may know Josh Parry (you can see his work here). He's an established industry veteran and he's been helping with writing these traps and will be involved with the complex traps and other elements of the book as well. He has been a huge help in getting all of this stuff done.

Complex Traps. Work on complex traps is underway but not complete. I talked about them last time so I won't belabor the topic, but this is our next priority and also what Josh will be working on next, now that the Basic Traps are complete. There will be 25 of these total. One of each degree of lethality (setback, moderate, dangerous, perilous, and deadly) at each level range.

Puzzles. After complex traps will come puzzles. There will be 30 of these. Currently, there are about 19 ideas written (at various levels of completion). These are being worked on semi-concurrently with complex traps.

Here are most of the other chapters or sections in the book that are at various stages of completion (some needing to be done, others are nearly done):

• How To Use Traps
• Designing Traps
• Trap-centric Dungeons - Some advice on what types of traps might be well-suited to various general areas typically found in a dungeon.
• Puzzle-centric Dungeons - Similar advice as above, but relating to puzzle placement.
• Subtle Secrets - Ideas for plot hooks or things of that nature that could tie nicely into traps.
• Riddles - Advice relating to and examples of riddles.

--

General Project Status. The project is well on its way and we are doing everything in our power to wrap things by the holidays. The editing process has begun and we're seeing content being finished every single day. The most difficult part of these kinds of projects is the early-stages phase when your basic tools and framework are being built. Once those things are in place (which is no small task), momentum starts rolling and before you know it, it's complete.

--

Now, since you read this far, I'll leave you with one of Josh's traps for each level range that you can feel free to play with :D

You can hit up Josh on twitter @jvcparry. You can find him on facebook over at facebook.com/jvcparry.

The Other Other White Meat

Simple trap (level 1-4, deadly, harm)

Nailed to the walls of this subterranean tunnel are dozens of pointed ears.

Trigger (Creature Detector). A good-aligned elf that enters the tunnel triggers the trap.

Effect (Summon Creature). Triggering the trap causes a summoning spell to be cast. Roll on the table below to determine what creature is summoned:

d8: Creature

1. 3 brown bears

2. 3 dire wolves

3. 4 giant badgers

4. 4 giant centipedes

5. 2 giant constrictor snake

6. 1 giant scorpion

7. 2 giant spiders

8. 4 swarms of insects

Countermeasures. A successful DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) check or casting detect magic reveals the trigger. A second successful DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana) check, or successful dispel magic cast on the trigger disables it.

Open & Close

Simple (level 5-8, setback, block)

The circular, steel door leading out of the tunnel has a metal wheel attached to it. It seems as if the door can be opened by turning the wheel.

Trigger (Turn Wheel/Crank). Turning the wheel triggers the trap.

Effect (Barrier). A portion of the tunnel ceiling open, causing boulders and debris to trap the characters between the locked metal door and the rubble. Clearing the rubble or smashing open the door requires a successful DC 10 Strength check.

Countermeasures. A successful DC 10 Intelligence (Investigation) check reveals the trigger, and a successful DC 10 Dexterity check while using thieves’ tools disables the trigger.

Bloody Chamber

Simple trap (level 9-12, moderate, harm)

The walls of this antechamber are covered with obsidian spikes around the length of a human finger. On the floor is a dull glyph.

Trigger (Spill Blood). A creature that spills blood in the antechamber triggers the trap.

Effect (Impaling Spikes). The impaling spikes move at a rate of 1 foot per round, always at the end of initiative order. They keep moving until the spikes touch the opposite surface, at which point they retract. When a creature starts its turn with the spikes adjacent to their occupied space with no empty space behind them, they must make a successful DC12 Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 piercing damage. If the spikes are still adjacent to a creature’s occupied space for a second round, they must make a successful DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or take 4d6 piercing damage and are restrained by being impaled on the spikes. A creature restrained in this way takes 2d6 at the start of their turn, and 4d6 piercing damage if moved in any way. A creature cannot come off the spikes unless there is room equivalent to their size category available in front of the wall. Freeing a creature from being impaled requires a successful DC12 Strength check. If all creatures between the spikes and the opposite wall are impaled, the spikes retract.

Countermeasures. A successful DC 12 Intelligence (Arcana) check or casting detect magic reveals the nature of the trigger. A second successful DC 12 Intelligence (Arcana) check, or successful dispel magic cast on the trigger disables it.

Hanging Hooks

Simple trap (level 13-16, perilous, harm)

On the ceiling of this chamber are nasty barbs that look like meat or fish hooks. The walls and floor are splattered with blood, and the entire place is dimly lit by a single brazier. A metal door with a grated window marks the exit.

Trigger (Tension Cable). A taut cable is fixed between the metal door and the floor. Opening the door, thus introducing slack to the cable, triggers the trap.

Effect (Spring Floor). The target or targets are launched upward up to 15 feet. The chamber of the ceiling is covered with barbs designed to catch into flesh and armour. A creature flung into the ceiling must make a DC 17 Dexterity check. On a failed save the target takes 28 (8d6) piercing damage becomes grappled by the ceiling (escape DC 17). On a successful save the target takes half the damage and isn’t grappled. Failed attempts to free a creature from the grapple deals an additional 28 (8d6) piercing damage to the grappled creature.

Countermeasures (Sensitive). A successful DC 17 Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check reveals the trigger, and a successful DC 17 Dexterity check while using thieves’ tools disables the trigger.

Futile Blade

Simple trap (level 17-20, dangerous, harm)

Resting atop a stand of twisted iron is a vicious-looking sword forged from adamantine. It seems to hum with power.

Trigger (Spill Blood). Using the sword to spill blood triggers the trap.

Effect (Reanimate Creature(s)). Creatures killed by the sword are reanimated through a magical enchantment.

Countermeasures. A successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check or casting detect magic reveals the nature of the trigger. A second successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check, or successful dispel magic cast on the trigger disables it.

--

Thank you all for reading, as well as your support, patience, and understanding. We're working incredibly hard to get this book of devious devices and ideas ready for you. It is our top priority and will remain so until it has been through layout and gone to manufacturing.

If you don't hear from us before you go on any holiday travels, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all! :D

~Andrew

Thanksgiving Eve Update!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 10:34:25 PM

Hey everyone! Andrew here for the second time in a row (how lucky am I?) :D

The main topic we’ll be talking about today will be complex traps. Afterward I’ll be touching on a few more small things, but I don’t want to drown you in text (though, knowing me, will likely happen anyway). #selfawareness

 Topico Supremo: Complex Traps 

To make this easy, for our purposes a complex trap is any trap that isn’t simple (duh). To elaborate, a simple trap has one trigger and one effect. Anything beyond that is considered complex.

What we realized while working on this is, while we could concoct loads of complex traps that are massive and extremely deep, they do not always have to be. There is a gulf of space between "one trigger, one effect," and an entire hallway filled with several trap elements from different categories all interacting in a giant cacophony of mayhem (which can be daunting, to say the least).

A goal we have for ourselves is to make [at least a fair amount of] our complex traps still relatively simple. Calling back to our basic math of “1 Trigger + 1 Effect = Simple” we can add a few more trap elements, get an interesting, complex trap, and still make it relatively easy to drop into your game.

Trap Elements

For those who don’t know, there are 3 types of elements that can be part of a complex trap. They are:

Active Elements: These boil down to parts of the trap that actually take a turn and happen on their own initiative.

Dynamic Elements: These are parts of the trap that can change over time, such as something that deals more damage the longer it is endured.

Constant Elements: These elements are things that are ever-present and can affect a player character (or really any creature) on their own turn (such as being around something that affects you at the end of your turn).

Put any of these elements together with a trigger, an effect and a bevy of appropriate countermeasures and viola, you've got a complex trap.

Here are two examples (which I encourage you to use and foist upon your unsuspecting and ever-too-trusting players), which I'll present, and then we'll break down. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Drenching Pit

Complex trap (level 1-4, deadly)

Hidden in the floor is a 10-foot by 10-foot square trapdoor.

Trigger. When two or more medium sized creatures stand on the trapdoor it opens downward. The trapdoor immediately closes and locks.

Constant Elements. The Drenching Pit consists of a Trapdoor, Non-Magical Drop, and Water that fills the pit with the intention of drowning the targets.

Trapdoor. A 10-foot by 10-foot trapdoor is set into the floor and held closed by a heavy spring from beneath. Once the trapdoor is opened by creatures falling through it, the door lifts back into place, and rods slide into the body of the door, bolting it in place for 10 minutes until a mechanism on a timer retracts the bolts.

Non-Magical Drop. The pit beneath the door is 20 feet deep. A triggering creature must make a DC 20 dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, the creature is able to grab onto the edge of the pit. On a failed save, the creature falls into the pit and takes 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage.

Water. One spout is set into each wall, directly beneath the trapdoor. Water begins pouring into the pit through the spouts as soon as the trapdoor closes and locks. The water level rises by 1 foot per 6 seconds until the pit is full.

Countermeasures. Trapped creatures can deal with the trap’s elements in multiple ways.

Trapdoor.

Detect. A successful DC 20 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals the trapdoor and a successful DC 20 Dexterity check using thieves’ tools disables the trap.

Attack. If a creature is within attack range of the trapdoor, they can attack it, and attempt to break the trapdoor itself. If the trapdoor is wood, it has an AC of 15, if metal, AC is 19. The trapdoor has 5d10 hit points and is immune to piercing damage.

Unlock. If the trapdoor has been closed and locked, a successful DC 20 Dexterity check using thieves’ tools disables the lock.

Spouts. Within the pit are 4 spouts from which the water flows to fill the pit. Once all 4 spouts have been closed in some way, water will cease filling the pit.

Attack. If a creature is within attack range of a spout, they can attack it with an attack that does bludgeoning damage, and attempt to bend and dent the spout closed.

Plug. If a creature can reach a spout, they may attempt to stopper the spout by wedging an object into the opening. This can also be accomplished by freezing the spout closed.

Fire Down Below

Complex trap (level 5-8, perilous)

A trapdoor on the floor of the chamber hides a 20-foot-deep pit, at the bottom of which is a glyph that sets the floor ablaze with magical fire when activated.

Trigger. A creature that steps on the trapdoor activates a pressure plate in the center of the trapdoor, causing it to swing open.

Constant Elements. Fire Down Below includes a Drop and a magic glyph that covers the floor of the pit in Flames.

Drop. The triggering creature must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, the creature is able to grab onto the edge of the pit. On a failed save, the creature falls into the pit and takes 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage.

Flames. A creature that falls to the bottom of the pit activates a glyph that covers the floor of the pit in flames. When the flames appear, each creature within its area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 35 (10d6) fire damage, or half as much on a successful one. The flames last for 1 minute.

Countermeasures. A successful DC 17 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals the pressure plate and a successful DC 17 Dexterity check using thieves’ tools disables the trap. A successful dispel magic cast on the flames extinguishes them.

--

In each of these traps, we have done a few things:

1) A place for everything, and everything in its place. You will note that the descriptions are short and tight. The purpose of this is to establish the general layout of the trap; the physical situation that establishes its place in space. Nothing belonging to the trigger, effect, or countermeasures will be found here because those too have their place.

2) Clearly formatted. The elements of the traps are laid out in a way that should be familiar and approachable to anyone familiar with other work that deals with traps. At a glance, any user should be able to skim over the trap and get a reasonable idea of what the trap is enough so that, should they feel intrigued enough to think about using the trap, they can read it in more detail. If not, it's easy enough to move on.

3) Engagement. Neither of these traps is incredibly daunting, but each of them creates an interesting situation that is handled with more than just one check and often requires the work of some or all members of the party to get past it. This is where complex traps really shine. Basic traps usually present themselves as an "enemy" where complex ones can be much more likened to an "encounter."

This is just a taste of complex traps and we are working to write a great deal more of them in categories of setback, moderate, dangerous, life-threatening, and deadly.

--

Other Stuff

Continuing work on refining the Random Trap Generator. The RTG is the main building tool for this whole book and it is of paramount importance that it be tightly honed as quickly as possible.

New Contributing Writer. For creating the pregenerated traps for various level ranges, we have brought on Josh Parry (who some of you may know from his work on products with our friends over at Loresmyth). He has been writing as if he has a permanent IV of double-strength espresso attached to himself at all times.

Puzzle. I started playing with a complex trap idea which then turned into a puzzle. It is unfinished and, as a bonus for reading to the end of this massive thing (and because showing unfinished stuff is terrifying for me and fun for you), I'm going to show you and let you all mess with the idea. Feel free to tinker with it, provide feedback, pathing ideas, mechanical changes and overall just let me know what you think down in the comments. Here ya go:

Smash-N-Spin

Concept: In a 40-foot diameter circular room has, in its center, a vertical axle going from floor to ceiling. Extending out from it is a boom arm that is a massive spiked log. The entrance to the room is 10-feet wide, as is the exit. The object is to get through the room without getting smashed too badly (or, ideally, at all).

Complications: Each tile in the room has a circular arrow denoting a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation. When a tile is stepped on, the arm rotates a 1/4 turn in that direction. The room is also under a magical effect that slows anyone entering it (it may slow to half-movement, or perhaps to 1-square per turn, it's not decided yet, so experiment). If it allows half-movement, the arm moves with each tile stepped on. Spaces with hash marks (apart from the entrance and exit spaces) are spaces that cannot be occupied. Once someone exits the room, the boom resets to a random position (roll a d4: 1=12 o'clock, 2=3 o'clock, 3=6 o'clock, 4=12 o'clock).

Question: What happens to a character when the boom hits them? Do they remain in their space? If they're moved, do they activate the tile they move onto, and if so, how to stop that causing a massive chain reaction (which is funny to picture...)?

--

Once again, thank you all for reading. I hope this has proved interesting and fun. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, know that I (and the rest of the Nord team) are very thankful for all of you. Have a terrific weekend, safe travels to all who are leaving home for the holiday, and go enjoy some great food and football.

Thankfully,

Andrew 

Design Meeting Deep Dive
over 4 years ago – Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 11:50:45 PM

Hi everyone, Andrew here today :) For those of you who don't know me, I'm the Director of Game Design here at Nord Games. I have been working on Spectacular Settlements for a very long time so have not really had the opportunity to write to you all over here. Happily, since Settlements is very close to wrapping up, I'm shifting gears from building amazing places to building amazing things to impede, maim, and generally mess with folks in your games. ;)

For this update, I wanted to give you all a peek at what development is looking like on traps at the moment; namely what came out of our design meeting yesterday. I feel like it's not often that these meetings get looked into, so thought that you all might appreciate an inside look.

For those who don't know, we handle our design meetings via discord and the way it typically goes is that we will choose a focus or topic for the meeting and dig into that as much as possible within the time we have. The topic of the most recent meeting was the Random Trap Generator. The reason for this is that it is the main linchpin for everything else. This chapter/table serves as not only the bin full of building blocks for things like complex traps that will show up later in the book, but also serve as a point of reference for formatting and how different elements are stated. Because of this, it's been crucial to get this wholely nailed down before moving on (much as we're chomping at the bit to mess with the other parts of the book).

So, here are the highlights from the meeting:

Keyword: Difficult - We began using the keyword Difficult for triggers that are not as obvious to notice or deal with. Our initial application of this was that if a trigger had this keyword, it would simply add +2 to the trap's DCs. This was a simple, cut-and-dried method. However, as we were investigating whether to use Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) in certain cases, it lead me to check what good ol' Jeremy Crawford had to say on the matter via the ever-helpful Sage Advice posts. Here's what he said:

This was extremely helpful. So, to notice triggers, it will almost always involve either Wisdom (Perception) (seeing, feeling, smelling, touching, or even tasting evidence of the trap trigger) or Intelligence (Arcana) in the case of magical things. Intelligence (Investigation) now comes in when a trap is designated difficult. If this is the case, there will be a mandatory investigation check to deduce the best course of action to deal with the trigger/trap. This somewhat harkens back to older systems where critical hits would need to be confirmed. It has a nice way of simulating the difficulty we're getting at in a thematic and appropriate way instead of just stacking more numbers on top.

Formatting and standardization - One large focus of the meeting was (though this may sound boring), worked on refining and finalizing how things should be stated and written. This involved checking and rechecking first-party resources to ensure as much consistency as possible between those products and ours. The focus here was mainly on how countermeasures were stated for triggers of various types (mundane, ambiguous, and magical). Most triggers within a given category have the same countermeasure methods, simply by their very nature. For instance, a tripwire and a pit trap are both mundane traps but function differently, but in terms of noticing them, they're both a perception check. That having been said, we've been working to check and double-check that the countermeasures listed for all triggers within the random trap generator cover all the necessary ground because there are exceptions. Here are a few examples:

Within ambiguous triggers (triggers that, depending on how the idea is used, could be magical or mundane), the countermeasure would typically read like this:

On the other hand, we then have triggers that behave in more unique ways that forced us to approach their countermeasures differently from the standard, like this:

We have been going trigger by trigger to ensure that the countermeasures all make sense. Also, for those wondering about the use of the Stealth check in that second example, the idea is that the trigger involves understanding light, shadow, and how to move through or around them to your advantage.

Removed Trigger - We found one trigger type (where a specific sound needed to be made or an instrument would be played) to be an issue so we removed it and are looking to replace it, though we do not have that replacement yet. The issue was that depending on how you thought about the trigger, it was either too similar to an existing trigger (use/interact with item) or too complex which would remove it from being a simple trap trigger into being a complex trap/puzzle. Having to know how to play an instrument or know a certain song was too much; a simple trigger needed to be something where there was a reasonable chance someone in the party might trigger the trap without any further outside information other than the mere presence of the trigger itself.

Complex Traps v. Puzzles - This was a small matter of debate within the team for a little while but we discussed and settled on the difference between complex traps and puzzles. The initial point of contention was that a trap (complex or otherwise) was intended to harm, but a puzzle was not. But there are examples out there of puzzles that do involve "harming" elements, so that threw a wrench into the process. After deeper deliberation, we concluded that the main defining difference was that traps can be disabled where a puzzle requires solving to proceed. This was a wonderfully clarifying point to reach.

Having said that, our puzzles will also be designed from a non-harmful (or at least non-lethal) perspective as their default because we do still understand that there are many among you who would like to just have a puzzle that needs solving and doesn't have a harmful element to it. There will just be alternatives and/or suggestions for how and/or why a damaging aspect might be added to a given puzzle that may be used as you see fit.

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Those were the main points addressed within the meeting (and I hope they were at least a bit enlightening!). The process is a deep and complicated one. The goal of this project has been and still is to standardize and refine the mechanics of traps to make them as easy for you to make and use as possible. Doing that can sometimes mean being very particular and sometimes nitpicky in terms of getting everything just so. Once the random trap generator chapter is complete, that will provide us with a firm, consistent foundation upon which everything else will be built.

Between now and next time, we are also aiming to begin work on some complex traps for you to play around with and give us some feedback on. If any of you have any complex trap requests or suggestions, feel free to post them down in the comments!

Thank you all for hanging out and reading all this. I hope it's proved insightful and gives you a better idea of what this design process is like.

Best Regards,

Andrew