17: TRAP
I love Raiders Of The Lost Ark but one thing about the Indiana Jones series I rarely emulate seriously is the use of traps. For Indy they’re there for him to work around or otherwise show how smart and capable he is in a way that’s not as interesting as the fights, chases or character scenes. In RPGs they’re a very old school D&Dism often linked to arbitrary death, and I would routinely skip back when killed by one in a gamebook. And they also take more work to set up than a fight.
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| And yet I kind of want this. |
Of course there are other kinds of traps, like ambushes. I do use those.
Sniping from a long distance is a very sensible method of attack. Also one of the least interesting ways to attack a PC. See my previous post on RPGs’ preference for close combat.
So when I spring a trap on the players’ characters, the purpose is something other than a quick kill. It’s often a face to face talk between enemies once they’ve assured it’s safe. The standoff is more exciting than the shootout.
You can also be trapped somewhere by an external threat. I might make an exception to my tendency to avoid maps for an adventure set in a base under siege.
Bonus round:
Crime - Much of what PCs do in many games is crime, with a major exception being fighting crime. A dungeon bash is a heist.
Nemesis - A step up from a regular villain or other antagonist, and ignoring the mythic meaning, a nemesis is the big enemy with a strong personal connection to one or more of the PCs. This kind of thing can be nudged by the player or GM with things like enemy disadvantages, but most often happens unplanned. It also takes time, so I’ve only really managed it in The Watch House with Victoria.
Found - The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first found footage film but it was the breakout hit that set the style. (Having seen its most immediate predecessor The Last Broadcast I can see why it didn’t.) And it was essentially a LARP, with the actors in the wilderness reacting to what the production team set up for them. And now it has its own escape room experience, among other games. And I’m still tempted to LARP it. It would require a lot of location scouting and a long player agreement...
Runeslinger on Nemesis
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