Traps: How do you kill your PCs?, And how would PCs cope? Options

[KnightIII]

One of my favorites:

The Drop Floor Trap: a 2 meter long section of hallway with pressure plates. Anything heavier than a mouse releases the locks. (the plate is controled by a terminal on the opposite side, of course.) The hole is 5 meters deep, but 2 meters down is a grill-threaded net of mono wire. Sanitation team of ghouls at the bottom optional. ("Mmm, french fries!")


Also fun:

Two way mirrors. Nothing like the over cocky street sammie pausing to make sure he looks good while the mage on the other side casts his manabolt.

[jimbo]

Sanitation team of ghouls at the bottom optional. ("Mmm, french fries!")

Niiiice

[Starmage21]

One of my favorites:

The Drop Floor Trap: a 2 meter long section of hallway with pressure plates. Anything heavier than a mouse releases the locks. (the plate is controled by a terminal on the opposite side, of course.) The hole is 5 meters deep, but 2 meters down is a grill-threaded net of mono wire. Sanitation team of ghouls at the bottom optional. ("Mmm, french fries!")


Also fun:

Two way mirrors. Nothing like the over cocky street sammie pausing to make sure he looks good while the mage on the other side casts his manabolt.

Problem 1: Magical support amongst the team comes at a premium here. Mage levitates the team-members over to the door for breaching, or the electronics guru to disarm the trap.

Problem 2: cybereyes are at a premium here for avoiding this one.

*note* in either case, some PCs will fail to think of either and fall helplessly into the trap. push the reset button on the game.

[Patrick the Gnom...]

My favorite type of trap is when an organization that has a grudge against the PCs uses a contractor to hire them and lead them into an ambush.

[Wounded Ronin]

Rickroll them.

[Summerstorm]

I fell for this:

In some lawless area we raided a safehouse (old underground parking space).

When we left (can be used to enter too), the metal-net was down. So i left my safe armored car and wanted to tinker with the console at the side. Got to it and saw that it was an easy mechanism. Used it and BAM 10DV blast in mah face. The REAL opening mechanism was just a receiver. You need to send a code on a specific frequency. You cannot find it with scan, since it is only a receiver. Nasty and completely underhanded *g* I use that as a GM too.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Permanent physical traps rarely make much sense in D&D much less a more "realistic" setting. Seriously, you are going to put a instant death trap in your workplace, a place where you walk down the hall every freakin day and you just hope it isn't on the fritz?

Sure hire someone and lead them into an ambush, find the players hideout and set traps in it, but all the mono-wire death traps really don't make much sense in a place you plan to actually live and work. Non-lethal traps in important spots I can see in some situations, since they are non-lethal if they malfunction you can fix it, you can't fix dead.

[KnightIII]

One would not put a monowire death trap to guard their invoices for Kripsy Cremes. But the schmatics for their moon sized space station with a THOR Cannon? Possibly. The world we live in contains a multitude of such devices. For example, many high end banks have vault doors that will seal and suck all the air out. Electric fences that can stop the heart of a deer. Presure plates that release gases, often knock out, sometimes lethal. Even many airplanes are perfectly capable of depressurizing a cabin and knocking out the passengers there in.

The military loves deadly traps. Land mines, trip wires, spiked pit traps...

You dont trap the path leading to the janitors closet, but the Mona Lisa, Crown Jewels, Emperors Sword, or the plans for the Death Star... oh yeah.

[Mongoose]

You dont trap the path leading to the janitors closet, but the Mona Lisa, Crown Jewels, Emperors Sword, or the >>>plans for the Death Star<<<<... oh yeah.

Bad example, that last one. The plans to the Death Star are pretty useless if they are locked up where only a couple people can get at them. It takes THOUSANDS of people to design and build that thing, and they all need access to (sections of) the plans. As to the Mona Lisa... well, maybe. If you don't want it on public display, say in your (rather profitable) casino / resort complex. Honestly, most of those sound like McGuffins to motivate your players to get past the traps.

Anyhow, the best way to get past a trap is to be invited in. Social engeneering FTW.

[Patrick the Gnom...]

Unless its a social trap. Poisoned food anyone?

[Summerstorm]

Unless its a social trap. Poisoned food anyone?

Yeah, i like that too. But it has to be some "exotic" (say: bullshit) poison which will kick in in 24 hours unless you do something to get the antidote.

Back to physical traps: Yeah mostly they do not fit. But i like some paranoid people in the shadows have some. For example: Some killer lives in an ols cellar of an apartment building. To get to his rooms you need to walk through a tight long corridor. On one side there is the heating unit. an old boiler. Some pipes... PERFECT spot for a tiny sensor (visual in my case) and some "extra-pipes" nearly indistinguishable from the old ones (Threshold 3 with a -6 perception). If triggered they explode with glue/hard foam as well as normal neurostun gas one round later. Takes down anybody without a mask or internal air compartment, is cheap, nonlethal and deliously evil. Can be deactivated by wifi, of course one-way only (not detectable).

[Shinobi Killfist]

One would not put a monowire death trap to guard their invoices for Kripsy Cremes. But the schmatics for their moon sized space station with a THOR Cannon? Possibly. The world we live in contains a multitude of such devices. For example, many high end banks have vault doors that will seal and suck all the air out. Electric fences that can stop the heart of a deer. Presure plates that release gases, often knock out, sometimes lethal. Even many airplanes are perfectly capable of depressurizing a cabin and knocking out the passengers there in.

The military loves deadly traps. Land mines, trip wires, spiked pit traps...

You dont trap the path leading to the janitors closet, but the Mona Lisa, Crown Jewels, Emperors Sword, or the plans for the Death Star... oh yeah.

In virtually all the places where you see lethal traps you have one thing in common, your side doesn't really frequent the area. You generally just don't put traps in places you are going to be walking around and doing crap all day. Are some people insane enough to do so, sure. But in most cases you put traps where your enemies will be not where you will be. So no generally you wont lethally trap the mona lisa etc. Annoy, slow down, detain, knock out traps yeah in lots of cases those will be there. Lethal, not really because the one thing you count on in life is making a mistake. You will screw up and forget your super secret wi-fi decoder ring and get killed by your own trap, it will be broken and not accept your code etc.(think about how often any piece of tech you have screws up over the year, now do you want to have that same fail rate attached to a kill you switch) And yes again there are nut jobs in real life and fiction who will still do it, but it isn't something I'd plan into a building because of how rare it should be.

Again trap the runners hideouts, there own car etc, but don't trap your own home I don't care what you have in there.

In early edition trapped hallways were mentioned a lot, I think people wanted to add to much D&D into there SR.

[Saint Sithney]

UWB radar means you would have to disguise your trap to look like a regular feature of the walls, inside and out. Not easy.

Maybe a spaghetti-grid of electrically charged spooled wires set to shoot out of walls and magnetically attach to the opposite walls?
That's non-lethal, non-destructive and might be hidden, even from someone who can see through walls.

[Manunancy]

Here's a nasty trick I have pulled out on some PCs.

situations : they're coming into an appartement to snatch the occupant. The target's guard is doing rearguard action while the target leaves through the back door (helipad on the roof). At that stag the PCs are still out of the appartment

1) pops a lacrymo grenade in the hall then backs out toward the american style living room and open kitchen
2) open all the gaz burners, turns the lights off
3) puts a dressing mirror roughly facing the door
4) leaves trhough the back to join his principal

one ce PCs are through the door and rush in, the first to enter the living room spots a motion in the darkened room and shoots at it. The gun's flame ignite the gaz. "Boom".

A variant of the trick was to monitor an appatment from one floor under (vibration detectors, mikes, no active sensors). When some uninivted party gets in, explosives fixed under th floor go boom. Nasty and hard to detect, especially if you choose a radar-transparent explosive. The sensors are easily hidden within the light fixtures an wiring.
If you want to make sure even a radar won't spot the trap, use a gaz explosio, rather than explosives stuck under the floor.

[Dakka Dakka]

I'm not sure what type of gas you are talking about but the stuff that is delivered to your hous via pipes usually has certain strong smelling additives so that you don't accidentally blow yourself up. Even if not a chem sniffer would alert the intruders to the trap.

BTW what is a lacrymo grenade?

IMHO explosives needn't even be hidden from RADAR. If the intruders check for them they are considerably slowed so the mechanism was effective in aiding the escape. if you have no other agenda than killing certain people, a trap may not be the optimal solution. A more active way of dealing with them may be better.

[Angelone]

If one of my character was walking down a hallway and I fell into a monowire pit trap, there would be a great deal of RL violence and something or someone would possibly be set on fire.

I don't mind traps, I really don't or character death in general, what I mind is the gm going "Lol your character is dead because I said so". Which is exactly what the monowire trap is. Sure something like that might happen irl (if monowire existed) but it doesn't make for fun gaming. Before you know it every pc will have a telescoping staff and will probe everything with it and bog the game down.

Gm- You are in a hallway it's roughly ten meters long and two meters wide. There are pictures of the targets friends and family on the wall and a laundry hamper about halfway down it.
PCs- I pull out my staff and probe directly infront of me. What do I find?
GM- Nothing.
PCs- There's a trap somewhere I keep looking.
GM-...

Honestly it's no fun to me to worry about traps in every inch of wherever I am. I'm willing to bet a good number of people feel the same way. Especially if your players have any recent rl military experience where we are taught that a coke can could be an IED and will kill us.

[Teulisch]

well, traps can be on timers, only armed after hours when the office is closed. that way only security and the janitors have to worry about avoiding them. plus you can activate some of them during a red alert. one of the SOTA books talks about an ultrasonic weapon that was tied into the motion detector somewhere.

Now, the first thing you have to look at is what the SOTA sensors look like for the street sam. im SR4, this means radar-vision looking through unshielded walls. if its a serious trap, you have blocking paint. downside is cheapskates who dont cover all the areas, so you could see it from the floor above or below, or even from the next room (just not inside that room).

one of the best defenses for a building is to have a spirit on hand. its job is to observe and report, with a secondary job of doing basic 'accidents' to intruders.

as for actual traps, your really better off with nonlethal force whenever possible. pressure plates + shock-floors. glue-bombs. neurostun gas traps. unsecured computer with a hard drive full of porn (it will slow some runners down). when you move on to lethal force, its a bad idea to use too much area effect. ceiling gun turrets hard wired to the buildings security rigger are better at IFF. always ask yourself "what if this trap triggers while a valued employee is in the area of effect?" because your trying to stop extractions as well as protecting physical assets. also its bad for morale if the guards know your willing to kill them in a crossfire.

[Stahlseele]

Slipspray Dispensers built into the upper most stair in every floor. Or glue Guns. Or both.
Have them slip and fall down a set of stairs, then glue them to the ground while they are down.
Good old time style lock for a Key. And Finger/Handprint-Scanner built into the door-handle.
If you just break open the lock, you are in trouble.
You need to Grip the Handle with a Hand with the right set of Fingerprints/Handprint to open it without problems.

[Omenowl]

If it is a lethal trap odds are the area is unguarded. You trap things where people normally would not go and where you are trying to prevent entry. Duct work, sewers, poisonous/radioactive areas, walls, etc. Some of these traps would be to kill just animal infestation such as devil rats. There are other types of traps such as tank traps where the goal is to disable a vehicle. Unless it is a terrorist/freedom fighter where casualties and type of casualties don't matter traps would be discriminate and limited.

Basically walls with monowire on the top, separated by distance and electric fence finally with mines, turrets and guard towers. I think of the no man's land between North Korea and South Korea.

Most traps I would use are simple things such as elevators, corridors, etc. If there is a certain excessive weight or wrong control then the doors simply seal shut. If they need to they will pump in gas and wait for help to arrive. Deadmen tell no tales, but livings ones can be made to talk...

[knasser]

Now, the first thing you have to look at is what the SOTA sensors look like for the street sam. im SR4, this means radar-vision looking through unshielded walls. if its a serious trap, you have blocking paint.

I have a PC in my group that has radar sense. What he hasn't figured out yet, is that he's basically broadcasting his presence loud and clear to anything else that can sense radar. I'm patiently waiting until its appropriate to the the opposition that they encounter for this to become significant. But when it is, it's going to be very satisfying. Anyway, point is that you can use a PCs radar sense against them because a trap can trigger off it if you want.

But I think corps are unlikely to use traps. Only time I've ever had such in Shadowrun was with gangers setting a few traps in their tower blocks for the unwary or as defensive fortifications.

K.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

What he hasn't figured out yet, is that he's basically broadcasting his presence loud and clear to anything else that can sense radar.

That would be a misconception on your part:

Contrary to Ultrasound, Radar Sensor / UWBR does not have a passive mode to detect/use other emitters. The only way you could detect it would be the rules for finding hidden nodes.

[fistandantilus4....]

The Renraku Arcology during the shutdown time would certainly fit the the death traps. One of the writers straight out said that part of their intention for it was to give people the chance for a SR styled dungeon crawl. THat could still work depending on how you like it. Perhaps a couple of zero zones as well. But even on military installations IRL when you've got a lethal trap, such as mines, there's a big ass sign that says "MINE FIELD".

On the mono wire trap - wouldn't the falling floor knock most of the lines loose? What's their tensile strength?

[Wounded Ronin]

I'm pretty sure that if all you wanted to do was kill someone via a trap, there would be cheaper, easier, and equally effective ways to do that besides for a D&D style monowire pit trap.

[Red-ROM]

I like to frame my runner's for murder. I had a group retrieving things from a house in a rich neighborhood, and some goons showed up. they knocked out the goons and threw them in the trunk of their own car. They proceeded to take the goons car with them when they left. on the way out, they pass a police investigation of two murdered old people that the goons whacked to get into the gated community. Now the runners are driving around in the victim's car with two more people in the trunk

[Patrick the Gnom...]

I think the corps could use traps that were both lethal and in areas of high traffic so long as the make sure that the traffic can be stopped/only happens during the day and the trap they use has to have power flowig to it in order to be dangerous. Something like an electrified floor across a hallway could be put up at the only entrance to the inside of a building because it's only when power is being sent to that trap that it becomes dangerous, and there are safety measures you can put into place to make unplanned activation of that trap impossible to happen outside of hacking the security system.