As I’ve discussed in the Art of Rulings and Rules vs. Rulings?, among other places, I think it’s important that a DM not allow any interaction at the table to become purely mechanical. Partly this is just an aesthetic preference on my part (it keeps things interesting), partly it’s ideological (rules are associated for a reason), and partly it’s because specificity and detail usually leads to creative gameplay.

Traps are a key example of this. If all you can do with a trap is make a skill check to Search for it, make a skill check to Disable it, and/or take damage from it, then the trap will be fairly boring. You can try to spice that up mechanically or (and this is easier) you can spice it up by being relatively specific about how the trap works. (For example, you might end up with players scavenging the tension ropes that reset a spike trap in order to tie up their kobold prisoner. Or draining the alchemist’s fire through the nozzles of a flame trap. When they disable the pit trap do they wedge it open or use spikes to let it support their weight one at a time? The difference will matter if they end up getting chased back down that hall by ogres.)

In following this doctrine, I’ve found that it can occasionally be difficult to imagine what disarming a magical trap really looks like. I mean, if it’s just magical potential hanging in the air waiting for an alarm spell to go off, what is the rogue doing, exactly, when they make their Disable Device check? And what are they actually sensing with their Search checks?

To that end, here are a few techniques I use when thinking about magical traps.

Magical Potential: Permanent and semi-permanent magical effects will leave a very subtle “impression” on the physical world. Careful characters with great sensitivity can detect the presence of a magical field. In some cases this may be the first step in identifying how to bypass or disable the magical trap; in other cases, it may turn out that the trap can’t be disabled without something like dispel magic (but at least the rogue can figure out where it’s safe to walk and where it isn’t).

Ethereal Hooks: Ethereal hooks are attached to spell potential stored on the Ethereal Plane. When the ethereal hooks are “tugged”, they yank the spell potential back from the Ethereal Plane and the energy of the planar transition triggers the spell effect. Ethereal hooks are particularly useful for warding physical objects (i.e., traps which are triggered when you pick up an item). They can also be attached to physical tripwires. In either case, the ethereal hooks require some physical substance and can be safely dislodged if sufficient care is taken.

Spellsparks: Tiny spheres or cylinders made from small amounts of mithril and taurum (true gold). Spellsparks impact areas of spell potential and complete the casting. A typical application would be a spellspark attached to the bottom of a trigger plate: Step on the plate, the spellspark depresses and triggers a fireball. But if you can remove the spellspark, the spell potential is as harmless as a block of C4 without a detonator. (A divine variant of the spellspark is to douse a small prayer wheel in holy or unholy water.)

Smudging Sigils: This is almost always the case for things like a symbol of death, but quite a few other spell effects can also be “stored” as arcane or divine sigils using the proper techniques. You generally can’t just reach out and smear the thing (that’ll usually trigger the effect; spellcasters aren’t stupid). But if you’ve got the proper training, then you can usually identify exactly where you need to smudge the sigil to negate its effects.

Counterchanting: Spell effects with verbal components still resonate with those chants even after the casting is complete. By using proper counterchanting techniques, a character can weaken those resonances and eventually dissipate the spell effect. (This isn’t like counterspelling: The counterchanting is too slow a process to use on a spell as its being cast. It only works here because the spell is being held in a stored state.)

Concealed Material Components: In some cases, spell effects built into traps still require the material components of the spell to be present in order for the spell to be triggered. These are usually concealed in the trap somewhere. (For example, a fireball trap might have a bit of sulfur tucked away.) If you can remove the concealed material component without triggering the trap, then the trap is rendered impotent.

Arcane/Divine Focuses: Other spell-storing techniques require the presence of a physical talisman or focus. In some cases, removing the focus will cause the spell energies to dissipate harmlessly. In other cases, it will just defang the spell — which means that it could be triggered again if the focus were restored.

Bypass Passwords: Some spellcasters will intentionally build bypass passwords into their traps. If the builder was cautious, these can be quite difficult to determine. But many spellcasters will simply draw on a common lore of such phrases. In other cases, casters may not be aware of (or simply choose not to bother changing) standard bypasses built into the most common forms of certain rituals. Like Gandalf standing before the doors of Moria, characters with proper training can often run through their stock of common passwords and discover that they’ve managed to disable the trap without any real danger. (Some caution is required, however: Some trap-makers anticipate this sort of thing and will instead have the trap trigger if certain false passwords are given.)

Telepathic Completion: This is a subtle technique. The spell effect actually reaches out telepathically and sends a completion word; the power of the victim’s own thoughts will trigger the trap. (This means that characters immune to mind-affecting effects and/or telepathic communication can’t trigger the trap. This often means that undead can freely cross through the trap.) Rogues holding a proper counter-command in their thoughts while moving through the triggering zone of the trap can disrupt the delicate telepathic effect for a limited amount of time (say, 1d4 minutes), allowing others to pass through safely.

Clockwork Mechanisms: Spells can be stored inside clockwork mechanisms. Physically disabling the clockworks will disable the magical trap. Nice and simple.

Thoughts? What other techniques could we be using here?

As a final utilitarian note: I’ll only rarely include these specific details into my notes. Instead, this is just a conceptual toolkit that I can use to explain the working of any trap as it comes up during play. Similarly, I usually don’t spend time prepping the exact mechanics of how a particular pit trap works (one door or two? where are the hinges? are there hinges? what are the spikes at the bottom made out of? etc.).

In a comment on my very old review of Fading Suns, Potato asked me to provide a rundown of how I put together my system cheat sheets for RPGs: “It sounds like a good way to get a grasp of the rules when learning/trying out a new system.”

He’s absolutely right about that. And the cheat sheets themselves, of course, also make great references at the table for both you and the players.

BULLET POINTS

My goal is to make the system cheat sheet comprehensive. That means including all the rules. Often I see cheat sheets that just cover the basic stuff that’s used all the time. But that’s actually the stuff I’m least likely to need cheat sheets for because it’s quickly memorized through repetition.

Obviously, this requires that I both cut down the amount of space the rules take up and the amount of time it takes to read and understand those rules. The quickest way to accomplish this, in my experience, is through the use of concise bullet points.

For example, here’s a chunk of rules text from the second edition of Heavy Gear:

The Silhouette system uses everyday six-sided dice to add a random element to the game. These are sometimes referred to as “1d6” in the rules, “2d6” for two dice, 3d6 for three, and so on. The same die rolling convention is used for both the roleplaying and wargaming aspects of the rules, so this is not repeated in the respective rule sections.

When two or more dice are rolled simultaneously, their results are not added together. Instead, the highest result is considered to be the outcome of the die roll. If more than one “6” is rolled, each extra “6” adds one (1) to the total. If every die rolled turns up “1”, the die roll is a Fumble and counts as an overall result of zero and no modifiers may change this value. Unless specifically mentioned otherwise, all die rolls work this way.

The totals of die rolls are often influenced by modifiers. Modifiers are added to the total of a die roll. If negative modifiers lower the total below zero, the final result is always zero and cannot go any lower. Modifiers are not applied to Fumbles.

A Fumble is a mistake or mishap that cause the failure of the action attempted. It is not necessarily caused by an error or the incompetence of the character, and may well be the result of environmental factors. No matter what caused the Fumble, however, the total die roll is always zero.

In the tactical game, Fumbles produce clear results. This is hardly the case in the roleplaying rules due to the mind-boggling number of possible actions and outcomes. The effects of each separate roleplaying Fumble must thus be described by the Gamemaster. In general, the harder the task attempted, the greater the effect of the Fumble.

This is then followed by an equally lengthy section listing various examples. Using bullet points, all of this is simplified on my cheat sheet down to the major points:

• Roll Xd6: Result = highest die +/- modifiers. (Cannot be < 0.)
  • Additional Sixes: Each additional 6 = +1 to total.
  • Fumble: If all dice = 1, result = 0 (no modifiers).

Short and sweet. Using the same technique, I’m able to squeeze the next three pages of rules into a quarter page of my cheat sheet.

DON’T INCLUDE OPTION CHUNKS

The exception to my “include everything” methodology are what I used to refer to as the “character option chunks” in the system: Feats. Disadvantages. Spells. Powers. Weapons. That sort of thing. Any small packets of specialized mechanics that are only invoked if the character has selected that packet.

These days I think of it as invoking the “power card principle”. It’s not that having a quick reference for these rule chunks isn’t useful. It’s just that it’s more useful for those chunks to be included on individual character sheets, character-specific cheat sheets, or reference cards.

To boil that down: If everybody (or nearly everybody) uses a rule, it goes on the system cheat sheet. If not, put it on the character’s sheet or in the NPC’s stat block.

REMOVE CLARIFICATION AND ADVICE

Well-written rulebooks include a lot of clarification and advice. This is good: It helps you to both learn and implement the rules effectively.

But when you’re prepping your cheat sheets, you want to jettison all of that. For example, here’s a chunk of text from Technoir:

Adjectives are open to interpretation. They are part of a language we use in the game to collaboratively tell stories. Adjectives have  a couple of designations to help us agree on how they affect our characters.

Adjectives can be applied to a character directly — representing her physical or psychological state — or to an object belonging to a character — representing its physical condition or the state of its electronics and software.

Adjectives can be positive or negative. These determine how the adjective affects the dice you roll. This process is explained in the “Rolling Dice” section starting on page 92.

A positive adjective can help the character who has it. They allow you to add Push dice to your roll. They are written in the positive column of adjectives on the protagonist sheet or stat block.

A negative adjective usually hinders the character who has it. They force you to add Hurt dice to you roll. They are written in the negative column of adjectives on the protagonist sheet or stat block. Sometimes they may only apply to a part of the body — like a broken arm or a shattered kneecap. In these cases, write the body part in parenthesis next to the adjective. Sometimes they apply to an object the character has. In these cases, draw a line from the adjective to the object.

This is all good stuff. But on my cheat sheet, it boils down to:

• Hurt Dice = negative adjectives
• Push Dice = can be discharged for each adjective, object, or tag

Where to draw the line of inclusion/exclusion can occasionally get a little blurry. For example, in my Heavy Gear cheat sheets I didn’t include the table of Typical Thresholds (3 = Easy, 6 = Difficult, etc.) because I felt like it was a useful guideline that I didn’t necessarily need to reference during play. You might feel differently.

REORGANIZING

The last thing I do when putting together a system cheat sheet is to avail myself of the opportunity to reorganize the rules.

The truth is most RPG manuals suck when it comes to organization. Related rules will end up smeared across a half dozen different chapters, forcing you to flip madly back and forth while trying to adjudicate situations at the game table. This sucks, so take this opportunity to group material together in a way that makes sense when running the game. (And, as much as possible, try to keep all the relevant rules on a single page or two so that you can look at the totality of them simultaneously.)

Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast rules for this sort of thing. It’s more an art than a science, and it’s mostly a matter of common sense.

REVISE

After playing a session or two, revisit your cheat sheet: Was there stuff you missed? Stuff that could be phrased better? Stuff that should be cut? Stuff that should be moved around?

Do it. Print a new copy. Repeat until you’ve refined your cheat sheet into a lean, mean running machine.

EXAMPLES

As a couple of examples, click through for the RTF cheat sheets I put together for the first edition of Fading Suns (more than a decade ago) and Technoir (a couple weeks ago). For the latter, however, you might want to also grab the official (free) Player’s Guide, which I discovered actually does a really fantastic job of cheat sheeting the system.

It’s becoming something of a cliche:

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: Are you sure you want to do that?

Here’s the thing: If your players are suggesting something which is self-evidently suicidal to the GM, then there has probably been some sort of miscommunication. Simple example–

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: Okay. You fall 200 feet, take 20d6 points of damage, and die.
Player: What? I thought the building was only 20 feet high!

That being said, I’m not a big fan of the coy, “Are you sure you want to do that?” method. While it may warn the player away from some course of action, it is unlikely to actually clear up the underlying confusion.

It’s generally preferable to actually explain your understanding of the stakes to the player to make sure everyone is on the same page. For example–

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: The building is 200 feet tall. You’ll take 20d6 points of damage if you do that.
Player: Ah. Right. Well, let’s try something else, then.

Although the misunderstanding can just as easily be on the GM’s side–

Player: I jump down to the ground.
GM: Are you sure you want to do that?
Player: What? Is it covered in lava or something?
GM: No, but the building is 200 feet tall. You’ll take 20d6 points of damage if you do that.
Player: I’m planning to cast feather fall. I just want the princess to think I’ve committed suicide.
GM: Carry on.

This carries beyond deadly situations. For example, if you’re running a mystery scenario and one of the players says, “I inspect the carpet.” And you don’t know why they want to inspect the carpet, just ask them.

Player: I inspect the carpet.
GM: What are you looking for?
Player: You said it rained last night at 2 AM. If the killer entered through the window after 2 AM, there would be mud on the carpet.
GM (knowing the murder took place at 4 AM): Yup. It looks like somebody tried to clean it up, but you find some mud scraped onto the molding near the window.

If you don’t ask the question and you don’t understand what they’re looking for, you might end up feeding them false (or, at least, misleading) information.

Which suggests a general principle:

If you don’t understand what the players are trying to achieve with a given action, find out before adjudicating the action.

This tip has been updated and revised. The new version can be found here.

A couple rules of thumb I use for crafting evocative descriptions as a GM:

THREE OF FIVE: Think about your five senses. Try to include three of them in each description. Sight is a gimme and a Taste will rarely apply, so that means picking a couple out of Hearing, Smell, and Touch. Remember that you don’t actually have to touch something in order to intuit what it might feel like if you did.

TWO COOL DETAILS: Try to include two irrelevant-but-cool details. These are details that aren’t necessary for the encounter/room to function, but are still cool. It’s the broken cuckoo clock in the corner; the slightly noxious odor with no identifiable source; the graffiti scrawled on the wall; the bio-luminescent fungus; etc.

THREE-BY-THREE: Delta’s 1-2-(3)-Infinity talks about psychological research demonstrating that repeating something three times takes up the same space in our brains as repeating something infinitely. Thus, once you’ve hit the third item in a sequence, any additional items in that sequence are redundant.

Extrapolating from this, for minor scenes you can describe three things each with a single detail. At that point, you’ve filled up the “infinity queue” in your players’ brains and their imaginations will impulsively fill in the finer details of the scene you’ve evoked. For “epic” descriptions, use the full three-by-three: Describe three different elements with three details each.

Like most rules of thumb, of course, none of these should be treated like straitjackets.

In “Revisiting Encounter Design“, I make the argument that 3rd Edition plays better if you use old school encounter design. To briefly sum up:

1. Design most encounters around an EL 2 to 4 lower than the party’s level.
2. Feel free to use large mobs (10+ creatures) with an EL equal to the party’s level.
3. Sparingly use encounters with an EL equal to the party’s level.
4. Occasionally throw in an EL+2 or EL+4 encounter.

Using this encounter design results in faster combats (which means you accomplish more in a typical game session) and drastically reduces the likelihood of the 15 minute adventuring day.

This advice is not radically different from that provided in the 3.5 DMG, which suggests that encounters should be 30% with ELs lower than the party’s level, 50% with ELs equal to the party’s level, 15% with ELs 1-4 higher than the party’s level, and 5% with ELs 5+ above the party’s level. (Let’s call this the 30/50/15/5 ratio for easy reference.)

THE ANALYSIS

This 30/50/15/5 ratio was not atypical in early 3rd Edition modules. For example, here’s the EL breakdown of combat encounters in the first section of The Forge of Fury (designed for a group of 3rd to 5th level characters):

EL 1
EL 2 (x7)
EL 3 (x3)
EL 4 (x4)
EL 5 (x4)
EL 10

If we use an average party level of 4th, this ratio breaks down to: 55/20/20/5. Not an exact match, obviously, but definitely within the ballpark of having 80% of your encounters equal to your lower than the party’s level.

But as you look at modules published in the last 5-6 years, the misguided “common wisdom” of how to design encounters for 3rd Edition had taken hold. For example, here’s the encounter breakdown from part four of Paizo’s Curse of the Crimson Throne (designed for 10th level characters):

EL 8
EL 10
EL 11 (x2)
EL 12 (x2)
EL 13
EL 14 (x3)

That’s a ratio of 10/10/80/0. 80% of the encounters are now above the party’s average level instead of below it.

You can see the same design principles in Wizard’s modules. For example, here’s Fane of the Drow (designed for 4th level characters):

EL 3
EL 4 (x4)
EL 5 (x5)
EL 6 (x5)
EL 7 (x2)

Which is roughly 5/25/70/0.

Similarly, here’s the breakdown from “The Demon Council”, the last section of Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (for 11th level characters):

EL 10 (x2)
EL 11 (x3)
EL 12 (x10)
EL 13 (x4)
EL 14 (x2)

Which gives us a ratio of 10/15/75/0. (This one looks a little better if you assume that the PCs are supposed to level up to 12th halfway through this sequence.)

THE TIP

A couple weeks ago, as I looked over my recent usage of published 3rd Edition scenarios, I realized that I’ve been instinctively using modules published in the last 5-6 years when the PCs are 2-3 levels higher than the recommended level.

For example, when you apply this guideline to the modules used above you end up with:

• Curse of the Crimson Throne 4: 50/10/30/0
• Fane of the Drow: 60/30/10/0
• “The Demon Council”: 70/20/10

Which definitely slants them back into the ballpark of what we’re looking for.

Reflecting on this also taught me something new: The tips in “Revisiting Encounter Design” are designed to widen the dynamic range of your encounters. Shifting the recommended level for these published modules made me realize that we’re also widening the dynamic range of our adventure design.

Fane of the Drow, for example, isn’t unachievable for 4th level characters. But it is a tough slog. And if you use “tough slog” as your baseline for normalcy, then you have nowhere to go: If your 4th level characters face anything tougher than this, their odds of dying horribly begin to skyrocket. Which means that if your 4th level characters “skip ahead” or take an unexpected shortcut, they could easily run headlong into a deathtrap.

But if Fane of the Drow is, instead, your expected baseline for 5th or 6th level characters, suddenly you’ve got room to breathe.

And where would having room to breathe become particularly important? Node-Based Scenario Design.

Revising your approach to encounter design allows you to be more fluid and dynamic in how you run and combine your encounters; it also allows you be more fluid and dynamic in how you run and combine your scenarios.