Justify the frequent use of complex,dangerous traps as a security

>>50560772
God of traps needs souls too OP

dropping people into lava is a lot more satisfying than a simple pitfall

>>50560800
I remember when I was just starting out as a LBEG. First time I had a hero make it all the way to the cliff where I was trying to open a portal to the demon realm, I just panicked and pushed him off the cliff. I'll never forget the incredulous look on his face as he plunged to his death, like "Really, that's how you're going to kill me?"

Ever since then I've been trying to improve my herokilling, but it's hard when your skeletal minions can't build very sturdy structures because it turns out reanimated bones can't use a spirit level, as tautological as that sounds.

>>50560772
Dungeon exists to guard an artifact, but the guardian doubted their organization would always be present to guard it with soldiers. Between enchantment and mechanical skill, their machines would outlive their members by millenia.

>>50560772
>Justify the frequent use of complex,dangerous traps as a security measure
Autistic villain feels uncomfortable around henchmen, but loves tinkering. He's got a lot of free time on his hands, sitting there in his lonely dungeon, and lots of fun ideas.

>>50560772
Show of wealth.
Also dungeons were initially gladiator arenas where the survivors could keep any loot they had found. THe civilization that built them is nothing but ashes now, but the traps are still functionnal.
It's basic transmutation exercises/

>>50560772
It's a lot easier to make traps when you have magic available. Thus traps are more economical for the dungeon builders than they would otherwise be.

>>50560772


I can't. That's why I go for simple, dangerous traps.

File: 1467618322987.jpg (357KB, 550x771px) Image search: [Google]

357KB, 550x771px

Because they're disarmingly cute

BBEG was a scientist and a locksmith. Who knew how bad that combo really was before the economic crisis forced him to close down his business?

But I like schlock.

File: EarlyDnD.png (23KB, 639x389px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 639x389px

>>50560772

Gypsies or Kender exist in the setting.

>>50560772

Because the purpose of the trap isn't really to kill people and be effective. Its to scare people away.

If you find an underground tomb and the first chamber you go into suddenly has random parts of the ceiling crash down and crush to death anyone unlucky enough to be there, the vast majority of people are going to run for their lives and never go back. Its clearly too dangerous to explore, and that's just the first room!

Guards are good, but people will get brave or stupid enough to think they can take the guards. Just get a bunch of townsfolk together, and you can take those two skeleton warriors!

The hallway of flamethrowers, however, will give them pause and probably send them home. A fight is something you can win, but traps like that.. too risky, too deadly, too random. No one sane wants to die like that, and most people stupid enough to try it anyway will die spectacularly.

The complexity of the trap is necessary to presenting it as beyond their ability to deal with. A simple trap, like a pitfall, they can understand and convince themselves they can beat. You need to scare and wow them with something unlike anything they have ever seen before.

>>50560772
>Justify the frequent use of complex,dangerous traps as a security measure in a campaign setting that isn't pure schlock.
First, there's nothing wrong with schlock.

>>50562856
>I like schlock
Indeed.

Second, there are countless ways to explain why some specific long term storage unit or dungeon uses complex, dangerous traps.

The hard part of your question is the "frequent use" bit.
Now, are you talking about frequent use in a current society, in ancient ruins, or a perplexing universal trait of all high security everywhere?
Medieval, current, or future technology level?
What are we talking about here?
Screw you, I can explain nearly anything.

>>50560772
>Justify
Unless you are on a hard fantasy setting, this is not needed.

>>50565866
t. shit GM / shit player who enables shit GMs and has really bad taste.

>>50562788
Why'd you have to make it weird? It didn't need to be weird.

A lot of the time traps like those can scare people away. Every culture or large group has warriors. Some of those warriors can get very good. Warriors allll know how to deal with other warriors.

What warriors might not have experience with is dealing with insane, frightening traps.

That's another thing, they're scary. Nobody wants to get crushed to death, or fall into a spike pit, or get cut in half or whatever.

Another thing is, if your country builds a bunch of traps that are hard to deal with and look scary, then people won't want to go in there even if your country hits times of upheaval and can't afford to keep guards there, or perhaps forgets where it's at, yada yada. Traps on the other hand don't need wages, food, and if they are built right with lots of intelligence, very little to no maintenance.

>>50566230
>REEEE WHY WON'T YOU SATISFY MY AUTISM REEEE SHIT GEE EHM BAD TAAAAAAYYYYYYYSTE REEE!

Settle down.

>>50566230
>t. shit GM / shit player who enables shit GMs and has really bad taste
With not justifying I am not talking about shitty justification, but not talking about it

>>50560772
Because People don't feel like babysitting their shit 24/7. Sometimes times, they wanna do more with their life besides sitting on their home and hoard like a hen sits on her eggs. Sometimes they want to go outside, see the world, have fun, for extended periods of time with out having worry about being burgled.

Now is building a bunch of traps a time consuming pain in the dick? Yes, but you know what's an even more time consuming pain in the dick? Standing guard for fifteen hours every night doing dick all because you were to much of a lazy asshole to build traps to do it for you!

The easiest explanation is simply that dungeon creators tend to be a little "eccentric".

Seriously, humans are not purely rational creatures, and our irrationalities can make even the most level-headed do some downright stupid things. And some people are much less rational than others. This need to have every behaviour of a conscious agent be purely rationally justified is just silly. Irrational, if you will.

As for why it's widespread, rather than just an occasional odd individual, wizards. Wizards are the main ones who build dungeons, and they're prone to mental illness because all that magic just ain't healthy for a body. Hell, it may not even be the magic itself, just the various odd reagents and spell components they handle on a regular basis.

One might say mad wizards are schlocky, but that need not be the case. It's all in the presentation. If it's full-ham haha kooky mad wizard stuff, sure, that's schlocky. Not that that's a bad thing, just that it falls short of OP's criteria. But you can have mad wizards without it being schlock. You just need to treat it in a thought-out way, with an appropriate degree of seriousness and realistic repercussions. For instance, wizard madness should be a noted and serious concern in-setting, with common folk being leery of wizards, especially older wizards.

>>50560772

Magic makes complex traps so safe and effective that you could use them to guard your baby. All you need is to key your magical signature to the trap triggers and a way to key others. Congrats, all the doors open for you and the traps/guardians let you pass unharmed.

I don't use complicated traps. I use simple and brutal traps.

>>50560772
>dungeons and ruins are treasure caches for the now-dead Aspect of Greed
>Aspect of Greed insisted that his traps be as extravagant as his wealth, to not devalue the entire cache
>he enslaved the canonical "engineering" race

>>50560772
Collier Brothers