Find Traps

All -

Been playing AW for a while and switching over now that the preview is out. I was thinking about what kind of game I wanted to run and randomly picked up on the Thief's Trap Expert ability.

It did occur to me that the point might be that you only put traps there if the player uses the ability, but it seems like managing expectations would be delicate. (or maybe not?)

Basically, I rarely use traps, so the Thief usually won't think to roll - or if he does, he'll be disappointed when there's nothing there. That said, if a player picks a Thief he's possibly telling me that he wants to see Traps, so I feel I should put some in.

The alternative I came up with is as follows:

When the DM tells you there's a trap, roll +Dex

On a 10+, there's a trap. Tell the DM how you heroically disarm it.
On a 7-9, there's a trap. Choose 1 -
    -You can disarm it, but its inconvenient. The DM will tell you why.
    -You can disarm it, but its dangerous. The DM will tell you why.
    -The trap went off! You and your companions got out of the way in the nick of time, but its put you in a tight spot, the DM will tell you why. (Maybe it blocked a door or made a lot of noise?)
On a miss, the trap goes off, you'll probably take some damage.

(who describes the trap? I assume you would generally ask the player, but there might be times when you felt it would be better to do it yourself so I left it vague.)

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks guys!

Talek

I think the problem with your otherwise fine move Talek is the trigger. Its mechanical. You need to embed it within the fiction so you can acknowledge the descriptive cue of the move.

Your custom move revolves around the idea that the trap exists yeah? There is nothing in the move to dissuade this assumption. So perhaps its more about the player indulging in their thief's ability to author cool trap stuff:
 When you discover an unknown trap, roll plus DEX.
On a 10+, Choose three, on a 7-9 choose one:
*You cleverly disarm the trigger mechanism, what is it? It cannot be reset. Do tell how you go about it.
*You perceptively determine the Trap's Type, choose: Pit, Poison, Blade, Missle, Water, Crush, Magical, Ensnare
*You narrowly avoid the trap's Danger as determined by its type
*You don't bring unwanted attention to yourself

I use traps pretty effectively in my DW game by using them sort of like an attack, by having them engage or trigger and then let the player deal with it. "You feel the pressure plate depress beneath your foot, if you take one more step it will go off." The Thief has to Disarm it with his comrade standing there imperilled.

Alternately, I give pretty good clues, like previous victims or visual oddities: a strange gap, grooves on the floor, stuff like that. The Thief then rolls to figure out what exactly is going on and if he misses the role, only in-character narrated action will avoid the trap. Like, the move is only a shortcut.

Does that work for you?

I do it the same way as Scrape. Works for me!

Yeah, bottom line I think is that you need to give the Thief a reason to suspect a trap. Which you totally should, because traps are an awesome challenge with a whole different type of tension than combat. Even if they are admittedly goofy, traps are a trope for a reason.