Grimtooth's Traps TooTag Line: 101 more traps for use with any role-playing system
Makers: Blade, a division of Flying Buffalo Inc. for the all-system Catalyst Series
What is it?
A statless compendium of traps for any GM's dungeon crawls, each rated 1 to 5 skulls based on deadliness (1 being an annoyance only, 5 being 99% deadly to the entire party), and told in the voice of Grimtooth, a nasty troll who enjoys his wares very much indeed. It's the second in a series of 5 books.
Neat Stuff
-101 death traps? What's not to love? The 5-skull ones are clearly never meant to be used in anything except the most abusive of campaigns, but they're great to read. The 1-3 skull ones might more easily see play, and though not as bloodthirsty, they're still pretty clever and witty.
-Though the traps are written by a wide range of game designers and Game Masters, Grimtooth's delivery unifies them well and makes the book fun to read even for a non-gamer. I like the art as well.
-Favorites include the Door-Lover's Room (below), one of many that preys on characters only thinking they've figured out the trap.
Bad Stuff-Being statless, "for any system", well, you have to do all the work to include the traps in your dungeon. Just how much damage do they do? How hard are they to detect and disarm? In a system with a simple hit point pool, does it matter if a trap hits you in the forehead or the shins?
-Killer GMs might not get the joke and use Grimtooth's attitude and 5-skull traps as if that's how you play D&D. And when I say "might", I mean they have. One killer GM from my youth, the notorious Stéphane Raymond, used to do it all the time. I only gamed once with him, to fuck with his brain, but I was friends with his kid brother, and he would come to school talking about the latest game and how his brother was a genius at designing traps, like this one time... Yeah, and every one of those times, he would start describing something from this very book and I could finish his story for him. Raymond was the king of TPKs (Total Party Kills) and Grimtooth was his willing accomplice throughout. That kid brother of his never tired of rolling up a new character every game either.
-Not sure about the toilet seat that throws you into a bottomless pit, to tell you the truth.
Quote
"Attention: The traps in this booklet are designed for game purposes only. Actual construction of these traps might prove harmful, and such construction is strongly discouraged."
How I've used it
I've used some of the low-powered traps and cursed items over the years, but since I haven't played D&D in a long time (and don't plan to), it's been a while since I've looked at Grimtooth's Traps Too. Judging from the way it's falling apart, however, it's clear that I perused it A LOT. In fact, it was my very first role-playing item, and I remember not knowing what they heck this "game" was about. I imagined some kind of computer game where you designed rooms and people walked through them, but I couldn't get my head around how Grimtooth's Traps could be implemented that way. I had no idea whatsoever, and since there are no stats, there were no clues to be found. The next year, the original Monster Manual fell into my hands and everything came together.
Looking at Grimtooth's now, I can see plenty of new uses for it. I occasionally run Paranoia, and that's a game where TPKs are encouraged. A superhero game might more easily accomodate some of the crazier traps, seeing as supers tend to be a little more resilient than your average "delver". Time for a comeback, with Grimtooth as the ultimate supplier of traps for my diabolical masterminds? Maybe.
In conclusion
I've got all 5 Traps books, and this one's the best of the lot. The first one has some fairly obvious stuff (covering the basics, after all), and while I won't say the later ones return to the well too often, they do suffer from amateurish typesetting and too cartoony artwork. Traps Too has just the right mix, at once original and not too outlandish. And even for non-roleplayers, it's just plain fun to read (in a sadistic sort of way).
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