The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Grimtooth's Traps Fore is simply a book of 101 trap ideas. It is apparently the third in a series of similar books, none of which I have read or even seen aside from the product listing on the company's webpage. It was made to be compatible with all fantasy RPGs and because of this it includes absolutely no game mechanics of any kind. This in my opinion is one of its biggest selling points and was one of the reasons that I chose to purchase it.

You see, it was a bright, sunny Saturday morning and I felt the need to spend some cash. Of course I decided to head on over to my local gaming store where I figured I would leave either with a couple of miniatures or perhaps the latest issue of Dragon Magazine. (I feel the need to spend at least a few dollars whenever I visit that store. After all I always wear a hooded sweatshirt and try to very stealthily creep around the store because it has an incredibly noisy wooden floor. I guess I look like some sort of a thief so I choose to at least buy a die when I'm there to set the staffs suspicions at ease.

Now I don't where my hood when I'm there and everything seems to be okay... Back to the review!) I browsed around for about half an hour when a friend of mine who plays in a campaign that I run entered the store. He headed for the Star Wars stuff and failed to notice me as I was craftily concealed from his view behind a shelf of Misc. RPG books. I giggled gleefully to myself and silently crept up behind him. I discovered that my mission had been accomplished, he was frightened! I then browsed around the stores wares while chatting with him. He then began to watch a game of Battlefleet Gothic that was taking place and I continued my browsing.

Soon I managed to spot a neat looking blue and black book on a shelf of older stuff. I picked it up and noticed a rather humorous picture on the cover. I then proceeded to look through the book. Of course it was Traps Fore, why else would I be mentioning it! It looked interesting and then the situation I was in struck me, I was holding a book of deadly traps in my hand and a player in my campaign was in the store. I giggled gleefully to myself (as that is what my kind do in situations like this) and then silently stepped over to my friend and showed him the book. Oh the look on his face... See how I managed to expand the phrase "this was an impulse buy" into a whole lengthy paragraph? Pretty cool!

Physically the book was quite well made. It is only 70 pages so is quite thin, it has nice binding and the cover is nice and glossy so it is fairly well protected against all those caffinated-drink spills that plague giddy gamers. It can also lay relatively flat without damaging the binding which can be quite helpful at times as it removes the necessity to place dice and counters on the pages in an effort to keep the book from closing.

The book is organized into five chapters, one for room traps, one for corridor traps, one for door traps, one for item traps, and finally one for things traps (I just used the word one five times in the last sentence. Pretty spiffy!). The chapters are pretty much self explanatory except for the one on things traps which is really just a chapter for traps that didn't fit into any of the other chapters. Each chapter is also preceded by a picture of Grimtooth (some odd looking big-eared, humanoid creature) doing something related to the chapter as well as a short introduction to the chapter.

There is about one black and white picture on each page and most of them show the traps in action. They are all quite humorous too, which is something that I quite liked about it. In fact, the whole book is funny…

The traps are all very imaginative but most are not all that realistic and are apparently meant for use in dungeon crawls. The danger-level of all the traps is also rated in skulls beside the description.

The one thing that I can honestly say that I hated about this book was the layout of the traps. The only way to tell where one trap description ends and another begins is by an extra line before the next paragraph and the title of the next trap in bold somewhere in the first paragraph of the next traps description. My explanation of this sucks so here is an example.

BEGIN EXAMPLE

The next trap was created by gluesnifficus, he is a sadistic little monkey. He likes to call this trap the Weed Wacker This trap hurts people, it uses ropes and pulleys and other cool stuff like that. When people end up getting caught in this trap, they are generally injured. Do you like kobalds, I do? Lada lada lada lada lada lada lada. The Tea Party is the bestest band in the world, don't you like them?
An interesting thing about this trap is that once the PCs get caught in it, there not gonna get out. The players are gonna die! You should watch the Tom Green Show, it's a good show. Real funny. Go to my webpage at www.netmanor.com/tower the counter is pitifully low. Wait till you see how bad the layout of the book is. I can't remember how many cans of lemonade I've had today.
Speaking of lemonade, a gal who drinks too much of it for her own good is Little Bow Peep, she came up with an idea for this next trap after she was bouncing off the wall due to consuming a frightening amount of this wonderful drink. She calls it the Frog Chopper What a silly simian! This trap utilizes the powers of the mystic eraser and also uses ropes as do most of the traps in this chapter.

END EXAMPLE

Well, I guess the layout doesn't look so bad on a computer, but trust me on this, it's confusing. At least it is when you are really tired like I am when I do most of my adventure writing. Also, you have to take into account my wondrously exciting writing ability, which made that example look just that much better.

All in all, this book (if you can find it, I think its out of print right now) is a worthy addition to any GMs library, if not for the traps themselves, buy it for the sheer entertainment value. It truly is funny!

Back to my regular Ashmere stuff…

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Grimtooth's Traps Fore
Author: A whole bunch Category: A book of traps for fantasy RPGs Company/Publisher: Flying Buffalo Inc. Line: Catalyst Series Page count: 70 ISBN: 0-940244-83-7 Capsule Review by Ashmere on 05/15/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Generic	Grimtooth's Traps Fore is simply a book of 101 trap ideas. It is apparently the third in a series of similar books, none of which I have read or even seen aside from the product listing on the company's webpage. It was made to be compatible with all fantasy RPGs and because of this it includes absolutely no game mechanics of any kind. This in my opinion is one of its biggest selling points and was one of the reasons that I chose to purchase it. You see, it was a bright, sunny Saturday morning and I felt the need to spend some cash. Of course I decided to head on over to my local gaming store where I figured I would leave either with a couple of miniatures or perhaps the latest issue of Dragon Magazine. (I feel the need to spend at least a few dollars whenever I visit that store. After all I always wear a hooded sweatshirt and try to very stealthily creep around the store because it has an incredibly noisy wooden floor. I guess I look like some sort of a thief so I choose to at least buy a die when I'm there to set the staffs suspicions at ease. Now I don't where my hood when I'm there and everything seems to be okay... Back to the review!) I browsed around for about half an hour when a friend of mine who plays in a campaign that I run entered the store. He headed for the Star Wars stuff and failed to notice me as I was craftily concealed from his view behind a shelf of Misc. RPG books. I giggled gleefully to myself and silently crept up behind him. I discovered that my mission had been accomplished, he was frightened! I then browsed around the stores wares while chatting with him. He then began to watch a game of Battlefleet Gothic that was taking place and I continued my browsing. Soon I managed to spot a neat looking blue and black book on a shelf of older stuff. I picked it up and noticed a rather humorous picture on the cover. I then proceeded to look through the book. Of course it was Traps Fore, why else would I be mentioning it! It looked interesting and then the situation I was in struck me, I was holding a book of deadly traps in my hand and a player in my campaign was in the store. I giggled gleefully to myself (as that is what my kind do in situations like this) and then silently stepped over to my friend and showed him the book. Oh the look on his face... See how I managed to expand the phrase "this was an impulse buy" into a whole lengthy paragraph? Pretty cool! Physically the book was quite well made. It is only 70 pages so is quite thin, it has nice binding and the cover is nice and glossy so it is fairly well protected against all those caffinated-drink spills that plague giddy gamers. It can also lay relatively flat without damaging the binding which can be quite helpful at times as it removes the necessity to place dice and counters on the pages in an effort to keep the book from closing. The book is organized into five chapters, one for room traps, one for corridor traps, one for door traps, one for item traps, and finally one for things traps (I just used the word one five times in the last sentence. Pretty spiffy!). The chapters are pretty much self explanatory except for the one on things traps which is really just a chapter for traps that didn't fit into any of the other chapters. Each chapter is also preceded by a picture of Grimtooth (some odd looking big-eared, humanoid creature) doing something related to the chapter as well as a short introduction to the chapter. There is about one black and white picture on each page and most of them show the traps in action. They are all quite humorous too, which is something that I quite liked about it. In fact, the whole book is funny… The traps are all very imaginative but most are not all that realistic and are apparently meant for use in dungeon crawls. The danger-level of all the traps is also rated in skulls beside the description. The one thing that I can honestly say that I hated about this book was the layout of the traps. The only way to tell where one trap description ends and another begins is by an extra line before the next paragraph and the title of the next trap in bold somewhere in the first paragraph of the next traps description. My explanation of this sucks so here is an example. BEGIN EXAMPLE The next trap was created by gluesnifficus, he is a sadistic little monkey. He likes to call this trap the Weed Wacker This trap hurts people, it uses ropes and pulleys and other cool stuff like that. When people end up getting caught in this trap, they are generally injured. Do you like kobalds, I do? Lada lada lada lada lada lada lada. The Tea Party is the bestest band in the world, don't you like them? An interesting thing about this trap is that once the PCs get caught in it, there not gonna get out. The players are gonna die! You should watch the Tom Green Show, it's a good show. Real funny. Go to my webpage at www.netmanor.com/tower the counter is pitifully low. Wait till you see how bad the layout of the book is. I can't remember how many cans of lemonade I've had today. Speaking of lemonade, a gal who drinks too much of it for her own good is Little Bow Peep, she came up with an idea for this next trap after she was bouncing off the wall due to consuming a frightening amount of this wonderful drink. She calls it the Frog Chopper What a silly simian! This trap utilizes the powers of the mystic eraser and also uses ropes as do most of the traps in this chapter. END EXAMPLE Well, I guess the layout doesn't look so bad on a computer, but trust me on this, it's confusing. At least it is when you are really tired like I am when I do most of my adventure writing. Also, you have to take into account my wondrously exciting writing ability, which made that example look just that much better. All in all, this book (if you can find it, I think its out of print right now) is a worthy addition to any GMs library, if not for the traps themselves, buy it for the sheer entertainment value. It truly is funny! Back to my regular Ashmere stuff… Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)