I've seen a lot of player built trap camps over the last few months. Usually it's someone trapping another player in a room with no exit and then burning them until they die. That can be funny sometimes but usually there isn't much sport to this. Where is the game? Where is the excitement? If every time you flip the switch you already know the outcome it leaves no suspense… no thrill. A game needs to be winnable. Corpses may burn but nothing burns brighter than the hope of survival. Following this line of thought I tried to think of a new game... to think of the most terrifying, heinous threat someone could encounter in the wild... and as I communed with Satan for a time, it appeared... math problems.

So I built a school. I built a classroom with all the appearances of a school. Lockers, desks, bookshelves and hangers. On the blackboard is written "Page 9 math homework due Monday". In the back of the room is a closed door with a sign above it "tutoring room". Curious wastelanders who investigate the school and enter the room suddenly find the door mechanically locked behind them. The game then begins. They are given time to read all of the text on the walls. The walls explain the rules of the game:

"Keep calm"

"Do math"

"Open door to live"

"230*10+2"

"Use keypad"

Beside the now shut mechanical door is a sign that reads "show your work". The solution to the math problem is the 4-digit keycode for the door. Once the player has read the instructions a switch is thrown and the entire room fills with fire. They are now in a race against time. Solving the math problem and punching in the code will open the door and save them. If they fail they are burned and irradiated until they die. They cannot fast travel away. Locked in the room above is a single bloatfly that keeps them in combat long enough for damage to interrupt fast travel. His name is Charles. Stimpaks and radaway buy time but the only way to survive is to solve the math.

A video of the "Math Camp"

Notes about the camp:

Most players thought this camp was really funny and interesting and many came back to try again if they lost. Anyone who died was allowed to retrieve their gear (and I would accompany them in the room so they knew I was being legit). People were also allowed to solve the math (without the traps) if they lost the first time around so they had a chance to see that it worked (and wasn't a scam). A lot of people died but a lot of people were successful. It took a while of tweaking to make sure players knew what to do once they were in the room, so there is a lot of handmade text and signage. I tried my best to only throw the switch once I felt they had an understanding of the task at hand. By the final build I had a pretty easy-to-understand game created but test results show that many people have trouble doing math when suddenly being burned alive.

I have done a few of these types of camps since I've been playing the game such as the Deathclaw maze and Murder Church. Also, while they're quite common now I may have also been one of the original progenitors of oven traps when I made a Player Oven way back in the day. Since then I've been doing more unorthodox builds (and less malevolent contraptions) but the fascination with tormenting unsuspecting wanderers and vault dwellers never really goes away. Just killing people has become pretty mainstream however and I have liked the idea of making death games over death traps, something I tried recently in a different build where you had a 50% chance of winning or death.

Serious thoughts:

I've spent a lot of time building camps in Fallout 76. I think the C.A.M.P. system is probably the best and possibly most underrated part of the game. The C.A.M.P. system is more than a bed and a place to keep our crafting benches. It's an extension of the player and a way that they can create a story or an event that both interacts with the game world and the players around them. Whenever I build a camp I want it to be something unique that will give other players an experience, whether it be a challenge or something unusual and unexpected. I think in a way what's possible with the C.A.M.P. system is actually truest to the original intent of the game where other players would become the NPCs. I am hoping that with Wastelanders coming in the near future that we're also going to see an expansion of what we can do with our camps and have more options and artistic freedom to make the game world feel more alive.

External link →