Throw hazards into your combats to make fights more interesting,
regardless of game systm or genre. Dungeons and Dragons, for
example, has always promoted dungeon masters using traps and
difficult terrain, though in the latest edition there seems to
be more urgency for doing this. To start this series off, I’d
like to provide a working definition of what a hazard is. The
word hazard can be a loaded keyword for your game, so it’s best
not to make any assumptions about what we’re talking about. A
hazard is a combat element, other than the PCs and their foes,
that brings danger, risk, or difficulty to the fight. Examples
might be quicksand, a witch’s boiling cauldron, or acid rain. A
hazard can be harmful or just add an element of risk. It doesn’t
have to injure, for example, like a lava pool could. A hazard
might simply be deep snow that slows movement and makes
combatants less nimble. It’s important when designing hazards or
dropping them into your games that there be some added gameplay
value. The mountains 1