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I hate death traps with a passion and they are one of the primary reasons I never play DIKU muds.
As a person if I am wondering along and I see a big cliff then I don't jump off it and go splat. Why should my character be any different?
On zeb we allow traps, just not death traps. The difference? Traps have warnings - ways to escape, possibly limitted damage, etc.
For example in one area there is a 'knife edge ridge' where you are balanced precariously at the top of the mountain being blown around by the wind. If you stay there for more than a few seconds you get a warning message that you are being blown around and barely keep your balance. After that your stats get checked and you keep trying to keep your balance. If you fail then you are blown off the ridge and fall - which does significent damage (so could kill you if you are injured) and you end up at the bottom of the cliff.
Another example might be a trapped lock - if you try to pick the lock you have a chance to get jabbed by a poison needle. The poison would do damage over time rather than instantly killing you so you can find a cleric to neutralize the poison or try to get healed enough to survive.
I can't list many other possible 'traps' since then it gives anyone reading this unfair warning - but anyone who has been ambushed by 8 trolls while another two stand on top of the hill throwing boulders at them can tell you that:
1: It hurts.
2: It really hurts.
3: It's possible to survive/escape.
4: If you paid attention you could have ambushed the trolls instead.
(In fact some of our more powerful characters have been known to deliberately let the trolls ambush them - just for the fun of a hard fight).
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