I have enjoyed products in the Second Rat Games line before, most notably the excellent Background Noise. However, 100 Deathtraps is a bit of a disappointment.

The product features a d100 chart, and 100 individual traps or situations which could lead to a character's demise. There are no real mechanics to speak of, and some of the deathtraps are not "traps" in the sense one would perhaps initially consider (For example, leaving someone in the middle of the desert to die is one of the presented scenarios).

Ultimately, there's nothing here that couldn't be harvested from a bit of time on a site such as TV Tropes. This would be a good free or 50 cent supplement to get a Game Master's mind going, but is of regrettably only marginal utility at the current $1.99 price.

I can wholeheartedly recommend checking out some of the company's other titles, but this one probably rates a pass, unless a GM is just really stumped for precarious player situations.

If you love putting your players in deathtraps (and what GM doesn't?) but dislike the tedium of actually creating inescapable doom, then 100 Deathtraps by Second Rat Games may be the product for you. All the traps are system and genre neutral containing no magic or super powered components and no MSG. The traps leave enough time for a character to possibly figure their way out to fight another day but all are designed to kill the character and not simply maim them. You can use the traps as an idea book or randomly decide between 100 forms of mental anguish to heap upon your players as their favorite character faces near-certain death.

Now that's what I call a good time.

This fun booklet gives you 100 ideas for death traps, most appropriate for superhero games but also potentially applicable to espionage or other modern genres. Author Erik Dewey provides a random-selection table (d%) if you want to go that route. Don’t expect lots of crunch; there are no statistics here. Personally, I appreciate the systemless nature of the product, because I can adapt these ideas for use in ICONS (the best match for the booklet’s tone), Mutants & Masterminds, or even Star Wars Saga Edition (stretching things a bit). If you prefer plug-and-play supplements, you’ll need to find a supplement statted for your favorite system instead of this one. Even though I like the system neutrality, I would have preferred a bit more crunch, not game system crunch but physics crunch—how much time various countdowns require, temperatures involved in some of the traps, and so on.

I enjoyed reading through this booklet, and plan to keep it near to hand when planning superhero adventures. However, the production values are only moderate. The artwork fits the context perfectly, but isn’t especially attractive. The layout is very bland, which is probably a good thing if you’re planning to print the booklet. There are also a noticeable number of grammatical errors (for example, misspelling “dry cleaner” as one word) and inconsistencies (“deathtrap” in the DTRPG/RPGN product description but “death trap” in the actual product). I’d add another star if the product were spiffier or better proofread.