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[Gatleos]

You see, the trouble with executing goblins en masse is that, the moment a dwarf stops dragging a goblin prisoner by his nose and actually gets around to throwing him into a pit, any nearby dwarves are immediately scared shitless by the free-roaming goblin, even though he's totally harmless down in that pit he was just thrown into. This can get annoying when you're trying to design a successful deathtrap, so I've been trying to find a way around this for a while now. The only partially successful design I've come up with so far looks something like this:

=====
+#^D    Trap Room
=====

= Wall
+ Floor
# Floor Hatch
^ Pressure Plate
D Door

Goblins are dropped onto the floor on the left from the z-level above, move to the right, and step on the pressure plate, which opens the floor hatch. I used the one-way floor idea originally suggested here to make sure that goblins can't move back the other way once they move to the right. To the right of this hall would be the actual trap room, with an animal chained behind a fortification to lure them in. It's obviously not perfect since there are still places the goblins can stand to prop the door open or avoid the trap room, not to mention fall into the pit under the floor hatch. Still, it assures that dwarves won't be scared off by recently pitted goblins.

...My design sucks. I didn't just come here to show it off, I want to hear your ideas on the subject. How do you design your traps to avoid spooking your dwarves with previously pitted goblins?

[ISGC]

I usually just pump magma into my animal stockpile and destroy everything, but if I were to keep the cages, I would probably wait for an armed caravan to come by and put the animal stockpile next to the depot.  Then, if you assign all the goblins to the depot (under pets, not cages), they will be released and systematically slaughtered with only the dwarf releasing them risking their neck.  You can also get your guys in there for some practice, if you want.
If you don't want/have a sufficiently armed caravan to sacrifice, there is also the labor intensive method of building all the cages and then baiting a hallway with a kitten or something, then capture them in there.  Once you begin to run out of space for hallways filled with goblins (as you will have many after several applications of this process), release them into caverns or onto elves or magma or something.  Prepare for your fps to drop like a lead balloon, though.

[Gnauga]

Just move your pitting area far away from your main fort.

[Gatleos]

Just move your pitting area far away from your main fort.

The problem isn't that my whole fort runs away from them, but that the dwarves hauling goblins to the pit are scared off. The first one works just fine, but every dwarf after that sees the first goblin in the pit and runs off. They HAVE to approach the pit,and they always see the goblins down there and freak out.

[Gnauga]

Just move your pitting area far away from your main fort.

The problem isn't that my whole fort runs away from them, but that the dwarves hauling goblins to the pit are scared off. The first one works just fine, but every dwarf after that sees the first goblin in the pit and runs off. They HAVE to approach the pit,and they always see the goblins down there and freak out.

A deeper pit or a taller place from which to drop them. Unless you've already tried those? I'm sorry if this sounds condescending; I tend to try to avoid over-engineering things.

[dogstile]

Construct the cages in your pit, make em lever operated, pull the lever.

Doesn't even hurt the gobbos, so you can have deathmatch's down there.

[mrtspence]

The trick is to have only a 1-wide, and fairly deep dropping area so that they can not draw LoS to the falling gobbo. The path leading up to it should also be narrow and winding to minimize LoS possibility.

[AngleWyrm]

I've built a three-story pit that worked, but it takes a bit of labor to pit a creature.

The first level is just a room with a pit in the middle.
The second level is a large retracting drawbridge.
the third level is the actual pit floor.

At the top, outside the pit room, there's a lever for activating the bridge.

Pit a creature with the bridge in place, then pull the lever, dropping the creature down into the pit, then pull the lever hiding the pitted creatures from view, and making ready for the next pit drop.

[Skivverus]

My current fort has a pit deliberately made for murdering dealing with prisoners; each level consists of an up/down staircase, a floor tile (not yet smoothed), and the open space of the pit.

At the bottom of the pit (the first cavern level, about fifteen z-levels), there are ten upright iron spikes. I am not entirely sure whether it is the fall or the spikes that cause the prisoners invariably to explode (though I suspect it is the former).

[Grimlocke]

Or you could just overengineer away, for example, like this:

############
#########g 
###gFDPcF ##
#########D##
##        ##
############

#=wall, F=fortification, D=door, P=pressure plate, g=goblin, c=fluffy kitten

It would work like this:
-goblin 1 is thrown in at the top right.
-it gets stuck on top of the door, and spooks the cat.
-the cat runs away to the pressure plate, opening both doors.
-goblin 1 falls through the now open door, and the cat is spooked by goblin 2, causing it to run off the plate.
-The doors close, resetting the system.

Occasionaly the cat may walk around on its own, setting off the cycle without any goblins to drop. Replacing the cat with an annimal that mills around less might solve this to some extent.

You can make that floating door by constucing a wall below it, building the door on top of it, and removing the wall.

I suppose you could add another pressure plate and a door at the entrace to prevent dwarves from entering while another dwarf is throwing in a goblin, but im not realy sure what happens when a dwarf with a goblin by the ear does when he smacks into a closed door.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

Guys don't you relise that the best way to deal with captured goblins is just to use them as target practice/mincemeat practice for you dwarves?

[Alastar]

I'm slightly disappointed by the subject matter.

Originally, I read it as in 'pitting dates' and thought the OP had found an amusing way to remove their skeleton while leaving the rest reasonably intact...

[RavingManiac]

My proposal:

#######
# . DDDDD
#######

# = wall   . = pit    D = door

[arzzult]

I just put a hatch cover over my pits since I only make them 1 tile wide and the hatch cover blocks line of sight while still allowing creatures to be tossed into the pit.