Mine do. If you wrote them correctly and placed them right, they should work fine. If you're working with several files and the error log is not giving you any clues, try restoring some or all of them so you can narrow the error down.

If you're trying to implement new traits, I would recommend writing the traits (plus descriptions) first, load the game, check the error log, and see if something went wrong. Remember that you need to delete the .strings.bin file so the game updates it from the .txt you edited. If it works, add the triggers. If that works as well, modify whatever other files you need to (descr_strat.txt if you want to add traits to family members at the start of the game).