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Crow
2010-10-06, 03:00 PM
I have a time-focused bard/psion that has put together a little base in some crystal caverns which the PC's will no doubt raid. What I'd like is some sort of time-based puzzle or ordeal which the players can attempt in order to gain access to his domain.

Unfortunately, I am coming up pretty dry in the creativity department right now.

Any ideas?

Sipex
2010-10-06, 03:12 PM
Time based how? Like...manipulate time or time limit?

Crow
2010-10-06, 03:23 PM
Time based how? Like...manipulate time or time limit?

Haha, I have no idea. Something flavorful and dealing with time...I guess manipulating time? Or coordinating timed actions?

Sipex
2010-10-06, 03:27 PM
Haha, I have no idea. Something flavorful and dealing with time...I guess manipulating time? Or coordinating timed actions?

Ok, time themed. I get it..

Well, it's cliche, but something involving a clock is pretty key. Maybe have the clock on a balcony with controls to change the time. Changing the time does stuff (in fact, you could manipulate the entire dungeon around it).

Ohoh, brainstorm.

Okay, map out a timeline of 12 hours (it's easier than 24). Start the time at 12 and go all the way back to 12. Different things happen at different hours opening up different sections of the dungeon or closing off some, setting off traps, reviving monsters, etc. Your PCs can mess with the clock or just wait it through (since the dungeon cycles every 12 hours).

Diarmuid
2010-10-06, 03:30 PM
Do you have a puzzle type preference?

Math
Tony leaves town at 3PM walking 5mph, when will he get blah if it's X miles away? Or something more difficult involving two people and who will be closer to something at a specific time, etc

Riddle
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town
And beats high mountain down.
Answer: Time

Sipex
2010-10-06, 03:34 PM
Some ideas:

A patrol passes through a set path. The patrol is 'insert ridiculously hard monster here'. The patrol makes it's rounds every...15 minutes and there are hazards that the PCs can time properly to take it out (ie: a cave in which happens at exactly 3:30, when the patrol is out of harms reach).

Radar
2010-10-06, 03:54 PM
I don't have much time to think up something elaborate, but here are some good time-based games, that might give you some neat ideas:
Chronon (http://www.eyezmaze.com/chronon/v0/index.html)
Chronotron (http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron?acomplete=chro)

Jarian
2010-10-06, 04:02 PM
Okay, map out a timeline of 12 hours (it's easier than 24). Start the time at 12 and go all the way back to 12. Different things happen at different hours opening up different sections of the dungeon or closing off some, setting off traps, reviving monsters, etc. Your PCs can mess with the clock or just wait it through (since the dungeon cycles every 12 hours).

To make the concept easy for PC's to grasp, have the hour hand pointing to whatever indicates the room they're in, and the minute hand about to change minutes. When they get close enough to investigate the clock, give them a description of how the clock makes an audible click as the minute hand shifts, and (insert something minor but visually memorable here) happens to their room. Describe how the clock face bears the marks of several smeared fingerprints.

If they fiddle with the minute hand, continue to have minor things happen to their current room. If they fiddle with the hour hand, regardless of which way they turn it, have something obvious happen in the next room. (Loud grinding noise if it's not in view/through a door or something). They should catch on pretty quick.

Grynning
2010-10-06, 04:02 PM
There's a Call of Cthulhu adventure, the Paradise Theatre, that involves some time travel antics. My GM ran it and basically the party kept getting transported to different parts of a day, not necessarily experiencing things in order. We didn't even realize what was going on at first; NPC's would we hadn't met would react as if they'd met us, or ones we had met would introduce themselves, things would be in various stages of completion, etc. Doing something like that can be complicated but can be really fun and mess with the players' heads if done well. One guy from our group managed to get three free meals out of it though - he kept landing at around lunchtime and ended up eating the same sandwich 3 times :smalltongue:

Thrawn4
2010-10-06, 04:02 PM
How about a task that has to be solved in time, e. g. a showjumping course? Or a trap that requires the right timing to escape it.

Another riddle about time: What is always wasted despite the fact that you never have enough?

Lapak
2010-10-06, 04:06 PM
Hmm. Not my best idea, but it might get other people's brains going:

There is a maze between the entrance and the time-guy. Three great, impenetrable gates control access to the center: one at the very entrance, one halfway through the maze, and one at the center.

These gates are controlled by three levers in the entrance chamber. Each lever controls one gate; flip that lever and the corresponding gate opens. Only one lever can be in the 'Open' position at a time...

...but the gate in question remains open for exactly as long as its lever was in the 'Open' position, starting after you switch the lever back. So if you open the Entrance Gate by toggling Lever A, and leave Lever A that way for an hour, the Entrance Gate will stay open for an hour even after you switch lever A back.

The solution, therefore, is:
1. Open the Final Gate lever, leave it open for long enough to traverse the maze AFTER doing steps 2 and 3. Close that lever.
2. Open the Middle Gate lever, leave it open long enough to get past the middle of the maze.
3. Open the Entrance Gate lever, and hoof it!

The gates should, naturally, always open from the other side and let people back out again. If this feels too obscure, the opening and closing gates should make enough noise to be heard throughout the complex, so they can figure out what's going on.

Kaww
2010-10-06, 04:10 PM
Do you have a puzzle type preference?

Math
Tony leaves town at 3PM walking 5mph, when will he get blah if it's X miles away? Or something more difficult involving two people and who will be closer to something at a specific time, etc

Riddle
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town
And beats high mountain down.
Answer: Time

These are really tough. I shall use them, when I play with my five year old kids... :smalltongue:

My .02$:

If you want to make a really weird session make your players travel back and forth through time. Future versions try to stop them from doing what they will do (example: activate a trap that will kill some of them), and thus they wont do it... Make a killer dungeon that has a bunch of easy to avoid traps/monsters. Have fun and from time to time tell them that they meet themselves butchered/mutulated...

Diarmuid
2010-10-06, 07:06 PM
Pardon me for not challenging your staggering intellect enough. I at least tried to come up with a puzzle like the OP requested rather than simply describing a scenario of gratuitous bloodshed.

Kurald Galain
2010-10-06, 07:14 PM
A classic time-based puzzle.

The party enters a room, and the doorways slide shut with some kind of heavy impregnable metal. There is a variety of things in the room, and a button, and a counter that starts at thirty. The counter counts down. Whenever the button is pressed (which requires an easy strength) check, it resets the counter.

Watch the party panic for awhile until they realize that when the counter hits zero, the doors open.

AugustNights
2010-10-07, 11:35 AM
Freeze Tag.
Heavy combat room, with a terrible loud ticking.
The Doors only open every 10 minutes, and in the mean time, spirits/constructs/astral constructs/mooks of whatever sort pour in.

After the first 10 rounds, one of the players freezes, completely suspended they cannot even observe. (Upside, they suffer no damage, and do not age.) After 10 rounds, someone else freezes, as the other player unfreezes. This could be at random.


'Correct the Clock' puzzle.
Room with odd and strange markings on the floor. Only source of light is a hole in the ceiling. There is a clock on the wall, that does not move.

Trick: Markings on floor are based on the time of year, and time of day. Like a sundial. Decipher script, knowledge nature, maybe even knowledge architecture and engineering can help out here.

'Only at Noon' treasure room.
A Door that is either tied to a shifting chamber, or is magically tied to different rooms, so that based on when the door is opened a different room is behind it.