Good Puzzles You've Encountered

[Solaris]

I've DMed for a while now, but while I have plenty of expertise in designing fighty-type stuff and talky-type stuff, thinky-type stuff is... well, not so much my area of expertise. I'm rather interested in expanding my repertoire, especially now that I'm getting into writing dungeon crawl adventures and things do get a bit boring if you stick to just having them kill various monsters.

What are some good, interesting, and clever puzzles you've run across in games, both tabletop and video?

[Cealocanth]

I'm surprised. Usually people jump all over this type of thread.

A few years ago I ran a campaign in which the world was medieval and magical but in the distant, distant past there was a highly advanced technological civilization which left behind many remnants, most of which the new civilization built over or somehow incorporated into their lives. The example I used in this case was a large stone pyramid - Aztec style- which was built over a much older ancient temple designed to hold a highly dangerous weapon that the BBEG was trying to unleash upon the world. (Yes, I know how cliche this all is. It didn't seem so at the time.)

The temple was based around combats blended with puzzles. I favored the ones which were simple in solution, so it was clear what needed to be done, but difficult in execution. One of my favorites took place like this: The players enter a large room with a tiled floor, lit only by torch scones on the walls, which are made of smooth and relatively blemish free stone. On the far wall, from the entrance, stand eight tall stone statues, each depicting a slightly different version of a heavily armored valkyrie-like woman wielding a two-handed weapon. At first the room seems quiet, but when one player crosses the center of the room (or if that doesn't happen, find another reason to set it off) a pressure plate will compress and start the mechanism. The door to the room will seal, trapping the players within, and the eight statues will animate, beginning to move in a remarkably lifelike fashion. They ready their weapons and attack the players with an uncanny resemblance to actual soldier tactics, suggesting a highly complex AI system, due to the lack of magical auras in the area. With successful percption checks (in the event of failure, reveal this anyway through some carving on the wall or something), the players will notice a few peculiarities. The first one is that the statues will always move in straight lines if a viable opponent can be reached by doing so. The second one is that alternating tiles on the floor are made out of two different types of stone, specifically arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The third is that when a statue is a straight line from another one, the eyes glow a very faint red color.The goal is to not die by somehow shutting down the statues.

The first hint will be given if the players don't seem to get the puzzle. After 2 rounds (I had a big group. This is about an hour of gaming.) the statues will suddenly appear to change their strategy, moving only in straight lines and attacking the players. When they deal damage to a player, the player will suddenly feel themselves teleported to the edge of the room, and the statue will announce in the Ancient tongue (the spellcaster spoke it, so that wasn't a problem) the phrase "queen takes pawn."

This is a variant of the common eight queens on a chessboard problem. The players must maneuver themselves in such a way that the enemy 'queens' will move into positions in which they do not threaten each other. If a smart player can figure this out, then the queens will shut down when they have reached a position which satisfies this.

Of course, if the players cannot figure this out, then the battle will play out until someone does something clever, uses a skill such as Thievery to dismantle the statues, or beats the ever-living snot out of the statues to the point that they are simply reduced to rubble. Acid could work too, as that tends to do a lot of structural damage. These are only worst case scenario solutions.

The group did eventually figure it out, though it did take a lot of coaxing on my part. If your group is more mental inclined, they will probably figure it out without the hints. If they are more combat-oriented like mine, then they will require hints to do so. The key is to scale difficulty in order to make the puzzle a reasonable challenge, but not unreasonably hard, and not too easy. After all, I want the party to see the rest of the dungeon, just like they do. (I'm a softer DM that way. You can make your own decisions.)

The second puzzle:

Before the players lies a tall room with elaborate star charts painted upon the walls and ceiling. The roof is domed, and hanging from it is an enormous orrery, the Copernican model, depicting the sun, moon, and the Earth (the campaign was taking place in a far future post-apocalyptic Earth, so this is appropriate. In your campaign, you might want to use the appropriate celestial model.) In the center of the room was a stone console with three multicolored crystals embedded in a line from right to left. The players will discover that if they touch the left crystal, the orrery will move at a rapid speed in the direction opposite of normal time flow. The right crystal moves the orrery forward rapidly in contrast. The center crystal activates the device.

When the center crystal is touched, or the game is getting boring because the players are fumbling around doing nothing, they will notice the patterns on the walls shift suddenly. With no apparent projector, the walls will first glow bright red, and the light will appear to coalesce on one side of the room into a semi-angelic fire elemental. Then the walls will glow bright white, and the light will coalesce into a semi-angelic elemental of silvery light. They will soon discover that both of these creatures are quite formidable (solo monsters). The players can simply attack the elementals, but a curious player will see what the orrery has to do with it all. They will discover that on the underside of the console is written, probably by someone who had been here in the past, the phrase "the shadows consume all."

When the orrery is moved precisely to mimic the effects of a solar eclipse, the sun elemental will weaken significantly, and by contrast, the moon elemental will strengthen. When it is moved to mimic a lunar eclipse, the moon elemental will weaken and the sun elemental will strengthen. The orrery must be set one way, and while the strong elemental is tanked or controlled the strikers can kill the weakened one. Then the other way must be set, as to allow the killing of the remaining elemental. When both of them are slain, they will drop some themed magic items, and the pathway to the next room will open.

There were other puzzles I have tried in the past, but these two are the only ones which did anything but annoy the players. I hope this helps you with your escapades in puzzles in RPG dungeons!

[Frenth Alunril]

I just left my last game off with a Scytale cipher. I have received a series of emails about it. The players are having fun!

Keep puzzles simple, so they're reducible, and the players will he fine. Put them on the safe side of a door that is trapped on the other side, with levers that disarm the trap, they will go insane.

[Jormengand]

A room with nothing but a lever and a projector, which projects onto the back wall. Pulling the lever causes the timer to start going down from five minutes. Pulling the lever again re-sets it to five minutes. Making the room vaguely interesting helps; the solution is just to let the counter go down to zero and the door opens.

A demon that doesn't do anything unless attacked, in which case it attacks the same people in the same ways using their own attack bonuses. The demon can't actually be killed and is immune to everything, but you can just walk past it.

(Requires no fly or feather fall, or add strong winds to make the former impossible.) A pit. There are a few notches in the wall, some ledges, a rough wall, and so forth, but you can get about halfway across before it becomes impossible to go further. Jumping into the pit isn't fatal, and is necessary to proceed. Actually crossing the pit successfully is not meant to be possible, but success results in minor bonus treasure.

Then, there's the tesseract. (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?78915-Piratecat-s-dungeon-design-fun-with-tesseracts!) Goddammit, tesseract.

[goto124]

. Actually crossing the pit successfully is not meant to be possible, but success results in minor bonus treasure.


DM: You finally made it across the pit, walk on, and reach a dead end with a treasure chest.
P4 picks the lock, loots some gold and magical items, then searches the place.
P4 rolls a natural 20.
DM: You find nothing. Maybe you should join your friends who've gone down the pit...

[Amphetryon]

To me, 'good puzzles' would be ones that are solved by the characters, not the players, through a mechanic more complicated than 'I rolled well on this check.' With that as my metric, I've yet to see a puzzle that qualified as 'good' in an RPG.

[JellyPooga]

To me, 'good puzzles' would be ones that are solved by the characters, not the players, through a mechanic more complicated than 'I rolled well on this check.' With that as my metric, I've yet to see a puzzle that qualified as 'good' in an RPG.

This has always been the problem with puzzles for me as well. Most puzzles I've actually encountered in a game have been put upon the players to solve (and often require some insight the GM considers "really obvious", but is actually "completely obscure" to the players in question), which is at total odds to the expectations of an RPG; I'm not expected to be good at sword-fighting to be a Fighter, but I'm expected to be a puzzle-solver if I want to play a character who is? It's the same argument as for social characters being played by socially inept players.

So with this in mind, the best kind of puzzles (to my mind) would be those that involve more than a simple Disable Device or Intelligence check or what-have-you, but rather an extended series of deductions and/or actions. For Example: X+Y+Z=Hooray! Where X is finding the right item, Y is passing the check to recognise its use and Z is using it in the right way. Probably the most common and simple example of this would be; researching/knowing the [monster] (Y) to discover it can only be hurt by [weapon] (X), then getting and giving to the Fighter the [weapon] to actually kill the [monster] (Z).

The formula can be extended and complicated, though, to suit the capabilities of the PCs and the desired theme of the "puzzle". Taken to the extreme, this kind of "puzzle" is a full-blown campaign!

[Bhaskara]

Give them a door that needs the correct combo put in (either give them hints/riddles beforehand or allow disable device to reveal the correct numbers). To represent this give them three dice. They can turn and change faces of any of the dice. However, moving the first moves the second in the same manner, moving the second moves the third and the third affects the first.

I found d6s work best but you can go higher or lower. You can also increase the number of dice.

[JellyPooga]

The old Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone are a pretty good (if oft-times weird) source for traps and puzzles, if you can look them out. 2nd-hand book stores and charity shops can be a good source of these, if you don't have any yourself.

[Garimeth]

To me, 'good puzzles' would be ones that are solved by the characters, not the players, through a mechanic more complicated than 'I rolled well on this check.' With that as my metric, I've yet to see a puzzle that qualified as 'good' in an RPG.

Did you see the above 8 queens example?

OT:
I did one that I thought was not that great, more a mechanic than a puzzle, but my players really enjoyed it and still talk about it.

In an underwater ice ruin for Darfellan burial, whale people from Stormwrack in 3.5e, they had to find the MacGuffin. The place was completely dark other than a blowing blue brazier at the start of the dungeon. There were more braziers throughout the dungeon prominently in the middle of rooms on a slightly raised platform. Torches they lit went out immediately and even characters with darkvision could not see more than 10 feet. I described the darkness as being oppressive, almost as though it was pushing in on them. Even magical light was reduced to 1/4 effectiveness, but the light from this brazier stayed lit, and seemed normal, other than the light it gave off being a pale blue. Next to the brazier, the one at the entrance, is an ornately carved torch made of whale bone.

If they walk out of the light they hear the indiscernible whispering of several voices and start immediately taking damage, not a lot but not an insignificant amount and there is no attack roll or save - it hits automatically. When they return to the light they have cuts all over them as if from many razors or knives. If they lit the whale bone torch, it alighted with the blue flame, but only for a short period of time - like a round or two. While it was lit any in the light could not be harmed by the darkness, but as soon as it went out the attacks started. Basically they had to figure out ways to determine where the next brazier was and how they could get to it safely in time to light it before the torch went out.

The dungeon quickly became all about exploration and movement speed, and it put a time limit on any encounter involving combat, which made them feel rushed and tense. To get the macguffin, they had to get some other macguffins in the dungeon to open the door. They get to the last door and when they open it they see decades or centuries old frozen blood stains and an ice mummified darfellan whose body is covered in cuts. He is clutching a note that warns against opening the next door, in which resides a Terrible Evil that his brother died helping him seal away. He warns the reader to stay away and not look in the mirror, as it may free what is trapped there. The Macgoffuin is in that room however so they open it, after going down the hallway that is covered in blood and drag marks. When they open it They see the Macguffin next to another mummified corpse whose body apparently died with a look of abject terror. In the center of the room is a mirror facing away from the entrance. They begin hearing the whispers despite being in the blue light of a brazier in the room, and this time the whispers can clearly be heard telling them too look into the mirror. They have to make fear saves not to flee. The paladin wants to look at the mirror, but in the end they chickened out and fled, which was a good call.

Anyway not really a "puzzle" but an interesting condition with an intellectual solution that changed the tone of the whole dungeon. They still talk about that dungeon, and ask me what was in the mirror, and its been like 2 years.

[JellyPooga]

Did you see the above 8 queens example?

I did and this;


This is a variant of the common eight queens on a chessboard problem.

is rather the problem I have with it. I'm not saying the puzzle wasn't well thought out; it clearly was and perhaps it was an appropriate puzzle for the players in question. The issue I have is that unless the players are familiar with the 8-queens Chess problem, then the puzzle isn't a puzzle at all and is, instead, just a combat encounter. A hard one at that, if I've inferred correctly from the writing style, as "punishment", almost, for the players being unfamiliar with chess problems.

[Garimeth]

I did and this;



is rather the problem I have with it. I'm not saying the puzzle wasn't well thought out; it clearly was and perhaps it was an appropriate puzzle for the players in question. The issue I have is that unless the players are familiar with the 8-queens Chess problem, then the puzzle isn't a puzzle at all and is, instead, just a combat encounter. A hard one at that, if I've inferred correctly from the writing style, as "punishment", almost, for the players being unfamiliar with chess problems.

Fair point, though I think you could make up for the lack of chess knowledge through some kind of riddle that explains that the statues can only move in straight lines. Strikes me as a better puzzle in Zelda than a TTRPG, but still cool.

I think to make a great TTRPG puzzle, and make it not mechanical in nature, you really have to make it a riddle.

[Jay R]

To me, 'good puzzles' would be ones that are solved by the characters, not the players, through a mechanic more complicated than 'I rolled well on this check.' With that as my metric, I've yet to see a puzzle that qualified as 'good' in an RPG.

This is one of the reasons that there is no way to find the perfect puzzle. To me, "good puzzles" are puzzles that are fun for the players, not the characters, and therefore the players need to find the solutions. Any solution the players didn't find is a die roll.

[Solaris]

-Snip-

I really like the orrery one - I'll have to steal it. I'm even writing up a dungeon in the ruins of the temple to a dead sun god, too - it'll be perfect for that.


The old Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone are a pretty good (if oft-times weird) source for traps and puzzles, if you can look them out. 2nd-hand book stores and charity shops can be a good source of these, if you don't have any yourself.

I'll look into 'em. Any good examples from them?


To me, 'good puzzles' would be ones that are solved by the characters, not the players, through a mechanic more complicated than 'I rolled well on this check.' With that as my metric, I've yet to see a puzzle that qualified as 'good' in an RPG.

While I'm okay with a character's abilities playing a role (a Wisdom check or Knowledge [the planes] check for that excellent orrery one, for example), I really don't like a roll being the go-to for solving a puzzle. If I'm going to do that, I might as well just put in a bunch of traps or locks.
That said, it seems wise to have a dice-centered backup in case the characters get stumped - if nothing else, smashing right on through it.

My reasoning is completely metagame. To my mind, RPG dungeon crawls are about being cunning and clever in coming up with solutions to problems. Sure, you can just throw barbarians and spells at monsters to make them die, but most of the time those encounters are completely forgettable. If everything in the dungeon crawl is solved with die rolls, it gets to be boring. An intellectual challenge changes things up a bit.

[Benthesquid]

I had a certain amount of success with a very short puzzle door dungeon about a year back. The first door was a Knights and Knaves problem- your basic "One guardian lies, the other tells the truth," with the slight complication that they were statues, so the party didn't get to ask a question- they relied on inscriptions below the statues.

The next had large stone cubes with varying numbers of pips inscribed on them. After an early attempt to roll them, the party realized that all but one of them could be slotted into the door, and that only one had a non-prime number of pips.

The last door wasn't really a puzzle- it required a disable device check, but touching it triggered an attack from a pile of animate objects- most of the party had to hold off the attackers long enough for the rogue to get the door open.

(There was also a mudman placed in between two of the doors- the overall justification was that the whole set up was a test by Contemplatives- they were gathering data on a number of factors, including the party's combat ability and problem solving skills- the final test being offering them treasure not easily divisible among the number of party members).

[Amphetryon]

While I'm okay with a character's abilities playing a role (a Wisdom check or Knowledge [the planes] check for that excellent orrery one, for example), I really don't like a roll being the go-to for solving a puzzle. If I'm going to do that, I might as well just put in a bunch of traps or locks.
That said, it seems wise to have a dice-centered backup in case the characters get stumped - if nothing else, smashing right on through it.

My reasoning is completely metagame. To my mind, RPG dungeon crawls are about being cunning and clever in coming up with solutions to problems. Sure, you can just throw barbarians and spells at monsters to make them die, but most of the time those encounters are completely forgettable. If everything in the dungeon crawl is solved with die rolls, it gets to be boring. An intellectual challenge changes things up a bit.
The issue I have with puzzles, in general, is also completely metagame. Without some mechanic in place more complicated than a die roll, puzzles are about the cleverness of the players, not the cleverness of the characters. I've seen more than one table where the guy who has the keenest mind for puzzle-solving is the one who enjoys roleplaying as the 'Hulk SMASH!' archetype, while the person playing the CHARACTER best suited for puzzles - whether through an intellectual aspect of the character or dexterous aspect of the character - is not one to whom such challenges are naturally easy. It is extremely difficult to maintain any sort of immersion when Big Dumb Ork is the one who consistently has to put forward the ideas on how to bypass puzzles, while Zartak the Great and Wise sits there, flummoxed.

[Tarvus]

I've got to agree with the others; puzzles are often just DM approved metagame for the reasons Amphetryon covered perfectly.

But with the right planning and players they don't always feel like it - I've found if you provide enough options and allow for basically any character to present a solution with its own pros and cons, its no different and no less metagaming than letting them decide how best to use their characters in combat. After all, really making any decision in the game has some about of Metagame because you have to deal with game mechanics at some point.

Theres only one real puzzle I've actually used. It was in a self-made dungeon I use between arcs, but I've run it with a couple of different groups and its always gone down well. All three groups solved it differently too. This particular trap/puzzle lets them

Skill check part or all of it (Rogues, parts are for casters)
Fight it either simply or tactically (Anyone really)
Solve it with magic actively or defensively (Most casters)
Or just tank the damage. (Anyone)


While exploring a wizard's tomb, you come into a room with a statue of a wizard. The previous room always had a trap that summoned medium difficulty monsters for the party. In the room with this statue, open ended tubes hung from the ceiling and ran to the surface. Sounds of the nearby rushing water could be heard through them as a background hum, the first outside sound in the otherwise deathly quiet tomb. The statue of the wizard whose tomb it is stands on a pedestal. One hand holding a glass rod and outstretched as if casting a spell (allowing a spellcraft check to identify the pose and material component as casting Lightning Bolt) and in the other hand, in a clenched fist, a copper key to get out the big copper door across the room from the entrance. There are several locks on the door and they are at a very difficult but not impossible DCs. Engraved on the statue is:

"Project my name and my hold is broken"

An easy int or history check or just me telling them (and common sense from the players) says that if its a traditional riddle, the answer is silence.
Thats too obvious. The second trap is saying the *Wizard's* name. In fact saying anything in the room causes the statue to zap you with an electric shock - enough to hurt, but not be a risk unless it happens several times. Every loud sound you make does the same thing. The statue itself crackles with electricity and that background crackle surges just before every strike. Due to this you get a lesser shock when you touch the statue even when nobody is making additional noise. The locks on the door are old and noisy, don't beat the check by enough and every pin you drop (or fail to drop) makes a large thud, drawing a shock because you're standing between the statue and the lock.

The "main" solution is to make the room completely silent. You can do this by casting silence on the statue, or plugging up the pipes bringing in noise of outside. The background hum is creating the static charge on the statue and without it you can grab the key safely. But you can also just smash the statue and have the strongest tank the damage that will be released when that happens. Or you could magically protect yourself*. Or remain quiet while attempting to pick the lock. Or conversely make lots of noise to draw fire while the rogue picks the lock, or bring in monsters from the spawn trap in the room before to draw the fire. You could cast a spell without verbal components to blow through the door safely. Or conversely throw something at the big copper door so IT gets blown away when it rings like a gong. The one nobodies thought of in-game though is to flood the room with the source of the rushing water and shorting the statue.

*These were all at relatively low level so this solution is more costly - there was a charged magic item that could let them do so but it had other valuable uses so this was a big decision. Cost/benefit analysis.

In the end, it was basically no different to a combat encounter with a creature with immunities. Variable and dependent on character build and quick thinking, just happens the opponent never moved and only cast one spell :smallbiggrin:

[Jay R]

The issue I have with puzzles, in general, is also completely metagame. Without some mechanic in place more complicated than a die roll, puzzles are about the cleverness of the players, not the cleverness of the characters.

Of course. Just like designing a character build, planning a battle strategy, deciding who to approach and who to avoid, and every other non-trivial decision in the process that is playing the game.

[Amphetryon]

Of course. Just like designing a character build, planning a battle strategy, deciding who to approach and who to avoid, and every other non-trivial decision in the process that is playing the game.

I'm going to simply disagree that every other non-trivial decision in the game is equivalent to solving puzzles. For starters, the 'Hulk SMASH!' character can happily charge across the battlefield with some degree of success (varies by game and setting), without taking a whole lot of time to think or strategize about it.

[Invader]

My all time favorite puzzle:

The PCs enter a room with only one other heavy sliding pocket metal door (detects as magic) with markings leading out the other side. In the center of the room is an altar/pedestal/etc. with random mcguffins on it that all detect as magic. There are alcoves or ledges or pillars whatever spread throughout the room and various random markings or sigils on those or the walls that also detect as magic.

The puzzle is that nothing in the room actually does anything. The entire room is a magical red herring and the door has been unlocked the whole time. PCs never just try to open the door because they always assume there's something sneaky going on.

I also have a small 3d puzzle of a chest that I've been dying to use. I have a lot of ideas for that too.

[Tarvus]

Of course. Just like designing a character build, planning a battle strategy, deciding who to approach and who to avoid, and every other non-trivial decision in the process that is playing the game.


I'm going to simply disagree that every other non-trivial decision in the game is equivalent to solving puzzles. For starters, the 'Hulk SMASH!' character can happily charge across the battlefield with some degree of success (varies by game and setting), without taking a whole lot of time to think or strategize about it.

The metagame is a continuum, at some point you make a concession about where player avatar becomes character. Opinions differ as to where this is.
Would it be metagame to choose sonic spells because generally few monsters resist them? Or is that just common sense like knowing coating my weapon in alchemist fire will do extra damage because fire. If put in a situation with a creature of unknown immunities or regeneration, what's deemed acceptable approach? Deciding to start with fire if its regenerating is obvious if you're metagaming but fire is also an easy thing to get with torches and lantern oil easily available and would definitely occur to an INT18 character looking for options when his sword does nothing.

The discussion is nigh-impossible to reach consensus on and threads regarding Puzzles usually play out the same way, devolving into discussion on what level of mechanic analysis constitutes metagaming if any. Rather than diverge further off topic maybe its best to suggest situations where you get a balance between sides? Satisfy the puzzlers without upsetting those that want to stay in character.

Like would you say my situation above provide enough of a puzzle without relying on metagame knowledge to solve? Why/why not? How would you make it less metagamey? Got any similar situations someone wanting the classic adventure riddle theme can use without sacrificing RP?

[Socratov]

To me, 'good puzzles' would be ones that are solved by the characters, not the players, through a mechanic more complicated than 'I rolled well on this check.' With that as my metric, I've yet to see a puzzle that qualified as 'good' in an RPG.
I don't fully agree. puzzles are designed for the players, challenges - solved by skills- are designed for the characters.

People often treat mental scores on their sheet as a bar, meaning that if a certain score is at X, that means you can't solve things aimed at X+Y. Which I think is a false assumption.

Suppose you design a puzzle for the players, who happen to be a group of excellent roleplayers, playing their characters to a T, it might happen that the person(s) playing the intelligent character(s) are stumped. Now remember 2 things: 1 - you, as the DM can give hints by letting people roll intelligence rolls (as in the ability check), 2- even the dumbest character can have a moment of brilliance. Oddly enough you see it often in comedy: The Gamers, Dorkness Rising had the wizard out lift the barbarian, and who can remember any time Edmund Blackadder has used part or the whole of Baldrick's plans. Not to mention the Pinky and the Brain, though some (and I am part of that group) think it's supposed to be Pinky who's the smart one (but that's besides the point). Just the fact that the intellignet player (let's say a rocketscientist) is playing the Hulk Smash! character, doesn't mean that Hulk Smash can't suddenly have a moment of brilliance and solve the puzzle. Just make sure he isn't the one to solve it every time. Besides, if a puzzle is gurding a door or something, then it's not unheard of for the answer to be (in part) common knowledge, but applied in a different way then one would think. I think the quintessential elegant example is the riddle of Moria: "Speak friend, and enter", where the Elvish word for Friend is the password to open the door. Assuming Elvish isn't an unheard of language, but the fellowship was initially stumped because they were looking for the password, while it was staring them in the face the whole time. And it wasn't any of the elvish speakers who solved the riddle, it was Frodo. I think that a well designed riddle should be susceptible to overthinking. Why not have a sweetspot for intelligence roll where overshooting it stumps you even harder? I think that with using the control of information you as a DM can craft a nice riddle, and not take all the fun out. I also think that while the riddle is aimed at players, that it doesn't mean only certain players should be able to come up with the answer.

Edit: Oh, while talking about riddles, ultimately you are all crafting a story. While moments of badassery and fulfilling one's role in the party is all fine and cool, it's the times you as a player do something out of the ordinary or unexpected that you remember it. It's the moments you (as in your character) triumphs against all odds that are truly memorable. That is storytelling.

TL;DR - puzzles and riddles are for the players and are fine to be solved by every player, no matter its character's mental stats.

[Amphetryon]

I don't fully agree. puzzles are designed for the players, challenges - solved by skills- are designed for the characters.

People often treat mental scores on their sheet as a bar, meaning that if a certain score is at X, that means you can't solve things aimed at X+Y. Which I think is a false assumption.

Suppose you design a puzzle for the players, who happen to be a group of excellent roleplayers, playing their characters to a T, it might happen that the person(s) playing the intelligent character(s) are stumped. Now remember 2 things: 1 - you, as the DM can give hints by letting people roll intelligence rolls (as in the ability check), 2- even the dumbest character can have a moment of brilliance. Oddly enough you see it often in comedy: The Gamers, Dorkness Rising had the wizard out lift the barbarian, and who can remember any time Edmund Blackadder has used part or the whole of Baldrick's plans. Not to mention the Pinky and the Brain, though some (and I am part of that group) think it's supposed to be Pinky who's the smart one (but that's besides the point). Just the fact that the intellignet player (let's say a rocketscientist) is playing the Hulk Smash! character, doesn't mean that Hulk Smash can't suddenly have a moment of brilliance and solve the puzzle. Just make sure he isn't the one to solve it every time. Besides, if a puzzle is gurding a door or something, then it's not unheard of for the answer to be (in part) common knowledge, but applied in a different way then one would think. I think the quintessential elegant example is the riddle of Moria: "Speak friend, and enter", where the Elvish word for Friend is the password to open the door. Assuming Elvish isn't an unheard of language, but the fellowship was initially stumped because they were looking for the password, while it was staring them in the face the whole time. And it wasn't any of the elvish speakers who solved the riddle, it was Frodo. I think that a well designed riddle should be susceptible to overthinking. Why not have a sweetspot for intelligence roll where overshooting it stumps you even harder? I think that with using the control of information you as a DM can craft a nice riddle, and not take all the fun out. I also think that while the riddle is aimed at players, that it doesn't mean only certain players should be able to come up with the answer.

Edit: Oh, while talking about riddles, ultimately you are all crafting a story. While moments of badassery and fulfilling one's role in the party is all fine and cool, it's the times you as a player do something out of the ordinary or unexpected that you remember it. It's the moments you (as in your character) triumphs against all odds that are truly memorable. That is storytelling.

TL;DR - puzzles and riddles are for the players and are fine to be solved by every player, no matter its character's mental stats.
1. Frodo was the sneak/rogue/burglar in the group. Most games I know presume that puzzles will be solved/disabled/bypassed by that archetype, where it exists.

2. I never said it was a problem if it happened once; I said it's a problem because, in general, puzzles favor a certain sort of person, who isn't necessarily going to be the person PLAYING the character who is good at puzzles. That means that the natural puzzle-solver either has to keep miraculously coming up with the answer without breaking immersion, or you're intentionally breaking immersion by favoring a particular player's set of skills, rather than a particular character's set of skills. This is a direct cousin to the concern that only those who are actually good at people skills should be the ones doing the talking during in-game negotiations, which shows up around here about once a ten-day or more.

[Jay R]

I'm going to simply disagree that every other non-trivial decision in the game is equivalent to solving puzzles. For starters, the 'Hulk SMASH!' character can happily charge across the battlefield with some degree of success (varies by game and setting), without taking a whole lot of time to think or strategize about it.

Of course - IF the 'Hulk SMASH!' character was carefully built by a clever player, who then decides to have the character smash the enemies rather than the allies.

[Socratov]

1. Frodo was the sneak/rogue/burglar in the group. Most games I know presume that puzzles will be solved/disabled/bypassed by that archetype, where it exists.
personally I'd like to think he was the whiny little bitch of the group, but to each his own :smallsmile: the only reason he could do such a thing is becuase he had a ring to help him. For the rest his fellow hobbits were far better. Frodo was the deliveryboy of hte group, he did not really do much else. (also I like to think Sam was the hero of the story, not Frodo). Besides, they had a freaking wizard/wise man in the group. You'd expect Gandalf to solve the riddle, not Frodo.

2. I never said it was a problem if it happened once; I said it's a problem because, in general, puzzles favor a certain sort of person, who isn't necessarily going to be the person PLAYING the character who is good at puzzles. That means that the natural puzzle-solver either has to keep miraculously coming up with the answer without breaking immersion, or you're intentionally breaking immersion by favoring a particular player's set of skills, rather than a particular character's set of skills. This is a direct cousin to the concern that only those who are actually good at people skills should be the ones doing the talking during in-game negotiations, which shows up around here about once a ten-day or more.

Which is true for pretty much all roleplaying obstacles. A big battle will favour the person adept at strategy and tactics, a social encounter will favour the person who's best at talking and so on. that's why I talked about the int ability check: it's the thing where you can make the difference in terms of hints. Like diplomacy rolls or attack rolls.

[Jay R]

Besides, they had a freaking wizard/wise man in the group. You'd expect Gandalf to solve the riddle, not Frodo.

In fact, the one time it came up, Gandalf went down the wrong direction immediately, and Merry, of all people, was on the right track. After getting the hint from Merry, Gandalf, who knew Elvish, solved the riddle.

I figure the Gandalf player made a successful Knowledge (Elvish) roll after Merry's player came up with the idea.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

The old Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone are a pretty good (if oft-times weird) source for traps and puzzles, if you can look them out. 2nd-hand book stores and charity shops can be a good source of these, if you don't have any yourself.

Some of the games/puzzles from 80s series The Crystal Maze might be good as well - there's one I can think of straight off as an example, where the player had to put some gears in the right order in order to lift a portcullis that had slammed down behind them.

So, imagine the party enter a room with a number of gears securely attached to one of the walls, axle holes in the wall at varying locations and a number of different sized gears on axles on the floor. There's doors in the other walls, and possibly the floor and ceiling

Depending on which gear(s) the party stick in which place, different gears will go in different directions (for example, if you have two small gears and one medium gear, both of which could fit in the same gap between two gears already in place) and cause different doors to open, which could lead to the way out, a minor side-treasure, a short-cut or conversely a longer, more difficult route, release enemies (say undead or golems that could stay in place forever), dump a load of sand/water/flammable oil/whatever on them, open trapdoors that lead into pits, cause parts of the floor to fall away or whatever you like.

There was another games where the player had to use ball bearings and a blowgun to shoot out thin covers on the ends of tubes to allow sand to fall into a sheet, which caused an arm to raise once there was enough weight - you could have one party member at the back of the tubes, which twist around behind the scenes so that it's not totally obvious shooting out tube x releases a specific amount of sand/water, but with some puzzle-way of getting the correct tubes (say they're all numbered with different references - sum of all the hearts in a deck of cards, a bakers dozen times a hydras heads - and each tube has the same number but a different reference, and the correct ones are those where the number is prime, but the sum of the numbers adds up to 7), and the party's marksman is in front with a limited number of shots to get enough of the substance out to do whatever (maybe it releases something that will make the end boss a little easier, rather than just allowing them to continue on).

The show's also worth watching for the complete lack of intelligence some of the contestants show. :smallamused:

[Strigon]

So, I realize this isn't my thread, but this is on topic, and I hardly wanted to create a new thread when this one is so brand new.
To that end, I decided to ask my question here.
The question is, what good puzzles are there which could have clever hints written down? My players have found, for lack of a better term, a treasure map, with writing on the other side. Think of the hints given in The Last Crusade; that's the kind of theme I'm going for. If possible, something with a tesseract/hypercube would give my players huge satisfaction when they solved it, knowing them.
Any help?

[Amphetryon]

Which is true for pretty much all roleplaying obstacles. A big battle will favour the person adept at strategy and tactics, a social encounter will favour the person who's best at talking and so on. that's why I talked about the int ability check: it's the thing where you can make the difference in terms of hints. Like diplomacy rolls or attack rolls.
Battlefield tactics are considerably more prone to discussion outside of the immediacy of combat, where the tactics of the group as a whole - including input from those playing tactically savvy characters - can set up a response tree of a sort for solutions to different encounter types. This is almost never true of puzzles, unless it's common in the majority experience that puzzles are described in enough detail before they are encountered to allow for group discussion on likely solutions to specific puzzles (and if that's truly the case in the majority experience, then I'm more a special snowflake than I expected). Further, as I indicated earlier, 'Hulk SMASH!' is a perfectly valid strategy in many a big battle, as is some variation of 'I waste him with my crossbow!', and neither requires a whole bunch of in-character tactical acumen. Finally, skewing social encounters to favor the person (which I read as player, not character) who is most socially adept actively discourages people from playing archetypes which don't represent their own native abilities. . . at which point I wonder whether similar barriers are not set up by GMs to prevent folks who have poor physical strength from playing the party brute, or prevent those with poor coordination or depth perception from playing the party archer.

[Echobeats]

I ripped off this puzzle from Sporcle.

http://sporcle.com/games/MovieGuru/mr-men-murder-mystery

Each Mr Man was instead a statue of an individual of a different race. You had to stand in front of a statue and say what you thought it was. If you were wrong, you got zapped. If you were right, the statue spoke its clue (which I rewrote as a rhyming couplet). I also reduced it to 16 statues.

[Segev]

There are a few ways to help with the player/character divide, when it comes to puzzles. (Interestingly, these are often similar tools when it comes to this divide wrt social skills.)

The first is just to allow it to be a group OOC effort. Players work on solving the puzzle together, and they agree between themselves to re-arrange whose characters come up with what ideas based on what would be more in-character for them to do.

The Rifts game I play in doesn't run into puzzles very often, but we often have tactical and strategic (and not just for combats) decisions to make regarding approaches to problems and many and varied solutions. It is not at all uncommon for somebody to say, "Well, my character would never think of this, but..." and then somebody else to nod and agree, "Yeah, that sounds like [other character], though, so..." and then he drops into character to paraphrase the idea. Sometimes with a tweak or two of his own.

The second approach is to use the fact that PLAYERS only perceive things as clearly as the GM describes them. Deliberate word-choice can make it take a while for players to realize, for example, that their D&D characters are exploring a linoleum-tiled modern-day public restroom. The moment they realize this, it snaps from a weird, inexplicable room to a mental image that's clear and sharp in concept, and it changes the whole paradigm of what the players are perceiving in their own minds. In a sense, it's harder for them to be in the same mind-space as their characters when they have made this paradigm shift to a modern context, because before that leap, they were as puzzled as to the purpose of this room as their characters still are.

You can exploit this with puzzles. Describe them in only the barest terms, at first. Let players roll appropriate skills or stat checks or the like, and give them pieces of the description that fit with what their rolls tell them. For greater immersion, write it down and pass notes, then let them announce it to the party how they think their character would reveal his realization or musing.

Part of the thing with puzzles in reality is trying to wrap one's head around what you're supposed to do. With puzzles that are known to the group, OOC, they already know that part of the solution, and merely have to actually follow the rules to resolve it. Adventurers are rarely presented with puzzles that are known archetypes...at least not to the adventurers. When they are, they proceed to the "apply professional skill" part of the quest.

If you're using a puzzle that the players might recognize due to genre savvy or modern education, but that characters shouldn't know, this obfuscating language describing things only in terms their characters would think in, combined with careful revelation of details to those who have the right stats/skills, will allow them to more accurately simulate what their CHARACTERS go through as they try to figure out what the puzzle even IS.

Finally, if it's truly a problem that the "right" character's player just doesn't know how to do the puzzle even when he knows what the puzzle is, you can start giving hints to those who make the right rolls.

Remember, too, that just being able to identify the puzzle can be enough, OOC. "Oh, this is the 8-Queens problem!" means that now you can, if you feel it proper, abstract the actual solution. Players know there is a solution. They may or may not enjoy finding it (and one may or may not have it memorized). But if they don't want to do it, or if you actually don't want to allow them to just because one player is a chess master while none of the characters are, abstract it. This is where the roll to see if the CHARACTER can solve it comes in.

Again: in RP, sometimes the goal OOC is just to outline the solution that will be implemented, rather than to detail exactly how the characters implement it. You don't require that the DM explain exactly what is broken in the car's engine to cause it not to work, nor that the player of the mechanic detail exactly what steps and procedures he takes, and what parts he replaces, cleans, refurbishes, and repairs. You just have some skill rolls to determine that the problem is a broken engine, and to see if the mechanic can fix it.

Apply similar logic to the puzzles. Identifying what hte puzzle is should be the larger challenge, usually.

(Sometimes, the challenge is more in the actual DOING. Okay, you know that you need to get the right object onto each of the three pedestals, and you think you even know what they are. Now...go get them. They're hopefully somewhere in the dungeon.)





Finally, a puzzle that I liked when a friend of mine described it to me:

In a dark dungeon where light sources are a give-away, the party is using darkvision to navigate. They have successfully sneaked past a few guards, fought a few others, but have now come to a door with a sequence of identical symbols above a grid of similarly identical symbols. The grid's symbols can be depressed independently.

To all inspection, the symbols are the same shape, reasonably the same texture (a little wear on each makes them slightly different), etc. Pressing randomly doesn't seem to result in anything happening.

Darkvision is in black-and-white. If they have a light source, the symbols are all of different colors. Pressing the symbols in the grid in the sequence of colors depicted above it opens the door.

Why this puzzle is used here is something you'll want to decide on for your game. Could be that it's a door to a light-using race's underground dwelling, and they put their combination in plain sight knowing that darkvision users won't think to use light to see the difference.