What are your favourite puzzles/riddles for dungeons?

[Scarey Nerd]

I'm constructing a dungeon that requires non-combat encounters, which preferably needs to be in the form of puzzles, riddles, that sort of thing. Do any of you guys have a favourite puzzle that your players enjoyed working through, or anything of the like?

[WereRabbitz]

I tend to like creating Reactive Dungeons that are harmless unless you set different things in motion.

We ran one recently where they had to kill mummies to get puzzle pieces and then arrange them in the right order on a pedestal to make a picture of a scarab with 2 cross blades so they could open up the door to the next level of the dungeon.

[Plaguescarred]

One puzzle i did in my last campaign that i liked was a dwarven sudoku style puzzle-lock for a vault. I took a hard sudoku template and replace the numbers with 9 dwarvish runes. It was fun to see my players try decode it!

[JellyPooga]

One puzzle i did in my last campaign that i liked was a dwarven sudoku style puzzle-lock for a vault. I took a hard sudoku template and replace the numbers with 9 dwarvish runes. It was fun to see my players try decode it!

The problem I have with this sort of puzzle is that they're generally not suitable for the purpose they seem to be put to. I mean, if you don't want someone getting into a vault, you don't make the lock predicated on something just anyone could work out with sufficient time. It also begs the question of having and getting access yourself, as the owner. If you have a door and a lock on something, it means you want to have access to it, otherwise you'd just brick the thing up. If every time you want access you have to solve this puzzle, it could be frustrating, especially if you're having a bad day for whatever reason (such as adventurers invading your dungeon).

Puzzle locks like this are best used as a test of the "are you worthy" variety, whether it be as part of an initiation, in a dungeon that is literally a series of tests to find the MacGuffin (e.g. Indy and the Last Crusade) or as proof that you're not some jumped up random. I hate seeing them on doors or "protecting" something that should have an actual key.

With that said, I do like me some puzzles and the best piece of advice I can give a GM looking to put some in his dungeon is to have physical props ready and prepared. Only describing a puzzle can leave players with the wrong impression, crossed wires and generally the wrong idea. Having a mock-up, depiction/image or plain just making the puzzle for real (if you're more ambitious) goes a long way towards clearing up any confusion or misinterpretation and it can add to immersion (and it's fun making props...everyone likes "make-and-do" time!). As a Player, it's fun being able to physically handle something every now and then too.

[arrowed]

This was in a Zelda game (Skyward Sword), but it was pretty neat: a dungeon with rooms that could be moved around. In the game it was eight rooms in a 3 by 3 grid, with the rooms moving around like sliding block pieces and each having only one or two doors. There were control panels in some of the rooms which let you move the other rooms around.

[Razuchee]

Besides riddles, I like to give my players something at the beginning of the dungeon (e.g. an ornamented vertebra from a minotaur skeleton) then drop subtle hints during the dungeon crawl on how and where to use it. Before the dungeon vault I can then laugh my ass off if they don't rember they have that thing. I also like to emply things like mirrors you have to walk through with eyes closed, but the fun in them depends on how observant your players are.

[smcmike]

Yeah, if you focus on the reason for making them, Key Puzzles should take the form of a password or some other bit of knowledge that easily eliminates an obstacle.

For example, a maze with one correct and safe path, indicated by some sort of code that is hard to unscramble if you don't know the trick, but painfully obvious if you do - every door has some word above if, and you want to follow the path where the third letters of each word, in order, spells out "this way, moron." (A version of The Name of the Rose maze). Easy to remember, trivia to access, hard to figure out.

Actually, the Last Crusade puzzles are good examples of this. Sigils indicate a safe path on the floor - perfectly easy for those in the know. An invisible bridge test of faith - no problem, again! The blades, too, are fairly trivial if you know about them.

[gfishfunk]

The Shower Room of the Great One.

There is a metal door that sure in the hell looks trapped. The door has an inscription that says 'those who wish enter must first shower.'

There are four knobs on the wall and a grate on the floor, and a tray of soap. Each knob turns on a spout at the very top of the room, spraying the whole room.

The four knobs do the following:
1. Hot Water
2. Cold Water
3. Acid
4. Hot Wax

The door can be opened normally. The Great One just wants people to clean off before entering. The inscription on the door is purely advisory.

[Razuchee]

The Shower Room of the Great One.

There is a metal door that sure in the hell looks trapped. The door has an inscription that says 'those who wish enter must first shower.'

There are four knobs on the wall and a grate on the floor, and a tray of soap. Each knob turns on a spout at the very top of the room, spraying the whole room.

The four knobs do the following:
1. Hot Water
2. Cold Water
3. Acid
4. Hot Wax

The door can be opened normally. The Great One just wants people to clean off before entering. The inscription on the door is purely advisory.

THIS! I like it. That is on the same level as trolling new players with spectators and flameskulls.

[Segev]

A friend of mine ran a dungeon for a party that all had and relied upon darkvision. This is fine, but the lock to a room was security keyed by, essentially, a keypad. They'd earlier found a parchment that had the same symbol written on it eight times, and now found that symbol on every button of the 9-button keypad.

The difference, it turns out, between the symbols was their color. Look at it under normal lighting conditions, and the parchment clearly showed a sequence of colors (it was somebody's access code 'cause he couldn't remember it), and the keypad's symbols were each a different color. Under darkvision, however, everything was black-and-white.......

[smcmike]

reasons for a puzzle or lock:

Keeping out everyone - appropriate for a tomb or eternal prison - not so much a puzzle as a trap that is intended to be deadly no matter what the intruder does, with some flaw that makes it a puzzle.

Keeping out people who don't have the key or password - appropriate for a treasury, strong room, library, prison, or fortress - should be binary - intended to be impossible without the key and easy with it. The puzzle can be figuring out the key, or figuring out the flaw in the design.

Keeping out the unworthy - appropriate for religious or academic sites, where the personal worthiness of the intruder is tested. This test need not be designed for someone similar to the intruders.

Unintentional puzzles - obstacles created for some purpose completely other than stopping anyone, or created by time and circumstance. A flooded tunnel and a pump of unfamiliar design, or a shower room of the great one.

[Plaguescarred]

The problem I have with this sort of puzzle is that they're generally not suitable for the purpose they seem to be put to. I mean, if you don't want someone getting into a vault, you don't make the lock predicated on something just anyone could work out with sufficient time. It also begs the question of having and getting access yourself, as the owner. If you have a door and a lock on something, it means you want to have access to it, otherwise you'd just brick the thing up. If every time you want access you have to solve this puzzle, it could be frustrating, especially if you're having a bad day for whatever reason (such as adventurers invading your dungeon).

Puzzle locks like this are best used as a test of the "are you worthy" variety, whether it be as part of an initiation, in a dungeon that is literally a series of tests to find the MacGuffin (e.g. Indy and the Last Crusade) or as proof that you're not some jumped up random. I hate seeing them on doors or "protecting" something that should have an actual key.

With that said, I do like me some puzzles and the best piece of advice I can give a GM looking to put some in his dungeon is to have physical props ready and prepared. Only describing a puzzle can leave players with the wrong impression, crossed wires and generally the wrong idea. Having a mock-up, depiction/image or plain just making the puzzle for real (if you're more ambitious) goes a long way towards clearing up any confusion or misinterpretation and it can add to immersion (and it's fun making props...everyone likes "make-and-do" time!). As a Player, it's fun being able to physically handle something every now and then too.I think they're well suited on the contrary, its like an access keypad to access a restricted zone! Except instead of just being a serie of digit numbers to put in to open a door, its a little puzzle!

My players had fun decoding it and that's the important as it make its job :)

[smcmike]

I think they're well suited on the contrary, its like an access keypad to access a restricted zone! Except instead of just being a serie of digit numbers to put in to open a door, its a little puzzle!

My players had fun decoding it and that's the important as it make its job :)

An access panel would not use a puzzle. It would use a passcode.

[gfishfunk]

An access panel would not use a puzzle. It would use a passcode.

The proposed passcode 'puzzle' earlier would qualify.

Most puzzles that I include in my games have some real obvious reasons for being in there, not just as a tricky thing for the players to figure out. I think puzzles that do not have a clear answer are a bit better:
- A gigantic 10' diameter globe of true seeing that the adventurers can push around from room to room that reveals hidden assailants, hidden treasure, and hidden passageways. And then, stairs going up.
- Fields of thick foliage that have known magical properties, such as spike growth, shrieking mushrooms, disease spores, and magical zones of darkness as the party needs to sneak up to a manned tower
- Rooms where there is a hug pit, covered in an endless horde of Gelatinous Cubes with a clear exit on the other side of the pit and no apparent way to cross.
- Tall, narrow shafts, where the purpose is to get up or down, but winds are blowing one direction or the other, or possibly wind elementals, or possibly sudden inexplicable spouts of water
- Triggers to ancient magical lecture panels in an abandoned university of magic that causes flurries of creatures to be alerted

[JellyPooga]

An access panel would not use a puzzle. It would use a passcode.

This. I get that the puzzle was fun, it just doesn't make sense to "lock" a vault door with one. A lock that can be "puzzled out" is about as useful as putting a bar on the outside of a door; it doesn't actually stop anyone from entering. As I said, I like a puzzle and your dwarven sudoku (sudwarfku?) is a great idea, but it needs to be in the right place, as a test, not a lock.

[Lollerabe]

Great so my 1 page respons just got deleted (freaking iPad).

Anyway my group recently had a dungeon crawl with multiple puzzles and two of them stood out.

First one was a tile puzzle. There's a room with a big game board divided into multiple tiles, once you step on a tile it lights up. If you step on the same tile twice all tiles go blank and you have to restart - so the idea is to make the whole board light up without ever backtracking. You can make the board as big/difficult as you please or add additional steps to the puzzle.

Our board had three different starting tiles in each end of the room, a lightning tile, a tile overgrown by thorny wines and a slippery wet tile. Every step you took from a tile got duplicated in the other side of the room, so if I took one step on the Lightning tile it would get mirrored on the other side of the board. If I messed up and backtracked I would get slightly electrocuted. Same rules applied for the other tiles but you would get held down by vines / feel like you were drowning.

The end goal was the same though, light up the entire board, it was just devided into 3 small boards thus requiring at least 3 party members to volunteer. Our dm had cut out a large paper board and had 3 different colored post- it's ready so we could tinker with it on our actual table.

The second one isn't an actual puzzle and may be a dnd classic (I haven't seen it before) but maaan was it awesome.

You step into a room and there's nothing inside the room except for a big steel door on the other side of the room and a weird deepening in the floor big enough for one medium creature laying down. The room is non magical and no traps can be detected, once every party member is inside, the door shuts behind them and the ceiling starts to move towards the floor slowly.

My group panicked, we realized that only one person could be in the deepening in the floor and the rest of the party would get mushed - our dm made this worse by starting a clock (IRL that is) with a 1 minute countdown. Now some of us tried to search for a way out, be it a lever or a button, but 2 of the party members started fighting over who got to be in the deepening and the party wizard straight bailed with a misty step. Once we were almost mushed and all laying on the floor (while the party rogue were suffering serious wounds from the fight he had with the party bladelock over the 'safe spot') the ceiling stop coming down, went back to normal and the steel door opened.

That sequence was awesome as hell, people didn't just panick in game they panicked IRL too and showed their true colors.

Well enough rambling from me, hope you can use one of those.

[smcmike]

I love that crushing room puzzle. It reminds me that I forgot another reason for puzzles - the evil dungeon maker that just wants to mess with people.

[JellyPooga]

The second one isn't an actual puzzle and may be a dnd classic (I haven't seen it before) but maaan was it awesome.

You step into a room and there's nothing inside the room except for a big steel door on the other side of the room and a weird deepening in the floor big enough for one medium creature laying down. The room is non magical and no traps can be detected, once every party member is inside, the door shuts behind them and the ceiling starts to move towards the floor slowly.

My group panicked, we realized that only one person could be in the deepening in the floor and the rest of the party would get mushed - our dm made this worse by starting a clock (IRL that is) with a 1 minute countdown. Now some of us tried to search for a way out, be it a lever or a button, but 2 of the party members started fighting over who got to be in the deepening and the party wizard straight bailed with a misty step. Once we were almost mushed and all laying on the floor (while the party rogue were suffering serious wounds from the fight he had with the party bladelock over the 'safe spot') the ceiling stop coming down, went back to normal and the steel door opened.

That sequence was awesome as hell, people didn't just panick in game they panicked IRL too and showed their true colors.

Well enough rambling from me, hope you can use one of those.

Urgh! The fake-out trap is one of my most loathed roleplaying experiences. For one, who would seriously put one in their dungeon? If you're installing a crushing-ceiling trap, why have it stop just before it does its job? Just for giggles? If you "enter the code" or whatever, to stop the trap, it should stop immediately. After all, the point of having a bypass is so friendlies that accidentally trigger the trap can escape unharmed, so why would you want to pretend that the fail-safe isn't working?

Secondly, if there is no fail-safe (e.g. whatever the players do, it's the same fake-out), then what's the point again? Is this a dungeon or a fun-house? If the dungeon is a fun house or game show, then fine; the audience (whoever/wherever they are) gets a laugh, but otherwise? That's an expensive joke.

Seriously, unless you have a really good reason that the players know or will discover, don't use fake-out traps. They might be fun for the GM to watch players squirm, but they make no sense most of the time and only serve to frustrate players. It is also possible to backfire; I've known a player to suicide a character as an "easier death" than the impending death a fake-out trap promised.

Tl;dr fake-out traps are bad, don't use them.

[gfishfunk]

Fake-Out traps also can make the Players doubt the DM. The DM stops the trap because the players did not figure out the answer and did not want to hurt them.

[JellyPooga]

Fake-Out traps also can make the Players doubt the DM. The DM stops the trap because the players did not figure out the answer and did not want to hurt them.

Sometimes a puzzle seems obvious to a GM, so he doesn't mind putting a "certain doom" consequence on his "really obvious" puzzle...but often the players don't find it so easy, forcing the GM to back-peddle, which almost always feels forced (NB this is a bad thing).

[Plaguescarred]

The dwarven vault was in a tomb of a dwarf hero and had false tomb too that was trapped. The vault also had a key, in fact its like that that they discovered about the vault. They found an old bronze morningstar and after they discovered that the head could twist, opening one of the spike knob in the shape of a 4-branches star. Deciphering the runes on the weapon tied to the dwarven hero of old Delzoun kingdom and the PCs eventually investigated it and discovered he was entombed in a secret place in a underground mountain range. After they fought some golems and doomguard and the trap, they found the secret panel due to the star shape insert near the sarcophagus. (it was impossible to lockpick), opening it revealed they keypad (the dwarven puzzle) and after they correctly piece it togheter, the massive door opened and they gained access to the vault, a secret cache of magic weapons and armors that a group of dwarves hid as part of it.

It may have not been the best use of the puzzle, but i though it made sense for an old archaic locking system setup by old dwarven builders. :)

[Lollerabe]

I really get why you dislike the 'fake-out' traps, I'm just stating that in my current group and with my current dm it was the funniest dnd moment we have had(and we go back quiet a bit).

Don't get me wrong, the feeling of being unable to change anything about a situation is not enjoyable as a player to often, but hell - it was a good laugh.

[Reynaert]

We did the fake-trap in a LARP once: The players were locked in a room with nothing but a sand timer running out.

The devious bit was that the sand timer could be turned around by the players, and the
solution' to the puzzle was to let the sand timer run out.

There also were some crew standing by dressed as baddies with big weapons, which were out of game (hand signal that says they aren't there, players are supposed to completely ignore them and act as if they don't know they are there). That's basically the same as the DM visibly getting some monster reference sheets out and ready, just to mess with the players.

I agree that as a rule you shouldn't do fake-traps but some rules need to be broken every once in a while, to keep things interesting.

[hewhosaysfish]

For one, who would seriously put one in their dungeon? If you're installing a crushing-ceiling trap, why have it stop just before it does its job? Just for giggles? If you "enter the code" or whatever, to stop the trap, it should stop immediately. After all, the point of having a bypass is so friendlies that accidentally trigger the trap can escape unharmed, so why would you want to pretend that the fail-safe isn't working?

You want the crushing-ceiling trap to stop just before it does its job because *you*, the builder of the trap, and your evil minions are going to stand in it every time you go through this room. And you don't want to get squashed.

The trick of the "trap" seems to be to make people who aren't in on the secret freak-out and fight each other to get in the hole.

[JellyPooga]

You want the crushing-ceiling trap to stop just before it does its job because *you*, the builder of the trap, and your evil minions are going to stand in it every time you go through this room. And you don't want to get squashed.

The trick of the "trap" seems to be to make people who aren't in on the secret freak-out and fight each other to get in the hole.

But that doesn't make any sense, except as a cruel joke and a massive inconvenience;

"I'm just going out to get the morning papers. The shop's only round the corner but give me half an hour because I need to sit through the fake room of death. Twice."

OR

"Right, Squad Alpha in and lay down. Squad Beta wait for the room to reset. This is going to take ages to get the whole warband through; whose idea was this room anyway?"

Why cause an argument when you can just squish the lot of them? It just doesn't make sense; either you build in a failsafe that is of most convenience, not least, if you actually want to use the room or if you actually want to hinder intruders with a death trap, install a death trap that actually kills them instead of mildly inconveniencing them. The only use for a fake-out is for laughs and for that there must be an audience (which can be the case in some games).

That said, I get that they can be fun. They just need to be placed carefully and have to make sense from an in-game perspective.

[smcmike]

Right, that sort of trap makes sense if the in-game purpose of the dungeon is to torment people. Perfect for one of the lower planes, perhaps.

[Lollerabe]

In our case the 'BBEG' (turned out he was a pretty standup guy who could stop a demon invasion hadn't we brutally murdered him) had a secret staircase, so the fake death room was just another way to scare of intruders - or better yet have them murder each other over the hole.

But yeah I get where you are coming from, traps and puzzles have to make sense in game as well, otherwise they just seem like things the DM throw at you cause "hey lets see you guys squirm a bit"

[Laserlight]

- Rooms where there is a hug pit

A hug pit?
The human fighter charged the kobolds, and fell into a pit trap with a lid, so it was dark inside. He landed on a creature that yelped and scampered over to the far corner, whimpering. The fighter hadn't intended to hurt whatever it was, so he felt his way over and petted the critter, trying to make it feel better. And it worked, the rust monster certainly felt better.

As far as fakeout traps go, I would use it either in a Gnomish Escape Room sort of dungeon, or in a dungeon which has been left without maintenance for a long time. The ceiling is intended to crush you all, but someone has stolen some of the stone and now the floor level is lower, or the device "stop here" point needs to be adjusted, or something. You could do it as 'suddenly, the ceiling drops down, but it stops before crushing you to the floor; take X damage, or DEX save for half, and you're all prone." You could also say "It starts racheting back up, but you hear a loud metallic snap and the ceiling stops rising. You're now in a room that is four feet high." I would probably have, somewhere before that, a scythe trap that swings out slowly enough that no one will get hit, or poison darts that only have a chance to hit someone within five feet instead of zipping across the room.