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View Full Version : DM Help How to deal with alfa players with puzzle solving



Kafana
2017-05-07, 07:14 AM
A character is faced with a puzzle of some sorts (any form of puzzle, as part of combat, a decision about what a right course of action is, roleplaying, a genuine puzzle, etc.). This puzzle is time sensitive, so the character can't consult with the rest of the party (for example, a decision that needs to be made during a chase or an answer that needs to be given during dialogue without the option to diplomatically postpone the answering).

Do I allow players other than the one leading the character to reason about and talk about the solution to the puzzle?

Pros
- It makes the puzzle a group activity;
- Higher chance of positive outcome as more people are involved and see the problem from different perspectives.

Cons
- Detracts from realism and immersion (not a large con, as fun is more important);
- Can lead to one player providing solutions to all the puzzles if he's a stronger personality (the main problem I see).

One solution that comes to mind is that I provide a specific player with a problem and he has to come up with an initial solution before presenting the problem and his proposed solution to the rest of the group. He can always opt out of solving the problem and just say "guys, this is the problem, help", but this way I can distribute the problem-solving more or less evenly so that everybody gets a chance to lead the discussion.

Thoughts?

Quertus
2017-05-07, 08:54 AM
So, things to think about: player skills, character skills, and role-playing.

People often come to these boards, asking what they should do now that their character has gotten into quite a jam. I'll post what solutions I can, but, more and more lately, I'm left feeling like this results in bad role-playing, as the character will suddenly show uncharacteristic wisdom in solving a problem.

Your question is whether to use one player's player skills, or the group's player skills, in choosing a character's actions. IMO, as long as you're in the realm of player skills, you may as well do whatever is more fun. And it sounds like you believe crowd sourcing will be more fun.

Darth Ultron
2017-05-07, 10:58 AM
Thoughts?

In general, you should avoid giving a single player a puzzle they have to solve alone, quickly and with no help. It's always better, in general, to give a puzzle to the whole group. Much in the same way you should avoid having a single character fight an army of monsters alone, quickly and with no help.

But when you do give a puzzle to a player (and note you want the player, not the character to solve it) you should tailor the puzzle to the player.

First off, if the player does not like puzzles or just is not good that them...well it is best just to skip giving that player a puzzle.

Second, when you give the puzzle to a player make it just for them. Use things and elements you know they know. Make it easy or hard depending on how well they have ever solved a puzzle before. If the player has a hard time with puzzles, you want to stick to easy ones. If the player is a puzzle master that does puzzles all the time, you can go with a hard one.

In any case the puzzle should have things in it the player knows about, so they have a chance of solving it. It's ok to mention ''the great scaled lizard of fire breathing lord of doom'' and have the player figure out ''oh, it's a red dragon'', because really a average 5 year old could get that one. But haing the player remember 12 generations of elven kings and pick out from dozens of names ''Oh the Elven king of sadness was S'adr who lost his whole royal family to a fire'' is way too much...unless you have really good players that are really, really invested and immersed in the game world (good luck...lol)

Knaight
2017-05-07, 11:39 AM
- Can lead to one player providing solutions to all the puzzles if he's a stronger personality (the main problem I see).

While you can block this with requesting a solution only from one player, there are some issues with this - not least that sitting around waiting for someone else to come to a solution you've already found tends to be incredibly irritating. If you're using puzzles qua puzzles (and it sounds like you are) it's often better to just vary them a bit - the person who's really good at riddles is not necessarily the same person who can casually handle advanced tangram puzzles. For the puzzle-like parts of the game, as defined in the OP, consisting of things like tactics and large scale group decision making it often goes disproportionately to one player because a lot of the others favor implementation over making the decisions.