Designing puzzles for D&D

[AureusFulgens]

I am currently trying to figure out how to design interesting puzzles for a D&D campaign, and finding myself a lot more stumped than I probably should be.

For a bit of context, my current inspiration is from video games - specifically, the Legend of Zelda games. I've been working to adapt Breath of the Wild for a few months now, and a crucial component of that game is a series of shrines scattered across the wilderness that contain little puzzles of the classic sort. Ride the floating platform around without hitting the spikes on the walls. Get the stone ball into a receptacle across the room and 50 feet up. Figure out how to work a complicated ancient mechanism. (There are similar things in the other games I've played, but in larger dungeons rather than tiny self-contained shrines.)

Thing I keep running into is that a lot of these challenges rely on natural aspects of video games - e.g. completing them is primarily made a challenge because it requires finesse with the controls, or good timing, or the ability to notice some clue on the wall. Most of those things just reduce to an ability check at the tabletop, and that doesn't seem like an interesting challenge to me. ("I make a Dexterity check to jump off the platform right before it falls." "Your passive Perception is 15, so you notice the diagram on the ceiling that shows in what order you have to flip the switches.")

So, the question would be, what sorts of puzzles do work at the tabletop? Based on your own wild speculation, or your own experience if you've seen some before? I'm less interested in things like riddles and logic puzzles, but if that's the only thing that works well, knowing that would be helpful. Again, I feel like this should be obvious, but I'm kind of stuck with one example in my head and I'm having trouble getting past it.

[Zhorn]

Don't fall for the trap of single solution puzzles. Can be incredibly frustrating to brickwall in a room solely for not figuring out the exact solution the DM has in mind.


Near enough is good enough
Allow for creative alternate solutions
Or don't have a planned solution, and just go with good sounding ideas your players volunteer

[JoeJ]

In my experience, logic puzzles that allow the entire group to discuss them and figure them out together have been the most fun. Obviously, this is aimed at the players, not their characters, but groups that prefer to roll dice and have their characters solve the puzzle are generally not going to be especially keen on having puzzles to begin with.

[MrStabby]

The problem I find is to ensure the puzzles are not too contrived.

Let's say the creators of a dungeon wanted to secure an area and you have to break a code to unlock it. They would know the code. They don't need to leave lots of clues to aid their memories lying around the place.

Anything created to be secure should be secure by design. Unless you have a particular type of table interested in some hard-core codebreaking you are looking at a not very fun puzzle.

This pushes towards puzzles that do not appear as puzzles.

Also be aware of fantasy abilities. How do you raise the portcullis by correctly getting the right counterbalancing weights? Who cares if you can misty step through.

[superninja109]

If you have players who like lore and picking up on interesting details, make "puzzles" where the solution is evident based on lore/knowledge learned beforehand. For example, I had a room in a tomb that could only be entered by saying the name of the person in it (which was written on several markings beforehand).

[DeTess]

If you've got a group interested in that sort of thing, logic puzzles and riddles can be nice, but they're not for everyone. Apart from those, the best puzzles would be simply non-standard obstacles that the players are free to bypass however they want. An example could be a room that appears to be a really deep pit with the exit on the other side. The players could get through it using magic, inventive use of rope or whatever, or by them realizing there must be some way for the original builders to have crossed the room, and finding out that there's an invisible winding walkway (or maybe even an entire maze) in the room.

Another example could be that they need to activate some mechanism to pump the water out of a room. Now, there's an elaborate way to activate it that the players can piece together from environmental clues, but if the players figure out another way to activate it that sounds plausible that's fine too.

[Imbalance]

Methinks you only need to expand your Hyrulian inspiration.

A puzzle just like Randuir's example is found in Majora's Mask.

One of the most famous puzzles is the Lost Woods: have the players hear about the mystery of the forest and that there is only one correct way through, then every 100' they arrive at an identical intersection on the path. One who flies would find themselves enshrouded in a thick mist if they attempt to see the route from above, and each attempt to split the party would have them rejoin at the next intersection. The solution need not be complex, but they must traverse together to get through.

There are plenty of examples of lever sequences, but since you have a party you can have a room with pressure plates corresponding to the number of teammates, as if predestined. Have some obvious symbolic notation tied to each player's race or class so that each plate reacts only to one of your players. Once they are all in place, a set of bespoke magic items appears before them.

Have them enter a plain room with only a single boulder in the center. Have them roll investigation, and have each one notice something different: scrape marks on the floor, the stone is of a different type than the tomb's construction, the dust around it is disturbed, etc. Once they figure out that they must move it, they may try individually to push it. Let them fail several times before they realize that they must all work to move it, and then it slides easily, revealing a descending stair.

The majority of Zelda puzzles require having acquired some other item previously. Get your bard an ocarina and let him learn specific melodies. A Stone of Agony sounds like a cursed item until it reveals treasure chests lleft and right. Two words: boss key.

[wallyd2]

I might be able to help you out on this! I have a YouTube channel that is closing in on 50 puzzles that can be used in your D&D game. Each video gives full demonstration on how the puzzle works and links to downloadable content if required.

For the puzzles on my channel I take a lot of inspiration from video games. While I have not played Breath of the Wild, I have played the original Zelda and a handful of GBA Zelda games. In fact, one of my puzzles is based on the Lost Woods maze from the original NES game

D&D Puzzle #25 - Maze of the Elements (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-pb1rDSE3M&t=3s)

Anyway, check it out. You should be able to find a few that you can use in your game. Of course all of the ideas leave themselves open for you to tweak and twist so you can use them in your game. Hoping to have these (plus more) released in a book later this year. :)

[AureusFulgens]

Don't fall for the trap of single solution puzzles. Can be incredibly frustrating to brickwall in a room solely for not figuring out the exact solution the DM has in mind.


Near enough is good enough
Allow for creative alternate solutions
Or don't have a planned solution, and just go with good sounding ideas your players volunteer

I've been advised this way by others as well, and I agree entirely. The strength of D&D is that you constantly have tons of options, and the lack of that is my biggest frustration with most of the videogames I've played. It's a little difficult for me to write puzzles that work this way, mind you, because if I write something I then want to make sure that it can be solved, which often winds up with writing a particular solution and that turning out to be the only one... But, following the latter two bullets could help with that.


The problem I find is to ensure the puzzles are not too contrived.

Let's say the creators of a dungeon wanted to secure an area and you have to break a code to unlock it. They would know the code. They don't need to leave lots of clues to aid their memories lying around the place.

Anything created to be secure should be secure by design. Unless you have a particular type of table interested in some hard-core codebreaking you are looking at a not very fun puzzle.

This pushes towards puzzles that do not appear as puzzles.

This is one thing that's freeing about Breath of the Wild. The mini-dungeons (the shrines) were explicitly made by ancient Sheikah monks to challenge the chosen hero, test his ability, and help him prepare to fight Ganon. So of course they're contrived. They are supposed to be puzzles. The lack of this rationale, on the other hand, leaves me scratching my head in the other two Zelda games I've played. Why, exactly, is a prison like the Arbiter's Grounds full of puzzles? Or a residential area like the City in the Sky?


If you have players who like lore and picking up on interesting details, make "puzzles" where the solution is evident based on lore/knowledge learned beforehand. For example, I had a room in a tomb that could only be entered by saying the name of the person in it (which was written on several markings beforehand).
This is a good idea! I'm a big fan of lore-based campaigns myself, and it tends to be a major component of the things I run - and Breath of the Wild lends itself particularly well to it. I'll want to see if this is the kind of thing my players would like, mind you, but still.


If you've got a group interested in that sort of thing, logic puzzles and riddles can be nice, but they're not for everyone. Apart from those, the best puzzles would be simply non-standard obstacles that the players are free to bypass however they want. An example could be a room that appears to be a really deep pit with the exit on the other side. The players could get through it using magic, inventive use of rope or whatever, or by them realizing there must be some way for the original builders to have crossed the room, and finding out that there's an invisible winding walkway (or maybe even an entire maze) in the room.

Another example could be that they need to activate some mechanism to pump the water out of a room. Now, there's an elaborate way to activate it that the players can piece together from environmental clues, but if the players figure out another way to activate it that sounds plausible that's fine too.
I kind of like this particular example (the pit) and might steal it. The design is elegant in its simplicity, and I'll try to think of other things like this.

One I've wanted to implement is stolen from a book called Beyonders by Brandon Mull: the MacGuffin is hidden on an island in the middle of Whitelake, which is a lake of non-Newtonian fluid, and the protagonists have to (a) figure out its properties, namely, that it behaves like a rubbery trampoline if the surface is struck hard enough, and like quicksand otherwise; then (b) come up with a way to approach that, and their solution is to run across with a high-stepping gait that deliberately slams the feet against the surface on each step; and finally (c) choose the one of them who is in better athletic condition to attempt the feat. But especially with a D&D character's toolkit, there are plenty of other ways you could approach it.


Methinks you only need to expand your Hyrulian inspiration.

A puzzle just like Randuir's example is found in Majora's Mask.

One of the most famous puzzles is the Lost Woods: have the players hear about the mystery of the forest and that there is only one correct way through, then every 100' they arrive at an identical intersection on the path. One who flies would find themselves enshrouded in a thick mist if they attempt to see the route from above, and each attempt to split the party would have them rejoin at the next intersection. The solution need not be complex, but they must traverse together to get through.

There are plenty of examples of lever sequences, but since you have a party you can have a room with pressure plates corresponding to the number of teammates, as if predestined. Have some obvious symbolic notation tied to each player's race or class so that each plate reacts only to one of your players. Once they are all in place, a set of bespoke magic items appears before them.

Have them enter a plain room with only a single boulder in the center. Have them roll investigation, and have each one notice something different: scrape marks on the floor, the stone is of a different type than the tomb's construction, the dust around it is disturbed, etc. Once they figure out that they must move it, they may try individually to push it. Let them fail several times before they realize that they must all work to move it, and then it slides easily, revealing a descending stair.

The majority of Zelda puzzles require having acquired some other item previously. Get your bard an ocarina and let him learn specific melodies. A Stone of Agony sounds like a cursed item until it reveals treasure chests lleft and right. Two words: boss key.
I've actually been playing a couple of the other Zelda games for inspiration. Already finished Twilight Princess, am playing Wind Waker with a friend, and have an emulator to let me play A Link to the Past sitting on my computer waiting to be used.

No doubt the players will find themselves in the Lost Woods at some point, unless I decide to move the Master Sword elsewhere, and a maze could be a neat challenge. I also do want to enforce a certain amount of teamwork; replacing the single hero Link with a team of Champions has introduced that as an important theme.


I might be able to help you out on this! I have a YouTube channel that is closing in on 50 puzzles that can be used in your D&D game. Each video gives full demonstration on how the puzzle works and links to downloadable content if required.

For the puzzles on my channel I take a lot of inspiration from video games. While I have not played Breath of the Wild, I have played the original Zelda and a handful of GBA Zelda games. In fact, one of my puzzles is based on the Lost Woods maze from the original NES game

D&D Puzzle #25 - Maze of the Elements (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-pb1rDSE3M&t=3s)

Anyway, check it out. You should be able to find a few that you can use in your game. Of course all of the ideas leave themselves open for you to tweak and twist so you can use them in your game. Hoping to have these (plus more) released in a book later this year. :)
I went ahead and watched the first two, and I think this could be a cool resource to use. Thanks for sharing it with me :) My goal is for the shrines to be 15-30 minute challenges that the party can complete on the way to doing the Important Plot Things, so these should be about right.

[pragma]

I'd like to second the answer about using lore to hide puzzles in plain sight. I find old religions to be useful justifications for elaborate puzzles that have some hints for characters: a zealot is willing to go through a lot of trouble to set the scene for a ritual, and is likely to decorate in a way that lets him/her brag about it.

For example, I run one puzzle in a one shot where the players stumble upon the tomb of a math-obsessed tiefling cult. A little research before they arrive reveals that the tieflings in the cult had four fingers, and players notice panels on the wall with four repeated markings. The puzzle is a simple magic square, but the players need to recognize the markings that they're seeing are numbers and that the are in base 4. It's code-breaking, but the hard part isn't figuring out the substitution cipher, it's linking the lore to the puzzle at hand.

However, my experience playing into logic puzzles is that they're rather dull unless they're exceptionally well set up. Social puzzles where you have to suss out the motivation of dungeon denizens tend to keep the players more engaged in the role-playing.

[Sharur]

The problem I find is to ensure the puzzles are not too contrived.

Let's say the creators of a dungeon wanted to secure an area and you have to break a code to unlock it. They would know the code. They don't need to leave lots of clues to aid their memories lying around the place.

Anything created to be secure should be secure by design. Unless you have a particular type of table interested in some hard-core codebreaking you are looking at a not very fun puzzle.

This pushes towards puzzles that do not appear as puzzles.

Also be aware of fantasy abilities. How do you raise the portcullis by correctly getting the right counterbalancing weights? Who cares if you can misty step through.

Alternatively, puzzles can serve as passwords/token-based authentication (the two halves of TFA). "Speak friend and enter", for example, is a shibboleth. It requires either one to know the password, or to possess a skill (reading and speaking Elvish), that the orcs it was meant to guard against would not likely know (and, if you want to be more diabolical, it could be the Elves who made the door giving themselves a way into the Dwarvish stronghold if need be, post-Rogue One Deathstar-style).

When designing a puzzle, one has to look to who the creator was, and what they were trying to do. For example, in Skyrim, the pictorial "door locks" are not meant to keep people out, but to keep the unthinking undead in. A temple's security system may be based on their doctrine, or mythology, especially if it is a "secret temple in an isolated location"; opening the temple is meshed with their worship services. E.g. a Sun god's temple might require the production of light, while a god of murder and slaughter's shrine might be unlocked with blood sacrifice.

Magic is definitely something that one needs to keep in mind though...

[Witty Username]

I like puzzles that have manageable fail states or infinite reatempts. The goal is to provide a challenge, not stone wall the party. Failure resulting in a fight with a guardian is the most straightforward, but trap activations or the puzzle making an easier route rather than being the only route can work well too.

Also, visual aids. Puzzles are substantially easier when they can be understood, and descriptions won't always work.

[Reach Weapon]

Thing I keep running into is that a lot of these challenges rely on natural aspects of video games - e.g. completing them is primarily made a challenge because it requires finesse with the controls, or good timing, or the ability to notice some clue on the wall. Most of those things just reduce to an ability check at the tabletop, and that doesn't seem like an interesting challenge to me. ("I make a Dexterity check to jump off the platform right before it falls." "Your passive Perception is 15, so you notice the diagram on the ceiling that shows in what order you have to flip the switches.")

While reducing a puzzle (for groups that enjoy them) to a die roll is counter-productive, don't overly discount the benefits of showing players their good character design or habits helped. It doesn't have to just be solution assistance, appropriate skills, tools or curiosity could be why they understand anything about the challenge at all.

[Hilary]

I am currently trying to figure out how to design interesting puzzles for a D&D campaign, and finding myself a lot more stumped than I probably should be.

For a bit of context, my current inspiration is from video games - specifically, the Legend of Zelda games. I've been working to adapt Breath of the Wild for a few months now, and a crucial component of that game is a series of shrines scattered across the wilderness that contain little puzzles of the classic sort. Ride the floating platform around without hitting the spikes on the walls. Get the stone ball into a receptacle across the room and 50 feet up. Figure out how to work a complicated ancient mechanism. (There are similar things in the other games I've played, but in larger dungeons rather than tiny self-contained shrines.)

Thing I keep running into is that a lot of these challenges rely on natural aspects of video games - e.g. completing them is primarily made a challenge because it requires finesse with the controls, or good timing, or the ability to notice some clue on the wall. Most of those things just reduce to an ability check at the tabletop, and that doesn't seem like an interesting challenge to me. ("I make a Dexterity check to jump off the platform right before it falls." "Your passive Perception is 15, so you notice the diagram on the ceiling that shows in what order you have to flip the switches.")

So, the question would be, what sorts of puzzles do work at the tabletop? Based on your own wild speculation, or your own experience if you've seen some before? I'm less interested in things like riddles and logic puzzles, but if that's the only thing that works well, knowing that would be helpful. Again, I feel like this should be obvious, but I'm kind of stuck with one example in my head and I'm having trouble getting past it.

I tend to draw upon existing puzzles, but I also have made my own. I used the Tower of Hanoi and the Knight's Tour in one campaign. I like logistics puzzles like the one with three things that have to get across a river (I used a goat, a cabbage and a bugbear) or the two different sized buckets where you have to fill one with a specific amount of water.

Players familiar with these puzzles will not be unhappy that you used historic puzzles. They will be thrilled to be able to put their obscure knowledge to some use in the game.

[Veldrenor]

Whatever you design, keep the players thinking. When confronted with a puzzle, most people will come up with a couple ideas and then stop. Then if those ideas don't work they get frustrated. That's part of why "single solution" puzzles are considered so bad - players give up when their first couple ideas don't work. When the players freeze up and start getting frustrated, keep them moving. Don't offer advice, players tend to have this false perception that your advice is unfair because no one could have thought of your ideas without already knowing the solution. List off the ideas they tried, maybe repeat the current goal and obstacle, and then ask "what else did you think of?" That prompt helps them think about other ideas (works for non-puzzle situations too), including other ways to beat a "single solution" puzzle. Most "single solution" puzzles in D&D aren't actually single solution. Your DM brain can adjudicate any crazy idea your players come up with. If you provide your players with a puzzle with only one solution, and they can't figure out said solution, they're only brickwalled if they give up. If they can't come up with the solution, that means that they have to either figure out a different way around the puzzle, or they have to change the puzzle. I had a puzzle where the solution was to enter a password into a bunch of statues ala OotS 1154. Whenever they entered the wrong password, the floor opened and dropped them into a pit. They couldn't think of the password and they didn't have the time or HP to go through every possible combination. They couldn't solve the puzzle as it existed, so they changed it - they triggered the pit and one of them jammed the doors from below so that it couldn't open again until they were done. That gave them all the time in the world to try all the buttons one at a time, listen to the way the sounds of the mechanism changed for each one, and then enter the correct password.

[Randomthom]

Maths/logic puzzles are a good way to go.
https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/
http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/puzzles/#1

Edit the content to give it more of a D&D feel appropriate to your setting/dungeon and you can get a lot out of these things.

[Witty Username]

Oh, something to keep in mind, the "forcability" of the puzzle. Nearly every puzzle I have seen the party has tried to physically break in some way.
This isn't a bad thing, put some thought to how the build might defend the puzzle or how it is structured.
Take the riddle door, is it made of stone? Maybe the characters can hack it down with a sword but can mine though it with a pickaxe.
Consequence can be a factor as well. Maybe breaking the door can cause an explosion, or it will conjure flames to defend itself. And the characters can mitigate it with spells like protection from energy or absorb elements.
Don't shut down ideas like this entirely, cutting the knot is a valid solution and can be an interesting challenge in of itself.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Ride the floating platform around without hitting the spikes on the walls. Get the stone ball into a receptacle across the room and 50 feet up. Figure out how to work a complicated ancient mechanism. (There are similar things in the other games I've played, but in larger dungeons rather than tiny self-contained shrines.)

Thing I keep running into is that a lot of these challenges rely on natural aspects of video games - e.g. completing them is primarily made a challenge because it requires finesse with the controls, or good timing, or the ability to notice some clue on the wall. Most of those things just reduce to an ability check at the tabletop, and that doesn't seem like an interesting challenge to me. ("I make a Dexterity check to jump off the platform right before it falls." "Your passive Perception is 15, so you notice the diagram on the ceiling that shows in what order you have to flip the switches.").

These type of puzzles can work in D&D, but are better designed as complex traps, and require a decent amount of design time for the DM.

You also need multiple components to stimulate multiple party members.

Ability checks become more interesting if one party member, for example, has to rotate a stele on a platform set in the wall 50' off the ground, (that has no visible ladders or access ramps), another has chant over a pool of water, and toss the right sequence of colored stones into the pool, while a third has to keep a lever from rising....
.....meanwhile the Poltergeists of dead Shrine Defenders use their T.K. to thwart the party's efforts.

Combat timing adds pressure.

Alternatively, using a 'mini game' might also serve your needs...alas..some players hate mini games..."Wait I've spent hours optimizing my character, but this mini game doesn't use my Stats, etc?"

[DarknessEternal]

Puzzles in RPGs are problematic, and nearly everyone thinks about them wrong.

You're supposed to be making challenges for the characters, not the players.

Just like you don't expect the players to get in a huge scrum to prove their characters can fight, you can't make a puzzle that relies on the players to solve it.

Characters have to be the tool that solves the puzzle in an RPG.

[Bohandas]

Do they all have swords? Like Alexander the Great? At Gordium?

[DwarfFighter]

Players love thinking outside the box, ref portcullis puzzle vs misty step. You should worry less about safeguarding against players' creativity and instead make good puzzle.

If you want the players to *solve* the puzzle instead of circumventing it, make it so that solution brings into play a plot-furthering event, e.g. draining the water from a flooded dungeon level, opening a portal to the next level, deactivating the over-powered guardians in the next room.

-DF

[Veldrenor]

Puzzles in RPGs are problematic, and nearly everyone thinks about them wrong.

You're supposed to be making challenges for the characters, not the players.


Hard disagree. If the challenges are solely for the characters (“you encounter a puzzle, roll an Intelligence check to solve the puzzle”), then you don’t need the players. They could make their characters, hand them to the DM, and then walk away; D&D would be an idle game instead of an RPG.



Just like you don't expect the players to get in a huge scrum to prove their characters can fight, you can't make a puzzle that relies on the players to solve it.


Characters can’t fight. Throw some goblins in front of the characters and have the players stand back, and the characters will just stand there and block/dodge until the goblins eventually kill them. Characters don’t really exist; they’re mental constructs with no independent thought and they need the players to tell them what to do. You’re right that we don’t expect players to beat each other up to decide a fight, but we do expect them to make the tactical decisions for their characters (even if a real person with the characters’ level of combat experience would know that those decisions are terrible). Combat relies on the characters and the players, as do puzzles: the players can come up with solutions all day long, but until they tell their characters to speak the password or press the runes or stand on the space the puzzle doesn't get solved.



Characters have to be the tool that solves the puzzle in an RPG.

Tools don’t solve problems; put a hammer next to a nail and the hammer won’t suddenly jump up and pound in the nail for you. Tools allow you to interact with and solve the problem.

Characters are the “observe” and “act” parts of the OODA loop.

Their senses tell you about the shape of the challenge ahead, and their knowledge tells you relevant facts about the world.
Their skills push and twist and manipulate the environment.

Players are the “orient” and “decide” parts of the OODA loop.

Their minds take the intel from the characters and decide what’s important, what’s not, and how to make use of it.
They choose what course of action to take in order to move towards overcoming the challenge; which spells to cast, which enemies to attack, and which skills to apply.

You need both halves of the loop to overcome challenges. You need players to decide and characters to act. But not all challenges rely equally on the character and the player. Combat lies more on the characters’ shoulders (the player says attack the goblin and the character swings the sword), and puzzles lie on the players’ (the character supplies the clues and the player puts them together).

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Necromancy puzzles are discouraged.