Do you add tough puzzles to your campaigns?

[tadkins]

Like the kind of seriously involved ones that you'd find in a lot of other games. If so, what kind? And what is the purpose behind them?

Beyond that, I'm curious as to how you might deal with a group of players who don't possess an 18 INT score in real life and might struggle with them. Do you drop hints, or allow magic to bypass them? Do you just stop the campaign if they can't move past them?

Lemme hear your stories!

[Torpin]

Like the kind of seriously involved ones that you'd find in a lot of other games. If so, what kind? And what is the purpose behind them?

Beyond that, I'm curious as to how you might deal with a group of players who don't possess an 18 INT score in real life and might struggle with them. Do you drop hints, or allow magic to bypass them? Do you just stop the campaign if they can't move past them?

Lemme hear your stories!
in the past for players with a intelligence score that is above what they would have i ususally texted or emailed them the riddle, or typically a hint about it sometime the night before or morning of, with the understanding they cant share it with other people.

also when i have a really smart person play a dumb fighter, i ask them to leave the room and one of the other players has to tell them the puzzle or riddle from what they remember

[magicalmagicman]

No one in our table liked puzzles in video games. They'd look up walkthroughs or just quit because they don't like looking up guides when they want to play. I'm no exception. There's a reason why most modern games don't have puzzles like they did in Zelda games back in the day. Granted I haven't played a zelda game for a while so I don't know how the modern games look like.

[Mike Miller]

My group and I don't do D&D for puzzles. So the few puzzles that show up are not that detailed.

[tadkins]

No one in our table liked puzzles in video games. They'd look up walkthroughs or just quit because they don't like looking up guides when they want to play. I'm no exception. There's a reason why most modern games don't have puzzles like they did in Zelda games back in the day. Granted I haven't played a zelda game for a while so I don't know how the modern games look like.

I got to thinking about them because World of Warcraft has done a bunch of them lately. Tons of really long, difficult, complicated puzzles that required the efforts of a whole Discord of people to solve. People I swear have to be super-genius PhDs or professional cryptologists because these puzzles are INSANE.

I follow along their progress but there's no way I'm smart enough to contribute to their solving efforts. Yet it got me to think, if I were playing an 18 INT Wizard or Witch or Archivist or something, those as characters would be the kind of people that'd be able to solve these kind of puzzles. The kind of characters that could do 5 Rubix Cubes in a minute, while my RL self has never even solved one.

So that got me to wonder, how a dumbass like me could properly portray an 18 INT character when they would be capable but not actually me.

[Calthropstu]

I once brought a level 9 hanayama puzzle to the game, and said "You gain 3 levels if you solve it."

I found out it was a terrible idea when it hit me in the head after one of my players got really really frustrated.

[Torpin]

I got to thinking about them because World of Warcraft has done a bunch of them lately. Tons of really long, difficult, complicated puzzles that required the efforts of a whole Discord of people to solve. People I swear have to be super-genius PhDs or professional cryptologists because these puzzles are INSANE.

I follow along their progress but there's no way I'm smart enough to contribute to their solving efforts. Yet it got me to think, if I were playing an 18 INT Wizard or Witch or Archivist or something, those as characters would be the kind of people that'd be able to solve these kind of puzzles. The kind of characters that could do 5 Rubix Cubes in a minute, while my RL self has never even solved one.

So that got me to wonder, how a dumbass like me could properly portray an 18 INT character when they would be capable but not actually me.
i played for years with this guy who like he pretty much always had good intention, but real life charisma of a thing with a low charisma, so he loved playing charismatic characters, be they a paladin, bard, or even a barbarian whose best stat was charisma, simply because he couldn't do it in real life and he knew it, whenever he had to make a charisma or dip or bluff... et cetra he would say something like "i say something diplomatic with a roll total of 26, and he got to talk people into all sorts of things. I myself and a bit of a fool, i could tell you what exactly would happen if you pissed into the wind, but i might still try it anyways to make sure i was right. real life example i was 13. I used to love playing wise characters with insights into people and noticed everything around me, cause im not and i don't. there is no reason whatsoever a dim pc cant just make an intelligence roll for a puzzle. lots of people love these games because it lets them do thinks they cant, such as talking to people, getting stabbed and shrugging it off, or shape shifting into a dragon, holding down a troll and eating it as it regenerates because it tried to lawfully charge you a toll you perceived as being over market price and thus invoking the rage of the local regent and getting your entire party arrested and beheaded, or you know... what ever... there is no reason you cant do that with intelligence as well. sometimes it feels nice to be the smart one when you arent and i would argue it goes against the spirit of the game to not allow it

[tadkins]

i played for years with this guy who like he pretty much always had good intention, but real life charisma of a thing with a low charisma, so he loved playing charismatic characters, be they a paladin, bard, or even a barbarian whose best stat was charisma, simply because he couldn't do it in real life and he knew it, whenever he had to make a charisma or dip or bluff... et cetra he would say something like "i say something diplomatic with a roll total of 26, and he got to talk people into all sorts of things. I myself and a bit of a fool, i could tell you what exactly would happen if you pissed into the wind, but i might still try it anyways to make sure i was right. real life example i was 13. I used to love playing wise characters with insights into people and noticed everything around me, cause im not and i don't. there is no reason whatsoever a dim pc cant just make an intelligence roll for a puzzle. lots of people love these games because it lets them do thinks they cant, such as talking to people, getting stabbed and shrugging it off, or shape shifting into a dragon, holding down a troll and eating it as it regenerates because it tried to lawfully charge you a toll you perceived as being over market price and thus invoking the rage of the local regent and getting your entire party arrested and beheaded, or you know... what ever... there is no reason you cant do that with intelligence as well. sometimes it feels nice to be the smart one when you arent and i would argue it goes against the spirit of the game to not allow it

Hehe, my experience was pretty much the opposite. My first character in a real D&D game was an 18 INT gnome illusionist wizard. In the first game we were chasing a gang of thugs down an alleyway and my gnome throw out an illusionary set of city guards. Then, to try and add realism to the illusion and frighten the rogues, my wizard threw her voice into the illusions but said something...kind of dumb. Nothing, in retrospect, that an 18 INT character would really say. It was my first game and was nervous with my RP, but needless to say I was penalized for it.

Even though I like wizards, and magic, it's kind of made me reluctant to play a high-INT character again. Even though I want to I would just find it hard to relate to one. There are definitely DMs out there who match RP ability and a proper portrayal of a character with the game mechanics, and reward or penalize such things. Just gotta read this story (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Powder_Keg_of_Justice) to know that to be true.

Charisma is a different issue as that stat definition is kind of vague and can be interpreted a few different ways. CHA-based classes seem to be the best for those who want to play as "average joes". Any bum can forge a pact and become a warlock, or be lucky enough to be born with sorcerer powers in their blood. I think I'd probably go that route instead if given the opportunity, it's just a pity that they seem to have less options than a wizard, a witch, an archivist, an artificer, etc.

[wallyd2]

Tough puzzles. No. I don't want my players to spend an hour working out math equations or flipping around a Rubik's cube in order to continue on their path.

Easy to Moderate puzzles. Absolutely. In fact, I have created an entire YouTube channel on this premise. To me, puzzles add an extra element to the game that is not role-playing or combat. I base the puzzles on player knowledge but will dip into die rolls to add character knowledge as well.

What I want from a puzzle in my game is one of two things:

1) Characters need to find objects to complete puzzle (Lock and Key Type Puzzles)
2) Players/Characters can solve puzzle with hints within 5-10 minutes... (Logic and Thought Puzzles)

So if the players struggle, then I start dropping hints via die rolls... almost all of my adventuring groups are able to solve them, but sometimes requred a hint or two. A simple "You believe that...." is all you need to help out a struggling party with a dilemma.

Truth be told, I am an old school gamer. We had puzzles, riddles, traps and dungeons in my day... I have run some puzzle one-shots recently and players have enjoyed them, so I think I have a good balance of bringing old school thinking into today's D&D world.

Anyways... if you are interested in the puzzles I have come up with, I have nearly 50 videos on my channel. Each one gives a full demonstration on how the puzzle works. Wally DM on YouTube - D&D Puzzles for your Game (http://youtube.com/c/wallydm)

[Resileaf]

I don't create a lot of puzzles, but I've created one in particular I enjoyed. It was a maze with floor panels that you have to walk across in a certain order to not trigger traps in a room. The players had to figure out the pattern that wouldn't trigger the trap. Basically, each panel had an arrow on it that points in a certain direction, and at first glance, it looked like if you just followed the arrows, you'd reach the end, but the real pattern was to follow the arrows in a clockwise pattern, reversing to counterclockwise when it's made a full rotation, then back to clockwise and so on. There was a catch; the arrows that pointed in the non-90° angles were curved to mix things up. I was pretty proud of this puzzle, it was clever without being impossible.
It was just a little frustrating that the most intelligent (irl) member of the group insisted there was no patterns at all after triggering traps twice without barely thinking about it while everyone else was having fun trying to figure it out.

[PrismCat21]

For something more than a simple puzzle/riddle, I like to build props for the Players to physically interact with. It generally makes it easier for people to figure out and immersives them deeper into the game.
Chests with puzzle locks are my favorite, but take a good deal of time to build.

[Darth Ultron]

Yes, I add tons and tons of puzzles to my game. After all, after pure mindless combat, and RPG is all about problem solving.

A tough puzzle is a bit relative. You can take a puzzle from ''Funz Puzzles for Kidz" and the smart player will be completely clueless.

In some cases sure, a puzzle can be by passed...but not often. I've never ''shut down a game" because the players could not solve a puzzle.....but sure many games have left puzzles unsolved.

[Hackulator]

I like to include puzzles of various types. My favorite was I had a group of players raid an evil temple. There was a key they needed to get to open a gateway they needed to go through. The key was attached to a chain going into the floor with a strangely shaped piece of metal on the end, the whole thing was completely indestructible and immune to any magic, they had to figure out how to get the key. I then pulled out an iron blacksmith puzzle which I had attached a key to and told them to get the key off. Every few minutes of real time, another wave of enemies would attack them.

[Malphegor]

We’ve mostly had riddles and poetry that hints at the truth. I know if I ever DM, I’m going to have a Towers of Hanoi puzzle out of tradition but also permit the players to skip it if they have a cool idea.

But that’s just me- puzzles are fine, even ones they cannot suss out, but I will accept alternate solutions if they’re interesting.

take the lord of the rings example, the door to moria. The puzzle is to figure out the password is mellon. Now, if nobody
can read it, or they’re stumped thinking about what they should speak for a significant amount lf time, I would definately accept Gandalf rigging up some fireworks to explode the door to Moria, as silly as that sounds, because it is a valid attempt dependant on a check and is entertaining to everyone.

[RoboEmperor]

If i encounter puzzles i take out an adamantine thing and use it to utterly destroy the entire puzzle. If destruction of a puzzle blocks progress through a dungeon i destroy the dungeon. If that prevents me from completing whatever quest I'm doing I abandon the quest and find a new one.

[Gnaeus]

We have a DM (and luckily 2 players) who are very good at math. He had a number of solve this or do not progress puzzles. That were way outside my ability to contribute to. This led to a number of encounters.

There were several where I just sat there bored and grumbled for hours.
Then I put (profession:mathematician) on my sheet and optimaxed it, and whenever we saw one I would roll a number in the 30s or 40s, tell him to tell them whatever hint I got to the others while I took a nap.
There was one time in particular where I vowed I would rather TPK against the party killing dragon chasing us rather than try the puzzle.

Then there was the one time when he went a little easier, described the riddle and I responded “oh, this was a Ted-Ed. We do this” and solved it before he finished telling us. I’m no math wiz but I have 2 kids.

So I’m gonna go with, only riddle if you AND your friends like puzzles, or provide a gamist way to bypass with spells or skills. Don’t torture players because you can.

[Resileaf]

If you ask me, algebra is not a puzzle.