Building a "MYST Island" themed one-off adventure - Need help!

[Endal]

Hey there everyone. I'm putting together a one-off adventure that is based on the game MYST and I was hoping for a bit of help. The idea behind it is that your party encounters a Mad Wizard who wants proof that you are heroes who can do more than just swing an axe or blow up a cave full of kobolds. He wants to see if you can think. The entire adventure has ZERO fighting opportunities and is just full of puzzles. I have made a few adjustments since the players aren't being sent off of the island to other places.

Major adjustments include:

The two sons are not present (no need for them)
All clues can be found in a single journal in the library, but there are rules, the characters must have writing equipment on them to be allowed to write any notes and none of the book's clues may be read outside of the library
The ship is not sunk, but has a mechanical force field around it that is turned off at the power plant
The tower on top of the library does not exist (no real use for it)
The Rocket Ship has been changed into an Amphitheater (since you aren't traveling anywhere)



So far I have completed:

The Hidden Tunnel Opening Clue (the cauldron that shows players how to get to the end)
The Library full of clues for the puzzles
The powerhouse that will give power to the locations on the island
The ship
The Amphitheater (formerly the Rocket Ship)
The Final Encounter with the Mad Wizard



The pieces that I need help on are:

The Lighthouse (formerly the gears)
The Planetarium
The Garden (the ship is no longer raised here)
The Cabin
The Clock Tower



I am going to just make these up as I roll along, but if anyone wants to help with any of these I would love some tips or suggestions for the kinds of unique puzzles that I can include in these remaining places.

[Man_Over_Game]

Just make all the levers and buttons be successful based on a random number generator, and you'll get the feel of MYST perfectly.

[follacchioso]

Sounds amazing, hope you will share the results once you've finished it!

My suggestion is to play this outside of D&D. Instead of having character sheets, your players will simply impersonate themselves. So, no classes and no skills.. They are not needed and they would only complicate things.

[The Kool]

My suggestion is to play this outside of D&D. Instead of having character sheets, your players will simply impersonate themselves. So, no classes and no skills.. They are not needed and they would only complicate things.

Came here to say this. Nothing about this adventure hinges upon or relies on stats in any way, shape, or form. Ability checks simply provide opportunities for nobody to be good at a roll that is required, or somebody to be completely useless because they're built for combat, or somebody to dominate because they have certain spells that invalidate some puzzles. If you want to insert this into an ongoing campaign, it would work fine. If this is really a one-off, but you want to keep the D&D flair, then don't bother with character sheets. Tell people to bring a concept then just play the concept.

Suggestion: There's no table-practical difference between something being in one journal vs being 'in the library', so maybe spread the clues across several journals, and let players look for specific books to find clues. If you put it all into one journal, actually, the players will try to take it with them guaranteed.

Planetarium: poking around with a divination-powered observatory actually sounds like a lot of fun. This was used to get clues for another puzzle in the form of constellations relating to images elsewhere... Perhaps you can do a similar thing? The clue in the library relates to coordinates for the planetarium, the coordinates give a constellation. Hand over a page with the stars on it and tell them it's what they see, they'll have to pick out the constellation (using real-world constellations isn't a bad idea here). This related back to the garden, where the images were found. Perhaps this is simply an overly complex combination lock to open the cabin or the lighthouse?

[Ventruenox]

Unless the characters will be taking damage or have to make saves for failing a puzzle, I agree that D&D is not the right system. Even then, FATE-lite or the Cypher system feel more appropriate. If they end up keeping rewards for a further campaign, it's more of a grey area.

[Rukelnikov]

Hey there everyone. I'm putting together a one-off adventure that is based on the game MYST and I was hoping for a bit of help. The idea behind it is that your party encounters a Mad Wizard who wants proof that you are heroes who can do more than just swing an axe or blow up a cave full of kobolds. He wants to see if you can think. The entire adventure has ZERO fighting opportunities and is just full of puzzles. I have made a few adjustments since the players aren't being sent off of the island to other places.

Major adjustments include:

The two sons are not present (no need for them)
All clues can be found in a single journal in the library, but there are rules, the characters must have writing equipment on them to be allowed to write any notes and none of the book's clues may be read outside of the library
The ship is not sunk, but has a mechanical force field around it that is turned off at the power plant
The tower on top of the library does not exist (no real use for it)
The Rocket Ship has been changed into an Amphitheater (since you aren't traveling anywhere)



So far I have completed:

The Hidden Tunnel Opening Clue (the cauldron that shows players how to get to the end)
The Library full of clues for the puzzles
The powerhouse that will give power to the locations on the island
The ship
The Amphitheater (formerly the Rocket Ship)
The Final Encounter with the Mad Wizard



The pieces that I need help on are:

The Lighthouse (formerly the gears)
The Planetarium
The Garden (the ship is no longer raised here)
The Cabin
The Clock Tower



I am going to just make these up as I roll along, but if anyone wants to help with any of these I would love some tips or suggestions for the kinds of unique puzzles that I can include in these remaining places.

Dude, that is a good idea, but I doubt you can do it as a one shot. Maybe drop all but one Age (not counting the D'ni hub where Atrus is), to make it shorter?

If players have access to divinations, take into account that some puzzles will become significantly simpler with those (actually something good if all happens within the same day, slots become hints)

Also, Idk why you wanna make it so clues can only be read inside the library, there's no combat, so normally it'll be just "we go back to the library, we read the clues, we go back to where we were before".

I'm assuming the Mad Wizard will be playing Atrus' role?

[Endal]

Came here to say this. Nothing about this adventure hinges upon or relies on stats in any way, shape, or form. Ability checks simply provide opportunities for nobody to be good at a roll that is required, or somebody to be completely useless because they're built for combat, or somebody to dominate because they have certain spells that invalidate some puzzles. If you want to insert this into an ongoing campaign, it would work fine. If this is really a one-off, but you want to keep the D&D flair, then don't bother with character sheets. Tell people to bring a concept then just play the concept.
I 100% agree with this. The only checks are things like investigation to get better clues. An example is the first thing you see (the docks and the boat). The boat has a shield around it and the players can't pass it until the figure out the puzzle with the power station. The checks are there to add flavor to let them know it's not an arcana item and is entirely mechanical. Everything can be seen with a simple search and they can roll Investigate first to be told where to look, or they can tell the DM where they want to look. If they look under the desk, there are the numbers! If they investigate the desk, they are told there are numbers under it.

The reason they would want character sheets is that they do get some rather valuable/powerful items that will work in the real world (though there are terms to them).

Also, I love the idea of keeping the constilations in the garden. It makes sense since that's how it was before and there don't need to be any puzzles there. I also love the idea of bringing some sheets for them to track the constellations. Perhaps make it so they enter them in the correct order to unlock the chest (the idea is that they need to collect the amulets on the island to stay with the mad wizard)


And yes, the Mad Wizard is playing the Atrus role.

Finally, I have it written in the campaign's DM notes: The row of books may be opened, but any attempt to take the books outside of the library (including the journal) will result in them disappearing and returning to their original place. The whole idea is to make it so that it is as close to the original game as possible while still being a multiplayer event. The clues are SUPER simple and just give the players the information they need to get into the puzzles. From there they have to solve them using clues that exist at the puzzle.

[The Kool]

Also, I love the idea of keeping the constilations in the garden. It makes sense since that's how it was before and there don't need to be any puzzles there. I also love the idea of bringing some sheets for them to track the constellations. Perhaps make it so they enter them in the correct order to unlock the chest (the idea is that they need to collect the amulets on the island to stay with the mad wizard)

I suggest a flow of:
Coordinates (date and time) are in the library
Enter coordinates into observatory (should be fairly obvious because there's a date/time interface)
Get page with stars on it
Compare stars to images in the garden, figure out which one it is
Press images in the order presented in the library
Cabin unlocks (players should probably hear the click the instant they do it right)
Inside forest-themed cabin is the chest.

If you want to add an extra layer, there's a picture in the cabin of a key in the top of a tree, and the players have to find the right tree (make it something distinctive) and return to unlock the chest.

The gears-themed lighthouse was actually one of the more puzzle-like puzzles in the game, it might translate decently?

[Endal]

I suggest a flow of:
Coordinates (date and time) are in the library
Enter coordinates into observatory (should be fairly obvious because there's a date/time interface)
Get page with stars on it
Compare stars to images in the garden, figure out which one it is
Press images in the order presented in the library
Cabin unlocks (players should probably hear the click the instant they do it right)
Inside forest-themed cabin is the chest.

If you want to add an extra layer, there's a picture in the cabin of a key in the top of a tree, and the players have to find the right tree (make it something distinctive) and return to unlock the chest.

The gears-themed lighthouse was actually one of the more puzzle-like puzzles in the game, it might translate decently?

I like this. I will keep the ship in the center and it will have the force field around it if it is still active, a bunch of constellations (let's say 8) and then when they solve the puzzle they the ship will fade away and the amulet will appear in its place.

The Cabin already has a bunch of stuff together and I want to try to keep these puzzles fairly simple. I can collect all of the puzzles in Myst in about 20 minutes, having 3-5 players doing it should keep this pretty simple (short of the action stuff they will have to do).

[Endal]

Alright, I think I have this squared out.

The Lighthouse is going to have a bonfire at its base and a series of mirrors that the players will need to angle to get the light to the top of the lighthouse, once the beacon has light they will need to turn it to point to the rocks nearby which will reveal the chest where the amulet is.

The Planetarium is going to work like it did before and show off star clusters, the players will need to take the clusters to the Garden to figure out which of the images to activate to get the amulet to appear in the bird bath.

The Cabin is going to work just like it did before with the steam-powered hydraulic lift that takes you to the chest.

The Clock Tower will have a magical face that when you look through it you can see the chest that was on the beach the whole time.



I'm going to be writing this all up over the next few days and I'll try to get it posted up for people to try out!

[noob]

I agree with The Kool too: there is no point of making that in dnd 5e.