Need some help: can you think of quick puzzles?

[Djibriel]

I've got a session (D&D 4e) coming up I'm DMing. I figured out a way of closing the session with a bomb diffusing challenge. If they make it, they live. If they don't, the entire building is blown up, killing everybody in it, PCs included.

To be more precise, it's an Eberron Warforged devoted to the Lord of Blades who is willing to sacrifice himself; a living bomb, as it were. When the PCs rush in to find the Warforged, his personality is already dead. What they find is a Warforged body set to blow, which they can recognize by Arcana checks.

Here's my idea. I don't want a skill challenge or whatever. I want to set a real-life timer of 5 minutes and throw some simple puzzles at them. They shouldn't be hard, but they should be under a lot of stress while fixing them, 'cause the clock is ticking. It'd be great if the puzzles would seem a logical part of diffusing a magical bomb.

So far, I've come up with a password (a Warforged battlecry they heard earlier) and a Wolf/Sheep/Cabbage puzzle of gems they all need to set to 'off' in a set order.

I'd like to end, after all puzzles have been completed, with a simple 50/50 decision where the correct 'wire' will save them all and the wrong one will be a TPK, without any way of narrowing down what's the better choice. Like in the movies :p

Has anybody ever done something like this? Any ideas?

[Asheram]

I'd like to end, after all puzzles have been completed, with a simple 50/50 decision where the correct 'wire' will save them all and the wrong one will be a TPK, without any way of narrowing down what's the better choice. Like in the movies :p

Just saying, you better make it so that it's always the right wire.

[Djibriel]

While I'd agree with you in most cases, this is a one-shot horror-themed session with characters created for a single day.

[Siosilvar]

While I'd agree with you in most cases, this is a one-shot horror-themed session with characters created for a single day.

No excuse for being a poor DM. 50/50 with no way of knowing ahead of time is not something you want anyone to remember about the game.

The shadows move as they start to cut the wire, then they switch wires, and they cut the right one, remembering just how close they came to some horrible fate at the end... make a game to remember.

[valadil]

Try tracing puzzles. The idea is you have to trace the pattern without redrawing a line (crossing a line is okay though) or lifting your pencil from the page. It's pretty easy to fluff these as some magical runes or something.

I used these in my last game, but with a twist. Instead of giving them a puzzle, I gave them a puzzle plus a few red herrings. The red herrings looked like the same sort of puzzle, but weren't solvable. The players had to find the solvable puzzle and solve it. The number of red herrings distributed depended on a thievery or arcana check. I think I gave each lock a DC. If the players beat it, no red herrings. If they failed and for every 3 points of failure beyond that, they got an unsolvable puzzle.

[Deepbluediver]

Using props can be a good way to enhance the game, if done right. I had one DM who described a magic item we found as "a small cube, composed of different colored squares that could be twisted around in any direction". Yes, it was a rubix cube. It apparently jumbled itself whenever it was out of a humanoids posession for more than 24 hours, but solving different colored sides allowed you to cast various spells. Rather than taking a wisdom check or anything like that, we had to actually solve a real rubix cube at the game table to let our characters use the item.

None of us could actually solve the whole thing at once, but we could usually get 1 side done at a time, and since each spell was something like one use per day, we'd be scrambling in between encounters to get the next trick ready.


I think using real-world tie-ins like this can help, provided your group enjoys them. Honestly, unless you know the group very well (and you may) then I would start small, and work your way up.
Regarding the cut-the-right-wire scenario: have you noticed how the heroes in a movie ALWAYS get it right? I really hope that you are not actually planning on killing everyone if they guess it wrong; a TPK due just to random chance is a really ****ty way to end a gaming session, IMO humble opinion.
I would drop hints that the players SHOULD know, if they've solved all the clues or eliminated other options, but whichever they pick let it be the correct choice.

[endoperez]

You want to make this a game, not a puzzle. Also, don't punish the players for trying, or failing. Let them try as many times as they have time for. It's not a "if you don't get it right, it blows up right now", but "it's not defused yet, try again".

A puzzle is "you get it or you don't". You win or you won't.

A game is interactive. You get a response for a failed try, which tells you something about the ways to win the game.

It might not seem like much of a difference, but it gives them a feeling that they are progressing even when they didn't get it right yet.

You could use any existing game the players will enjoy and that can be made to fit the theme.