Need puzzles and non combat material

[Fireblast950]

anything would do. and possibly if you can list any sources of where you get your puzzles riddles and social encounters that'd be great. also any system that you have found or use to assign experience to these type of encounters. i usually play in 4e but im quickly jumping ship as i find out how much more i like pathfinder, 3.5 and 5e so those are the realms of which i am looking for these non combat challenges.

[Glimbur]

One thing an Evil party we ran had a lot of fun with was an election. See, the city was ruled by nine Judges. One of the Judges took off, so there was a vacancy. In order to fill it, there was an election. Each Judge got a vote. So, the challenge to the party was to secure the most votes. We wrote up a description of each Judge, made combat stats (which we ended up not using), and decided what they would like in exchange for their vote. The party had to find out what the Judges wanted and then do it. One judge wanted them to put on a good show in the arena, another wanted to curse them, a third wanted to marry one of them (it made sense at the time. Kind of), one of them would have voted for them if they found him. And so on.

More abstractly, give the party an over-arching goal, several different people who can help them get there, but each potential helper comes with their own complications/requirements. Maybe the party needs to find someone innocent, or guilty, in a trial. So they have to gather evidence, find witnesses, be/hire a good lawyer, and so on. Maybe the party needs to get someone's child safely married off. So they have to keep track of them, find a suitable partner, get them together, and so on. These are more 'adventure ideas' than puzzles or riddles.

[Dire Moose]

I've always liked the "make a room where the plot coupon is impossible to reach from the entrance" idea. This would include a lava pit filling the entire width of the room, a ledge to high to jump (for parties without flight-capable casters), etc.

The point is to make it impossible to reach with anything the party can easily use. And do not program in a solution either. The players will always find some unexpected way to improvise; the challenge is in creating said improvisation.

[NWA]

anything would do. and possibly if you can list any sources of where you get your puzzles riddles and social encounters that'd be great. also any system that you have found or use to assign experience to these type of encounters. i usually play in 4e but im quickly jumping ship as i find out how much more i like pathfinder, 3.5 and 5e so those are the realms of which i am looking for these non combat challenges.

I dream of adding logical puzzles to the games I play.

I think adding Smullyan-esque puzzels to dungeons would be great: http://www.manyworldsoflogic.com/log...inTeasers.html

[Fireblast950]

I dream of adding logical puzzles to the games I play.

I think adding Smullyan-esque puzzels to dungeons would be great: http://www.manyworldsoflogic.com/log...inTeasers.html

thank you this helped a lot. i can totally do this

[MrUberGr]

The problem with logical puzzles and the sort, is very simple. It makes the player's "stats" count. It's not reasonable that the party's barbarian will find the solution to something faster that the wizard.

What I mean is that each person doesn't think in the same way, and what might seem simple to one, might be complex to another. The problem created is when the barbarian finds the solutions faster or easier than the wizard. Either you should hand out some sort of hint to the wizard or I dunno. However not all the time. For example, the lava pit is not something a wizard would be accustomed to. However finding the code that will unlock the door to the ancient temple, then yeah, that's were the wizard excels.

P.S. It's 4 am and I'm tired. I'm sorry if I what I say reads weird :P

[Milodiah]

On Traps:

Personally, one thing that's somewhat bothered me in D&D (and fantasy in general) is when things that are supposedly security mechanisms have lateral-thinking solutions and the like that seem as if they were designed to give intruders a clever way to override them. Sure, there's the whole "only the smart may pass" logic, but...the ones that are also designed to kill or maim the stupid? That's kinda murder, dude. What terrifyingly unethical contractor did you hire to build a door that electrocutes people who aren't good at brainteasers?

Personally, I agree that unless you really are designing a fair and beatable-by-design "intelligence test" trap, the cleverness should come in when you design a system that should reliably stop an intruder, fix any problems you notice immediately (unless you're designing a system that is known in-universe for being unreliable), and then install it in a way that makes sense in the overall layout of the location's defenses, and then watch as the players resolve it. Granted, there should always be a way to disarm the trap, since self-preservation is usually a property of anyone smart enough to build a mechanical/magical trap, but it should never be obvious, or easy for anyone other than the designer and friends to do.

Though that approach tends to work better in modern settings, in which everyone at the table has a (usually basic) knowledge of how stuff works and how to bypass it. Cameras can be evaded/busted/hacked, keypad locks need a combination, laser tripwires can be dodged (but by God they're gonna be invisible if they ever happen to come up in a game of mine), etc. etc. Most people don't have the same knowledge of swinging guillotine-blade traps and pressure-plate dart spitter traps.


Finally, you should think of whether or not the designer would put such a thing there, and why. They're not about to put a pitfall-and-spikes trap in front of the cafeteria, that's where they eat. At the very least they would build floor braces to keep the trapdoor from opening unless they go to high alert, in which case they'd pull the braces. Treasure room? Sure, that'd be trapped. But with something that can be disarmed when someone authorized wants to go in. Really, the most logical place for these murder machines would be on the perimeter, like real-life minefields. If you put it somewhere that would be a valid line of approach, and tell your troops to just avoid it at all costs, then it's pretty useful.

[Fireblast950]

On Traps:

Personally, one thing that's somewhat bothered me in D&D (and fantasy in general) is when things that are supposedly security mechanisms have lateral-thinking solutions and the like that seem as if they were designed to give intruders a clever way to override them. Sure, there's the whole "only the smart may pass" logic, but...the ones that are also designed to kill or maim the stupid? That's kinda murder, dude. What terrifyingly unethical contractor did you hire to build a door that electrocutes people who aren't good at brainteasers?

Personally, I agree that unless you really are designing a fair and beatable-by-design "intelligence test" trap, the cleverness should come in when you design a system that should reliably stop an intruder, fix any problems you notice immediately (unless you're designing a system that is known in-universe for being unreliable), and then install it in a way that makes sense in the overall layout of the location's defenses, and then watch as the players resolve it. Granted, there should always be a way to disarm the trap, since self-preservation is usually a property of anyone smart enough to build a mechanical/magical trap, but it should never be obvious, or easy for anyone other than the designer and friends to do.

Though that approach tends to work better in modern settings, in which everyone at the table has a (usually basic) knowledge of how stuff works and how to bypass it. Cameras can be evaded/busted/hacked, keypad locks need a combination, laser tripwires can be dodged (but by God they're gonna be invisible if they ever happen to come up in a game of mine), etc. etc. Most people don't have the same knowledge of swinging guillotine-blade traps and pressure-plate dart spitter traps.


Finally, you should think of whether or not the designer would put such a thing there, and why. They're not about to put a pitfall-and-spikes trap in front of the cafeteria, that's where they eat. At the very least they would build floor braces to keep the trapdoor from opening unless they go to high alert, in which case they'd pull the braces. Treasure room? Sure, that'd be trapped. But with something that can be disarmed when someone authorized wants to go in. Really, the most logical place for these murder machines would be on the perimeter, like real-life minefields. If you put it somewhere that would be a valid line of approach, and tell your troops to just avoid it at all costs, then it's pretty useful.

I see your point but first I'm just trying to find different ways to role play these different aspects of security measures. I heard of one dm that had players find there way through a maze hand out in a certain amount of time. The high they rolled on their check the more amount of time they had to solve it. The judge example of a "puzzle" didn't even have to do with a security system. It was brilliant. Sometimes however crazy kooky puzzles in dungeons work in dnd logic because when you have players who can craft a magic item at level 4 why wouldn't they just as easily be able to craft keys. Puzzles are a way to keep people out and at worst keep non clever people out. I'd highly recommend running and expanding upon that theory with a role playing group.

[Bulhakov]

When looking for ideas for puzzles I often browse through IQ tests, looking at which ones can be converted to dungeon puzzle format (sliding tiles, runes on a door, etc.)


Also you'll be surprised how easy it is to generate plot ideas if you go to tvtropes.org and start clicking the random button ;) (warning! visiting tvtropes may cause extreme loss of time)