Puzzles

[DangerousPuhson]

Do people like puzzles? Is that a thing people still put into adventures, or is it too "hokey"? Do your players have problems solving them?

Here's one I've come up with - a sort of combination lock puzzle:

http://imgur.com/iaHp2iD

Three dials nested into one another (so the smallest is in the center and the largest is on the outside). I've done them this way so I could cut all three circles out, pin them in the middle, and let my players spin the dial to figure it out.

The key to this puzzle is that it can be solved right here, without any outside information required if the players come to a realization about it (the sum of all the 3-number combinations must be the same - a value of 50). They can come to this conclusion if they add up all the numbers (400) and then divide by the number of combinations expected (8). Otherwise I'd give them a hint like "to open the lock as odd as it is all must be even, and even so, must be equal" or something.

Anybody else have any cool puzzles or opinions on puzzles they'd like to share?

 

[Beoric]

I generally dislike express puzzles. In particular, I dislike puzzles that fall into one or more of these categories:

1. Those that rely on a knowledge of math that the faux-medieval characters are unlikely to have.

2. Those that rely on a working knowledge of English that native Galifaran (or Elfin, or whatever) speaking characters are unlikely to have.

3. Those that rely on modern pop culture references that the faux-medieval characters are unlikely to know.

4. Those that rely on what passes for logic in the designer's brain but are incomprehensible to anyone who does not make the same assumptions. This happens often enough that I work on the assumption that #4 applies and it isn't worth my time to figure out whether my assumption is correct.

5. Those that rely on hints left by the Evil Overlord elsewhere in the dungeon. Seriously, if you can't remember how to get into your treasure vault, why wouldn't you put it in a wizard mark on you palm, do you want all your minions to have a chance at cracking it?

I prefer "mechanical" puzzles such as traps that are readily found with reasonable care, but don't have an obvious bypass.

 

[The1True]

I'm cool with puzzles like the one above. If all else fails, you can solve it through brute force. It's riddles that I bloody hate. Seriously, if you lock a critical portion of your adventure behind a riddle wall, you're the worst kind of game designer and probably a terrible person who tortures puppies.

That said, I agree with Beoric's points 2-4. Particularly 3, unless you're adding another level to WG7 and have decided to commit suicide-by-players.

Point 1 though; come on, we're all nerds here. As long as we're not resorting to higher calculus, surely a little math is fun?

Point 5; clues reward exploration. Per the Alexandrian, there should be three for every truly difficult problem. You just have to lay them down in a way that doesn't suspend immersion. So yeah, leaving mocking hints scrawled on the walls maybe a little silly, but the undead corpse of the EO's mistress having a spare key or the EO's chamberlain keeping a cryptic reminder of locking procedure in a secret compartment under his desk is cool. And hell, the old trope of the passive-aggressive engineer who was forced to build the EO's fortress o' doom leaving coded clues or a puzzle built into the architecture and decor out of spite for his deadbeat employer is not entirely unbelievable, surely?

 

[Beoric]

Point 1: No, math is not universally fun. For me, math is a tool, not recreation. Ditto for most of the people I have played with. For a lot of them, D&D was their only excursion into nerddom.

Point 5: Yeah, mocking hints scrawled on the wall is what I had in mind. A spare key isn't a puzzle. The chamberlain's cryptic reminder is pretty decent though.

 

[squeen]

For a lot of them, D&D was their only excursion into nerddom.

It's crazy that this statement fills me with a bizarre sense of nostalgic pleasure.

 

[Guy Fullerton]

Yes on puzzles! Most of The Tiled Labyrinth is one big puzzle, as are about 1/3 of the keyed areas in The Mere Beneath (both from Saving Throw Fanzine). Many Gates of the Gann has a couple cryptic puzzles. The Hyqueous Vaults has several, but I'm not to blame for all of them
None are crucial to successfully adventuring, but you'll end up with more XP if figure them out.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

None are crucial to successfully adventuring, but you'll end up with more XP if figure them out.

This is the very definite key to puzzles, at least as I've come to understand it from scrubbing every review I can get my hands on: if your puzzle is non-optional, then that's not cool. Puzzles should be a bonus - a nifty aside to unlock a secret area, or a non-combat gate with a reward once overcome.

For every person who hates puzzles there will be one who loves them. They are not for everybody, but that doesn't mean they don't appeal to anybody. Their inclusion harkens back to the dawn of the game, and personally, I see them as something of a pillar of good interactive design. That being said, only when used with both a deft hand and an eye for bonus reward, not as a "pass-or-no-play" gateway to the rest of the adventure... I agree that's not cool.

 

[Malrex]

I HATE and despise puzzles AND riddles. I attempt to throw one in now and again though because I feel its part of the game, but as a player, I hate em. I think its because I get off work then play for 4 hours...after work, 85% of my brain is mush...Id rather roleplay a fool and fight some stuff then try to think more.
I like the optional bonus xp, or maybe it opens up a short cut, or something...but if its forced, I hate em.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Hey Malrex...

A bulette leaves Waterdeep travelling east at 50 miles per hour. Meanwhile, a purple worm leaves Greyhawk travelling west at 30 miles per hour. How long until the players get sent on a quest to retrieve the Apocalypse Sword?

 

[Malrex]

Hey Malrex...

A bulette leaves Waterdeep travelling east at 50 miles per hour. Meanwhile, a purple worm leaves Greyhawk travelling west at 30 miles per hour. How long until the players get sent on a quest to retrieve the Apocalypse Sword?

NO

 

[Two orcs]

To me the ultimate puzzle is the Gordian knot. It is laden with meaning and reframing the problem through out of the box thinking is the best solution to it. Alexander the Great is to me an ideal type of heroic adventurer, because he applied the same out of the box thinking to his conquests instead of accepting a frame someone else laid out. In contrast, Hercules is a bad adventurer, he follows a plot laid out by the Gods and is doomed for it. Figuring out the weakness of the Lernean Hydra and applying it would be a typical "in frame" problem solving in D&D while the siege of Tyre would be "out of frame" problem solving.

 

[Two orcs]

One puzzle I ran which might be close to "guess what bullshit the DM had in mind" is the 3 chalices.
A room with a huge black door and a silver lock. Three smoking chalices on pedistals, one gold, one silver and one copper. A booming voice says: "One chalice opens the door, one chalice leads to your doom."

Each chalice is filled with deadly poison. The silver one has a key resting on the bottom. The actual trick here is that the door hides a huge monster (and treasure) and if you parse the riddle correctly you realize, since all chalices contain poison, that the same chalice that holds the key leads to your doom.

My players approached this problem caught in frame thinking, drank from all the chalices (resulting in the death of a senior character), poured the silver ones poison on the lock accidentally finding the key then opened the door and made a narrow escape though losing half the party.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Can somebody attempt to solve this one for me? I need feedback on how easy/tough it is...

PLACARD PUZZLE

 

[Two orcs]

Very tedious. Once cracked one color I got bored.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I suppose a puzzle can't be rated on its successes alone - a failure is still a result.

 

[squeen]

I think it's a pretty neat idea actually. The only hitch is (for me) it's damn hard and some folk won't want to expended the mental energy to solve it on a Friday night.

BUT...I think that's OK. If I were to use it in my campaign world, I would put it as a barrier to reaching some totally optional goal---like unlocking a vault with some treasure in it, or to open up a magic library, etc.---not anything necessary or central to the campaign. That way, it can eat away at the player's minds over many sessions, giving them insentive to crack it in their down time. A "long game" item, not meant to be solved quickly.

In general, I like the idea of there being ancient places everyone knows about, but aren't:
(a) foolish enough to attempt because of the obvious dangers or
(b) smart enough to unlock their secrets.

Low hanging fruit should generally have been picked long ago. If there's a huge treasure pile, you have to ask yourself (as designer): "Why didn't the local lord just send his army in to fetch it?" A mere physical threat (e.g. an ogre or 100 orcs) is going to eventualy fall. There's got to be something that pushes it beyond a mere exercise in martial force.

A tricky puzzle to unlock, is a feasible long-term barrier in my opinion.

In my campaign, there were some stolen artifacts---a major weapon owned by the royal line. Internal betrayal lead to their theft., and a crafty gnoll leader now had them (and was using them to slowly win back territory for his clans). The Warlord knew if the anyone in the human realm realized he had them...it would be an all out holy war, so he kept them carefully hidden. The gnolls themselves never hunkered down anywhere long and used guerilla tactics to survive and launch strikes. It took our party (real calendar) years to figure out he had them...slowly piecing together scattered clues and to eventually find the gnolls. Their recovery catapulted them from political nobodies, to central players in realm politics (and made my job as DM many, many,many times harder!). It may well have tipped the balance against the evil forces arrayed against the (declining) human population---TBD.

That said. If they had not managed to unwrap that "puzzle", I would have been perfectly content for them to continue adventuring in their own "small time" operations---avoiding realm politics---just bystanders as civilization crumbled. In some ways, I already miss that!

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The problem with puzzle development is that you have a fine line to tread between too easy and too hard, mostly because people differ in their solving skills, so what might be too hard for one could be too easy for another. Then you've got to take the median of all approaches and dissect/refine the puzzle even further - the next layer of comparison is time investment/interest. Again, some people are willing to put in the work, and others aren't.

My plan to mitigate this is with in-game "help" should the DM deem that the party needs it. For example, in the puzzle I've linked, it would certainly make the puzzle easier to solve if I gave one link as a solution early on (in-character, like saying "One of the priests was known to have been born with only one eye", the corpse in his sarcophagus has one eye, which means they can identify him and therefore which color configuration is his. They can also look at the statues with the placards to see that one of them has one eye, which means they can get the shape placard to match the color placard, and therefore extrapolate which color equals which shape.

A solution like this though basically gives the puzzle solution away (or rather, greater simplifies the process to the point where it may as well have been solved on their behalf). It's not ideal, but it's the only way I can think of to cover the spectrum of player puzzle-solving aptitudes.

I fully believe that puzzles belong in D&D - they add the dimension of "thought" to an otherwise "tactical" game. If implemented well, they can be unobtrusive bonuses and fun little side-problems for the party to work through. But man, they are bitch to design properly.

 

[Two orcs]

A way to make this puzzle less tedious

Spoiler

I tried to brute force it by comparing the frequency of different combinations, the problem is that you can't figure out a color using just 2 gems, you have to try 3 gems! If you make a unique 2-gem combo the solution is much less tedious once you figure out how to do it. I'd say it took me about 5 minutes of solid work in a notepad to figure out blue = down then I lost patience.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

A way to make this puzzle less tedious

Spoiler

I tried to brute force it by comparing the frequency of different combinations, the problem is that you can't figure out a color using just 2 gems, you have to try 3 gems! If you make a unique 2-gem combo the solution is much less tedious once you figure out how to do it. I'd say it took me about 5 minutes of solid work in a notepad to figure out blue = down then I lost patience.

Well, I appreciate the effort anyway 2orcs. It's telling to me that you lost interest in 5 minutes, and how far you got with it in that time. I suspect that had the puzzle been involved in a actual gameplay situation where your character can reap a reward for the work, and if you also had three or four other party members working alongside you, you might have been willing to stick with it.

 

[Two orcs]

Maybe not me, but definitely another player.

I recently ran the 'Statues' adventure Bryce recommended though set in Japan. I made the bad decision of converting the Latin letters of the main puzzle to Japanese syllables so instead of intuitively seeing the answer they had to brute force it. Luckily the player who was into that sort of thing had his character captured by a rival party and imprisoned in a barrel for most of the session so he was happy to grind away at the task and when the rest finished the hostage negotiation and when freed he emerged with a list of every possible combination and had them mouth a column each in thick Japanese accent to find the answer.

Spoiler

Shi-Su-Te-Ri-Nu = Cistern