Riddle me this: How often do you use riddles?

generic · Dec 18, 2018

Recently, I've begun to incorporate a multitude of riddles into my games. How often do you use riddles, and what do you use them for.

Personally, I've used riddles such as the one presented below for foreshadowing and for the opportunity to create an interesting word puzzle:

[FONT=&quot]Fear the day when the vile skull gazes upon Lhaervyn.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The seas will dry up, the forests will shrivel--[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]--as the fallen rise from their graves to reap the world of the living.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]War will be realized as the greatest mortal folly as--, [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]--in a condign display of irony, the dead will become an army beyond any other.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Its glorious visage will be manifested through failure of wisdom.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thus, the second moon’s ancient grudge will be partially avenged.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Dare not animadvert or condemn, as it will annihilate all of our frail bodies when it arrives.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Remember that you will perish.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]

iserith · Dec 18, 2018

I don't find riddles or puzzles terribly engaging so only every now and again I will use them. But really the riddles I use end up just being dirty jokes because that's more fun to me. I had a villain in a previous campaign called The Puzzler and he would have a new dirty joke to tell every turn. If the PCs guessed the punchline, he would get so mad he'd be stunned on his next turn.

Seramus · Dec 18, 2018

Riddles are an OOC challenge. So you can approach it three different ways.

1) Leave it completely OOC. This removes the stats of the characters from the equation, but many DM's run it this way because they just embrace the OOC nature of Riddles (or they don't care). This is absolutely fine if everyone at the table agrees and has fun with this kind of thing, though in my experience many DM's will do it this way even if it's not fun for their players.

2) Rolls can give you hints. This is the most common version I see at my local gaming store. You present the riddle, but allow the players to roll their skills and/or attributes to gain hints to the solution. This validates the choices of the players, but still allows for some OOC cleverness.

3) Rolls resolve the riddle. I rarely see riddles handled this way, because there is no OOC cleverness involved in the solution even though it is the most character validating. I am certain some posters below will offer up some really interesting ways to make this option work. I am eager to hear their ideas!

rgoodbb · Dec 18, 2018

Tried it as a DM once. Fell on it's a%*e.

Had it handed me as a player once. Fell on its a&*e again.

Don't bother much now. It seems either too easy or too difficult or only one player is interested. So not had much luck with them really.

There's a tree by every river though I suppose.

generic · Dec 18, 2018

Seramus said:
Riddles are an OOC challenge. So you can approach it three different ways.

1) Leave it completely OOC. This removes the stats of the characters from the equation, but many DM's run it this way because they just embrace the OOC nature of Riddles (or they don't care). This is absolutely fine if everyone at the table agrees and has fun with this kind of thing, though in my experience many DM's will do it this way even if it's not fun for their players.

2) Rolls can give you hints. This is the most common version I see at my local gaming store. You present the riddle, but allow the players to roll their skills and/or attributes to gain hints to the solution. This validates the choices of the players, but still allows for some OOC cleverness.

3) Rolls resolve the riddle. I rarely see riddles handled this way, because there is no OOC cleverness involved in the solution even though it is the most character validating. I am certain some posters below will offer up some really interesting ways to make this option work. I am eager to hear their ideas!

I take the second approach, allowing players to gain hints with successful rolls. Furthermore, if the players aren't enjoying a certain element of a game I'm running, I'll usually get it out of the way as soon as possible.

generic · Dec 18, 2018

iserith said:
I don't find riddles or puzzles terribly engaging so only every now and again I will use them. But really the riddles I use end up just being dirty jokes because that's more fun to me. I had a villain in a previous campaign called The Puzzler and he would have a new dirty joke to tell every turn. If the PCs guessed the punchline, he would get so mad he'd be stunned on his next turn.

*yoink*

IchneumonWasp · Dec 18, 2018

Riddles are a good part of fantasy stories, but I don't think riddles make good 'challenges' in a roleplaying game. In a combat encounter, there are enough opportunities to progress, to fall behind, and respond to succes or failure. If one combat round didn't go well, you have to suffer the consequences and think of something different the next round. The same is true for roleplaying encounters ("You have angered the king with your rude request and now he is threatening you, what will you do now?") or skill challenges.

With riddles, you can't have anything like that. Effectively the game stops, until players have solved it. Remember that scene from the first Lord of the Rings movie? Where they had to open the door to the Mines of Moria, but had to solve a riddle? They party stopped and could only progress once they had solved it. This is boring and frustrating during game play.

Now, the only thing I could see a riddle work is if it is more of a prophesy, one that they don't have to solve immediately, but eventually becomes clearer, as the campaign progresses. I have little experience with that, but I could see that work.

generic · Dec 18, 2018

IchneumonWasp said:
Riddles are a good part of fantasy stories, but I don't think riddles make good 'challenges' in a roleplaying game. In a combat encounter, there are enough opportunities to progress, to fall behind, and respond to succes or failure. If one combat round didn't go well, you have to suffer the consequences and think of something different the next round. The same is true for roleplaying encounters ("You have angered the king with your rude request and now he is threatening you, what will you do now?") or skill challenges.

With riddles, you can't have anything like that. Effectively the game stops, until players have solved it. Remember that scene from the first Lord of the Rings movie? Where they had to open the door to the Mines of Moria, but had to solve a riddle? They party stopped and could only progress once they had solved it. This is boring and frustrating during game play.

Now, the only thing I could see a riddle work is if it is more of a prophesy, one that they don't have to solve immediately, but eventually becomes clearer, as the campaign progresses. I have little experience with that, but I could see that work.

Yeah, that's closer to what I use them for.

For instance, the riddle I gave as an example is a strange message that the players found scrawled on a ceiling.

It refers to the coming of Atropus, but it's not like I expect them to figure that out.

zedturtle · Dec 18, 2018

I run lots of demos of Adventures in Middle-earth, and riddles are so important to the core experience that it is one of your skills. When a riddle comes up, I see if the player can solve it; if they can that gives the hero Advantage on their roll to see if they know the answer. So it rewards the character for having a high stat but also rewards the player for being clever.

Imaculata · Dec 18, 2018

I designed a puzzle for my pirate campaign that involved a treasure map that I made for the players. The players could use the lyrics of a popular pirate song in the campaign, to figure out how to fold the map, and reveal its secret. Surprisingly, one of the players was able to figure it out without the song. But the players enjoyed it a lot regardless.

Riddle me this: How often do you use riddles?

generic

On that metempsychosis tweak

iserith

Magic Wordsmith

Seramus

Hero

rgoodbb

Adventurer

generic

On that metempsychosis tweak

generic

On that metempsychosis tweak

IchneumonWasp

Explorer

generic

On that metempsychosis tweak

zedturtle

Jacob Rodgers

Imaculata

Hero

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