A killer puzzle that makes me want to pull my hair out.

[Tuzenbach]

I also question the idea of the GM (sorry, Storyteller) handing players the Bible and the Book of Mormon at all. I would have raised an eyebrow and wondered what sort of turn the afternoon was taking. I'm not anti-faith, I'm just anti-we're-doing-something-other-than-what-we-all-signed-up-to-do.

Concur. Also, doesn't it look a trifle like the GM's advertising the Mormon book (Hope & Patience) to be more positive than the Bible (Wrath & Justice)?

 

[iwatt]

Concur. Also, doesn't it look a trifle like the GM's advertising the Mormon book (Hope & Patience) to be more positive than the Bible (Wrath & Justice)?

Nah, they got the sissy subjects

 

[Agback]

Personally, I thought this was a trivially easy puzzle - I figured it out as soon as you mentioned the bibles. And I'm a little puzzled by the fact that you didn't seem to try link the words to the actual books (whether by looking them up in an index, or searching for passages you know to be relevant).

Well, one thing is that those of us who are not familiar with the Bible and the Book of Mormon presume that Justice, Wrath, Patience, and Hope are pervading themes that will have dozens of entries each in any index, and will be important as concepts even where the words do not occur. It doesn't occur to us that the entries might be unique*. Perhaps if the words had been 'Gadarene' and 'fig-tree' it might have been easier.

As for reading the chapter and verse numbers as digital time and setting the clocks to the corresponding analogue time, I still think that that is an off-the-wall idea, by no means obvious. Perhaps I would be more likely to think of it if no book had more than 12 chapters. But given the existence of Genesis 50:26, Exodus 40:28, Leviticus 27:34, Psalms 150:6 etc. the idea might occur only to be rejected.


* In fact, they aren't unique. Of my six bibles, only one has an index, and that lists four occurences of "wrath" and none for "justice". It doesn't have a section on 'imprisonment'. I wouldn't even dream of looking for such a thing.

 

[Agback]

The critical part you missed was looking up Wrath and Justice in the Bible.

Looking up 'wrath' and 'justice' in the section of the index on 'imprisonment' in the index. Looking them up under their own headings won't give you unique chapter and verse.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Another well-known adventure has a riddle where, if you solve it incorrectly, you're attacked by a single weak construct. There's a row of about two dozen or so constructs, obviously lined up. After my party of adventurers solved the riddle incorrectly twice, they changed the puzzle: instead, the puzzle became finding a way to neutralize the constructs. They figured out a hilariously inventive technique for doing so, involving ramps, slippery slopes, and the limited tactical sense of a construct, and the punishment instead became an occasion for PC victory, as they answered the riddle incorrectly over and over until the threat was neutralized. It was great fun.

Oh i wish you had been my GM... My Evil GM (Who i will never run out of things to kvetch about) Had a room set up where each and every single space was occupied by Executioner statues (Each statue a CR 5 trap, the room was 30x25, so there were about 30 of them, and we were level 6, effective encounter level for that many traps: 15.) At the very far back of the room was a chest being held by a golden executioner statue. Attempting to approach the statues netted being hit by 3 seperate 1d12+8 Executioner's axes (which allways hit, according to him). so my rogue couldn't even ATTEMPT the DC 25 search to turn them off. Furthermore, the DM had his immortal NPC toss a lightning bolt into the room as a way of telling us that the statues were immune to magic (he used the 2.0 "lightning bolts riccochet" rules).

So finally, I opted out of one of the combats that the rest of the party was running, and went to investigate the room further. Only one entrance, at least, only one I could see. So i started just messing around. I lassoed one of the statues with a sucessful "use rope" check. The statue didn't react... I threw a spear at one of the statues with no reaction on it's part. So I tied my grappling hook off to my rope and threw that at one of the statues, it hit, right in the face... no reaction.

Then i threw my grappling hook at the chest. Snagged it, with no reaction from the baddies. But i wasn't strong enough to pull it out... So I went back and asked everyone else, we got together and pulled out of the grip of the golden executioner statue... and as we were dragging it across the floor, the GM realized what I had done, and had one of the previously inanimate Executioner statues react, and chop the rope in half.

I hated him sooo much.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Get a new GM, this one's broken.

The Auld Grump

 

[Hussar]

Well, she's a new DM, so a little slack should be cut. But, I would definitely point her at this thread. There's some good stuff.

I remember in the original Tomb of Horrors, there are a series of secret doors, each of which has a unique way of opening - slide left, right, up, bifold etc. Every minute a spear shoots out and tags a random party member while they open the doors. My DM had us get out of our chairs, go to the door of the room we were in and pantomime how we open it. He ran a stop watch and chucked a bean bag at one of us every minute.

It was an absolute blast. Granted we were like, 13 at the time, but, it was still an absolute blast. Here was a puzzle trap with a timer. We got to do some role play and it was a ton of fun.

Puzzles can be fun. However, puzzles with only one specific answer that requires specific knowledge that may or may not be common are not fun. Turning the clock to 10:00, while perhaps not the "right" answer, is right enough and lets the character get on with the adventure.

Rookie DM mistake - never assume your players are smart enough to figure something out. Always have several "right" answers.

 

[Pielorinho]

Well, she's a new DM, so a little slack should be cut. But, I would definitely point her at this thread. There's some good stuff.

Hmm. There's some good stuff, but there's also a lot of vitriol, and a new DM may not have skin thick enough to deal with that. It's probably better IMO if wingsandsword talks to her about his frustration, maybe drawing on some of the points here, but not giving her the URL.

Agent Oracle, I hate your DM, too! Part of the fun of a D&D puzzle is setting it up and watching people figure out nifty cool ways to solve it.

Daniel

 

[painandgreed]

I don't think I'd ever use a puzzle in a D&D game, or at least not one that I would expect the characters to figure out. There's only a few reasons to use any sort of puzzle: to hide the way of entrance or as a mnemonic device for opening it. There certainly isn't any real reason to leave obvious clues laying about so that they can be easily figured out. The chance of guessing any such device should be about on par with guessing somebodies login and password to a computer system. If there ever was one in my campaign either the characters wouldn't be expected to solve it or they would have to hunt down somebody to tell them the answer first.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I once put a puzzle in a dungeon. It wasn't meant to be solved, but rather to delay and damage intruders. There was a tile grid in front of a door. On each 5' tile was a small pictograph. Simple things like a bird, or a bird in the air, the sun, a cloud, etc. Then on the wall beside the grid was a plague that read "The Circle of Life shall open the way."

Every time someone moved over an incorrect square, they were zapped by a lightning bolt. The actual path was a straight line on the right-hand side, with absolutely nothing to do with the pictures. The idea being that the master of the dungeon could walk right across it no problem, and intruders would spend precious minutes trying to think up some kind of reasoning in the pictograms, all the while being blasted by lightning bolts.