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

[iwatt]

And GSHamster: well whoopdi-doo! But boy do you sound smug! You spotted the answer after being told the solution. Would you really have done so well in the heat of the game, alone with the survival of a character dependent on it?!

I agree with the Deadfellow. Once the OP made 2 mistakes, his character was almost dead. Any additional mistake would kill him off. That will introduce "panic mode" in anybody, hindering the possibilty of solving it.

Personally, I would have given the player the answer once I started seeing his frustration. But she's a newbie, so the best thing now is to talk it over.

BTW, the riddle was very clever. Too clever perhaps (IMO the DM was more concerned in showcasing how clever her riddle was than with providing a fun experience for her players).

And the "you're whining was annoying" comment was totally out of line.

 

[CCamfield]

Sympathies for the O.P. In a 7th Sea game I was in, our characters were individually confronted with a riddle (presented to them by a demon). Failing to solve the riddle tainted our souls.

I would take the GM aside and explain to her that riddles and mysteries are very hard to run; what's clear to the GM is not likely clear to the players so they need multiple times more clues than the GM thinks is necessary; and high skills should give more of a benefit than the lousy repetition that was given.

GMs need to consider what the repercussions of a game situation (in this case, puzzle) are. Now what... is she going to add another heir to the old uncle?

If things continue in this vein in the campaign, I would consider quietly dropping from the campaign, to keep the friendship.

 

[Cheiromancer]

So ignoring the obvious problems that solve or die puzzles present, I would see the following as a way of combining having the actual player do the solving with using skill checks to give clues. Each successfully more difficult skill check could yield the following clues (note, off the top of my head, so probably could be done better than what I have here):

Check 1: The answer is in the books.

Check 2: Perhaps the answer lies in a specific passage.

Check 3: Perhaps the answer lies in a passage relating to the words you were given.

Check 4: You recall reading a specific passage about Justice from a recent thesis you wrote. It dealt specifically with the justice of imprisoned people.

Check 5: On many occasions, you have done research in the Bible and had to use the index to find verses that dealt with specific topics.

Something like that would allow a player who caught on early to solve the puzzle and feel smart, but give their character's knowledge/skills a chance to guide them to the correct answer. I think if a GM/ST/etc. is going to have a critical puzzle, then having a listing of clues and skill checks required to get them prewritten would be very important for the game.

- FT

QFT. The main problem with the puzzle imho was the clues that were given at intervals. "The information is in the books" is too vague. "The information might be in the index" however, would be very helpful.

I'm not used to the notion of Bibles having "indexes" - I wouldn't have gotten the puzzle as given either.

 

[joshuakanton]

Fact remains that the GM/ST just broke her own story. The storyline starts off with four specific characters, and now one of them is now dead. Will she allow the creation of a tertiary character and thus exclude that player from elements of the main plot line or alter the storyline altogether?

This goes back to the adage, "Never try to predict what the players will do."

 

[wingsandsword]

P.P.S. How did the game advance for you wingsandsword, since you're playing a corpse already? And have you had any feedback from the other players about their quizzes.

I was not playing a corpse. I said it was a (New) World of Darkness game, not a vampire game, although the plot so far has been entirely vampire-oriented and the GM knows vampires the best. All the charcters were total mortals, living completely normal lives two days ago, and the GM swore up and down that becoming vampires was not inevitable, and PC's could progress as mortals, or even theoretically become Mages or Werewolves.

Ditto. My first thought was that there was a hollowed out middle in the books with hidden physical keys.

First thing I checked when she handed me the books was for things like that. I checked for slots where the books would act as keys, I checked for notes hidden in the books and for hollowed out spaces in the books.

I was completely unfamiliar with the idea of a bible having an index with occurances of terms listed by verse. Now, the bible she handed me had one, but it had translators notes, historic maps and notations, and dozens of pages of other addendums, so an index was just another addendum that to me.

 

[jmucchiello]

She said the goal was just to be a game, for it to be fun, and for this to be a simple challenge for my character. My character had Intelligence **** and Academics **** with a specialization in Religion (which is why she chose a "religion" themed test, apparently each character is getting a similar riddle themed to their highest skill), and even when I rolled piles of successes sometimes (every few minutes she'd let me roll to give me more useless hints), the hints she gave were simple restatements of the facts. Each success I rolled was another useless hint.

This, I think, is where the GM blew it. The first pile of successes should have resulted in the hint "As a scholar of religion you can think of many biblical passages involving Wrath, Justice, Hope and Patience." The next hint, especially after the players says, "but I don't know these passages" would be "try the index." Did you ever turn to the index in passing during the two hours. If the clues are in the indexes, after 10 minutes that you didn't try the index, that is obviously what the next hint should be.

Even knowing that passages of the bible are described as "Book ch:verse" is not necessarily known to everyone. And the puzzle relies on you using chap:verse as hour:min on the clocks.

 

[Conaill]

What gets me is the "solve or DIE" problem. The worst that should happen for failing to solve a puzzle is that the character doesn't get a bonus -- puzzles are entirely too iffy to actually penalize players for. Everybody is different, and what's "blindingly obvious" to the GM is often "WTF are you talking about?" to the players.

I agree.

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).

Be that as it may - it is a fact of life that what one person considers a trivially easy puzzle, another simply may not "get". And unless having players be frustrated for several hours only to see their PCs die in vain is a perfectly acceptable outcome to you as a DM, you probably shouldn't put solve-or-die puzzles like this in your adventure...

 

[DanMcS]

I was not playing a corpse.

No, no, he meant, how will the game progress for you now, since you're NOW playing a corpse, since the GM stupidly killed you off in the first session?

 

[GSHamster]

So, basically, GSHamster, to all of us who have no idea that a Bible even has an index, this puzzle is too difficult. But, the character, with so much religious knowledge, would have known instantly. So, instead of giving vague hints, why not tell the player exactly what the character would have known, namely, "Look at the index"?

Because that would be giving him the solution, as opposed to giving him hints.

In my view, when dealing with puzzles, you have two choices. You let the *player* attempt to solve the puzzle OR you let the *character* attempt to solve the puzzle. But either way, you have to deal with the possibility of failure.

Suppose the player solved the puzzle, and the DM says "okay, now roll to see if your character gets the same solution", and the char fails and dies. Is that fair? Good gameplay?

I'm not saying the DM didn't make mistakes. In my view, her mistakes were:

1. Making the puzzle "solve or die".
2. Not recognizing that the player was getting frustrated and stuck on the wrong track.
3. Not planning for the possibility that the player would not solve the puzzle.
4. Making the player--and not the character--solve the puzzle.

But these are rookie mistakes, understandable ones, the kind most of us as DMs make when starting out. These are all mistakes that I personally have made in the past.

However, the difficulty level and appropriateness of the puzzle was calculated well, and not a mistake.

 

[Voadam]

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).

If you are not used to bibles with indexes, looking up relevant references would not be an easy task even for someone very familiar with the texts. These are not small books and these topics come up more than once.

There are a lot of instances of wrath in the old testament. God gets angry and smites Israel a lot of times, God smites Israel's enemies a lot too. People go to war a lot. There are psalms about being protected from wrath of enemies. Even the new testament has the wrath of the lamb in Revelations.

Justice: There is Solomon splitting the baby, there are the codes of law in Deuteronomy, the people turn away from god and he inflicts devastation on them. The angel comes down upon Soddom and Gomorra, Cain is marked and cursed for his murder, Jesus talks about casting the first stone, etc.

Also assuming a religious scholar would be familiar with the book of mormon is not a guarantee unless they are themselves mormon or specialize in the study of the mormon church.