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

[wingsandsword]

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?

I don't know, the game ended on that note, and we'll see on Sunday when the campaign has it's second regular session. I'm wondering if she'll want me to make up a new character, my character gets embraced moments after he dies, or if she retcons that back and has a non-lethal penalty for failure.

She's a novice GM, so she's learning, so I'll cut her a little slack, and her mom is one of the players, and has been playing D&D since the mid 70's (even started with the three booklets Diaglo loves), so she's an old veteran and is keeping an eye on her daughter's first turn behind a screen (although she insists she would have figured it out instantly. She's a retired Sociology professor who taught her classes to always use the index first, and taught her daughters the same, so it's probably where the GM got the idea to use the index), but she didn't like that it was a fatal trap.

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.

I never turned to the index, I thought the answer lied in the actual scripture, so I generally ignored the non-canonical editorial text. Anyway, the idea of looking terms up in the index of the bible was utterly alien to me. Definitely not how I was used to using the bible in a religious context, and I'm not a bible scholar. My character was the seminary student, not me.

If she'd said anything about the index, I would have looked there, but the whole part about every mistake just gets you closer to death meant that even then I'd have to guess the right passage.

 

[der_kluge]

I think what made this a bad riddle was the significance placed upon two holy books. I mean, the page numbers for certain things in a bible are going to differ from publisher to publisher (I would think) based on how much extraneous stuff might exist at the front of the book.

To me, it would have made more sense to look up specific religious passages (John 3:14 for example) with regards to the clues.

I think the fact that they were religious texts would have thrown most people off base and down the wrong direction (insofar as the riddle was concerned).

Besides, I suspect the Gutenberg Bible or the original printing of the book of mormon didn't even have indeces in them. They are anamolies that came later.

 

[ceratitis]

why dont you tell your dm about this site and she can "play test" ideas on the hivemind which can help her avoid making novice mistakes
we'd love to give her all the help we can and hopefully help you enjoy the game in the process.
Z

 

[Conaill]

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.

Sure. But I bet I could find at least one of those within fairly short order, and I'm an atheist who hasn't really opened a bible for the past two decades or so. Either way, if the thought had occured to him, he might have discovered the index in the process...

Doesn't matter really. Even if it were something as cliched as reading off the first letter of each line of a piece of text, you'd still have to count on the possibility - nay, likelihood - that some players simply wouldn't get it. That's just the way things go with puzzles.

 

[GSHamster]

I think what made this a bad riddle was the significance placed upon two holy books. I mean, the page numbers for certain things in a bible are going to differ from publisher to publisher (I would think) based on how much extraneous stuff might exist at the front of the book.

To me, it would have made more sense to look up specific religious passages (John 3:14 for example) with regards to the clues.

I think the fact that they were religious texts would have thrown most people off base and down the wrong direction (insofar as the riddle was concerned).

Besides, I suspect the Gutenberg Bible or the original printing of the book of mormon didn't even have indeces in them. They are anamolies that came later.

I assumed that the index pointed you to a specific Book Chapter:Verse. Seems like a better way to do a biblical index as you can be more precise than page number. Also fits with the DM believing the puzzle was "easy".

 

[Agent Oracle]

I'm reminded of a riddle our DM once posted us that four players two hours to finish.

The NPC (a very obvious Eliminster) gave us this riddle to tell us how many fish he wanted for us to continue onward in the quest.

"In letters only three / add two more / and fewer i will be."

...

Four people who were near graduation in college sat down and puzzled that out for two hours. All of us wracked our brains trying to figure out what the hell it meant... Bear in mind we are not stupid people, One of the party was three credits away from being a physicist, we also had an english major and a biologist.

The GM ruled that no knowledge checks should apply since it was, and i'm paraphrasing "Insanely obvious to any child what the answer was." He then laughed at us. He was evil like that. Finally, he told one of the players what the riddle's answer was, just so we could move on.

Incedentally, I'm the kind of player who puts 5 points into wealth, then spends it all in explosives. So, generally "You're trapped" puzzles have relatively little impact on me. I would have put a wad of C4 in the keyslot, probably on the "patience" door, then uttered the zen-like phrase "Time may turn the mountain to sand, but my C4 will reduce this door to splinters much more efficiently." and gotten as far away as possible (probably beneath some of the sand, or made a dune I could hide behind) before setting it off.

 

[zakon]

There is one solution to this puzzle: Beat your DM over the head repeatedly with a rulebook. I cannot believe that something that stupid is legal.

 

[Conaill]

Incedentally, I'm the kind of player who puts 5 points into wealth, then spends it all in explosives. So, generally "You're trapped" puzzles have relatively little impact on me. I would have put a wad of C4 in the keyslot, probably on the "patience" door, then uttered the zen-like phrase "Time may turn the mountain to sand, but my C4 will reduce this door to splinters much more efficiently." and gotten as far away as possible (probably beneath some of the sand, or made a dune I could hide behind) before setting it off.

Likewise, there's few D&D puzzles that cannot be solved using an adamantine heavy pick...

(And if the DM wants to cheat me out of my "solution" by making all the doors and walls out of some special materials or with magical reinforcements, I'll make it a point to come back to that dungeon with a demolition crew, tear out those highly valuable doors and walls, and sell them to the highest bidder. Heck - adamantine walls are probably more valuable than whatever that puzzle was guarding! )

 

[Pielorinho]

I'm reminded of a riddle our DM once posted us that four players two hours to finish.

The NPC (a very obvious Eliminster) gave us this riddle to tell us how many fish he wanted for us to continue onward in the quest.

"In letters only three / add two more / and fewer i will be."

You can't leave us hanging like that! Spoilered guess:

Spoiler

Did he want ten fish, as two more letters would be a tenth? Or did he just want "few" fish?

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

I'd be tempted to bring that wizard six fish, and if he looks confused, say, "Sure, six fish! Cuz if we brought you two more, then they'd all be ate!"

Daniel