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

[Simon W]

Puzzles/riddles in rpg's are a pain in the arse. It's not role-playing its problem-solving. It's not even something you can necessarily do very successfully in character and certainly not solo. How on earth was what you went through role-playing?
The best solution to this when you generate your new character is to say that he is skilled at puzzle solving at the start. That way, when something like this comes along you simply state to your GM that you (the player) do not know the answer but your character would be able to work it out. Then you wait, saying that your character is working on the problem in what he considers is the best way to solve this puzzle - and wait until the GM says "ok you've figured it out".

 

[Ds Da Man]

Why have Int or Wis stats if you can't roll?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm baffled how this puzzle makes sense as part of a prelude to a WoD game. What are you playing, Puzzle: The Stumping?

 

[trancejeremy]

The trouble with stuff like this is they test the player's puzzle solving ability, not anything to do with their character's abilities.

This is one of those things that might be easier if you play a lot of computer adventure games. Puzzles involving setting clocks are quite common in them.

 

[trancejeremy]

Now that I think about it, I never would have gotten it myself, because I didn't realize the Bible even had an index.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

 

[wingsandsword]

I'm baffled how this puzzle makes sense as part of a prelude to a WoD game. What are you playing, Puzzle: The Stumping?

The plot of the game to date was that the 4 PC's had each recieved an invitation with a plane ticket one day to the reading of a will at a mansion in rural Maine. The 4 PC's had never met each other, and were from around the country (A District Attorney in Los Angeles, an herbalist from San Francisco, a college student from Indiana, and a Russian attending medical school in Virginia). When they get there, they find out that apparently they are all distantly related to a long lost "rich uncle" that just died.

In fact, that "rich uncle" was a very very powerful Ventrue who has been declared dead by his ghouls and staff after being missing for years. The PC's are the closest relatives that are still living, i.e. not embraced themselves. Everybody else at the reading of the will was a vampire or a ghoul. At the will, everybody else there gets an insultingly small present, or a present which is literally an insult, and the 4 mortals get his entire business empire and assets divided amongst the four of them. This sparks a war among all the other vampires, and while our characters are quickly spirited away to safety by his ghouls, they see vampires throwing cars at each other, swinging telephone polls like sticks, and outright open warfare of a few dozen very angry and somewhat old vampires who all got insulted at once, tearing an entire mansion apart stone by stone.

The PC's flee the area with the help of some of his ghouls, who decide that although it breaks a pile of rules, they explain the whole deal about vampires ect. to the PC's, and help them set up a safehouse in San Francisco, when the next night they are all gassed by mysterious intruders and each wake up in this environment. My hunch as a player is that the "rich uncle" is still alive and is somehow testing his descendants.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmmm. Out of curiosity, is this OWoD or NWoD?

It doesn't sound like my cup of tea, personally, but I hope the ship rights itself and you guys all end up having fun. It's certainly off to a rocky start.

 

[GSHamster]

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.

Maybe the bad guys were evil cultists testing for the "faithful" and weeding out the "unrighteous". He never got far enough to find out.

Besides, what books should the DM have used? Handing over a computer manual and a romance novel lacks the "resonance" you get by using a foundational book such as the Bible. Heck, I interpret adding the Book of Mormon as an attempt to keep from being overly pushing-religion-on-you. (Unless the DM is a Mormon, and then I'm not sure.)

Edit: actually, if it was my Vampire game, I would have seriously considered Bram Stoker's Dracula.

 

[Drowbane]

Puzzles like that don't belong in RPGs. For one, the solution has no bearing on the "riddle". One is supposed to learn Hope, Patience, Wrath, and whatever by looking it up in the index? Ridiculous!

I'm with you man, I'd never gotten that. I wouldn't of spent so much time with it either...