A riddle!
- Thread starter der_kluge
- Start date
I've been in games where riddles and puzzles are used and actually have a problem with them cutting into "game time" as well. not to mention the old "I've got an Int. of 9 and Wis. of 7... how'm I supposed to act?" syndrome. The end of the session scenario would help one of those, surely.
My DM is using a riddle right now and if he would stop canceling the game for stupid things like classes, exams, and projects. Then again canceling this weeks has given me time to actually STUDY for my two exams... which is definatly a good thing.
But personally I like the use of riddles because it gives NO opportuniity to roll play. It forces you to sit and think as a group, toss out ideas, criteque and get critequed.
The last session we had I had BASICALLY the place picked out of the entire valley based on a scrap of a map (with a compass on it). It got backed up by information our halfling had and was objected to by the stuck up bratty rich kid. So to keep him from whining and moaning (and me having to have a moral problem early in the game because I killed/maimed/knocked the poor bastard out) we went to his place, searched and then went to the area the halfling and I picked out... well sort of...
Halfling got us lost on the way (she's the only one who had been in that area before) and we kinda had some problems with a few pixies ... and a talking squirrel... and some hobgoblins.... and yeah... we made it sooner or later (though I have substantially less blood then when I started) and we ended the session there. (The riddle lead us to that spot and said we had to do something... but we are still decyphering that)
But personally I like the use of riddles because it gives NO opportuniity to roll play. It forces you to sit and think as a group, toss out ideas, criteque and get critequed.
The last session we had I had BASICALLY the place picked out of the entire valley based on a scrap of a map (with a compass on it). It got backed up by information our halfling had and was objected to by the stuck up bratty rich kid. So to keep him from whining and moaning (and me having to have a moral problem early in the game because I killed/maimed/knocked the poor bastard out) we went to his place, searched and then went to the area the halfling and I picked out... well sort of...
Halfling got us lost on the way (she's the only one who had been in that area before) and we kinda had some problems with a few pixies ... and a talking squirrel... and some hobgoblins.... and yeah... we made it sooner or later (though I have substantially less blood then when I started) and we ended the session there. (The riddle lead us to that spot and said we had to do something... but we are still decyphering that)
MerakSpielman
First Post
My assumption was that if you were poisoned from, say, well number 1, and drank from well number 2, you would be cured of the #1 poison, but still suffering from the #2 poison. For some reason it didn't occur to me that the higher level waters were poisons or antidotes. I thought they were poisons and antidotes.
Forgive me if I'm dense, but let's go over the solution.
Forgive me if I'm dense, but let's go over the solution.
The warrior brought regular water, the dragon thought it was #4 water and was encouraged to drink #5 water to cure it, thus poisoning himself to death.
But didn't the dragon bring #5 water to give to the warrior? Shouldn't he be dead too?
But didn't the dragon bring #5 water to give to the warrior? Shouldn't he be dead too?
Xeriar
First Post
There are several kinds of riddles - there was a good node at everything2 that did a pretty good job of listing them and vastly improved my riddle-foo.
Some riddles will contain a hidden hint - or even the answer. This can be the first or last letter of each word or sentance (don't go overboard with this unless you hint at it elsewhere. 'Look for the second letter.' is a particularly cruel way to end a riddle
A good riddle requires no additional knowledge, unless it is something like a bird's shadow or other utterly obvious item.
Another thing is either accept multiple answers as valid or be certain there is only one valid answer.
For example "Name me: I am the sound of dawn."
Obvious, but only to someone who has heard it, of course, their is an invalid answer to this, so you might want to expand.
"Name me: I am the sound of dawn, and even the deaf may hear me."
Some riddles will contain a hidden hint - or even the answer. This can be the first or last letter of each word or sentance (don't go overboard with this unless you hint at it elsewhere. 'Look for the second letter.' is a particularly cruel way to end a riddle
A good riddle requires no additional knowledge, unless it is something like a bird's shadow or other utterly obvious item.
Another thing is either accept multiple answers as valid or be certain there is only one valid answer.
Your riddle, for example, is self contained except for the water the warrior brought. There are at least four potentially valid answers - mixed water, seawater, dew, rainwater etc. Either be ready to accept all of them or somehow be certain you have reduced the possibilities to one.
For example "Name me: I am the sound of dawn."
Obvious, but only to someone who has heard it, of course, their is an invalid answer to this, so you might want to expand.
"Name me: I am the sound of dawn, and even the deaf may hear me."
Mouseferatu
Hero
MerakSpielman said:
Not if the warrior drinks poison from one of the other wells before going to see the dragon.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
die_kluge said:
I was in a game where the DM used a meta-riddle. It was a riddle whose answer was in the real world, but not in the game-world. Of course all the players were roleplaying, and sticking to things their characters knew about, so the DM eventually had to tell us the answer just so we could get on with it.
My pet peeve with riddles is that too often there are multiple possible solutions to a problem, or the poser of the riddle really hasn't thought it through. The worst aspect of this is that the DM can't tell you the answer unless you got it right - if he's misformulated the riddle such that there is not a correct answer, then you're in trouble. As an example, in your riddle,
there's not really a lot to stop the dragon from drinking from well 4 twice or more, then drinking from well 5 - it guarantees that he's no going to be poisoned (well 4 counters previous poison/poisons dragon, then well 4 poisons dragon/poisons him again, then well 5 cures him). And there's not really a lot that stops the dragon from feeding the knight poisoned water from well 1, meaning that he doesn't get the needed antidote of well 5...
Similar Threads
