Best...Puzzle...Ever....

[RithTheAwakener]

Hi. Im looking for the best puzzle ever... the most deadly, tricky puzzle you have ever seen in game or have thought of. I would use that Tricks and Traps book or whatever it was that was published but my players have already read thru that. It can be a riddle-puzzle combined... or any sort of weird thing like that.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Hi. Im looking for the best puzzle ever... the most deadly, tricky puzzle you have ever seen in game or have thought of. I would use that Tricks and Traps book or whatever it was that was published but my players have already read thru that. It can be a riddle-puzzle combined... or any sort of weird thing like that.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

If you can find it pick up any of the Grimtooth's Traps books by Flying Buffalo (creators of Tunnels & Trolls). Personally one of my favorite traps was the sword with glowing red runes sheathed in a mound of lead. It is great because it cleaves through armor like butter but after a few days the PC starts losing his hair and starts growing tumors. The sword, you see, is made of uranium.

 

[RithTheAwakener]

If you can find it pick up any of the Grimtooth's Traps books by Flying Buffalo (creators of Tunnels & Trolls). Personally one of my favorite traps was the sword with glowing red runes sheathed in a mound of lead. It is great because it cleaves through armor like butter but after a few days the PC starts losing his hair and starts growing tumors. The sword, you see, is made of uranium.

Im looking for more of a puzzle, not really a trap. An annoyingly difficult one, like one might see in a Mist game

Thanks

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Im looking for more of a puzzle, not really a trap. An annoyingly difficult one, like one might see in a Mist game

Thanks

So you are looking for a room trap then? I'm planning on using one in my campaign that requires something of each PC to aquire an item. A magical field will prevent all but character with a certain class to enter and will only allow one entry at a time (the first person has to exit). The warrior will be faced with a giant monolith and a table with a hammer of steel, mithril, and adamantite next to it. The monolith has an inscription on it saying that it will only only be broken by the strongest substance in existence. Most PCs will take the adamantine hammer which will not work. Hearkening back to Conan the Barbarian the strongest substance is flesh. "What is the strength of steel compared to the strength of the hand that wields it?". Not exactlly deadly but you could create some consequence to answering the question wrongly.

 

[der_kluge]

I love puzzles and riddles, but finding a non-impossible, yet-challenging one is a fine line.

One puzzle you can use is the 12-ball puzzle. It's nigh-impossible, but a slightly easier variation exists that is solvable.

You have 12 balls. One of the balls weighs either *more* or *less* than the other 11 balls. All balls look identical. You have a scale. You can weigh any number of balls exactly 3 times. Using the scale only three times, find the ball that is not like the others.

That's the easier version. The more difficult is the have the players tell you whether it weighs *more* or *less*. The solution is complex, but involves 3 weighings of 4 balls on each side. This weighing produces some number of potential outcomes. Depending on the outcome, a mathematical solution can derive which ball weighs either more or less. Through rudimentary logical thinking, the players should be able to find a way to weigh the balls to find the one that is different. It should spark about an hour's worth of discussion in either case. Perhaps if they also tell you whether it is more or less reveals a greater treasure horde, or some other reword. If they find the one ball, they have a 50/50 chance of getting it right, unless they actually figure out the harder version.

One fun thing I did once was to create a dungeon that was a circular room with levers in the center. The levers would move the dungeon clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on whether the lever was pushed forward or pulled back. There were 3 levers, one that moved it 5 feet, one that moved it 6 feet, and another that moved it 7 feet. This particular dungeon had a sealed door that would only open if the circular room was perfectly aligned with a counter-weight. So, they had to work out the sequence of levers to figure out how to get to the next chamber. Took them an hour or so. I'd never seen my players so involved. They were literally laying on table to try to figure it out. BTW, the map to this dungeon can be found in the cartography area, under the "donate your map" thread. Look on the first page, for the Djinni's dungeon map.

 

[Trainz]

How about this one:

Four people are set for execution. They are buried in sand with only their heads above ground. They can't turn their head. Then there's a wall placed between the first and second person (as shown on the pic). Then someone places a hat on their head. They all know there are 2 white and 2 black hats. They will be killed in 60 seconds, unless one of them says outloud what color his own hat is. He cannot say anything else. They can't communicate between each other. They can't see the hat on their own head.

After a little while, one of them knows for sure what color his own hat is.

Took me 15 minutes to figure this one out...

 

[Crothian]

We had a series of rooms that was basically 6 rooms by six rooms, for 36 rooms. Except one was missing. Each room had a ferw doorways. The goal was to move the rooms around by having one slide into the empty space to get one room to match up with a way out. But since all the rooms didn't have doorways that went in all directions the party had to be careful not to get stuck in a room with no way out.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Just a general suggestion for all GMs--

Get a subscription to GAMES magazine for a year. It's pretty much ALL brain-wracking puzzles.

That should keep your campaign in puzzles for a long time.

Here's the Amazon link (though I know you can find cheaper subscriptions online):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005QJDY/102-9395719-3299330?v=glance

Or get the compilation book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...102-9395719-3299330?v=glance&s=magazines&st=*
Amazon.com
If you've played with Games magazine at all, you know what to expect here. It's page after page of the best word, logic, number and observation games and countless unclassifiable brain teasers from the magazine's first few years. Some are simple, many are diabolical, and most are witty as well as challenging.

In fact-- damn, I'm gonna buy me that right now!

Wulf

 

[Zander]

Here's a very tough one:

1000 prisoners are arranged in a big circle and chained to numbered posts from 1 to 1000 such that prisoner #1 is next to prisoner #1000. Their evil captor decides he will execute 999 of them. He begins by killing #1, then skips a prisoner and kills #3, then skips a prisoner and kills #5 and so on. When he's come full circle he continues by always skipping one surviving prisoner and killing the next one. In other words, corpses are removed and no longer count. Surviving prisoners are not moved: they remain chained to the post they started with. What will be the number of the one who survives in the end out of the 1000?

If anyone can solve this without using a computer or a physical model, I'll be very impressed.

 

[Tuzenbach]

How about this one:

Four people are set for execution. They are buried in sand with only their heads above ground. They can't turn their head. Then there's a wall placed between the first and second person (as shown on the pic). Then someone places a hat on their head. They all know there are 2 white and 2 black hats. They will be killed in 60 seconds, unless one of them says outloud what color his own hat is. He cannot say anything else. They can't communicate between each other. They can't see the hat on their own head.

After a little while, one of them knows for sure what color his own hat is.

Took me 15 minutes to figure this one out...

I GIVE UP! Where'd you find this?