Defeated by puzzle - campaign over: Here is the offending puzzle!

[jerichothebard]

This puzzle sucks. Personally, I would be happy the DM is letting the campaign hinge on it - because it means I can walk away now! From what you have said here and in the other thread, this doesn't sound like an enjoyable game.

 

[BSF]

Here is a link to the original thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=129401

Roman and his group worked on this puzzle last session and then continued on the puzzle in this latest session. Keep that in mind before you talk about giving up so easily. Seriously, would you want to waste multiple sessions trying to solve a puzzle? I suppose if finishing the campaign is really important you will. But how many of us would just bail on it and do something fun with a new campaign?

 

[orsal]

I'd be interested to learn what the DM has to say for himself. Often idiots are merely misunderstood.

"I was bored with this campaign, and so I invented this apparent puzzle. I never had a solution in mind, and was hoping you wouldn't think of anything either, so that when I ended the campaign I could blame it on your failure and not on my own apathy."

I suppose I shouldn't try to speak for he DM, but that's my guess.

 

[tylerthehobo]

Uh...how about roleplaying the puzzle solution?

Everybody plays for different reasons. Lord knows I've been waaaay underwhelmed with many a campaign I've played in, and I'm sure that I've bored the socks off of folks who've played in my campaigns. But, it seems that if we're talking about two sessions worth of effort on this, that it's just time to finally stop looking at the puzzle and react in character. I often play the brash, dumb ranger/barbarian, and he'd probably have set fire to the puzzle well before y'all gave up. Likewise, I don't see as to how it would be out of the ordinary to have a character with 18 Intelligence do a skill check to see if they could solve it, and then roleplay out some made-up explanation. Call-of-Cthulhu is actually built on this priniciple, with an "Idea" roll - it's assumed that if you're a very smart player playing a dumb thug, that your character won't have the same intelligence and problem-solving ability that you do. Yeah, solving puzzles can be fun, but when they become the be all and end all, forget about it.

Man, that was the most pretentious paragraph I've ever written. it sounded like Jerry Springer's final thought...

 

[Swiftbrook]

Today was another session of that game and we failed to solve the puzzle. I guess we simply gave up on it - it only took about 10 minutes of this session before we declared it over and moved on to a new game - usually we are much more persistent, but there was a sense of something akin to 'hopelessness' over this particular one, so we simply gave up.

This is not a problem. I simply would REQUIRE the DM to set a DC vs my Wizards Int score to solve the puzzle. In almost any game, the Wizards Int is far higher than the player combined Int, it's just never used. We use our characters strength score to break down doors we could never hope to even dent. We use our rogues dexterity score to do things we'd trip over our two left feet event thinking about. But we always use the players knowledge and problem solving skills to figure out puzzles instead of our characters intelligence. INT 8 is dumb, 12-14 average thinker, 15 typical gamer, 16 a college proffessor. Our wizards often have INT 19 even at 1st level. Their smart, but we never use that in solving game problems, our DM's wont let us. It spoils all their hard work coming up with the puzzle. I say too bad. It's my Wizard trying to solve the puzzle, not me!

-Swiftbrook

 

[Crothian]

Their smart, but we never use that in solving game problems, our DM's wont let us. It spoils all their hard work coming up with the puzzle. I say too bad. It's my Wizard trying to solve the puzzle, not me!

-Swiftbrook

Puzzles are not for characters they are for players. Making it a skill check is even worse. You'd perfer having a campaign hinge on a single roll of the die? Though having it hinge on solving a puzzlle is not much better.

 

[maggot]

I agree that having a campaign hinge on solving a puzzle is a bad idea. As is spending an entire game session solving it.

But having the characters make INT checks defeats the purpose of a puzzle. Why bother coming up with the detail of a puzzle if you are just going to roll. Why not just say, INT check 16 to get into this room?

Reminds me of people who say "I don't have any reason why the guy would help us, but have a diplomacy of +21 so I'm going to roll."

 

[Gez]

Could you double-check them for me, Roman? If two of them are wrong, then I actually found a pattern; but if they're all right, the pattern fails.

Assuming they are wrong, what is your pattern, Algolei?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

But having the characters make INT checks defeats the purpose of a puzzle. Why bother coming up with the detail of a puzzle if you are just going to roll. Why not just say, INT check 16 to get into this room?

Hence the reason I based my solution on hours rather than success/fail. An hour based system means even the dumbest half-orc can cross the room, he just can't do it right away.

 

[Swiftbrook]

Puzzles are not for characters they are for players. Making it a skill check is even worse. You'd perfer having a campaign hinge on a single roll of the die? Though having it hinge on solving a puzzlle is not much better.

I like puzzles. The 'puzzle' show though seems to have taken a lot of time. That's not fun for most players that I know. So if the puzzle is for the players and the players are not having fun, why have it. I'd just have my Wizard roll a skill check and be done with it. There are lots of puzzles that you can create that are situational for your players to solve. This is a pencil and paper type of puzzle that is perfect for a character skill check.

I was in a LG Castle Greyhawk game with a situational puzzle. A single piece of fruit in a deadly tree and we needed the fruit. No Int checks here, just some basic player thinking skills. We got the fruit without touching the tree. I think our DM really liked our idea. We were thinking outside the box. We all had a lot of fun.

If you want players to solve puzzles, use puzzles for the players, not the characters.

-Swiftbrook