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

[DonTadow]

Aye, that's dull, boring, completely uninteresting, and nearly impossible to boot. It'd take hours of careful examination and writing to even come close to figuring out whatever absurd pattern is there.

Whoever thought that sort of "puzzle" would be something appropriate to "challenge" (more like bore and frustrate) the PCs with is a freaking moron. No other way to put it. If the DM didn't even present the PCs with the chance for Intelligence checks or NPCs to ask, then he's simply a freaking moron or a jackass.

Seriously. I looked through that so-called puzzle and there's no quick or easy way to solve it. I don't even think the creator of the puzzle placed/selected the right blank spots, or number thereof, for it to be solvable. He's an idjit.

No fun or satisfaction could be had through, let alone worth the excessive wasted time of, solving that aweful "puzzle".

I agree completely. This puzzles brings up a 25 year old gamer question ? Should you confuse your (the player) knowledge with your character's intelligence. Puzzles are great but a poorly done puzzle (like this) takes your characters out of the game and puts you the player into it. That is completely unfair. It is the equivelent as to if, during game, I put out a cinder block and told the dwarf fighter's player to break the cinder block.

Your DM failed as this puzzle for two reasons, he did not provide ample enough knowledge to the pcs to solve the puzzle and he did not provide a good consequense for not solving thepuzzle

I love puzzles, I use them all the time and I have about one every two or three sessions. The player's love to test their intelligence. However, I as a dm would never let the "thinking" session for a puzzle go beyond 10 to 20 minutes (in game). By 5 to 10 minuts if the pcs can't solve it with their personal intelligence they start asking fori ntelligence rolls that bring out clues as to how to solve it. Now, to make sure hte puzzle doesn't lose its fun and for players not to think "oh we'll just wait until the dm solves it for us", these puzzles have to be solved in an "ingame" time sensitive matter. If the player's don't solvethe puzzle within an allotted time and the clues arn't helpful then I'll give a player a "big hint" about the puzzle based on intelligence, knowledge or diniviation rolls. If all that fails then an answer is provided for the puzzle and consequenses (which usually are either an extra boss battle, an explosion or trap of some kind, precious time waisted )are assessed. If its an optional room them I devalue the optional npc or treasure

It is really boring and no fun if a campaign ends because you could'nt solve a puzzle. I would not know what to do if my campaign (as a player or dm) ended because of a puzzle. I think of everything dnd as a puzzle from combat (attempting to figure out how to kill the regeneratng hydra) to stealth (how do we keep out of sight from the observant Yuan-ti) to flat out puzzle and riddle solving . I think all DMs put puzzles into games if you think of it like that.

 

[Dagger75]

You know what going to happen, your all going to the answer and not understand where it came from. Then you are going to ask for an explanation to the answer.

Sounds like a movie that just came out.

BTW I am done tryong to solve it. I gave up after about a half hour of not seeing a patter. I would have started attacking the wall and telling the DM to start keepng track of damage to the wall.

 

[A'koss]

Wow, lots of questions to answer. I will get back to them in a couple of hours, now I have to run, but for now let me just say that I have spoken to the former DM again about the puzzle and since the campaign is over, he gave me several powerful clues that I can share with you:

...

Then I'm even more certain now that it is a 5x5 grid, border reflection puzzle with a couple of errors in the original design. If not, and it's some "Game of life" puzzle or something equally esoteric I would be mightily inclined to lynch the DM.

I agree completely. This puzzles brings up a 25 year old gamer question ? Should you confuse your (the player) knowledge with your character's intelligence. Puzzles are great but a poorly done puzzle (like this) takes your characters out of the game and puts you the player into it. That is completely unfair. It is the equivelent as to if, during game, I put out a cinder block and told the dwarf fighter's player to break the cinder block.

I don't agree with this entirely. I think it is more than fair, hell - even a desirable thing, to challenge the player directly in the game. Pure knowledge (facts) can best be handled by Intelligence and Knowledge skills but reasoning ability should be entirely in the player's hands. Otherwise the metagame fallout could be ugly - "I use my intelligence to find a way out of X predicament."

A'koss.

 

[Slife]

I try to sunder the puzzle. Roll for hardness.

What about Mordy's Disjunction? If anything would get rid of the puzzle, it would be that.

Stoneshape the puzzle to be entirely one type of symbol, and then fill in the single missing one.

When in doubt, chant "Hastur". IF you have to end the campaign, might as well do it in style. Then, when one of your characters dies, challenge Death to a game with him... A PUZZLE GAME! Win/Win solution -- you either have invulnerable PCs and can wait the howevermany billions of years trying solutions, or the first PC to die causes the gate to be opened.

 

[Mark]

Oh I certainly agree that this outcome was far from ideal (as, I'm sure, does the DM involved), and as a DM I'd never deliberately set up a situation where the entire party was faced with a puzzle with no option but to solve it or die (and thus effectively end the campaign) but that (at least IMO) comes down more to an aversion to 'linear plotting' and putting all of the campaign's eggs into a single basket than to 'puzzle' situations per se. The impression I've gotten from reading most of the really hostile responses here was not "what a bad move to hinge the entire future of the campaign on succeeding at a single task" but rather "what a bad move to use a player-oriented puzzle in such a situation" -- as if had the DM done the exact same thing except with a combat or skill check instead of a puzzle it would've been perfectly fine.

Yes, the DM undoubtedly blew it here, but the way he blew it was by not allowing any means of retreat/escape (or at least none that the party recognized) and perhaps by making the puzzle too hard/impossible (though I'm still reserving judgment on that), not by including such a puzzle in the first place without allowing the characters to solve it by Int checks or giving them the answer after x amount of time, which is what many of the responses in this thread have been seeming to suggest.

You might want to back up a bit there. If you'll read back over what I have written, you'll notice that I've qualified what I have said with a caveat regarding what Roman has actually presented. I'm not even convinced at this point that the DM has done anything wrong until I see the actual solution from the DM and can compare to what Roman has shown us. I'm just as open to the possibility that Roman has this all screwed up which is becoming more and more of a possibility the longer we don't get a straight answer to the puzzle.

 

[Mark]

This puzzles brings up a 25 year old gamer question ?

30+

 

[Abraxas]

Something I've just thought of but don't have time to check out . . .
Is it possible its a magic square?
If each 5x5 block can be assigned to the numbers 1 thru 9 it could make a 3x3 magic square, or more difficult, if each 3x3 block can be assigned to numbers 1 thru 25 it could make a 5x5 magic square

basic 3x3
6 7 2
1 5 9
8 3 4

basic 5x5
19 01 12 08 25
21 04 15 07 18
09 20 11 23 02
10 16 22 14 03
06 24 05 13 17

 

[Remathilis]

I've been looking at this puzzle, and have considered the following:

If there is no outside or campaign issues (riddles, clues, dreams, prophecies) than this is simply a deduction method. This means that the puzzle HAS internal logic that, given enough time to determine it.

If there is a pattern, there is no easy or perhaps available method of determining. Its certainly not as easy as "four triangles, three circles, repeat"

The puzzle's answer cannot be affected by the campaign or game. No Legend Lore, Intelligence check, epic spell, or deific intervention can solve this puzzle.

The symbols themselves have no inherit meaning. The triangles could be mountains, "A"'s or phallic symbols, it doesn't matter. The shapes have no relation on the outcome.

The three symbols are the only things available to the solver. No outside clue, mark, or other symbol can be used.

The blank can be filled by any combonation of symbols. It could be solved by all triangles, no triangles, or any combonation in between. Someone suggested there are over 5,000,000,000,000,000 combonations, making trial and error impossible.

Unless the pattern was deduced, no PC could escape, even with near constant trial and error. (assuming no penalty for failure of course).

The pattern could be a coded word, a mathmatical equation, or simple "fill it all in with O"s.

Columns 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 13 and 14 are complete (no missing symbols). There are no rows that are complete.

Required time to solve this puzzle: Assuming a group of 4 average intelligence, you could assume 12-24 hours to deduce the pattern. A computer program could deduce the possible combonation in 2-3 hours, assuming no problems in programming. A hint could shave 1 hour or more. Given time for your average campaign: 4-6 hours.

Final Analysis: I highly doubt any character, or even player, could or would want to solve this puzzle as an entertainment exercise.

I award the DM no points, and we are all dumber for trying to solve this.

 

[tarchon]

Then I'm even more certain now that it is a 5x5 grid, border reflection puzzle with a couple of errors in the original design. If not, and it's some "Game of life" puzzle or something equally esoteric I would be mightily inclined to lynch the DM.

Several large subblocks exist that almost fit various symmetries, in some cases if you interchange symbols. Most sets of symbols are highly compact and connected, which is probably significant.

 

[orsal]

I no longer believe that your DM has a solution that is solvable given what you have presented.

How odd. On the basis of this same clue list, I no longer believe that the DM *didn't* have an answer in mind.