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

[PapersAndPaychecks]

No, the solution isn't to make a puzzle that it's easy for messageboard posters to solve during their lunchbreak. I think that the secret of using puzzles is correct placement.

You put them on the entrances to side-areas which are treasure-rich. For example, deep in a dungeon, you might have a puzzle which leads into an area which is stuffed full of cash and contains two or three fairly useful magic trinkets that's guarded only by two dozen zombies and a fairly lame trap. The characters don't need to solve the puzzle in order to continue - but if they do solve the puzzle, they're rewarded for doing so.

 

[Goblyn]

That puzzle is hard. I'm going to try some more. If I can't get it, I'm going to ask Roman to please ask his DM for the answer. But not now. It's late now. Fatigue makes my brain go away.

 

[Algolei]

1) Algolei's answer of filling in the letters into the blanks is wrong.
2) The blanks are to be filled with only the three symbols that are present in rest of the grid.
3) The symbols have no significance outside of the puzzle and there is no significance to them being triangles or circles or arrows - you could replace them with any other three symbols and the puzzle would be unaffected.

Yarg. :\

What about some of my other questions, then?

Plus you didn't answer how the symbols were to be entered into the puzzle. Were your characters supposed to write them in the blank spots? If so, were the other symbols written there previously? If so, how many different handwritings were used?

Tell us what the symbols in the puzzle looked like from a physical standpoint. Were they engraved onto a wall? Handwritten, as I asked about above? Were they tiles set into the puzzle? Perhaps there are more tiles somewhere which could be used to solve the puzzle.

Who built this dungeon in the first place? Dwarves? Humans? The gods?

Tell me about your DM. How old is he? What kind of educational background does he have? What sort of hobbies does he enjoy? Does he like solving puzzles himself?

Also, did you try writing in each symbol only once? Perhaps it's a very simple function of "signing in," so to speak.

 

[RSKennan]

Roman, what was the configuration of the room that you were in?

 

[cmanos]

my gut instinct is it is a map or a picture. I'm not gonna take my time to look for a pattern otherwise. Odds are if it is a map or a picture uit has something to do with your game, something you aren't giving us.

So your DM gave you a puzzle, it ended his game and he still is not telling you the answer? What an ass.....

 

[Hellefire]

My vote so far is the 5-sided mirror-squares, but with some intentional errors...not mistakes, some non-mirror squares that equal out to zero mathematically. Still working on that. But if someone else solves it first I won't be heart-broken.


Aaron Blair
Foren Star

 

[Enforcer]

Are you a Mod?

Ray: Um, no...

Gozer: Then DIE!!!

(Moments later)

Winston: Ray, when someone asks if you're a mod you say YES!

(Sorry, that was the first thing I thought of when I read that.)

 

[jmucchiello]

I can't attempt to solve the puzzle because I want to fill it in with Gs and claim it's some kind of unrolled DNA strand. But I know that's an artifact of the presentation here and nothing to do with the puzzle.

Well, at least he didn't get into a land war in Asia

Or against a Sicilian when death is on the line.... Er, is DM Sicilian?

 

[JDowling]

if you were a big bad evil lich and this puzzle room was your last line of defense would you:
1 - make it so anyone who is very intelligent and good at puzzles can break it in a couple of hours or days

or

2 - make it be a 32-place (or however many it was) combination lock with 3 choices per position that appears to be a puzzle but really isn't? It might look like you could find some logic to solve the "puzzle" but it might not be a puzzle at all and given the number of combinations brute-forcing it is not likely to succeed within the life span of even the longest lived age-limited foes.

Perhaps this is a case of just a smart lich that the DM decided to do realistically instead of "fun but unrealistic"ly.

It might acctually be a puzzle, or it could just be a devious lich who wants to torment his foes as they waste away in his little room trying to figure out a red-herring and going mad.

Also - which is more devious and evil: a series of 32 squares that is obviously just a combination lock with no hints or a combination lock that looks like a puzzle that appears (but doesn't really) have a logical way to solve it (so it's not really a puzzle)?

The mechanics of "the PCs can't do anything" is a little wacky. Is the room in a closed-off demi plane or something?

anyway, just food for thought

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Ray: Um, no...

Gozer: Then DIE!!!

(Moments later)

Winston: Ray, when someone asks if you're a mod you say YES!

(Sorry, that was the first thing I thought of when I read that.)

Me, too.

"Where's your Mod now? There is no Mod, he's only in your imagination. You always talk of Mod's will, but it's just your own selfish needs."