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

[James Heard]

I think the answer to the question in reply to "I might use it again" is to simply say "Not on me you won't" and leave. Why would you want to game with this guy again? So he might spring the puzzle of campaign death on everyone again? Or some other puzzle of campaign death? Start your own game, it's not that hard to GM. Be the anti-puzzle, except for this guy's character. For him you can have Solve Or Die Puzzles, Math and Leeches for door opening, Timed Anagram Algebra Puzzles to get served beer in the taverns...

 

[rushlight]

Again, bummer you guys lost; but I can see where your dm is coming from. Prolly do the same in his position, frankly, unless I found a mistake in my puzzle. It's like if the dungeon has a CR 30 monster in one room, and everyone knows that there's serious badness in there (no one has ever returned, deadliest dungeon in the land, etc); if a 4th-level party enters knowing that this is the toughest of dungeons nobody should be surprised if they don't come back out. Especially the dm- and the players. And you don't give away all the secrets just cuz there was a tpk.

The problem is, an unsolvable puzzle does not equate with a CR X challenge above the party's level. Therefore, your comparison is moot.

Were a party of level 4 to enter a dungeon - knowing the danger - and encounter a CR 30 challenge, one can assume that they will eventually go back. When they are level 30. Do you really think that the DM will save this unsolvable puzzle for a situation when his players can calculate pi to seven thousand digits in their heads? He's really waiting for his players to become smarter than everyone else on the planet? Don't be absurd.

This puzzle is unsolvable - at least to everyone here (including his players). To reintroduce it means bringing back an unbeatable challenge. That's like keeping the dungeon the same, but when your former-4th-level players are now 30th level and enter - you've replaced the CR 30 monster with a CR 300.

He's trying to "win" in an unwinnable game. This puzzle has no place in a future game, unless the DM wants to thwart the players and do a victory dance. And if that's his intent, then he's an ass.

 

[Malic]

Hiya Roman,
Just wondering, has your DM shown a pattern of being unwilling to admit mistakes generally? Or is being the puzzle guru especially important to him?
It does sound rather like he doesn't have a solution, or made a mistake in the presentation, and doesn't want to admit it...

Also, what Rushlight said. 100%.

 

[Ds Da Man]

I don't know, thinking about it now, and being to lazy to search through the thread and find the answer, but if the PCs weren't lead to the dungeon, and kinda headed off on their own, I probably would do the same! It makes for great future stories about heroes going but they don't return. Had I not really planned on the PCs going there but they did, after researching and knowing what a horrible PC deathtrap it is, and me wanting to have that one special place in my homebrew world that could offer immortality, but at a very stiff price, I might do the same. Who says everything in my world has to be PC beatable. I would have given some stiff warnings as to the lethality of the dungeon/temple, and let the PCs pay for their choice. What could be better then PCs choosing to sacrifice themselves in the name of greed or power. I would've let them have fun, then gently obliterated them. Once again, I say I would have made sure the pure hell that they are walking into, after that, their choice, and maybe, just maybe, someday another set of PCs will make it through, OR DIE HORRIBLY IN THE EVIL, DARK TEMPLE OF PC SODOMY!!!

 

[monboesen]

As a dm i must say there are a lot of pampered players here.

No I would likely not hinge a campaign on the players ability to solve a puzzle but I would be gleefully willing to make it very important. Perhaps even vital to have a decent shot at completing an adventure.

And yes there are things/creatures/locations in my game world that would just flat kill the players if they went there and No theres isn't a way of gauging if its too dangerous except by heresay or trial and error.

Of course the game must be fun but that goes both ways and for me as a dm it means the game has to be somewhat believable too. There are actions and consequences and they are not tailored towards the players but as to how I think the world will react.

And a dm has no obligation at all to disclose his ideas, puzzles or plots even though the game is over. He might want to use them again in another setting/situation. Or he might just like to the mystery going on and in general freaking out his players.

Maybe this dm thinks that the puzzle was to tought this time but have come up with a great idea of how to provide a clue that could make it easier the next he uses it.

So cut down on that critisism, you don't (amd can't) know the full story. Who is to say that the players did not miss some obvious clue (in the room or at an earlier time) and the dm (rightfully) decided to let the chips fall as they may.

My hat is off to him for sticking with his decision and not playing deux e machina.

 

[Romnipotent]

Roman, whats his email address? I want the solution! I wont use it and I wont share it.
Heck! maybe I will use it! Tell him another DM wants to test this puzzle on some people he knows, but needs the solution in order to verify it too.

Tell him to email me even! mtmagi@yahoo.co.uk

Romers

 

[Tatsukun]

Yeah, a puzzle with no other way around it, and no answer is NOT like a CR 30, CR 300, or even CR 3,000 room. It's much worse.

Can you immagine a published dungeon where the last room simply says, "If the PC's make it this far, they just, um, ah, all die." That's what's happened, the DM has announced that the PC's are all dead. But even WORSE, he made the players bang away on this "puzzle" for a while session, then expected them to keep at it in the next one!

Wow, that sucks

-Tatsu

 

[Numion]

So cut down on that critisism, you don't (amd can't) know the full story. Who is to say that the players did not miss some obvious clue (in the room or at an earlier time) and the dm (rightfully) decided to let the chips fall as they may.

My hat is off to him for sticking with his decision and not playing deux e machina.

But the fact we do know is that they spent a session trying to solve the puzzle, in vain. Its like going into a session of D&D and ending up doing something else. I value my time enough to get upset if I'm tricked into doing something I'm not enjoying.

YMMV, of course. "Sticking" with the decision is really important in group activities, even if it results in not having fun

 

[wocky]

I also support the theory that the puzzle has no answer, and that the DM is just bluffing some time in the hopes that either a solution will magically come up, or that we'll all forget about it.

Roman should drag him over to a PC so he can read this full thread... it'll probably change his mind about the whole issue.

 

[Quasqueton]

Changed my mind about commenting, but I will leave this note:

I'm not willing to string up a DM over something like this based on the limited information of one Player. I've seen parties TPK charging into a fight they couldn't win only because they thought they were supposed to fight. I've seen Players become stymied and pissed off because they can't think of a metagame answer to something, when if they would just think and act in character, they'd understand what to do.

This DM may just be completely frustrated, himself.

I'm not a person who immediately blames a DM for every bad thing that happens in a campaign.


Quasqueton