Defeated by puzzle - campaign over

[Angel Tarragon]

I'd assign a DC to the puzzle and let the players roll an Intelligence check. Meeting or exceeding the DC means the players could move forward. Apply the characters Int modifier to the roll. For exceptionally dmart characters (16+ Int), allow them two rolls and if either one beats the DC, then they can move forward.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I just fail to see the logic of a GM who would allow their entire campaign to end because the characters can't sold a puzzle. It seems like a GM who allows a bad die roll of a player to set off a chain reaction of events that leads to everyone's death.

Do you get the sense this is a set up, such as the GM not wanting to go on? This puzzle seems like a bloodless TPK.

 

[Barak]

No, but had the reverse happen. The DM had actually brought a novel to the game, planning to read while we "worked on the puzzle". And the time we took was important as it meant something in-game.

But another player and myself looked at the puzzle, looked at each other, and started laughing. The DM looked at us, puzzled (ah!). We then solved it, after a HUGE 30 seconds. It was one of those "looks really hard, unlesss you just "get it", and both me and the other player were taking some advanced probability class at the time that involved similar stuff, so our minds were working that way continually.

The DM was sorta miffed, but anyone who brings a freakin' novel to "DM" deserves to get tweaked.

Oh and for the curious, it wa that relatively classic "scale that works only 3 times, 12 balls, determine which weighs differently, and wether it's heavier or lighter" puzzle. And we had never seen it before, although the DM didn't really believe that, I think.

 

[IronWolf]

I agree with some of the others. Ask for an Intelligence Check roll to solve the puzzle. That's how I would handle it I were DM. Present the puzzle, give you guys a chance to actually solve it. If you had no interest or could not solve it metagame wise then I would allow an Intelligence check roll once someone suggested it. An obvious indication its time to end the metagame portion and see if a character would know the answer.

 

[Gez]

As a DM, I abide by the Tim Toady rule: TIMTOWTDI, there is more than one way to do it.

So, if my players were to encounter an obstacle that can only be overcome through a puzzle, then it means that what lie beyond is not essential to the campaign after all. It may be a boon that'll make the rest of the quest easier, it may be just a red herring. But it won't be essential.

 

[Thanee]

It might alter the campaign, even severely, i.e. the great evil can only be stopped from getting a foothold in our world, if we make it through this, if not the world will forever change, but it will not end the campaign.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Zappo]

I can't really help. But I just have to chime in to say how much I hate these situations. I despise them. More correctly, I like puzzles, but I can't stand the way they are used in RPGs and fantasy novels.

Puzzles make no freakin' sense in any but the most contrived circumstances, or when insane wizards are involved. They never have any reason at all to be there. They don't test anything that is worth testing ("You solved the 5x5 crosswords and discovered that the secret word is "LOVE"! Clearly you are wise and noble and deserving of the McGuffin of Power!"), they aren't reliable at keeping intruders out while letting friends in, they are typically insanely complex and costly to craft whether they work by magic or mechanical contraptions. 95% of times, they are only there to make the adventure a half hour longer and let the DM bask in his intellectual superiority - or to make the point that "see, our game isn't just hack'n'slashing, it has depth".

If I am an evil overlord and I only want my trusted lieutenants to enter my sanctum, I won't have them solve a stupid puzzle while hoping that the heroes can't solve it. I'll give them a key - or a password if I'm afraid of the key getting stolen. And while we're here, said password won't be my name, or the name of the god I serve, or the name of the lost lover whose refusal drove me to evil, or the name of my secret project. It'll be more on the lines of "ARY7CN1_23LK$Z". It doesn't make for a good story? It does if the PCs have to, I don't know, do something sensible such as capturing said lieutanant or find a back entrance, rather than being able to enter simply because the 32 INT BBEG apparently lost use of the "what is security" areas of his brain.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Impassable puzzles are classic bottleneck design - something many, many adventures are plagued by - it ranks right up there with having to interact with a certain NPC or find a certain secret door to go forward. DMs who do this on a regular basis need to sit in the players' chairs for a while and feel the frustration. Not fun - you have my sympathy.

The worst ever for me was a Shadowrun module where you needed to roll something like two 11s (d6, reroll and add the result if you get a 6) for Corporate Ettiquette just to start the adventure. I was the only person in the group who had the skill and I only had four dice in it.

 

[spider_minion]

I've had a similar experience with puzzles . . . except I was the DM. And it made a very funny story, too!

So the party had time-traveled to the future and were exploring an abadoned wizard tower in the ruins of a city. Hundreds of years ago, the mage guild left the tower when they learned some horrible calamity would befall the city. They locked it up tight with three deadly puzzles / traps that only someone smart enough to be in their guild could solve. Lotsa goodies were stored in the tower too.

So anyway, the PCs got past the puzzle on the first and second floors (they were shocked at how dangerous the traps were, because I'm normally not such a vicious DM, though they hadn't suffered any casualties). On the second floor they noticed a strange room with long chutes in the ceiling, and some scraps of flesh and metal on the ground.

The third and last puzzle was in a large room, one entrance and one exit, with a computer terminal in the center. The terminal had five buttons--a small triangle, a medium-sized triangle, a large triangle, a square, and a pentagon--and the message "Sum of the hours in the day". The PCs pressed some button at random, having no idea what was up with the terminal, when suddenly adamantine portculises fell over the doorways and there heard a grinding sound and felt a breeze suddenly kick up in the room. The floor began receeding towards the center of the room, forming a large platform (still enough room for everyone to stand). They noticed that off the platform were a series of spinning bladed fans. Falling off the platform would be certain doom.

Realizing how high the ante had been raised, the party tried to decipher the message. Try as the could, though, they couldn't figure it out. I gave a few hints, like "think polyhedrons". So they tried again, and the platform shrank again. The footing was getting bad, and with another wrong answer someone would probably fall off.

Having no confidence in their abilities, the party made some plan where one of the character's flying axe (long story again, basically made a pact with a demon to get it) would support most of the party in the air. Some would hang on to the ax, another (a warforged they met inside the tower who was following them around) would sit inside a large bag of holding to reduce its weight. One of them would fire a strange artilery weapon they found at the fans in an attempt to destroy them. So with this ready, they made a final, desparate guess.

And it was wrong. The platform shunk even more so only one person could stand on it. The others hanged picariously in the air, made more difficult by the winds that threatened to pull them down. So one of the PCs flipped out and began pressing buttons at random. The computer quickly deactivated, the platform disappeared, and the fans spun even faster.

While none of the PCs fell, they knew that they would soon. So one decided to fire the mysterious cannon at the fans. At this point I think its worth mentioning that they had no idea what the cannon did, and they found it in a lab with many other cursed items. Anyway, he pulls the trigger and it shoots out a huge gout of water with enough recoil that he flies back and knocks several people off the flying ax. One of the PCs was killed by the blades and the fall, another (a greenbond kid named Charlie) was literally chopped to pieces, though somehow he stabilized at around -7.

In desparation, the PC with the axe lowered the warforged (who was actually sitting in the mouth of a bag of devouring) near the fan blades. The warforeged hit the fan with a greatax rolling a natural 20. The bent the fan enough so that maybe, just maybe, the survivors could slip though.

The warforged went first, and chunks of metal and stone fell among the other two PCs. The other two players get lucky and slipped though, taking a hefty amount of damage but still in one piece.

They fell through the pit below the fan blades and into the room on the second floor, the one with bits of broken metal and flesh. Now it was bathed in gore. They checked on Charlie and were amazed he survived . . . though he lost a leg, a hand, some fingers, and sustained horrific body wounds (I was using Torn Asunder at the time). They healed the poor tramautized child as best they could and said a prayer for their other fallen companion.

Anyway, at about that point the session was over. The puzzle had taken at least 3 hours of game time. I told the party the solution: the different shapes corrospond to dice (large triangle = 4, medium tri = 8, small tri = 20, square = 6, pentagon = 12). While I thought this was really clever, they were quite annoyed it required a metagame solution. Later, the PCs were able to get through the trap the second time (they knew the solution) and got the juicy treasure on the top floor.

Despite how horrible this all sounds, the players found their plight to be hilarious. It was one of the most enjoyable and memorable sessions I DMed . . . though I certainly wouldn't do the same thing over again. Charile, who had many more traumatizing experinces (including getting trample by a stampede of giant, but harmless, centipedes deep below the earth) eventually used a magic ritual that restored his lost limbs with ones made of stone.

 

[krichaiushii]

I like Thanee's logic as to why it makes more sense to use an Intelligence check instead of player metagame knowledge.

I don't suppose that having ranks in Decipher Script (for the codebreaking part) or any knowledge skills will provide bonuses to the Intelligence check(s) your PCs should be getting?

Just a thought.