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<blockquote data-quote="Primitive Screwhead" data-source="post: 3814070" data-attributes="member: 20805">I think the bigger issue with puzzles and riddles is the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge... kindof a reverse of meta-gaming. Its about what the character knows that the player doesn't.Eh, whats that? Didn't follow me? Thats okay, let me give you an example:In a recent game I ran a published module that had a secret door. This secret door is opened by pressing portions of a fresco in the right order. Failure to press them in the right order results in trigering a poisen trap. The module's frescoes referenced Planes and the group had a clue as to what the order should be. As I modified the game to run in Eberron, I used the Eberron planar configuration and names, linking to the moons instead of archtypical planar creatures.&nbsp;However, only 2 of my players are *into* Eberron and neither of them have messed with the planes or even the names of the moons. The Bard, Mage, and Cleric all took ranks in Knowledge: Planes.&nbsp; For the characters, the riddle of the door would have been a couple moments of consulting before pressing things in the right order. For my players, I had to have an NPC tweak the curtain aside for a moment to shove the hints at them. *not* a memorable moment in the game.&nbsp;If 4E has a way to accomplish this sort of scene with more finesse, I am all for it.{Other riddles have gone much better. In my first Deserts of Desolation campaign, I added a small hint at the start on how to decrypt the ancient writing... then as the group encountered more writing I would simply hand over a paper with the script written on it.&nbsp;This ended up being a very enjoyable aspect of the campaign, and by the time it ended I was able to write the script without refering to anything...and one of my players could read it!}</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Primitive Screwhead, post: 3814070, member: 20805"] I think the bigger issue with puzzles and riddles is the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge... kindof a reverse of meta-gaming. Its about what the character knows that the player doesn't. Eh, whats that? Didn't follow me? Thats okay, let me give you an example: In a recent game I ran a published module that had a secret door. This secret door is opened by pressing portions of a fresco in the right order. Failure to press them in the right order results in trigering a poisen trap. The module's frescoes referenced Planes and the group had a clue as to what the order should be. As I modified the game to run in Eberron, I used the Eberron planar configuration and names, linking to the moons instead of archtypical planar creatures. However, only 2 of my players are *into* Eberron and neither of them have messed with the planes or even the names of the moons. The Bard, Mage, and Cleric all took ranks in Knowledge: Planes. For the characters, the riddle of the door would have been a couple moments of consulting before pressing things in the right order. For my players, I had to have an NPC tweak the curtain aside for a moment to shove the hints at them. *not* a memorable moment in the game. If 4E has a way to accomplish this sort of scene with more finesse, I am all for it. {Other riddles have gone much better. In my first Deserts of Desolation campaign, I added a small hint at the start on how to decrypt the ancient writing... then as the group encountered more writing I would simply hand over a paper with the script written on it. This ended up being a very enjoyable aspect of the campaign, and by the time it ended I was able to write the script without refering to anything...and one of my players could read it!} [/QUOTE]

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