Please help with Chess puzzle

[Stormonu]

Yeah, I think I'd reach over the table and throttle the DM if I was subjected to that trap - and had not been given some sort of clue/forewarning that the only way to win was to cheat. Good for a show/movie, horrible to be subjected to it if you aren't aware cheating is allowed.

Another chess puzzle is the one with 5 queens; you must position them on the board so they can't capture each other. Another one involves several knights (4, I think) on an unusually shaped board (like a cross, I believe); you have to swap the positions of all the knights in so many moves (like 8).

One really strange puzzle I've seen is the "checkers vs. chess" game; one side plays with the pieces/movement of a set of checkers, the other plays with the pieces/rules of chess. Of course, the chess side has the advantage.

 

[Peter Lee]

I saw the episode; I was thinking that the only way to win the game was not to play, so the proper move would have been to knock over your king. Obviously, I wouldn't have lived very long...

Riffing a little on Stormonu's suggestion:

The only hint the PCs have is: Change the Rules
White to move, represented by the lowercase letters.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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| | | |K| | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | |R| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | |Q| | |
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| | | | |k| | | |
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Solution:
[sblock]Play checkers, not chess. King jumps Queen, Rook, then enemy King to win.[/sblock]

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Or use a variant of chess - examples include the use of a Byzantine (round) chess board; Courier Chess (pre 18th Century); or an odd Polish variant, the name of which I have forgotten (types of piece are numbered 1-6 - 1=pawn, 2=Bishop, 3=Knight, 4=Rook, 5=Queen, 6=King) - roll two dice - you may move one of those two types of piece. So a 1 and a 4 four would allow you to move either a pawn or a rook.

Or just use variant names for the pieces - Rooks referred to as Elephants, Bishops as Archers (traditional in Europe, once upon a time).

Having the answer be to cheat is just plain not going to make the player happy. ('Obviously the way to win is to beat the DM's head in with a hammer.... *Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham!.... Wham!* 'I win!')

The Auld Grump

 

[Morrus]

I saw the episode; I was thinking that the only way to win the game was not to play, so the proper move would have been to knock over your king. Obviously, I wouldn't have lived very long...

Riffing a little on Stormonu's suggestion:

The only hint the PCs have is: Change the Rules
White to move, represented by the lowercase letters.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | |K| | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | |R| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | | |Q| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | | | |k| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Solution:
[sblock]Play checkers, not chess. King jumps Queen, Rook, then enemy King to win.[/sblock]

If I can change the rules, the king takes king from five squares away. Easy.

"Change the Rules" isn't a great way to go, I don't think.

 

[Peter Lee]

If I can change the rules, the king takes king from five squares away. Easy.

"Change the Rules" isn't a great way to go, I don't think.

Very true. Other ideas:
- Change the game
- When you're losing, play a different game

One of my old GM friends back in Madison would always refer to these as "think like me" puzzles. Basically, the only way to solve them is to think like the GM/Writer. It's the same problem with all those old Infocom text adventure games.

 

[MarkB]

You've got the solution to turning this from a poor trap to a good one right there in the show: You need to include something in the run-up to finding the trap which informs the players that the dungeon's designer favours rule-breakers and hates rule-followers, and may have built this trap on that principle.


If you want a variant on the "not-so-obvious solution", there's a memorable one that I saw used in a Star Trek graphic adventure which could be adapted to your needs.

The set-up in that game was that the characters needed an outpost's computer to perform a particular task, but it's been maliciously rigged into devoting all its attention to a game of 3D chess, and until that game is resolved, it won't perform any other task.

The problem is that it's almost impossible for an organic character to beat the machine at chess - even if the most adept character tries, the best they can achieve is to stall the game into a series of cautious moves, and time is limited here.

The trick lies in realising that you're not trying to win the game - you're just trying to end it. The moment a character starts playing to lose, the computer wins in a couple of moves and its runtime is freed up to perform the tasks the characters require of it.

You could adapt a scenario like that for a D&D game by replacing the computer with a golem, whose strength is required to remove an obstacle, but whose attention is fully absorbed by a chess puzzle.

 

[Jhaelen]

It's the same problem with all those old Infocom text adventure games.

Mhm, I don't know. I managed to solve quite a few of those. They're actually pretty good on giving hints when trying the wrong things.

An exception might be 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' where you really have to think like Douglas Adams to solve it.
I was incredibly proud having figured out how to get the Babelfish into my ear after several hours. Some of the other puzzles are annoying, though - like the speaking doos on the Heart of Gold.

 

[jonesy]

I thought the Infocom games were intentionally hard. They weren't really that long (except the Zork games). And some, like Planetfall, had false clues that led you down the wrong path.

Then again some, like Lurking Horror, had clues for the game inside the feelies that came with the game box, which people playing the pirated versions must have missed. I think some of the clues in the feelies were even coded.

I really loved the Peril Sensitive Sunglasses that came with Hitchhiker.

 

[olshanski]

I think that this could work.
Make a puzzle that can be solved (obviously) in 3 moves.
Then after the first move, describe the machinery moving so that it is clear that the party has only 1 move left. If it is obvious that they will die after the next move, they should know they will not have time to complete the sequence. That should possibly clue them in that it is impossible.
Likewise, knowing that the trap designer was a bit of a cheater should help.

Then again, I designed a trap somewhat like this, (you win if you cheat), and it never occurred to the players to try to cheat.

In my "trap", the rules were explicit. If you followed the spirit of the rules, you had a 9% chance of winning. If you follow the letter of the rules but violate the spirit of the rules, you had a 99% chance of winning. To make things more obvious, the person who "established" the rules unfairly puts the players in the bad position.

The problem is that you don't want to establish that cheating is allowed on every puzzle, or you will be in for alot of disappointment the rest of the campaign.

 

[filthgrinder]

I guess it really comes down to your players, but I know if I threw out a chess trap problem, my players would groan and be miserable. People who hate chess or think they aren't good, will sit back and wait for someone else to figure it out. Even if you've given them the hint that you need to cheat to win, that will most likely be over looked, and people will attempt to solve it by the rules.

I think this is because it's a real world problem. People know chess, and they know chess problems. Even if they don't play, most people will know the basics, or enough of the group will know the basics that they'll be able to teach and explain. If you are lucky, you'll end up with the group trying to figure it out by the rules, if you aren't, you'll get a bunch of frustrated players.

In my case, I love chess problems. I have multiple chess problem apps for my iphone. I regularly visit a website (chesstempo.com) to play chess problems. I have a couple of books dedicated to chess problems. If I encountered a chess problem in a game, I'd be locked into trying to solve it by the rules.

Now, one of my players, she isn't into chess at all. She would just sit back and withdraw from that part of the game. By introducing an element that people know and are familiar with, you will have to deal with their preconceived notions about that element. Since people have real world experiences with it, you will have a big barrier.

My advice is to try and turn the trap into something that will engage the entire group and maximize the fun around the table.