Puzzle Inspiration

[SnowleopardVK]

I like having the occasional puzzle show up in adventures. Nothing but hack and slash gets boring after all (or at least it does for me). But when it comes to actually creating puzzles for RPGs it can be tough, and a lot of the time asking for puzzle ideas online just gets you riddles in response.

Nothing against riddles, but they are not puzzles and shouldn't be thought of as such. They're riddles.

Back to the puzzles; there are certain ones that I love, that many would know as stock video game puzzles, because I'm very familiar with a lot of the types of games that use them. My normal players on the other hand are almost entirely not gamers, and so when I give them one of these types of puzzles they usually don't immediately recognize how to solve it. They do tend to get very excited about figuring them out though (even more reason to love them).
Stock Video Game Puzzle - Television Tropes & Idioms
(Warning, link contains TV Tropes, if you click you might be there reading for a while)

Some games are great for puzzles like these; Legend of Zelda, Ookami, Pokemon, Myst, Tomb Rader, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, and (though I'm not a fan of horror) Resident Evil are all games/series I own that repeatedly give amazing puzzle inspiration. They also manage to do it in a format where you can look at the puzzle and the first thought that comes to mind isn't "how can I possibly justify this being in a dungeon" (which is the major problem I have with the "remove three sticks to make three squares" type of puzzle; it's harder to use and tends to seem more out of place than the stock video game puzzles do).

Those tend to be my favourite inspirational sources when choosing puzzles anyways (and of course sometimes puzzles just come to mind without needing a source of inspiration). I usually avoid classic puzzles because it's more likely that a member of my group will already know the answer when it comes to those ones. What about the rest of you though? Where are some of the places you draw the inspiration for puzzles from, if at all?

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I run supers game so puzzles is something I like to go back to, as well. Somewhere I have a bunch of puzzle things that I have used over the years but can't for the life of me, remember where they are. But the point is, a lot of Batman comics with Riddler (I know, I know, riddles are not puzzles) but Riddler does use a lot of puzzles over the years.

So comics or comic websites might be able to give you some inspiration.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) Go into a toy shop that sells puzzles. No, I don't mean jigsaws- I mean the detach the key from the ring, get all the balls into their resting positions, peg-jumping, Rubik's Cube type stuff.

2) Look for puzzles online that deal with classic games, like chess, go, and so forth.

3) Try sites like this: BrainBashers : Puzzles and Brain Teasers Pay special attention to logic puzzles, like the ones about moving cannibals and missionaries across a river on a single boat.

 

[wolfpunk]

In a world where every other person is a rogue, coming up with a good puzzle is sometimes the only way to keep something safe.

I like to think of puzzles in regards to the people who built and used them.

Small creatures might create puzzles based on weight knowing that it will make it very hard for medium sized creatures to bypass it.

Creatures with dark vision create puzzles that are invisible to people without dark vision.

I often use letter or number codes in my puzzles, Like using words that rhyme with the numbers they represent. My thinking is I want to create a puzzle not a time-killer. Make it take a minute, let the players figure it out and then get on with the game while feeling they accomplished something.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

[DonLaFontaine]In a world where every other person is a rogue, coming up with a good puzzle is sometimes the only way to keep something safe.[/DonLaFontaine]

FIFY!

 

[jedavis]

We had a crazy puzzle about a month ago that was based on Conway's Game of Life; we thought it was awesome, since most of our group are programmers. More detail here.