Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="NCSUCodeMonkey" data-source="post: 3093982" data-attributes="member: 2047">Mentioning Puzzles is like a summoning spell for me, apparently. First time I browse ENWorld this week and BOOM, here's this thread <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />. Here's my spiel on puzzles:Puzzles can be a wonderful addition to a game or a horrible, four hour fest of frustration. I've seen both cases and I've inflicted both cases on my players. I think the most important thing to realize about puzzles in a traditional DnD setting is that they're encounters to be overcome just like everything else. Character's skills, abilities, and spells should be useful in overcoming the encounter just as much as the player's skill. Also, I consider a puzzle anything that isn't a trap or a combat. I've had puzzles where PCs had to tell a story or build a machine (with k'nex!). Perform checks and Knowledge (Eng) checks can provide extra props or parts that make the task easier. In the worst case, you should always have an escape plan that allows the players to resolve the encounter based on dice alone. Puzzles are not fun if it takes 2 hours to finish them.It's also important to understand that different people excel at solving different puzzles. If you're going to put one in your normal game, it's incredibly important to know your players. I had a physics major in one of my games who was great at literature and math, and I put in a puzzle just for him once. He solved it in five minutes (like I knew he would) and felt really cool about the whole thing. If everyone in your group hates math, don't do a math puzzle!If you're putting together a game with puzzles for a group that you don't know, this power point presentation on puzzle design can be really insightful (<a href="http://www.scottkim.com/thinkinggames/GDC00/gdc2000.ppt" target="_blank">http://www.scottkim.com/thinkinggames/GDC00/gdc2000.ppt</a>). It explains the different types of puzzles and the personalities of the folks who tend to solve them well. When I design my Underoo Avengers game, I make a real effort to include a puzzle from each category. Also important for groups that you don't know: keep everything super simple. Test the puzzle on 3-4 people. I've found that it's good to plan on your players taking 2-3 times as long to solve the puzzle as your playtesters.Oh, and as Maverick indicated: props can make everything better. Giving the players something physical to manipulate and discuss can go a long way towards making a puzzle fun. At the very least, it gives them something to keep them busy while they come to a solution rather than sitting still and wracking their brains over a four line rhyme.Things that make good puzzles:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mazes - props make this easier</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Storytelling</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Acting/Improv</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Construction - build a machine to solve a problem</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mini Games - pretty much any game that you can pick up in a game store that takes 5 minutes or so to play, e.g. <a href="http://www.thinkfun.com/tipover/" target="_blank">http://www.thinkfun.com/tipover/</a> and <a href="http://www.khet.com/" target="_blank">http://www.khet.com/</a>. Working these in can be tricky, but playing Zelda for about 10 minutes usually brings inspiration, e.g. Position these mirrors to reflect light just-so to open the door of an anchient temple.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Riddles - but ONLY when the answers are common and broad (war, wind, money, etc.) or, and this is even better, the answer has something to do with the context of the puzzle. Nothing is more frustrating than an ancient evil wizard who guards his temple with a riddle whose answer is "trout" or some other such random drivel.</li> </ul>Here are some pics from my puzzle heavy Underoo Avengers game, to give you an idea of the kind of stuff that I use: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncsucodemonkey/tags/rpg/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncsucodemonkey/tags/rpg/</a></blockquote>

Verification