Puzzles and Traps

[Iconik]

My forte is storytelling. Coming up with puzzles and traps isn't something I'm too keen on. This is possibly because I'm not very good at puzzles in real life. Get me in front of a Cryptogram and I turn into mush.

I've done some research online for some good infodumps on these two items but all I could really find are forum topics. I'd rather have a nice website that lays it all out for you.

Anyone know of some good sites with puzzle and trap ideas? I've yet to really put any in my game. There is one player who really wants puzzles.

 

[mneme]

Buy or borrow them? Extract puzzles from mods with them, or expand out around riddles (which you can get from, say, Riddle Rooms).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've never been much of a puzzle guy myself. I just don't generally use the typical sort of puzzle very often. OTOH the plot of the adventure can be a more literary sort of puzzle (mysteries to be solved, etc). Then you can deal with a somewhat less logic driven "you have to be clever to solve this" kind of puzzle and instead have one that requires more thought about human nature, motives, looking for clues, etc. This can also work at a smaller scale, a dungeon level that presents a sort of 'tactical puzzle'. An example was a level I made where there were a bunch of teleporters that made it easy for the PCs (and monsters) to move around from area to area. However the PCs had a key that let them change which teleporter went where and let them turn some of them off. Proper use of that capability meant they could force the monsters to go through certain rooms or isolate some of the monsters, so the fights could be considerably easier. Figuring out how to use the teleporters was a very elementary 'puzzle', but using them in the most effective way was a much more interesting 'puzzle', but it didn't run me into the usual "I'm making a puzzle, my poor brain." problem.

Another option is to get someone else to design you a puzzle. Obviously posting to Enworld can help there, but for instance I know other long-time DMs or just people that like puzzles, so if I NEED one I can get help with it. Run some ideas by people and see what they come up with.

 

[Iconik]

Yeah I may have to do that. Thanks for your awesome replies.