Puzzles in 4th Edition

[DonTadow]

Reading the puzzle thread over in general got me thinking:

The classic problem with puzzles in dnd is that mental stats are far harder to roleplay correctly than physical ones. While we all can imagine how strong a hercules could be, its hard to imagine what a man with a 25 int (higher than any human who has ever lived) could accomplish.

When a dm provides his players a puzzle, he rightly wants them to take time and solve it. But the players have the valid point that if there character is far smarter than they are (and often times a super genius) then they should be able to solve the puzzle with ease.

I'm curious to know if 4e has any techniques or mechanics to try and bridge this gap.

I'll go out and throw the whole "tactics" argument. Tactical objectives, are in essence, puzzles. The argument that "my character figures it out" is akin to saying "my millitary warlord figures out the right way to win the battle.

Tada

At that point we have wrapped up dungeons and dragons into a 20 minute session 5 or 6 rolls to determine the result and not the process. Just like combat is the process of fighting tactics, puzzles are the process of mental tactics.

I think there are just a lot of DMs who run puzzles wrong and that gives them a bad taste on many players. Puzzles just showing up with no explanation to the dungeon is like a creature showing up with no real reasoning. Sensible puzzles are usually there as a test or there to remind minions of things. I think DMs should also give players various different rolls and provide clues for solving certain puzzles. I've done spot checks to realize certain buttons were pushed first, intelligence/logic checks to discern a pattern and listen checks to hear clicking. But just like combats, there are certain players whom just won't like puzzles. That's part of the reasoning why you want to add other elements to it. Various checks I've previously said or you can throw in a combat that escalates as the time goes away.

There was a really crazy thread 2 years ago before the big crash when someone posted a save or die puzzles. That is what not to do. It's cool to have a puzzle apart be deadly or unpassable but pcs like their characters to die in combat.

 

[StarFyre]

yeah

oh yeah, the saw tower was very extreme

The context was someone who was watching and torturing them... hence I used SAW as the main idea for it.

I also like puzzles in games.

The thing is, just like in real life, puzzles CAN help people learn real problem solving, espec if the puzzles you use are of higher difficulty. We also do occasional math, art, music based puzzles.

The thing is, this is where we ignore character stats. Our goal IS to help people improve in real life... we think it's just better overall that way, so where characters with high stats may get hints from me, the fact is, we go against the rules in that sense, and let the players figure it out.

I've already gotten the 'weakest' puzzle solver in our group, stepping up and solving some of them now. After 2.5 years, her problem solving has really improved so I am happy to actually improve that aspect in real life

Sanjay

 

[BASHMAN]

I don't know about 3.5 that much because I haven't played it, but...

To make a check you could come up with a table like this:

DC Complexity
--------------
10 Easy
15 Somewhat Complicated
20 Fairly Complex
25 Very Complex
30 Utterly Complex

DC Modifier
-----------
+10 if the character's has no access to possible clues
-05 could ask question to people that knows about something and take the time to gather information
-10 has access to a full library and could ask question and take a lot of time


Lets say its a very complex enigma and the character has no access to clues:
DC 25+10=35

If the character has 25 INT that means he has a +7
Let's say a base of 10+7=17

That means he would still has to roll 18 or higher to know the answer.



That is just a suggestion.

Yeah, and instead of playing out a combat round by round, we could just resolve that with a single die roll too! You roll 1d20 + Level vs 10+ Enemy's level. If you win the fight is won-- if you lose you have to flee for your lives / die! They could do this same thing for dealing with interacting with NPCs-- no more pesky role-playing to get in the way-- a single d20 roll is all you need. Heck, you could skip the entire game session entirely by flipping a coin!

 

[helium3]

There was a really crazy thread 2 years ago before the big crash when someone posted a save or die puzzles. That is what not to do. It's cool to have a puzzle apart be deadly or unpassable but pcs like their characters to die in combat.

Was that the one where there was a giant array of letters and the PC's had to figure out what the pattern was?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Was that the one where there was a giant array of letters and the PC's had to figure out what the pattern was?

I vaguely remember that. I think I fell asleep on my keyboard and accidentally typed out the cipher with my face.

 

[kennew142]

I use puzzles occasionally as a GM, but have to admit that I've had some pretty bad experiences with them as a player. In my upcoming 4e game, ruins left behind by the ancient scathovan magelords dot the landscape. They used mathematics and geometry to model the rules governing magic. As an emergency measure, all of the restricted areas in their facilities had puzzles that could bypass the locks. To a well-trained scathovan magelord, these puzzles were inherently obvious. Modern adventurers have to puzzle out the solution.

Of course, the characters can try to locate the appropriate key (sometimes possible; sometimes not). They can also use their skills to open the locks, or their skills to garner clues as to the solution.

Puzzles are only bad IMO when they have no authenticity in the game world. Personally, I despise simple substitution keys and the like.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I have always wanted to do a puzzle which was campaign-stretching long. Possibly something dealing with having to warp various ley-lines through different methods (puzzle within a puzzle) to cause some sort of campaign-changing effect.

Obviously not that well thought out right now, but I think it be interesting (though be hard to keep fresh enough for each puzzle instance, though I guess that can be said for anything in D&D that happens multiple times).

 

[Umbran]

Heck, you could skip the entire game session entirely by flipping a coin!

Logic like that is a double-edged sword - taken to the other extreme, folks should actually be hitting each other with real weapons, rather than have a mechanic for it. This, or course, is just as absurd. Since we can see it is absurd at both ends, we should then figure that we ought to choose something in the middle. We should note that maybe your favorite place in the middle may not be someone else's favorite place, and that's okay.

The game has a very long history of variant rules to either simplify or complicate a facet of the game that someone doesn't or does like. There's no call to reduce it to the extremes like this for just one more such suggestion.

 

[Patlin]

I've allways considered puzzle solving an ooc activity, in which mental stats are of no importance. Riddles (and other puzzles) are unfortunately under-represented as a type of encounter, probably because they're the hardest to create for the DM. I consider them, despite this, a major part of D&D. Using stats at all would lessen the fun.

If I were to use stats, I might set a time limit on coming up with an answer based on the int of the smartest character.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I've never understood why ANYONE likes puzzles in D&D. There's a big difference between having complicated, interesting decisions to make and having to solve riddles or pulling a bunch of switches in the right order to get the next door to open.

A good puzzle will engage players and help identification with the in-game reality.

Puzzles are also rarely inclusive: You have one or two players (the few who have any interest whatsoever) try to solve them while the others' eyes gloss over.

That's a bad puzzle. The puzzle has got to be stopped before it gets that far.

They ALSO are rarely as clever as the module (or DM who made 'em) seem to think. They are either wholly obtuse, with the answer being essentially impossible to figure out without already knowing it, or boringly straight-forward.

This is the problem with any kind of intelligence test: they are highly context sensitive. For example, what is obvious to one person is often not obvious to another, and this depends on social background and experience.

Either way, I hope they keep them to a minimum, if not actively discourage them in 4e unless they have a clever way of revamping them to be fun in some way I can't possibly imagine.

I agree with you there. Beginning DMs need to realize that they can stall their game with puzzles unless they have some kind of alternate option for the characters (in game) that lets the players off the hook.