Puzzles you have put in to the game

[ArghMark]

Hi all!

I'm wondering what awesome, tricky, and cool puzzles you have put into a game.

Once in an Ars Magica (Medieval style) game I based a puzzle off the four humours. PC's had to match 4 animals to the 4 humours, and had a medic near by to ask about characteristics of animals. They weren't sure what was going to happen, but found it opened a hidden chamber.

 

[kitsune9]

Hey Argh,

I like using puzzles from time to time myself. I designed one puzzle that used a Fibonacci sequence and had the players figure out the next number in the series, but they had to go look for it in a chamber that had a whole bunch of other numbers.

I did a puzzle where the players got a hand out of 3 x 3 panel of buttons that had pictures. However, the pictures were a red herring because throughout the dungeon were clues of the correct order in which to push those buttons. Part of the process of solving the puzzle was to use logic and figure out the rest of the numbers in the 3 x 3 panel in order to determine the correct sequence.

I wrote up an encounter in which the players become trapped in a chamber and cannot escape. They find a set of seven key holes with a red key in one of them and some other colored keys scattered about the chamber. They will also find a skeleton with a journal and some other scraps that will provide a logic puzzle in order to figure out the correct order the keys need to be inserted in order to get out of the chamber.

I design my puzzles to be fairly simple because I have one player who absolutely hates puzzles and refuses to participate in the game with them, a couple of other players who are like me, not real puzzle solvers, and one player who would just hog the handouts and try to work the puzzle himself for the next hour or so. I don't want the players to get bored or pissed so I come up with stuff for them to solve in about five minutes. I also design it for the non-gamer to solve so I get my wife to see if she can solve it from reading them. Depending upon her time will determine how simple or hard the puzzle should be.

 

[jcayer]

I have a mixed bag. 2 big puzzle lovers, 2 who are ok with it, and one who doesn't care for them, but appreciates the fact that the others do, so he makes the most of it.

The second best puzzle I ever used, I used my first night DMing these guys. Try placing 8 queens on a chess board without any of them able to capture another. Even my puzzle solvers struggled. After about 30 minutes, one of the guys asked if he could make a history check, to see if he had heard or seen the puzzle before. I said sure and when he succeeded, I gave them three of the locations.

The best puzzle was similar except it was just large marbles, and some monsters. The placement was easier, but this really allowed everyone in the party to participate. The puzzle lovers worked hard to figure out how to solve it while the fighter types/not puzzle solvers kept the monsters busy. Did I mention the monsters wouldn't die till the puzzle was solved? The way it worked, everyone in my group will still tell you it was the best combo challenge we've had.

 

[Hautamaki]

I just ran this puzzle last night.

The players entered a large chamber, on the far side was a door leading to the dead king's crypt and all of his treasure. There were 8 stone statues of giant elven warriors arranged around the chamber.

Inside the chamber were 4 pillars, each pillar of which had a shelf and some ancient elven writing (one of the players had both elven literacy and knowledge history, so he was able to read the scripts.) On 3 of the shelves were 3 orbs each, resting in sockets, all jet black and seemingly identical. The fourth pillar had 2 scales on it. The orb shelves were labelled 'The just orb shall pass; the unjust orbs shall be punished'. And the shelf with the 2 scales were labelled 'The scales of justice'. The door to the king's chamber had a socket for one of the orbs in place of a keyhole or door handle.

When the players approached a statue, its eyes began to glow, brighter as the player got closer. The player quickly backed off.

One of the players intuited that the fact that there were 2 scales was significant; if there were only 1 scale you could assume infinite uses of it, but 2 seemed to indicate a limit of 2. The players intuited that the scales were magical and that they could be used to locate the 'just orb'. They also figured out that 9 total orbs was significant: 1 orb to open the door, the other 8 to activate a corresponding statue--obviously a stone golem guardian.

They decided to weigh 4 orbs--two on each side, chosen at random. This means that there was a 4 in 9 chance that one of the 4 orbs was the 'just orb'. I rolled a d10 (1-4, they had the just orb, 5-9 no orb, 0 reroll). The scale balanced, so the just orb was not there. The scale then became fixed; putting more orbs on it didn't cause it to budge. So they had to use the other scale. They had 5 possible orbs left, so they randomly set one aside and weighed another 2 sets of 2 orbs. After another roll (1 in 5 chance that the scale will balance at this point meaning the just orb is the one set aside, so I rolled another d10: 0-9 indicates the scale balances) I determined that the scale did not balance. The orb of justice must be one of those 4. But was it heavier, or lighter, than the others?

An examination of the wall relief gave a clue: a figure wearing a crown could be seen holding a scale, unbalanced, and beams of light were coming out of the higher tray. So the proper orb would appear to be the lighter orb.

That left them with 2 possible 'just orbs'. They randomly chose one, and put it in the socket. I rolled a 50% chance, and, ta-da, they got lucky. Of course, if they had gotten the wrong orb, I would have randomly determined which golem awakened and came to ruin their day. The golems were balanced to be enough of a threat that the party would probably not be able to take on more than 2 of them.

The ideal solution to the puzzle takes luck completely out of the equation. If they had weighed 6 orbs the first time, 3 orbs to a side, they'd have been able to narrow down the just orb to one of 3 orbs instead of 1 of 4 or 5. Then a second weighing would give the correct orb. But ultimately their solution was good enough that they definitely would have been able to defeat the puzzle. They just risked a fair amount of damage from that first golem.

 

[Quickleaf]

I ran a codex puzzle in a cursed library for a 5th level party.

If they didn't solve it within a time limit, a whole horde of undead led by a skull lord would attack them.

There were three spinning wheels on top of a circle of letters, like the old Pool of Radiance decoder, if you remember that. They were sweating bullets.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

How was that one supposed to be solved? What other clues did you provide?

"Adult ere first son"?

 

[Quickleaf]

How was that one supposed to be solved? What other clues did you provide?

"Adult ere first son"?

They knew there were 3 iterations, each one corresponded to one reading of the codex. It was a secret prophecy - the only record from a prophet who was killed to keep it secret.

Try "ere first son adult" and it makes sense. Well, at least it you're using psuedo-archaic english

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I was wondering if you could step through the actual mechanical solving process?

If someone else wanted to use the same puzzle, how would it work, in other words.

 

[Quickleaf]

I was wondering if you could step through the actual mechanical solving process?

If someone else wanted to use the same puzzle, how would it work, in other words.

Well the puzzle is really meant to be tactile, but I'll do my best to explain.

Envision the same pattern that selects "ere first son adult" and rotate the *entire* codex one step back, then one step back again.

[sblock]The first step should give you "and ruler yet lives". The second "vie civil tis abide."
The key is that the initial line "ere f-I-rst S-on a-D-ult" and the last line "vie civ-I-l ti-S abi-D-e" has the CAPITALIZED letters in common.
[/sblock]

 

[A flannel shirt]

I ran a codex puzzle in a cursed library for a 5th level party.

There were three spinning wheels on top of a circle of letters, like the old Pool of Radiance decoder, if you remember that. They were sweating bullets.

Of course I remember, it is one foot from my face right now on my desk. I love that game and play it every once in a while for inspiration.

I tend to use tons of puzzles in my D&D games. I have a few written for my basic game I plan to run at Gary Con next year. I've also used some in my SWSE game.

The problem I have with puzzles is they are mostly dependent on what the players know, not what the characters know.