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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 7538357" data-attributes="member: 22424">I almost never use riddles - only when using a creature such as a sphinx. I do, however, use puzzles quite often, and usually these exist to test player skill rather than character abilities - so there's generally no &quot;roll to get a clue&quot; mechanic in use.As regards the possibility of failure, there's one of two possibilities:- If the thing gated by the riddle/puzzle is not necessary to the plot (for instance, if it's an additional treasure cache), then the party can simply fail. This is generally my preferred approach.- If the thing gated by the riddle/puzzle is necessary to the plot, then there need to be multiple possible solutions. Solve the puzzle, or just bash down the door, or... well, whatever.(I should note that, even in the latter case, it's still possible that the PCs might just fail. Maybe they can't solve the riddle, don't think to bash down the door, and so on. In which case, well, they just fail the adventure. It's not impossible, but it does happen. Just as they might fail due to losing a combat.)The key piece of advice I would give, though, when considering riddles and/or puzzles: keep an eye on your players. If they're not enjoying it, it's time to move on - even if that means you need to just narrate &quot;you scratch your head for an hour, and then the wizard realises the answer is...&quot; And then, having discovered your players don't like this sort of challenge, maybe don't use them again? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="delericho, post: 7538357, member: 22424"] I almost never use riddles - only when using a creature such as a sphinx. I do, however, use puzzles quite often, and usually these exist to test [i]player[/i] skill rather than character abilities - so there's generally no "roll to get a clue" mechanic in use. As regards the possibility of failure, there's one of two possibilities: - If the thing gated by the riddle/puzzle is not necessary to the plot (for instance, if it's an additional treasure cache), then the party can simply fail. This is generally my preferred approach. - If the thing gated by the riddle/puzzle is necessary to the plot, then there need to be multiple possible solutions. Solve the puzzle, or just bash down the door, or... well, whatever. (I should note that, even in the latter case, it's still possible that the PCs might just fail. Maybe they can't solve the riddle, don't think to bash down the door, and so on. In which case, well, they just fail the adventure. It's not impossible, but it does happen. Just as they might fail due to losing a combat.) The key piece of advice I would give, though, when considering riddles and/or puzzles: keep an eye on your players. If they're not enjoying it, it's time to move on - even if that means you need to just narrate "you scratch your head for an hour, and then the wizard realises the answer is..." And then, having discovered your players don't like this sort of challenge, maybe don't use them again? :) [/QUOTE]

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