D&D 5E Riddle Mechanic? Suggestion? Advice?

[Stormonu]

I’ve tried a few things over the years:

• Int checks with varying degrees of success to give hints
• Extra guesses equal to the highest character’s Int modifier
• Everyone in the group can collaborate before making a guess
• Players with high Int characters allowed to use out-of-gameworld helpful resources (books, maybe a google search or phone call to a knowledgeable person)
• Multiple correct answers to the riddle/puzzle
• Secondary (and possibly tertiary) ways to circumvent the riddle/puzzle

And one my son uses when he creates open-ended puzzles:
- If they don’t get it by the 3rd guess, the 4th guess is the correct answer (but he never tells the players that)

 

[el-remmen]

It seems to me like you have identified the core problem, which is the all-or-nothing nature of a riddle. You get the answer or you don’t, and whether arrival at one of those points comes through player knowledge or through an ability check of some sort, it’s pretty unsatisfying either way. What about instead of a single riddle, you do a Hobbit style Game of Riddles, where both parties take turns posing each other riddles until one side or the other is stumped (or gets stumped X times, or whatever other variant you like). That’s complex enough that it could probably be run as a skill challenge.

Interesting, except I am not going to ask my players to come up with riddles on the spot and I am just abstracting the riddle to just "riddle and roll for answer" makes it seem like no point for having riddles at all.

 

[overgeeked]

It seems to me like you have identified the core problem, which is the all-or-nothing nature of a riddle. You get the answer or you don’t, and whether arrival at one of those points comes through player knowledge or through an ability check of some sort, it’s pretty unsatisfying either way. What about instead of a single riddle, you do a Hobbit style Game of Riddles, where both parties take turns posing each other riddles until one side or the other is stumped (or gets stumped X times, or whatever other variant you like). That’s complex enough that it could probably be run as a skill challenge.

Building on this, you could also make it one riddle with multiple steps to solve. Instead of one success equals a clue or one success equals the answer, have it be…say four successes equals solving the riddle…or wins the riddle contest. Either four riddles or the four lines of one riddle.

Using the riddle from the OP, each line can be solved or responded to in turn, the clues listed. Once the group solves the lines or the characters make successful checks, they get one step closer. If any of the players solves the riddle, that’s it. You’re done. But if they’re stuck, the checks are made and the clock progresses.

Each line “solved” or success is one mark closer. You need four to be done with the riddle and solve it. Or the players solve it themselves.

 

[el-remmen]

Everyone in the group can collaborate before making a guess

This is a given for my approach.

 

[Stormonu]

This is a given for my approach.

No probs. Some DMs don’t allow that (I have a character under such a DM), so I thought it was worth putting out there.

 

[el-remmen]

The monster I plan to use for the encounter I am building (which comes to the PCs at their HQ) is a clockwork sphinx (I got the mini in my mini subscription box and it gave me the idea) and my idea that has come to me while ruminating these responses is that there will be multiple guesses and for each wrong guess, some aspect of the clockwork monster will change and become clearly more threatening and difficult - so running out of guesses means fighting its most powerful form.

In theory they can still defeat it through fighting even if they get the riddle wrong, but it will be a lot harder of fight and they will get no additional info they need to follow up more efficiently on what solving the riddle gets them.

 

[Stormonu]

You might want to go a bit further on that:

Solve it in one guess: No fight, or fight is easier; miss the guess and in its arrogance, the sphinx offers a clue
Solve it in two guesses: Sphinx flys into a rage at the correct answer; normal fight - if this guess is missed, the sphinx makes a sarcastic remark that doubles as a clue
Solve it in three guesses: Sphinx is enhanced/emboldened by the party’s inability; fight is harder than normal
Can’t solve after three guesses: Sphinx is greatly enhanced and attacks the clearly inferior PCs; they may need to run and come back later to try again.

 

[J.Quondam]

A braindrizzle, not sure how useful this could be but...
Maybe you could abstract away the guessing of the riddle itself with a word game of some sort? Eg, make the riddle/s difficult, but instead of hints, let players zero in on the answer using a game of hangman or something.

In this case, the word game isn't really happening in the game world; it's just a sort of thematic abstraction of the party pondering the riddle. But since it's got clear rules, it provides a framework to hang some ability checks on without having to calibrate the "difficulty" of riddles and hints. In the case of the hangman game, high Int checks in the fiction mean "warmer" guesses, but at the table they result in more letters for the puzzle game.

I guess the point is to transform the riddle encounter into an simple-to-rule mini-game* for the players' sake, but in the fiction keep narrating it as PCs failing/succeeding on guesses. I mean if the players guess the riddle immediately, good for them! But if not, you've got a system in place to help advance the encounter in a fairly well-defined way way.

Whatever you decide, I hope you share it after the session. I'd love to hear how you end up handling this!


* A physical analogy might be using a few rounds of paper football to resolve the Super Bowl in the fiction, if that makes sense.

 

[Professor Murder]

I default to using Investigation for research and figuring things out rolls.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Regardless of the method, when the players characters solve the riddle, it triggers the trap.