Riddle/problem to solve

[Tuzenbach]

Tuzenbach, that's excellent and very involved work. But, I have to admit I'm kinda attracted to wilder_jw's geometry/geography/time combo. So I'll see what I can make out of that.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

No worries. Hey, let us know how it turns out, yes? If you do get a change of heart and decide to go with my riddle, I'd be curious to know just how long it takes to solve. I once concocted a puzzle so ridiculously shrewd that the gaming party took 24 hours of real time to figure it out!

PS: There was an error in my math up above but I've caught/corrected it now, in case you may have copied it...........

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

Another perspective might well be "who knows what the minds of evil genius snake-men have conceived"? Why exactly would a bunch of evil snake-men trap one of their most powerful leaders in a temple as their civilisation declines into chaos, and also provide the means to release him at a later date? There's a little more background to the adventure than I'm letting on in these forums. There is a reason for all this.

Ah, yes, the time-honored "The people who designed this were crazy, or at least would seem to be crazy to ordinary people" explanation.

But hopefully at the end of this thread you'll post what riddle you decided to go with and also what the backstory behind it all was. My curiosity has been piqued. (Besides, I hate it when these "hey, suggest a [foo] for my game!" threads never actually tell us which [foo] was used and how it worked out!)

And sure, the McGuffin could be protected differently and more "logically". But riddles and logic problems have been staples of D&D since the first.

Perhaps, but they were the kind of staple that I tended to remove even back in the god-awful days of high school AD&D.

I'm guessing, then, that your players groove on solving big elaborate riddles, so you're catering to their interests by giving them one. At least, I hope they do; it'd be a shame to waste it on a group that doesn't actually enjoy them.


I'll confess I have a hard time empathizing with groups that love riddles, seeing as out of our current group there are only two people who get even a tiny amount of fun out of solving them. And the one who likes it the most is usually the GM, which leaves one person who kind of enjoys them to work on solving the puzzle and everyone else is just bored out of their skulls; not exactly the best use of our time.

But this makes me wonder how the vast riddle-using public out there deals with them. Are you lucky enough to have lots of players who really get into solving riddles, so everyone's involved? Or are the non-riddle-loving players just extraordinarily patient while the riddle-lovers have their fun?

And on a side note, do you bother to make any distinction between player knowledge and abilities and character knowledge and abilities when using a riddle in a game?

It's always seemed like an insurmountable problem to me: either you make it a riddle that the players have to solve, or you make it a riddle that the characters have to solve, and neither of those choices have ever worked for me. If it's for the players, then 70-90% of the groups I've played in get bored and frustrated and generally nonplussed because they're not having fun, and you run into silliness like a character who should be able to solve a riddle failing because the player is a dunce, or dumb characters solving riddles just because their players are clever. And if the riddle is for the characters, then it becomes a flurry of dice-rolling followed by the GM passing out increasingly-obvious hints or even simply saying "you solve it" or "you fail," which is similarly unsatisfying and makes you wonder why we wasted our limited gaming time on it.

So if I seem down on riddles in general, it's because...uh...I'm down on riddles in general. I've never played in a group where they were fun enough to be able to make up for those kinds of annoyances. Honestly, it kinda makes me curious about what it is we've been doing wrong or what you guys are doing right; any thoughts?

--
right now i'm going with 'you are all a bunch of freaks'

 

[Jeff Wilder]

And on a side note, do you bother to make any distinction between player knowledge and abilities and character knowledge and abilities when using a riddle in a game?

It's always seemed like an insurmountable problem to me: either you make it a riddle that the players have to solve, or you make it a riddle that the characters have to solve, and neither of those choices have ever worked for me.

I'm not huge on riddles and puzzles, but I use them from time to time ... maybe two or three significant riddles or puzzles a year. In my most recent session, I used a puzzle based on the habits, breath weapons, and habitats of metallic dragons. (I got the framework from Traps & Treachery, but modified it heavily.)

What I did, to get past the player/character knowledge problem, was allow every character with Knowledge (arcana) to make a roll, and then, depending upon the results of the roll, allow the player a certain amount of real-time access to the Monster Manual. (Anywhere from two to eight minutes, practically speaking. If they met the minimum DC.) When I use puzzles, I'll often use similar solutions. However, it bears saying that in my group I'm the only one with extensive knowledge of the Monster Manual, so there wasn't a real problem in this case of my players "knowing too much."

 

[Nareau]

I don't really like riddles in gaming. They tend to either be obvious or impossible, and in neither case is that fun. They also tend to stick out like a sore thumb. Furthermore, having failure=death is a terrible idea.

Perhaps these aren't just statues--they're ancient sages who sacrificed themselves to seal away the great evil. Through some great ritual, they all entered this chamber and were willingly turned to stone. They thusly became immortal, and their souls have spent the past thousand years continuously trying to maintain the seal. Only one of them is an *actual* statue, and that's the one the PC's need to find. If they disturb any of the other statues, it could come to life and provide them with a nasty fight (12th level Sorcerer?) This would allow them to guess wrong a couple of times, and might even open up some roleplaying opportunities to help solve the mystery.

Spider

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Each statue could have a word written in Draconic. Put the words in the right order, and you have the spell that captured the BBEG in the first place. The party spellcaster writes a counter spell, uses it, and boom. PCs now have a niffty McGuffin, and the world has a brand new problem.

Now come up with a 36 letter phrase. I'll try to think of one over the next couple of hours. It might be easier for you, knowing things like names and places and what not. The spell could also be a curse that could not be broken unless it was deciphered. The curse also happens to be an account of the reason he was entrapped. A reason which was so vile, it was erased from history...

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Ah, yes, the time-honored "The people who designed this were crazy, or at least would seem to be crazy to ordinary people" explanation.

Exactly! Now if you don't mind, I'm have to go to my group therapy session. In my time machine. Which is powered by invisible monkeys.

Perhaps these aren't just statues--they're ancient sages who sacrificed themselves to seal away the great evil. Through some great ritual, they all entered this chamber and were willingly turned to stone. They thusly became immortal, and their souls have spent the past thousand years continuously trying to maintain the seal. Only one of them is an *actual* statue, and that's the one the PC's need to find.

Each statue could have a word written in Draconic. Put the words in the right order, and you have the spell that captured the BBEG in the first place. The party spellcaster writes a counter spell, uses it, and boom.

Damn, damn, damn. So many options, so little time. If the puzzle I finally use works out to be any good, I'll let you all know. On the other hand, if I go with a self-styled one that turns out to be "lame-as", professional embarrassment would preclude it!

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Tuzenbach]

By my calculations, it's now currently "Friday night" in Australia, so your game session should be concluding in a couple of hours. Don't forget to give us the juicy details!

 

[Piratecat]

Since there are 36 evenly-spaced statues, the thing that immediately springs to mind for me is a puzzle or riddle based on geometry, geography, or time . . .

And temperature.

 

[mcv]

PCs need to obtain the McGuffin for the BBEG who will, predictably, slay them and curse their bloodlines for centuries, etcetera, etcetera, if they don't. Said McGuffin is secreted in a cavity in the chest of one of 36 statues in alcoves equilaterally spaced around the outer wall of a large toroidal (donut-shaped) chamber. Every statue has a cavity in its chest; pick the wrong one and all exits from the chamber are barred, all 36 statues animate as stone golems, and a "whole can of whoop-ass" descends upon the PCs.

So I need a riddle or logic problem for the PCs to solve to identify the correct statue of the 36; preferably something which can be inscribed on the statues themselves. Any assistance in this regard really, terribly, greatly appreciated!

Sounds a bit like a set of logic problems I encountered ages ago. They were called "De Prinses en de Tijger" (Dutch for "The Princess and the Tiger"). I found a Dutch page detailing the problem at http://home01.wxs.nl/~arts0150/de_prinses_en_de_tijger.htm (which I'm not gonna translate for you). If I google for the English name, I only find references to erotic stories, unfortunately.

Basically, what these puzzles entail, is that there are two or more doors, and each door has a sign saying something about what's behind this or another door, or about the truth of the statement on a door. Often the truth of the statement is tied to the contents of the room (princess -> true, tiger -> false), but that's not the case with every puzzle. This setup could easily be replaced with statues and plaques on those statues.

The first (very easy) puzzle has two doors. One says: "This room contains a princess and the other room contains a tiger" and the other room says "One of these rooms contains a princess and one of these rooms contains a tiger". One statement is true, one is false.

The last puzzle is a bit more complex. It has 9 rooms, one of which contains a princess, and the others are either empty or contain a tiger. The sign on the princess' room is true, tiger room signs are false, and empty room signs can be false or true.

Your problem requires a lot more rooms, so adapting this puzzle requires a bit of work. You could ofcourse mix several similar puzzles, each of which points to the right statue, or just gives a hint that will help the players solve the big main puzzle.


mcv.

 

[Tuzenbach]

So, what finally transpired game/riddle-wise?