Romans Puzzle! I have the solution! (The Puzzle that killed a campaign)

[Thornir Alekeg]

Whoops! (Sorry bout that.) I guess I ended the campaign! At the least, it illustrates how tough it is for a small d20 publisher to get someone to edit his work.

Now I'll know to wait to buy any books of puzzles from CMG until after the first errata is printed

I'll admit I was too lazy to go back and check that yours matched the original - I had spent too much time on it already.

 

[PaulGreystoke]

I'll admit I was too lazy to go back and check that yours matched the original - I had spent too much time on it already.

Same here. And Mark's version was just so much easier on the eyes.

 

[Mark]

Now I'll know to wait to buy any books of puzzles from CMG until after the first errata is printed

I can think of a few names (no, I won't name them!), that if you saw in the demo that they were editors, I'd probably have to pay you to "buy" it...

 

[Tuzenbach]

Anyway, as I said, it wasn't something that could have been solved by us given the limited information Roman had given.

WHAT?! How can you say that? Listen, after I printed out the coloured diagram I spent a heck of a lot of time with numbers and letters and combos and things. IF it had been a CORRECT coloured diagram, who's to say myself or anyone else would not have solved it?

What it all comes down to is this: Because it was FAR EASIER for folks to point their collective fingers and shout "obviously a bad DM" than to focus on the puzzle, none of us bothered to try as hard as we should've. It's a classic example of the Social Influence model and the Conforming Majority and all that.

IF more persons had focused on the PUZZLE and NOT the DM, we'd of had a solution. But somebody set a bad example and a lot more somebodies followed.

YES, there definately WAS enough info given to us by Roman to solve the puzzle, but we ended up defeating ourselves.

 

[Mark]

What it all comes down to is this: Because it was FAR EASIER for folks to point their collective fingers and shout "obviously a bad DM"

It doesn't come down to that at all. You should read my posts. I've never said the DM was bad. In fact, I've never believed that the sum total of the information given to the players by the DM over two sessions (eight hours or more?) was completely detailed to us so there's no way I could believe the DM was fully represented, nor was the puzzle. When I asked if we really had all of the info needed, I was told we had all that was relevant by someone who couldn't solve the puzzle over those sessions and still didn't have the answer. How someone without the answer can determine what is or is not germaine to the solution is beyond me. The puzzle-apologists in this fiasco keep making excuses for a presenter who never had the solution (and thus couldn't properly verify the presentation of the puzzle) and keep misidrecting the focus from the not-having-the-solution bottom line to a good DM/bad DM discussion that has never been foremost in the minds of most of us.

 

[Hellefire]

Wow, this is getting bad after having a solution as it was before the solution.

Ch-ch-ch-chiiiiiilllll.

Then dice em up with a plastic knife!

Aaron

 

[Roman]

Still sounds like there some dispute between Roman and his DM regarding clues or bypasses in a treasure that Roman is saying was an illusion and the DM is saying wasn't? What's that all about?

Well, I suppose the clues could be hidden within the illusion. We did not wander inside, because we had identified a death effect on the illusionary pile of treasure. I guess it just struck me as somewhat strange, hence my comment, but ultimately the DM knows what was inside and I do not - heck, for all I know it could have been that there was an illusion that the treasure was an illusion!

 

[Abraxas]

YES, there definately WAS enough info given to us by Roman to solve the puzzle, but we ended up defeating ourselves.

This is only true if placement didn't matter. Without knowing what the clues in the illusory pile of treasure were we don't know if placement matters.

And I have to say, I had a version without the error all along (I made a colored versioin of my own about the same time Mark did, and had completely forgotten rushlight's comment until I went back to check if the version was accurate, It was bad of me to forget that detail )

 

[jeffh]

WHAT?! How can you say that? Listen, after I printed out the coloured diagram I spent a heck of a lot of time with numbers and letters and combos and things. IF it had been a CORRECT coloured diagram, who's to say myself or anyone else would not have solved it?

What it all comes down to is this: Because it was FAR EASIER for folks to point their collective fingers and shout "obviously a bad DM" than to focus on the puzzle, none of us bothered to try as hard as we should've. It's a classic example of the Social Influence model and the Conforming Majority and all that.

IF more persons had focused on the PUZZLE and NOT the DM, we'd of had a solution. But somebody set a bad example and a lot more somebodies followed.

YES, there definately WAS enough info given to us by Roman to solve the puzzle, but we ended up defeating ourselves.

I can't agree. Even knowing the solution, it's not at all clear how one was supposed to reason from the information available, to that solution. Nothing about that solution cries out "This is right and nothing else is"; it's a pretty arbitrary matter. This is in sharp contrast to the professional math and logic puzzles I do on a regular basis; once you have the solution, you also have enough information to see that you have the uniquely right answer. There was nothing like that here; it's a bad puzzle.

 

[Umbran]

What it all comes down to is this: Because it was FAR EASIER for folks to point their collective fingers and shout "obviously a bad DM" than to focus on the puzzle, none of us bothered to try as hard as we should've. It's a classic example of the Social Influence model and the Conforming Majority and all that.

Sir, if you say the collected folks here cannot predict alternate futures (what would or would not have happened), then you should abstain from the claim that you can read minds (which you'd have to be able to do to tell us why we say what we do). Perhaps some did fall to the herd instinct, but the blanket accusation is darned insulting to those who did think for themselves and come to that conclusion.