Save My Game - Goes off like a bomb!

[Elder-Basilisk]

Back to the original point, one of the best series of puzzles I've seen recently was in a Living Greyhawk module. The puzzles/traps were a part of a test for the students of a particular martial art and that context both made them make sense and made their solutions appropriate (though not necessarily obvious or even achievable by every party (though parties could try brute force approaches and generally did so)).

And I think that indicates the appropriate way to deal with puzzles/traps/etc. Take their solutions from the context of the world and the immediate adventure. If the magic door asks "what is the essence of wisdom?" it's not asking "what does the DM think wisdom is?" or even "what is really the essence of wisdom?" Instead, it's asking "what did the people who built this door think was the essence of wisdom?" and "do we participate in the ritual answer as though we were acolytes of the ancient demon cult?"

Puzzles require rules, and a reason to exist. Arbitrarily placing a room where you have to move furniture to open a door with nothing more than "hints" is a recipe for players giving you the middle finger.

Others have already said it better than myself. I call this sort of gaming the "Stop hitting yourself!" style of play. It's fun once in a while, but not something I'm going to drag myself out of be on a Saturday morning to play.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Back to the original point...

Yes..Lets...

I have never had the problem in my D&D campaigns because Traps are tied to a Knowelege or spell craft or other type of skill check.

Rather then play the popular tv game show 'Metagame what the DM is thinking' 9 times out of 10, players make a knowledge check to see how much of the trap they can figure out.

This works well with puzzles too.

---Rusty

This works very well in my campaigns. Rather then have the game stop while every one tries to think of away around the trap or the answer to a puzzle, each player, each with thier own skills, can help the rest of the party along. Examples of this is in 'Indiana Jones' where he knows the trap is Jahova's name, so the only way safly around the room was skiping to the letter boxs to spell the name. Another good example came in D&D Wrath of the Dragon God. While the Wizard and Lux fought off bandits, the Fighter and the Rogue tried to figure out the letter puzzle. They got the answer when the Rogue made a Knowlegde Religion check to remember that the Demon Jublex helped build the 'Pool of Sight'.

---Rusty

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Old School

So, whatcha think of this bit of advice?

As someone who actually teaches in real life, I don't think much of it.

Although student-oriented pedagogy (or DMing) is certainly a valid approach, it is often used to justify student (and player) incompetence.

-Samir Ibn Asad

 

[Valesin]

Do any of the people who make this constantly-heard charge actually PLAY video games, anymore?

(snip)

Video games, right now, have actually gained an edge on tabletop RPGs in design complexity and layeredness. There are problems that arise from people who play certain sorts of video games, but "Not thinking creatively" is not one of those problems.

I think we need to bury this charge that "Like a video game" equals "simple" or "simple-minded" because it reveals a lack of understanding on the part of the person making the comparison more than a firm grasp of the material.

Bull. My roommate just started playing Oblivion. When you walk up to an NPC you are given a choice of 2-4 things you are allowed to say.

If your RPGs are like that then you are playing them wrong.

 

[molonel]

Bull. My roommate just started playing Oblivion. When you walk up to an NPC you are given a choice of 2-4 things you are allowed to say. If your RPGs are like that then you are playing them wrong.

Curse you, foul fiend! Your one anecdote has caused my entire argument to come crashing down like the house of cards that it was!

*shakes fist at the heavens*

Curses!

Does he play Super Mario Brothers, too?

 

[Hussar]

Bull. My roommate just started playing Oblivion. When you walk up to an NPC you are given a choice of 2-4 things you are allowed to say.

If your RPGs are like that then you are playing them wrong.

The funny thing is, those 2-4 things are probably what would get said by a serious role player 99% of the time anyway. Sure, you can talk about the weather with the shopkeeper, but, does anyone actually do this? If I was a player at a table and someone decided to waste time blathering about how hot it was with a nameless NPC, I'd whack him with the nearest available polyhedron.

 

[Lanefan]

First, the original post. The scenario as stated sounds pretty much fine to me; I'd have no qualms about DMing this, and as a player I'd come up with a plan B (usually involving things getting broken e.g. doors) if there was no obvious plan A. The article just sounds whiny.

Second, from the tone of what's been said so far can I assume you guys wouldn't be very impressed on finding a "door" with no obvious opening mechanism, because there *is* no opening mechanism and the only way to open it is to smash it down? It's sometimes surprising how long players/characters will take before resorting to this option...

Third, while sometimes things come down to "guess what the DM is thinking", this isn't always bad in that you as players at least (usually) somewhat know your DM and thus know a bit of what to normally expect. The real headaches come when the DM is running a canned module and you're trying to guess what the module writer - who you don't know at all - is thinking.

Puzzles and riddles annoy me as a player, but that's just a personal thing as I'd rather bash heads than use them. I admit the game would be worse off were they never used at all.

Lanefan

 

[Imp]

The funny thing is, those 2-4 things are probably what would get said by a serious role player 99% of the time anyway.

Oh come on. Okay, I haven't played Oblivion, exactly... is it that much better written than Fallout or Baldur's Gate? No? A serious, or vaguely observant or interested, role-player is going to be bothered by having to slot their response into one of three canned quotes. What, style doesn't matter? How they make the threat or greet the princess or tell off the villain or beg for mercy doesn't matter? Then how is that person role-playing?

 

[Ourph]

Not to Godwin the thread or anything

Apparently my best intentions were not enough to avoid a threadjack. Apologies to Hussar for starting the video game tangent. :\

 

[takyris]

As somebody who designs CRPGs for a living, I think Ourph is at least partially correct. A lot of times, you do put the next plot point behind a door that can't be opened unless you get the key. Ideally, if it's critpath, you offer a few different ways to get that key, but yeah, unless you get that key, you're not getting in.

(And sometimes the key is a dragon skull that you can use to convince the dragon-ghost to forgive its killers and let you through, and sometimes it's the answer to a riddle, and so on. You can disguise the key and the door pretty well.)

Where I disagree with Ourph is in the assumption that RPGs are different. I've played in a game where we tried to get through a portcullis by Bluffing the serving girl who was talking with us, using Disable Device, or even just Sundering it with a nice hefty magical warhammer. The DM finally raised his hand and said, "This is the hand of plot! The hand of plot says that you can't get inside until you go to the temple!" He systematically shut down any attempt to get off the rails.

Clumsy as all hell, and absurdly frustrating at the time, but hardly unique. A lot of DMs have doors that are just as impossibly locked, regardless of how clever the players are, until the players complete the quest that the DM wants them to complete.

EDIT: Unclear attribution.