Why I hate puzzles

[FireLance]

Why is consistency desirable in this case?

Because I desire it. Of course, YMMV.

But hopefully it hinges on the player's choice of tactics, otherwise we're playing the world's most complicated game of craps.

Partly, but not entirely, which was one of the key points of this thread, actually.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I faced a similar situation as a player. The DM created a little riddle that required that the players know the meaning of an old English word. We went back and forth on it for awhile and ended the session with us unable to find the solution.

When we came back the next week no one had the answer so our characters had to leave the dungeon and ask a high-level bard in a nearby town about the riddle. He, of course, knew the answer right away.

Basically the characters were punished for the player's lack of knowledge. The punishment wasn't much--just a little wasted time--but it definitely felt like the adventure hit a bump in the road.

This, to me, doesn't sound like a 'bump in the road'. Your group found something they couldn't figure out themselves so they consulted an expert. Should the characters be expected to solve every single thing they encounter? I personally don't think so. The solution your group came up with (to consult a Bard) is a excellent way to introduce new NPCs to the game and open up new avenues for adventures. It is one I use fairly often when I am running my own adventures (and not published stuff).

 

[Holy Bovine]

From the other side of the coin....

I designed a puzzle for a group in my campaign over 15 years ago... The group could never solve it. A number of campaigns have ended and restarted, and the puzzle remains.

Every once in a while it comes up... either by an NPC or the players themselves... And the group thinks about it for a while, and occasionally go back to the site to look over the clues...

One day, they might figure it out. Or maybe not.... but they remember it. What lies beyond the door? Who knows, I never even got that far, but the players always bring it up at holiday parties, trying to get me to tell. I just grin...

It's just one of those things..... if they can't get past it... oh well. It will remain one of those mysteries which make the campaign feel more.... real.

Aluvial

Awesome. I would love to have something like this to come back to over and over again. And you're right it does give a world a more realistic feeling to know that there are some things out there you were not meant to know........yet.

 

[Oryan77]

I very often don't make the best decision that I can think of, simply because it doesn't fit my character's personality, tactical abilities, etc.

That doesn't change the fact that "you" as a player are making the decision for a character. Rather than making good decisions you are making bad decisions for roleplaying reasons. But you are still making those decisions. Just like when solving a puzzle, you are making those decisions.

Sure, everyone could role a skill check everytime a puzzle encounter pops up rather than try to solve it...but I'm sure most players aren't rolling dice to determine what they do in combat also, "1-4 Wisdom check and he runs, 5-8 Wisdom check and he uses his sword, 9-12 Wisdom check and he casts a spell" ect ect. You as a player are "problem solving" what to do in combat. I see no difference with puzzles. Who's to say that your 8 Int Barbarian can't solve the puzzle if you as a player are clever enough to figure it out? Who's to say your 18 Int Wizard can't solve the puzzle if you can't figure it out?

Just because Brad Pitt has a high Charisma doesn't mean he'll successfully make every woman he meets be attracted to him. And I've seen some of you gamers out there...you have the Charisma of a fungus and you still have wives and kids There's many more factors to an outcome than just being able to say, "I'm smart so I should solve this puzzle" or "I'm charismatic so I should be able to bag Carmen Electra". A good roleplayer that is stumped by a puzzle can easily come up with a reason why his 18 Int Wizard couldn't figure it out before the Barbarian.

As a fellow gamer, I cringe whenever I see people say, "I'm not my character so....".

 

[FireLance]

If that's true, then why does your sig say that you are 100% a tactician? Was it your character that decided to flank rather than grapple? Do our PC's make the decision during combat to take the full attack rather than a move & standard action? Nope, we perform those actions ourselves based on the best decisions we can think of.

Of course, it's me the player making the decisions, but my cop-out rationalization is to play smart characters that could consistently think the way I do. I enjoy the tactical and thinking aspects of the game too much to ignore them, and I'm roleplayer enough not to run an Intelligence 8 character that just keeps having brainwaves, or is an idiot savant when it comes to combat.

I've never felt that comparing our own intelligence, strength, dexterity, ect ect to our characters abilities was ever a valid method to judge what a character should, could, or would do in a game. There are just too many factors in life to determine things like that.

For instance, why couldn't an Int 8 barbarian solve a puzzle before an 18 int wizard? How does knowing brain surgery help a guy solve a puzzle better than a guy that knows how to live off the land? Everyone is intelligent in their own ways and sometimes the dimmest of people can be very clever. How many times have we seen children outsmart an adult? There's plenty of college educated people that still don't know who is buried in Grant's tomb!

I think the key issue here is consistency, and how much inconsistency you and your gaming group can handle before it starts straining your suspension of disbelief and your enjoyment of the game. In some groups, it might even be a source of amusement that Grog the barbarian has a mysterious gift for solving puzzles, which is a source of constant frustration for Mondo the wizard (though ideally, not for Mondo's player).

I like to be challenged as a player. It's no different to me to spend time trying to figure out how to beat a puzzle than it is trying to figure out how to beat a BBEG. But I do agree, if the puzzle is taking up too much game time, the DM needs to have methods to continue on with the game.

This, I can agree with.

 

[KingCrab]

One "puzzle" we had to solve in a game I played in was crossing a large tiled room.

Effectively, the room was a game of "minesweeper", stepping on a "mine" caused something like (Level/2)d6 of damage. We *could* have chosen to cross the room without "solving" it, but it would have cost us a significant portion of our healing spells.

Those are the puzzles I like to see in a game:
a) Solvable by the players if they wish to take the time to do so
and
b) Absolutely skippable if they don't.

Was it Gorgoldand's Gauntlet? (free here http://gilda.it/imperium/download/gauntlet.pdf)

I ran that module and that was the 2nd most annoying part of the module (I won't give away the first.) It was tedious and time consuming. The players didn't mind quite as much as me.