Hey all! As explained before, I don't have loads of access to supplementary materials and professionally produced adventures, so I always design my own adventures (and rule system but that's beside the point).
What I'm hoping for is a list of great tricks, traps, puzzles, etc, for your PCs to encounter in the average dungeon crawl. Ideally the concepts for these puzzles should be fairly rules/crunch neutral and thus easily applied to any system.
My favourite tricks, traps, puzzles, etc, operate according to a certain clearly understandable logic, and are internally consistent with the overall feel of the dungeon and the game. By this I mean that it's easy to believe the actual maker(s) of this dungeon would actually include this kind of trick, trap, or puzzle. Something that amounts to a sudoku puzzle just tacked into the middle of the abandoned crypt might seem inconsistent and take the players out of the feeling of the game, for example.
I'll start with three of my own favorites. The first one is ripped off a module I read when I was just a kid that I can't even remember the circumstances of but I'm sure it will be familiar to many of you. The others are original afaik.
1) The party enters a square room with a door in the middle of each wall. In the middle of the room is a statue. As the party enters, the door they came in through slams shut and the room begins filling with water. At this point, I start my stop watch to represent the rising water, giving the players a couple minutes (give or take depending how clever you think your players are) to solve the puzzle before their characters drown. To stop the water, the players have to raise the shield arm of the statue. To open the door, the players have to raise the sword arm of the statue. To open different doors, the players can rotate the statue to face them, then raise the sword arm. If you are concerned the players may not figure out the puzzle in time and you don't want to TPK them you can have them notice seams in the shoulder joints/hear mechanical sounds from the statue, or even see the statues arms lower as the doors shut and the water valve opens.
2) The party locates a hand mirror of unknown function among the evil magic users possessions. In another room of the dungeon (or even a totally different area) is another wall mirror which seems magical but again is of mundane function. Holding the hand mirror up to the wall mirror to create infinite reflections opens a tiny pocket dimension containing a valuable treasure. Difficulty is added to the puzzle by separating the two mirrors with greater amounts of time and distance, but careful examination of both should reveal some kind of distinctive characteristic that links them. Ideally this characteristic should seem just a mundane part of the physical description as you say it. For example, you could describe both as adorned with opals. Simply being 'gold' or 'gilted' probably isn't distinctive enough.
3) The players have collected 9 seemingly identical keys (labelled a to i for convenience sake) and come upon a door with a key hole. However ancient runes and/or a mural make it clear that only the key made of an alloy including mithril/platinum/whatever will open the door. The other keys will activate one of the 8 guardian golems in the room to come and smash the PCs. (The golems should be strong enough that the PCs likely cannot defeat all of them, even if they awaken them one at a time. The golems should also be somehow protected from harm until activated.)
Nearby is a scale which the players can use to identify the correct key, as the correct key will be heavier by a minuscule amount. However each use of the scale is exponentially more expensive. For example, the first use costs 1 diamond worth 1,000 gp, the second use 2,000; the third 4,000; etc. The puzzle is for the PCs to figure out how to use the scale the least number of times. If the PCs divide the keys into three groups of 3 keys each, and weigh two of the groups, the PCs can then see which group of 3 contains the correct key (either one of the two weighed sets will be heavier, or they will balance and the unweighed set will have the heavier key). They can then weigh 2 of the keys and by the same process figure out which key it is, thus they only have to use the scale two times. Two uses of the scale is an important clue for the PCs so they should be provided the resources to use the scale twice up front, and it should be clear they'll have to go through a lot of expense to use the scale past that.
In the end, the PCs will be able to get through this door; the question becomes how much time and resources they have to waste trying to do so. If they are clever, they can get through the door easiest by figuring out they only have to use the scale two times to get the correct key. Using keys at random will end up activating several dangerous golems, while using the scale willy-nilly will quickly use up more resources than whatever is on the other side of the door is really worth.
What I'm hoping for is a list of great tricks, traps, puzzles, etc, for your PCs to encounter in the average dungeon crawl. Ideally the concepts for these puzzles should be fairly rules/crunch neutral and thus easily applied to any system.
My favourite tricks, traps, puzzles, etc, operate according to a certain clearly understandable logic, and are internally consistent with the overall feel of the dungeon and the game. By this I mean that it's easy to believe the actual maker(s) of this dungeon would actually include this kind of trick, trap, or puzzle. Something that amounts to a sudoku puzzle just tacked into the middle of the abandoned crypt might seem inconsistent and take the players out of the feeling of the game, for example.
I'll start with three of my own favorites. The first one is ripped off a module I read when I was just a kid that I can't even remember the circumstances of but I'm sure it will be familiar to many of you. The others are original afaik.
1) The party enters a square room with a door in the middle of each wall. In the middle of the room is a statue. As the party enters, the door they came in through slams shut and the room begins filling with water. At this point, I start my stop watch to represent the rising water, giving the players a couple minutes (give or take depending how clever you think your players are) to solve the puzzle before their characters drown. To stop the water, the players have to raise the shield arm of the statue. To open the door, the players have to raise the sword arm of the statue. To open different doors, the players can rotate the statue to face them, then raise the sword arm. If you are concerned the players may not figure out the puzzle in time and you don't want to TPK them you can have them notice seams in the shoulder joints/hear mechanical sounds from the statue, or even see the statues arms lower as the doors shut and the water valve opens.
2) The party locates a hand mirror of unknown function among the evil magic users possessions. In another room of the dungeon (or even a totally different area) is another wall mirror which seems magical but again is of mundane function. Holding the hand mirror up to the wall mirror to create infinite reflections opens a tiny pocket dimension containing a valuable treasure. Difficulty is added to the puzzle by separating the two mirrors with greater amounts of time and distance, but careful examination of both should reveal some kind of distinctive characteristic that links them. Ideally this characteristic should seem just a mundane part of the physical description as you say it. For example, you could describe both as adorned with opals. Simply being 'gold' or 'gilted' probably isn't distinctive enough.
3) The players have collected 9 seemingly identical keys (labelled a to i for convenience sake) and come upon a door with a key hole. However ancient runes and/or a mural make it clear that only the key made of an alloy including mithril/platinum/whatever will open the door. The other keys will activate one of the 8 guardian golems in the room to come and smash the PCs. (The golems should be strong enough that the PCs likely cannot defeat all of them, even if they awaken them one at a time. The golems should also be somehow protected from harm until activated.)
Nearby is a scale which the players can use to identify the correct key, as the correct key will be heavier by a minuscule amount. However each use of the scale is exponentially more expensive. For example, the first use costs 1 diamond worth 1,000 gp, the second use 2,000; the third 4,000; etc. The puzzle is for the PCs to figure out how to use the scale the least number of times. If the PCs divide the keys into three groups of 3 keys each, and weigh two of the groups, the PCs can then see which group of 3 contains the correct key (either one of the two weighed sets will be heavier, or they will balance and the unweighed set will have the heavier key). They can then weigh 2 of the keys and by the same process figure out which key it is, thus they only have to use the scale two times. Two uses of the scale is an important clue for the PCs so they should be provided the resources to use the scale twice up front, and it should be clear they'll have to go through a lot of expense to use the scale past that.
In the end, the PCs will be able to get through this door; the question becomes how much time and resources they have to waste trying to do so. If they are clever, they can get through the door easiest by figuring out they only have to use the scale two times to get the correct key. Using keys at random will end up activating several dangerous golems, while using the scale willy-nilly will quickly use up more resources than whatever is on the other side of the door is really worth.
