Fellow DM's/Players,
I am looking for a riddle/puzzle based dungeon to challenge a few of my more veteran DnD players, any suggestions? Basically I want them to enter to obtain a magically rod used for the main quest, but instead of it being all hack and slash I would like to add some roleplay/thinking. Not saying no hack and slash some is fine.
Thanks!
I've tried puzzles in previous editions and found that it doesn't always work. If a puzzle is too easy, then there's no sense of accomplishment. If the puzzle is too hard, then it could result in the gaem gridning to a halt or even a TPK if the puzzle springs a trap on failure.
My advice is to design a puzzle where failure leads to other options, such as failure animates nearby statues or dead bodies that attack, or it drops the party to a different level of the dungeon where they have to fight their way out of to continue.
I can also be nice to add some ability checks or skills to a puzzle. Such as a strength check to turn a big stone wheel or maybe an intelligence check to read ancient runes on the wall that might have hints.
Yeah, that's the type of thing you might want to discuss with the players first. Some players love that type of dungeon, while others loathe them.
Of the top of my head, a few I've used:
*Talking door that asks for a password. It only responds to phrases that start with Who, What, Why or When. So if the players ask, "What is the password?" The door tells them. If you want to make it a little easier you can have the door answer any question, not just those directed at. Having it randomly answer a question that one character asked another is a good way to clue them in.
As the party progressed through a dungeon each door they went through was a different color. Last room was had checkered floor in many different colors. The correct sequence was, of course, the colors from the doors.
A skeleton, arms out streched, is embedded in a wall. A plaque above reads: "Put your life in my hands to travel on. Life refers to blood. If a character cuts their palm and grasps the skelly's hand, a secret door is revealed.
**A room opens into a large cavern. The opening is near the ceiling of the cavern. A "line of pillars about 5' wide and starting about 5' apart stretch across the room to where the characters can see another door. I had the distance between the last pillars match the average max distance the characters could jump. Looking down, the players can only see about 30' before everything is obscurred in mist. Every so often, the mist swirls as if something is lurking within it. If anything is lowered into the mist, there is a slight tug, and then whatever was lowered is gone. I had written a poem that gave clues to all the rooms, each line asking a question. The line for this room was something like,"How far can a leap of faith take you?" There are two ways to get through this: make dex check leaps from pillar to pillar, or merely drop into the mist. Once, a charcter fell for 50' feet they would trigger a teleporter that took them to the next room.
*This stumped my veteran players, in the end I had to resort to Int. rolls to resolve. On the other hand, I tried on a bunch of kids, ages 12-14, and they nailed it in less than five minutes. You just never know 
**I had a player who was sure this was riffing off the Indiana Jones holy grail tests. He didn't even test, just walked to the edge, stepped off, and plummeted into the mists. Hehe...he was quite miffed, thinking that his character just fell to his death. On top of that, there was a halfling in the party that had no chance of making the last few jumps. The two fighters had to play catch with him.
I like using some minor puzzles that encourage exploration in some of my games.
For instance, I built a dungeon one time that had a door closed behind the party after they entered the dungeon. The only way out was to move further into the dungeon. I had a door to a big treasure room that contained a key to the entry door, but that room was behind a magic door covered in glowing runes. The runes were basically symols that needed to be pressed in a specific order. The symbols and their order were found on a wall in a separate room that contained 8 skeletons.
I've run this for 2 different groups, and they both did very well and enjoyed it. I tried to make the puzzle itself easy once the solution was discovered, but finding the solution required exploration. That way the entire puzzle idea isn't far too difficult or far too easy overall.
Haha those are all awesome thanks guys!
my very first dungeon in my 4e game was chiefly puzzles. one of them was animated mosaic. when PCs stop to examine it, the figures depicted move, displaying historic events but because it kept displaying new things, there was a danger characters would stand there indefinitely. the trap made an attack and if it hit, the PC was stunned (unable to to take actions), he lost healing surges (4e game) each round.
in the same dungeon, there is a puzzle: a bas relief depicting 12 historic events. a key element was missing from each sculpture. in front of it, there were 12 large "blocks" each depicting a historic figure or event. this was a skill challenge requiring the party to complete the puzzle before moving on. and of course once the party was in the room, the door slammed shut and a poison gas started filling the chamber.
one last puzzle: in a party with a thief, the large chamber features a large statue. at its feet are several hundreds of gold pieces. the avoid having the statue animate & attack, a PC had to add a gold piece to the pile.
hope those are helpful!
Puzzles can really pull people out of the role-play aspect of the game. I'd focus on the feel and make sure it flows well. Think about what happens if they can't figure out a puzzle and try to have every puzzle on a time limit. If your plan is to ask a riddle and let everyone sit there for twenty minutes trying to figure it out you're screwed. Half will figure it's a good time for a bathroom break or to order pizza, and the other half will be pissed that they're not getting the help they need. The more tactile the puzzle the better in my opinion. Give them things to play with in game (not necessarily the players, but the characters) so they can at least try different things and see what happens. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had solid puzzles that allowed things to actually happen, juxtapose that with Fellowship of the Ring where the whole party sits outside of Moria for half a day while Gandalf says magic words (it was a way longer period of time in the book than the movie, much like every other thing...)
Again thanks for the input! Please if anyone has any other awesome ideas or suggestions I am all ears!
Sherman wrote:
Funny you mention that hallows, I literally when I run a game have npcs drawn up, perks about them, main quest ideas and some secondary quests and thats it. I give them the bulk of whats happening but what I love about DMing is coming up with stuff on the go and just making things up as they develope. My players love every game I DM. I dont know if its my style or how I explain things but just works out. Not to metion I have dungeons drawn up on grid paper and I am very detailed about the rooms they walk into. To me I want to lay everything out for them and let their imgaination take off.
Did anyone say a tesseract dungeon?
Shawn_IL wrote:
hallows1999 wrote:
I'm fond of puzzles and mysteries, but they can be stop-gaps. however, I stumbled upon this gem a while back: the Three Clue Rule. This rule states that when you have a chokepoint in an adventure (and a puzzle is a choke point), then you provide at least 3 clues to them about how to solve it.
For instance, I had a GM who gave us a well-done puzzle dungeon that I remember quite fondly. One of the puzzles was a seemgly empty corridor that had a number of headless bodies at the head of it, a la Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. We had three clues that we learned through investigating the scene: all the bodies had been decapitated shortly after entering the corridor, there was a strange whistling in the air, and using the ever-popular 10-foot pole caused it to get chopped up at head-height, but not at any other height. I think we also had a riddle that provided a clue (it was a dungeon with an elemental theme). To this day, I remember this puzzle, because it gave us a real brain0-teaser and is one of my favorite obstacles (the trap was this: there was compressed air from the tunnel, a channel of magically-focused air as sharp as a blade, set at head-height. We crawled beneath it to get around it).
Puzzles can be quite memorable if done well. I encourage you to take the Three Clue Rule to heart when making your dungeon.
Two ols school ones for you.
This was a very old school dungeon crawl; At the beginning of each level, there was a clue to something in that level. In this level, they were told a binding key that could lead them to the next level was somewhere on this level. Going through the level, the found keys of various sizes, random treasure, and a golden ring. When the came to the last room, there was no door, just 3 statues: a young girl, an adult female holding a baby, and an ancient hag. Of course, they searched for secret doors, searched and tried to move the statues. They finally got it. They slipped the golden ring onto the finger of the female with the baby, and the statue slid away to reveal the stairs.
This one isn't so much a puzzle, but just a cool trap room. The characters enter a room with blue tiles scattered throughout the room, a large red tile in the middle, and 4 statues of wizards in the corners. Nothing happens until all characters have entered the room. As soon as they do, a wall of shimmering energy runs along the walls of the room, blocking the exits and the colored tiles begin to glow. Also, at this moment the statues crackle with energy, animate, and move to attack. At this point anyone standing on a blue tile is shocked for 1d6 and knocked back one square in a random direction. Anyone unfortunate enough to be on the large red tile takes 2d6 fire damage. The statues attack by touchng the characters. If the statue hits it does 1d6 and if the character fails a dex check, is knocked back the 1d4 squares, possibly onto a colored tile or into another character. I've used this with several different groups and it is always a chaotic good time
Oh, and when the last statue is destroyed the wall of force disapates and the characters can move on.
You might want to check out the One Page Dungeon contest winners. Excellent resource for all DMs in general, but specifically I remember one of the top winners was a short puzzle & trap based dungeon - Revenge of (Something).
Also, consider picking up one of the Gumshoe system settings from Pelgrane Press. The entire point of them is to present mystery based RPG with little focus on system. The core concept is that mystery is based on deciphering clues, not finding them.
Ansbach wrote:
hallows1999 wrote: