What's your stance on puzzles in traditional games?

What's your stance on puzzles in traditional games?
If a player is truly stumped, should the GM give a hint?

Puzzles should be logical from an in-universe perspective. No-one in their right mind would hide his treasure behind a medium-difficulty puzzle, so neither should you.

I think "classical" puzzles are fucking stupid. Instead, I prefer open-ended challenges (how will you cross this cavern, how will you eliminate the guards while remaining unseen) or puzzles that require in-game information to be solved.

Yes. That is what attribute tests are for. In this case, I would give an intelligence roll when the player needs a hint.

Seconding the open ended challenges. I find it effective to create puzzles with no solutions; thus when the players attempt to solve it, you can react to their solutions instead of forcing them to figure out your (probably terrible) puzzle logic.

If it's reasonable solution, it should work. If it shouldn't work, you should be able to articulate why so the players can attempt a different approach.

You can suggest they look/ask around. That isn't too much.

I like to give them the option of punching through such challenges. The downside of this option being that they either suffer more harm or that they don't win all the prizes.

No. If a player is stumped then that's it, the game is over. Same reason I disregard charisma/persuade/intimidate rolls if my players can't roleplay convincingly, or retcon their climb check if they don't drop and give me 50 before rolling.

I don't like them. Usually they don't make sense in-setting; why did the dungeon's builders go through all the work of this ridiculously complex mechanism that will slow intruders down for a few minutes, instead of just a lock or something? I also don't like how they're solved with the players' abilities, not the characters'. And they're usually either so simple as to be pointless, or something you'd have to be able to read the DM's mind to get.

I don't like puzzles because more often than not players either solve them immediately making them a short waste of time or the players can't solve it for an hour making it a long waste of time.

I prefer to give multiple paths, the puzzle path is unhidden, the non-puzzle path is hidden. I've noticed that when my players get stuck they backtrack and exhaustively search, so I figured its a good way to give them a way out that they will only use if they really need it.

Although I do worry that they will wise up and just start looking for the hidden door straight away.

>that pic

Well, I'd at least assume most people here are smarter than a typical game journalist

I find that generally people are rather shit at making puzzles.

So to find the wierd, twisted logic they're using that they probably think is clever, tests for hints or even just to answer it if there's no further option are important.

Otherwise I'll just advocate we blow the door down.

user please. Do you REALLY think it's reasonable for players to know to jump AND dash at the SAME TIME?

Only retards get "stumped" in puzzles
My potent brain has always solved easily anything the GM came up.

*tips*

Bold. I don't expect basic autonomy from anyone around here.

This. Either have little math/logic puzzles (how many apples left in the bucket kinda thing) that have a clear, objective solution. Or open-ended puzzles with a fluid solution.

>cant figure out how to open locked gate
>roll INT, pas dc15 investigation
>you notice marks on the ground in front of the gate
>players realize it's a pull gate
if they are absolutuelt stumped, dont be afraid to give them a hint, anything to keep the party moving

its better for the players to be attacked by ninjas and brought before the bad guy rather than sit around passing dumb ideas that don't help, it's better to fail than stay still

They can't consult a guide, so yes. Throw them a bone if they really need it.

You have to plan for everything to go wrong in your game. Just because it makes sense in your mind doesn't mean it will to others and players will do things you don't expect.

Please don't design a puzzle like they're playing a video game either. Those aren't fun to deal with.

...

Don't be that guy that turns the fun gaming group into the tesseract labyrinth of frustration

I once had a DM set up a series of puzzle boxes that in order to solve we needed to do a series of trigonometry equations and the outcome of those 5 equations was the pin that we needed to enter into the puzzle box. They also had one where we needed to solve an IRL hangman game and one where someone needed to colour in a shape in certain colour theory methods. Also a literal jigsaw puzzle.

Just don't do this. It took up hours of our time and since we weren't doing them in character nothing in the game progressed. They also told us that we could't roll dice to help our characters figure it out, even though these were meant to be things our characters were solving.

why would anyone do this

I am a fucking fraud of a DM.

I used to make puzzles with interesting solutions. However, unless you absolutely balance the clues correctly it's a fine line between "I'm satisfied with my the solution", "fuck this puzzle bullshit", and "holy shit that was easy."

Now, I just put random switches and buttons in places. I usually associate them with an esoteric poem or riddle. Maybe there's a series of glowing stones. Maybe the stones light up when they say a word.

Then I watch my players go. When they try stuff, I let some of it work and I let some other stuff have no effect. However, I figure out what the puzzle is doing as the players do it.

They usually come up with like 2-3 solutions and I let their complex solution end up being true.

They feel like they figured out a really fucking hard puzzle and I didn't have to do too much work.

I should probably also mention that all of these puzzles had a time limit and a limited number of attempts, if we either ran out of time or failed all of the attempts, our characters would die. It wasn't even an optional thing for treasure, it was do or die. Technically everyone in the group failed and should have died, but the DM didn't actually want them dead so they just kept extending the time or giving them extra tries.

Fucking nice. I'll do this next time

I always feel like this approach is a fine line to walk. I'd be worried that if the players caught wind of what was going on that it would erode trust.

Sounds like the GM wanted to pad session length without the effort of creating content.

Oh absolutely! You can never peer behind the curtain for the magic to stay.

For the same reason we roll dice or ask for random checks to keep players off the scent.

that sort of approach only really works if the DM is a good liar

Difficult puzzles should never block the main storyline. Because if the party can't solve them, the game stops. No one wants to sit at a table for an hour+ while the game is 100% stopped and no one can figure out your stupid puzzle. That said, optional sidequests are BEST with hard puzzles. Give your players a puzzle box or something that they can think on once and a while, and when they figure it out they can go back and try their solution. The game still progresses if they are wrong, but till they solve they have a challenge to think on.

For main story I recommend easier puzzles with degrees to them. Solve them 100% and you get a bonus (or skip a penalty). Solve them 50% and you get little bonuses, and if the players just skip the puzzle because they can't figure it out they get shit on.
IE. they have a puzzle on a door. they can bash the door down at any time. But if they solve the puzzle they don't awaken the guardians in the next room. Or they don't get exploded, etc. This way when the game gets stopped the players can still progress instead of being trapped in your puzzle forever.

Puzzles should entertain players, and nothing else.

If they're not entertaining, don't let them grind the game to a halt.

And don't think you can accurately gauge how difficult a puzzle is. You can't un-know the answer, so you already know the exact train of thought required. The players don't.

The only time I didn't hate a puzzle was when the DM had a physical novelty one that he gave players to fiddle with. We were only allowed to play with it if the character had the puzzle (it was an actual item in game with unknown magical properties) and the situation allowed them to fiddle with. One of our players knew how to open it but wasn't there when we needed the item another session so we had to mess around with it.

Novelty stuff can be neat when used right but other DMs who try to pretend we're playing a point and click puzzle game can fuck off.

Fuck puzzles. I'm playing a game to be entertained, not to think. Let me roll my dice and get on with the story.

>inb4 there's no treasure and he's just a bored rich old man screwing with people

The treasure is obviously the book he sells to gullible people.

Seems kinda harsh, but I respect you for sticking to your guns.

>Slide those blocks until you find the one or two correct solution, you must follow the rules of the puzzle to the letter or it won't work
I don't think my players are at the table to solve Sokoban, Tower of Hanoi and the likes. Even if they get to brainstorm about it together.

>Puzzle is just an excuse for the party to think creatively and bullshit their way around the challenge
That's a little more interesting. But I don't think the players would get creative while someone's already solving the puzzle..

>Puzzle solving is a skill challenge (or system equivalent), for players with smart characters to feel useful; the players don't actually interact with the puzzle, only the PCs do
Now that's a fun idea. Maybe the scholar in the party has to solve an ancient riddle while the rest of the party fights an endless wave of deadly fire spiders or whatever, and there's a bunch of mechanics built around that, sorta like chase scenes (take a wild guess, make a risky move, brute force it, study slowly, look at the mechanism, etc).

The best way to do puzzles is to not have a set solution - or at least, have a default solution, but not have it be the only solution.
Depending on what kind of puzzle it is, either have any reasonable solution work to some degree or have the Xth reasonable solution be the answer.

As always, fpbp

I had a DM try this once, it was pretty lame. It was a series of two logic puzzles.
1) two balls mirror each other's movements, how ever there were holes so if you moved it on one you had to restart
2) the puzzle from the Ice Gym from Pokemon
I only failed once on the first because he didn't give any information about weather or not the marked spots were walls of holes
In the end it was just a quick waste of 2 min for some items that was more powerful then what the puzzles would have warranted

Okay guys rate my puzzle.

An unlocked door and three levers. The middle lever locks the door, the right lever unlocks the door but it's broken and the left lever starts flooding the room with acid.

I use puzzles that are kindergarten level. This allows players to either sit and think their way through the puzzle or retardedly guess and test their way through. It works because my players have the mentality of toddlers

>85 year old man kidnapped.png

Any player who doesn't immediately try the door is an idiot.

*locks the door and casts Knock on it*
hehe nothin personnel DM...