I've heard that good GMs offer players puzzles during adventures

I've heard that good GMs offer players puzzles during adventures.
Can anyone share a good example of a good puzzle? I've never had a GM that gave my party a puzzle.

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Zelda, Resident Evil, and old school adventures have a lot of good examples of how to do puzzles.

They typically break a certain level of the suspension of disbelief, because they're ornate and no one in their right mind would seal their military compound/mystical temple with puzzles a ten-year old could solve, but all a puzzle really needs to be is a short challenge that tests the mind a little.

Do not use puzzles.

Ever. EVER.

All they do is cause the game to come to a screeching halt while players beat their heads against a wall because they're too stupid to figure things out.

And they get mad, and you get mad, and no one has a good time.

Baby don't hurt me.
Also bump for interest.

I agree that you have to be careful, but "never" is a bit extreme. Ideally, the puzzle won't completely halt your progress if you don't solve it. You can circumvent it, or whatever it gives you or grants you access to is non-essential. And maybe there are several ways to go about beating it.

investigation segments are basically thought puzzles?

My group loves them personally. I mean i've been killed by riddles and puzzles but i didnt mind, its fun. Breaks things up you know? I mean i love playing whack-a-mole with Gobbos as much as the next guy, but its nice to get a change of pace.

I didn't really think of it that much as a puzzle at the time, though my players referred to it as such after the fact, and it was something they needed to figure out to continue, so I guess it applies...

The party was on a convoy of ships that sailed off the edge of the world on their way to some distant, mythic civilization (the route to which the nation who hired the party believed they had rediscovered). They were attempting to set up normal trade relations with that civilization and the flagship had a gate device that was to link to another one back home. So the players had to figure out that they needed to skydive to the gate and activate it before they hit the infinite plane of water at terminal velocity, after falling for a week and a half or so. They reached the flag ship by lashing themselves to an anchor, which was enchanted to become feather weight (well, far less heavy, anyway) on command, to make it easier to raise. The anchor was actually floating up past them since it was in the "raised" state and had less effective density than they did at that point, and they were like "hey! we can use this!"

I've heard that good GMs offer players push-up contests during adventures.
Can anyone share a good example of a good physical challenge? I've never had a GM that gave my party a workout.

Just because it's not essential absolutely doesn't mean players won't insist on solving it because, after all, they aren't going back again

The best kind of puzzles have multiple solutions or enough leeway so that a "close enough" solution can work. Don't keep things too rigid, that's not fun for anyone.

>horses aren't teeth!
>REEEEEEEEEEE!

Bump because I had the same question but didn't think to make a Veeky Forums thread about it

In which case you just make sure they're not compelled to sit in one place while they try to figure it out. Impose some sort of time pressure or limit (wandering monsters are the soft end of this), or make it so that they can easily come back and do it later when and if they figure it out.

Also, while I don't go very heavily for puzzles, I tend to introduce them before a break. That means either at the end of a session, so folks can go home and think about it, or at least before a mid-game break, so that they can discuss it without stalling the game. And even if they don't come up with the answer, they have more perspective on the matter. If they've already pondered it for 20-30 minutes, they're more likely to concede the possibility that they won't be able to come up with the solution, at least during the session, and therefore be more amenable to moving on.

Sometimes I like puzzles that fuck with my players a little. Often by including a failsafe so they can't not solve it eventually.

Such as a room sealing and filling with liquid. Hints in carvings on the wall or by having a table filled with empty glasses. Solution is to drink some of the liquid - but if they don't eventually it fills up (as they panic) and someone accidentally gulps some down and the liquid drains.

I really like puzzles. But I don't want to make them too hard. I also prefer to include puzzles within combat. Such as enemies that you have to coordinate attacks on, or attack with certain abilities the players have one hand. An arena that changes in a sequence (which opens up the enemy to a real attack if you use the space right, but does not hinder the ability to just wail on them) or enemies who resist damage that isn't communicated (whether by glowing, or a symbol on them somewhere) are also interesting ways to nudge a player gently to the right conclusion.

The arena bit sounds nice.

some parties hate puzzles, and some GM's use puzzles that force you to either do them or you cant progress. If you are going to do puzzles dont force it to be a way to progress, make it a side thing where you can obtain extra items or clues to a side quest

The trick to designing a good puzzle in an RPG is to make what is needed to be done to solve the puzzle as transparent as possible, and to cleanly indicate what elements in a scenario are used to solve the puzzle.

A lot of the time, when a GM plunks a puzzle in front of their players, they just present an obstacle and an opaque clue and expect the players to figure it out. Subsequently, when neither the solution nor puzzle elements are given, said players resort to randomly doing anything with everything even tangentially related to the clue to try to solve the puzzle.

If you want concrete /v/ examples, think old school point-and-click adventure puzzles V.S. modern puzzle games, and minigames. The former require obtuse tangential logic to get right, while the latter are clearly constructed but not obviously solved.

I feel puzzles break immersion as you have to use your own personal problem solving skills to solve them, and they may not at all match up with what players are playing. The 8 INT barb suddenly steamrolls all the sphinx's challenges and riddles while the 20 INT wizard can't figure out the magic door key pattern

About that.. I once read an interesting story where GM had scribbled something on a piece of paper. No one could read what it was. After a few minutes the party realized they could roll INT to understand what was written there.
Puzzles with rolls are cool, aren't they?

It's a useful thing to have in your pocket. Or to change up on the fly. One time a boss encounter in an urban-fantasy game I ran (6 PC's in a former soviet bloc country fighting Goblin Yakuza) included rows of statues in the large room. A couple rounds in they started shifting spaces (blocking line of sight) and would knife players who got close. Technically they were just Goblin Mimes. But there were like 30 of them, and were not directly aggressive.

The team sniper was pissed that he couldn't line up a shot. It was funny.

Then the challenge of the puzzle kinda falters, and you begin to ask "what's the point then?" Might as well have the PCs encounter some nondescript puzzle and have them roll to see who can solve it.

Puzzles should require teamwork if they are required to progress.

So even if rolls are involved it isn't just one player.

puzzles horseshoed in is obvious, bad for tempo and somewhat unimmersive.

Puzzles that are on the side, blended with the enviroment are more enjoyable becasue and the reward seems as a bonus than a requirment.

You can also add "puzzles" to fights which is fine as long as the fight doesn't hinge on the puzzle

Example:
You're in an ruin when your party comes across a giant pit the with a series of stone pillars and arches holding up a walkway. You party could proceed forward using skills and equipment to get passed or use some information (from when you describe the scene) to open a floodgate filling the pit with swimable water and open a side passage for loot and an underwater passage or whatever you want.

This allows a number of avenues to bypass the problem, it doesn't seem too out of place.

The key thing to remember with puzzles is that if your players come up with a solution that would work, but isn't the intended solution, let them have it. For example, if you have a puzzle lock on a door while they are carrying equipment that could just drill a large hole in the wall beside the door, then you let them solve the puzzle by drilling a hole and going through it. Don't bullshit a reason for why they can't make a hole.

A simple one; it would be simpler if i could find the drawing i did for it at the time but whatevs.
There's a locked, trapped door in the dungeon, that leads to The Inner Rooms, where untold riches are said to be held. There's a piano near the door that, if played the right way, should open the door and disable all it's traps.
Right aboce the piano there's a small mosaic with a completelly red "nobleman" being followed by a completelly blue "farmer".
Looking at the keyboard the PCs that some keys (apparently random) are Red and others are Blue. All keys Also have a number written on it. The numbers seems to repeat amongst Blue and Red, but there's no two Blue or Red keys with the same number.
The first key on the left is red, it has a 0 and a small arrow pointing right.
So Veeky Forums, what do you do?
I'll post the answer in half an hour.

OH, i forgot!
Every time you try and get it wrong, a trap summons a monster. Nothing too strong, just trying to make the casters use their slots before entering the FUN part of the dungeon! There's no indication of this anywhere so you'll discover it the moment you summon The first one (roll a d100 each attempt).

Numbers in ascending order alternating between red and blue
I'm probably wrong though

Nobleman is more important, so the red keys are pressed first. I press all the red keys starting with the one with ''0''. Then the blue keys.

First I ask myself: Why would someone build this lock ?

The obvious answer is to keep everyone else out. Which would mean that the way in is to press the keys in a specific sequence. A sequence kept secret from everyone else.

Any clues to the sequence are probably distractions intended to trick people into pushing a sequence that sets off the trap and kills them.

So that leaves me with three choices:
- Make a hole through the door/wall, go in that way.
- Open up the piano, examine the mechanism and break in that way.
- Go find whoever built it and perform some rubber hose cryptography.

>nobleman is more important

I'm sorry but you'd have summoned three monsters because since blue follows red and the numbers repeat, you have to press the blue keys in the order given by the reds, going left>right as the arrow points to give you The order of The Reds[/quote].

and raised good points tho.

I somehow fucker the spoiler but it turned out ok

Press the red zero button.

The fourth monster appears. Let's say it's a cockatrice i never get to use them.

so the puzzle was "Guess what the DM was thinking" like always.

This is exactly why puzzles are a noob gimmick.

Sure user,sure.

Here's a puzzle I've used
> sci-fi setting
> Floating in the atmosphere of a gas giant the PCs find a structure
> Structure contains a cube shaped room.
> Suspended in the centre of the room is the maguffin they want.
> The maguffin is connected to each corner of the room by 8 ropes. 4 to the top corners, 4 to the bottom. All are taut.
> Floor is shaking a bit. Simple int test tells them that the ropes are probably the only thing holding it up
> No PCs can fly

How do you get the maguffin ?

My players method:
> Cut most ropes. Notice the floor moving more.
> Leave one person in room holding maguffin. Everyone else flees to shuttle
> Person left in room cuts last ropes, falls out of bulding
> New puzzle: Party member falling in atmosphere of gas giant.

That was not the solution I intended. Guess the intended solution.

No. That one is pretty accurate that it was "what is the DM thinking" and not something that through basic reasoning could be solved correctly the first time.

The nobleman and the farmer part feels more like a red herring to make people fuck up.

Puzzles should make people go "duh" when they figure it out. Not make theme think you're a fuckass.

That's like asking "what is green, on the wall, and sings?"

Even you inadvertently indicated WHY dms put puzzles in their dungeons, thanks.

I'm not sure. Knowing the solution it feels like a code lock where the person knowing the code felt the need to leave himself a clue that he didn't want anyone else to understand.
Problem is that the person with the code wasn't that smart.

Not the first time, no. But a couple attempts should be fine. It's not like you die if you fail. You just have an encounter.
The boss of the dungeon had no so smart underlings he had to make sure could get to the inner rooms as needed without compromising their defense too much.

I don't see what's so hard about it there's even a clearly labelled "start here!" Key with an arrow drain on it.

I put puzzles in my dungeons because there have allways been puzzles in dungeons, and to break the monotony of the challenge rating tables. You are the one taking it awfully personally because you didn't get it at the first attempt.

We had a puzzle that our swashbuckler solved instantly much to the surprise of all of us
..

There's a weird alchemist we run odd jobs for testing his products and one of them was essentially cleaning product...

We found the source of a curse was basically a glyph painted into a cave... Turns out it washed right off.

>"what is green, on the wall, and sings?"
No It's not like that at all you're giving me nothing but The possibility of getting it by chance here. I gave múltiple clues that could be misunderstood or not.

Well done!

That's pretty funny

Use a bunch of logic gates to open bridges like in the Andrasté's temple in the first Dragon Age

Otherwise some passageways can be magically open by placing an item described by a poem, like in LotR

Pretend I am a player in your game. I'm disgruntled because I didn't like the puzzle solution. I'm my view it as the DM wanted to feel smug and "punish" the player with a pointless monster fight when they guess wrong. You admit it's a mindless convention that serves no purpose. Don't blame the player for how they feel about their play experience, you have more "power" over them. See it from a player's point of view, I don't appreciate mind games from my supposed friends.
There has to be a better way. Ideal if there is some mysterious puzzle in the world, the character is the one who finds the clues and figures out how to solve it. So for these buttons, now it's like how many lore and INT checks do I have to solve to bypass this filler content (especially when I do not want to play into the DMs ego). See what I mean?

I see you decided to insult me and imply i play mind games with my friends instead of discussing actual problems with the puzzle if any.
I'm done with this.

>The boss of the dungeon had no so smart underlings he had to make sure could get to the inner rooms as needed without compromising their defense too much.

His stupidity was in putting clues to the code on the keys. A smart design for that lock would be a series of keys numbered from one side to the other, with the boss memorising the sequence he needed to press.

The sequence would probably also be a lot shorter than having to hit every single key.

If you have enthusiastic and dedicated players, leave the session on a cliffhanger and give them a puzzle to collectively solve in the interim before the next session. You need a great group for this to work. It can add tension and foster teamwork without plopping a time anchor on the session. You DO need to make it solvable though, otherwise you will lose player trust. Don't be afraid to check in and give a few hints if you feel like they're off the mark.

One puzzle I found worked out well was using a logic puzzle. It works well because you can use the clues themselves as quest rewards. this bypasses the issue with puzzles where its either too easy and they breeze past it or its so hard it grinds the adventure to a halt. If its too easy, they will do it with only getting a few clues, if its too hard, they can quest for an extra clue to make it easy.

Here is the setup.

An ancient temple to Bob will reward whoever completes the test of the temple. There are four pedestals, platinum, gold, silver, and bronze. There are four dragons, Red, blue, green and black. Place one dragon on each pedestal, each one facing one cardinal direction (North, South, West, East). Once placed, you do the Dance of Bob ritual.

If you are wrong, you get some kind of curse.

If you are right, you get some kind of blessing for whatever amount of time... or permanent if you like.

Every time you bring the shrine a "key" from around the dungeon, the shrine will give you a clue.

"The west facing dragon stands on the gold pedestal, unlike the red dragon."


The more clues you use, the lesser the reward. So it reward particularly clever players while not leaving your slower players in a lurch. Plus if they are stuck, they minor encounters they do while getting another "key" will make the game 'feel' like its still progressing.

Just google "logic puzzles" and you will get a plethora of examples with ready made clues and answers.

Don't think of them as puzzles.

Instead think of them as challenges where the solution isn't immediately obvious.

It could be a monster that regenerates under the light of the full moon. Or an important item sealed inside an impenetrable sphere. A group of items that trigger different phenomena depending on how they're arranged.

You could do many things with the puzzle (including ignore it), including solutions that might surprise the GM.

It should really never be an actual discrete puzzle, like some kind of brain teaser toy or an alphabet cypher. At least IMO. It just doesn't make any damn sense for someone to guard something important by using a puzzle.

>Guess the intended solution.
no

Make a small grid, and a bunch of cutouts of either electrical wiring, tubing, magical runes, or something like that in I, L, T, or + formations, and the "circuitboard" that controls the door is broken. Have one piece be missing. When they go to get the piece, there are 3 of them, all different, and only 1 is able to correctly solve the puzzle. Make it so they can only bring back 1 of the pieces from the other room.

And finally, this is the most important part: make sure that the door is either completely optional (and obviously enough so that all the players know it is), or can be opened by some other, albiet more difficult or less rewarding way.

How about a relatively simple puzzle that normally takes X moves to solve. Players then get to attempt to solve it once each round with their into modifiers worth of attempts.

Worked pretty well in Mansions of Maddness, as felt thematic while not bogging the game too much, and making stats really count.

You may want to gauge your players' capability for puzzle-solving before incorporating them into your sessions.

If they're good, then feel free to use them however you like. If they're bad, then do not use puzzles to lock off plot progression, but you can still use them to conceal secondary objectives or rewards that are not critical to the campaign.

A lot of players will claim that having a high Intelligence stat or equivalent should let their characters solve puzzles for them - they're not wrong, to a degree - so you may also get into an argument over that. Others will enjoy the challenge, however.

Keep in mind that a puzzle which makes sense to you may not to other people, particularly if you present the pieces poorly. Likewise, an obvious puzzle is no puzzle at all, unless your players are truly awful at them. You may want to find stories of other DMs who use puzzles or post your puzzles somewhere for critique before using them, until you're more experienced.

After careful consideration, I'm going to have to go with NEVER. NEVER GIVE PUZZLES.

>So Veeky Forums, what do you do?
Find another game to play in.

I came here to have fun not do puzzles. Can I look at my phone until someone else figures this out?

This. If I wanted a puzzle game I'd play candy crush or whatever. Which I don't. So I won't.

I hate puzzles in general but I can do a bit of lateral thinking. The problem is a shitty GM who treats a puzzle as a thing which can be solved in one and only one way. Its like saying that lock has a key so use they key, and unless you find it you can't pick the lock, bash the door, tunnel through the adjacent wall, teleport past it, or flat out ignore it and skip that adventure, all because GM fiat. That's obnoxious.

How shitty of an idea is it to have a basically unsolvable puzzle if 2-3 minutes in I have the BBEG of the duengeon appear and berate while laughing that the answer is obvious when it really isn't only to allow the party to beat the shit out of him there and then?

I run my games a bit harsh.
If something is remotely traplike the party plays it smart.

My next beauty?
The dwarven riddle trap.
Room, long tunnel and at the end a door.
Room has an inscription
>the kings key opens the Treasure Vault.
>Door has 40 keyholes of different shapes and sizes.
>39 distinct keys of different sizes hung on pegs
>clues around the ruins like a logic puzzle
> "a true king protects his treasure with steel" ect
>the kings corpse has a small mithil key
>any key triggers hilariously fatal trap
>real entrance is opened via secret trigger in the room
Why the hell would they make the entrance obvious? The greatest theives are legendary for their cunning and wit. This way any theives waste their time and effort without a hope of success.

>successful thinking may help neutralise the trap, alowing them to try the keys
>good searching may uncover the secret passage, if they bother looking.

I let my players have a warm up session or two in a campaign then tell em im taking off the kids gloves.

Know your players and pay attention to their mood. You do want them to start feeling frustrated, but make sure you bring the BBEG in before it starts getting stale. Alternatively, if the party feels like they're onto something, build in some kind of feedback so they really know they're on the wrong track. You're also going to want some reason for the BBEG and the party not to fight for the sake of fighting, but specifically to beat the answer out of him.

Sounds like a memorable encounter, though.

Are there any corpses in the room ?

If not, why not ?
There are good answers to that question. Pick one and I'd like this trap, because it feels like it was designed by someone who wanted to keep thieves out because all the clues lead the thieves away from the real solution.

Still, my solution would be:
- Search the room carefully.
- Examine as much of the mechanism as I can.
- If I find and identify the secret trigger as the way to open the door, I use it.
- If I identify the door, but not how to open it, the door gets a hole in it.

Great. Now I have to solve puzzles and TAKE FUCKING METICULOUS NOTES. What is this, the academic decathlon?

You only need to take notes if you think there is a puzzle to solve involving the keys. But:
>any key triggers hilariously fatal trap
If you're taking notes to 'solve' the keys, you've already failed the puzzle.

Exactly.
Its not a rock fall thing because by the time they hit this level of trap (i have more ahue hue) they deserve anything that happens to them by opening ominous doors lightly.
Bodies of the king and his guards who made their last stand there, but none of the attacker(s).
The only really suspicious thing about it is drips running slowly down one side of the roof/wall.

Theres also a final double trap on the road to the actual treasure vault. It invloves a waterfall redirection across the path off the cliff edge.
My players seem to be enjoying the effort i put into the traps so far, and all of them have been completely avoidable and only block off shiny things. Or things to help them in this area/later (best when they think its useless and throw it out or ignore it.)
Well or illusions of shiny things, but theres no difference untill you try to pay with it, amirite?

i fucking hate your d6 and i hate that you have an opaque d10 and translucent everything else

Exactly.
If you were dwarfy mcrichking and were trying to stop thieves why the hell would you give them a fair shot?
>bank robbers break in at night
>they work out that by turning the statues in the lobby a secret elevator will come up with all the monies, free of dye/tracers/fake notes

My question about the bodies was to see if examining the bodies could tell the PCs anything about the traps.

For example, using the patterns of dried blood to figure out where the deadly parts of the trap emerge to kill people. Or at least narrow down which parts of the wall to look at.

Once such holes are found, they can be blocked. If there is a hatch that swings open, we can try to jam it closed. Or maybe pry it open to destroy the trap inside.

Don't have puzzles. Have figure-outs. A lock on the men's room door that requires exactly 4 ounces of holy water in an angel's cup but you only have a 3 ounce goblet and a 5 ounce cruet is boring for people who know it, a pain for people trying to figure it out for the first time, and an immersion-breaking piece of pointless wankery for everyone.

Figure-outs are things like sending in a sweeper team to clear an installation that's already sustained heavy losses from the accidentally summoned beasties. If the party figures out that looting blue cards gets you access to blue elevators and red cards gets you access to red elevators and that higher numbers let you onto higher floors and charts an elaborate path to the control center in the penthouse, great. They should have an easy time, then.

If they figure-out that executives probably don't dump their own wastebaskets or stock their own toilet paper so janitorial probably has some sort of purple penthouse octagon pass that lets them use any elevator, great. Start looting zombies with mops till you find it. If they figure-out there's probably a service elevator and start looking for it they'll probably find it, too.

And if they figure-out the building is a loss so who cares if they kick in every fire door they come to till they find stairs and start climbing, great. If stealth gets you a chance to roll to ambush stomping through metal fire door after metal fire door on the way up should be worth at least a roll to intimidate.

Don't make it 7th guest shit and don't lose momentum. If they guess the PIN on the bosses office is 1066 because of the family crest, they should get a free surprise round on the guards inside. If they get it wrong the guards should open the door and start a fight but hey, door open. If they just kick the damn door in that should also be guards but door open. Whatever they do just get them in the room as quickly as possible, ideally letting themsleves feel as clever or brave as possible.

>The problem is a shitty GM who treats a puzzle as a thing which can be solved in one and only one way.

I never want to be that GM. I also try to avoid puzzles that can be solved with a method the PCs used previously.

Which limits what I can do once they come up with an easily reused solution like ignoring the lock and making a large hole in the door/wall.

>If they just kick the damn door in that should also be guards but door open

That depends on how many kicks the door takes. If they take a few kicks, then they have probably alerted the guards on the other side.

If they get through it on the first kick, then they get to surprise the guards (unless the guards were watching on a camera).

If they use explosives to blow open the door, some of the guards will have shrapnel wounds.

Like i said, only the king and his bguatds corpses were there, and they were in the main room
[Spoiler] the tunnel seals off and drops down about 10 metres into a diverted river that shoots out into the waterfall i mentioned.
So if they have flight waterproof/not fragile stuff ready they can probably mostly survive. With some bruises.
Then the tunnel raises again [/spoiler]
King dont eff around with his gold.
But good thinking. Really thats all thats required to avoid most of the traps i use.
One of my other favs was stolen from....
Grimtooth lite i think.
>biiig ruby visible in a wall through a small hole
>looks like they could tease it out with a finger
>its fake ofc
>wall is built like chinese fingertrap
>gem attached to bell setup

TL;DR poke gem, fight monsters off one handed.
Hope you are only need one hand heh

Destiny usually has pretty good puzzles for boss encounters and such. Look into that.

Absolutely. If they want to spend a bomb on the door explosives as normal and the game goes on.

If they don't whoever has the best STR gets 1 STR check on the door. Succeed and it's a surprise round, fail and just state that it took more than one blow so they heard you coming so no surprise round.

Just get the door/open down and keep the game going. Game time is too precious to waste on multiple guesses or STR checks or anything else that the party isn't actually interested in.

>Game time is too precious to waste on multiple guesses or STR checks or anything else that the party isn't actually interested in.

I only ever make the players do tests that matter. So I'd also only give them one STR test as the first test makes the difference between a surprise round or not. Further kicks don't change anything of importance.

The one thing I would do differently to you is that I wouldn't make the strongest character do the STR test. I'd let the players choose who kicks the door first. Maybe they decide it's the strongest PC, maybe they pick someone else for a good reason*, maybe they pick someone else for a bad reason.

Maybe they get into a heated in-character argument and the guards hear them before the kicking starts.


*Eg we want strongest PC to be able to hose down the guards with his giant gun once the door breaks, which is easier to do if he isn't the one kicking.

Riddles are a good start.

>but if they don't eventually it fills up (as they panic) and someone accidentally gulps some down and the liquid drains.
Honestly, that is just fucking stupid.
Who would make a puzzle that can't be not solved and puzzles that are solve on their own anyway is really just a waste of time.

I love the grimtooth one where there is a flame in a cage at the top of the room, and the entries are sharp slopes leading down into the room.
>when enough weight is in the room oil flows down the slopes
>good luck climbing that
>good luck staying afloat in thick oil wearing your gear
>good luck blowing out a torch out of your reach while covered in flammable oil
>anything to smother it is likewise flammable
>gonna take 1\2 an hr to fill so they need to think fast to survive

Start a countdown timer after you read it to them, and after it passes their heads (15 min-ish depending on height) make em roll con checks every 5 to stay afloat, with penalties of course

Drop this preferably after a hall filled with signs declaring certain death awaits, with no treasure. Super promise.

Bonus: no treasure kek

>I've heard that good GMs offer players puzzles during adventures.
You're wrong. Puzzles aren't fun, they're just a waste of time that you could've spent having fun, all so the GM can fap over how clever he is.

I like to raise and fold, something like "Uh, how about we do a STR test from Adam to see if he gets through the door on the first try. Surprise round if he succeeds" and then if someone chimes in with "Shouldn't Breanne do it because...." go with Breanne.

I'm all for letting players make their own plans but throwing out a simple "default" answer in case they don't want to think about it too hard speeds it up soooo much some nights it's astounding, and if all goes well they'll still havie something in the tank when the stuff they do care about happens.

You sound like the worst people to play with. So when the GM does something you don't like, you just lie back and stop playing? So if you didn't like the combat you'd just give control to someone else, or just "I shoot him" every round? If you didn't like the particular roleplay that was happening you would just sit out? People like you can drag entire campaigns into the muck for petty grievances, and you actively ruin this hobby. So what if the GM makes a puzzle and you don't like puzzles? Try to help out, make in character jokes, try to find alternate solutions that work better for you, like going around the door, or blowing it up.

Fuck, you sound awful, like anything that strays from your "roleplay and hit stuff" view of tabletop would ruin something for you. What would you do in a Kult or Call of Cthulu game where there was a mystery to solve? So you didn't come here to watch CSI, but maybe if you participated like a real human being you might enjoy yourself. I once had a drinking contest in an exalted game that I won by getting bonuses for every drink I had out of game, and it was great! Would that suck too, since it wasn't explicitly tabletop gaming?

Hell, even if you are a genuine retard and can't do the simplest slide puzzle to save your life, if you're playing the smartest character ever you can just roll int to get enough clues to brute force it! There is no reason a good puzzle or two don't belong in a pen and paper game.

I do it in a similar manner to this.

If, say, we're playing D&D, every character gets a number of clues per day equal to their INT modifier (minimum of 1). My players are good about not abusing the 'per day' bit, and I'll call them out if they do try.

Obviously the high INT arcane trickster solves most of the trickier puzzles, as he is the smartest (has the most 'clue' points to throw around), but every character has had rare flashes of insight.

A dumb frogposter I nailed to the wall.

Depends on the group of course. I prefer a series of riddles or some tangible puzzle the players can get their hands on, with multiple levels of success.

For example,
>Answer 3 of 5 riddles correctly to pass
>Answer them all correctly for the prize
>Answer incorrectly a few times and someone gets hurt
Gives everyone an opportunity to help, a good risk of failure, and perks everyone up when you mention some magical bullshit reward possibility.

Another time I had a wizard offer them a chance to win a prize. A gold to play a mystery game and get a prize based on how well you did. He whipped out that peg game you see at some restaurants, where you have to jump over a peg with another one to remove it until only one is left. Told them if they could get it to 1 peg within 5 minutes, they'd get a pull from the deck of many things. They didn't manage it, but were still way more involved in the campaign and interactive with the wizard because I dangled something to get them all involved for a bit.

I steal puzzles from legend of grimrock 1 and 2. no shame

puzzles are kinda not great for encounters though, depends on your players. my players right now dislike puzzles because they are dumb

>what is green, on the wall, and sings
This guy.

Also: try to get to the end of this without laughing -- youtube.com/watch?v=iRtu8FgYIAU

I was thinking about that very riddle and how shit it was for that very reason, as I failed to fall asleep last night.

Alp Quest had some decent mysteries that were pretty much the reason I kept reading instead of the smut. It's on anonkun.com if you don't mind genderbend.

All these asshats using lol-so-clever puzzles with one correct solution to a convoluted puzzle that nobody would ever use to guard anything, sometimes with clues left out in the open for all to see.
>But it’s secret! So the clue’s obtuse, but not a reminder of the solution, instead it’s something a stranger could work out if he sat around a table brainstorming for an hour instead of playing a fun game.

I disagree that you should never use puzzles, but you should never use a puzzle that makes you think that when you solve it, the insane wizard that crafted it will appear and shout, “Show ‘em what they’ve won!”

You want good ideas for puzzles?
Go watch the Indiana Jones movies, and maybe the Goonies.
Like in Last Crusade and Goonies, the PCs brought the clues with them, they weren’t on a frelling plaque by the puzzle.

Good examples of a proper PC solution here.
Don’t trust the clues left out for you, go find your own.

>If its too easy, they will do it with only getting a few clues, if its too hard, they can quest for an extra clue to make it easy.
This is good and I like your puzzle.
The delivery of the clues would have to be done well to not break immersion, but magic shrines work.

These are good too.

Give them something they can work on outside of game time. It's a bad idea to make figuring it out crucial to their survival (unless they are gluttons for failure), but make sure they know it will give them a strong advantage. Perhaps they'll find out an obscure weakness of the BBEG, or the location of a artifact or the location of a hidden cache.
In my experience, they'll devote time to try and get an edge, every time.

>Using puzzles as metagame shitfest

Gygax called and wanted his gimmick back.
Get on with the times, pleb.

D&D has truly ruined a generation of gamers.
Luckily I'm an eurofag and as such suffer less from the fallout.

Or better yet have the bbeg spread such rumours as a trap.
Hell he comments fairly regular that his greatest weakness is under the throne in the palace of peril.
>its a drop then a hall with an illusion at the end of a skeleton loading and aiming a siege weapon
>halfway down theres a series of tripwires and pressure plates
>trigger any and the wall behind the illusions pushes them back into the bottom of the shaft
>5 gelatinous cubes drop out of the roof to fill the hole completely
>floor slides back over and an iron golem stands on it

Thatll teach the shits to investigate leads.

Bonus points if there is a real weakness obscured by this sorta crap

>any cantrip that can douse flame
gg martials

Not sure if bait or played too much pf/3.suck.
In anycase whenever i am called on to explain the hobby i tell people its about the group.
A good group can enjoy a shit game, a bad group makes a shit game.