DMing 1e

The coin sack.

Hold

Heh, I had a similar puzzle in one of my games. Took them about 10 minutes to solve.

All good, but not right.

Old

Hmm....
Close to gold but not....
The light?

Semi-related.

>Party comes upon a sphinx
>must solve it's riddle to pass or just kill it, but let's humor the DM
>"I have a mouth, but never spe-"
>River. Give me another.
>"I, uh, a rich man wa-"
>Nothing. Another one.
>"Thirty-"
>Teeth. Another one.

Usually I'm frustrated by the sphinx, but this time the sphinx was frustrated with me.

Dragons

I hope you jizzed all over the table for that one.

Nope.

The answer is Gold. I lied about it not being Gold.

You fucker.

Eight year old lich designs dungeon: uses riddles that double as terrible jokes as the key to bypassing traps.

See this is good, but to properly be a master Tomb of Horrors DM you need to disconnect actions from their logical reactions.

Punish your players for expecting a consistent logic to the world. Kill them when they act on learned patterns.

They've learned that switches are frequently hidden in alcoves where traps can be placed. The rogue is fast enough to dodge a trap in an alcove, so make the alcove an orb of annihilation instead.

Make the puzzle do nothing. If they guess correctly a trap goes off. The door isnt' even real, it's just carved into the wall.

This is how a master puzzlesmith works.

Idiots make puzzles hard.
Normies make puzzles impossible.
Geniuses make puzzles not even puzzles.

Lying is antithetical to puzzles. That's not a puzzle, it's just a lie.

I feel like if I were to introduce puzzles into a game, I would have referenced the solution either earlier in the dungeon, or in the events leading up to the party entering the dungeon.

Sure, they wouldn't really be thinking problems, more like memory tests, but at least my party wouldn't have to deal with my particular brand of logic.

Is this post pasta, or just pure, concentrated Reddit?

Tbh I did something similar. Has 8 statues with metal handles attached to them in front of a door. You could use the handles to turn the statue but ever quarter turn you took electrical damage. 20 minutes of Mike Pencing my players until they even thought to try the door.

I made a very simple pattern puzzle as the entrance to the dungeon.
4 sets of 3 symbols. You turn the blocks until they line up, then it unlocks.
The last panel showing the symbols was broken, so you had to logic the pattern based on what had followed, or just brute force it by trying every combination because there were only 4 symbols total.
After 30 minutes of fucking around I just gave it to them and let them through.
It was the last puzzle I tried with any group. They just don't work with most players.
You give them a locked door and a key, and they will try everything except put the key in the lock and turn it.

>You enter the front door of the Mage's Tower and step into a grand hall.
>Four pillars stand flanking the path towards a large double door in the back of the tiled hall.
>On either side of each pillar stands a simple clay sculpture of a robed figure, the sculpture is too simple to make out any recognizable features.
>There are two very large suits of armor standing on the left and right walls.
>There are three doors on the back wall a simple wooden door on the left and right, with a central door that is bolted closed with four seals and marked with four symbols.
>Upon the walls are some tapestries and a bear fur with a singed rear left paw.
>Upon each pillar is one of the symbols marked upon the door.

>As you step onto the tile floor, all four suits of armor begin to animate, lifting their swords as they approach you menacingly.
>Startled, you back out the door, raising your weapon. After a moment, the suits of armor stop pursuing you and return to their positions.

What is the one solution to enter the tower unharmed?

...

Nuke it from orbit. The only way to be sure.

Now the seals are throwing me for a bit of a loop, but I'm thinking you just hop in on your right foot.

Is this entire thread just pretentious GMs who want to appear intelligent and waste the time and efforts of the players ?
I mean come on, one trap-puzzle can be fine, but an entire adventure where "AHAH ! You just did what made sense, you die !" is not very fair, isn't it ?

>Nuke it from orbit. The only way to be sure.
Were that a possibility, one might assume a Mage of this power level would have anti-nuclear countermeasures equipped to their Tower.
But the approach is a sound tactic, nonetheless.

This puzzle is terrible, because it is basically unsolvable (unless the context helps somehow: e.g. it's in the temple of the God of Lies). The answer is gold, arbitrarily. It may as well be Beetlejuice.

>Now the seals are throwing me for a bit of a loop, but I'm thinking you just hop in on your right foot.

>As you hop onto the tile floor, all four suits of armor begin to animate, lifting their swords as they approach you menacingly.
>The suits of armor loudly clank and creak as they approach, raising their swords to attack.

What gave it away?

The entire thread. I'm just amazed at how petty GMs are here.

A comma?

Cast Dispel Magic

Alright, clearly not the right way to approach, backing up.

I dunno, I'm stumped. I'd run in as fast as I could and push the clay figures over to break them out of some petty spite.

Wait, why are there four suits of armor? You said there were only two.

You have already entered the tower unharmed

The guy sucking his own dick cause he killed the party didn't tip you off?

>Wait, why are there four suits of armor? You said there were only two.

>>There are two very large suits of armor standing on the left and right walls.
>Two on the right, two on the left. Two plus two equals?
(Ooh! a riddle within a riddle!)

>I'd run in as fast as I could and push the clay figures over to break them out of some petty spite.

>You run directly down the center of the room, reawakening the suits of armor.
>As you run past one of the interior sculptures, you smack the first one, spitefully.
>Your attack breaks the sculpture.
>Within is revealed the Mage!

>Upon another look, it is clearly not the mage, but a simulacrum of the mage.
>It is holding a strange wand and seems intensely focused and does not respond to anything you do.
>The closest suit of armor approaches closer as the mage stands concentrating.

>There are two very large suits of armor standing on the left and right walls.
i think he meant two for each wall, but yeah it reads like that

don't be a faggot, just admit you made a mistake

>What is the one solution to enter the tower unharmed
Be the mage of course.

This was a serious answer. You have already entered the tower unharmed. Progressing further is the problem.

Take wand, break wand.

Punch mage as required.

Fools?

Merchants. Or Dragons. Really depends on where the gold is, in all honesty.

I find it hard to believe, that any self respecting DM would include puzzle rooms in his game.
I mean if you want puzzles go play fucking zelda. All these floors with letters, switches and piles to be sorted are so fucking video-gamey.
You are able to create real mysteries to be solved through plot, you don't need colour sequences.

Candy. Candy is delicious.

>don't be a faggot, just admit you made a mistake
I posted a line of text that could be interpreted as two or four suits of armor with a picture of four suits of armor.
I feel okay about it.

>You have already entered the tower unharmed
>This was a serious answer. You have already entered the tower unharmed. Progressing further is the problem.
Technically true.
It is also technically true that you can jump into a volcano and be unharmed, until you fall close to the lava.

>Take wand, break wand.
>Punch mage as required.
>Your attack is harmlessly deflected by a magic barrier.
>Perhaps you could try a different kind of attack?
>Perhaps using a different form of energy?

>Be the mage of course.
I... cannot fault this solution as the Mage knows the one solution to enter the tower proper unharmed.
Welcome home.

Use fire/cold/electricity/the moon to attack the clay statues

Yeah, I was wondering about the magic system. It'd be kinda rad if the main forms of elemental damage are Fire, Cold, Electricity, and Moloch.

think that last one is supposed to be a biohazard symbol, probably for acid.

But that user is onto something. However, I am a monk. So the only option is to sunder all the suits of armor while the casters shit otu their elements onto the clay statues.

I examine the want. Is it a wand of cold, acid, fire, thunder?

I think I'd try and kill the simulacrum and return the wand to the clay figure on the pillar with the symbol corresponding to the wand type.

If the simulacrum is too strong to take on, I'll let it fire on the appropriate clay figure and try to dodge.

>Use fire/cold/electricity/acid to attack the clay statues
>Your matching attacks break the sculptures.
>Magical energy erupts from within the outer sculptures and is absorbed into the nearest pillar.
>The three remaining inner sculptures shatter to reveal simulacrums.
>As the outer statues break, the magic barriers fall.

It is a game though. The real problem with puzzles is they don't treat it like a game.

ToH Three Chests makes sense as something Acererak would do to fuck on people trying to break into his house, but this isn't actually Acererak's.

The real problem with shit like this is the "guess what color i'm thinking of" element like this stupid door wizard shit above, or they subvert the player's understanding of the world's logic.

Which is betraying the player's trust in the DM to honestly relay information about the world to them. Three Chests is a clever thing for an actual lich to do, but in a game it's basically "fuck you for behaving rationally"

>acid
>biohazard
The symbol for "corrosive" is a little test tube pouring acid on a hand, not a biohazard symbol.

The stupid part with convoluted game-y "shoot the right kind of energy at the right pillar" solutions is nobody is gonna do that shit every time they walk in their front door. Maybe hustle across to a mystic altar and scribe a couple runes in the air to deactivate your wards or whatever, but hopping on only ye tiles marked with a glyph of the Waxing Moon is a hot load of bullshit you'll be taking out after a damn week.

>think that last one is supposed to be a biohazard symbol, probably for acid.
Got it.

>the moon
>Moloch.
Better ideas.

>The symbol for "corrosive" is a little test tube pouring acid on a hand, not a biohazard symbol.
Oh sure, that's sooo magical.
heh
Yeah no, I settled on mediocre, not gonna lie.

>I am a monk. So the only option is to sunder all the suits of armor while the casters shit otu their elements onto the clay statues.
>The monk's efforts keep the suits at bay while the casters cast.
>The monk's attacks do not destroy the suits, despite being formidable.

>I examine the want. Is it a wand of cold, acid, fire, thunder?
>Using your superior identification skill, you can tell it is a custom made wand used to control a construct.

>I think I'd try and kill the simulacrum and return the wand to the clay figure on the pillar with the symbol corresponding to the wand type.
>Now that the others have lowered the magic barrier, your (presumably appropriate type) attack fells the simulacrum.
>It falls to the floor and as it drops the wand, the suit of armor collapses.
>Magical energy erupts from both the fallen simulacrum and the suit of armor and is absorbed into the pillar.
>The pillar seems somehow weaker.

>the suit of armor collapses.

Use each wand to control the armors, make them bring down the pillars

>Use each wand to control the armors, make them bring down the pillars
>The pillar cracks and shatters under the might of your construct's attack.
>Upon the pillar’s destruction, one of the bolted seals snaps and dissolves.
>As the final pillar is destroyed, the final bolted seal on the double door snaps and dissolves.

>You are distracted from this, however, as the heavy stone ceiling supported by the pillars comes crashing down upon you.
>Rocks fall and everyone dies.

>>Rocks fall and everyone dies.
Just kidding.
You're badass adventurers.

>Shaking off death’s embrace, you approach the double doors, now unsealed.
>As they are now completely undefended, you open them.
>Behind them you find…
>A solid wall. No magic, no trick, no secret. Just a wall.

8 would have gone with "glitter"

Well, try the other two doors.

As the monk, I will handle this, flurry of blows style.

You're already demolished.

Also, I hope there's an easier way to get past the puzzle. Nobody would want to do this shit everytime they came home. Also why would you make it solveable by but you? Defeats the purpose really, unless that's just how magic works.

"Speak, friend, and enter" makes sense, because it means an elf can get in the secret entrance within 30 seconds, and if he's being chased by a thousand goblins he can get away scott free.

"destroy the clay figures (that he has to remake) by pushing them over with lots of effort, in order to reveal the wands to use magic on four different statues in order to proceed" is not a good security measure especially when you're being chased by a mob and need to get back in your tower to get your big mob-smashing stave out RIGHT NOW.

>As the monk, I will handle this, flurry of blows style.
>You're already demolished.
>Your power attack destroys a wall several feet thick.
>Breaking through, you find yourself... outside, standing behind the tower.

>Well, try the other two doors.
>You open the left wooden door and find a simple storage room filled with cleaning supplies and a small locked chest.
>Inside the chest you find four wands: A Firebolt wand, an Acid Arrow wand, a Ray of Frost wand, and a Lightning wand as well as four matching bracers, suitable for being worn by a monk.
>These might have aided those with neither magic of their own nor the insight to use the suits against the defenses themselves.

>You open the right wooden door and find a simple stone stairwell leading up to the next floor of the tower.

HERE is an example of a good puzzle security systems.
>Inside the mage's tower, a long narrow bridge over a spiked pit, door on the other side. A 5 foot wooden staff with a metal ring on the end is on a hook by the entrance. When the far door is interacted with (touched, pushed, pulled) the last 50 feet swing down and drops everyone into the pit.
>High perception: parts of the spikes on one side are discoloured, where a faint breeze is coming from.
There's an invisible path off to the side into the wall on the right, above where the spikes are discoloured. The wizard would use the wooden staff to find the invisible path and just walk into his tower.

This is a quest thread in disguise now?

>You climb the stairwell.
>Doubtlessly alerted by your lengthy battle with the clanking suits of armor, the mage has left the tower.
>He has had time to expend extensive necromantic magicks and has left his lieutenant behind, fully buffed and supported by powerful undead creations, to ambush your party.
>Even if you survive this climactic battle, your prey has escaped you for now.

>I hope there's an easier way to get past the puzzle. Nobody would want to do this shit everytime they came home
>"destroy the clay figures (that he has to remake) by pushing them over with lots of effort, in order to reveal the wands to use magic on four different statues in order to proceed" is not a good security measure
Indeed.

>Racing directly to the right door and up the stairs, without pausing to fight the suits of armor, you find the mage caught completely unaware and away from his wand. You defeat him quickly and overcome his tower’s defenses relatively easy with him at your mercy.
>You have found the solution to the door and entered unharmed.
Well done.

>>This is a quest thread in disguise now?
Welp, there's a waifu So I guess so, sorry.

Hey, you just asked us how to get in unharmed, not unheard.

So, how does the mage get into and out of the tower?

Please don't say "he uses a different route", because he's dumb for having this route lead in at the first place.

I though of this same thing, but wouldn't the suit of armor just chop your head off as you went past?

>Cathedral crypt.
>Cathedral is centre of theocratic city.
>Party breaks in because the cleric kept getting visions about it.
>Le ol' teleport puzzle, gotta figure the right sequence to proceed.
>Let them skip the 2 hours worth of messing around to get enough information.
>Crypt consists of a 3x3 grid, each square with a different sarcophagus and name on it.
>Sign near entrance states, "This is dedicated to those who follow the WAY of [INSERT GOD NAME HERE]."
>All they had to do was take the route where the first letter of each name would spell WAY.
>E.g. Will Irongut -> Anna Fairmaiden -> Yvonne d'Aubigne.
>Spent 30 mins until they caved in and begged to just INT/WIS roll it.

This puzzle is kinda difficult though. I mean, it's kinda obvious in hindsight (and acronyms are often one of the first things I try) but unless they get that idea quickly it'd take them a lot of time

>Hey, you just asked us how to get in unharmed, not unheard.
Good point.
If you survive the climactic battle "unharmed", you will have found another technical solution.
Good luck.

>So, how does the mage get into and out of the tower?
He walks briskly past the suits of armor before they reach him, enters the right hand door, and goes up the stairs.
As soon as the person leaves the room, the suits return to their original spots.

>I though of this same thing
Good thinking.

>but wouldn't the suit of armor just chop your head off as you went past?
First, not if you're a badass adventurer.
Second:
>all four suits of armor begin to animate, lifting their swords as they approach you menacingly.
The words "begin" and "approaching" were intended to convey "slowly menacing".
If you're quick, you can get by with no trouble.
But everything about the room is desgned to make you pause.
Besides, the suits are an alarm, not a defense.

That's the problem with designing puzzles, the solution always seems simple to the designer.

Locked door and a puzzle? That's OK I've got my adamantine zweihander.

>it's kinda obvious in hindsight but unless they get that idea quickly it'd take them a lot of time
"Clever GM Puzzles" in a nutshell.
This is why all puzzles should have multiple possible solutions as well as be able to be broken.

Here's a puzzle for you guys, give an example of a puzzle dungeon done right.

>Locked door and a puzzle? That's OK I've got my adamantine zweihander.
>The fighter casts "Knock".

What about mine? Complex, but solvable puzzle with an ultimately practical purpose.

The purpose of the puzzle itself is too often overlooked.
This is why most puzzles, aside from the "testing the character's worth" puzzles, are nonsensical.

See, that's also a poor defense, because it doesn't trap people going for the obvious "blitz it" strategy.

If I were a the mage, I'd have at least locked the door, and set a safe space just around the door where the guards wouldn't attack. Then kept the key on me.

Most people attacking wouldn't solo the tower so the thief's friends would get hammered, while a single mage would be able to get past.

See for reasonable defense systems that are deadly, and yet can be figured out with reasonable guesswork.

The better sort of puzzles come about from less contained deathtraps and more turning them into monster fights.
>Kobolds have taken this spinning mechanical monstrosity apart, but it still belches fire and its parts still slash at the ground nearby, spokes that have come undone, levers and poles that manipulate it exposed.. Kobolds are atop part of it and attacking with arrows.

>poor defense
Well, your ass didn't figure it out, so...

I didn't even try. My players would have bumrushed the door straight off, though, then savagely hacked through it without even waiting to see if it opens.

Or be optional, with neat rewards for completing it. That is what I always do.

>If I were a the mage, I'd have at least locked the door
First, locking the door at the top of the stairs would have been a good idea.
Second, this was actually designed with a specific mage in mind and his weakness is a not entirely unjustified overconfidence.

>My players would have bumrushed the door straight off
Which door?

Yeah, this works much better, it doesn't actually halt the gameflow as much.

I made a dungeon once that, if mapped out, would reveal it to fit inside of a perfect rectangle, but with one spot where there was no room. The party succesfully deduced that there was likely to be a secret room there.

Of course, rather than looking for the entrance they then chose to break through the wall to get to it, but still, they solved that "puzzle".

I has a 5x5 grid of tiles with each row in a different colored tile. There were deformed stone heads along the wall on the side of the grid. The idea was that you should only step on the same colored tile, causing them to light up until the trap was triggered and you would be fine when you crossed. It was even laid out so they didn't have to move onto other tiles at all and yet they still did and got confused of how the trap worked while I was trying my best to not laugh my ass off.

Lead

Read the replies, he already gave the answer