Before I let you proceed, you must answer my riddle

I only use "riddles" that are more like, "How many X were in the last room?" It's something the PCs would know, but they and my players might have forgotten. If they leave to go check, some kind of trap triggers. If not, they get to progress for free and the riddler might give them a treat or something. Much simpler and more fun than having the players sit around arguing and thinking until they give up or someone gives a troll answer.

I think your DM just has autism.

>ywn be dommed by a sphynx

>"it was grass. I lied about the wheels"
Please tell me about that.

I'm actually digging this twist.

I'd definitely be a trick though. The concept of setting up a room to imply a riddle would be really cool though.

>guess what my riddle is
>I guess that your riddle is some sort of test of cleverness steeped in wordplay that must be appropriately answered in order to continue.

>Before you can answer my riddle you must first correctly guess what my riddle is.
Your riddle is: "what's my riddle?"

Is "this guy is willing to eat your ass for 10min if you let him pass" the correct answer?

>Before you can answer my riddle you must first correctly guess what my riddle is.
That's a pretty good astrosphinx riddle.

Every time you hear about one of these GMs with their incomprehesible, badly-presented and badly designed "puzzles", it's always someone that also ignores player character abilities.
Because they think "roleplaying" is about talking in first person and solving puzzles instead of actually immersing in a role.

>tell a riddle that everyone knows out of character
>the real challenge is working backwards from the answer to find in-character reasoning for knowing the answer
>bonus points if the reasoning is completely different than the real-world reasoning, but arrives at the right answer anyway

Would this work?

That's the type of thing that gets you a little extra xp at my table.

I want to throw a sphinx encounter involving a riddle at my party, but I know they'd either spend the whole session trying to figure it out or go full murderhobo on the monster's ass.

Being the DM is suffering.

On the actual subject; because riddle solving is a lost art, and a lot of hack DMs want to look cool and clever when they actually aren't.

I'll allow it, but combat starts if you do a Goldblum or Adam West impression.

>Tifas’ Giant titties
I am inclined to agree

Yeah, unfortunately puzzles aren't often executed well at the table. Despite being tons of fun when done right. One of the people I subscribe to online explains this pretty well, so i'll plug his video for relevancy.
youtube.com/watch?v=uhCQrN8FXnE
Great explanation for how puzzles should be handled IMO.

I was in a one-shot where the DM tried to have a riddle with a snake and a tree and a priest in a dungeon room and it was so silly, forced, and not as deep as he thought. One player took the snake and strangled the priest with it in protest, and the door opened.

Why were the riddles in The Hobbit not actual riddles? Did "riddle" have a broader meaning back then?

>Implying everyone won't just shout the answer straight away, completely missing the point.

>What if instead of relying on player skill, this puzzle relied on player skill?

It would take a very specific sort of riddle, though. A lot of riddles just rely on word and concept associations; you're not so much reasoning through to a solution as seeing something in just the right light to notice what they're getting at.

>What if instead of player meta-knowledge, it requires flexible use of roleplaying?

What makes the riddles in The Hobbit "not actual riddles"?

Go with it, sphinxes are now gameshow-themed supervillains. There's a series of riddles for points, the players are all contestants, and the first right answer sends everyone else closer to the lake of acid. The actual puzzle is finding a way to win without sending the rest of the party to the Shadow Realm.

>no fish, one fish, two fish, three fish
>no fish, blue fish, red fish
>what fish?

>"horses aren't teeth" guy?
the who now?

Purple fish

>you attempt to lecture the sphinx on Mendelian genetics and it eats you out of exasperation

Well, if it was good enough for Nebuchadnezzar...

Here's a riddle user.
What's green and has wheels?

Not them,
>What's green, absorbs sunlight and has wheels?
>Grass, I lied about the wheels
It's a classic

I'm going with aroused.

Magenta fish?

>I roll to seduce.

What was the correct solution?

Three fish?

...

>0,1,1+1,2+1
If it went
>one fish, one fish, two fish, three fish
I'd get you, but not as is

0, 1, 2, 1+2
I'm sticking with my answer

The studious wizard Nial has worked tirelessly to find the Ancient Spire of the famed Demon King, Bchaxaltev for most of his life. After buying a series of expensive tomes in an ancient tongue from a traveling purveyor of curiosities he finally found the last few puzzle pieces he needed. Assembling a small band of mercenaries he trudged out into the desert with all the supplies needed for the journey.

The trip was harsh on the party, the sun beating down on them from high above quickly drained them of their energy. The cold nights sapping them of their heat. A week later after marching in a criss-cross pattern all over the dunes, the spire rose high on the horizon. Scrambling to it, the party found themselves in front of a massive stone gate blocked by a formidable looking statue. Upon approaching the statue it rumbled to life shaking off untold centuries of dust and sand from its body.

"Who approaches the tower of my master, The Esteemed Bchaxaltev?" The statue bellowed. "The lowly wizard, Nial." The wizard responded, bowing deeply, "O Great Guardian I have searched for this spire for most of my life. Please let me through." There was a brief pause before the golem once again spoke, "I shall let you enter. But only if you answer my riddle, correctly. Prepare yourself, for not one has answered correctly." The wizard beamed as he had been reading cryptic tomes of vague prophesy for well over a century to find this place. Surely a riddle would be of no real challenge.

"I am ready." The Wizard replied, a large smile reaching from ear to ear. "Very well." The Golem's arms rose from its side and began to move upwards, "What is lonely, pathetic and has wasted its whole life?" Before the wizard could respond, both of the golem's hands met each other in the center of where the wizard's head used to be. Grue and fragments of bone flying every which way. The Golem rumbled in amusement, more sand working its way of its joints. "Its best not to think too hard about it."

...

>What comes next in the sequence?
>1, 11, 21 ...

isn't the plot of NGE basically just a metaphor (and symptom) of Anno's fight with depression and slow slip into insanity?

>casts unseen servant to solve puzzle

theres over 800 now.

1211

Being confused over how the scene ended? I mean, Bilbo did give Gollum a couple of guesses, so in universe they knew that the last one was bullshit.

Look and Say is the best number sequence.

>DM slaps you.

...

>Ha! You uncultured swine! It's actually a reference to the Three Pure Ones of the Dao De Ching!

>31?

>It is raining.
>The guardian lights three candles.
>He asks you: Preserve these candles for a day and a night and you may pass.
>What do you do?

say it out loud
one 1, two 1's, one 2 one 1, etc...

Quickly blow out the flamma and place the candles in my pocket. Those candles aren't gonna last that long while burning.

Dangit. I thought I was going to be able to lord over my superior knowledge of oriental religion (in this case Buddhism) over uncultured plebs.

Does this riddle have some metaphorical enlightening teaching that is escaping me?

The answer in this case is easy.

Roll initiative.

Probably, but buddhists are also just fond of riddles

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(Buddhism)#Extinction

Sort of like Dark Souls

I thought fire had a more positive place in buddhism imaginarium, as opposed to something "bad" to be extinguished to achieve enlightement.

Buddhists don't really believe in good and bad though. Or am I remembering it all wrong?

No. That's a wishywashy modern innovation the same way Jews will tell you they don't believe in hell or that Christians will tell you hell is really just spiritual separation from God or that universalists will tell you all religions are true. The last one is obviously false because most modern day universalists believe slavery is wrong but that is a religious position that contradicts many religions so obviously they believe some religions aren't true. The second one is false because if it was true Christians wouldn't worry so much about going to hell. The first one is false because of a bunch of references in the Talmud to painful punishments in the afterlife for various heretics. Also the notion of hell went from Zoroastrianism to Judaism to Christianity and not directly from Zoroastrianism to Christianity.

They do, sometimes. It has a lot of hindu and folk chinese baggage, so while pure Buddhism doesn't do moral judgement quite like that the religion as it's actually practiced very much does.

Choking the snake with the Priest. Obvious in retrospect.

This is retarded. You didn't lie about anything. You just answered your own question incorrectly. You didn't say "Grass is green and has wheels.", that would be lying. You asked a question with only so many answers and then just declared that an answer which doesn't qualify is the correct answer.

You might as well say, "What has four wheels and flies?" and answer, "Cat nipples, I lied about the four wheels and flies."

If I don't have to do pushups in front of my GM in order to make a Strength check to wrestle a bear or whatever, then I shouldn't have to actually solve a riddle when I can just have my smart character make an Intelligence check.

I'm here to roleplay my character's personality. Actually BEING that smart is what the system is for.

You didn't lie about the wheels, you lied about asking a riddle.

It's the kind of thing that shit DMs do whenever they try to do a puzzle where they only inform the players that they can't proceed any further without figuring out how, but never disclose what exactly the players are supposed to figure out in the first place.

>The door before you is locked.
Is there a keyhole?
>No.
Are there any cracks or something?
>No.
Is there anything seemingly out of the ordinary in the room?
>No.

The plot's not a huge metaphor. It's just about how communicating with people is tough.

That guy doesnt know what to do with his hands.

Why discourage players from finding a different way of dealing with your puzzle? If the thief wants to pick the lock fucking let him, he wants to play a thief and that's what a thief does. What kind of dick dm dictates how a player is going to do something.

Honestly cannot dispute this point. BRING IN THE BEAR TO WRESTLE THE FIGHTER

> A giant dude in a cool armor you obviously cannot defeat blocks your path.
> "Only those who will challenge me to a fight will pass!"

>Now show me your honour - my honour demands it

In fact, this is a riddle I've heard in one comedic fantasy story, and a party dwarf solved it.

You have a fox, a chicken, and a bag of seed, you must get them across the river, but your raft is only big enough for one and yourself, only the fox and the seed can be left alone together.

How do you get them all to the other side?

First take the chicken over.
Go back.
Take either fox or bag with you to the other side.
Take chicken back.
Take the non-chicken left to the other side.
Go back.
Take the chicken again.

You have a fox, a chicken, and a bag of seed, you must get them across the river, but your raft is only big enough for one and yourself, only the fox and the seed can be left alone together. Do you put the scorpion on your own back or on top of the fox or chicken?

>"What is the proper response to a barbarian's riddle?"

So, what are some good riddles you throw at your players?

>he doesn't wrestle his GM to resolve grapple checks.

What's a good way to do puzzles that accounts for player and character abilities then?

The correct way to do riddles and puzzles is to present them in such a way that they can be approached using the characters' skills. For example, the wizard is able to speak the Elvish that the riddle is inscribed in so that he can convey the puzzle to the rest of the party. He may be stumped, though, and another character's stats are able to solve the problem because he may take a more simplistic approach.

Having the riddle written in a language only one party member speaks is a really easy way to do it, and you can just give them a note with the riddle written on it and they aren't allowed to show anybody else. It's especially good if the party member in question doesn't have the best mental stats. It can be a good way to prompt the party to interact with each other, the world, and their stats in ways they don't get to, usually.

There's a similar sequence in Knights of the Old Republic where you're held captive and being tortured. You're asked questions and if you answer them incorrectly you get zapped. If you answer them correctly another prisoner gets zapped. You have to get just enough correct that you don't get killed but not so many that you kill the other prisoner before the torturer runs out of questions and you can attack him.

Would another decent way be to make a riddle based on the context of the world as well? Giving the players the information the characters would already know based on their background and intelligence and have them solve it with the given knowledge?

Yeah, that brings their character's specific skills into play which is the best way to approach this stuff, really. I was actually going to mention that I had an example that relied on one party member speaking Dwarvish, another knowing about esoteric religious orders from their backstory and proficiencies, and a third that knew a certain cantrip that was the answer to the riddle.

This is the correct answer. Killing the fox since they are valued for their pelts and going: chicken, fox (dead), seed would also be acceptable.
Try knocking.
Probably, the point of bhudist riddles is generally simultaneous intro/outrospection. It's where we get such classics as "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Have it be fragmented between several languages that no two party members share. They have to work together to even know the riddle in the first place, bonus points if the fragments are presented in a way that it's not intially clear what part goes where.

>"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
Are Asians incapable of closing their hands without curling their fingers?

>you dont have any other riddle except that oh so clever human one do you?

>...no. everyone keeps proceeding and thoth never gave me another one, please help.

211?

Lich's phylactery is in a chest chained to an oak in the middle of an island. The island has plenty of magical traps set to alarm the lich - they can be avoided if you succeed at notice check.
You reach the oak, then climb to reach the chest, and break chains.
Pick the lock or just break it, but it has another alarming trap that will work if you break the lock.
Once you open the chest, an angry bear jumps out of it, you must fight it.
Once you kill a bear, a hare jumps out of its corpse and tries to run away, you must catch it or shoot it.
Once the hare is dead, a duck jumps out of it and flies away. You must catch it the same round or shoot it before it leaves the island.
Once you kill the duck, an egg falls out of it, and this is the lich's phylactery. If it falls into the sea, you have to dive for it. It's easy to break, but only if you intend to.