Players fuck up puzzle after not paying any attention and trying to brute force their way in

HIT THE PLAYER CHARACTERS REEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAL GOOD!

Find better players.
The idea of RPGs is to roleplay as a character. There's nothing wrong with using real brain to solve a in-game problem

>players brute forced their way in
>don't brute force their way past a measly stone wall

Honestly, they deserve it. Also
>not having an adamantine dagger to break down any fucking wall

So investigation or intrigue or mystery focused games just shouldn't exist? Players just can't play detective style plots because it'd just be rolling dice and watching the mystery unfold rather than applying themselves and actually, you know, playing a game in the role playing game?
If your players can see a broken window and deduce with their human meatsack brains that the shattered glass on the outside means somebody broke the window from the inside, then great, that's valid, because both they and their characters are considered capable of logical deduction. If they roll for their investigative skills to find out that clue, also great, their character is totally capable of doing so even if they aren't.

>Puzzles are form of an obstacle, you moron.
Not quite. Puzzles have strict and determined algorithm while obstacles are ideally rather free-form while being conditioned.

>Does it mean that entire game is just meta-gaming, because players control their characters, instead of characters acting on their own?
The difference is that player uses real-life knowledge when solving a puzzle, while an obstacle is solved by means of character whether you're roleplaying or just rolling.

Investigation is tricky to run because puzzles have a very limited number of solutions. You either have to adapt the situation to keep the flow of the game, make enough clues so that it's not really a puzzle anymore or use mechanics whether it's a simple task resolution or something specialized like GUMSHOE.

Bad GMing:
>You need to solve this puzzle or you don't get the treasure! No puzzle-solving, no treasure!
Good GMing:
>In order to get this treasure, you can either solve this puzzle and get there without needing to roll any dice, or you can roll some dice while putting your characters at risk by trying a brute force approach.

>Players should be able to get every treasure

Nah, the dumbest shit posted this week would go to the meta thread that got moved to /qa/ a few hours ago. Although, it'd still be in the top 10.

>I'm god-awful GM that can't run games for shit: The Post
Jesus mate, have you considered changing a hobby or something? Or just stop being a GM and became a player?

>Giving the players treasure.

What was the puzzle?

Playing fair:
>If you fuck up, there are appropriate consequences
Pandering to plebs:
>You get to win no matter what you do because I can't bear to be unpopular with entitled bratty players

I have my doubts as to how good you are. You were probably expecting the players to read your mind to solve the puzzle, weren't you?

If one thing I realized being a ForeverGM after 5+ years is that puzzles could have on-the-nose-railroad-tier-like hints and players still don't know what to do.

It's also how an answer that is obvious to you, because you already know the answer, can be opaque to others.

>these puzzleniggers getting buttmad
Nobody wants to fucking play Jenga or Riddles with Smeagol when you told them there was going to be roleplaying. I say this as someone who likes investigative games, but understands you need to give your players the right clues for them to work it out themselves.

>shitposters make up stories about a game he never plays
>posts an OP exclusively with greentext
>chimps out and shitposts to harvest more (you)s

>Get called in for 12 hrs on my off day.
>Day before was up late because "lol fuckin day off gonna stay and do shit!"
>Session starts late, thanks other people that can't be punctual to save their jobs.
>Other players fucking about in combat, one who didn't make their character and doesn't understand how to "roll to healslut" still struggling with the concept of the character that they themselves said they wanted.
>Nearing midnight, 4 hrs of sleep, coming down off caffeinated foodstuffs
>GM sets scene for "simple puzzle" explains it for nest 15 min magical room used to make portable holes. Loads of magical runes and shit.
>Am wizard "do I understand any of this?"
>Don't roll high enough.
>Healslut browsing a/ on phone
>Druid on his MacBook.
>Spellblade can't into non combat spells or arcane knowledge.
>Rogue is at a loss, still mad that her character failed some rolls and didn't get their kill.

Puzzles are fine, but when you "set the scene and give no hints other then "lol it's fuckin magic." Then cockblock the one person who knows magic, don't be surprised when we just smash everything

How about you give us a shred of evidence that you are even are in a campaign right now.
Tell us the puzzle so we can laugh at how stupid it is.

Always consider how you could have communicated better in a situation like this. It's easy to say they're idiots but that doesn't change the solution. Make a puzzle they can actually solve.

Alternatively, talk to them.

If that doesn't work, prove your point by having the dungeon be an open hallway with a chest at the end. "You did it!" Repeat until they complain, then tell them you'll try to come up with something more challenging next time. "You enter a room with a level and a locked door." "I pull the lever." "The door opens, there's a chest of treasure inside!!" yaaay

>not giving your players a printed worksheet and taking a break while they solve it

it's like you people don't snack

You also have to consider that sometimes your "obvious hints" aren't as obvious as you think they are. They're obvious to you of course because you already know the answer and can see how the hints lead to the answer, but someone who's just seeing the hints might not make that connection, or is interpreting them differently.

Had a game once where we spent 5 hours beating our head against a "puzzle" the DM threw at us. We didn't have an IC reason to do it, but the DM would not let us move on to anything else until we finished it, dropping "very obvious" hints as to the answer.

The explanation he gave us, after we gave up and refused to do it anymore, was some loony moon logic shit that relied on having knowledge of some inside joke on a forum he went to 8 years ago, and generally had no actual logic to it. He seemed offended when we questioned how the fuck the answer was obvious. He's improved thankfully, mostly by running less dumb puzzles.

Play a #safespace game instead then. One where no thinking is required.

Cuthbert, Vecna, Moradin, Lolth, .... Fuck, I need a perception check for the other two. Chris seems neutral?

I see Pelor right above Moradin

There are still bait threads and Veeky Forums-unrelated discussions on the board, though.

You logic is flawed as continuing with that train of thought, you should not be able to do anything in the game scenario as it is the player deciding the actions undertaken and not the character, who is fictional and can't actually make decisions.

You're right, but that shit is so draining.

Two sessions ago my players complained like small bitches about a ruling I made. They kept going, and started joking about mutiny, and "killing the evil DM!". I handled it by being excited about the prospect of not being DM, saying I'd welcome the chance to play for once. They all went silent right away.

Effective, but not really constructive.

All puzzles are obstacles, but not all obstacles are puzzles.

>"Most Stupid Shit Posted This Week"
>not the reoccuring amazon threads

I think fharlanghn is one

>The idea of RPGs is to roleplay as a character. There's nothing wrong with using real brain
Your first sentence contradicts the second.

>giving players anything

I second Fharlaghn

Okay, here's the puzzle with Vecna,Pelor,Moradin,Lolth, Cuthbert,and Fharluwhatever crossed out. What the fuck is it trying to say?

Something stage you seek is guarded by righteousness.

Oh shit I'm retarded.

>You can't solve puzzles as a character, you do it as a player, therefore it's meta-gaming.
Son I need to have a conversation with you about this thing called "Combat"

Post the puzzle

>Something stage
The passage

the fuck, I thought Fharlaghn was just some shit made up as a joke, not actually part of the solution.
The fuck. I thought

Nope, god of travel in Greyhawk.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fharlanghn

Dreadful name, though.

St. cuthbert, lolth, fharlanghn, moradin, pelor, vecna
the path you seek is guarded by righteousness

>using puzzles
Shit DM detected. Why did the dungeon builders make this elaborate puzzle to protect their treasure instead of just a lock or something?

This is correct. Do you know which door to open, then?

Presumably Cuthbert

Just making sure you were.. PAYING ATTENTION haahaaha.. yea tho that's right.

This is another puzzle from the same dungeon, the small circle was on a track that could rotate around the sun. They got it in two, was pretty pleased. I wanted to tryhard one dungeon and had like 6 puzzles and a bunch of encounters.. it went pretty well. I had this side-scrolling map made on a big spool of grid paper that I'd put into a contraption I made out of foam core and ribbon. I also had this like.. sonic screwdriver from doctor who that was an invisible ink pen on one side and then when you press the button it lights up and reveals the ink, so I did that to hide some traps and handed it to the rogue, she got to literally search for traps on the map.

Anyway puzzles are great.

What about a wall made out of diamond, the hardest metal known to man?

Puzzles are fine if you can bypass them in some way if you get stuck.

I agree. In both these cases there were multiple doors with consequences for the wrong choice, but ultimately you could brute-force them.

One puzzle was something like a wall of vines that were blackened on the player's side and green and fresh on the other side, where they could see a small urn producing light. The vines were really strong and they couldn't get through by normal means. The solution was to destroy the urn as the light was keeping the plants alive.

But of course if they reaaaally couldn't get that I'd have let them burn it down or something.

Be less of a cocksucking cuckhold then this guy.

Stick to your guns. Give them nothing that they do not earn. They chimp out? Laugh. Enjoy their misery right in front of them. They will learn to try harder so that they "beat" you.

Then, and only then, will they actually appreciate what they have won.

>They will learn to try harder so that they "beat" you.
or they'll leave

this is a game, not a competition..

Or they'll leave after beating the GM. Over the head, with his own rulebook.

I'm with and in wanting to hear about this puzzle. Let's see if user's can succeed where your players failed.

Yea! They all solved the word search just fine. Should be able to handle OP's puzzle.

Is this how you establish your puzzle?

>Cracken taps the table and a holographic display pops up. It takes a moment for the image to fully coalesce but when it does it's unmistakeable. This is a mobile shipyard with an Imperial Star Destroyer currently occupying one of the bays. The other three have other Imperial capital ships. "Beings, this is the Imperial mobile shipyard Astraia. That bad news I was talking about? High Command wants you to secure it."

Because if it's not you may just be doing it wrong.

>Having players

>

Just reading the thread and I don't like puzzles but wanted to point out that you are stupid and wrong.
Puzzles are still a form of obstacle.
Meta-gaming is pervasive and you are unjustifiably assuming that an obstacle is only solved by means of character whether you're roleplaying or just rolling.
You are either a clumsy troll that should really stop trying or a complete idiot.
Good night.