It was supposed to be a foreshadowing of a mini boss. The idea was that there was this laboratory filled with experimental Chimeras and one manticore. The government was supposed to take care of the Chimeras but the manticore escaped and the party was going to encountered.
It was supposed to be a foreshadowing of a mini boss. The idea was that there was this laboratory filled with experimental Chimeras and one manticore. The government was supposed to take care of the Chimeras but the manticore escaped and the party was going to encountered.
Have the laboratory be on a mysterious island where the coordinates point to.
Is it too early for them to find out the location of the laboratory? If they find a map just put it down on the table with the location of the laboratory marked. Even if they gained this clue too early, but they did it in some spectacular fashion, I'd let them shortcut something even if you were expecting them to have to do a bit more leg work. Just set aside the skipped material for reuse later.
If it's still too early, or if they just blundered into the coordinates by pure dumb luck, make it the location of some sort of meetup which they can intercept. If they spy on this meeting, they gain another clue - choose something from your existing clue lineup and move it to the meet, then they'll be back on track.
The easy answer is to put something interesting at wherever the coordinates point to ...
Also, just because the party has coordinates does not mean they know where something is since the reference point for the coordinate system may not be known. Coordinates are always relative to something else. Longitude is relative to the prime meridian, Lattitude is relative to the equator - but a D&D world wouldn't necessarily use a global coordinate system since many don't have a global point of view or share interest in establishing such a system.
The coordinates could be relative to a specific location - the bad guy's base, a major city, a hidden temple.
Anyway, depending on what you have told the party about the coordinates, it is possible that they may not know anything yet or at least only have half the story.
The moral of the story is don't put puzzles in front of players unless you want them to solve them or don't mind if they do so :)
Wait, so they found a code which you just made up for flavour, and then managed to find a meaning in it to give them a coordinate system for a location, and all this happened by pure coincidence? The code was gibberish, but they turned it into coordinates?
I would give them a bonus encounter. They can go to these coordinates and find something which they wouldn't have otherwise found. You can make it completely unrelated to the main plot - because the code wasn't coordinates - or you can make it related - because the code was.
In what context is the code - did they find it on a piece of paper, carved into a corpse, engraved on an ancient tablet, or what? What exactly did it say (and what exactly do they think it said)?
I second the "just because you have the coordinates" idea. I once TOTALLLY stumped a group of players by giving them 3 pairs of values as the location of an item. It took them an hour and finally they resorted to rolling insight and investigation and history to finally get out of me the method to take the values find a location. Specifically they referred to 3 items on the map and the distance from each of those points to the 'goal'. In effect they had to draw 3 circles of set radius and pick out the one point of intersection of all 3.
Yeah.... sometimes the coordinates aren't enough on their own....
Wait, so they found a code which you just made up for flavour, and then managed to find a meaning in it to give them a coordinate system for a location, and all this happened by pure coincidence? The code was gibberish, but they turned it into coordinates?
I would give them a bonus encounter. They can go to these coordinates and find something which they wouldn't have otherwise found. You can make it completely unrelated to the main plot - because the code wasn't coordinates - or you can make it related - because the code was.
In what context is the code - did they find it on a piece of paper, carved into a corpse, engraved on an ancient tablet, or what? What exactly did it say (and what exactly do they think it said)?
I’d go with something like this. Make it a red herring, and it’s the entrance to an unrelated dungeon crawl.
Or, if you have a PC with a side quest you can’t figure out how to incorporate, have the coordinates point to something that will move that character arc along.
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So my players figured out how to read a code that they are not even supposed to read. It's coordinates and I have no clue how to make them work
What were you planning to do before they found the clue?
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It was supposed to be a foreshadowing of a mini boss. The idea was that there was this laboratory filled with experimental Chimeras and one manticore. The government was supposed to take care of the Chimeras but the manticore escaped and the party was going to encountered.
Have the laboratory be on a mysterious island where the coordinates point to.
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I AM A CAT PERSON. /\_____/\
She/her pronouns please. (=^.^=)
Is it too early for them to find out the location of the laboratory? If they find a map just put it down on the table with the location of the laboratory marked. Even if they gained this clue too early, but they did it in some spectacular fashion, I'd let them shortcut something even if you were expecting them to have to do a bit more leg work. Just set aside the skipped material for reuse later.
If it's still too early, or if they just blundered into the coordinates by pure dumb luck, make it the location of some sort of meetup which they can intercept. If they spy on this meeting, they gain another clue - choose something from your existing clue lineup and move it to the meet, then they'll be back on track.
The easy answer is to put something interesting at wherever the coordinates point to ...
Also, just because the party has coordinates does not mean they know where something is since the reference point for the coordinate system may not be known. Coordinates are always relative to something else. Longitude is relative to the prime meridian, Lattitude is relative to the equator - but a D&D world wouldn't necessarily use a global coordinate system since many don't have a global point of view or share interest in establishing such a system.
The coordinates could be relative to a specific location - the bad guy's base, a major city, a hidden temple.
Anyway, depending on what you have told the party about the coordinates, it is possible that they may not know anything yet or at least only have half the story.
The moral of the story is don't put puzzles in front of players unless you want them to solve them or don't mind if they do so :)
Wait, so they found a code which you just made up for flavour, and then managed to find a meaning in it to give them a coordinate system for a location, and all this happened by pure coincidence? The code was gibberish, but they turned it into coordinates?
I would give them a bonus encounter. They can go to these coordinates and find something which they wouldn't have otherwise found. You can make it completely unrelated to the main plot - because the code wasn't coordinates - or you can make it related - because the code was.
In what context is the code - did they find it on a piece of paper, carved into a corpse, engraved on an ancient tablet, or what? What exactly did it say (and what exactly do they think it said)?
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I second the "just because you have the coordinates" idea. I once TOTALLLY stumped a group of players by giving them 3 pairs of values as the location of an item. It took them an hour and finally they resorted to rolling insight and investigation and history to finally get out of me the method to take the values find a location. Specifically they referred to 3 items on the map and the distance from each of those points to the 'goal'. In effect they had to draw 3 circles of set radius and pick out the one point of intersection of all 3.
Yeah.... sometimes the coordinates aren't enough on their own....
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I’d go with something like this. Make it a red herring, and it’s the entrance to an unrelated dungeon crawl.
Or, if you have a PC with a side quest you can’t figure out how to incorporate, have the coordinates point to something that will move that character arc along.