The first thing to remember is that having a puzzle based on video-game logic doesn't tend to work well. If I really want something like that, I have to create a puzzle for the players to solve that has physical things for them to interact with, but that also makes it less about their characters. What I've done for a few puzzles is have the puzzle be a descriptive element, but also has a time constraint to it that limits the re-tries. For example, I tell the players that they walk into a study room filled with chairs, end-tables, and cupboards. Also in the room are 4 statues standing in front of 4 paintings. One of the statues is holding a plaque with the number 3 on it. As the players go to inspect one of the paintings, the door shuts and locks behind them, and a yellow gas cloud starts filling the room with toxic spores.
In this scenario, the players need to find the 3 remaining plaques and put them on the correct statue before time runs out (death via poison/asphyxiation). The paintings behind the statues, if inspected, will show a certain number of items prominently. In this way, figuring out what to do is easy, but they have to make some perhaps difficult search tests. If I want to up the difficult more, there's a combat occurring at the same time, which forces the players to work within the round-round pacing system, and limits how many characters can search at a time.
Thanks a lot Yarium! great Idea, I know for experience that video game logic doesn't work but never could think about anything like what you said and I LOVE these kind of puzzles . ;)
Hello everyone! I love puzzles in games, but not like riddles, I like those that put the players to think what they must do to open some door or passage for example. The thing is I can't imagine how to put this at the presencial adventures. Good demonstration about what I'm talking about is the puzzles you have to do in DDO (dungeons and dragons online) like reading runes in the right order, turn many squares of a floor to build a drawing or to conect a point to another and things like this. What do you do at your table to make this things and what more puzzles you use?
Thanks!
I tend to make physical puzzles, because I think they translate best (although I've also done a few riddles.) I draw stuff out, so the players can see what their characters would see. Clues can be based off of perception and int checks, but the basic puzzle is just something they can see.
An example was a math based puzzle I used. I drew out on some graph paper a cage (they were rescuing a party member) with 20 bars. I put different colored gems on the bars that followed different number patterns (i.e. bars that were on Fibonacci numbers had a blue gem, prime numbered bars had a purple gem, etc.) My players could physically see which bars had which gems on them, and had to figure out what the pattern was with their own eyes. One of the bars had a gem that didn't fit its particular pattern, and that was the only bar safe to touch. Once they figured out which bar didn't fit the pattern, they turned the gem and it opened the cage.
To prevent them from guessing, they took damage if they touched any bar except the correct one. The damage went up by 1d6 with every incorrect guess (so their fifth time guessing, they took 5d6 damage and realized they needed a new strategy.)
I'm rather new to DMing myself, only about a year and maybe 20 or so games so far, but everything has been done in one singular 'world' with a general campaign. I've kind of created an 'open world' with a singular main quest the party can pursue at their leisure. 3 Things : 1st - The world and story is all homebrew to be clear, so some of my puzzles and methods may not work for you if your game is lore locked or strictly following the 5e rule set. 2nd - I have a wonderful wet erase battle mat and a toner based printer (so printing is cheap and easy) which means I pre-build my dungeons on the computer and do a lot of physical puzzles, I find descriptive puzzles require the party to remember a lot, in cases where I really want to do a type of puzzle I'll even tell them "someone should probably be taking notes on this". 3rd - Before I started DMing I played a good bit and watched various other DMs who ranged from been DMing for 20 years to 2 years and did my best to take notes on their methods. I noted one continually perplexing thing which others here have already pointed out, DON'T get stuck to a singular solution. At most have a solution in mind, but never the method in which to get to that solution. I'll give you my candle puzzle below as an example of what I mean. I do my best to make the puzzle the challenge and not figuring out what are the important pieces nor how the puzzle works being the challenge. In my experience players (and I have a mix of new & veteran) don't mind a hard puzzle as long as they understand 'how' the puzzle works. For instance, I did a puzzle where in one room there were five paintings, they were scenic with a specific person and season in each painting, later another room with 10 other paintings appeared, however each painting had either a season OR a person on it. There were five alcove each with 2 places to hang a painting, the goal was to combine a seasonal scene with the matching individual from the previous room. The concept was pretty self explanatory for my group, HOWEVER, they had forgotten about the previous room because (foolishly) I had forgotten to mention to the group "You get the feeling this room may be of importance " or some such to hint that the paintings (or at least the room) mattered enough to maybe inspect each painting and takes notes. Typically if my group just inspects a room I'll hand them the puzzle pieces for such a upcoming challenge. So yeah, that's my advice when presenting a puzzle or challenge, make sure the core challenge is (in this example) matching the paintings in the correct alcove and NOT remembering there was a room with the answers/hints. Anyway! I'll also add a few puzzles/challenges which my party seemed to really enjoy, in many cases I find the party has the most fun with challenges that have a sense of humor, in some cases these can fail to uphold a serious tone for some games/dungeons but lest us not forget even villains sometimes have a sense of humor or use absurdity to confuse a would be hero. In a super serious game a player may never consider putting on the bright red giant squeaky clown shoes to solve a puzzle or get safely through a room, absurd, but the villain may also expect the typical hero to be unwilling to 'embarrass' themselves doing such a dorky thing. Finally - I see some people on various forums say they don't do this or that because they don't want to focus on the player but on their character, I find this to be counter intuitive to immersion. I try to throw interactive puzzles at the player half the time, giving them physical pieces to interact with I feel draws them in as if they were their character. I've also found that puzzles that involve speaking an answer out loud draws people into role playing more without thinking of it IF you allow them speaking it out loud without intention be the answer.
1 - Light it up! (Candle puzzle) The group comes to a Candelabra with five candles on it. Only the center candle is burning however, the other four are not. So here's the rule/trick. Whenever a candle is lit OR extinguished the 2 immediately adjacent candles light or go out, basically the flip their state. If they're lit, they go out, if they're out then they light. The candles on the 'end' treat the candles on the opposite end as adjacent. Either on the candle holder or near it there is an inscription, "When five fires burn, the path will reveal. Three chances ye have, a fourth and ye begins anew." So the group has 3 shots to light them all OR the candles snuff out and the center re-ignites starting the puzzle from the beginning. If you want to make this puzzle easier you can remove the three chances part of the rules and just allow the group to beat on the puzzle instead. You can increase the difficultly by inserting penalties for failure, either deploying a magical trap or spawning a creature how you see fit onto the party for each failed attempt. You can put the candles near a door as a magical lock or on top of a treasure chest as well. It's a versatile little thing and you can combine candelabra's for a really nasty puzzle, I once put two of these five candelabra in a room, one on each side, but treated all ten candles as linked. Of course the three tries is not nearly enough 'moves' to solve ten candles but as a DM how many tries is up to you. Now when I deployed this, I had a very specific 'path' to solving it in mind, my group blew me away though by solving it in 2 moves. Here's their solution, looking at the candelabra like this -1 2 3 4 5- imagine that 3 is the starting point. So they lit 4, which extinguished 3 and lit 4 and 5. They then lit 2 which also lit 1 and 3. Done. Now I hadn't expected that, I had a more linear solve, BUT this worked perfectly and they completed the puzzle. It wasn't the answer I expected, but the solution was. That's my example of don't get stuck to your solution, the final 'answer' can be concrete but how the party arrives at it is not. But it's a guide, not a rule, the 'rule' should be the more complex the puzzle the less concrete your answer/solution to that puzzle should be.
2- A Rainbow of Doors - Ok, so I talked about using humor? My party enjoys riddles, as long as they are sensible and pretty direct. So yeah, simple riddles, but I find for the most part major brain scratch riddles are VERY subjective which is more frustrating than anything. So, I did this puzzle which got big laughs at the end, comedy is all about timing I suppose. This is SUPER easy but it is the interaction and the break from monster slaying which I think makes it enjoyable. Don't use this early in a dungeon, I used this near the very end right before the final boss after many rooms of pure monster slaying. To increase the difficultly of this puzzle simply remove the color from the doors, since the color is the answer. The group arrive at a door (which leads down a hallway of doors but only the DM knows this), this door is blue and has NO doorknob, lock or method of opening it. What it DOES have is a plaque with a inscription on it. "I'm your shade of sadness, the degrading fragments of gladeness. I am of the sky above, I am the richness of the abyss below. If nothing else, this is true, my one true color is. . . " So now I think the natural response most people have at this point is... BLUE. The moment a player speaks the word out loud "click" the door unlocks and opens. Puzzle SOLVED. I find this add immersion if when a player speaks it, you simply act as though their character uttered it in game, don't ask "Is that your answer?" or "Does your character say that?" If they say it out loud, just take that, they've obviously figured it out. At the end of this puzzle I had the entire party playing the game in character the rest of the night without even trying. However this door is not the END of this puzzle. Once the blue door opens, maybe 15 feet further down this hallway is another similar door, but yellow. The Inscription reads "Like a coward you bellow. You're one untrustworthy fellow. You've shown your true color. . . " Clearly it's YELLOW. Same rules as before with unlocking. The door opens and some feet further down the hallway, a GREEN door. Inscription " I am the fiend, I am serene. The hue of greed, the disease of need. Towards desire I lean, I am. . . " Green of course. Once spoken the door clicks and opens. Yet ANOTHER door sits before the group, this time RED. Inscription "Blood and undead, turning the tide instead, my vibrance lies in . . . " You probably know the answer by now. When the door opens, the FINAL door to this little puzzle sits. This door is ORANGE. The Inscription reads " Nothing rhymes with me. . . " This has gotten pretty solid laughs at every game I've used this at (with player unfamiliar to the puzzle of course), have also had a few local DMs use my puzzle and gotten good laughs as well. This is a good mood elevator for the party I find, and whatever you choose can sit behind this final door. For me it was a treasure, but it could just as easily lead to the final boss of a dungeon or even a puzzle room for treasure. Whatever you choose. NOW depending on your party, if they pick up on this puzzles gimmick you could have a killjoy just begin immediately blurting out the answer as soon as you tell them what color the door is (though it's never happened at a game I was at, people end up enjoying the puzzle enough they just want to go through the paces), if you find a party member behaving in such a way simply don't give the remaining doors a color, just keep the inscriptions in place. You can pretty easily figure out the word since it is rhymed in a way to lead you to the obvious answer. This requires they read the riddle to get the answer instead of the door giving it to them. Now maybe this puzzle doesn't fit into your game world very nicely, but hopefully it does, I've found people tend to smile at this one.
3- Nothing up this sleeve A really simple little door puzzle. A normal looking door with a single doorknob. However when one reaches for the doorknob their hand passes through the doorknob and just hits the door. The door is in fact enchanted with a mirror image and the door is built backwards. Nothing complex here. Players may either 'feel' for the doorknob or cast a spell to dispel it and reveal its true form. It DOES however open from the left and swing right instead of your typical door which opens from the right and swings left.
4- Mirror Image This is the classic "What's missing" image puzzle. Now IDEALLY you would have to physical images to show the party, however after a long search online I couldn't find anything that wasn't a children puzzle. I wanted something like a Rembrandt painting, still life paintings, which had discrepancies. In the end however I had to do this verbally, which the party didn't hate but made the process more labor intensive than I hoped and required them to take notes as a team instead of visually inspect to images. Essentially the group walks into a room, at first it seems massive, until they realize they're looking at themselves. That's when they realize than the wall opposite where they entered is entirely a mirror, seamless it reflects the entire room perfectly. Now for my purpose, I put a 'rug' on the floor which was embroidered distinctly creating a 'box' area, kind of like a "hey look here" kind of thing. When the players look at the space I read off a list of about 9 things, rather quickly, I had even rehearsed reading the list before this session to make sure my reading was smooth and quick. However, when the group looked at the same items in the mirror I read off another list of about 12 items, 6 or 7 of which were the same items but the rest were different or of course missing from their physical real counter part. The goal was to match the real setting on the rug to the image in the mirror, all of the various missing or switched out items were sitting around the room, they just had to look for them. Now this can be varied in difficultly, you can limit how many times you're willing to repeat the list or be unwilling to slow down when you recite the list. Just handing the group the two lists is pointless though, because there's no challenge there. As I said, my ideal would have been to find some quality images of real, complex, paintings which had switched out details, print them out and then have the party compare and contrast them side by side like a real visual puzzle. Alas no such thing seems to exist on the entire internet, images from children's puzzles or ads for smartphone find the item games are all that I could gather. If you're lucky enough to go the image route, instead of a mirror room I suggest simply the group finds two 'seemingly' identical paintings next to each other and have them stab/burn/cut out the parts of the puzzle that don't match the other. But, since I couldn't find the images I had to do this verbally. In the end the process was taxing and mildly frustrating for both me and the party, eventually it boiled down to me repeating the two lists 4 times each and telling them to takes notes because four was all they were getting. However, I gave them ample reward for their effect and in turn the overall rating from the party was good, they felt because of the treasure they got the labor involved balanced well. I also used this room to subtly curse one characters shadow, causing the shadow to randomly come alive and attack him and the party, I used a basic "Shadow" creature since it even fits the description for the monster I wanted the curse to create. Breaking the curse later became an entire quest of its own. By subtly I mean multiple times I tossed out descriptions of the room and the light in the room, one character played with a curious item which flipped on and caused him to cast a "Distorted and wobbly looking shadow", but when turned off all returned to 'normal'. I then made several more comments through the puzzle about how his shadows seemed a little 'longer' than it should be, how it was 'crooked' ever so slightly. In some cases I even required a perception check to even notice it, even giving other characters descriptions of his shadow as they rolled perception checks to find various other items in the room for the puzzle.
5 - A Treasure I see So continuing fun with mirrors, this ones a simple little trick. The party finds a treasure chest, next to it is a mirror. When the party opens the chest they're saddened to find it's empty! however the mirror reflects a chest filled with loot! Oh the humanity! The solution is pretty simple, but unlike the door from before, just reaching into the chest bares no success. Either the group must dump the chest, the treasure magically falls from the chest onto the ground from the seemingly empty chest OR the group smashes the mirror and the treasure from within the chest is actually held in a space behind the mirror! Either answer works fine, you can make both a solution OR choose one to increase the challenge.
6 - The essence of Life So this ones a humorous little trick, depending on how dark a mindset your group has. The group comes to a alter of sorts, it doesn't have to be descriptive in terms of a god. On the alter is a bowl or chalice, a knife and some drops of blood various scattered across the alter and a clean white cloth wet with seemingly normal water. There is an inscription on the alter, "Fill me with the essence of life". Now you've given the group everything they need to commit self harm, HOWEVER the answer you've led them to doesn't need to be the answer! The mindset at this point is "Blood sacrifice" however, if you get more basic than that the answer can also be WATER. Duh. All living things require water! So now without knowing it they have a choice, they can fill the bowl with water and solve it OR begin cutting themselves. To fill this magical object with blood I typically require 75% of one characters HP, 50% of two character, 33% of 3 or 25% of 4 (rounding up to the nearest whole HP point of course). You can decide on the amounts of HP you require though, I usually take into account how well the groups doing and how experienced they are. Now if they choose to try water any amount works, in my game I don't harass my players with needing to bring food/water with them, I just assume any competent adventurer takes enough food and water with them for the amount of time they 'expect' to be out. Unless the quest I've given them explicitly will require survival mechanics, I just assume they have plenty of both. Therefore I don't bother specifying how much water they use. However if your game requires resource management of food and water then you may want to think of exactly how much water to remove from the party.
Ok, I got two more that the party really enjoyed and then I'm done for now. If you actually like my puzzles I have a good deal more I can share if you like.
7 - The Great Adding Machine This one will require some basic math skills. There is a room with 3 doors, you can actually use as many or as few doors as you like, but I built this puzzle originally as a road fork for 3 doors. Each door has a number above it. There is a lever, somewhere in the room (where ever you like) and above that lever is a pure black plate about 4 square feet in size, pulling the lever causes a crack of energy and the number above one of the doors lights up. A series of plates on the floor that the party didn't notice before also light up. These plates are in grid format ( i usually make it a 3x4 or 3x5 grid), each plate is about 2 feet by 2 feet (2'x2') in size. Each plate has a number on it in crystal which the light is shining through, I usually make the numbers sequential unless I has something specific in mind. When someone steps on a plate and stands there for a few seconds, the plate sinks in about two inches and the light coming from the plate changes color. After the first plate is activated, a math symbol pops up on the panel above the lever, it can be a "+, -, X or ÷" The goal is to build a formula that matches the outcome of the lit number above the door in question. Now I usually stick to the guide of 3, 3 tries in any puzzle like this and either they solve it OR the puzzle resets and they have to start over. But you can give them as many tries as you like to make it easier/harder. The hardest part of this to me is this does NOT follow PEMDAS math process. Every process completes the current formula. EXAMPLE: You step on a plate labeled 6, then the + appears and you step on 8. Your total is now 14. If the X appears and you step on 2 you now have 28. Even though the pemdas process would say the multiplication happens before the addition, in this puzzle each process happens immediately and you work from there. Now there is a simple way to get this across. Insert another black panel somewhere in the room, probably as close to the first panel as you can. This panel keeps a running total for the group, if they don't immediately get what's going on it should only take one failed attempt to figure it out. Now this requires some work on your end, since you can't really guess which number they'll pick to stand on first. You'll have to do the math in real time and lead them to a solution, because they don't get to pick the process symbol. YOU do, and I recommend you DO pick them and don't random roll them, while it is possible to get a solvable formula through rolling, it is also very possible to give your party a dead end. Basically if they pick a number, figure out where they need to take it and give them a symbol that will take them that way. For single digit numbers I recommend only using + and - OR multiply and divide. Double digit numbers, especially higher ones, can use a combination. Alternatively: You may also just choose to give them the entire process up front, say instead of JUST a + on the panel a + and then a - appear in sequence, then the party can pre-plan "Ok we stood on 6, were going to add next and THEN get a subtract and we want to reach 10" So they will know to just choose 5 and then 1 and bam, they have 10. This requires less work on your end but also makes the puzzle feel less like a challenge and more of a lock and key problem, because they aren't responding to changing situations just dealing with their first choice. However if they fail an attempt you do NOT have to give them the same process! Haha! This means they can't fail and go "Ok, we know we will get a plus and then a minus, so what do we want to start with?" Instead they have to choose and then deal with the process handed to them. If you have absolute math haters in the group this could be a problem puzzle, HOWEVER this is D&D and hating math and playing D&D is like wanting to drive but hating vehicles. I mean yeah anything is possible but the two pretty much go hand in hand and this isn't complicated math, there's no exponents, natural logs or any such. Getting my party to understand it was the most challenging part, at first they didn't associate the X with all the numbers on the floor and above the doors or what exactly they were getting at, then once they realized they were doing math one was set on the idea they were grounded by PEMDAS. After two failed tried a second panel "no one had noticed before" flicked on and began showing them each steps resolution. So again they step on 6 so the 2nd panel shows 6, the 1st panel then shows X, they step on 2 and now the 2nd panel shows 12. Once I did this they got it in a second and the rest fell into place. I recommend even numbers to start, odd numbers can be a bit more of a challenge. This puzzle though is totally reusable though and can be expanded or shrunk to fit many demands. It's also a puzzle my party doesn't grow weary of, I've reused it a few times and never once has it garnered a groan or complaint. A couple times they were actually happy to see it pop up and break up the streak of monster murder.
8 - Trap/Puzzle? The Door of Unyielding Insult The group comes to an enchanted door, a large door with a large face carved into it (think demon doors from Fable or the doors in Labyrinth). There is no handle, but the face is alive and acknowledges the group when they approach. The door has an AC of 14 or 15, your choice and I typically give it around 300+ hp. The point is to make it possible to break the door down but to make it a tedious and long process, urging the party to find another way. Now, dispelling the door or some such will turn it into a dead lump of wood, either this permanently bars entry through the path OR doubles the doors original hp, making the slog of breaking through now nightmarish. Again, this all encourages the group to interact instead of brute their way through. So the key is to insult the door bad enough to cause it to breakdown crying and open its self. For my party I made this a Charisma check of 25, and allowed up to 2 other party members to assist the process. You can tune the charisma check how you feel fit for your party however. I also rolled initiative for this though, because the door doesn't go quietly no matter your choice. The door has the following abilities and multiattacks every turn, once with Reduce to Tears and once with any other ability. - Hurl Insult: Target makes a CHA or INT save of 12 (target chooses which). On a fail the targets feelings are hurt and take -3 to CHA and INT checks for the next 5 turns. - Vulgar Insult: Tagets makes a CON save of 15, on a fail target becomes enraged. Roll a d6, on a 1 target melee attacks the door for double damage. 2-5 they attack their nearest ally, if multiple team mates are within the same distance random roll to decide. On a 6 target makes a melee attack on self for normal damage. -Reduce to Tears: Target makes a CON 12 save, on fail the target is reduced to tears and is considered stunned for 1 turn. -Shatter Self Confidence: CON 12 Save, On a fail player has Disadvantage on all attack for 2 minutes. Reaction- Whenever the door is reduced by 100 HP, takes 25 damage in a single attack or suffers a critical strike, it uses this reaction immediately. -Assassinate self Worth: Con 15 Save, on fail target performs a single melee attack on self. Target must then repeat check on every turn, a fail repeats the effect and will repeat until success or knock down. On success target is stunned for rest of turn (so their turn ends immediately).
Now your party might be in a different place stat wise, if these numbers seem a bit high or a bit low, feel free to alter them. It's just how I wrote it into my game for my group. It's all up to you how much HP it has, how hard or easy the checks are. The idea is the door should get at least 3~5 turns and should successfully use "Assassinate Self Worth" at least once. Even once I rolled initiative my group still kept trying to talk and negotiate with the door, they didn't understand where the situation had gone. I used the most ridiculous insults I could come up with, the door to me isn't very witty, and it is vulgar like a child. For instance the classic "You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" I felt fit perfectly for this. If the group decides to choose what insults to hurl in an attempt to open the door, maybe give them a +1 to their checks, or not, up to you. All I know is this one is a request challenge now, I get asked if this guy will make an appearance and folks want to find him. You may need to rebalance for your game, but he's a rather entertaining door.
Well I hope these have helped or at least given you some solid inspiration to help you create your own ideas. I may return to drop some other ideas later on. To reiterate though, keep your concepts as simple as you can and as clearly explained as possible. Try to make sure the challenge is completing the puzzle, NOT understanding the puzzle. Finally be open to alternate solutions/answers than what you expected. In some cases my party has come up with their own answers, in others they've tried so hard I felt bad and just let their answer be the solution. In some cases it's a bad puzzle, I've had my group get totally cemented on what the 'answer' is only to have it be no where near the 'right' answer I had intended. But they were so stuck on the specific answer they couldn't see they were dead wrong, so I gave it to them. In other cases they've had better solutions than I planned so I gave that to them too. The real point is this, unless the puzzle/challenge is intended to be a possible dead end, always make sure they complete the task. If the puzzle locks a treasure and nothing else, ok then maybe they can fail it and just miss out. "Oops sorry folks, you guessed wrong and now the chest is sealed forever, the door will never open or the treasure burst into magical flames, You fail, nothing to see here, move on people". However if the puzzle is a direct route, or the only route to say a final boss or a quest complete, you most certainly can't just hold up the entire party until they finally figure out your challenge. Unless a group is having serious fun with a challenge (like the door), I try to limit it to 10 to 15 minutes at most before I just give them a "Oh yeah, you figured it out! Congrats!" or just let them know they've failed and lost their chance to get the prize on the other side. Final Note: I always keep a composition book on hand, they're about 1~2 bucks at Wal-Mart.Take notes, furiously. Whenever you try something knew, take notes on what worked, what didn't and how much or little the group seemed to enjoy it. Heck you can even pause the game for a moment and ask the players "Ok so I tried something new, what did you folks think of it? Did you enjoy it? Was it too frustrating? What would YOU have preferred to change?" The good thing about D&D is it's very much like a video game in that almost ANY idea can be 're-skinned' and brought back looking different. The insulting door for instance could come back as a statue or two statues. The math machine can come back as a library book puzzle, where the party has to take books with numbers on their spines and insert the books in an order to complete the formula, etc. So even if a puzzle isn't great the first time, take good notes, fix it, alter it, break it down and rebuild it and try it again. Sometimes a challenge that feels like an utter failure is actually just a couple pushes away from greatness. I have a trap room I call "Spectral Bubbles!", took me three tries before finally on the 4th try it worked as I intended, every time I tried it the party liked it more and more until the final iteration which they just plain enjoyed. Good luck! And give those heroes hell!
I bought some hanayama puzzles for them to fix to either open a door, escape a room, unlock a chest or something like that, there are several difficult levels and when it is one of the higher levels I make sure it will be on the end of the session to give them along the puzzle so they can figure it out in between between sessions. My players seem to love it when I do this from time to time.
I know this thread is like a year old, but I just started DM'ing and am using your puzzle ideas. For the find what's missing mirror image I used a photo editor and edited out some things on a painting I found on google. Krita is good and open source so it's free.
I'm not a huge fan of puzzles or traps unless I can imagine a reason for them to be there. My approach is not to have a definitive answer, but to have a solution relevant to a proficiency. For example, a secret door is opened by pressing a series of panels in the correct order, each panel has an animal carved on it, the order is the order from a folktale of the classic witch battle through animal transformation. The actual order is not stated, but a player with proficiency in history, or a Bard, would know it on a successful roll. This makes the game about the characters not the players.
I know this thread is like a year old, but I just started DM'ing and am using your puzzle ideas. For the find what's missing mirror image I used a photo editor and edited out some things on a painting I found on google. Krita is good and open source so it's free.
If you're in the mood for a bowl of popcorn and a few hours of binge-watching, I have almost 40 puzzle ideas on my YouTube channel. Each video provides a full demonstration of how the puzzle works and I provide links to print-outs or props if needed. Anyways... check it out if interested: D&D Puzzle Videos on YouTube
Good luck! Glad to see you are incorporating puzzles into your game!
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I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
I find some of my favorite ideas come from video games I play. Games like Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft or even Harry Potter can give you a visual idea of how a puzzle works.
Example:
A tree that the players must navigate through. The catch: this tree comes alive and not only attempts to hit the players with its branches, but the roots fall up and down. A simple puzzle/obstacle used in the Chamber of Secrets video game featuring the Whomping Willow. Some solutions: Players have to time their runs to ensure they make it under each root while dodging branches to make it out. The tree has a weak spot and casting a particular spell calms the tree making it easier to navigate. Another example is there might be loot hidden in surprising places and to find them the players must activate special tiles or rugs that makes them jump to these areas. Another idea is they must blast certain insects onto weights in order to lift a door or cast a particular spell or use a particular object to dispell certain creatures. Another idea is a room with a series of statues that can magically detect beings within a certain radius. These statuses move their heads, moving that radius so the players have to sneak around them or even an NPC who is strolling around a particular area who they might need to keep out of sight from or a trickster ghost who pelts objects at you & hauls insults that players must try to shield themselves from or silence before it wakes up a manor, or an entire village. These ideas alone just came from my experiences playing Harry Potter games.
With a game like Skyrim, perhaps they have to find a claw or key with symbols, correctly arrange the symbols on a wall and turn the dial and a new passage is revealed or there is a hidden pressure plate that when trod on sets off a variety of things.
In World of Warcraft, some ideas include having to use a provided mount and throw vials of poison over a large army, or capturing various livestock and ride them safely back to the owners. Perhaps the local winery needs help making wine and players are given instructions on what to add to the batch. Perhaps there is a special well that shoots arcane drops into nearby pools of pristine water and the players have to run around collecting them. Perhaps players must disguise themselves as certain NPCs and navigate a city where a rebellion has erupted. Perhaps they must do jobs like arm citizens, provide food & water etc but they must navigate around guards and patrols who can dispel illusions. This city might have canals the players have to navigate or rooftops and rafters to grapple onto.
The one I used recently was a retelling of an old riddle:
A large room with two doors and two creatures (Boggles) standing side by side, together they speak in unison. “One of us always lies, one always tells the truth. One door leads to Peace. One door leads to Death. Ask us ONE question and then choose your fate.”
The correct answer would be to ask “what would the other say” and then take the opposite door. But secretly both creatures are liars and both doors lead to the same room. Inside the room is a sign that reads: “Rest in Peace.” And whatever monsters in the room attack.
The one I used recently was a retelling of an old riddle:
A large room with two doors and two creatures (Boggles) standing side by side, together they speak in unison. “One of us always lies, one always tells the truth. One door leads to Peace. One door leads to Death. Ask us ONE question and then choose your fate.”
The correct answer would be to ask “what would the other say” and then take the opposite door. But secretly both creatures are liars and both doors lead to the same room. Inside the room is a sign that reads: “Rest in Peace.” And whatever monsters in the room attack.
You are so deliciously evil. 10/10 5 Stars Two Thumbs WAYYYYYY Up!
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"...Debts must always be paid, sometimes in more than blood and gold. But this is Ordo Ursa," Ren places his hand on Erakas's chest, right where the Dragonborn's heart is. "Right here. And it always has been and always will be. Don't ever forget that. Because I won't."
Serandis Mendaen (Aereni Elven Rogue/maybe one day Wizard)- Project Point Playtest
This is a very simple puzzle, but one that can lead to some absolute hilarity.
Doors. Regular doors. The trick is getting them open.
Have the players need to twist the handle, one normally found on push/pull doors, but it is actually a sliding door, or it lifts straight up, or something.
The good thing about this is if your players get stuck, you can throw an intelligence check at them for them to realize the door slides, rather than opening one way or another, or have them do a combined strength check to bust down the door.
I have to say, one of my favorite situations became an unintentional puzzle. I put two stone gargoyles in front of a door and the group literally spend 30 - 40 minutues figuring out how to spring them to life. I never intended them to attack, yet they tried every possible thing to attack, or try to speak to them, detect magic, detect evil etc.
It was one of the funniest moments I ever had DMing a game. Sometimes, a non-puzzle is better than a real one.
A secret room inside a puzzle is always interesting, or even a monster with some clues. I like to think the best puzzles are usually the simplest ones. Also, there is an older edition (3.5) book called the Book of Challenges. It had a lot of good plans, traps, and puzzles in it. You can buy it on Amazon for under $30 or possibly find a PDF for it by searching 3.5 d&D puzzle book in Google. I suggest having a hard copy, though.
I'll give an example of a puzzle I created long ago that worked great. The heroes were trying to get into a vault inside an old abandoned castle. Throughout the castle was artwork, some depicting battles and others depicting heroic feats. Outside the vault room were six statues that would need 2-3 characters to lift them up and put them on their pedestals. Well, the statues were designed after scenes in 3 of the 10 or so paintings that were in the castle. One was a queen knighting her son's squire, one was an owlbear and a fighter engaging in combat and the last was two wizards dueling. If they paid attention, then they would see the answer was there for them. Something as simple as that can leave your players thumping their heads trying to figure it out I mean, in all honesty, player's overthink puzzles all the time. It's rare to have that one player that breaks your puzzle every time. (It has happened to me but he was a good sport and would let the other player's figure it out while he dropped clues.)
Hope this information helps you, and good luck DMing!
I did this puzzle and my poor players were so stumped it was hilarious seeing them over think and make the puzzle More complicated then it really was!
The first thing to remember is that having a puzzle based on video-game logic doesn't tend to work well. If I really want something like that, I have to create a puzzle for the players to solve that has physical things for them to interact with, but that also makes it less about their characters. What I've done for a few puzzles is have the puzzle be a descriptive element, but also has a time constraint to it that limits the re-tries. For example, I tell the players that they walk into a study room filled with chairs, end-tables, and cupboards. Also in the room are 4 statues standing in front of 4 paintings. One of the statues is holding a plaque with the number 3 on it. As the players go to inspect one of the paintings, the door shuts and locks behind them, and a yellow gas cloud starts filling the room with toxic spores.
In this scenario, the players need to find the 3 remaining plaques and put them on the correct statue before time runs out (death via poison/asphyxiation). The paintings behind the statues, if inspected, will show a certain number of items prominently. In this way, figuring out what to do is easy, but they have to make some perhaps difficult search tests. If I want to up the difficult more, there's a combat occurring at the same time, which forces the players to work within the round-round pacing system, and limits how many characters can search at a time.
Thanks a lot Yarium! great Idea, I know for experience that video game logic doesn't work but never could think about anything like what you said and I LOVE these kind of puzzles . ;)
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Edu Vancsek
Professional Dungeon Master
There is a similar thread with quite a few replies you can peruse over here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/tips-tactics/1096-puzzles-for-a-novice
PBP: DM of Titans of Tomorrow
PBP: Lera Zahuv in Whispers of Dissent
PBP: Evaine Brae in Innistrad: Dark Ascension
PBP: Cor'avin in Tomb of Annihilation
I'm rather new to DMing myself, only about a year and maybe 20 or so games so far, but everything has been done in one singular 'world' with a general campaign. I've kind of created an 'open world' with a singular main quest the party can pursue at their leisure. 3 Things : 1st - The world and story is all homebrew to be clear, so some of my puzzles and methods may not work for you if your game is lore locked or strictly following the 5e rule set. 2nd - I have a wonderful wet erase battle mat and a toner based printer (so printing is cheap and easy) which means I pre-build my dungeons on the computer and do a lot of physical puzzles, I find descriptive puzzles require the party to remember a lot, in cases where I really want to do a type of puzzle I'll even tell them "someone should probably be taking notes on this". 3rd - Before I started DMing I played a good bit and watched various other DMs who ranged from been DMing for 20 years to 2 years and did my best to take notes on their methods. I noted one continually perplexing thing which others here have already pointed out, DON'T get stuck to a singular solution. At most have a solution in mind, but never the method in which to get to that solution. I'll give you my candle puzzle below as an example of what I mean. I do my best to make the puzzle the challenge and not figuring out what are the important pieces nor how the puzzle works being the challenge. In my experience players (and I have a mix of new & veteran) don't mind a hard puzzle as long as they understand 'how' the puzzle works. For instance, I did a puzzle where in one room there were five paintings, they were scenic with a specific person and season in each painting, later another room with 10 other paintings appeared, however each painting had either a season OR a person on it. There were five alcove each with 2 places to hang a painting, the goal was to combine a seasonal scene with the matching individual from the previous room. The concept was pretty self explanatory for my group, HOWEVER, they had forgotten about the previous room because (foolishly) I had forgotten to mention to the group "You get the feeling this room may be of importance " or some such to hint that the paintings (or at least the room) mattered enough to maybe inspect each painting and takes notes. Typically if my group just inspects a room I'll hand them the puzzle pieces for such a upcoming challenge. So yeah, that's my advice when presenting a puzzle or challenge, make sure the core challenge is (in this example) matching the paintings in the correct alcove and NOT remembering there was a room with the answers/hints. Anyway! I'll also add a few puzzles/challenges which my party seemed to really enjoy, in many cases I find the party has the most fun with challenges that have a sense of humor, in some cases these can fail to uphold a serious tone for some games/dungeons but lest us not forget even villains sometimes have a sense of humor or use absurdity to confuse a would be hero. In a super serious game a player may never consider putting on the bright red giant squeaky clown shoes to solve a puzzle or get safely through a room, absurd, but the villain may also expect the typical hero to be unwilling to 'embarrass' themselves doing such a dorky thing. Finally - I see some people on various forums say they don't do this or that because they don't want to focus on the player but on their character, I find this to be counter intuitive to immersion. I try to throw interactive puzzles at the player half the time, giving them physical pieces to interact with I feel draws them in as if they were their character. I've also found that puzzles that involve speaking an answer out loud draws people into role playing more without thinking of it IF you allow them speaking it out loud without intention be the answer.
1 - Light it up! (Candle puzzle)
The group comes to a Candelabra with five candles on it. Only the center candle is burning however, the other four are not. So here's the rule/trick. Whenever a candle is lit OR extinguished the 2 immediately adjacent candles light or go out, basically the flip their state. If they're lit, they go out, if they're out then they light. The candles on the 'end' treat the candles on the opposite end as adjacent. Either on the candle holder or near it there is an inscription, "When five fires burn, the path will reveal. Three chances ye have, a fourth and ye begins anew." So the group has 3 shots to light them all OR the candles snuff out and the center re-ignites starting the puzzle from the beginning. If you want to make this puzzle easier you can remove the three chances part of the rules and just allow the group to beat on the puzzle instead. You can increase the difficultly by inserting penalties for failure, either deploying a magical trap or spawning a creature how you see fit onto the party for each failed attempt. You can put the candles near a door as a magical lock or on top of a treasure chest as well. It's a versatile little thing and you can combine candelabra's for a really nasty puzzle, I once put two of these five candelabra in a room, one on each side, but treated all ten candles as linked. Of course the three tries is not nearly enough 'moves' to solve ten candles but as a DM how many tries is up to you. Now when I deployed this, I had a very specific 'path' to solving it in mind, my group blew me away though by solving it in 2 moves. Here's their solution, looking at the candelabra like this -1 2 3 4 5- imagine that 3 is the starting point. So they lit 4, which extinguished 3 and lit 4 and 5. They then lit 2 which also lit 1 and 3. Done. Now I hadn't expected that, I had a more linear solve, BUT this worked perfectly and they completed the puzzle. It wasn't the answer I expected, but the solution was. That's my example of don't get stuck to your solution, the final 'answer' can be concrete but how the party arrives at it is not. But it's a guide, not a rule, the 'rule' should be the more complex the puzzle the less concrete your answer/solution to that puzzle should be.
2- A Rainbow of Doors -
Ok, so I talked about using humor? My party enjoys riddles, as long as they are sensible and pretty direct. So yeah, simple riddles, but I find for the most part major brain scratch riddles are VERY subjective which is more frustrating than anything. So, I did this puzzle which got big laughs at the end, comedy is all about timing I suppose. This is SUPER easy but it is the interaction and the break from monster slaying which I think makes it enjoyable. Don't use this early in a dungeon, I used this near the very end right before the final boss after many rooms of pure monster slaying. To increase the difficultly of this puzzle simply remove the color from the doors, since the color is the answer.
The group arrive at a door (which leads down a hallway of doors but only the DM knows this), this door is blue and has NO doorknob, lock or method of opening it. What it DOES have is a plaque with a inscription on it. "I'm your shade of sadness, the degrading fragments of gladeness. I am of the sky above, I am the richness of the abyss below. If nothing else, this is true, my one true color is. . . " So now I think the natural response most people have at this point is... BLUE. The moment a player speaks the word out loud "click" the door unlocks and opens. Puzzle SOLVED. I find this add immersion if when a player speaks it, you simply act as though their character uttered it in game, don't ask "Is that your answer?" or "Does your character say that?" If they say it out loud, just take that, they've obviously figured it out. At the end of this puzzle I had the entire party playing the game in character the rest of the night without even trying. However this door is not the END of this puzzle.
Once the blue door opens, maybe 15 feet further down this hallway is another similar door, but yellow. The Inscription reads "Like a coward you bellow. You're one untrustworthy fellow. You've shown your true color. . . " Clearly it's YELLOW. Same rules as before with unlocking.
The door opens and some feet further down the hallway, a GREEN door. Inscription " I am the fiend, I am serene. The hue of greed, the disease of need. Towards desire I lean, I am. . . " Green of course. Once spoken the door clicks and opens.
Yet ANOTHER door sits before the group, this time RED. Inscription "Blood and undead, turning the tide instead, my vibrance lies in . . . " You probably know the answer by now.
When the door opens, the FINAL door to this little puzzle sits. This door is ORANGE. The Inscription reads " Nothing rhymes with me. . . " This has gotten pretty solid laughs at every game I've used this at (with player unfamiliar to the puzzle of course), have also had a few local DMs use my puzzle and gotten good laughs as well. This is a good mood elevator for the party I find, and whatever you choose can sit behind this final door. For me it was a treasure, but it could just as easily lead to the final boss of a dungeon or even a puzzle room for treasure. Whatever you choose. NOW depending on your party, if they pick up on this puzzles gimmick you could have a killjoy just begin immediately blurting out the answer as soon as you tell them what color the door is (though it's never happened at a game I was at, people end up enjoying the puzzle enough they just want to go through the paces), if you find a party member behaving in such a way simply don't give the remaining doors a color, just keep the inscriptions in place. You can pretty easily figure out the word since it is rhymed in a way to lead you to the obvious answer. This requires they read the riddle to get the answer instead of the door giving it to them. Now maybe this puzzle doesn't fit into your game world very nicely, but hopefully it does, I've found people tend to smile at this one.
3- Nothing up this sleeve
A really simple little door puzzle. A normal looking door with a single doorknob. However when one reaches for the doorknob their hand passes through the doorknob and just hits the door. The door is in fact enchanted with a mirror image and the door is built backwards. Nothing complex here. Players may either 'feel' for the doorknob or cast a spell to dispel it and reveal its true form. It DOES however open from the left and swing right instead of your typical door which opens from the right and swings left.
4- Mirror Image
This is the classic "What's missing" image puzzle. Now IDEALLY you would have to physical images to show the party, however after a long search online I couldn't find anything that wasn't a children puzzle. I wanted something like a Rembrandt painting, still life paintings, which had discrepancies. In the end however I had to do this verbally, which the party didn't hate but made the process more labor intensive than I hoped and required them to take notes as a team instead of visually inspect to images. Essentially the group walks into a room, at first it seems massive, until they realize they're looking at themselves. That's when they realize than the wall opposite where they entered is entirely a mirror, seamless it reflects the entire room perfectly. Now for my purpose, I put a 'rug' on the floor which was embroidered distinctly creating a 'box' area, kind of like a "hey look here" kind of thing. When the players look at the space I read off a list of about 9 things, rather quickly, I had even rehearsed reading the list before this session to make sure my reading was smooth and quick.
However, when the group looked at the same items in the mirror I read off another list of about 12 items, 6 or 7 of which were the same items but the rest were different or of course missing from their physical real counter part. The goal was to match the real setting on the rug to the image in the mirror, all of the various missing or switched out items were sitting around the room, they just had to look for them. Now this can be varied in difficultly, you can limit how many times you're willing to repeat the list or be unwilling to slow down when you recite the list. Just handing the group the two lists is pointless though, because there's no challenge there. As I said, my ideal would have been to find some quality images of real, complex, paintings which had switched out details, print them out and then have the party compare and contrast them side by side like a real visual puzzle. Alas no such thing seems to exist on the entire internet, images from children's puzzles or ads for smartphone find the item games are all that I could gather. If you're lucky enough to go the image route, instead of a mirror room I suggest simply the group finds two 'seemingly' identical paintings next to each other and have them stab/burn/cut out the parts of the puzzle that don't match the other. But, since I couldn't find the images I had to do this verbally. In the end the process was taxing and mildly frustrating for both me and the party, eventually it boiled down to me repeating the two lists 4 times each and telling them to takes notes because four was all they were getting. However, I gave them ample reward for their effect and in turn the overall rating from the party was good, they felt because of the treasure they got the labor involved balanced well. I also used this room to subtly curse one characters shadow, causing the shadow to randomly come alive and attack him and the party, I used a basic "Shadow" creature since it even fits the description for the monster I wanted the curse to create. Breaking the curse later became an entire quest of its own. By subtly I mean multiple times I tossed out descriptions of the room and the light in the room, one character played with a curious item which flipped on and caused him to cast a "Distorted and wobbly looking shadow", but when turned off all returned to 'normal'. I then made several more comments through the puzzle about how his shadows seemed a little 'longer' than it should be, how it was 'crooked' ever so slightly. In some cases I even required a perception check to even notice it, even giving other characters descriptions of his shadow as they rolled perception checks to find various other items in the room for the puzzle.
5 - A Treasure I see
So continuing fun with mirrors, this ones a simple little trick. The party finds a treasure chest, next to it is a mirror. When the party opens the chest they're saddened to find it's empty! however the mirror reflects a chest filled with loot! Oh the humanity! The solution is pretty simple, but unlike the door from before, just reaching into the chest bares no success. Either the group must dump the chest, the treasure magically falls from the chest onto the ground from the seemingly empty chest OR the group smashes the mirror and the treasure from within the chest is actually held in a space behind the mirror! Either answer works fine, you can make both a solution OR choose one to increase the challenge.
6 - The essence of Life
So this ones a humorous little trick, depending on how dark a mindset your group has. The group comes to a alter of sorts, it doesn't have to be descriptive in terms of a god. On the alter is a bowl or chalice, a knife and some drops of blood various scattered across the alter and a clean white cloth wet with seemingly normal water. There is an inscription on the alter, "Fill me with the essence of life". Now you've given the group everything they need to commit self harm, HOWEVER the answer you've led them to doesn't need to be the answer! The mindset at this point is "Blood sacrifice" however, if you get more basic than that the answer can also be WATER. Duh. All living things require water! So now without knowing it they have a choice, they can fill the bowl with water and solve it OR begin cutting themselves. To fill this magical object with blood I typically require 75% of one characters HP, 50% of two character, 33% of 3 or 25% of 4 (rounding up to the nearest whole HP point of course). You can decide on the amounts of HP you require though, I usually take into account how well the groups doing and how experienced they are. Now if they choose to try water any amount works, in my game I don't harass my players with needing to bring food/water with them, I just assume any competent adventurer takes enough food and water with them for the amount of time they 'expect' to be out. Unless the quest I've given them explicitly will require survival mechanics, I just assume they have plenty of both. Therefore I don't bother specifying how much water they use. However if your game requires resource management of food and water then you may want to think of exactly how much water to remove from the party.
Ok, I got two more that the party really enjoyed and then I'm done for now. If you actually like my puzzles I have a good deal more I can share if you like.
7 - The Great Adding Machine
This one will require some basic math skills. There is a room with 3 doors, you can actually use as many or as few doors as you like, but I built this puzzle originally as a road fork for 3 doors. Each door has a number above it. There is a lever, somewhere in the room (where ever you like) and above that lever is a pure black plate about 4 square feet in size, pulling the lever causes a crack of energy and the number above one of the doors lights up. A series of plates on the floor that the party didn't notice before also light up. These plates are in grid format ( i usually make it a 3x4 or 3x5 grid), each plate is about 2 feet by 2 feet (2'x2') in size. Each plate has a number on it in crystal which the light is shining through, I usually make the numbers sequential unless I has something specific in mind. When someone steps on a plate and stands there for a few seconds, the plate sinks in about two inches and the light coming from the plate changes color. After the first plate is activated, a math symbol pops up on the panel above the lever, it can be a "+, -, X or ÷" The goal is to build a formula that matches the outcome of the lit number above the door in question. Now I usually stick to the guide of 3, 3 tries in any puzzle like this and either they solve it OR the puzzle resets and they have to start over. But you can give them as many tries as you like to make it easier/harder. The hardest part of this to me is this does NOT follow PEMDAS math process. Every process completes the current formula. EXAMPLE: You step on a plate labeled 6, then the + appears and you step on 8. Your total is now 14. If the X appears and you step on 2 you now have 28. Even though the pemdas process would say the multiplication happens before the addition, in this puzzle each process happens immediately and you work from there. Now there is a simple way to get this across. Insert another black panel somewhere in the room, probably as close to the first panel as you can. This panel keeps a running total for the group, if they don't immediately get what's going on it should only take one failed attempt to figure it out. Now this requires some work on your end, since you can't really guess which number they'll pick to stand on first. You'll have to do the math in real time and lead them to a solution, because they don't get to pick the process symbol. YOU do, and I recommend you DO pick them and don't random roll them, while it is possible to get a solvable formula through rolling, it is also very possible to give your party a dead end. Basically if they pick a number, figure out where they need to take it and give them a symbol that will take them that way. For single digit numbers I recommend only using + and - OR multiply and divide. Double digit numbers, especially higher ones, can use a combination. Alternatively: You may also just choose to give them the entire process up front, say instead of JUST a + on the panel a + and then a - appear in sequence, then the party can pre-plan "Ok we stood on 6, were going to add next and THEN get a subtract and we want to reach 10" So they will know to just choose 5 and then 1 and bam, they have 10. This requires less work on your end but also makes the puzzle feel less like a challenge and more of a lock and key problem, because they aren't responding to changing situations just dealing with their first choice. However if they fail an attempt you do NOT have to give them the same process! Haha! This means they can't fail and go "Ok, we know we will get a plus and then a minus, so what do we want to start with?" Instead they have to choose and then deal with the process handed to them. If you have absolute math haters in the group this could be a problem puzzle, HOWEVER this is D&D and hating math and playing D&D is like wanting to drive but hating vehicles. I mean yeah anything is possible but the two pretty much go hand in hand and this isn't complicated math, there's no exponents, natural logs or any such. Getting my party to understand it was the most challenging part, at first they didn't associate the X with all the numbers on the floor and above the doors or what exactly they were getting at, then once they realized they were doing math one was set on the idea they were grounded by PEMDAS. After two failed tried a second panel "no one had noticed before" flicked on and began showing them each steps resolution. So again they step on 6 so the 2nd panel shows 6, the 1st panel then shows X, they step on 2 and now the 2nd panel shows 12. Once I did this they got it in a second and the rest fell into place. I recommend even numbers to start, odd numbers can be a bit more of a challenge. This puzzle though is totally reusable though and can be expanded or shrunk to fit many demands. It's also a puzzle my party doesn't grow weary of, I've reused it a few times and never once has it garnered a groan or complaint. A couple times they were actually happy to see it pop up and break up the streak of monster murder.
8 - Trap/Puzzle? The Door of Unyielding Insult
The group comes to an enchanted door, a large door with a large face carved into it (think demon doors from Fable or the doors in Labyrinth). There is no handle, but the face is alive and acknowledges the group when they approach. The door has an AC of 14 or 15, your choice and I typically give it around 300+ hp. The point is to make it possible to break the door down but to make it a tedious and long process, urging the party to find another way. Now, dispelling the door or some such will turn it into a dead lump of wood, either this permanently bars entry through the path OR doubles the doors original hp, making the slog of breaking through now nightmarish. Again, this all encourages the group to interact instead of brute their way through. So the key is to insult the door bad enough to cause it to breakdown crying and open its self. For my party I made this a Charisma check of 25, and allowed up to 2 other party members to assist the process. You can tune the charisma check how you feel fit for your party however. I also rolled initiative for this though, because the door doesn't go quietly no matter your choice. The door has the following abilities and multiattacks every turn, once with Reduce to Tears and once with any other ability.
- Hurl Insult: Target makes a CHA or INT save of 12 (target chooses which). On a fail the targets feelings are hurt and take -3 to CHA and INT checks for the next 5 turns.
- Vulgar Insult: Tagets makes a CON save of 15, on a fail target becomes enraged. Roll a d6, on a 1 target melee attacks the door for double damage. 2-5 they attack their nearest ally, if multiple team mates are within the same distance random roll to decide. On a 6 target makes a melee attack on self for normal damage.
-Reduce to Tears: Target makes a CON 12 save, on fail the target is reduced to tears and is considered stunned for 1 turn.
-Shatter Self Confidence: CON 12 Save, On a fail player has Disadvantage on all attack for 2 minutes.
Reaction- Whenever the door is reduced by 100 HP, takes 25 damage in a single attack or suffers a critical strike, it uses this reaction immediately.
-Assassinate self Worth: Con 15 Save, on fail target performs a single melee attack on self. Target must then repeat check on every turn, a fail repeats the effect and will repeat until success or knock down. On success target is stunned for rest of turn (so their turn ends immediately).
Now your party might be in a different place stat wise, if these numbers seem a bit high or a bit low, feel free to alter them. It's just how I wrote it into my game for my group. It's all up to you how much HP it has, how hard or easy the checks are. The idea is the door should get at least 3~5 turns and should successfully use "Assassinate Self Worth" at least once. Even once I rolled initiative my group still kept trying to talk and negotiate with the door, they didn't understand where the situation had gone. I used the most ridiculous insults I could come up with, the door to me isn't very witty, and it is vulgar like a child. For instance the classic "You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" I felt fit perfectly for this. If the group decides to choose what insults to hurl in an attempt to open the door, maybe give them a +1 to their checks, or not, up to you. All I know is this one is a request challenge now, I get asked if this guy will make an appearance and folks want to find him. You may need to rebalance for your game, but he's a rather entertaining door.
Well I hope these have helped or at least given you some solid inspiration to help you create your own ideas. I may return to drop some other ideas later on. To reiterate though, keep your concepts as simple as you can and as clearly explained as possible. Try to make sure the challenge is completing the puzzle, NOT understanding the puzzle. Finally be open to alternate solutions/answers than what you expected. In some cases my party has come up with their own answers, in others they've tried so hard I felt bad and just let their answer be the solution. In some cases it's a bad puzzle, I've had my group get totally cemented on what the 'answer' is only to have it be no where near the 'right' answer I had intended. But they were so stuck on the specific answer they couldn't see they were dead wrong, so I gave it to them. In other cases they've had better solutions than I planned so I gave that to them too. The real point is this, unless the puzzle/challenge is intended to be a possible dead end, always make sure they complete the task. If the puzzle locks a treasure and nothing else, ok then maybe they can fail it and just miss out. "Oops sorry folks, you guessed wrong and now the chest is sealed forever, the door will never open or the treasure burst into magical flames, You fail, nothing to see here, move on people". However if the puzzle is a direct route, or the only route to say a final boss or a quest complete, you most certainly can't just hold up the entire party until they finally figure out your challenge. Unless a group is having serious fun with a challenge (like the door), I try to limit it to 10 to 15 minutes at most before I just give them a "Oh yeah, you figured it out! Congrats!" or just let them know they've failed and lost their chance to get the prize on the other side. Final Note: I always keep a composition book on hand, they're about 1~2 bucks at Wal-Mart.Take notes, furiously. Whenever you try something knew, take notes on what worked, what didn't and how much or little the group seemed to enjoy it. Heck you can even pause the game for a moment and ask the players "Ok so I tried something new, what did you folks think of it? Did you enjoy it? Was it too frustrating? What would YOU have preferred to change?" The good thing about D&D is it's very much like a video game in that almost ANY idea can be 're-skinned' and brought back looking different. The insulting door for instance could come back as a statue or two statues. The math machine can come back as a library book puzzle, where the party has to take books with numbers on their spines and insert the books in an order to complete the formula, etc. So even if a puzzle isn't great the first time, take good notes, fix it, alter it, break it down and rebuild it and try it again. Sometimes a challenge that feels like an utter failure is actually just a couple pushes away from greatness. I have a trap room I call "Spectral Bubbles!", took me three tries before finally on the 4th try it worked as I intended, every time I tried it the party liked it more and more until the final iteration which they just plain enjoyed. Good luck! And give those heroes hell!
I bought some hanayama puzzles for them to fix to either open a door, escape a room, unlock a chest or something like that, there are several difficult levels and when it is one of the higher levels I make sure it will be on the end of the session to give them along the puzzle so they can figure it out in between between sessions. My players seem to love it when I do this from time to time.
I know this thread is like a year old, but I just started DM'ing and am using your puzzle ideas. For the find what's missing mirror image I used a photo editor and edited out some things on a painting I found on google. Krita is good and open source so it's free.
I'm not a huge fan of puzzles or traps unless I can imagine a reason for them to be there. My approach is not to have a definitive answer, but to have a solution relevant to a proficiency. For example, a secret door is opened by pressing a series of panels in the correct order, each panel has an animal carved on it, the order is the order from a folktale of the classic witch battle through animal transformation. The actual order is not stated, but a player with proficiency in history, or a Bard, would know it on a successful roll. This makes the game about the characters not the players.
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
Wally DM on YouTube
I find some of my favorite ideas come from video games I play. Games like Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft or even Harry Potter can give you a visual idea of how a puzzle works.
Example:
A tree that the players must navigate through. The catch: this tree comes alive and not only attempts to hit the players with its branches, but the roots fall up and down. A simple puzzle/obstacle used in the Chamber of Secrets video game featuring the Whomping Willow. Some solutions: Players have to time their runs to ensure they make it under each root while dodging branches to make it out. The tree has a weak spot and casting a particular spell calms the tree making it easier to navigate. Another example is there might be loot hidden in surprising places and to find them the players must activate special tiles or rugs that makes them jump to these areas. Another idea is they must blast certain insects onto weights in order to lift a door or cast a particular spell or use a particular object to dispell certain creatures. Another idea is a room with a series of statues that can magically detect beings within a certain radius. These statuses move their heads, moving that radius so the players have to sneak around them or even an NPC who is strolling around a particular area who they might need to keep out of sight from or a trickster ghost who pelts objects at you & hauls insults that players must try to shield themselves from or silence before it wakes up a manor, or an entire village. These ideas alone just came from my experiences playing Harry Potter games.
With a game like Skyrim, perhaps they have to find a claw or key with symbols, correctly arrange the symbols on a wall and turn the dial and a new passage is revealed or there is a hidden pressure plate that when trod on sets off a variety of things.
In World of Warcraft, some ideas include having to use a provided mount and throw vials of poison over a large army, or capturing various livestock and ride them safely back to the owners. Perhaps the local winery needs help making wine and players are given instructions on what to add to the batch. Perhaps there is a special well that shoots arcane drops into nearby pools of pristine water and the players have to run around collecting them. Perhaps players must disguise themselves as certain NPCs and navigate a city where a rebellion has erupted. Perhaps they must do jobs like arm citizens, provide food & water etc but they must navigate around guards and patrols who can dispel illusions. This city might have canals the players have to navigate or rooftops and rafters to grapple onto.
The one I used recently was a retelling of an old riddle:
A large room with two doors and two creatures (Boggles) standing side by side, together they speak in unison. “One of us always lies, one always tells the truth. One door leads to Peace. One door leads to Death. Ask us ONE question and then choose your fate.”
The correct answer would be to ask “what would the other say” and then take the opposite door. But secretly both creatures are liars and both doors lead to the same room. Inside the room is a sign that reads: “Rest in Peace.” And whatever monsters in the room attack.
"...Debts must always be paid, sometimes in more than blood and gold. But this is Ordo Ursa," Ren places his hand on Erakas's chest, right where the Dragonborn's heart is. "Right here. And it always has been and always will be. Don't ever forget that. Because I won't."
Serandis Mendaen (Aereni Elven Rogue/maybe one day Wizard)- Project Point Playtest
This is a very simple puzzle, but one that can lead to some absolute hilarity.
Doors. Regular doors. The trick is getting them open.
Have the players need to twist the handle, one normally found on push/pull doors, but it is actually a sliding door, or it lifts straight up, or something.
The good thing about this is if your players get stuck, you can throw an intelligence check at them for them to realize the door slides, rather than opening one way or another, or have them do a combined strength check to bust down the door.
I have to say, one of my favorite situations became an unintentional puzzle. I put two stone gargoyles in front of a door and the group literally spend 30 - 40 minutues figuring out how to spring them to life. I never intended them to attack, yet they tried every possible thing to attack, or try to speak to them, detect magic, detect evil etc.
It was one of the funniest moments I ever had DMing a game. Sometimes, a non-puzzle is better than a real one.
"Shadow Hide You..."
Escape rooms are an amazing source of inspiration.
You may try looking for them on YouTube or best - experience them yourself :)
Thanks I’m definitely gonna use this puzzle for my players !
I did this puzzle and my poor players were so stumped it was hilarious seeing them over think and make the puzzle More complicated then it really was!
Someone want to set up a puzzle one shot? I would be intrigued to spend a night meandering through.
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I have run puzzle one-shots before... 4 or 5 of them so far. My players had an absolute blast!
I have one ready to go... I have run it three times already. I could possibly run another group through it sometime.
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
Wally DM on YouTube
If you get a group together for this, let me know.
Pull in some noobies and get their feet wet.
[ Site Rules & Guidelines ] --- [ Homebrew Rules & Guidelines ]
Send me a message with any questions or concerns