Im an intermediate player who started dm'ing for a group of friends that I got into dnd and im having trouble coming up with puzzles that are hard but dont stop the flow of the game. considering I dont want to crush them with a puzzle that I thought was easy because I knew the answer or something that only people who know the books would be able to answer. As a player I like combat so thats what ive tried to make a lot of but my players are requesting puzzles and im at a bit of a loss
You could attempt to integrate "lights out" or "mastermind" style puzzle rooms into your adventures, I prefer to incorporate them as door locks or chest locks in the event the rogue fails miserably. Advanced mechanics would be something like setting up a dungeon with 7 or 8 boss-like monsters that would have to be defeated in a certain order to accomplish a specific outcome. You could theme each monster as an animal, color or element that would be needed. Complex traps can be run like puzzles that have to be solved instead of disarmed, enter Indiana Jones. Having several items in an area that have to be collected to gain access or unlock the "super-special-awesome-loot-box" can be fun as well.
Regardless of your weapon of choice, and I can't stress this enough, making the solution to the puzzle the *only* method to progress will suck the fun outta the room.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I can't say I have much direct experience here, but I can tell you what I'm doing for my current campaign.
I have taken ideas from games and puzzles that I've seen outside of D&D and found ways to incorporate them into rooms and plotlines.
I gave the cleric a recurring dream with a message from his goddess, but I removed 2/3s of the words. The first words are "come closer" which means he must try to do things she likes to become spiritually closer to her. As he does this, I give him other parts of the message in dreams but he has to figure out how the words make sense together. He's been scratching his head over it for a few weeks now.
I also based a room on the old game, Mastermind, in which one player arranges some colored pegs behind a screen and the other player tries to guess. The first player then reveals how many pegs are correct and how many are in the right order, but not which ones. The game continues until the second player gets the correct sequence or runs out of guesses. I made this into a room puzzle in which players must light up the correct 4 out of seven magic stones to banish the elementals in the next room. They have the option of connecting an electrical circuit (for d8 damage) that will show them how many stones are correct, but not which ones. Of course they also have the option of fighting their way thru the elementals...
I also designed a dungeon as an LSAT style logic puzzle. There are four keys, each with a symbol, scattered around the dungeon. They must be placed in four keyholes in the correct order. Murals on the walls of some rooms connect the symbols to names. Four skeletal minotaurs roam the dungeon, each with a locket that has a clue inside. The clues say things like "x" did not go first, and "y" was not next to "z". By putting all the clues together, the PCs can determine the proper sequence, or get hit by a fire trap every time they get it wrong.
I wrote both of these, but have not yet tried them on the party. They will do the logic puzzle tonight. I'll report back later to post how it went.
A google search for "D&D Puzzles" gave me a nice selection of pages to look at. I managed to find numerous ideas for puzzles, several of which make up the next stage in the party's adventure. (Cave system where each room is a puzzle)
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Make the puzzle a portable piece of treasure such as a scroll case with no obvious opening with a riddle written in elven on the outside. The scroll opens once the answer to the riddle is spoken in elven. The spells within could be thematically related to the answer or be scaled on the spot to whatever level they are, or it’s a map to a hidden cache of magic weapons, armor, expendables, etc. This works best if you actually have a prop to give the players like a puzzle box for a gem of seeing or maybe a puzzle jug for a potion. A wand with the command word etched into it as an anagram is another idea.
Alternatively, you could make it the focus of an adventure like the “Challenge Of The Champions” from old issues of Dungeon magazine where the players are presented with situations that have multiple possible solutions. This would give the players their fill of puzzles for awhile, and then you could get back to other aspects of D&D. Challenge of the Champions was predicated on the local Adventurers Guild hosting a 10 room competition; however, the author was prior service (Air Force, I think), so Leaders Reaction Courses may have been an inspiration (also usually 10 scenarios), so you could google those for scenario ideas.
Finally, don’t make the puzzle an inhibitor to the plot or access to other areas of the dungeon allowing the players to spend as little or as much time on it as they are willing, such as a vault door to a side treasure room with items that may make the BBEG easier to combat but not required or the gnomes closet that contains his spare spellbook if she could just remember the trick to the door handle, she’d gladly loan it to you.
Anyway, those are my thoughts... I’ve personally had a lot of success with mobile items. Although, there are ways around them like a chime of opening for the scroll.
We have an entire playlist of more than 80 Puzzle ideas that you can use in your game. Each video gives full demonstration on how it works and ideas on how to use it in 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!
Im an intermediate player who started dm'ing for a group of friends that I got into dnd and im having trouble coming up with puzzles that are hard but dont stop the flow of the game. considering I dont want to crush them with a puzzle that I thought was easy because I knew the answer or something that only people who know the books would be able to answer. As a player I like combat so thats what ive tried to make a lot of but my players are requesting puzzles and im at a bit of a loss
You could attempt to integrate "lights out" or "mastermind" style puzzle rooms into your adventures, I prefer to incorporate them as door locks or chest locks in the event the rogue fails miserably. Advanced mechanics would be something like setting up a dungeon with 7 or 8 boss-like monsters that would have to be defeated in a certain order to accomplish a specific outcome. You could theme each monster as an animal, color or element that would be needed. Complex traps can be run like puzzles that have to be solved instead of disarmed, enter Indiana Jones. Having several items in an area that have to be collected to gain access or unlock the "super-special-awesome-loot-box" can be fun as well.
Regardless of your weapon of choice, and I can't stress this enough, making the solution to the puzzle the *only* method to progress will suck the fun outta the room.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I can't say I have much direct experience here, but I can tell you what I'm doing for my current campaign.
I have taken ideas from games and puzzles that I've seen outside of D&D and found ways to incorporate them into rooms and plotlines.
I gave the cleric a recurring dream with a message from his goddess, but I removed 2/3s of the words. The first words are "come closer" which means he must try to do things she likes to become spiritually closer to her. As he does this, I give him other parts of the message in dreams but he has to figure out how the words make sense together. He's been scratching his head over it for a few weeks now.
I also based a room on the old game, Mastermind, in which one player arranges some colored pegs behind a screen and the other player tries to guess. The first player then reveals how many pegs are correct and how many are in the right order, but not which ones. The game continues until the second player gets the correct sequence or runs out of guesses. I made this into a room puzzle in which players must light up the correct 4 out of seven magic stones to banish the elementals in the next room. They have the option of connecting an electrical circuit (for d8 damage) that will show them how many stones are correct, but not which ones. Of course they also have the option of fighting their way thru the elementals...
I also designed a dungeon as an LSAT style logic puzzle. There are four keys, each with a symbol, scattered around the dungeon. They must be placed in four keyholes in the correct order. Murals on the walls of some rooms connect the symbols to names. Four skeletal minotaurs roam the dungeon, each with a locket that has a clue inside. The clues say things like "x" did not go first, and "y" was not next to "z". By putting all the clues together, the PCs can determine the proper sequence, or get hit by a fire trap every time they get it wrong.
I wrote both of these, but have not yet tried them on the party. They will do the logic puzzle tonight. I'll report back later to post how it went.
Go to Walmart and get yourself a puzzle book.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
A google search for "D&D Puzzles" gave me a nice selection of pages to look at. I managed to find numerous ideas for puzzles, several of which make up the next stage in the party's adventure. (Cave system where each room is a puzzle)
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
thx all
Make the puzzle a portable piece of treasure such as a scroll case with no obvious opening with a riddle written in elven on the outside. The scroll opens once the answer to the riddle is spoken in elven. The spells within could be thematically related to the answer or be scaled on the spot to whatever level they are, or it’s a map to a hidden cache of magic weapons, armor, expendables, etc. This works best if you actually have a prop to give the players like a puzzle box for a gem of seeing or maybe a puzzle jug for a potion. A wand with the command word etched into it as an anagram is another idea.
Alternatively, you could make it the focus of an adventure like the “Challenge Of The Champions” from old issues of Dungeon magazine where the players are presented with situations that have multiple possible solutions. This would give the players their fill of puzzles for awhile, and then you could get back to other aspects of D&D. Challenge of the Champions was predicated on the local Adventurers Guild hosting a 10 room competition; however, the author was prior service (Air Force, I think), so Leaders Reaction Courses may have been an inspiration (also usually 10 scenarios), so you could google those for scenario ideas.
Finally, don’t make the puzzle an inhibitor to the plot or access to other areas of the dungeon allowing the players to spend as little or as much time on it as they are willing, such as a vault door to a side treasure room with items that may make the BBEG easier to combat but not required or the gnomes closet that contains his spare spellbook if she could just remember the trick to the door handle, she’d gladly loan it to you.
Anyway, those are my thoughts... I’ve personally had a lot of success with mobile items. Although, there are ways around them like a chime of opening for the scroll.
Grab some popcorn and come on over...
http://www.youtube.com/c/wallydm
We have an entire playlist of more than 80 Puzzle ideas that you can use in your game. Each video gives full demonstration on how it works and ideas on how to use it in your game.
A fast growing community of 13K subscribers plus a Discord and a Best Seller D&D puzzle book.
Join us!
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
Wally DM These all day long. Upvote from me
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