As it says on the tin. Doors that require a secret solution for entry. Most of the clues will be on the door, but a cryptic clue can be provided socially to the PCs. Can be a puzzle to make the door open or just to reveal its location, although the PCs will know the general area the door will be found in. An NPC accompanying the party has seen the door in operation before and knows some of its secrets.
I am very much against "puzzle" locking mechanisms on doors that give away the method of opening. What crazy person constructs a door that is intended to keep people out but can be opened by solving a puzzle that it provides? It's far less useful than a basic lock. I think it's fine if the solution is found somewhere else (and by that I don't mean "lying around in the villain's lair to be found"). The puzzle is often fun but it makes no sense (I'm looking at you, Curse of Strahd).
Like I said, the door wouldn't give enough info to solve itself. The party will be in posession of the key clue that's necessary to solve it. The builders would assume only authorized people would know it.
And what if you want to make a door to allow your allies entry, but you don't want to have to distribute physical key copies to everyone who's meant to be allowed? Physical keys that can be stolen off an ally's dead body. A key clue might be tortured out of the owner, but the bad guys would have to guess it exists. The location of the door is another secret most people don't know. So I think it's pretty secure and actually a logical solution.
It could also incorporate magical means of distinguishing friend from foe, as the party actually are on the side of the door builders. They weren't let in on the secrets of the door only because they're not elite enough. But they have an NPC with them who has been led through the doors before and remembers some of the solution, but not all was revealed to him.
It sounds interesting but I don't do puzzle doors because if I say something I don't want to get it misunderstood and have to spend 30min wasting the party time finding something made in 30seconds that wasn't the point of the puzzle but something made up so it doesn't make the party feel like they waste time. But I will do a riddle door that the party must speak to open and have it written down so the party can understand me because I have heard my voice get very deep and groggy if I don't pay attention.
Partly, but the password alone is not enough to open the door. It requires the password plus some kind of secret action.
For example, the magical password could cause the mechanical mechanism to reveal itself. Then you have to manipulate the mechanical mechanism the right way to free the lock. Like one of those remove the loop from the horseshoe without cutting the string kind of physical puzzles. I'd just buy one of those if we were playing in person.
It doesn't have to work this way. The "password" or other secret knowledge could be incorporated into the solution in some other way. Maybe the secret is that the numbers of the combination must add to 13. But every time you change one of the tumblers, it affects the othrers according to some pattern. You have to figure out a sequence that allows you to enter numbers totalling 13.
I could come up with a puzzle myself, but it's a lot of work, and maybe someone knows a brilliant one I can just steal.
Buy/make a "sliding squares" puzzle and make the person opening the door solve it on a timer. Take their finishing time and turn that into (rounds/turns) and have some RP or a fight to keep the rest of the party entertained.
If you feel like it, add punishments for failure/too much time taken;
Longer than a minute? Welcome to fight #1
Longer than 10 minutes? The alarm for the compound in now going off.
Taking 20 minutes? The boss came to you and wants to lock you up. Guess the adventure changed and this is your new start.
Buy/make a "sliding squares" puzzle and make the person opening the door solve it on a timer. Take their finishing time and turn that into (rounds/turns) and have some RP or a fight to keep the rest of the party entertained.
If you feel like it, add punishments for failure/too much time taken;
Longer than a minute? Welcome to fight #1
Longer than 10 minutes? The alarm for the compound in now going off.
Taking 20 minutes? The boss came to you and wants to lock you up. Guess the adventure changed and this is your new start.
I like this as I will already have a ticking clock. They will be retreating from battle, looking for an escape route. Maybe if the Ranger does a good job covering their tracks with Pass Without Trace, they’ll buy some time.
I’m thinking I can use a sliding block puzzle with a picture, and the picture will be the clue. We play online, but I can probably find a site that can generate such a puzzle with an image I upload. If not I’ll code it myself.
This isn't really a "good" puzzle, but it was a funny one. I created this puzzle for a villainous one-shot. I'll go ahead and just cut and paste everything I wrote down:
"The Trapped Hallway: A shifting laser grid fills this room. If a minion steps into one of the lasers one of the torches on the wall releases Burning Hands at level 3. There is a 3 second delay before the torches are able to fire again. The controls for the trap are on the far end of the hall. The torches cannot be turned off completely… only disabled for 1 minute. It is possible to sneak through the hallway without triggering any lasers, but it requires a DC25 Acrobatics check. The DC reduces to 15 if the minions find a way to fill the room with some kind of mist or fog. The door at the end of the hall is locked… it can be opened with the key found in Area 4, unlocked with a DC18 lockpick, or can be opened using the trap controls, which takes the form of a quiz, which is meant to prove that the person trying to open the door isn’t a villain:
WARNING. ONLY THE GOOD MAY PASS. ALL EVIL WILL BE DESTROYED! PROVE YOURSELF NOW.
QUESTION 1: Drugs are…
A: Friggin’ sweet!
B: The only way I can get through this life…
C: Bad.
QUESTION 2: Should you trust a stranger?
A: Only if they say they’re friends with my parents.
B: Never.
C: It’s the stranger that shouldn’t trust me.
QUESTION 3: How should you treat someone when they’re different than you?
A: You should treat them with respect and care.
B: Find their weaknesses and exploit them.
C: Find something about them that’s funny and laugh at it.
If the minions give any wrong answers the door releases a Lightning Bolt at level 5 fired down the hallway and the door remains locked."
This isn't really a "good" puzzle, but it was a funny one. I created this puzzle for a villainous one-shot. I'll go ahead and just cut and paste everything I wrote down:
"The Trapped Hallway: A shifting laser grid fills this room. If a minion steps into one of the lasers one of the torches on the wall releases Burning Hands at level 3. There is a 3 second delay before the torches are able to fire again. The controls for the trap are on the far end of the hall. The torches cannot be turned off completely… only disabled for 1 minute. It is possible to sneak through the hallway without triggering any lasers, but it requires a DC25 Acrobatics check. The DC reduces to 15 if the minions find a way to fill the room with some kind of mist or fog. The door at the end of the hall is locked… it can be opened with the key found in Area 4, unlocked with a DC18 lockpick, or can be opened using the trap controls, which takes the form of a quiz, which is meant to prove that the person trying to open the door isn’t a villain:
WARNING. ONLY THE GOOD MAY PASS. ALL EVIL WILL BE DESTROYED! PROVE YOURSELF NOW.
QUESTION 1: Drugs are…
A: Friggin’ sweet!
B: The only way I can get through this life…
C: Bad.
QUESTION 2: Should you trust a stranger?
A: Only if they say they’re friends with my parents.
B: Never.
C: It’s the stranger that shouldn’t trust me.
QUESTION 3: How should you treat someone when they’re different than you?
A: You should treat them with respect and care.
B: Find their weaknesses and exploit them.
C: Find something about them that’s funny and laugh at it.
If the minions give any wrong answers the door releases a Lightning Bolt at level 5 fired down the hallway and the door remains locked."
I like it. I think maybe “Only the good may pass,” is my secret clue, instead of being printed on the door. Only I may use, “Only the neutral may pass,” as many of my party and the group they are fighting for are lawful neutral.
You didn’t give the answers. I’m guessing one answer to each question is good, one neutral, and one evil.
I was mostly just going for joke answers, since I think it's pretty obvious which answer is the "good" one, but if you were to write more complex questions it could work as a more nuanced puzzle. I think it would make sense to have it basically be a sentient door and have it basically do a questionairre.
A manticore approaches 5 innocent people. You have the power to distract the manticore, causing it to instead approach one person. If you do not act, 5 innocent people will die, but it will not be your fault. If you do act, your actions will save those 5 people, but the death of one innocent person will be your fault. What is the right thing to do?
If they give any answer, it does nothing. If they discuss it amongst themselves, the door opens, granting them access to the Philosophers Garden.
For a random easter egg:
The wall has a sculpture of a potato embossed from it, with no explanation. If the players heat the potato up, as they might whilst messing around, they gain a "hot potato" cursed item which can only have the curse broken by giving it to someone else.
A door which disappears in absolute (magical) darkness. Put it in a place full of blindsight creatures and no lights!
I was mostly just going for joke answers, since I think it's pretty obvious which answer is the "good" one, but if you were to write more complex questions it could work as a more nuanced puzzle. I think it would make sense to have it basically be a sentient door and have it basically do a questionairre.
Actually I'm thinking that if they aren't really good (or neutral in my case), the door will be able to do an Insight check contested against their Deception check. So they need to be either sneaky or good (neutral).
A manticore approaches 5 innocent people. You have the power to distract the manticore, causing it to instead approach one person. If you do not act, 5 innocent people will die, but it will not be your fault. If you do act, your actions will save those 5 people, but the death of one innocent person will be your fault. What is the right thing to do?
If they give any answer, it does nothing. If they discuss it amongst themselves, the door opens, granting them access to the Philosophers Garden.
I think I will use this riddle with TransmorpherDDS's clue "Only the neutral may enter." I feel like not pulling any levers is the true neutral thing to do.
I think at least two players must make convincing arguments for conflicting solutions. I will even make them make Persuasion checks, DC depending on how good of an argument it is, to reward players who buff Charisma stats.
Partly, but the password alone is not enough to open the door. It requires the password plus some kind of secret action.
For example, the magical password could cause the mechanical mechanism to reveal itself. Then you have to manipulate the mechanical mechanism the right way to free the lock. Like one of those remove the loop from the horseshoe without cutting the string kind of physical puzzles. I'd just buy one of those if we were playing in person.
It doesn't have to work this way. The "password" or other secret knowledge could be incorporated into the solution in some other way. Maybe the secret is that the numbers of the combination must add to 13. But every time you change one of the tumblers, it affects the othrers according to some pattern. You have to figure out a sequence that allows you to enter numbers totalling 13.
I could come up with a puzzle myself, but it's a lot of work, and maybe someone knows a brilliant one I can just steal.
I like the idea of a two-part sequence where you need the password to reveal the code. It makes sense to have the code on the door if you already effectively input the password, as handing out keys might be difficult in the game world.
If the door was made by a specific group who have some kind of secret knowledge or history you could have a bunch of pictograms that have to be put into the right sequence, but where the pictograms are meaningless to anyone who hasn't heard the story. So the PCs could already have heard the story, and need to get the pictograms into the right order.
Example:
Pictogram 1: A steaming bowl
Pictogram 2: Three bears looking angry
Pictogram 3: A broken chair
Pictogram 4: A girl walking merrily in the woods
Pictogram 5: Three bears leaving a house
Pictogram 6: A girl in a bed
Pictogram 7: A girl running from a house
The PCs need to get them into the right order. This would be a good way to impart the importance of the story/history in the world as well.
Somehow, that moment of Absurdism really worked for me in Strahd. Logically it's silly and shouldnt work, but... it just clicked and matched the vibe for me.
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As it says on the tin. Doors that require a secret solution for entry. Most of the clues will be on the door, but a cryptic clue can be provided socially to the PCs. Can be a puzzle to make the door open or just to reveal its location, although the PCs will know the general area the door will be found in. An NPC accompanying the party has seen the door in operation before and knows some of its secrets.
I am very much against "puzzle" locking mechanisms on doors that give away the method of opening. What crazy person constructs a door that is intended to keep people out but can be opened by solving a puzzle that it provides? It's far less useful than a basic lock. I think it's fine if the solution is found somewhere else (and by that I don't mean "lying around in the villain's lair to be found"). The puzzle is often fun but it makes no sense (I'm looking at you, Curse of Strahd).
Like I said, the door wouldn't give enough info to solve itself. The party will be in posession of the key clue that's necessary to solve it. The builders would assume only authorized people would know it.
And what if you want to make a door to allow your allies entry, but you don't want to have to distribute physical key copies to everyone who's meant to be allowed? Physical keys that can be stolen off an ally's dead body. A key clue might be tortured out of the owner, but the bad guys would have to guess it exists. The location of the door is another secret most people don't know. So I think it's pretty secure and actually a logical solution.
It could also incorporate magical means of distinguishing friend from foe, as the party actually are on the side of the door builders. They weren't let in on the secrets of the door only because they're not elite enough. But they have an NPC with them who has been led through the doors before and remembers some of the solution, but not all was revealed to him.
It sounds interesting but I don't do puzzle doors because if I say something I don't want to get it misunderstood and have to spend 30min wasting the party time finding something made in 30seconds that wasn't the point of the puzzle but something made up so it doesn't make the party feel like they waste time. But I will do a riddle door that the party must speak to open and have it written down so the party can understand me because I have heard my voice get very deep and groggy if I don't pay attention.
You mean like a door that's password protected..?
Partly, but the password alone is not enough to open the door. It requires the password plus some kind of secret action.
For example, the magical password could cause the mechanical mechanism to reveal itself. Then you have to manipulate the mechanical mechanism the right way to free the lock. Like one of those remove the loop from the horseshoe without cutting the string kind of physical puzzles. I'd just buy one of those if we were playing in person.
It doesn't have to work this way. The "password" or other secret knowledge could be incorporated into the solution in some other way. Maybe the secret is that the numbers of the combination must add to 13. But every time you change one of the tumblers, it affects the othrers according to some pattern. You have to figure out a sequence that allows you to enter numbers totalling 13.
I could come up with a puzzle myself, but it's a lot of work, and maybe someone knows a brilliant one I can just steal.
Buy/make a "sliding squares" puzzle and make the person opening the door solve it on a timer. Take their finishing time and turn that into (rounds/turns) and have some RP or a fight to keep the rest of the party entertained.
If you feel like it, add punishments for failure/too much time taken;
Longer than a minute? Welcome to fight #1
Longer than 10 minutes? The alarm for the compound in now going off.
Taking 20 minutes? The boss came to you and wants to lock you up. Guess the adventure changed and this is your new start.
I like this as I will already have a ticking clock. They will be retreating from battle, looking for an escape route. Maybe if the Ranger does a good job covering their tracks with Pass Without Trace, they’ll buy some time.
I’m thinking I can use a sliding block puzzle with a picture, and the picture will be the clue. We play online, but I can probably find a site that can generate such a puzzle with an image I upload. If not I’ll code it myself.
This isn't really a "good" puzzle, but it was a funny one. I created this puzzle for a villainous one-shot. I'll go ahead and just cut and paste everything I wrote down:
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I like it. I think maybe “Only the good may pass,” is my secret clue, instead of being printed on the door. Only I may use, “Only the neutral may pass,” as many of my party and the group they are fighting for are lawful neutral.
You didn’t give the answers. I’m guessing one answer to each question is good, one neutral, and one evil.
I was mostly just going for joke answers, since I think it's pretty obvious which answer is the "good" one, but if you were to write more complex questions it could work as a more nuanced puzzle. I think it would make sense to have it basically be a sentient door and have it basically do a questionairre.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
The riddle is:
A manticore approaches 5 innocent people. You have the power to distract the manticore, causing it to instead approach one person. If you do not act, 5 innocent people will die, but it will not be your fault. If you do act, your actions will save those 5 people, but the death of one innocent person will be your fault. What is the right thing to do?
If they give any answer, it does nothing. If they discuss it amongst themselves, the door opens, granting them access to the Philosophers Garden.
For a random easter egg:
The wall has a sculpture of a potato embossed from it, with no explanation. If the players heat the potato up, as they might whilst messing around, they gain a "hot potato" cursed item which can only have the curse broken by giving it to someone else.
A door which disappears in absolute (magical) darkness. Put it in a place full of blindsight creatures and no lights!
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Actually I'm thinking that if they aren't really good (or neutral in my case), the door will be able to do an Insight check contested against their Deception check. So they need to be either sneaky or good (neutral).
I think I will use this riddle with TransmorpherDDS's clue "Only the neutral may enter." I feel like not pulling any levers is the true neutral thing to do.
I think at least two players must make convincing arguments for conflicting solutions. I will even make them make Persuasion checks, DC depending on how good of an argument it is, to reward players who buff Charisma stats.
I like the idea of a two-part sequence where you need the password to reveal the code. It makes sense to have the code on the door if you already effectively input the password, as handing out keys might be difficult in the game world.
If the door was made by a specific group who have some kind of secret knowledge or history you could have a bunch of pictograms that have to be put into the right sequence, but where the pictograms are meaningless to anyone who hasn't heard the story. So the PCs could already have heard the story, and need to get the pictograms into the right order.
Example:
The PCs need to get them into the right order. This would be a good way to impart the importance of the story/history in the world as well.
Somehow, that moment of Absurdism really worked for me in Strahd. Logically it's silly and shouldnt work, but... it just clicked and matched the vibe for me.