So I'm DMing for my first time and I wanted to make a silly puzzle by putting a magical door to an extra loot room. It will be a huge stone door with a blue tint and I want to put a riddle on it. The catch is that the door just needs to be slid open not pushed or pulled. With all that, what kind of riddle can I put on the door to elude to this but not give it away and still give my players a decent puzzle to solve.
Do you need a puzzle or riddle? Riddle by definition requires words, but if you’re ok with a puzzle you could describe it has having no hinges or strange ones, and have some red herring type pictographs or cravings on it. If you want a specific riddle, I’ve just googled them in the past and modified one that was close enough to what I needed.
What’s the overall theme of the area this loot room is in? I might try to find something that fits with the rest of the dungeon rather than trying to find a specific riddle. For example if it were in a sunken ruin or other type of water theme, something to do with a crab would make sense but would feel kinda anachronistic if it were a volcanic or fire themed dungeon.
Also in my experience players seem to either immediately get it or take a long time to figure it out, so don’t get discouraged if it seems too easy or they’re just not getting it.
"Opening this door requires LATERAL thinking." Should be fairly easy to solve if you stress the word 'lateral' in some way but also plays into preconceptions of word puzzles.
I really like the lateral thinking one. If you want something that rhymes try: “Neither up nor Down nor forward or back, If you don’t push me right I won’t open a crack.”
"I move like the midday sun" could be suitably cryptic. The sun at midday doesn't rise or fall, it only moves sideways!
Or, you could have this:
I move like this: X
They may ponder the meaning of the X, especially if you describe it as "an Ecks". It'll be when they realise it's also "A Cross" that it will become simple.
So I'm DMing for my first time and I wanted to make a silly puzzle by putting a magical door to an extra loot room. It will be a huge stone door with a blue tint and I want to put a riddle on it. The catch is that the door just needs to be slid open not pushed or pulled. With all that, what kind of riddle can I put on the door to elude to this but not give it away and still give my players a decent puzzle to solve.
Do you need a puzzle or riddle? Riddle by definition requires words, but if you’re ok with a puzzle you could describe it has having no hinges or strange ones, and have some red herring type pictographs or cravings on it. If you want a specific riddle, I’ve just googled them in the past and modified one that was close enough to what I needed.
What’s the overall theme of the area this loot room is in? I might try to find something that fits with the rest of the dungeon rather than trying to find a specific riddle. For example if it were in a sunken ruin or other type of water theme, something to do with a crab would make sense but would feel kinda anachronistic if it were a volcanic or fire themed dungeon.
Also in my experience players seem to either immediately get it or take a long time to figure it out, so don’t get discouraged if it seems too easy or they’re just not getting it.
"Opening this door requires LATERAL thinking." Should be fairly easy to solve if you stress the word 'lateral' in some way but also plays into preconceptions of word puzzles.
I really like the lateral thinking one. If you want something that rhymes try: “Neither up nor Down nor forward or back, If you don’t push me right I won’t open a crack.”
"I move like the midday sun" could be suitably cryptic. The sun at midday doesn't rise or fall, it only moves sideways!
Or, you could have this:
I move like this:
X
They may ponder the meaning of the X, especially if you describe it as "an Ecks". It'll be when they realise it's also "A Cross" that it will become simple.
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shove and tug I'll move not
cast and blast I'll not leave my spot
don't be blue I'll step aside
figure this out to get inside