Just as the title says. The party is trapped in a dimension where non-native magic fizzles and they've gotta solve puzzles to escape rooms until they get back to the material plan. Any advice for how this would be run?
It depends a bit on how sharp your group is at solving puzzles, riddles etc. And also how much they enjoy that sort of thing.
A couple of things could be that through a number of other riddles, they gather up letter clues to a caesar cipher, but they need key to solve how the letters have been shifted.
For a varied group of characters, you would want to make sure to interchange between some mental, and some physical abilities, and probably have some sequences that can be rolled for with others that simply have to be solved around the table.
Another way to create a sense of tension is to have a running clock on some of it (either in number of turns to succeed at a task or in real time with a stop clock).
The challenges could vary hugely from ninja-warrior type obstacles that needs to be traversed to move from one room to another - or perhaps take a look at the Tv show Crystal Maze for inspiration as well - it's more puzzle solving based, but people still have to get into a room to retrieve a key (example here: https://youtu.be/D_kJK8scSLk - apart from the cringe style, you can hopefully see how some of the challenges could translate :-) )
Worth considering their characters abilities. One of the key problems with puzzles and riddles is that it is a test of the players, not the characters. A player who is great ar riddles and is playing an intelligence 6 character will do better than a player who sucks at riddles with an intelligence 20 character.
One thing to do this could be to plan ahead, and write each character out what they see, based on their intelligence, so that the person with low intelligence on their character sees "a bunch of symbols on the wall", middle intelligence sees "letters in an old dialect, perhaps?", and the hgh intelligence sees numbers in old draconic.
Making the puzzles dynamic and require multiple people will stop one character from ruling them all.
If you have the time and skills, make an actual escape room, or a puzzle box which reveals clues with each lock undone, and the players are given a key each time they pass a test so that they can unlock the next bit? physical items and props go well for these things.
It sounds like this is going to involve only non-combat challenges? You mentioned that "non-native magic fizzles" and I take that to mean your players won't be able to cast any spells. If you do put any combat encounters into this, it's worth keeping in mind that you've nerfed your casters. I assume that's not the main intent, and you're just trying to prevent your players from skipping through the challenges with spells like telekinesis, polymorph, stone shape, fly, etc.
Just in general, I'd recommend thinking of "escape room" style challenges as having 2 categories: character challenges and player challenges. With a character challenge, the player picks a strategy and the dice determine the outcome -- anything with locks, hidden items, traps, and so on. Player challenges are puzzles and riddles, which kind of flip the situation around, making the player directly responsible for the outcome -- their character's stats are the tools they have to help them with it, but success has to come directly from the player and not from the dice. For example, if you have a classic "riddle door" puzzle, hiding extra clues to the answer around the room/map lets players use their characters' skills to help them if they're having trouble, but no amount of dice-rolling will answer the riddle (unless you specifically hide the answer somewhere).
One last thing, from my own experience: I learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to require your players to solve a chess puzzle, unless you are absolutely sure that at least 1 of them actually plays chess. Even an easy "find the checkmate move" puzzle is not fun for a group that's collectively struggling to remember how the pieces move. That probably seems like an oddly specific thing to mention here, but this was the mistake that taught me the difference between challenges for the characters, and challenges for the players. I had sabotaged myself by not leaving any places for clues or help to be found, so I had to scramble to improvise a way out of it when the players got frustrated, and it really wasn't much fun for anybody, so don't make my mistake.
(Edit: in the time it took me to compose and post this, ThorukDuckSlayer mentioned the same thing... hopefully this still helps a little.)
Just as the title says. The party is trapped in a dimension where non-native magic fizzles and they've gotta solve puzzles to escape rooms until they get back to the material plan. Any advice for how this would be run?
I do not know but how should I run a campaign I have not played before
It depends a bit on how sharp your group is at solving puzzles, riddles etc. And also how much they enjoy that sort of thing.
A couple of things could be that through a number of other riddles, they gather up letter clues to a caesar cipher, but they need key to solve how the letters have been shifted.
For a varied group of characters, you would want to make sure to interchange between some mental, and some physical abilities, and probably have some sequences that can be rolled for with others that simply have to be solved around the table.
Another way to create a sense of tension is to have a running clock on some of it (either in number of turns to succeed at a task or in real time with a stop clock).
The challenges could vary hugely from ninja-warrior type obstacles that needs to be traversed to move from one room to another - or perhaps take a look at the Tv show Crystal Maze for inspiration as well - it's more puzzle solving based, but people still have to get into a room to retrieve a key (example here: https://youtu.be/D_kJK8scSLk - apart from the cringe style, you can hopefully see how some of the challenges could translate :-) )
OK thanks. I really appreciate it. This should help run a game.
Worth considering their characters abilities. One of the key problems with puzzles and riddles is that it is a test of the players, not the characters. A player who is great ar riddles and is playing an intelligence 6 character will do better than a player who sucks at riddles with an intelligence 20 character.
One thing to do this could be to plan ahead, and write each character out what they see, based on their intelligence, so that the person with low intelligence on their character sees "a bunch of symbols on the wall", middle intelligence sees "letters in an old dialect, perhaps?", and the hgh intelligence sees numbers in old draconic.
Making the puzzles dynamic and require multiple people will stop one character from ruling them all.
If you have the time and skills, make an actual escape room, or a puzzle box which reveals clues with each lock undone, and the players are given a key each time they pass a test so that they can unlock the next bit? physical items and props go well for these things.
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It sounds like this is going to involve only non-combat challenges? You mentioned that "non-native magic fizzles" and I take that to mean your players won't be able to cast any spells. If you do put any combat encounters into this, it's worth keeping in mind that you've nerfed your casters. I assume that's not the main intent, and you're just trying to prevent your players from skipping through the challenges with spells like telekinesis, polymorph, stone shape, fly, etc.
Just in general, I'd recommend thinking of "escape room" style challenges as having 2 categories: character challenges and player challenges. With a character challenge, the player picks a strategy and the dice determine the outcome -- anything with locks, hidden items, traps, and so on. Player challenges are puzzles and riddles, which kind of flip the situation around, making the player directly responsible for the outcome -- their character's stats are the tools they have to help them with it, but success has to come directly from the player and not from the dice. For example, if you have a classic "riddle door" puzzle, hiding extra clues to the answer around the room/map lets players use their characters' skills to help them if they're having trouble, but no amount of dice-rolling will answer the riddle (unless you specifically hide the answer somewhere).
One last thing, from my own experience: I learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to require your players to solve a chess puzzle, unless you are absolutely sure that at least 1 of them actually plays chess. Even an easy "find the checkmate move" puzzle is not fun for a group that's collectively struggling to remember how the pieces move. That probably seems like an oddly specific thing to mention here, but this was the mistake that taught me the difference between challenges for the characters, and challenges for the players. I had sabotaged myself by not leaving any places for clues or help to be found, so I had to scramble to improvise a way out of it when the players got frustrated, and it really wasn't much fun for anybody, so don't make my mistake.
(Edit: in the time it took me to compose and post this, ThorukDuckSlayer mentioned the same thing... hopefully this still helps a little.)