This will be my first time DM'ing and I'm all ears for your ideas on how the puzzle below might be designed:
After character creation but before the campaign's official first session, I'll be mailing my players physical 'call to adventure' letters to their homes. These are personalized letters on weathered parchment from specific NPCs that each player will be receiving. Prior to mailing these out, I'll be drawing or inscribing on each something different in invisible ink, somewhere on the page. A letter, a word, a simple illustration, a rune, a geometric shape etc.,...TBD.
The adventurers will, towards the end of the campaign, find themselves either trapped in a room or stopped at a seemingly impenetrable door. After letting them discuss options for how to proceed and/or letting them try a bit to progress via force or magic, someone will (god willing) precept a thin beam of moonlight piercing into the room from the cavern above, or that is peaking through a break in the clouds...or something similar of that nature. That would be when I'd dim the lights (irl), and take out a small LED black light torch I bought and shine it upon the table. Through their own trial and error (or maybe some hints from a friendly NPC if they're really struggling) they will eventually figure out that there are 'moon runes' (or whatever) on their call to adventure letters, which they must use to solve the puzzle of how to escape the room or unlock the door in question. Think 'Doors of Durin' outside of Moria, except on some props from the first ever campaign session instead of on the door itself. And yes, of course I will be making a few extra of these letters for when one of the players inevitably tips a glass of wine onto his/her letter earlier on in the campaign.
Now what I'm not worried about is how to make this puzzle fit into the lore and plot of the story. Sticking with the LOTR analogy, the players will be receiving the letters to start off the campaign by way of a good-guy NPC who is akin to someone like Gandalf, and the 'escape the room' or impenetrable door they need to use these moon runes at is located at an old fortress akin to Dol Guldur. If you don't know LOTR (seriously? For shame...): The letters come to the players from probably one of the most *magical* good-guy NPCs they'll cross paths with in the entire campaign, and the location of the puzzle is the main evil NPC's former semi-secret lair. Point being, I have no doubt I'll be able to come up with a half-way decent explanation for the whole thing over the course of an entire campaign's worth of game-play. The whole thing wreaks of magical esoteric crap.
What I would love your thoughts on, however, is what the heck the actual puzzle is! What are the runes on the call to adventure letters? How does the party need to interpret them to unlock the door or free themselves from the room? What's the mechanic?
I have some vague ideas but would love to hear yours!
Maybe the moonlight does shine on a door, a la 'the Doors of Durin', which is inscribed with a riddle that also glows in the moonlight, and the clues on the letters help them say the answer it aloud, leading to an 'open sesame'-style moment.
Maybe the door, or the floor of the room, has a geometric shape design that they have to rearrange by taking hints from the runes on their letters, which unlocks the door or opens a secret passage.
Something a bit more meta where the runes' respective locations on each of the letters correspond to puzzle locations in the room itself and they have to physically do something in the room that corresponds to each runes' location on the letter. (N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, SW). I.e.:
each player stands on pressure plates in a specific order
light candles in a specific order
place rune stones into slots in the walls/floor for each corresponding location
This will be my first time DM'ing and I'm all ears for your ideas on how the puzzle below might be designed:
After character creation but before the campaign's official first session, I'll be mailing my players physical 'call to adventure' letters to their homes. These are personalized letters on weathered parchment from specific NPCs that each player will be receiving. Prior to mailing these out, I'll be drawing or inscribing on each something different in invisible ink, somewhere on the page. A letter, a word, a simple illustration, a rune, a geometric shape etc.,...TBD.
The adventurers will, towards the end of the campaign, find themselves either trapped in a room or stopped at a seemingly impenetrable door. After letting them discuss options for how to proceed and/or letting them try a bit to progress via force or magic, someone will (god willing) precept a thin beam of moonlight piercing into the room from the cavern above, or that is peaking through a break in the clouds...or something similar of that nature. That would be when I'd dim the lights (irl), and take out a small LED black light torch I bought and shine it upon the table. Through their own trial and error (or maybe some hints from a friendly NPC if they're really struggling) they will eventually figure out that there are 'moon runes' (or whatever) on their call to adventure letters, which they must use to solve the puzzle of how to escape the room or unlock the door in question. Think 'Doors of Durin' outside of Moria, except on some props from the first ever campaign session instead of on the door itself. And yes, of course I will be making a few extra of these letters for when one of the players inevitably tips a glass of wine onto his/her letter earlier on in the campaign.
Now what I'm not worried about is how to make this puzzle fit into the lore and plot of the story. Sticking with the LOTR analogy, the players will be receiving the letters to start off the campaign by way of a good-guy NPC who is akin to someone like Gandalf, and the 'escape the room' or impenetrable door they need to use these moon runes at is located at an old fortress akin to Dol Guldur. If you don't know LOTR (seriously? For shame...): The letters come to the players from probably one of the most *magical* good-guy NPCs they'll cross paths with in the entire campaign, and the location of the puzzle is the main evil NPC's former semi-secret lair. Point being, I have no doubt I'll be able to come up with a half-way decent explanation for the whole thing over the course of an entire campaign's worth of game-play. The whole thing wreaks of magical esoteric crap.
What I would love your thoughts on, however, is what the heck the actual puzzle is! What are the runes on the call to adventure letters? How does the party need to interpret them to unlock the door or free themselves from the room? What's the mechanic?
I have some vague ideas but would love to hear yours!