Author Topic: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice  (Read 18238 times)

KallMeKip

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Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« on: April 21, 2010, 10:38:48 PM »
Although I am good at doing dynamic combat and decent role playing encounters but I suck ass at riddles and puzzles they confuse me. Sadly my players love the few i have shamelessly stolen from movies. But I am running dry and they are demanding more. So if anyone has any fun riddles or puzzle ideas that I can use for my Players it would be much appreciated.

Mckma

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2010, 11:04:40 PM »
Things that I have wanted to try and implement are puzzles/riddles built into fighting encounters.  A specific idea and a general one:

1.  A frozen battlefield where characters slide until they hit an object or wall (like in many video games).  The characters would get to slide a number of times related to their move speed and have to more strategically think about movement.  It might be very frustrating though...

2.  Another inspiration from videogame "boss" battles.  Needing to do more of a process (drop the chandelier, hit the legs then the head, any number of things), to take it down faster than just beating on the guy.

Anyway, not exactly what you were getting after, but it would potentially be easier to work with...


Dom

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2010, 12:06:12 AM »
My players love riddles too, and I've found that making deep and fantastic riddles isn't as difficult as you might think. After all, as the DM there's no need to be completely original, and as they say the internet is your best friend.

Three steps to creating a deep riddle for your RPG games:

1: Grab an average riddle.
2: Find rhyming words that are appropriate and create the verses along the way.
3: Put it all together.


Let me explain in further detail:

1: Grab the riddle:

Personally, I simply use " riddles.com " , they've got a bunch of riddles, more than you'd ever need at least.

Go to List of Riddles and grab the first or fifth that looks interesting. For this example: I found this one.

What is it that is deaf, dumb and blind and always tells the truth?

A mirror.


This is a good basic outline for our riddle. The answer will be "A mirror" and the hints will be that it is "deaf, dumb and blind" and that it "always tells the truth"

I will have one verse for each hint in the riddle, so I already have an idea of how I want to structure the riddle.

Verse 1: something about deafness
Verse 2: something about dumbness
Verse 3: something about blindness
Verse 4: something about always telling the truth

2: Find rhyming words that are appropriate and create the verses along the way.

Let's face it, riddles that rhyme are pretty damn mysterious. They have that fantasy element to them, when compared to just your average riddles. So add that to your riddle. Whether it’s the ABAB, the AABB, or the ABBA rhyming scheme, that’s your choice. I’ll simply use AABB for this example.

Don’t feel restrained in proper grammar. Talk like Yoda, you can. More of a fantasy element, it adds. More wise, the words sound. (Ok, I’ll stop now.)

Now, another fantastic element for riddles can be repetition. For this example, I will use "It is I" at the beginning of each  verse, except perhaps the last one or the last two. We’ll see how that works out.
Find a rhyme dictionary. I use " rhymezone.com " simply because it was the first result on Google.

So, I want to make my rhyming words make sense when compared to the source riddle. For this example, the first verse is going to relate to deafness. So, I will use a word that is related to that, sound. The rhyming search engine gives me a bunch of good words that would rhyme with sound, so I decide to stick with sound.

It is I, who cannot hear any sound,

One of the words that rhyme with sound is astound, which could be the opposite of “dumb”. So, I’ll use that, keeping a repetition of “It is I”

It is I, who has no mind to astound,

Now, this sounds very strange, but this is simply a rough outline of what I want, so let’s move on to the next verse. “Blind” is a word that has quite a few rhyming words, so I’ll simply use it.

It is I, who is completely blind

A word that rhymes with blind is find. I could use that as in “finding the truth” or something. So I will.

And yet the truth with me you’ll always find.

3: Put it all together

It is I, who cannot hear any sound,
It is I, with no mind to astound.
It is I, who is completely blind
And yet the truth with me you’ll always find.
Who am I?


And there you have it, you have created a riddle. Now that you have it done, you can change the wording or replace some words.
Hope this helps. And sorry if the guide is a bit confusing, it’s quite late at night and I can barely think in a coherent fashion. :)

Bronnen

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2010, 12:35:06 AM »
Yeah, that last post was pretty good for making riddles. I agree with that. It's a very easy way.

As to Puzzles, do you mean in a dungeon? Or just in general?

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Dogfish

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2010, 08:59:29 AM »
I've been wanting, and waiting, to do a kind of reverse Frogger. High in a mountain the players are stuck with a river crossing. There is a bridge but it is so old and rickety that anyone wearing armour won't be able to cross. However the river has a large number of ice blocks that the party could jump between.

So just have a small set of tiles then even pieces of paper moving in from one side and out from the other at speed X.


Whilst not a puzzle I love making traps by taking a high-level, player beating, wizards spell list and turning them all into traps. This of course is less player killing if you take the traps to have a non-lethal outcome. I'll provide a few examples.

Touching a treasure chest causes the target to have invisibility and colour spray cast on them. This means they are blinded and can't see their part members and their party members can't see them. Just want to see how a party would react.

Gaesous form, gust of wind and a pit trap followed by dispel magic. This allows you to move your players anywhere you want, dump them there, and keep them there.

I have a few more.

malyss

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2010, 12:52:14 PM »
Yeah, that last post was pretty good for making riddles. I agree with that. It's a very easy way.

As to Puzzles, do you mean in a dungeon? Or just in general?

I thought that last post was pretty great for making riddles.

I think I may have to steal that.

KallMeKip

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2010, 01:41:57 PM »
Yeah, that last post was pretty good for making riddles. I agree with that. It's a very easy way.

As to Puzzles, do you mean in a dungeon? Or just in general?
In general, I am currently running a city campaign but there are tombs and dungeons underneath it . (But I do run dungeon crawls)

ArtfulShrapnel

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2010, 02:57:40 PM »
Yeah, that last post was pretty good for making riddles. I agree with that. It's a very easy way.

As to Puzzles, do you mean in a dungeon? Or just in general?
In general, I am currently running a city campaign but there are tombs and dungeons underneath it . (But I do run dungeon crawls)

While I don't have any specific tips off the top of my head, I can recommend addding time pressure to any puzzle to make it more exciting. Giving players too long to think will make things less fun.

I recommend non-lethal outcomes for failing to figure out the puzzle. An oncoming swarm of rust monsters, thieving nymphs, or something that causes a shitty status effect would be good. (party-wide blindness in a dungeon?! How much fun would that be?) If you put a solution nearby behind another puzzle, then you can get a twofer. (They have to navigate the maze without their eyes to find the blindness cure. The walls are made of glass so they feel extra dumb when they finally get it.)

KallMeKip

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2010, 09:52:37 PM »
Yeah, that last post was pretty good for making riddles. I agree with that. It's a very easy way.

As to Puzzles, do you mean in a dungeon? Or just in general?
In general, I am currently running a city campaign but there are tombs and dungeons underneath it . (But I do run dungeon crawls)

While I don't have any specific tips off the top of my head, I can recommend addding time pressure to any puzzle to make it more exciting. Giving players too long to think will make things less fun.

I recommend non-lethal outcomes for failing to figure out the puzzle. An oncoming swarm of rust monsters, thieving nymphs, or something that causes a shitty status effect would be good. (party-wide blindness in a dungeon?! How much fun would that be?) If you put a solution nearby behind another puzzle, then you can get a twofer. (They have to navigate the maze without their eyes to find the blindness cure. The walls are made of glass so they feel extra dumb when they finally get it.)
Devious and cunning I love it.

ArtfulShrapnel

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #11 on: April 23, 2010, 11:06:55 AM »

Devious and cunning I love it.

I'll add the caveat of "make sure the puzzle and trap make sense for the scenario" and to not rub people's faces in how clever your traps are. The words "I can't believe you guys don't get this" will instantly piss off your players.

By "make sure it makes sense" i mean that the entrance to the king's treasury shouldn't be opened by a highly complicated puzzle. Why not use a key? Or protective spells keyed to the King's voice? Does he have to solve the puzzle everytime he makes a withdrawal? Wouldn't that leave a bunch of obvious marks from where he's taken certain actions hundreds of times?

The "punishment" should also be suitable. If the king's treasury sets off a fireball when the puzzle is done wrong, the kingdom is going to go through a LOT of changes of leadership. Instant death shouldn't be used in a place where people are intended to go.

I also wonder... why do "forbidden tombs" so often have riddle guards? Why would answering a riddle about eggs let you in to tomb of the sacred king? I would think they would just have deathtraps designed to kill anyone who entered. Or just have big fucking rocks blocking the doors. On that note, why even build doors if the tomb is forbidden? The whole idea of using riddles to "qualify" adventurers for entry is just strange to me, especially since the riddles and puzzles usually tell very little about the adventurers other than that they're good at dodging rocks.

When using a riddle, I usually try to pick one related to the scenario. If the forbidden king was famous for his military strategy, have a riddle about war, or strategy, or the nations he conquered. Perhaps hide a solution in your game fluff somewhere so the players can actually do research to help come up with clues, or uncover them with Lore/Knowledge checks. Giving context like that will help get the players in the right mindset from the get-go, and feel less let down when they find the solution. "The tomb to the greatest wizard ever is guarded by a riddle about cats? WTF?" (though I suppose you could use this to give some character to the dead wizard. If it's a little known fact that he loved his cat and did all sorts of shit to keep it from dying, then a cat riddle would make sense and be add a sort of charming humanity to the dungeon.)

I've thought about using riddles as a sort of "adventurer quality assurance" thing. How about a "personality test" style riddle? Ask the players a complex moral question, and the right answer is the one that matches the morals of the guy who built the temple.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2010, 11:13:49 AM by ArtfulShrapnel »

Dom

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Re: Riddles Puzzles and other noncombat Encounter advice
« Reply #12 on: April 23, 2010, 01:42:10 PM »
It's true that riddles work best when they make sense in the context of the scenario and the dungeon that is being explored. However, sometimes it's simply a cool feature to add. A wizard's tomb with a riddle about cats makes little to no sense. Then again, why would there be a riddle in any dungeon?

Oedipus defeated the sphinx troubling Thebes by solving it's riddle, and because of it the sphinx killed herself. Why would she do that, if she could have simply killed Oedipus for answering correctly, like she had done to all the others who had answered incorrectly?

Fantasy doesn't need to always make sense. Sometimes it's good to simply think of something cool and use it. Think Rule of Cool.