I really enjoyed reading these - I'd hoped you'd post more details after your recent overview. They sound like great puzzles and it's good to get ideas, particularly in seeing how others approach setting the puzzles, preparing for them and similar.
I agree about it being hard to create good puzzles that don't involve 'pausing the game'; I think you can bend this if you're with a group that love puzzles, but much better if you can integrate it, as you did here. A recent one I did involved deciphering a 'gnomish mechanism' which opened a castle gate, the twist being that the party were in combat at the time, having stormed the gatehouse and sealed themselves in with the guards (who they at face value could overwhelm) while many more guards were trying to break down the doors, giving time-pressure. There were seven wheels/levers and each round a PC could study the mechanism (Int check to find out something), try something (which might give information, but if moving something jammed increased the probability of it breaking) or, indeed, fight the guards, heal people, cast spells and all the usual combat activities.
This was great!
Date: 2019-06-10 10:00 pm (UTC)I agree about it being hard to create good puzzles that don't involve 'pausing the game'; I think you can bend this if you're with a group that love puzzles, but much better if you can integrate it, as you did here. A recent one I did involved deciphering a 'gnomish mechanism' which opened a castle gate, the twist being that the party were in combat at the time, having stormed the gatehouse and sealed themselves in with the guards (who they at face value could overwhelm) while many more guards were trying to break down the doors, giving time-pressure. There were seven wheels/levers and each round a PC could study the mechanism (Int check to find out something), try something (which might give information, but if moving something jammed increased the probability of it breaking) or, indeed, fight the guards, heal people, cast spells and all the usual combat activities.