Roleplaying: Puzzle Rooms
Jun. 7th, 2019 09:35 amBoth of my parties found the location of one of the MacGuffins, each hidden in a "challenge" room, i.e. a chamber in the dungeon designed in-character and out-of-character to present an interesting challenge and reward to the players.
One was a not-library filled with wooden boxes, which shocked you when you opened one, and a guide who partially answered questions about them, with the aim of finding the MacGuffin in one.
The other was a set of altars, bowls, and knives, with instructions to let a drop of blood into the cup on the altar, which produced various magical effects, and the aim of figuring out what was the "right" way to do that.
I'd really wanted to include things like this, as it's very appropriate to the underlabyrinth setting -- I was partly inspired by things like the Labyrinth film -- and a big DnD tradition.
I knew I was taking a risk because both the first two challenges were at the puzzle end of the spectrum, and this sort of puzzle is actually really hard to do well in a roleplaying game.
The problem is, if it relies on figuring something out, it's not really a roleplaying game, it reduces to the players pausing the game and figuring it out.
I think it works well when the puzzle connects to things in the world, where there's a puzzle to be solved, but the individual steps involve small relevant in-world decisions, like combat, or needing to successfully use a skill, or losing or gaining health.
I sketched these particular rooms out ages ago and then just pulled them out when the party found them, and was very pleasantly surprised how my off-the-cuff details worked out.
Both parties successfully navigated most of the puzzle. Gp 1 retreated when they were running low on health, but paid attention to the specifics and know exactly what they're trying next time. I really loved that they had a little chart correctly reconstructing most of my notes. Gp 2 got rather frustrated when it kept seeming they were getting closer but still not getting there.
I think there were some things I sort of did but could still have done better. I should have explicitly thought, "If they get stuck, what options are open to them? Is there an in-world way of getting hints for a sufficient cost? Or will going away and returning help?" And I deliberately tried to allow many indirect approaches to get useful information, but not instantly bypass the puzzle, but I could have been more explicit about what sort of things they might find out, so more of the things they tried I could have a helpful-but-not-insta-win answer ready.
One was a not-library filled with wooden boxes, which shocked you when you opened one, and a guide who partially answered questions about them, with the aim of finding the MacGuffin in one.
The other was a set of altars, bowls, and knives, with instructions to let a drop of blood into the cup on the altar, which produced various magical effects, and the aim of figuring out what was the "right" way to do that.
I'd really wanted to include things like this, as it's very appropriate to the underlabyrinth setting -- I was partly inspired by things like the Labyrinth film -- and a big DnD tradition.
I knew I was taking a risk because both the first two challenges were at the puzzle end of the spectrum, and this sort of puzzle is actually really hard to do well in a roleplaying game.
The problem is, if it relies on figuring something out, it's not really a roleplaying game, it reduces to the players pausing the game and figuring it out.
I think it works well when the puzzle connects to things in the world, where there's a puzzle to be solved, but the individual steps involve small relevant in-world decisions, like combat, or needing to successfully use a skill, or losing or gaining health.
I sketched these particular rooms out ages ago and then just pulled them out when the party found them, and was very pleasantly surprised how my off-the-cuff details worked out.
Both parties successfully navigated most of the puzzle. Gp 1 retreated when they were running low on health, but paid attention to the specifics and know exactly what they're trying next time. I really loved that they had a little chart correctly reconstructing most of my notes. Gp 2 got rather frustrated when it kept seeming they were getting closer but still not getting there.
I think there were some things I sort of did but could still have done better. I should have explicitly thought, "If they get stuck, what options are open to them? Is there an in-world way of getting hints for a sufficient cost? Or will going away and returning help?" And I deliberately tried to allow many indirect approaches to get useful information, but not instantly bypass the puzzle, but I could have been more explicit about what sort of things they might find out, so more of the things they tried I could have a helpful-but-not-insta-win answer ready.