D&D puzzles that make your players think
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ค. 2024
- Thanks to DM's Guild for sponsoring this video all about "Puzzles, Predicaments, and Perplexities"! Use the coupon code PUZZLEDGINNY to save 10% on digital orders of $4.99 or more through December 26, 2022.
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► INDEX
0:00 Intro
0:28 Puzzles are hard
2:08 Puzzles, Predicaments and Perplexities
3:35 How to do puzzles right
3:50 Make it relevant
5:25 Help players out
7:14 Introduce risk
8:35 Be open-minded
9:28 My favorite puzzle
12:40 Outro
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ginnydi.com
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Thanks so much for the feature, and glad people are enjoying our puzzles book! :D Also, by popular demand, there is now a discounted bundle available that includes all three volumes!
Thanks Jaspor! 🥰
Thanks Jaspor and Ginny! I am trying to not sound all infomercially here but the bundle is almost 130 pages and 37 puzzles for around 10$. Thats a steal! And I am just now starting to look at the 4 adventures provided. This will be super nice to just drop into my campaign :)
Oh man, I just got this and it is 🔥🔥🔥💯. I'm going to check out your other stuff too.
The problem with puzzle supplements is that most puzzles you'll find online just plain and simply SUCK.
You spend time checking them out and thinking them through, only to find that you won't be able to actually use it in your game. Gambling 5 or even 10 bucks on *maybe* getting good puzzles just doesn't sound great.
The free example we get in this video doesn't really give us any indication on the quality of the puzzles. It tells us that players can make right and wrong choices, but there's no comment on what hints the keys give and how players can get to the right conclusions, so truthfully, we don't even have a single puzzle to see whether these are worth checking out. :(
@Yeld I mean, yeah, if I had revealed the entire puzzle, I would've been giving away 10% of the book's contents for free, which is not something I feel comfortable doing when the product isn't mine. You can read the reviews on DM's Guild if you're worried, or if you are really deeply opposed to risking $5 on puzzles that you may or may not love, then maybe your expectations are high enough that you should just design your own puzzles. 🤷♀️
when your character is intelligence 20 but irl you're struggling with 8
Heh, my mother is fairly intelligent, but she cant do riddles at all
You’re playing a math based abstract story telling game. Give yourself some credit.
Well i think more problematic is, when your character have inteligence 5, you know answer, but it would not make sense for your character to solve it rolewise. And so you are just waiting and waiting for your teammates to solve puzzle as well. (Andi mean waiting a lot, not just short time, to the point, when from fun from their strugle you get annoyed by it.)
Why isn't it wisdom, not intelligence? Sure, if you knew the answer because you heard it once.
The problem is that a puzzle is skill based challenge, it is based upon the abilities of the players. You can contrast this with how combat works - almost everything is a combination of luck and character's stats, it is based upon your character's skills and abilities.
It isn't to say that puzzles are bad but that they are harder to use for role playing, especially if your character is different from you in their mental abilities.
The best advice I ever got was “don’t solve your own puzzles”. When the players suggest something cool or creative that’s the solution.
I feel like you should still have a solution and goal for the puzzle but make it loose and if a player comes up with something clever, then pretend that was always the solution.
"How is a raven like a writing desk?" was a nonsense question posed by the Mad Hatter, the answer unknown and unimportant to Lewis Carrol when he wrote the words. A fan thought they had solved the riddle and asked Carrol if the proper answer was that "Poe wrote on both," an amazing answer to a question that had none.
@@Kitsune44X I've never heard that response before, what a fantastic answer to Carroll's non-riddle!
It's lazy
@@DollxLullaby It's lazy, but that's not necessarily bad.
It's easy to set up, and it lets your players feel like absolute geniuses whenever their solution works properly.
It obviously shouldn't be overused, but it does have its uses.
Her players: "It could be a biblical allegory"
Mine: "Maybe if we hit it a 5th time..."
Why isn't brute force working to begin with?
Most puzzles I put in my campaigns are like "break the door down" or "hit the button 5 times"
I'm the reason they try shit like that
*Rolls 17 on perception*
You see a handicapped button by the first one
We're they all barbarians
hahahahah this just seems like a distillation of the two axis of player puzzle thought.... Maybe there's a third out there to build a whole 3x3 chart. Maybe mechanical - like pushing blocks and making poses in front of doors. "My current PC is rhetorical-bash, but my other is a mechanical-rhetorical."
Ah so rip rib out through violence 😮
I think the solution to a puzzle that surprised me the most was politely asking the gargoyle blocking the door to move aside.
There is an intro Paranoia level that requires players to just ask a murder-bot to stop murdering, and it will. Other ways of disabling it are ineffective.
I think the party went through a dozen clones before figuring this out.
@@johnmickey5017 thats hilarious, "have you tried asking nicely?"
@@jasonreed7522 Ya all the rest of of the party said almost in unison "I can't believe that worked"
Lol! I gave the party cool loot, but written over the stairway on the way DOWN and out was "to leave with more than what you came, speak the second magic word's name". Took about 30 real min for them to figure out, with several d10 force damage taken and getting knocked prone each time they tried to go through the doorway.
The magic word of course is "Please", and it's companion is "Thank You"!! Once they thanked the magic castle they could leave with their high level loot. 😊
I learned that trick from an episode of Adventure Time.
"Hey skeleton dude!
- "What?"
"Can I go through that door behind you?"
- "Okay." (scoots to the side)
I once asked my players, "what kind of corn grows on trees and is not yellow." 20 minutes later, my players were frustrated and started naming parts of a tree until they got an acorn.
That's so frustratingly fantastic HAHAHAHA
See, puns can save you 15 minutes or more on...your car insurance
This is where characters should just be making int checks to figure it out, with those trained in nature making nature checks.
"Pomegranite" "what" "Its a juicy bunch of kernels right?"
@@gaberielpendragon I did that with a DC 10, and they all failed.
My favorite simple puzzle. As you enter the door shuts behind you. In the center of the room is a pedestal with a big red button. An ominous clicking noise rhythmically clicks from somewhere in the pedestal.
The door will automatically open if nobody pushes the button after 5 minutes, but if they do, the timer resets. I've had groups use over an hour debating how to get past this obstacle and it's so great.
Ok Satan... :p
I’ve used this same one. The players were almost pulling their hair out in panic.
Ahhh, the good old Countdown puzzle. XD
Mine is also really simple. You enter, and in the middle of the room, find a pit with spikes at the bottom. There is a door at the far end of the room above which a rusted iron sign says: A bloody sacrifice must be made to leave this room. There are already some corpses in the pit of spikes and all you need to do to leave is go through the door. It’s not locked as the sacrifice has already been made. I remember my players spending over 20 minutes deciding who jumps in until I reminded them that there are bloody corpses in the spikes already. After a bunch of more hints and almost outright telling them the answer, they finally figured it out.
@@yashagarwal9055 fantastic, I'm stealing it
I made the boat crossing puzzle into a social encounter and the player at my table who “hates puzzles” didn’t even notice it was one until another player pointed it out to them afterwards.
HUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE
I kind of want to know how you pulled that off pretty please.
@Haexxchen step 1: A kaiju attacks the city. My players are obviously under leveled so they jump at the chance to help evacuate. By the time they get to the ferry crossing, only one ferriman is left, who hasn't abandoned everyone to their fate.
Step 2: The only people left are three differently dressed guilds, and there's only room for 2 guilds.
Step 3: Have one of your players plant the idea of the puzzles central conciet couched as a social problem, not a logic puzzle
Step 4: Fun puzzle time for 40 minutes of a session.
Hmm, I would have never imagined to use that. One would think nobles would not kill farmers just for standing on the same side of a river.^^@@DJFelixChester
But interesting take/idea with very different possible solutions to the standard riddle.
If I were a player with that puzzle I would be like "We need 118 more keys??"
HAHA, that's valid, but if you knew the engraving on the keys, that would probably help 😜 just didn't wanna give away 10% of the content of the book for free, you know? So I was vague.
"When players encounter a door with key holes they know they are looking for keys" *Roguish laughter intensifies*
The fastest way through magically locked doors is knocking down the wall next to them.
The crew found a hole in the wall in a tech-mine with "key cleaner" crudely carved in the wall. They had no key but figured they could use a nail. This electrocuted them.
every so often between sessions our dm gives us art pieces that relate to the next plot point/character arc/etc that she calls “teasers” and they always have codes or ciphers that we have to get together to solve. it’s so cool and one of the best times i’ve ever had solving dnd puzzles
Some examples?
Ginny this is a life saver. I'm literally having my players climbing a tower that is based in a mix of encounters and puzzles and this video gives me so much to think about and possibly rework. Thank you so much!
I wrote a 4e adventure module like this a long time ago. Each room was either a puzzle, death trap, or monster encounter, with the goal of each room being to touch a glowing rune (or claim it from a monster). I crafted something like 27 rooms, 9 of each type, plus a couple Final Boss rooms that incorporated elements of all three types.
The DM would start the session by figuring out how many rooms they wanted to play through, then rolling randomly to see which rooms would come up. Gave it a ton of replayability and it was generic enough to slot into most any setting. I've been thinking about rewriting it for 5e
@@tompadfoot3065 Please let us know if you do!
If your characters don't have a way to fly/spideclimb
- Consider having them play jenga to work on a scaffold to reach an area too high or sheer to climb. Magically enchanted logs that will move to the highest stack, as if moved by invisible hands.
That's a fun one!
Time to drag out the old board games, or simple jigsaws, or dexterity puzzles!
I had a puzzle that was just mastermind
Their job is to think about that. PCs can usually find some junk to make a ladder from. Finding junk does not mean there is a junk-balancing puzzle waiting.
You can look at a situation and come back prepared. Like carrying a ladder.
The way you promote the DMs Guild materials is great. It's the perfect balance between not giving away the contents of the books for free, but they're also never annoyingly vague in a 'you just have to buy the book if you want to know more' kind of way. You have a great video as usual with solid advice and nice examples that can stand on its own, and also give a clear indication of what to expect and how to use it if you do invest in the sponsored materials if you want to go more indepth. Done with respect to both creators and viewers!
If only DM's guild wasn't predatory.
All I can think of now is Sam going, “If there is a key, then there must be a lock.” 😂
Path od Exile refrence?
Supernatural reference
I forgot about this Supernatural line and went to a different Sam (Riegal). That one was the one suggesting using a sword to pick a lock, then Bigby's hand.
I had a puzzle once where players just had to stand/sit/exist on top of colored circles that corresponded to their magic, and it took like 1/2 the session. Simplicity is sometimes a its own challenge, lol.
Colors are subjective.
Was that the problem that they ran into?
Skill/stat checks are the solution. Meta gaming puzzles really need to stop.
There is nothing simple about colors used in the rules to define magic. There would be no relevancy IN the world.
@@gaberielpendragon You must have learned playing 3rd ed. That generation has no idea what metagaming actually is.
@@SophiaAphrodite It's taking out of game knowledge to solve in game problems. Puzzles literally can't be solved in anyway but a die roll that isn't metagaming, as you are using your mental stats and experiences to do so, not your character's.
It's like skipping attack rolls because you the player are skilled with a sword or bow.
My biggest problem with most TTRPG puzzles is that they block progress until the players solve them. It's like a wall that the characters have to climb, but if everyone fails their checks ... nothing interesting happens. Just try again until you get it. The triangle lock puzzle, for example: it sounds like a cool puzzle, but if the players fail to solve it, all that really happens is they're pushed back out into the hall and take a little damage. The situation doesn't change in any interesting way. Their only choice is to go back and try again. (The secondary doors closing is a nice touch--there are consequences for the players' failure--but it doesn't solve the fundamental, "try until you get it," problem.)
I use a very liberal application of the "Success at a Cost" suggestion (DMG p242) to get around this. Basically, redefine what it means when the players fail to solve the puzzle. Normally, success = players solve the puzzle and progress; failure = players don't solve the puzzle, don't progress, and have to try again. But what if success = the PLAYERS solve the puzzle and progress, while failure = the CHARACTERS solve the puzzle and progress (i.e. you give the players the solution through their characters), but they suffer some sort of complications/dire consequences?
Going back to the triangle lock puzzle. Let's give the players three chances to solve it on their own before the walls close in. If they get it in three tries, great--the walls draw back, the door opens, and they progress. But if they don't get it, their characters solve the puzzle anyway, BUT it takes them a little too long--the door opens just as the walls come together. The characters manage to squeeze through, but everyone has to make a Dexterity save. The character who rolls lowest takes full damage from getting squished by the walls, the character who rolls second lowest takes half damage, AND the walls coming together makes a lot of noise, so everything ahead of them in the dungeon is now alerted that they're coming, and guards or curious critters are likely headed their way, so they can't even stop to tend their wounded just yet. End result: the adventure moves forward, the group is in a new situation determined directly by their success or failure in the previous situation, and now they have new and interesting choices to make (instead of just, "try again").
In a recent session, our group went looking for a secret door. We were told which room it was in by someone who had used it long ago, but didn't know how to find or open it.
After fifteen minutes of searching, poking, and prodding, my character just started smashing the wall.
Ta-da! Door!*
*We were looking at the wrong wall...
Alternatively, on a failure instead of walls closing in, have the floor open up. Characters fall down, take some damage, and now have to navigate an alternate, more perilous, route. Oldest trick in the book, that, but still very effective as consequences go.
@@yujin_sumeragi This is exactly what I was thinking. Don't allow a painful success on a failure, give them an alternative route that is harder and more painful than if they had just succeeded.
If a puzzle relies on a check it isn't a puzzle, it's a skill challenge
@@FacelessOne01 Were you replying to my post? If so, my idea doesn't rely on a check to solve the puzzle. Solving the puzzle relies on the players thinking it through and seeing if they can come up with the answer. They get three tries or "guesses," but if they can't get it in three, or if they just give up, then that counts as "failure." The only check I would use wouldn't be a success/fail check, but a low roll check to see who actually suffers the consequences of their failure.
In a scifi game, I had players run into a first contact situation and had to decode manually the messages sent by the aliens. Alien script was a corrupted form of tengwar, so my super nerdy players quickly identified the characters of the messages. It still took them hours to fully decode the messages, but at least it was relatively entertaining for everyone. And we were playing over the weekend at a player’s parents who had a sauna and swimming pool so we had plenty of time and also could take a break to enjoy some swimming and sauna. I think I’d do it differently these days when weekend games are a thing of the past.
A weekend game sounds absolutely amazing. Wish I could even have a 3-4h session again though :/
I just want to say, I am SO HAPPY you made a Galaxy Quest reference 😂 that movie is so underrated ❤
Galaxy Quest is in my top 10 favorite movies ever 🥰️
@@GinnyDi Never give up, Never surrender!
@@GinnyDi You have excellent taste in films! 😆❤️
“You broke the ship, Jason; you BROKE the BLOODY SHIP!”
Chompers? - Well that .... or something similar ....
well it is known to be one of the best star trek movies ever 🤷🏽♂️
My new favorite source of puzzles is to steal them whole cloth from certain challenges in the show Taskmaster. Offering a clear goal at the start but leaving the exact solution vague or open to interpretation really helps the players shine and improvise a way through!
Omg I do this
Watch "The Crystal Maze", a puzzle based gameshow from the 90s. I feel like a few of them could be adapted to DnD
Lol, taskmaster puzzles are unhinged.^^
One of my favourite moments as a dm was when I had a puzzle that had the players mirrored on the other side of a tunnel. I intended them to use a table cloth or minor illusion to block the reflection with something that didn’t have physical weight, however there was a door at the end of the tunnel, so they used the door that only existed on their reflections side to lock their reflections at the end of the tunnel, so that they could pass through the barrier with ease. While not the solution I intended, it was super smart and they felt super proud for having thought of it.
I use puzzles as Easter Eggs. You can get through the encounter with dice rolls and abilities, but the WHY of the whole thing could be figured out later. Having a group with engineers and chemists and a linguist makes me spoiled for choice, so I know that if I use a Turkish word for something or hand out a clue in the Hex value for an ascii letter, they'll eventually have that epiphany. Or that the "Tomb of Jerrod Sproing" is just a test because Mister Sproing isn't actually dead.
Puzzles for doors or chests are cool but one thing I don’t see enough is simple puzzles during combat.
Take some inspiration from dungeon or raid mechanics from video games. Simple mechanics and puzzles can elevate a fight and completely change the way your players play.
My best fights are ones that had simple mechanics of puzzles for my players to solve while their characters are *also* fighting for their lives.
Yeah, I say basically that in reverse in this video - adding combat to puzzles can make them more exciting. In short, combining puzzle + combat is a good tip!
@@GinnyDi Well, hell yeah!
Honestly I’ve never had the puzzle be the primary focus of the encounter. I usually do big boss + minor mechanic.
A more in depth puzzle + simpler monsters could be really interesting, I need to try that sometime!
Ginny Di on Shadow Over Kerkonos?
This! One leg of my campaign is a series of boss fights which are all puzzles to defeat in a very Shadow of the Colossus type way! Huge monsters the players have to figure out how to scale to find their weak points, some of which are protected by armor or carapace that the party has to break or trick the boss into breaking to access!
That's one combat I really liked from Critical Role campaign 1. When they meet the gynosphynx they have to figure out its name to get combat to stop. It was really fun to see
One thing I’ve found is that a puzzle with physical elements, like levers or keys or something, might be fairly easy in reality but becomes more difficult when you only have a description of it, even with a very good description.
I did one where I cut out differing sized rings of paper, drew on them, and arranged them so they fit within each other.
They were meant to be rotated.
The solution was pretty obviously to line up the pictures so they formed food chains going inward.
The players quickly found what seemed to be the solution, but they became confused because something didn't match up.
After a bit they asked about why there was tape over one piece and why it was cut out roughly and if it was supposed to come off...
I like to use visual elements for puzzles, if possible.
Excellent point! Another reason to use drawings, however rough or untalented!
You are very right. I always try to use physical components to help in communicating the puzzle. I once had an anagram puzzle, but made it simpler by making the letters physical movable pieces. The players had heard the weird set of words (the anagram) repeated in a poem and later they found a lake where the letters formed into blocks of ice. Once I had described this I brought out the "ice block letters" as pieces of paper - now the letters could be easily and visually be moved around making the anagram puzzle very clear. To guide the players to realize it was an anagram I also described the letters as moving and rearranging making them think to do that themselves.
The physical pieces helped a lot in communicating the puzzle and what the players needed to do. Other options are to draw the situation (e.g. draw a door with 120 locks) to make the puzzle tangible.
where they got a weird set of words in a poem an
This is where skill/stat checks come in. Not using them is just meta gaming.
Our GM always tells the players what their character would know when we encounter a puzzle
The players job is to ask me stuff. Not for me to list everything at once.
I created an enigmatologist NPC, if the party doesn't want to deal with puzzles they bring a sketch/detailed description to him and he helps them solve it. He can also secretly be the BBEG who is waiting for them to lead him to the door that his cult is trying to open.
Number Four is one of the most important things, in my opinion. I have created puzzles without a single note written about the solution, and I've made them with three or four general ideas. I got away from making single-solution puzzles a long time ago. This also helps you guide pacing of the session. If they're taking a while to get to your assumed ending, but also do a cool thing, then adjust and move on.
Honestly, I tend to go so far in the "reward solutions I didn't personally think of ahead of time" that I usually make puzzles with no solution, and go with whatever the players do that is creative, sensible, and fits the narrative arc of the session best.
I love using puzzles during combat and just in general. I had a session where the party found an underground lost and forgotten (or so they thought) dragon tomb. I had a few dragon based puzzles the first being fairly easy. Many tapestries of various dragons with a plaque on the wall saying “the eyes are the doorway” after carefully inspecting the paintings they found that they could only see the eyes on the red dragon painting so they pulled it open revealing the door. Further down the line they came across a room filled with junk (much like the room of requirement in Harry Potter) at the other end of the room was an iron door that was welded shut. It had a noticeable and very odd looking shaped lock. The party looked around the room trying all manner of keys until one found droplets of water on the floor, the shelves above them were full of dragon scales. The wizard grabbed a scale walked to the door and asked “Dm, do scales work in this world the same way diamond does in ours?” Knowing what he meant I said “yeah sure why not” the wizard then proceeded to use the scale to carve open the door around the welding when he could have just put it into the lock and the door would have lowered into the ground.
I am CACKLING
I got all 3 of these guides close to a year ago and used them to make a puzzle gauntlet of of sorts for my players. Its started with them separated solving something on their own before they reconvened to gather the keys to the triangle lock you mentioned here. They loved it and it was a couple of my most memorable sessions. Thanks for shining a light on an absolutely fantastic guide to puzzles!
This is EXACTLY the kind of video I’ve been needing, studying up to one day DM. I’ve been hoping to do a puzzle and exploration oriented campaign and had no idea where to start with the puzzle part.
Wild that people feel the need to "study to become a DM!" If that's what you want then power to you, but in my friend groups it was always "who are we going to force to be the DM?" (And the answer was always me lol).
I would really highly recommend getting some hands-on experience. I get wanting to be "good" at something before applying it to real situations, but applying it is an essential step in the process of "getting good."
Either way, good luck, lore-maker!
@@koalabro6118 social anxiety/neurodivergence is a bitch and studying to be better prepared and more confident/comfortable in social interactions is a necessity, so at least more me, it's not really a choice. Regardless I plan on running some one shots to get practice in before starting a campaign.
Cool to see a Wyrmwood GM screen in the beginning skit!
I once had an entire dungeon centered on logic puzzles, and since we were playing via Roll20, I even made tokens that the PCs could move around, so they could actually figure out the solutions visually. How well they did with a given puzzle determined how difficult the following encounter was, and they did amazingly well, although a highlight was one character taking a rabbit mask from one of the puzzles and chasing around another character with it, as she was afraid of rabbits.
As someone who just finished playing Tomb of Annihilation, I'm not sure if I'm ready for more puzzles yet, even if they are actually player friendly 😅lol. Joking aside, I love puzzles; like the Professor Layton games are one of my faves. I'd get the book just to read through and try to solve the puzzles myself, even if I never use them in a game lol
I have told one of my DMs to steal puzzles from Professor Layton xDD You just gotta find ones that work and reskin them
As someone who has DMed that module, I am so sorry, some of those puzzles are just flat out unfair 😢 But that what happens when a maniacal lich crafts a meat grinder to make his free range soul chow.
@@pLanetstarBerry thankfully my DM was pretty generous and often was like "this puzzle is terrible. We're just gonna nerf/skip it" lol
@@starlling I had an opposite situation with my players. Session zero, our conversation went like-
Me: "Ok, so, some of these puzzles are legitimately unfair. While it fits the story, I can see some of it being a point of frustration for players. Should I tone it down, or-"
My players: "we want the meat grinder!"
Me: "you guys sure? Y'all seem emotionally invested in your characters and this campaign perma-kills PCs-"
Players, chanting: "Meat grinder, Meat Grinder, MEAT GRINDER-"
Me: "ok" 🥲
@@pLanetstarBerry still better then Tomb of Horrors. Gygax was a madman that just wanted to kill his players. Seriously, I think I read that is why he did ToH
DM here. From my experience, the things that leave the best lasting impressions are the ones that like Ginny said, strike that fine line between difficulty, complexity, accessibility and of course taking into account your player's learning curve itself. It's always best to have something rewarding for them at the end. A big pile of gold, a rare magical item, etc.
My player's favorite was a random labyrinthian maze that popped up while the were travelling along the road, conjured by my homebrew world's God of Entertainment. The front door had a plaque warning participants of the danger and locked and sealed completely shut once they entered so they couldn't escape unless by completing the maze and it's challenges. Fill the maze with random traps (I went with more or less harmless traps that just wrought chaos like one that conjured a powerful magical illusion of a giant boulder that chases the party but stops just short of running them over). Once they reached the middle, a construct held the treasure they sought and prompted them to solve a riddle. On wrong answers they would get bolted by magic missiles to give them a sense of danger and totality to their response. On a correct answer, the construct would give them the treasure (in this case, a Ring of Protection) and dissipate the entire maze.
They had a blast with it, and it was hilarious describing my party's bard stepping on a magical trap that frightened her by turning her party members into her greatest fear: audience members laughing at her and mocking her incessantly.
I started an rpg campaign a while ago and since we weren't playing DeD, but with a system that I had set up, I needed to introduce the universe to the players in a way that wouldn't get boring, my solution was assemble a puzzle in a library where players are asked questions by a mysterious man and had to investigate the library for clues and put it all together in the end. It was such a cool section and we had so much fun :)
This is a great vid! It also reveals why I enjoy S1 TOMB OF HORRORS so much: there's a poem at the very beginning that cryptically explains all of the necessary traps to bypass, so when run well it's a puzzle dungeon rather than a sadistic deaðtrap
I’m a DM, and some of my favorite puzzles are the ones that are solved by saying please to whatever’s in your way. Is that dragon blocking the door? He’s just sleepy, but he can move over for polite people. What about that golem who stole a key? He just likes the shiny, but life’s full of shinies. The players can fight if they want, but all they had to do was ask 😁
The best advice I can give a DM as a player (outside of what's presented in the video) on puzzles is this: if your puzzle requires a spreadsheet to solve, throw it out, it will not be fun for anyone, ever.
I'm in the middle of putting a one-shot together and was stuck needing a puzzle, this is a great resource! *Buying with Ginny's discount*
Shoutout to Wally DM who also has tons of great puzzles on his channel.
Wally DM is OG puzzle lord.
I've found that I can't really use puzzles because they take forever because the party just dances around an answer. I tried timing them but then they compained they couldn't get it. I feel like everything I do is so easy. Thanks for the tips, Ginny.
Sounds like your players expect to have things done *for* them
Have you tried to hint and encourage them to try it?
Last time I was a player in a series of puzzles I got nearly every puzzle in moments. Luckily I was a smug very intellegent artificer. still had to hold back, so we would not run through it all..
4. If they come up with a solution that should work, let it work ... the very best advice on puzzles
this reminds me of one of my favourite sessions I DM'd.
I had a spirit island themed campaign so it was all about nature. they came to cave with plants that grew based on coloured light sources. red light? red plants would grow. complimentary colours hurt the plants.
I taught them the mechanic by giving them the solution in the first chamber and then asked them to recreate the solution in the second chamber. This made sure everyone was on the same page on the basic mechanics. Then I gave them a couple chambers that they weren't explicitly given the solution so they could experiment.
(blocking passages and making paths by killing and growing plants were the primary puzzles. How to get from point A to B)
To finish it off I through a monster at them with coloured flower buds on them and bioluminescent mushrooms. the boss monster was resistant to attacks but they could use what they learned from the previous puzzles. Lathering their weapons in the appropriate colored mushroom goo gave them double damage instead of reduced damage when attacking its complimentary flower. (or healed if they chose the matching colour working in line with the puzzles)
It was great! I was racking my brain for a week on what to do and then I came up with this mechanic a few hours before the session. I should have hinted at the mushrooms sooner but when the players struggled to connect the mushrooms with the light I had them dragged past a mushroom they needed when grappled by vines. worst case you could drag them through the mushroom and have it wither and rive and watch it click :)
Take luck DM's :D Thanks for another great video Ginny!
To quote my teacher:
The solution to a harder escape room is more puzzles, not harder puzzles
Instead of players finding a key to open a door, for example, maybe they have to solve a word puzzle to open a safe, which contains a carved piece of stone they need to put in a specific corner of the room with the same markings, which opens the door. This is much better than making the key only open the door if turned clockwise 3 times then anticlockwise 4 times
I once had one of the arrange-a-grams over stairs to a treasure room in a practice dungeon!
The way I usually balance between players who do and players who don't like puzzles is to give the player a hint if they pass an INT check -- helps players who don't like puzzles a way to still progress and contribute during the encounter, while giving players who like solving puzzles room to solve them.
And then of course, I also usually avoid there only being one correct solution to puzzles, depending especially on what kind of puzzle it is.
(I haven't watched the full video yet so if I'm just repeating anything said in the video I apologize)
I am obsessed with your hair, in the natural light it is so satisfying to look at, the color is amazing
Ahhhh "Brain teasers for kids" LOL
Picked up the Bundle, seems VERY worth it so far. Looking forward to using this advice with my groups. As always, such a refreshing perspective on running games. Thank you!!
In one session I had an artifact that consisted of four pieces which they had to gather and then put together into the actual artifact, which in essence functioned as a key. To do this, I used my 3D printer to print one of these puzzle cubes, which are tough to put together and require a special trick or order of operations, and I just handed them the pieces and told them to assemble it.
Half the table loved it, half the table hated me. I'll call it a success.
The part about being open to alternate solutions is one I learned the hard way.
Long story short, I had a character in my game who was supposed to be a master of military strategy, and the player running said character is really good at puzzles, and plays chess, so I found a brain teaser thing online about creating a mini chessboard with only queens on it, and the challenge was to lay the queens out on the board such that none was in a position to kill another. I set it up so the number of queens matched the number of factions currently locked in a looming war in the game world, and posed it to the character as essentially finding a way to create balance and peace.
He went in a totally different direction, placed the queens and told me he'd solved it. It looked nothing like the couple possible solutions I had printed up, so I told him nothing happened. He was surprised and filled me in on his thinking: "They're in positions so that EVERY queen is threatened by at least one other, so if one of them starts the war, they all end of up dead. It's mutually assured destruction."
I thought about it for a second and went "Ya know.... you're right. I didn't think of that. Congratulations." 😆
My first thought for a locked door is using Heat Metal to melt the lock or mould earth to make a path around the door
You've given us a 10% discount code for a book of puzzles that I really needed for my game❤️
There really is only one appropriate response "By Grapthor's Hammer, what a bargain!"
One of my favorite puzzles is a Rhebus. Essentially a letter and an illustration that make words. I’m a DM and planning to make a super complex Rhebus that can get different answers for each picture depending on order
I included a puzzle a while back that was intentionally somewhat difficult, but every 15 minutes (real time) I'd select a person to make a skill roll to get a clue regarding either the clues or the pieces to the puzzle. I figured that would keep the players from being stonewalled by the puzzle, but not making it a simple skill check to beat it. While I thought it seemed to work pretty well, I did have one player that I think just wasn't into those kinds of puzzles. But in a group of eight, not every session is going to be for everyone.
cool cool, good puzzle tips... helpful stuff for my campai... ... and now I'm giggling like a 10 year old. 😄 Great content as usual Ginny.
Nice! I like the idea of lock based puzzles: they are natural, and the intent is clear. People are familiar with locks and keys, even unusually shaped keys. And there are already alternatives to actually using the key. Also, people are familiar with trapped locks that have some consequences for picking or other attempts to bypass. I'm very fond of puzzles in general. Puzzles that don't even feel likes puzzles might just be the best kind! Thanks :-)
one of my favorite puzzles i made:
there was a hidden door in the wall. once they brushed off the stone and dust off it, they found an animated face doing the "sad Greek Drama face" and it asked them "who's there?"
the goal of the puzzle is for them to tell a knock knock joke to the door, at which point the face laughs, goes into "happy Greek Drama face" and the door opens
Ginny... You been talking to my players?! They're in an archfeys keep, one known for deadly puzzles and traps... and coming up with that balance of puzzles, clues, and other challenges guarding the archfeys mcguffin has totally paralyzed me a few times.
As someone about to run ToA, this is good timing. Thanks for the code, I do have a wish list.
Our Barb totally tore a stone tile out of the last puzzle we came across 🤣 Thankfully he was able to Jimmy rig it so we could complete the puzzle lol. We laughed so hard 🤣
I loved this video. As a DM in love puzzles, and thankfully so do my players. The problem is, the more complex I make the puzzles and riddles, the easier they solve them. But the simple puzzles they will overthink to death. It's funny unli give them a simple puzzle that I need them to solve quickly.
Thanks for the video! I've loved DMing with puzzles since 1974 but always leave an alternate solution and don't allow it to bog down the game. It's a wonderful way to allow players who aren't big on combat or talking / RPing to become engaged and shine. Great fun!
This channel just gets better and better. So much good thinking being shared. Thanks for elevating an already great game.
Thank you!! I've had problems making puzzles so I really appreciate this.
Loved the opening skit, I've been on both ends. Glad the algorithm sent me your way, love the channel!
Sphinx: "Answer my riddle or you shall not pass."
Wizard: "OK, Let's hear it."
Barbarian: "Wait! Wait! Thag knows the answer."
Wizard (exasperated sigh) "Thag, she hasn't even asked the riddle yet."
Barbarian: "Thag already knows the answer."
Wizard: "Oooookay...."
Barbarian: "Answer is +5 Greataxe"
Sphinx: "No, it's not."
Barbarian: "You be surprised how many things Thag find this to be answer for" (Readies +5 Greataxe and approaches Sphinx.)
This will really help me make my party of Murder Hobos have a more challenging loot time versus just rolling. Thanks Ginny!
I like how creative murderhobos are to solve problems and understand their role in the world.
Running a spooky mystery one shot with lots of puzzles, so this could not have come at a better time 🙏
one of the puzzles i made was a room with i think 6 stones, 2x3 arrangement, each with a symbol or word carved into them naming one type of elemental. this room was only accessible after beating a wizard who amongst other things had a note with a 6 lined poem, each in a different language. the idea was each line used a vague reference to the element, and you would have to touch the stones in order they appear in the poem. however after writing each of the lines i realized it was pretty easy to figure out what each line was referencing, so i made several of them in different languages to reward my parties varied language comprehension. the language itself was a hint in case they couldn't read the line, like the line written in dwarven was the stone element. the only two the party couldn't read was infernal and celestial, which they quickly figured out was fire and radiant elements.
however they misinterpreted a line so while the first three were suppose to be water, stone, thunder they ended up touching water, stone, water. yet they clearly understood the idea of the puzzle and solved it based on that understanding, so i decided to let that code worked and they all felt pretty slick about figuring it out.
I used the Triangle Lock puzzle in a homebrew one-shot. As soon as I pulled it out, I watched the whole session grind to a halt while two of the four players actually tried to figure it out, and the other two sat back and said/did nothing. They ended up unable to figure the puzzle out and had to backtrack through the labyrinth and find another way through.
You're opening skit for this one reminded me so much of my party, too relateable😂 I'm the one in the group who would've suggested the Biblical Allegory, hahaha
But also I'd be the one downing the wine
Your character sounds wonderful! 😂
In my main group, those roles are divided across 2 characters, while mine is the one who, if at all allowed, will go sit in a corner playing with her dagger and complaining she's bored.
Great video and I loved the reminder to give puzzles a narrative purpose!
A puzzle I was quite pleased with involved a destroyed room with a large bed set up as a seesaw under a key hanging from the light fitting in the ceiling. When someone started interacting with the bed to move it into position to get the key, a "laundry golem" came to life and attempted to push them out of the room and be a general nuisance. I knew one of the players had mage hand as an arcane trickster and could simply use it to grab the key, but when I considered doing something to counter-act that I thought it would be better to see if they remembered the fact they could, which they did after successfully launching the other rogue up into the rafters as the barbarian wrestled with the golem.
Leaving some wiggle room in puzzle solutions just feels right as seeing the solutions the players come up with can be quite the joy (feeding a large monster they had to chase around a forest with something they could use locate object on was another stroke of genius I had to reward)
Now I want my players to have to write runes on the floor orsomething like that, but there are enchanted brooms trying to clean it up all the time.^^
The idea of a laundry golem is awesome!
@Ginnydi Thank you for the suggestion for this book. I am sure it shall be a great help for my campaigns!
I am simply waiting for my players to figure out half the solutions to my puzzles don't exist until they come up with an idea.
Ginny, I love these type of sponsored videos. You do a great job of providing the same content most of us come here for (Tips/Suggestions/Advice) while also highlighting some other content creators who deserve love. For example, the video on Ancestry weapons solved a huge problem I had on the horizon of my game and now I got a neat solution with a whole new game mechanic. So keep it up and thank you!
Proud to say I've been following you for years and this is just what I needed.
I gave my players secret roles and secret codes for an unexisting enigma, and I was hoping to make it up on the spot in a clever way.
In the end I had months to prepare it between sessions so it turned out fun and exciting.
Ginny really seems to read my mind on what videos a need at the moment. 😂❤ amazing video as always! Very informative
Great to see puzzles getting some attention! The PPP series is fantastic. One of my favorites. There are so many hidden gem resources for puzzles in D&D. Heck, there's even a small TH-cam channel that has over 100 puzzle videos on it. 😉.lol. Well done Ginny, as always, fantastic video. Cheers!
And it's a very good channel worth checking out! 😁
In one of my campaigns as a DM, i' ve concoted a very particular puzzle that was a literal puzzle. I made my players find a trinket that needed to be open to reveal a magical map. Now, the trinket was one of those IQ mind trap, it was a little circular metal "medal" with two interconnected parts that could be separated just by putting it on the table and then spin it, to make the little pins inside go away. I was so proud.
Anyway, i gave it triumphantly to one of my players, that took it in his big hands, broke the pins and open it in like one second. End of the story.
I usually make puzzles optional, with bonus rewards locked behind them, those rewards can be wealth, cool magic items, or a piece of a social guest ongoing.
You highlighting cool supplements on DM's Guild is some of my FAVORITE content you put out
I love puzzles and would love a source book with “drag and drop” puzzles for my games
You know those "spot the difference" pictures?
Put a photoshopped combination of both the map and make tokens of the "differences" from both pictures.
Provide hints on which spots have to be replaced.
Great video! I would suggest that there’s a 5th thing to remember: players sometimes give up, for a variety of reasons. So if the puzzle is barring the way to a treasure, that’s not a big deal (from the DM’s perspective, at least), but if it is a hurdle that must be overcome in order to progress the campaign, and hint haven’t helped, you need to have an alternative option be possible, such as a long way round, or a more risky route. You don’t want a failed puzzle to stop your adventure from progressing
We have pushed into a room in a recce patrol. The patrol maps the place, makes observations but are not necessarily picking fights and taking on challenges. They might return with a resource they have prepared like a rope bridge or a spell or three goons with flashlights and mirrors.
Haha, I love your sense of humor. The cut to “puzzles for kids” was hilarious.
Excellent content as usual
Gandalf couldn't figure out a "puzzle" that literally had the how to open instructions written on it, so don't feel like the "super smart wizard" needs to figure it out
I mean, sure, even a very smart person can't automatically solve every puzzle - but I completely understand how frustrating it might be for a player to feel like their real-life intelligence score is limiting their character's ability to live up to their stats.
I guess he rolled low for that check
@@GinnyDi for sure and it definitely is something DMs need to be conscious about. This was a great video too, I hope my comment wasn't read as snark or something I really didn't mean it that way.
I am a dungeon master in my spare time, but my official job role at work is also "Game Master".
This is because I work in Escape Rooms, guiding people through the story & puzzles of the room. I've actually found that being a GM has helped my DM skills a lot, & vice versa.
One thing that I preach is that the sweet spot when it comes to puzzles is the line between relaxed & stressed. You want your players to feel like they've accomplished something. If you give away the answer too easily, they won't feel like they've achieved anything. If you make it impossible to figure out, they won't feasibly be able to achieve anything.
Lay down enough hints & nudges to keep the rythm of the interaction going, allowing the players to think they're figuring everything out on their own despite the fact that you're puppet-mastering everything they're doing.
I enjoy some good puzzles. One of my DMs is fantastic at putting together puzzles. The first one he had us do was a letter from my character's half-sister. At first we thought it was a cypher, but it quickly became clear that it was not the case. In her letter she provided a recipe for a drink called an "Ifrit" which provided hints at how to do it. Turns out the letters had been cut in half and we had to reconstruct them and once we worked that out, we moved pretty quickly. Towards the end there was one word which had us stumped so the DM let us roll a linguistics check to get that one word. I think that can be a good idea if the puzzle is otherwise well put together but players get stuck at a certain point. This puzzle was done by my character, a magus, and our bard. Our rogue/monk, meanwhile, went off to find somebody to teach her how to bake.
In a later session we were exploring a dungeon and came across doors with animals on them. There were holes in their ears. My character wanted to keep moving and assumed we'd find a key or something later. The rogue/monk walked up to one and made the noise that animal would make and the door opened. That was hilarious.
👍👍The book sounds really good!
Ginny slowly turning into Anna farris :)
I was once invited to an existing campaign. I made a wizard because party didn't have one.
This is how the DM introduced me to the game. "you were guided by another wizard to help some adventurers" and I start by entering some kind of dungeon without any idea what it is, then he goes back to the party and keeps playing for 30 min. I ask "what about my character?" He's like "ohh, yeah what would you like to do?" "Join the rest of the players so we can play together on this puzzle?" "Ok so what do you do in this room." "I don't know what I can do." "You see a door." "Ok I open the door." Trap killed me... Anyway, back to the party.
I created three seemingly very different keys and printed them on paper.
The players got two of them.
They got the sense that they might fit together.
So I gave them one of the keys, printed on transparant foil at the same scale.
After a while they found it!
Later they found a third key. And behold, it fitted too! :)
So I gave them a print of the three keys, fitted together.
Now they only needed to find the keyholes where those keys could fit.
In a castle they found odd geometrical shapes and they realised that the shapes were the same as the rings of the keys, so they tried to make them fit and... tadaaaaaa! Secret door, and behind that door: a dwarven vault!
Now they obviously could use the keys to open the vault.
Sadly, most of my players are "Smash first, puzzle later." If there's a magic crystal pulsing in the middle of the room, my players first instinct is to destroy it before even realizing it's a puzzle.
That sounds like a PRIME opportunity to teach them a lesson about the value of investigation 😜
@@GinnyDi but how teach us oh wise one
i mean, just off the top of my head, put a big ole warded treasure door in the next room and a fairly simple riddle indicating that the crystal they just smashed was the key to opening it. the wards are too high a level to Dispel, too strong to smash, and Mending the crystal doesn't restore its magical properties. they might be mad, but then you put *another crystal* in a room later on, and maybe it's for a *different door* but at least now they know there's a chance to get some of the treasure they missed by smashing the first one. (heck, as a treat you can even have the treasure rooms backed up against one another with a thin enough wall between them that if they solve one puzzle they could potentially think to smash through to the other treasure)
@@MulberryDays interesting
I will use this way of thinking In my next dungeon
Figuring out the puzzle has benefits, and breaking the puzzle has consequences. You could do it all kinds of ways. The crystal could've been used later on to skip an encounter or unlock a powerful magic weapon; a baddie later is willing to trade something very powerful for the crystal; the crystal was of great importance to locals and though they would've previously been willing to help the party, they now have made you their sworn enemies because you destroyed their sacred object... the list goes on and on.
Thank you :) I will keep that in mind. Had my first (as a DM) session last Week , and nerver played it bevor ! Wached a whole bunch of your videos in prepp.(and others) I just dumped one on a camp fire near a big Forrest. Let the other one stumble across with the same goal of finding a tavern in the north! ( He had wolfs in his basement, a group of thieves in the west preventing Trade. And a guarding huntsman missing. [dead]) It got there home and they have sworn protection, in exchange of "20%" in Profits. Took us abut 7 Hours with some random encounters.(goblins and more wolfes) Ahh btw, they startet with eating random mushrooms at the camp fire with a nature Check of "4" xD It was so chaotic. But realy funny all the way trough. Next time we start with " The lost mine of Phandelever"
One tip that I learned for puzzle design when studying videogame development was to start with the puzzle already solved. In game design, this helps you make sure that the puzzle will actually have a solution, especially when we're talking about having to move pieces around or fill some spaces with something specific (like sokoban). I found it quite helpful as well for other kinds of puzzles, though, since it lets you see more easily which parts of the puzzle may need hints or even some changes to make sure the puzzle will be both fun and challenging.
HOW DO YOU SOLVE THE OPENING PUZZLE?! WAS IT PEE ALL ALONG?!?!
I think it was, considering the product is P, P, and P... so three characters needed to pee in the bowl to complete the puzzle 😏
I was wondering if I was the only one who needs to know! Please tell us!!!!!
My favorite puzzle I used in my campaign was a ritual circle that required 6 to 12 players to participate in a specific dance and song to be performed successfully in real time. I would begin the music and then have each player roll their performance check (DC 17) and note the number of failures. Depending on the final score, the consequences were annoying to deadly.
I'd argue that this is not a puzzle at all. It is just a collective performance check.
To MAKE this a riddle however:
- place a mural with dance instructions Give a bonus to the performance checks for any details discovered.
- have them pick between 3 songs, where one matches the style of the mural. Have Jazz, Metal and African drums as choices and design the borders African, smooth or really erratic.
- Offer to players (if table round) to do the dance and get a bonus on the role. (Great laugh for everyone.)
This makes it a riddle instead of just a dice fest. It is funny and memorable and requires just a little bit of thinking.