Most of these puzzles simply lacked a hint in the kind of approach the party needed to take. If the party noticed a slightly crooked portrait covered in dust, someone might have thought to tidy up. The puzzle with the chairs that demands teamwork should have two chairs or something that primes for teamwork, like a heavy double sided door that requires two people open each door. If your party spends 3 hours in one room, you aren't being descriptive enough about what the room looks like and that they're getting deja vu. The door where they have to knock should have a knocker on it. "Desynchronize Material Density" doesn't imply the walls are going to become black hole dense enough to mess with gravity, it implies that they're going to have a hammer for a hand and have their leg become a twig. The gravity house was poorly explained with fake science. The escape room was entirely the parties fault though.
My GM once gave our party a large room with scattered skeletons and scorch marks in which the floor was made of assorted mismatched, slightly uneven tiles. Any one of the tiles could have been a pressure plate. As it turned out, NONE of them were. There were no traps. The architect of the tower we were in just wanted to make intruders paranoid.
I had a rather easy puzzle the party didn't figure out. This particular game was a One Shot I ran at a convention. The first puzzle was right at the entrance to the tomb they were supposed to be raiding. Supposed to, because they never actually were able to get in. Upon the door was a simple inscription: "Speak your true intentions and the way shall open." All they had to do was say something in the lines of "We want to enter." And the door would open. Instead of figuring it out, the party decided to go get drunk at the local tavern for the entire four-hour game session instead. Easiest One Shot I ever ran.
Here's a good one: A seemingly stone brick wall with a single phrase engraved in its surface: Overanalysis. The solution is to smash down the wall, because upon touching it, you realise that it feels like it's made of clay. Or, alternatively, just push it over.
I ran one puzzle where I gave the player the solution before they encountered the puzzle. The puzzle was finding a hidden room in a dark mineshaft. A minor Illusion spell covered the gap in the shaft wall. The solution was a crumpled scrap of paper the player found on the dead sentry they killed. I handed the player the physical scrap of paper, and they looked at it, it said "8 S GO L" or something like that. It was funny watching the player study the scrap, trying to figure out what it meant, since they hadn't gone into the mine yet. After a couple minutes they put the scrap away and entered into the mine. They come to the end to the collapsed tunnel, can't find a way past. Then the light came on and they went back to the entrance and counted off the 8 steps and than reached out to the left wall. Lo and behold their hand passed through the "rock" and they realized the illusion. In my experience it's importsnt to remember 'simple to the DM isn't simple to the players' since they don't know the answers as they build the puzzle. IMO the DM needs clear clues or even present the solution out of context, otherwise players can miss the solution and never circle back to it.
one of the best ever.. a room. balanced on a beam, that would rock back and forth... after an item was removed from the display in the center. walk in, room's normal.. remove item, start to walk back to the entryway, that side of the room tips downward, flush against the bedrock. walk back to the middle and the other side, and it comes back up to level. (based on the tipping 'live trap' mousetrap design) it took them over an HOUR before one of them simply replaced the item (which was found to be a tinplate and glass gem fake anyway) on the display stand when the room was level. (the items weight triggered a set of pins that would lock the room level, and it could have been any weight over the item's amount. copper coins, a waterskin, a brick... ) I was shaking my head by the time they finally figured it out... one of the guys was an engineering student, asked me if I could show him how it worked, so I went and actually got the live catch trap it was based on and handed it to him.. you should have HEARD the cursing.
The one about the water deity could have instead of saying "nothing happened" could have said something like "the water feels calmer to you after your passionate speech". That would have been a good enough clue I think to get them to test crossing again.
Yeah, I think he learned the operative lesson, though... AND it's a good cautionary tale. Whatever traps, magic runes, or weird puzzles you put together, as a GM, you MUST show some kind of reason for the PC's to believe they've "unlocked" something... Especially after you've served up a "Nothing Happened" and then followed it with knocking the Party on their collective ass. Likewise, I highly recommend initiating any trap with "Click!" to alert everyone in the group that someone's disturbed something dangerous, and give them the possibility of mitigating damage or even escaping it entirely. ;o)
@@Piqipeg That's actually not as difficult as you might expect... Most office software has some derivative code made all user-friendly for building buttons to add to documents, spreadsheets and the like... SO I'd just start with a spreadsheet. Across the top row of cells, you add labels... Each label is for a sound-file, so you know what you're getting. The next row of cells each contain a button, and assign the button to the sound-file as directed by the label. You're going to need the soundfiles (of course)... AND the only real "coding" you'd have to do is the "call out" to assign the sound file as played by the player of choice. Each operating system has preferences for that, but you CAN even assign a specific player "universally" to the spreadsheet/ book... whatever. Then as you set-up for GM'ing, you can bring up the spreadsheet, and minimize it into a toolbar until needed. When you're ready to narrate, pop it up to a proper location and with a bit of practice you'll even be able to issue commands for whichever cell has the sound you want (you might be well advised to put those names into the script when possible)... ...Instant soundboard... It's all yours, AND it's customizable. You can add anything you like... You can skip a row of cells to leave white-space between buttons and the next set of labels (neat-ness and organization count)... AND if you want to be really clever, you can group sounds and soundnames so they're easier to keep straight and reference... Like "mundane animals group" and "monsters" group... or "dragons" specifically. ;o)
@@Piqipeg You're welcome... I've been drawing together something like it, myself... AND (for whatever it's worth) I hope nobody releases a "licensed" version. The best game-creation materials have always been the ones you make yourself. ;o)
6:36 Cool concept and all, but with real world physics that would cause all kinds of problems. The gravity well such an object would create wouldn't quite make a black hole yet, but it would pull EVERYTHING towards the mansion in a similar scale as the planet itself, not to mention the ceiling's gravity well would have to be twice the one of the planet in order to counteract the gravity of the planet. I'm not 100% sure what the full implications of having such a massive gravity well right next to the planet's surface would be, but it can't be good. Some things it would do include pulling most of the air/liquids towards it along with all other loose objects, and possibly collapsing the whole planet. Sometimes it's better to just say it's magic.
Yep, it would honestly make more sense to simply teleport the room into the plane of air (depending on how your world works) and let it fall, then teleport back, or teleport it into the void and back
This was a really good video! I'd love to see more stories in this category
4 ปีที่แล้ว +2
that hallway teleport reminds me of the old video game "dungeon master"...actually it had 4 identical rooms linked with teleporters...you needed to go around one room clockwise and reverse at the right time...very obscure.
My party and I were stuck a large stone door with an ancient and rare language carved into the door which once translated were I J K L M N we tried for hours to solve this and resorted to sticking random objects into the small hole that was underneath the inscription, finally frustration and exhaustion took over and we admitted defeat begrudgingly and as we turned to leave our female half one rogue decided "I pee on the door in anger" dm laughs his ass off door opens slightly then it hit us I J K L M N is merely the letters from H to O and h2o opened the door we shoveled sea water with our hands into the hole to open it further FML
Okay just going to say this, you should always have a moment that happens in video games dealing with magically sealed rooms and have the magic rune or sigil appear and then dissipate or fade away when the seal is broken, dispelled, or released. Players tend to be dumb and oblivious unless there is some sort of cue or indication that something has happened or changed.
Had to fight a demon where we had to cut out its eyes to win, and would otherwise heal from all wounds inflicted. We were told SPECIFICALLY that we were to do this by a shaman. The assassin spent a turn attempting to slice open the demon's neck to which it just...ripped her leg off and flapjacked her (that thing where you flip a guy over your head and slap them into the floor a few things, think Loki vs Hulk.)
I screwed up a riddle because IRL stars are older than mountains and therefore mountain cant be the answer. Mountain was the answer it was just flowery language. I tripped the whole party up, my bad.
There was a vertical mechanical platform puzzle I had in an ERLW Campaign. I was playing a Monk and I was just watching my Party just push buttons in order to make a certain number of square platforms rise and fall at a time. My Party's intention is just to make a stair-like formation with the platforms to reach the top. I was stating to get bored and in via a whisper mechanic in Discord, I asked my DM what is exactly holding the square platforms. The DM answered nervously that they are being held up by just chains.on each of its corners. I whispered to my close friend, a Barbarian, about the idea and we just wait for a platform to come down and we ride it like an elevator. until we are close enough to the top entrance to just simply jump or climb to. Even the DM did not expect any of us to do this. XD By the time the rest of my Party (the other 4) figured out the formation (that the DM hoped they'd get), they were shocked to see me and the Barbarian just drinking booze at the top of the platform puzzle after they "solved" and climbed it. The rest of my party was pissed at me for making them go through so much trouble when I could've told them as well and my DM was just laughing so hard from both the scene and how there was such as stupid flaw to his puzzle. XD
We had the opposite happen last session in our sci fi campaign. The DM said it took him hours to come up with the puzzle and we solved it in 5 seconds xD
For many of these it seems it isn't the incompetence of the players or the difficulty of the puzzle, but a divergence of expectations with the fact the answers are so simple likely being part of the reason they missed much like a word on the tip of your tongue it's not that you don't know it, it's that for whatever reason your subconscious has already decided it's incorrect
Yeah if a puzzle has no hints as to how it works or indication of what is even going on it is not a great puzzle. You must give players an indication that a solution exists and a starting point as to how to reach it after all.
The dumbest puzzle that my players ever got stumped on wasn't even a puzzle. It was an unlocked door that they had to pull open or state that they are opening the door. When they initially tried to open it, they tried being dramatic about it and specified that they push it open to burst in. I had it written in my notes that it was a pull door. They spent so goddamn long and broke a set of lock picks before any of them thought to try pulling on the handle
My brother did the same thing when he ran sessions, he made doors that were for no reason indestructible but were pull doors. It took an IRL hour the first time, and before the campaign died, he kept throwing more and more at us. It got to the point that when a castle entered siege mode, all it did was make the doors unable to be pushed and it stopped us as much as locks would.
Gave my players an unlocked but ornately carved door as the entrance to a dungeon. They are used to puzzles in my campaign (usually one per session) and it took them a few minutes to figure out it wasn't locked. The actually figured it out faster than I thought they would and only because one of my players was high on mountain dew and headbutted the stone door
Here's one from animated spellbook. A room with smooth metal walls, and two doors on either side. One you entered, and it immediately closed when you walked through. The other is closed. In the center of the room is a small pedestal with a dip in the middle, on the inside is a weird glowing water and carvings of weapons on the outer edge. In the center of the pool of water, there is a button with a hand carved into it. Above the exit door, there is a spiral of number 0-20 in primordial. The center pool enchants your weapons when you walk in the room. When you press the button, the numbers light up green. 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 11, the lights turn red, 10, 9, 8, now orange, 7, 6, they flash yellow, 5, 4, the room is dark, only the numbers light it up, the door is slightly opening, 3, 2, 1, the lights come on and both doors are open. If you press the button again, it resets the countdown to 20.
My Infamous Puzzle, the Library Star Party needs to descend below a library, and has figured out that there is a hidden staircase somewhere in the room. The room has 5 bookcases in a rough circle, in the middle of the room in a circle with a 5 pointed star, one point each pointing at one bookcase. Each bookcase is labeled with a school of magic, and are filled with various curios as well as books. There is an empty pedestal at each star point. The trick is not to find an item that matches the school of magic on the bookshelf, but rather a combination of the other two lines that form the point. For example: The bookshelf in front of you has the label of Shadow Magic, the two lines that form that point come from Elemental Magic and Summoning Magic. Rather than needing an object that would be associated with Shadow Magic, you would need to find something that encompasses both Elemental and Summoning magic, and put that on the pedestal in front of Shadow Magic. In this case, a statue of a Fire Elemental from the plane of Fire
I'm currently doing my first campaign where my last character (plus a lot of buffs) is the BBEG but all they know so far know is that they are in the same world, even though they have met him and the description perfectly matches him
Reminds me of the gravity ‘puzzle’ in the Dead in Thay module which is less of a puzzle and more of a TPK inducing mean trap. A square room with 4 10’ wide entrances and in front of each entrance is a 5’ wide pit trap with spikes on the bottom. The “puzzle” is that there’s an invisible barrier over the pit traps that deactivate the trap for 1 minute and if you step anywhere else you instantly get flung into the ceiling, take 2d6+2d12 damage from being impaled on spikes, then 3d6 falling damage from falling from the ceiling spikes with no save whatsoever. This continues to happen every time you move at all while in the room. There’s no hint at all that you should step into the obvious pit trap (pit traps being a common theme in the dungeon so players are taught that pit traps are dangerous). That damage adds up especially when there’s no wizard in the party. GM basically told us to try the pits and we ended up taking nearly 200 damage from this trap spread over 4 level 10 characters. Ended up getting TPK’d during one of the endless slogs of dungeon room clearing that the campaign is entirely built upon.
My biggest problem in writing puzzles is the following: crippling paranoia because I had a cheater read my notes. Assuming my friends are super genius’s And a of course assuming they will just power through.
It may be because I'm relatively new to DnD in general, but the 'Temporal Chair' puzzle seems a little over the top. Following "all that needed to happen..." with a description of half the party being required alongside a specific action by a singular party member seems a bit much for a simple puzzle. Granted there's no background info or context, this doesn't seem intuitive to me at all for a solution, and I don't think I would have ever figured this out without help or outside influence. On the other hand, if there IS some sort of backstory, context, or other reason that someone should know the solution, I'd love to hear it because I'm otherwise dumbfounded.
No, you didn't miss anything. That's a crap puzzle. If the entire theme of the dungeon was cooperation, then you can drop something like that as the third or fourth puzzle. But that puzzle in isolation is just nonsense.
Had party investigate a tomb, dedicated to a legendary hero of a Nature Diety. The tomb had been taken over by sahuagin. As they make it halfway through the tomb they come to a crossroads. The side paths just lead to some sahuagin dens but the way forward is blocked by a large stone door, and in the center of the crossroads there is a massive well. Right by the door is a stone chest that seems to be part of the room itself. Opening the chest reveals some junk the sahuagin had put in there; bones, tools, even some coins they had looted. If they couldn't solve the puzzle to open the door they could swim through the well to the other side. The chest gives off faint magic to those who can detect it and the walls are covered with weathered depictions of the Nature Deity. The solution? Put any plant inside the chest.
Not a puzzle just a trap that I found hilarious. I was playing a sorcerer who’s whole character goal was basically collecting loot for the good of the world, he didn’t mind giving it all away and much of it was cursed items he was trying to purify. Well he’s alone this week except for a wizard from a different campaign, also my character, and we’re exploring a castle. In the middle of the castle is a bunch of broken statues (they had been alive previously) and a giant pile of gold. I try several perception checks but fail to find anything. Despite this I know it’s a trap because, giant pile of gold in the open. It’s obvious. I still approach it, because gold, and it comes alive to attack me. I find this whole encounter hilarious because the DM made this trap custom for me, in lore and out. Like, someone made this giant golden snake to kill my character in the lore. But what really gets me is he knew this was a trap and still sprung it.
I wasn’t in that specific group but the just knock on the door one I did find as a player. It took probably around 15-30 minutes before someone offered the mage hand some tea(witch opened the door)
So, some of these videos I click on and some I don't. The reason I clicked on this was to see how many examples actually stopped players from bypassing the puzzle somehow. Note to self: Include fail-safes against destroying puzzle elements.
I don't think the chair guy understands what a puzzle is. There was no way to infer the solution, no way to deduce the solution, no wordplay, no trickery, no rational courses of action, no clues... yeah. I agree with his or her players.
I have 2 stories in fact however both of them were a problem due to me the druid of all people. So they both happened in a dungeon anf the first one is relatively short but it's funny. So the first one is an infinite stair well, the DM says it just keeps going and the further down we go the coldet it gets. At some point the gnome we saved eatlier in the dungeon said "maybe we should go back". Alas we turn around and there is the door magically locked but I'm a man of arcane arts so its wasn't a big deal. The second came directly afterwards however and suddenly the gnome started to flip and said something along the lines of "dont mess up their are 'things' down here they kill". Soon after a door pops up with a riddle on it "what has a head a tail but no body". We start saying random stuff and suddenly we get three strikes and phantoms pop up we are a third level party in a tiny corridor with like 6 phantoms who can go through walls. I use magic and kill them with a well placed thunderwave. And in the process alerting everything in the entire dungeon. Luckily the final boss was in the next room but nearly screwed us. Happy times.
Also I suck at writing stuff like this the answer for the second one was a coin. We nearly died because we didn't realise it was a coin and we only figured it out when the dm said "you see a small slit open in the door next to the handle just big enough to fit a coin"
My table was once stuck at a puzzle and I got bored and kinda wandered off. When I came back they were still trying to figure it out so I had my character pile a bunch of rotten catfish and goblin corpses into near a nearby brazer and lit it on fire. Entire party had to roll for resistance to the smell, epic fail. The entire party moves on and we never solved it. To this day I still carry around rotten catfish and lamp oil in case we ever get stuck at a puzzle again.
None of these failed puzzles feel fun for the DM or the players. I prefer puzzles to unlock extra's not to actually stop the progress of the characters.
![Normal Is Overrated - Twin Runes Mini Story [ Deltarune/Undertale Comic Dub ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_P0sAi4OUYI/mqdefault.jpg)
Most of these puzzles simply lacked a hint in the kind of approach the party needed to take. If the party noticed a slightly crooked portrait covered in dust, someone might have thought to tidy up. The puzzle with the chairs that demands teamwork should have two chairs or something that primes for teamwork, like a heavy double sided door that requires two people open each door. If your party spends 3 hours in one room, you aren't being descriptive enough about what the room looks like and that they're getting deja vu. The door where they have to knock should have a knocker on it. "Desynchronize Material Density" doesn't imply the walls are going to become black hole dense enough to mess with gravity, it implies that they're going to have a hammer for a hand and have their leg become a twig. The gravity house was poorly explained with fake science. The escape room was entirely the parties fault though.
My GM once gave our party a large room with scattered skeletons and scorch marks in which the floor was made of assorted mismatched, slightly uneven tiles. Any one of the tiles could have been a pressure plate.
As it turned out, NONE of them were. There were no traps. The architect of the tower we were in just wanted to make intruders paranoid.
I had a rather easy puzzle the party didn't figure out. This particular game was a One Shot I ran at a convention.
The first puzzle was right at the entrance to the tomb they were supposed to be raiding. Supposed to, because they never actually were able to get in.
Upon the door was a simple inscription: "Speak your true intentions and the way shall open."
All they had to do was say something in the lines of "We want to enter." And the door would open.
Instead of figuring it out, the party decided to go get drunk at the local tavern for the entire four-hour game session instead. Easiest One Shot I ever ran.
The quickest 10 minutes ever, I want to hear more about these puzzle ideas. Or should I say hear more about the players trying to solve them lol
Here's a good one: A seemingly stone brick wall with a single phrase engraved in its surface: Overanalysis. The solution is to smash down the wall, because upon touching it, you realise that it feels like it's made of clay. Or, alternatively, just push it over.
"The Barbarian's solution"
I ran one puzzle where I gave the player the solution before they encountered the puzzle.
The puzzle was finding a hidden room in a dark mineshaft. A minor Illusion spell covered the gap in the shaft wall.
The solution was a crumpled scrap of paper the player found on the dead sentry they killed. I handed the player the physical scrap of paper, and they looked at it, it said
"8 S GO L" or something like that.
It was funny watching the player study the scrap, trying to figure out what it meant, since they hadn't gone into the mine yet. After a couple minutes they put the scrap away and entered into the mine. They come to the end to the collapsed tunnel, can't find a way past. Then the light came on and they went back to the entrance and counted off the 8 steps and than reached out to the left wall. Lo and behold their hand passed through the "rock" and they realized the illusion.
In my experience it's importsnt to remember 'simple to the DM isn't simple to the players' since they don't know the answers as they build the puzzle. IMO the DM needs clear clues or even present the solution out of context, otherwise players can miss the solution and never circle back to it.
one of the best ever.. a room. balanced on a beam, that would rock back and forth... after an item was removed from the display in the center. walk in, room's normal.. remove item, start to walk back to the entryway, that side of the room tips downward, flush against the bedrock. walk back to the middle and the other side, and it comes back up to level. (based on the tipping 'live trap' mousetrap design) it took them over an HOUR before one of them simply replaced the item (which was found to be a tinplate and glass gem fake anyway) on the display stand when the room was level. (the items weight triggered a set of pins that would lock the room level, and it could have been any weight over the item's amount. copper coins, a waterskin, a brick... )
I was shaking my head by the time they finally figured it out... one of the guys was an engineering student, asked me if I could show him how it worked, so I went and actually got the live catch trap it was based on and handed it to him.. you should have HEARD the cursing.
like rats in a trap never had more literal meaning
The one about the water deity could have instead of saying "nothing happened" could have said something like "the water feels calmer to you after your passionate speech". That would have been a good enough clue I think to get them to test crossing again.
Yeah, I think he learned the operative lesson, though... AND it's a good cautionary tale. Whatever traps, magic runes, or weird puzzles you put together, as a GM, you MUST show some kind of reason for the PC's to believe they've "unlocked" something... Especially after you've served up a "Nothing Happened" and then followed it with knocking the Party on their collective ass.
Likewise, I highly recommend initiating any trap with "Click!" to alert everyone in the group that someone's disturbed something dangerous, and give them the possibility of mitigating damage or even escaping it entirely. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 it'd be fun to have a soundboard with just effects to play as you narrate =D
@@Piqipeg That's actually not as difficult as you might expect... Most office software has some derivative code made all user-friendly for building buttons to add to documents, spreadsheets and the like... SO I'd just start with a spreadsheet.
Across the top row of cells, you add labels... Each label is for a sound-file, so you know what you're getting.
The next row of cells each contain a button, and assign the button to the sound-file as directed by the label.
You're going to need the soundfiles (of course)... AND the only real "coding" you'd have to do is the "call out" to assign the sound file as played by the player of choice. Each operating system has preferences for that, but you CAN even assign a specific player "universally" to the spreadsheet/ book... whatever.
Then as you set-up for GM'ing, you can bring up the spreadsheet, and minimize it into a toolbar until needed. When you're ready to narrate, pop it up to a proper location and with a bit of practice you'll even be able to issue commands for whichever cell has the sound you want (you might be well advised to put those names into the script when possible)...
...Instant soundboard... It's all yours, AND it's customizable. You can add anything you like... You can skip a row of cells to leave white-space between buttons and the next set of labels (neat-ness and organization count)... AND if you want to be really clever, you can group sounds and soundnames so they're easier to keep straight and reference... Like "mundane animals group" and "monsters" group... or "dragons" specifically. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 thanks! Awesome tip! =D
@@Piqipeg You're welcome... I've been drawing together something like it, myself... AND (for whatever it's worth) I hope nobody releases a "licensed" version. The best game-creation materials have always been the ones you make yourself. ;o)
Tbh some of those 'simple' puzzels were really stupid.
6:36 Cool concept and all, but with real world physics that would cause all kinds of problems. The gravity well such an object would create wouldn't quite make a black hole yet, but it would pull EVERYTHING towards the mansion in a similar scale as the planet itself, not to mention the ceiling's gravity well would have to be twice the one of the planet in order to counteract the gravity of the planet. I'm not 100% sure what the full implications of having such a massive gravity well right next to the planet's surface would be, but it can't be good. Some things it would do include pulling most of the air/liquids towards it along with all other loose objects, and possibly collapsing the whole planet. Sometimes it's better to just say it's magic.
Yep, it would honestly make more sense to simply teleport the room into the plane of air (depending on how your world works) and let it fall, then teleport back, or teleport it into the void and back
This was a really good video! I'd love to see more stories in this category
that hallway teleport reminds me of the old video game "dungeon master"...actually it had 4 identical rooms linked with teleporters...you needed to go around one room clockwise and reverse at the right time...very obscure.
My party and I were stuck a large stone door with an ancient and rare language carved into the door which once translated were I J K L M N we tried for hours to solve this and resorted to sticking random objects into the small hole that was underneath the inscription, finally frustration and exhaustion took over and we admitted defeat begrudgingly and as we turned to leave our female half one rogue decided "I pee on the door in anger" dm laughs his ass off door opens slightly then it hit us I J K L M N is merely the letters from H to O and h2o opened the door we shoveled sea water with our hands into the hole to open it further FML
That's hilarious
Okay just going to say this, you should always have a moment that happens in video games dealing with magically sealed rooms and have the magic rune or sigil appear and then dissipate or fade away when the seal is broken, dispelled, or released. Players tend to be dumb and oblivious unless there is some sort of cue or indication that something has happened or changed.
Had to fight a demon where we had to cut out its eyes to win, and would otherwise heal from all wounds inflicted. We were told SPECIFICALLY that we were to do this by a shaman.
The assassin spent a turn attempting to slice open the demon's neck to which it just...ripped her leg off and flapjacked her (that thing where you flip a guy over your head and slap them into the floor a few things, think Loki vs Hulk.)
I screwed up a riddle because IRL stars are older than mountains and therefore mountain cant be the answer. Mountain was the answer it was just flowery language. I tripped the whole party up, my bad.
Cinnamon twist is now my new favorite compliment. Love it and thanks for the upload!
There was a vertical mechanical platform puzzle I had in an ERLW Campaign. I was playing a Monk and I was just watching my Party just push buttons in order to make a certain number of square platforms rise and fall at a time. My Party's intention is just to make a stair-like formation with the platforms to reach the top.
I was stating to get bored and in via a whisper mechanic in Discord, I asked my DM what is exactly holding the square platforms. The DM answered nervously that they are being held up by just chains.on each of its corners.
I whispered to my close friend, a Barbarian, about the idea and we just wait for a platform to come down and we ride it like an elevator. until we are close enough to the top entrance to just simply jump or climb to. Even the DM did not expect any of us to do this. XD
By the time the rest of my Party (the other 4) figured out the formation (that the DM hoped they'd get), they were shocked to see me and the Barbarian just drinking booze at the top of the platform puzzle after they "solved" and climbed it. The rest of my party was pissed at me for making them go through so much trouble when I could've told them as well and my DM was just laughing so hard from both the scene and how there was such as stupid flaw to his puzzle. XD
Im so interested in that first complete mansion. If the DM reads this that made it do you have your notes somewhere?
OP here. I do have the notes and the map, but that was my first time running it so I am adjusting and tweaking it.
@@Eddiember I would love to have it, it seems something right in in the alley of my players! I can always adjust it myself on the fly.
@@Eddiember I'm also super interested
We had the opposite happen last session in our sci fi campaign. The DM said it took him hours to come up with the puzzle and we solved it in 5 seconds xD
For many of these it seems it isn't the incompetence of the players or the difficulty of the puzzle, but a divergence of expectations with the fact the answers are so simple likely being part of the reason they missed much like a word on the tip of your tongue it's not that you don't know it, it's that for whatever reason your subconscious has already decided it's incorrect
That second story sounded like things I would do to get a Korok Seed or three.
Hmmm that last one with the chair wasnt great. Theres nothing that tell the players the need to work together
Yeah if a puzzle has no hints as to how it works or indication of what is even going on it is not a great puzzle. You must give players an indication that a solution exists and a starting point as to how to reach it after all.
@@CyberShinobiX tbh i would just sit on it
The dumbest puzzle that my players ever got stumped on wasn't even a puzzle. It was an unlocked door that they had to pull open or state that they are opening the door. When they initially tried to open it, they tried being dramatic about it and specified that they push it open to burst in. I had it written in my notes that it was a pull door. They spent so goddamn long and broke a set of lock picks before any of them thought to try pulling on the handle
My brother did the same thing when he ran sessions, he made doors that were for no reason indestructible but were pull doors. It took an IRL hour the first time, and before the campaign died, he kept throwing more and more at us. It got to the point that when a castle entered siege mode, all it did was make the doors unable to be pushed and it stopped us as much as locks would.
Gave my players an unlocked but ornately carved door as the entrance to a dungeon. They are used to puzzles in my campaign (usually one per session) and it took them a few minutes to figure out it wasn't locked. The actually figured it out faster than I thought they would and only because one of my players was high on mountain dew and headbutted the stone door
Here's one from animated spellbook. A room with smooth metal walls, and two doors on either side. One you entered, and it immediately closed when you walked through. The other is closed. In the center of the room is a small pedestal with a dip in the middle, on the inside is a weird glowing water and carvings of weapons on the outer edge. In the center of the pool of water, there is a button with a hand carved into it. Above the exit door, there is a spiral of number 0-20 in primordial. The center pool enchants your weapons when you walk in the room. When you press the button, the numbers light up green. 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 11, the lights turn red, 10, 9, 8, now orange, 7, 6, they flash yellow, 5, 4, the room is dark, only the numbers light it up, the door is slightly opening, 3, 2, 1, the lights come on and both doors are open. If you press the button again, it resets the countdown to 20.
A friend presented her party with a magic speaking door. All they had to do was say "please" and the door would open. It took them hours.
My Infamous Puzzle, the Library Star
Party needs to descend below a library, and has figured out that there is a hidden staircase somewhere in the room. The room has 5 bookcases in a rough circle, in the middle of the room in a circle with a 5 pointed star, one point each pointing at one bookcase. Each bookcase is labeled with a school of magic, and are filled with various curios as well as books. There is an empty pedestal at each star point.
The trick is not to find an item that matches the school of magic on the bookshelf, but rather a combination of the other two lines that form the point. For example: The bookshelf in front of you has the label of Shadow Magic, the two lines that form that point come from Elemental Magic and Summoning Magic. Rather than needing an object that would be associated with Shadow Magic, you would need to find something that encompasses both Elemental and Summoning magic, and put that on the pedestal in front of Shadow Magic. In this case, a statue of a Fire Elemental from the plane of Fire
I'm currently doing my first campaign where my last character (plus a lot of buffs) is the BBEG but all they know so far know is that they are in the same world, even though they have met him and the description perfectly matches him
Reminds me of the gravity ‘puzzle’ in the Dead in Thay module which is less of a puzzle and more of a TPK inducing mean trap. A square room with 4 10’ wide entrances and in front of each entrance is a 5’ wide pit trap with spikes on the bottom. The “puzzle” is that there’s an invisible barrier over the pit traps that deactivate the trap for 1 minute and if you step anywhere else you instantly get flung into the ceiling, take 2d6+2d12 damage from being impaled on spikes, then 3d6 falling damage from falling from the ceiling spikes with no save whatsoever. This continues to happen every time you move at all while in the room. There’s no hint at all that you should step into the obvious pit trap (pit traps being a common theme in the dungeon so players are taught that pit traps are dangerous). That damage adds up especially when there’s no wizard in the party. GM basically told us to try the pits and we ended up taking nearly 200 damage from this trap spread over 4 level 10 characters.
Ended up getting TPK’d during one of the endless slogs of dungeon room clearing that the campaign is entirely built upon.
My biggest problem in writing puzzles is the following: crippling paranoia because I had a cheater read my notes.
Assuming my friends are super genius’s
And a of course assuming they will just power through.
It may be because I'm relatively new to DnD in general, but the 'Temporal Chair' puzzle seems a little over the top. Following "all that needed to happen..." with a description of half the party being required alongside a specific action by a singular party member seems a bit much for a simple puzzle. Granted there's no background info or context, this doesn't seem intuitive to me at all for a solution, and I don't think I would have ever figured this out without help or outside influence. On the other hand, if there IS some sort of backstory, context, or other reason that someone should know the solution, I'd love to hear it because I'm otherwise dumbfounded.
No, you didn't miss anything. That's a crap puzzle. If the entire theme of the dungeon was cooperation, then you can drop something like that as the third or fourth puzzle. But that puzzle in isolation is just nonsense.
Had party investigate a tomb, dedicated to a legendary hero of a Nature Diety. The tomb had been taken over by sahuagin. As they make it halfway through the tomb they come to a crossroads. The side paths just lead to some sahuagin dens but the way forward is blocked by a large stone door, and in the center of the crossroads there is a massive well. Right by the door is a stone chest that seems to be part of the room itself. Opening the chest reveals some junk the sahuagin had put in there; bones, tools, even some coins they had looted. If they couldn't solve the puzzle to open the door they could swim through the well to the other side. The chest gives off faint magic to those who can detect it and the walls are covered with weathered depictions of the Nature Deity. The solution? Put any plant inside the chest.
Just plain funnny and epic
As usual
0:07 well, this confirms all my suspicions, I knew all this time Dave walks around with a giant clock as a necklace 😀😀🤘🤘👍👍.
Not a puzzle just a trap that I found hilarious. I was playing a sorcerer who’s whole character goal was basically collecting loot for the good of the world, he didn’t mind giving it all away and much of it was cursed items he was trying to purify. Well he’s alone this week except for a wizard from a different campaign, also my character, and we’re exploring a castle. In the middle of the castle is a bunch of broken statues (they had been alive previously) and a giant pile of gold. I try several perception checks but fail to find anything. Despite this I know it’s a trap because, giant pile of gold in the open. It’s obvious. I still approach it, because gold, and it comes alive to attack me. I find this whole encounter hilarious because the DM made this trap custom for me, in lore and out. Like, someone made this giant golden snake to kill my character in the lore. But what really gets me is he knew this was a trap and still sprung it.
I wasn’t in that specific group but the just knock on the door one I did find as a player. It took probably around 15-30 minutes before someone offered the mage hand some tea(witch opened the door)
PANR has tuned in.
So, some of these videos I click on and some I don't. The reason I clicked on this was to see how many examples actually stopped players from bypassing the puzzle somehow.
Note to self: Include fail-safes against destroying puzzle elements.
When the players roll an Intelligence Nat 1 instead of the Player Characters.
This wasn't a 'Worst Players/DMs' vid and I still got pissed off.
0:02 what is a meat joyride?
Sweet naieve Lexington
Its when ur a spirit occupying and operating a human body for like up to 100 years or so
Some of those examples seem like it's the DM's fault the players didn't solve the puzzle. Players need clues.
I don't think the chair guy understands what a puzzle is. There was no way to infer the solution, no way to deduce the solution, no wordplay, no trickery, no rational courses of action, no clues... yeah. I agree with his or her players.
for the last one i'm suprised no on try to sit on it
I have 2 stories in fact however both of them were a problem due to me the druid of all people. So they both happened in a dungeon anf the first one is relatively short but it's funny. So the first one is an infinite stair well, the DM says it just keeps going and the further down we go the coldet it gets. At some point the gnome we saved eatlier in the dungeon said "maybe we should go back". Alas we turn around and there is the door magically locked but I'm a man of arcane arts so its wasn't a big deal. The second came directly afterwards however and suddenly the gnome started to flip and said something along the lines of "dont mess up their are 'things' down here they kill". Soon after a door pops up with a riddle on it "what has a head a tail but no body". We start saying random stuff and suddenly we get three strikes and phantoms pop up we are a third level party in a tiny corridor with like 6 phantoms who can go through walls. I use magic and kill them with a well placed thunderwave. And in the process alerting everything in the entire dungeon. Luckily the final boss was in the next room but nearly screwed us. Happy times.
Excuse my bad spelling, typing this much on a phone gets annoying.
Also I suck at writing stuff like this the answer for the second one was a coin. We nearly died because we didn't realise it was a coin and we only figured it out when the dm said "you see a small slit open in the door next to the handle just big enough to fit a coin"
Story time!
ngl I have wanted for a while to do a DND campaign but can't find anyone or anywhere, where I can do a campaign with people
Trinston was here.
I liked the infinite staircase, but besides that it's just a lot of dumb puzzles without proper clues..
Trinston was here..
Oh God, I hate puzzles as a player and I'm not clever enough as a Dm tk make a good one for my players
Chair one is dumb
I love how most of these were only hard because of the players
My table was once stuck at a puzzle and I got bored and kinda wandered off. When I came back they were still trying to figure it out so I had my character pile a bunch of rotten catfish and goblin corpses into near a nearby brazer and lit it on fire. Entire party had to roll for resistance to the smell, epic fail. The entire party moves on and we never solved it. To this day I still carry around rotten catfish and lamp oil in case we ever get stuck at a puzzle again.
I thought you couldn't crit with a spell??
Memory game
Press the Dragon tiles
Then again in the exact same order
And then reverse it
It sounds so simple
It really is 🤬 not
None of these failed puzzles feel fun for the DM or the players.
I prefer puzzles to unlock extra's not to actually stop the progress of the characters.
Hello!
Hello!
Yes I’m early
Hahahahahahahahaha
First
Yes sir you are
@Douglas Bonbeck my eyes!!!!
@Douglas Bonbeck I was blinded long ago you no longer have power here!